NOTD: Nude and Glitter

I am slowly beginning to realise that most of my blog posts are literally what I'm wearing on my nails that day.. woops. Oh well, I hope you enjoy them anyway.

Today I really didnt know what to wear on my nails so I went to my failsafe, gold glitter. I used Deborah Lippmann's Boom Boom Pow a lot over christmas layered over greens and reds and it looked really festive. This time I decided to layer it over Nails Inc's Basil Street, one of my favourite nude polishes. I used 2 coats of Basil Street then one coat of Boom Boom Pow on top.

Normally the gold glitter can look pretty obvious, but layered over a nude polish the glitter looks a little more subtle. I am so happy I bought Boom Boom Pow, at first I balked at the price but I use it so much and so often that its totally worth it.

Review: Avon's Ideal Flawless Foundation

Finally, the post I have been meaning to publish for the past week (blame uni visits and exam results...). This is the latest foundation to come from Avon and is marketed as being full-coverage yet invisible looking on the skin.
The one massive selling point of this foundation range is the wide range of shades, 16 in total, and has several shades suitable for darker skin tones.

First onto the packaging. The glass bottle is pretty heavy and the lid is made out of pretty solid plastic, making it feel quite expensive which is always a bonus.

Secondly the coverage and formula; the foundation itself is quite thick, although it does blend out pretty easily and I would say it is buildable and gives medium-full coverage. The colour is about a shade too dark for me and my incredibly pale skin, although give it a few months and it will be a perfect match. Also, it is a really good balance between yellow and pink tones, its pretty much perfectly neutral.

It leaves a dewy/satin finish on the skin which I really like, although on my combination/oily skin it only lasts about 5 hours with no primer or setting powder before it begins to slide off my face. It is also worth noting that it does dry a little darker as the product oxidises. It doesn't really cling to dry patches so its pretty suited to all skin types. Weirdly enough in my bathroom, the lighting picks up tiny little bits of shimmer although in natural light an all other lighting in my house this isn't the case...



Overall, I like this foundation although I dont think I would necessarily repurchase again (mainly because I have my eye on a few other foundations like, mainly Rimmel's Wake Me Up). Any recommendations for foundations suitable for pale, combination skin would be welcome :)

NOTD: Marbley-Pastel Nails

I admit I have a problem. I am obsessed with pastel colours at the moment. I have already done a post on pastel nails where I painted each nail a different colour. This time, I decided to do marble nail art and incorporate a few of my favourite pastel nail colours. All are by Barry M: Mint Green, Berry IceCream and Lemon IceCream and the white polish is Snow White by Models Own.

The result is this crazy pastelly-psychadellic mess and I kind of love it. It looks like I smeared ice cream all over my nails! Only issue with water marbling is that it takes forever! and unless you tape up your fingers it gets everywhere, but really, the end result is totally worth it.
Loads of people commented on them, with one of my friends refusing to believe they were real nails and that it was even possible to do this, oh boys, they will never understand haha.

Also sorry for my complete lack of blogging in the past week, I will try harder. AND I promise that the foundation review will be up by the end of the week. I mean it.

Nail Polish Collection: Blues

Continuing on with this little series, I have my blue polishes. Originally I was going to lump them together with my green polishes but when I realised how many blue AND green polishes I had, that post seemed a little too long.

First are two pretty similar colours, Avon's Twilight Blue and Navy by Barry M. They are both metallic dark blues and are 2 coaters, the Avon polish dries a little faster. These colours are perfect for winter although they do have a tendency to make my skin look quite pale.

These three are all creme polishes, from left-right Models Own Feeling Blue, H&M Blue My Mind and Models Own In The Navy. Of the three, the H&M one is my favourite, its such a bright cornflower blue with a really slight purple undertone and it looks SO bright on your nails. It looks good now but I think it will look even better in summer. The Models Own polishes are very similar in formula, all three are 2 coaters. In The Navy is a cross between a royal blue and a navy shade and Feeling Blue is a light cornflower blue. Pigmentation on these three polishes is fantastic.

These two are Barry M's Turquoise and Blue Moon. Turquoise isn't exactly turquoise, there is no real green undertone to it. Instead it is just a pastel/bright/pale blue (not 100% sure how to describe it) and this is my second bottle! I used it constantly last summer and the bottle was about 3/4s gone before it went all gloopy and unuseable. It has a great formula, doesn't apply with streaks, and is opaque in 2 coats. Blue Moon unfortunatley has a pretty bad formula. I would say it needs 3 thick coats to get it opaque which is a shame because its such a lovely pale blue. I love wearing white on my nails when I have a tan and this colour is perfect for giving that contrast when my skin is paler.

These three are all pretty similar, on the left is 17's Peacock, the middle one is Revlon's Ocean Breeze and on the right is NYC's East Village. Peacock and Ocean Breeze are very similar colours, Peacock is just a tiny bit darker. They are both 2 coaters, the only real difference being the fresh scent of Ocean Breeze (but wash your hands a few times and the smell tends to go). Now onto what I feel is a bit of a fail nail polish, East Village is not pigmented enough for me. I mean yes you can get away with 3 coats but I am so bad at waiting for my nails to dry that I would much rather have either the 17 or the Revlon polish. East Village is also quite shimmery, whereas Peacock and Ocean Breeze are just youre every day metallics.

Foundation post should be up on friday... maybe. Fingers crossed.

(and rosie if you read this before tomorrow. GOOD LUCK!!!!!)

NOTD: Rimmel Peppermint

You must be getting sick of reading nail polish posts by now.. but I have another one!

Seeing as the weather is getting warmer I feel justified in that I am cracking out the pastel shades already. Today I have my favourite mint green/turquoise polish on, Peppermint by Rimmel.

I had such issues trying to take pictures that would make it seem true to colour, without flash it looked to blue with flash it looked neon turquoise. While this isnt exactly mint green, it has quite a lot of blue which makes it look a little like a pale turquoise.

no flash

flash

I love the brush on this, its really wide and literally 2 strokes and its applied, and pretty evenly at that. Took 2 coats to be opaque and lasts roughly 3 days before chipping. I took the pictures before applying a top coat and it made such a difference, if you notice the top photo makes the polish look almost matte but this was fixed with my beloved seche vite.

This is the only polish I own from their Pro range but seeing how much I love this one I might have to check some of the others out...

Review: Barry M Lip Paint 54

I got this lip paint from Barry M last year when I was going to my friends house because we like to spend hours putting on really crazy makeup looks (this is going to sound so weird to people that don't do this).

I havent touched it since until about a week ago. I found it in the bottom of an old makeup bag and I wondered if I could make it look wearable, especially considering that peaches and oranges are the shades for summer.

Although it does look crazy bright in the bullet and in swatches, if applied lightly with your finger and then blotted it just looks like a light peach - which is a lot easier to wear that ridiculously bright orange.

 on the left is applied straight from the bullet, on the right is it blended

 lightly applied with my finger

applied directly from the bullet

As you can see from the pictures above, it is a very pigmented, matte formula and so I tend to layer it over or under Carmex just so it doesn't dry out my lips or make the cracks appear more obvious. While I won't be wearing it as a bright orange lipstick any time soon, I love using it to give a peachy colour to my lips.

Favourite Pieces of Jewellry: Earrings

Another post on my favourite pieces of jewellery, this time round its my favourite earrings. While I used to like only stud earrings, over the past year I have started to wear dangly earrings. I like how they can make it look like you put more effort into your outfit than you actually did.

These earrings I got as a present the Christmas before last and are from Oasis. I wore them when I dressed up as an elf this past christmas as they remind me of snowflakes or icicles or something like that. Unfortunatley they dont sell them anymore :( but similar ones could probably be found in various stores.

I got these as a present from my brother at Christmas. I love the detailing on these, there a lots of little leaves inside a larger one. The gold so far hasnt tarnished (although with them being dangly earrings they dont really come into contact with skin that much so...). They are still available on the Topshop website (link here) and are very reasonably priced for their quality.

I got these black long feather earrings from Topshop last autumn. When my hair was longer, these were just about the same length. These earrings are pretty long! I like how the feathers shift colours from black to blue to green. The only issue is that with them being feathers I always worry that I am going to damage them, but so far they've held up pretty well.

These earrings I purchased from Urban Outfitters in the january sale (I checked but they aren't available anymore). They are one of my few pairs of silver earrings, and my only long ones. What I like most about these is that they have a tough aesthetic (love wearing them with my favourite leather jacet).

The last two are quite boring, just 2 gold studs. The lion ones I wear probably most often of all my earrings, so much so that the gold rubbed off and I was forced to paint over with gold polish, but honestly I haven't had any issues with the gold coming off. The flower studs are pretty simple but a bit more refined than the lion studs.

I have been trying out a new foundation and will upload a post about it soon enough :)