Barry M Lip Paint Pinkie Gold Sparkle
I’ve wanted this lipstick for ages! It is never in any Boots stores when I’ve looked and I never wanted to make a Barry M online order for fear of spending all my money! However, with a lot of restraint I finally made a small order and included this lovely lipstick. I was worried about the formula of this lipstick and buying before swatching it because some Barry M lipsticks can be a little drying, but I need not of worried because this lipstick is very nice and not at all drying.
The colour is, like it’s name, a pinkie sheer lipstick with a gold sparkle sheen to it. It’s sheer enough to apply without a mirror and although it’s lasting time isn’t great, it’s very easy to apply it doesn’t take long to top it up. The lipstick in the tube is really pretty too, it’s a nice dusky pink with a almost marbled gold shimmer running through it.
Finally here is a swatch on my lips. As you can see it’s not very pigmented, but leaves a nice pinkie gold sparkle finish. The lipstick is quite moisturising and this is my go-to lipstick for a neutral day with a bit of sparkle.
I’m in Marseille right now and I have a few scheduled posts for this week while I’m away. I’m probably still on Twitter though, I’ve sorted out my phone with an internet booster so I will have internet while I’m away. I’ve definitely packed this lipstick to take away with me. However, I am concerned about melting lipstick and myself melting in the heat. I’m a total heat wuss! Hopefully myself and my lipsticks will make it back in a non-melted state :P Speak soon! xxxx
Graduation! OPI Princesses Rule!
Hi there! Sorry for the unannounced absence, but I graduated last week, woo! I got to wear a silly gown and hat and prance around outside like I was one of the cast of Harry Potter! Luckily I had lovely weather and got to take some lovely pictures in the sunshine by the duck pond. There were plenty of little ducklings swimming around to coo over too, awww!
I also got some extremely good news three days prior to graduation. Remember all my moaning and groaning about having no future after I’d finished uni after I was turned down funding for a PhD in Psychology? I was moaning about having to get a ‘real’ job and having to dye my hair and be sensible and well…I was generally a grouchy git tbh. I applied for a place on another PhD course called Web Science. It was funded by Gordon Brown a few years ago and mostly focuses on mixing other disciplines with computing science to explore the web. Well, I had an interview for it and last week found out I had a funded place on the masters and PhD Web Science programme! So that’s me set for four years now! It really hasn’t sunk in for me, but I’m very very pleased about it! I can relax a little now :D
Anyway, I cannot have this post without my NOTD for graduation. First I was considering trying to match my nails to my gown hood which was a pale turquoise and gold, but I couldn’t find the right shades so I decided to keep my nails quite neat and neutral and opted for pink with sparkles.
I recently picked up OPI Princesses Rule! from Beautique.com when they had an offer and I got OPI Past, Present and Fuchsia for free. How could I turn down such an offer?! :P First I put on a coat of my trusty Eyeko Petite polish to cover up any staining on my nails and to even the colour out because OPI Princesses Rule! is quite sheer. Then I added one coat of OPI Princesses Rule! to make it lovely and sparkly. The shimmer is really dense so I only needed one coat. Lovely polish and I know I am going to have fun layering it on other colours too.
Congratulations to everyone else who has graduated in the last few weeks or is about to graduated! I hope the weather is lovely for you, but not too hot, those gowns are not fun in the heat! :S
Nails Inc Pallmall – Bridal nails
I have been busy this week/weekend finally finishing my draft of my research project! Woo! I just need to have a read through and jazz it up! Quite happy for that to be almost done, it’s my last large piece of coursework for my degree. 4 more weeks, 1 presentation, 1 small piece of coursework and 3 exams and I’m done! :D
Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, my niece went into hospital and had her baby boy! He’s a month early, so they are being kept in for a couple of days. I hope to go up and visit them soon, can’t wait to see them. I’m now a great-aunt! I didn’t ever want to be a great-anything tbh, makes me feel old! Although I think my mum has it worse, she is now a great-granny! :P
After seeing so many Royal wedding posts, nail art etc I felt a little left out. I wasn’t that bothered about the whole thing, in fact I slept through it. But I was surprised to see that it seemed as if the couple actually liked each other. It was quite sweet really! To be somewhat topical and after stealing the idea for Jenni’s blog, I thought about doing a bridal type nail thing. I decided to wear the most bridal colour I owned and I found this bottle tucked at the back of my nail polish draw. I bought it as part of a mystery pick n mix offer awhile ago, but never tried it. It is a little bit boring so I can see why I left it. However, it is perfect for a neutral, veiled white, nail colour.
I forgot how lovely Nails Inc polishes are to use and wear. This was two coats, I assume it isn’t really the kind of polish you wear opaque and I didn’t fancy putting 5+ layers on to test it :P It applied really nicely and dried quickly and super shiny! It is a sheer, frosty, pearly-white colour which wasn’t at all streaky, which I was very pleased about. Most frosty polishes I own are a nightmare for streakiness. I think it’s quite a nice bridal colour, quite natural, but still polished. Really nice polish, I must try more Nails Inc, the quality is great :)
With all this wedding talk recently, I remembered I was planning a wedding. I am not good with decisions and planning so I did ignore it all for awhile. I’m going to a family wedding next weekend, so I may get back into the idea a little bit more. I just wish someone would do it all for me, and preferably pay for it! :P I probably wouldn’t wear my nails in a traditional neutral colour for my wedding day. I’ll probably go for pink glitter or something. I’ll have to think about it, start with the little decisions! :P
What would/did you wear on your nails for your wedding day/special occasions? xxxx
Missguided Lipsplash in Chilli Red Free with Cosmo
I picked up this free with this months Cosmo. It is from Missguided who also gave out free nail polish in a magazine last year (review here). The polish was very nice so I was happy to try the gloss. There was a choice of three colours. Chilli Red, Clear and Caramel which is a nude colour. I picked up the Chilli red because I have plenty of clear/nudes glosses. I have plenty of red too, but never mind that! It comes in a rather attractive square tube and has a doe foot applicator. I like the packaging, it is clean and simple. Now as for the colour…as you can see below it looks pretty red in the tube!
However, this is not the case when swatched. It isn’t a very opaque gloss, it comes out more of a sheer red. That’s fine though, it’s still pretty, but it would have been awesome to be the same colour at the tube as I really like that red. Although I only tend to expect opaque glosses from Illamasqua who make the most awesome opaque lipglosses! In the picture below I tried to layer the gloss to see if it could make the colour a bit stronger, but it wasn’t working.
The gloss itself smells really nice, a pleasant fruity scent. It is not a sticky gloss, in fact it is quite a nice consistency. It goes on smoothly and it lasts a reasonable amount of time. It will stay there until you drink anyway. It’s quite a nice colour on my lips, but it is more of a pink than a red gloss.
Finally, a scary FOTD, please be kind! :) I don’t normally put my face up here, but I was in a good mood when I was swatching. I am wearing my usual Meow Cosmetics primer/foundation/top coat, Mac Mineralized Blush in Gentle, L’oreal Volume Million Lashes Mascara and Missguided Lipsplash in Chilli Red.
I’ve been busy rushing to finish lots of bits of work before my supervisor goes away for the week. I’m quite happy that my PhD application is being handed over to him so I don’t have to work on it anymore. I feel like I’ve been working on it forever! Now I just need to concentrate on the rest of my ‘to do’ list! :/
Hope you all have had a lovely week and are looking forward to a fab weekend! I’m so happy with all this sunshine and it being light when I go home for a change. It’s surprising what getting up and going home in the dark everyday does to your general disposition! We just need to wait for the weather to warm up now. There’s something a little weird about going outside in a big winter coat, gloves and sunglasses!
Anyhoo, I have sorted out lip swatches for all the Shiro Cosmetics Intertubes I ordered that I showed last weekend. I’m just writing all the text for the post now and I’ll put it up tomorrow. :) xxxx
Eyeko Petite Polish
I apologise for my lack of posts this last week or so. I also apologise to everyone and to myself for not having chance to read any blogs this week! I was really annoyed when I saw I had about 700+ unread posts and I knew I’d never have chance to catch up and marked them as read. It’s the first time in nearly a year I’ve had to do that. Stupid uni work! I am going to take time off this afternoon and do some blog reading in between the two essays I’m writing and the analysis of my data from my experiment. At least it looks like the experiment has worked, with a few bumps, but at least I’ll have something to talk about in the discussion I guess!
My to do list is quite insane at the moment, but I was very pleased to have completed one assignment at least. I had to give a presentation this week and I was really worried about it. My public speaking is a little rusty and I often look like a scared beetroot. It went ok I think, although I did forget my notes, my laser pointer and my engagement ring, which I took as a bad omen. The worst thing about it was the stress before giving it, when I was up there it wasn’t so bad because there wasn’t a lot I could do about it apart from just to give the presentation and get on with it. I have a 3 more presentations to give this month, so I’m sure I’ll be good at them by the time I’ve finished! Or a nervous wreck…
To make up for my lack of posting/commenting/reading here is a picture of my naughty kitty!
I always wondered what he was doing when I heard him monstering around the house at night and I also wondered where all my hairbands go! I thought I just lost them or misplaced them, but now I know….My cat steals them, plays with them and hides them! My OH caught him a couple of times, as soon as we turn off the lights to go to bed, he jumps straight up in front of my keyboard and looks for things to play with. It normally hairbands or sweetie wrappers. We find them dotted around the house the next day, after being woken up several times during the night because he is chasing whatever he has found down the stairs! Such a little monster! :p
Anyhoo, quick NOTD post today and I’m sorting out a Shiro Cosmetics post for tomorrow because my order arrived last week! I ordered some of the new lip products and they are fantastic! I’ll try get it sorted out for tomorrow :)
For now this is the polish I’ve been wearing all week. I ordered from Eyeko awhile ago and Eyeko Petite polish came as the free gift. I never tried it out at the time because it’s quite boring/ordinary and sheer. But this week, when I didn’t really have time to paint my nails and I didn’t want to leave them bare and slightly stained(!) I thought I’d give this polish a try. I’d been wearing brights and my holos for awhile, so I thought maybe a neutral would be a nice change.
The polish is really sheer and I believe it is made to be used as a French manicure base. I’d say it is perfect for that. This is three coats and as you can see, it just makes your nails look a pinky colour leaving a visible nail line. It makes my nails look quite clean and fresh, but also like I’m not wearing a polish. Whenever I want to have natural nails without my icky stains being visible this is definitely the polish I’ll reach for. To me this polish isn’t really a polish as I would define one. I like my polish to be obvious, but that isn’t to say that I don’t like this polish, it is perfect for when I want to look like I’m not wearing polish. If that makes any sense!? I feel like a driveling wreck today! So onto the pictures!
I chopped my nails a bit this week, I don’t like it. I preferred them the length they were in this picture. I need to learn how to keep my nails the same length, I guess by filing them? I always grow them, chop them off and hate them for a few weeks until they grow. I don’t really like filing them, it seems to take ages! Maybe I need to invest in a good quality nail file? What do you lovely people do with your nails? :)
Have a fantastic weekend and I hope to catch up on all your lovely blogs soon! xxx
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
Models Own Feeling Blue
I have just got home from finally seeing the latest Harry Potter film! It was good and didn’t verge to far from the book, I’m glad I went to see it. Now to find the time to see Tron!
It’s now Christmas Eve, wooooo! I’m going to try and get one of my assignments done when I get up tomorrow so that I can have Christmas day off without feeling guilty. I can’t believe the first week of the Christmas break has gone already! I’ve done all my Christmas food shopping, so I don’t have to leave the house for at least a week now. I raided M&S, so I’m set for a lovely Christmas dinner! Nom nom!
Anyway, a quick nail polish post! This is Models Own Feeling Blue. I bought it months ago online, but when I saw it in person I wasn’t too keen on it. It looked really sheer and when I tested it on one nail I wasn’t impressed. So into the box it went to be forgotten, until I randomly felt like blue nails the other day. I found this one and thought it deserved another chance. I put on one coat and it was horrible, all sheer and brush marks, but I persevered and put on a second coat and it suddenly turned into this!
It’s a lovely frosty/icy blue. It is still a bit on the sheer side, but another coat should fix that. I also used this as a base on my frosty patchwork manicure. Do you have some sad, lonely polishes that you have shoved in a box after a quick test? I have to stop personifying my make up…
Merry Christmas! xxxx
NOTD Ghostly White Halloween Nails
I was taken my polish off yesterday and wasn’t sure what to put on. My nails seem to be looking a lot less stained than I’ve seen them, in fact they look quite normal. I’ve started using the Models Own 3 in 1 as a base coat too use it up, it is a bit of a fail as a top coat…bubble city! As a base coat though, it’s not bad, especially considering I’m been wearing a lot of darker colours lately.
I was taken off the Missguided MissCellaneous Nude polish. I didn’t really wanted to, I was liking the pale nude look, but it was getting raggy. I wanted something similar, something pale…then I realised it was Halloween, so maybe something ghostly.
I got out a couple of pale-white polishes I have and toyed with white nails…didn’t fancy it. I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to paint hem all several coats of white and then hate it and have to remove and re-paint. Then I remembered I had a Barry M French Polish. I’d only used it for tips before, but it’s quite a translucent white, not as harsh. Then to make it more ghostly with a blue tinge I thought I’d add a coat of Illamasqua Prism on top.
(Barry M French Polish and Illamasqua Prism)
The Barry M looked much nicer than I thought it would. It’s white, but with a little bit of pink so it isn’t so harsh. It went on really nicely too, but definitely needed two coats, it’s quite a watery polish. Even with two coats it is still translucent and there’s definitely a nail line, but it almost looks like french tips as it makes the tips look white.
Putting Prism on top didn’t change the colour, it just introduced the blue tinge when the light hits it. It does look quite a ghostly colour with the blue sheen. I did consider drawing little ghost faces on my nails, but I didn’t have time, plus my nail art tends to be awful!
Hope everyone has a nice Halloween and everyone enjoyed their extra hour today! I always feel a bit weird whenever the time changes, but at we gained an hour rather than lost one! I recorded Bugsy Malone this morning on TV, so I’m going to enjoy cheesy film day! I know I should be watching horror films for Halloween, but never mind! Enjoy your Sunday!
Illamasqua Prism
Gah, horrible weather. I’ve been battling a migraine for the best of two days. It is quite dull. I never really get headaches, but every now and again I get hit by a migraine where I can do very little, no TV, no computer, no reading = boring!
Although I do get the fun aura stuff before the headache, yesterday I got to be blind and numb down one side, I was convinced I had a brain tumour! Bizarre! I feel really sad for people that get migraines regular, I’ve only ever had a handful, when the moon and planets line up and I walk a certain number of steps and the weather is exactly 20.4 degrees, I’m not sure, but probably some combination of random factors!
I more interesting news, I was a happy bunny who finally bought Illamasqua Prism! I’ve wanted it since it was released but could not justify the price, until sale time! It’s even more pretty than I expected. It goes on lovely, dries fast and is gorgeous on it’s own and over other colours. My new favourite polish :) I can’t wait to try it over every polish I own. Below is a picture of two coats of prism on it’s own over a base coat, no top coat, I didn’t want to make it super shiny as I like the subtle shine it has on it’s own.
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