Missguided Misschievous
I picked up this polish as a freebie with Cosmo last month. I also have another Missguided freebie polish from last year that I love. Although these polishes are actually really good, I should actually buy some myself.
This polish is a lovely tomato red, opaque in 2 coats. These pictures are without top coat and the polish is so shiny I had a bit of trouble trying to get a picture that was in focus! The formula for this polish is amazing. It’s thick, but not too thick, it covers up any ridges or imperfections in your nails and leaves a really shiny, glossy colour.
Jen from nailPolishUK recently posted about a Missguided polish yesterday and basically said it all in her post. Great polish formula, needs more colours! :D
This polish also lasts really well, I keep this polish on for nearly a week with no chips, pretty good! I really don’t own many red polishes, I think this is my only tomato red one. I always skip them when I’m polish shopping because I think I’ve probably got enough reds already with it being the classic polish colour. You have got to have some good reds though :) Are there any colours you avoid or tend to go for when you’re out shopping?
To make sure I don’t go MIA for another week, while I’m away in Marseille suffering in the heat (I’m not good with heat, any more than 16 degrees and I’m in need of an ice pack! :P) I’m going to schedule some posts. I’ll do a mixture of lipstick/nail swatches and reviews to keep you entertained :)
Also don’t forget to enter my Aussie-versary giveaway! It closes this Friday and I need 7 people to receive a Aussie Summer party pack, there ‘s popping candy, or and Aussie haircare, ofc :P xxx
OPI Designer Series Tapestry
Hello again! I am a bad bad blogger. Yet again I go MIA without warning, I do apologise for my slacking of posting and commenting. I have been reading, but only in motion. I scroll through my Google Reader during breaks between running participants and hope to absorb all the lovely blog posts in a super fast blur of info, chat and beautiful pictures.
I am going to Marseille next weekend, my first time abroad and it’s to a psychology conference. I’m presenting a poster of my findings, but I still didn’t have enough data, so the last few weeks have been a mad rush of begging anyone to participant in my experiment so I can actually present my poster rather than a blank sheet of paper! :P I finally got the final participant at the end of last week and I’ve spent the weekend analysing my data and making my poster for the conference. Luckily my data looks good and the poster is almost done. Now I just need to get it checked by my supervisor and get the thing printed! Phew, I’m shattered again just thinking about the last few weeks. I’ve even been pulling 9am-7pm most days, in what can only be described as the world’s hottest cupboard with an eye tracker in! The eye tracker I use is actual housed in a Faraday Cage inside another larger room, so you can imagine the temperature with two people, two computers and only about 8 square feet of space! :S
Anyway…breathe! All I need to sort now is what I need to pack to travel abroad. I know I need a passport, and I assume a European plug adapter…I’m not sure? Any tips for a newbie travelling abroad would be greatly appreciated! :)
Now, I have still had just enough time to paint my nails still. I have priorities :P I’ve been painting them just before bed when I watch an episode of something to wind down. I picked up this lovely polish when I met up with Leisha in London. We found the rather beautiful OPI DS stand and both wanted them all! It took us quite awhile to pick a favourite, but I picked Tapestry, a warm, pink-orange colour with lots of holographic shimmer. I love this polish and I have already mentioned my love for the purple version Extravagance. I just love the holographic shimmer, it looks beautiful in the sunshine. This is two coats. It applies really nicely, these are some of the best polishes I’ve used, not only because they are pretty, but because they are so easy to apply and fast drying.
I wore this polish to my interview my my PhD place with a smart black dress and suit jacket. The colour is not too garish that it looked out of place, it was smart enough to be acceptable for the office, but shimmery enough to be special. The below pictures I took while I was waiting on a bench outside in the sunshine before my interview. I arrived ridiculously early because I was so nervous about being late, even though it was only a 5 minute walk from the office I was working in! Isn’t the polish lovely in the sunshine? :) Just after I took this picture a random black cat came over to the bench and sat next my me and my OH while we stroked it. It even tried to sit on my OH’s lap! Did the black cat give me good luck for my interview I wonder, seeing as I got the place? Maybe! :P
Anyhoo, I have lots of pictures to write into posts for you lovely people that are still reading this. I apologise again for leaving you all and not commenting. Hopefully when I get back from the conference all will be back to normal and I won’t have so much rush to get work done :) Hope you are all having a lovely summer! xxxx
Sleek True Colour Lipstick Coral Reef and Candy Cane
Final scheduled post! I am actually home now, but completely shattered! I’ll be back reading and commenting as soon as I’ve had enough sleep to function properly again! :)
Sleek have launched 20 new shades of their True Colour lipsticks, in two finishes, Sheen and Matte. I’d seen a number of swatches on blogs and they looked like quite fun and bright colours. I especially liked Coral Reef from swatches, I have a slight soft spot for orange toned lipsticks at the moment!
I had to go into town anyway to buy a suitcase and hair dye, strange combo I know, but it shows my priorities :P While I wandered towards the run down shopping centre where all the alternative shops are to search for a hair dye similar to the one I use normally, I spotted that the town centre has two Superdrugs, within about 2 minutes walk of each other. Very weird. But I thought I’d nip in anyway to save me from the pain for entering Boots on a Saturday! I spotted the Sleek stand with the new lipstick and all the tested were brand new, the stand will never look that nice and tidy again! There is currently an introductary offer on the lipsticks of 2 for £6, so I got busy swatching and picked out two colours.
I noticed that the sheen finish lipsticks seemed the swatch smoother and brighter than the matte finishes and I don’t normally like matte finishes so much anyway, so I picked up two sheen colours. The sheen finish is creamy and moisturising.
I knew I wanted to grab Coral Reef and I just picked my favourite swatch for the second colour, I picked Candy Cane. From the tubes the colours don’t look very different, you definitely have to swatch these colours to see what they look like.
(Candy Cane – Coral Reef)
These lipstick swatch really smoothly and feel really soft and moisturising. They are also very pigmented and these swatches were just how the colour came out after a swipe or two.
This is Coral Reef. It’s a lovely orange with a lovely sheen finish. It applies really nicely and it is super bright, but wearable. It has quite good lasting power, they pretty much last until you drink or eat. They need a little top up after that, but not a full re-application.
Next is Candy Cane. Seeing as I just picked this at random because it looked pretty on my hand in Superdrug, I absolutely love this. I think the name is perfect for it. It’s a happy, pinky/red colour, again with the lovely sheen. This one lasts well also and I know I’m going to get a lot of wear out of this one. I can’t pull off bright pink lipsticks, I look a little scary, so this is a lovely pink/red, but it’s still a nice bright colour.
What do you think? Have you tried these yet or have your eye on any? Has anyone tried the matte ones? I am curious about them. I’m never sure about matte lipsticks, I find they show off my dry skin on my lips, never a good look! :)
Hope you’ve had a lovely week/easter weekend enjoying the lovely weather! Speak to you all soon xxxx
Illamasqua Gamma with Nails Inc London Nights Tips
Hello to my new followers! I’ve been very happy this week as I’ve had a few new followers, it makes me happy that someone wants to read my driveling nonsense! :D <3 I was a bit bummed after I posted the first picture of myself a few weeks ago and I lost a follower, how depressing it that? :p Oh well, I’ll try not to scare the rest of you lovely people away!
My last nail post was Illamasqua Gamma and I didn’t want to take it off. It had no chipping or tipwear after 4 days with no topcoat, quite impressive! So, I decided to jazz it up a little with some black tips.
I taped off the ends at random angles and painted on some Nails Inc London Nights. It’s a shiny black one coater, perfect for taping. I accidentally put the black on a little thick on some nails so when I pulled the tape off it looked a little scruffy. It looked really obvious next to the bright orange so in order to fix my now scruffy looking manicure I finally got the nerve to give the paint brush a go! I have a load of paint brushes I bought from The Works years ago when I used to paint a lot. I think they were £1 for 5 different thin brushes, bargain! I used a thin angled brush and Models Own Sterling Silver and dabbed a line of silver along the join to disguise my untidiness. I do have a very thin stripe type brush, I think I’ll try that one next time. I was dabbing more than brushing so it’s not perfect. For a first attempt it isn’t that bad though. In person it looks okay because no one looks that closely at my nails, so I’m happy with it :P
Here is a picture as proof that I did that on both hands! It took quite awhile and I think I was getting the hang of it while doing my right hand. I think if I do this again I’ll section off larger bits, it’ll look better :)
What do you think? Do you use paint brushes to do any nail art? I’ve seen the Models Own nail pens, has anyone tried them and how are they? :)
Hope you are all having a lovely week so far! Sorry for my absence lately. I have a lot more free time now that it’s the Easter break, so hopefully I’ll be posting more often! xxxx
Illamasqua Gamma Toxic Nature Collection
I finally submitted my postgraduate application yesterday, a few days early too! I’ve been working on it for weeks so I’m quite glad it’s gone so I can’t stop re-writing it. I’ll have free time again! Yay! It was the one good thing that happened yesterday, the rest of the day just felt horrible. Feel free to skip my moan if you like :P
<moan>I had to do a presentation yesterday, it was awful. It had a really strict time limit of 20 minutes, with 5 of us having to present, which is about 3-4 mins each. A whole chapter summarised in 3 minutes is horrible. We had to write scripts so we knew how long it would be, there was too much information to do my usual thing, which is just learn it and know it. I’m normally fine with presentations if I know my stuff. I very much dislike reading from a script. As I’ve mentioned before I’m dyslexic and trying to read from a script and the added time pressure…not good! I managed to forget to move onto a slide, lose my place more than once and in general I was a driveling wreck. I was completely bummed about it. How can I be absolutely fine without a script, doing a 20 minute presentation on my own, but as soon as I have a script and only 3 minutes I become an idiot. Very annoyed at myself. Anyway, I’ve got one more presentation left on Thursday, it’s just me and I know the topic so I’ll be fine. Although I’m concerned I’m going to take part in a repeat performance. By just not having a script I’ll be happier, I prefer to just chat about the topic, that way you can re-word anything that elicits a furrowed brow! </moan>
I feel better for my moan :P Onto better topics!
Grab your sunglasses because this is bright! So bright in fact that my camera had a lot of trouble even focusing on it! I love Illamasqua products, but I’m normally too out of pocket to buy them. I picked up this and Bacterium from the new Toxic Nature collection with my Asos Groupon voucher. I had to try this one first just because it was so bright and fun. I really love how Illamasqua create collections with a great theme running through them. Toxic Nature has a mixture of earthy, dirty shades and bright, radioactive shades. Illamasqua describe it as “an atomic-botanical environment”, sounds great!
This polish is really bright and even strangers commented on it. It’s a really great colour, probably not a great match to my pale/yellow skin, but I like it! I think it would great with some black polish. I might tape some bits off and give it a go before I remove it. I’ve not tried taping off polish without my quick drying topcoat, so it may end up a disaster, but I’ll give it a go. If it’s awful you won’t hear anything about it on here, you can just assume it was a catastrophe! :P
The polish itself is fantastic, as with all Illamasqua polishes it applied easily and perfectly. I put on two coats to even out the colour, but it was pretty good even with the first coat. It dried really quickly to a smooth, shiny finish. Most neon polishes dry matte, but this polish is nice and shiny even without a topcoat (I haven’t used a topcoat in the pictures). Although, now I look at the pictures the polish doesn’t look very shiny. This is because if the light was shining on my nails, my camera couldn’t focus on the colour, so I had to turn my nails away from the light to get the true colour to be captured. The polish dries as shiny as normal polishes, it is definitely not a matte finish.
Illamasqua polishes are also pretty hard wearing. I’ve had this on for two days and it hasn’t got a scratch or a chip on it even though I’ve done all my housework. Not bad! :)
What do you think? Are you happy to wear such BRIGHT, brights? Or should it be left to someone with not such a deathly skintone? I always read that brights look better on tanned or darker skintones. Oh well, when have I ever done what is best :P Hope your all having a lovely week so far and enjoying the lighter evenings! xxxx
17 Mirror Shine Lipstick in Peace
Manic week! I cannot believe the difference between all my previous years at uni and this semester. It’s like they saved up all the work until the last 6 months! I have 4 presentations to do this semester, as well as running my experiment and I’m spending the whole of Valentines day inside the eye-tracker running an experiment on strangers! On top of that, my supervisor decided to email me saying he’d put my lit review mark up online, but I can’t have access to it until the end of the month when everyone’s has been marked. Nicht gut!
The post is a little later in the week than I normally would write one, but it was OH’s birthday today! <3 He ended up spending it at work all day and was even rudely awoken by an important work related phone call before 9am! We really cannot wait until summer when academic work is thrown out the window for a few weeks! :)
Anyway, at some point in the last few weeks I braved the crowds of browsing ladies in the make up aisles and grabbed some goodies. Most people will have heard about the 17 Mirror Shine lipsticks, especially Beehive, which seems to be a definite favourite among bloggers. The Mirror Shine lipsticks are really glossy and quite sheer and I really like that kind of finish, it makes it a great go-to lipstick to wear everyday and it’s easy to reapply without a mirror. They are quite soft though, so don’t leave it in your pocket! I used to do that with lip balms and they would go all warm and soft, but if you do that with this lipstick I’m not sure it would survive!
I’d seen lots of reviews on Beehive and how it is similar to a tinted lip balm. I’d tried something similar recently with the No7 Sheer Temptation lipstick and really liked it, but they are quite pricey! So I grabbed myself Peace. It is very orange looking in the tube. I had wanted to get an orange/peachy coloured lipstick, but not scary orange. However, when I swatched it, it was a nice sheer orange. So I popped it in my basket with my other goodies.
Here is a swatch on my arm with the tube. There’s a clear colour difference between them, but tbh I don’t think I could pull off the orange colour from the tube! :P
And here’s a picture of the lipstick on my lips. I really like it! It makes me look a little bit more alive! It applys nicely and looks lovely and glossy. I think it is nicer than the No7 Sheer Temptation lipstick I tried because the No7 can feel a little gritty when you put it on, but this is just like a lip balm, all soft and smooth. I like the colour, it doesn’t add much, just a nice tint. I want to get another one of these too try, but there are such pretty colours to pick from. I’m not the best at decision making! Have you tried any or have any suggestions? :)
I hope everyone is having a good week and don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you haven’t already! xxxx
Mac Fresh Salmon Lipstick
First things first…I love this lipstick! I recently bought it from Lady of the Lane in a blog sale. Whenever I see a blog sale I always have a quick look at swatches to see if any take my fancy. I’m always one for a bargain! I think this lipstick was limited edition in the spring 2010 Colour Forecast Collection.
When I first saw the name my initially reaction was YUCK! Fresh Salmon is not the greatest name to pick for a lipstick. I like to eat salmon, but I don’t want to smear it on my lips… Although it looks like orange in the tube, it seemed to come out as a sheer peachy colour with a gold shimmer on the lips. When it arrived it does look a little scary and orange. You can see the gold shimmer in it in the tube a little, but the shimmer really comes out better on the lips.
Below is a swatch on my arm and as you can see it is pretty shiny from the gold shimmer, more so than it looks in the tube.
Finally here are my lips with nothing on and below with Fresh Salmon. I really love it, I have to say it is probably my favourite lipstick at the moment. It isn’t as ‘done up’ looking as a red, but is more interesting than a neutral. I find the colour really suits me and makes me looks quite alive, which I hardly ever do! Hello dark zombie eye circles! I’m concerned about my love for this lipstick though, it was limited edition and I won’t be able to get another! What will I do when I run out!?
I’ve been lost in old music this week. I’ve had a massive tidy out of my house for my landlord visiting last night, not that he turned up or let us know anything *grumble*, but at least the house looks nice and I found all my old cds! I’m slowly going through the long process of ripping them to my pc, but a lot of it is already on Spotify so I can listen to it now :) Emma and Ayden have both mentioned old school music this week and made me remember all the cool bands I hadn’t listened to in ages.
Speaking of old music, I used to love Easyworld and it was one of my favourite bands when I met my OH. They broke up ages ago, but while searching for old school band info I found that apparently David Ford (the singer) kept recording. He has an awesome voice and even more awesome is that he is playing Southampton at the end of the month! I’m a happy bunny! xxx
NOTD Models Own Golden Peach
Phew! I have had a really busy month. I’m glad to sit down and relax! I didn’t get up till late afternoon today I have been busy all week trying to get experiments sorted before my boss went away on holiday, a lot of rushing around and long hours. However, I did go to the BBQ last weekend which was nice. I bought myself a new dress in the end an attempt to dress sensibly, I found nothing in town and in the end came home and looked on the Topshop website because I wanted to by myself some nail polish to cheer myself up. I ended up finding a lovely dress on there, in the sale too! Bargain!
I received my purchases from Jen’s blog sale too (Thanks Jen!). They are lovely, I got (L->R) Models Own Golden Peach and Blue Moon and Topshop’s Cloud.
The golden peach was perfect to match my new dress. I put a layer of Rimmel Apricot Punch and then a layer of Models Own Golden Peach over the top. I could even still smell the fruity apricot smell, if your wondering. Then I put some cute blue butterfly Nailene stickers on my thumbs. Matches my dress fabric quite well in the end! :) I really liked this nail look.
Here is the new dress, it’s from Motel, but you can buy it from Topshop. I grabbed this in the sale for half price. I have three other Motel dresses as this style suits me, they are my favourite dresses.
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