Showing posts with label nail varnish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nail varnish. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 September 2013

One Direction for MUA mini review - Little Things range.

Unless you follow my personal twitter/tumblr/any other social networking platform, most of you probably don’t know my deep dark secret. I am a HUGE (referring to my interest, not my dress size) One Direction fan. S kept this in mind when purchasing my birthday presents (she is fabby), and bought me a lipstick, lip polish and nail varnish from their new 1D for MUA “little things” make up range. As she knows that I have singled out Harry Styles as my one and only, she bought me his colours. This means that I have the “Fuschia Frenzy” nail varnish, Harry Loves Strawberry lip polish, and “Be Mine” lipstick. Now I knew that I wanted these products (I love makeup and I love 1D, of course I wanted them), but I’ll be honest, I didn’t have very high expectations for the quality. MUA, in my opinion, used to be a bit rubbish. Although recently they have seriously stepped it up, I will admit. I have had some really good pieces from them, and I know that Sam loves their heaven and earth palette. For such a reasonably priced brand, you can’t really complain.

So anyway, after receiving these from S, I was tres excited to try them out. I dived straight in with the lipstick. The packaging is nice enough. They all say kiss you on the outside, a cute little merger of a 1D reference and obviously, lips. The lid stays on, which is majorly important for me, and the bottom of the packaging is clear, so you can see what shade the lipstick is. It’s cute, and serves it’s purpose. “Be Mine” is actually a really nice shade. In the packaging, it looks a dark, cherry shade, but when applied it’s actually a very pretty, strawberry kind of red. Not matte, but not glitter overload. It has a shine to it, but you could apply a gloss on top if you wanted a different kind of finish. This product is impressively highly pigmented, and is lovely to apply. I’ve tried it with a lip liner and without and was pleased with it’s staying power. Overall, I really like this product. (And I think it’s so cute that Harry’s signature is on it, awh).



On to the lip polish. Now, I know that me and Harry are destined to be together because I love strawberry too! Coincidence or what? I am a big fan of lipgloss. I love the shine it tends to give, as well as the fact that I don’t always have a mirror to hand which makes applying proper lipstick a risky business. At least with lipgloss I know I can’t go far wrong,. The packaging of this polish is actually really cute. It’s fairly flat, which means it fits well in my makeup bag. It doesn’t look exactly high end, but I’m fine with that. It lids are coloured pretty much the same as the actual gloss, so that you can see what shade it is straight away. And, of course, the boys have their lovely signatures on top. The lids twist off, which is great for making it secure (is there anything worse than ending up with lipstick all over your bag? I think not). Now, the first thing I noticed about this product, the second I had untwisted the lid, was the smell. Harry Loves Strawberry smells amaaaazing. Like strawberries, weirdly. But it isn’t sickly or overpowering. It’s strawberryish in a lovely subtle kind of way and I like it a lot. I applied this product with my fingers. I didn’t need a lot, and it literally glided on. What I liked was that it didn’t make my lips feel too sticky, and it actually stayed on really well. The colour showed up a lovely baby pink. My lips felt extremely kissable (hint hint, come on H).


Finally, came the ultimate test. You lot will probably know by now that I love to have my nails painted, and therefore am a huge fan of nail polishes. However, for some reason, every kind of polish that I put on my nails seems to chip within a matter of hours. I’m pretty critical of nail polishes, I don’t mind admitting. A lot of them, I think are rubbish. So to me, I’d saved the most interesting (and potentially disappointing) until last. My nails are currently in a bit of a sorry state. I recently had acrylics, and although I absolutely loved them, they didn’t last very well at all. I had to take them off and now my real nails are all short and sad. This means that I have the perfect excuse to paint them, and make them look a bit more presentable. Cue time to try out “Fuschia Frenzy”. Again, the packaging of this is quite nice. The bottle is a decent size, and all clear glass so you can see the exact colour that the product is. Plus it has a cutesy little plectrum of Harry’s face, attached, always a winner in my book. On opening the bottle, I had a look at the brush. Let’s be honest, a lot of brushes that come in nail varnishes are utter crap. They’re cheaply made, the bristles come off and end up stuck in your polish, or they just don’t apply smoothly at all. I was very impressed with this brush. A lot of product came out with one dip, enough to paint several nails. This was so easy to put on, I couldn’t believe it. Not much product was needed at all, due to the pigmentation and consistency of the polish. I applied two coats, more for peace of mind than anything else. Habit, I suppose. These both dried in record time. And, as of yet, they have not chipped. So weirdly ,the product I expected to be the least impressive, has been my favourite. Thanks, Harry! And thanks to S for my perfect birthday presents. Love you, kid.


B xxo
Wednesday, 31 July 2013

Sammy's Monthly Favourites (July/August)

This month has all been about beauty and skincare for me and so you lucky lot get 4 beauty favourites and 1 skincare. I've tried to make these as summery as possible, but I don't want to just list beauty items that are summer appropriate because I want these to actual be my favourite things, so, here they are.



This is a really lovely little palette that I just couldn't resist picking up when I saw it in Superdrug, especially at only £7.99. The colours are really pigmented (I'll do swatches in a later post dedicated to this palette) and the only dud I found was "Bow" the palest pink, but this might just be that it's difficult to see on my pale skin. I normally stick to nude palettes, but I've found these to be really wearable, both during the day and on a day out. I've found sleek palettes to be worth their cost, and they really hold their own up against some much more expensive palettes.



This is described as an "Ultra-nourishing body balm" and that's really fitting to what it is. It's a thick, creamy balm that soaks in quickly with a really lovely smell (it smells exactly like refresher sweets). I ended up owning this as it was part of my British Beauty Blogger edit box, but a 15ml version will only set you back £4 and it's well worth it. Currently I'm using it for my knees and elbows before fake tanning, but in the winter I'll be using it on my cracked hands and any other dry patches of skin. This is a cheap, all year round beauty staple that I'll be adding to my make-up bag.



I'm really fussy about mascara, I like my eyelashes to be perfectly separated, jet black and with absolutely no clumps. I've used mascara that's set me back well over £10 that I've thrown away after just a few uses, but this is one that is definitely in my top five. The cost? £2.49. It does exactly what it says, defines eyelashes with no clumps, and in this colour "Ultra Black" it really is a perfect jet black colour. The plastic brush is a nice touch, as well, I much prefer the plastic brushes in terms of separating eyelashes. This might be a short lived craze, but for now this is definitely my one and only.



I'm pretty sure everyone that comes across this will have tried a Barry M nail varnish at some point, and for the price I feel like they're really worth stocking up on a variety of colours (especially when they're on offer, they're quite often on 3 for 2). I got this as my third colour in a 3 for 2 deal, so all three cost me £5.98. This isn't a colour I'd usually go for, I opted for "grey" and "raspberry" as my other two colours, but I've actually been wearing it quite often. It's a bright, Barbie pink. perfect for a pop of colour and I'll definitely be keeping this near the top of my nail varnish box through the rest of Summer.



I don't tend to use liquid foundation, I have quite oily skin so I tend to find it makes me look really  shiny, but I ran out of make-up and saw this in Asda so bought it for £4. I've actually been really impressed with the new George. cosmetics (you can see me talking about their lip tints here), and this didn't let me down. It settles nicely into skin without exaggerating imperfections and has a light coverage which lasts most of the day even in hot weather (I have been using benefit's porefessional underneath, though). The thing I'm most impressed with though? Colour match. This is the first foundation I've been really pleased with the colour match of, and you can see why on the photograph on the right, above the swatch is the applied product. It's literally invisible on my skin. I'm loving George. products at the moment, if you haven't already tried them, I highly recommend picking some up next time you're at your local Asda.

If you try any of these, make sure to comment and let me know what you think! 

Sammy xo.



Saturday, 13 July 2013

Nextgen Nails

 Anyone who follows our instagram (if you don't , shameless plug, follow us here) will know that about a fortnight ago I got Nextgen nails done. I'm normally an acrylics type of girl, because I love the cheap shop where you can get them done in Liverpool and also because ... Ok, I'll just admit it, I love having prinny nails. Girly nails just make you feel better, take it from me.


This time, though, a friend convinced me I should go nextgen instead , a kind of gel (not unlike Shellac) that covers your nail, whilst infusing it with nutrients that help it grow. I'll admit, I was dubious but I agreed and settled for white tips and a baby pink polish (essentially forming a high end acrylic but, you know... without the acrylic). Now I've had my nails done many a time so I don't normally pay attention , but this was very different and kind of fascinating. First, she added a plastic white tip, clipped it to size, buffed and filed my nails; so far, so normal. Now came the strange bit, out came a tiny pot of baby pink powder, my nail was covered in a mystery liquid dipped in the powder and the excess was shaken off. More mystery liquid, more powder, then one more time, then more buffing, and a topcoat. Not what I was expecting , but ... Well I was impressed, to begin with. (The picture above is taken on my iphone right after I got them done, to show how gel like they actually looked.)

 The result was glossy and did actually look like a thick gel, but was tough to the touch. It was even, of the colour I'd picked the tips were quite obvious in a way that they never are with acrylics, but that was mainly due to the colour I'd picked. The novelty ran off pretty quickly though, along with the sheen off the top , which seemed to flake off in patches after a few days. Although the edges Didn't chip like my acrylics have done in the past, they just looked a bit ... Tatty from about a week in , and I didn't lose them long after (I can get closer to a month out of acrylics, even when I'm in work.)

 All in all , although they were a poorer quality than acrylics , when they came off my nails actually were longer, and they weren't brittle and broken like they usually are post acrylics. Next time I might hang up my princess nails addiction and try getting nextgen powdered straight onto my nails (but I really doubt I'll be getting rid of my acrylics forever!!)

 Nextgen and tips isn't something I'd reccomend over acrylic nails, but in terms of vs shellac I'd say go for the nextgen, when it comes off your nails will be better than ever (results may vary...)   

Sammy xo

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