GlossyBox June featuring OPI Designer Series Extravagance
This is a late review I know, I’ve already had my dispatch email for this months box! I was distracted by stuff, better late than never!
BioEffect EGF Serum – The super serum from Iceland. I hadn’t heard of this before, so when I received my box I just slopped some of this on when I got out the shower. You only need a few drops, but my skin felt really nice, even straight after applying it, so I looked it up online. When I found out that the sample alone is £8 and a BioEffect full sized bottle (15ml – hardly what I’d call full size!) is £125, is was a bit shocked and didn’t want to like it! However, it did leave my skin feeling plumped up (if that makes any sense) and it looked quite radiant, which my skin doesn’t really ever look. After researching it I also realised it’s best to apply it at night, but I apply a Benzoyl Peroxide gel at night so I haven’t been using the BioEffect. If I don’t use the Benzoyl Peroxide I turn into a painful, giant spot face, and I didn’t want to risk that! :S I don’t apply much of the BioEffect serum and I concentrate around my eyes as I’ve read that it can be good for dark circles, and I have quite severe dark circles. I’m not sure if it has reduced my dark circles, but my skin is much nicer and clearer around my eyes. The colour seems more even and I no longer have any combination skin around my eyes where it is dry and oily at the same time! I quite like using this just as an eye serum, at least it will last longer that way! :P I cannot afford to repurchase this, but if I had money to burn I think I would.
Batiste Original – Ahh, the box booby prize. I never use dry shampoo and the times I have tried it I can only really use the one for dark hair, the original makes me look like I had a fight with the baby powder bottle :P
Perles de Lalique – A perfume. Now, I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about perfume. I have two I like, Chloé, which is quite a fresh, flowery smell and my Litchi Milk Tea perfume oil from Haus of Gloi, which is very sickly sweet and I love it. This perfume smells like perfumes counters. It’s nice, but not special or different. I have been using it, it’s definitely nice, but I wouldn’t repurchase, I like what I already use.
Mama Mio Omega Body Buff – Again this is a really nice product, but for £23 for a full sized bottle, it’s not worth it for me. You apply it to dry skin before you shower and it contained ground up pumice stone. It’s a nice scrub, it smells lovely and left my skin smooth and soft, but most scrubs do and you can get them for a little cheaper! :P
Lastly, my favourite part of the box!
OPI DS Extravagance - The Designer Series have a “diamond dazzle”, it’s not a pure holographic polish, but it sure is pretty with it’s scattered holographic effect! I really like this and I actually bought a full size one (Tapestry) of these from Selfridges as a birthday pressie to myself. The whole range is gorgeous it was hard to pick just one. They look amazing in the sunshine and they are a pleasure to apply. These pictures show two coats and I didn’t even need to clean up my nails after application, the formula and the brush made it really easy to apply. The last picture is taken with the flash to show how sparkly the polish is.
So there you go, just in time before the July box arrives. I do like the GlossyBox idea, but as soon as they start charging postage I will probably abandon ship. I’m happy to pay £10 a month for a box of goodies and I enjoy trying out new things, but I wouldn’t pay more than £10- they are samples after all. I’m still looking forward to the next box though :)
Hope everyone is having better weather than I’ve had here all week. I have to packed a rucksack with clothes for all seasons when I walk into work! It’s raining, hot, sunny, windy, thunderstorms and even hail one day! I graduate next Thursday, so I hope the weather is nice to me that day. I’m not sure how I will cope with heels, a giant black cloak and a silly hat if it’s windy and rainy outside! Comedy photos at least :P xxxx
Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance (take two)
I love this polish, it’s definitely one of my favourites. I have already made a post on Bad Romance, but I had stubby, short nails at the time so I thought I’d put up a better one! :)
Previously when I’ve used Bad Romance it’s needed 3 coats to make sure the black is opaque and it makes the polish a little too thick for my liking. So this time I first put on a light coat of Eyeko Cosmic and then 2 coats of Bad Romance. It’s a shame the black in Bad Romance completly obscured the glitter in Cosmic, it would have looked nice, but never mind, at least it left me with opaque black and the lovely purple glitters without having to do several thick coats of it.
I kept this on throughout revision time so I could look at my pretty nails when I needed a break for boredom! :P These are the last pictures of my long nails before the pre-exam chop down. They are staring to grow back, but they still look rubbish.
Left hand…
Right hand…it has more purple hexagons.
I thought I’d show you both hands because the right had more hexagons. That’s one thing to remember about polishes with chunky glitter or hexagons, you need to make sure you don’t have a finger with no glitter and others this loads! This polish pretty much looks after itself though, I didn’t have to fiddle with it too much to get the glitter to sit right.
I bought myself Across the Universe after finishing my exams, but I haven’t tried it yet. It looks awesome in the bottle though, I’ll put up a post of it soon. I have a cold at the moment, so I’m just sat around sneezing and coughing a lot, fun times! At least I have Spotify and Youtube videos to keep me entertained and occupied. Anything to distract me from this tickly cough! At least it stops me from dwelling on the uncertainty of my future…how gloomy a topic! I never realised how much I liked knowing what my next step was, i.e. school, college, work, uni…now what? I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a job when I was at school and I kinda hoped I’d of figured it out by now. Did/do you know what you want to do? Or am I the only weird person with no idea? :P
George by Asda Ultra Violet
I have had my first two exams, just one left next Tuesday and my time at university has come to an end! My first exam was awful. The questions were awful and I didn’t know how to answer any of them, even though I spent more time revising that topic than anything else! *grumble* The exam the following day was much better though. I had to complete two questions out of four and I could have done a really good job on all of them! I really enjoyed that topic though, it was about the social psychological issues relating to sexual health of young people. I love a good debate and that topic is full of them. One exam question was to suggest new policies, so I was happy to make up wacky policies for awhile! :)
I can’t believe uni is over. What’s scary is I wanted this day to come for so long, now I’m annoyed about it because I need to find a job. Unfortunately I didn’t get postgraduate funding so I won’t be staying on to do a PhD, which is a little upsetting. I wasn’t too upset because I knew it was a long shot in the current economic climate, but I still hoped I’d be able to stay on and do research as I really enjoy it. Oh well! I’m trying to keep a focus on finishing my exams first, then worry about ‘the future’.
In more fun news, as a reward to myself so being super awesome during one of my exams and finishing uni I decided to buy myself something. For ages I’ve wanted a ukulele and a stylophone, so I bought myself them! Whisking it’s way to me is a gorgeous, shiny red ukulele! Strange things to buy? Yep. Completely awesome things to buy? Definitely! :)
Also, I’m going to see Art Brut again next week! :P I made a big deal about it last time, so I’ll try contain my excitement this time :) Current favourite song from the new album is Bad Comedian which sports the line, ’He dresses like he came free with the NME! How can you bear to hold his hand? I bet he signs his name in Comic Sans!’ <3 Aww, Comic Sans, “the most controversial font of our time”. Soo friendly! <3
Anyhoo, to pictures of my lovely long nails which I am mourning the loss of. I write faster with short nails so I cut them for my exams. I liked them the length and shape they were, but alas they had to go. I picked up this polish in Asda when I went to visit my family last month. It really stood out from the others on the huge stand of super cheap, but very nice polishes because is has a lovely blue/purple duochrome in it. Of course it is a nightmare to photograph, but I manged to get one, out of focus but accurate picture of it.
The polish was quite fast drying, but it was very sheer. I definitely needed 3-4 coats to get this finish, but it’s a gorgeous colour so it was worth it. I will definitely pick up more of these polishes if I see a colour that I like, for £1.50 you can’t go wrong!
Here is my out of focus attempt to capture that duochrome. My silly phone camera was obsessed with focusing on the background of everything that day. You can see the base of my nails are more purple? That’s what the polish looks like in real life, but I couldn’t capture it in a normal shot.
I gave myself the day off today from revision. Instead of resting or doing something fun I cleaned the windows, I was really bored not revising. I’m not right sometimes. When my instruments arrive I’ll be able to play with those instead! Do any of you lovely people play instruments? Or want to play one?
I hope everyones exams are going well and everyone is having a lovely week! :) xxxx
Zoya Blyss
Ok brain, I will let you have a break and update the blog. But you MUST go and revise more afterwards, deal? Deal!
Yes, revision has made me go slightly mad. I now talk to myself a lot. Normally I stick to clichéd motivational phrases or random insults. They either encourage me to work or at least entertain me. I am currently revising attachment theory and I have decided I am insecurely attached and a bit of a weirdo. I’m glad I didn’t take the clinical module this year, I’m sure I would have diagnosed myself with everything! OK! 10 minutes and get back to work brain!
This is my first Zoya polish. I’ve seen so many lovely swatches of Zoya I am quite pleased to finally try one for myself. I really love this colour. It is fuchsia pink, with a purple flash in it. The polish needed 3 coats to be opaque and for some reason was still a little sheer on the tips of my nails. It isn’t very noticeable, but still, I thought it was a bit strange. The polish dried really quickly, so the multiple coats wasn’t too bad. I really like the colour. I do have other colours similar to it, but they are cremes. This colour with the subtle purple flash is very pretty and I think I will wear this often. Although I might reserve this for when I’m taping off the tips and painting them another colour. Before I removed this I added another coat to see if I could even out the sheerness on the tips, but it didn’t seem to make any different unless I really slopped it on.
I wish all the best to those of you suffering the pain of revision and exams at the moment! Remember, it will all be over soon, at least that’s my comforting thought at the moment :) For those of you not doing exams, I am very jealous, but have a lovely week anyway :P
I’m slacking a little on reading blogs and writing them at the moment due to exams, but I’ll be back in less than 2 weeks! To celebrate the freedom from exams and my blogs 1st birthday I am having a giveaway! If you haven’t yet entered the link is just below or the link at the top of my sidebar. I’m giving away a set of Filthy Gorgeous polishes or your choice of 3 Barry M polishes. Go and check it out! xxxx
Click to enter my 1st Blogiversary Giveaway!
Manic Panic Hot Hot Pink and Aussie Lighter Style Update
I thought I’d put my latest hair stuff all in one post, so as not to bore you repeatedly with it! :) Last week, before I went away, I received a new wig from the lovely people at Aussie. I didn’t have time to play, but I was excited to see myself as a blonde. It’s one of the few colours I have never properly tried. I have been blonde, but it was more of a honey blonde, never platinum/white blonde.
The wig is a longish bob cut, very similar in length to my current hair. It has a fringe which proved handy at hiding my dark eyebrows! I guess that I something I would have to bleach if I were to go blonde, I look a bit scary with dark eyebrows and blonde hair. I wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have such substantial eyebrows!
Here I am with the wig on, looking rather scary! I don’t think that light blonde suits my skin tone. I thought dark colours were meant to make you look more pale, but this wig seems to make me look a bit peaky! I whacked some (a lot) of the Eyeko MyCoral Crush blusher on and Sleek lipstick in Candy Cane to liven me up a bit!
I kinda like the blonde because it is so different for me, but I think it would be a nightmare to maintain. I’d have to toner it too death to keep away the yellow. Plus I blush quite a lot and when I was blonde before, whenever I blushed I looked like my head was going to explode! The blonde hair seemed to make my red cheeks look even redder! :s Ok, I have to put the wig away, I’m starting to like blonde and I don’t have time for that kind of upkeep and I’d have to change all my make up again. Stop tempting me blondeness!
The first reaction I had when I put the wig on was that the cut and colour were very similar to the ‘suicide blonde’ in the film ‘The Number 23′. I’m not obsessed with the number 23, nor am I going to jump off a building, but I like the hazy blonde look.
Although if I was to number the alphabet…Gemx = 7+5+13+24=49 and 4+9=13. Sparkle =19+16+1+18+11+12+5=82 and 8+2=10 FINALLY 13+10=23! :o
It was amusing how long it took me to fudge something to equal 23!
I really like The Number 23 as a film, so much so I saw it twice at the cinema, once with friends then I dragged my OH to see it. I like trashy films :)
(My Suicide Blonde look)
(The Suicide Blonde from The Number 23)
As much as the blonde is tempting, when I took the wig off I realised how much I suit and love my hair colour at the moment. Before I went to visit my family I ran out of my usual Special Effects Virgin Rose hair dye and the bottles I’d ordered didn’t arrive in time. So with my rather faded hair I nipped into town to hunt for a similar pink/purple dye, not wanting to face my family looking faded. I went to the alternative shops and found plenty of dye in the various shops which was fantastic! They didn’t have my usual Special Effects, but they did have some Manic Panic, I similar brand that I had heard good reviews about. I picked a colour close to what I thought my current dye was.
The colour I picked was Hot Hot Pink. The dye itself comes in a round pot instead of a squeezie paint type bottle Special Effects come in. It is much easier to get out of the pot than the squeezie bottle and the Manic Panic dye was slightly more watery, but it smelt identical. Because the dye was more watery it went further on my hair, so I needed less dye, which was quite good. I left it on for about an hour and washed it off, then for the moment of truth!
I was left with super pigmented and really soft and shiny hair! Best of all the colour lasted double that of my old dye. I didn’t realise until I looked at old pictures, but my new colour is much pinker and brighter. I think that’s why it seems to last longer because it is a lighter colour I don’t notice the fading from dark purple to pink as much. Hot Hot Pink seems too fade from pink to err…less pink? It doesn’t really change that much, it seems to loose intensity rather than fade to a lighter colour. Here is my new colour:
It might not seem that different. In fact I thought it was pretty much the same colour, but if you see the picture below of the last time I dyed my hair with the Special Effects Virgin Rose dye. It was much more purple before (see below) and now it is more pink.
(my hair previously – dyed with Special Effects Virgin Rose)
So what do you think? Blonde or dark and pink or dark and purple? I’m not sure which I prefer anymore! Aussie have booked me in to have my hair appointment in two weeks, so I will have to decide what I want to have done :)
Phew…that is a long post! Well done if you get to the bottom! To congratulate you I will tell you a secret…My blog has been going for a year! On May 5th last year I installed a WordPress blog during a break from exam revision stating I was going to make a beauty blog. I didn’t start blogging officially until the end of the month when my exams finished, but quite cool stuff! So I am planning a giveaway to celebrate. I’ve ordered some goodies and I will put up a post when I receive them :)
I hope you have all had a lovely week! Can’t believe it is Friday already! I will be slightly afk this week due to a wedding this weekend and my dissertation is due in next Thursday, so I hope you all have a lovely weekend and week to come! Think of me slaving away over a large document while you all enjoy yourselves! :P xxxx
Shiro Cosmetics Potion Blush
It’s quite nice to be back at home, although I think I picked the wrong week to visit my family. It was nice because I got to see everyone, including my heavily pregnant niece. I just heard that her waters broke this morning, so the little baby is going to be arriving a few weeks early! If I’d gone to visit this week instead I might have got to see him, now I have to wait another 6 weeks! There’s only 3 years between me and my niece and we pretty much grew up together, so it’s weird to think she’s going to have a little baby when I next see her, quite nice though, I can’t wait to see him :)
I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but I forgot I’d written it and it got lost in my many drafts I haven’t finished. It’s here now anyway! Shiro Cosmetics recently launched four pressed blushers, one of which is a gorgeous berry colour which I snapped up right away. When it arrived it had been packaged so well, I was surprised when it arrived broken. I tried to re-press it and made quite a mess, but it was a lovely colour, just what I had been looking for. I let Caitlin know and she sent me out a new one right away! Isn’t she lovely?! My new one arrived, again amazingly well wrapped and in perfect condition, happy me!
It’s slightly darker in real life, but it’s not far off. The swatches show the actual colour a little better.
(Blended out on the left and a finger swatch unblended on the right)
The blush is a pretty berry colour and it has a shimmer in it which works well at being a blush/highlighter-in-one for your cheeks. You can apply it lightly for a subtle glow or build it up to be a more vibrant colour. I just applied it lightly over the apples of my cheeks to give a little bit of colour. I wanted to find a purple-esque blush for awhile and I’m quite happy with this one.
My skin looks pretty good in these pictures, since I got back I’ve been horribly spotty. Quite annoying seeing as I never normally get any! I don’t know whether it was the change of water, or that I forget my face cream and went a day without it. I doubt a single day without face cream would cause icky spotty face, but I’m not sure why I’ve suddenly been blammed with them! My skin looks a bit better today, so hopefully it should settle down again.
I’m currently working on my statistics for my third year project, it all seems to have gone a bit strange. I’m going into uni to harass those who know more than me. It should be a nice walk in, the weather is gorgeous again. Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine! xxxx
Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance
Recently Deborah Lippmann polishes are being sold by House of Fraser. I heard ages ago that it was going to happen, but it seemed to take forever to go live. However, luckily for me just I was getting stuck into a mountain of uni work it was officially put online! Without guilt I bought myself Bad Romance as a congrats to myself for completing and handing in my literature review. For £16 though, it was a pretty pricey polish! I had seen lots of pictures of Bad Romance and I loved it. I love black polishes, esp with glitter in, and this one has purple glitter and hexagonal pieces too!
The Deborah Lippmann bottles are quite nice as well. I like square bottles and this one is quite big. You get a lot of polish for your money at least!
The polish is a sheer, black jelly base with purple glitter and purple hexagonal glitter. They are both quite sparse and easy to layer. I put on one coat and it is really lovely to apply, but you definitely need two coats or more for the desired effect. After two coats you are left with a good black base with the glitters floating in the black jelly. With some polishes you can sometimes get horrible glitters that can sink into the base and look crumby, but this has a lovely effect with the glitter very visible, but still floating in the base. Its difficult to describe! It dries quite quickly and isn’t at all bumpy. You just have to be careful that it dries between coats or you end up moving the glitter around too much. It wasn’t too hard to make sure there was a even amount of glitter on each finger. It is really a lovely polish!
I wouldn’t buy a Deborah Lippmann polish normally due to the cost, but this is something special. It’s a nightmare to photograph without sunlight, but in the sun it looks gorgeous. I had lots of comments about this polish when I was wearing it, I think just because it’s a little different. I was dreading the removal, but it wasn’t too bad. I did need to leave a soaked cotton pad on my nails with the trusty tin foil method, but it was easy to remove after a minute or two. :)
All in all, this is a lovely polish! There are some similar style polishes by Deborah Lippmann such as Across the Universe which is the same as Bad Romance, but with a blue base and blue/green glitter. I’d like to get it eventually, but for now I think this will be my go to polish when I’m not sure what to put on. :)
EDIT – Apologises for lost comments due to a website disaster!
Revlon Plum Seduction and CND Amethyst Sparkle
I bought this in my recent Boots haul. I bought Essie Bermuda Shorts awhile ago to match my hair, but it was a little too neon. I love Bermuda Shorts, but when I saw this I had to have it. It is very similar to Bermuda Shorts, but it is more of a non-neon cousin. It is called Plum Seduction, it doesn’t look very plum like, it’s more of a fushia pink/purple. Plum I imagine as a darker red/purple, but then again my hair dye is called Virgin Rose! Who names these things?! :P
I like Revlon polishes, I’m never sure why some people don’t rate them. I have quite a few, they all apply well and I like the bottle and brush. They don’t have a great range, but I like what they do have. This is two coats, applied perfectly and it has lastly 5 days before I chipped my thumb. I have hardly any tip wear, apart from the thumb, which is pretty hard wearing.
Here is me pulling some weird pose to show the colour match to my hair! This colour is a pretty good match, it lasts well and basically I love it! :D Now the problem will be getting me to use any other nail polish, I like this one too much!
After having to take this off because I chipped it, I was browsing for a new colour. However, I missed my purple nails so the compromise was to put the Plum Seduction back on, but with CND Amethyst Sparkle over the top. Here is how it looked. I should have put two coats on really as it looks a bit streaky at the edges, but I love the sparkle over the top! :) I’m often reluctant to pick the same polish after I’ve removed it, but this one I made an exception. Do you always feel that you have to change the colour of your polish every time you take it off? Or do you have favourites you are happy to wear over and over? :)
Have a lovely weekend everyone! I’m glad it is here! I plan to write my literature review and for the first weekend in ages, just to relax! I have a couple of films I haven’t seen and plenty of things recorded on Sky+, I might even get my Christmas cards written! I received my first card through the post today! xxxx
More bleach! Re-dying my purple hair
Oooh two posts in one day! I felt bad not posting any during the week, so I’ve put up these two today as they kinda go together anyway. I have a few more things to put up, so hopefully I’ll have some spare time in the week. :)
Before my Brighton trip I re-dyed my hair! I’ve gone a bit darker and had more wider slices bleached in which I dye Special Effects Virgin Rose. I much prefer it now. I hated dyeing it before as I was tinting the brown purple because it wasn’t dark enough and looking like I’d been hit in the face with purple and the back part was just a mid-brown. Not the greatest of looks! I like my new dark brown and I can get away with slopping on the purple dye without worrying about tinting the brown. I like the larger slices too, it makes it slightly easier to dye and looks nicer. Annoyingly, I’m running low on purple dye and all the UK sites to buy it from seem to be out of stock or not taking orders due to the snow. :(
Here is a rather funny view of my new bleached bits. As you can see it isn’t bleached to white, more of a yellow, but it still comes out really bright purple. For purple tones you really don’t need to bleach to white. When I had pink hair I had to have toner as well to make it white because when the pink faded it looked yellow/orange. This dye luckily fades to a pale purple/pink, so I’m happy with that. :) In fact, I’m very happy with the dye this time. Now it’s just the upkeep! I’ve been dyeing it every Sunday, which isn’t too bad. I do destroy the bathroom in the process though.
For anyone wondering about the upkeep of semi permanent colours like Special Effects hair dye, it does fade if you shampoo your hair, but I only leave my dye on for about 15-20 minutes when I re-dye it, so it really doesn’t seem that bad, especially as it is only once a week. I normally put the dye on, brush teeth, clean bathroom, then shower, and that seems to be plenty of time for the colour to take.
Here’s a really good tip I’ve learnt recently for removing hair dye stains on the bath/tiles. Nail polish remover! I read online about it and thought I’d give it a go. It was 100 times better than bleach! I tested it first by getting a cotton pad, soaking it in remover and placing it on a pink bit for a few seconds than removing. The pink was gone! I have tried bleach before, but it’s smelly and doesn’t seem to work as well as nail polish remover.
I have a giant assignment to sort out today, I have to research fighter pilot cockpits and write a research proposal on how to test the performance of the pilots attention. It was interesting at first, but now it is annoying. It is surprisingly hard to find a list of tasks that have to be performed in a cockpit (snigger)! Oh well, after wednesday I will only have some group work and my literature review left, very much looking forward to that. :)
Have a good weekend, what is left of it! Have a good week also! xxxx
Accessorize Purple Dream
I couldn’t decide what to buy out of all the pretty Accessorize polishes. I wanted a purple colour and I was torn between Purple Passion and Purple Dream. I decided on Purple Dream because it has a lovely purple/blue duochrome.
This is two coats, they apply nicely, but if I tried to apply the second coat too quickly I end up dragging the polish a bit, which is annoying! Trying to remove polish from one nail without wrecking the other drying nails is funny to watch! :P
However, it is very difficult to photograph the blue in this polish, the lack of sunshine does not help. When I held my arm at an angle away from my body, my nails looked completely blue, but as soon as I tried to photograph it I couldn’t catch it. Below is the best picture I could get where you can kinda see the blue at the base of the nail. I think I will need to grab a few more of these Accessorize polishes, this one was really nice.
For now it is back to my lit review/essay/stimuli writing/research proposal/blog assignments…and all I have to look at out of the window is rain *groan* all grey and gloomy…meh. Hope everyone is having a good day and you are hopefully having a less grey day than here! I think it is soup timez!
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