NOTD: Team GB / Jubilee Nails

Yes, I know, I'm a few months behind, but this mani reminded me of last summer with the Queen's Golden Jubilee and the London Olympics. I used Barry M Jewel Britannia glitter nail polish on top of Max Factor Odyssey Blue nail polish.

Taken without flash in direct sunlight

I used 3 coats of Odyssey Blue and then topped it with one coat of Jewel Britannia. Both polishes for great, Odyssey Blue was smooth and quick drying and Jewel Britannia had a very good glitter coverage in just one coat. It has small holo glitter as well as medium size red, blue and silver round glitter. Very British looking indeed. The mani lasted for 3 days with very minimal chipping and it was so pretty, very sparkly and unique.

Max Factor Odyssey Blue is a mini size and costs £3.99, Barry M Jewel Britannia was a limited edition shade and I can't find it on any website anymore. For reference though, Barry M glitter polishes cost £2.99.

See another picture after the jump!

My Recent Haul Pictures

I'm still playing catch up when it comes to writing blog posts, so I thought I'd do a quick one about my recent make up (and mostly nail polish!) purchases. I don't think I will get around to reviewing many of these anytime soon (I have one review coming), but if you are really interested in something, let me know in the comments. So without further ado, here are the pictures:

My Cherry Culture order

First up lots of lovely Milani stuff. I bought these from Cherry Culture when they recently had a 20% sale. Shipping was quite expensive, but I was very pleased that I didn't have to also pay customs duty and the horrendous £8 Royal Mail fee on top of it all, so the above came to a total of £60 which isn't too bad actually.

See what other products I bought after the jump!

NOTD: Max Factor Max Effect Nail Polish in 45 Fantasy Fire

I wondered into my local Superdrug the other day and found that Max factor had come out with new shades of the mini Max Effect nail polishes (I've owned 3 of those already). This gorgeous shade immediately caught my eye, so I decided to pick up two. They are very small (don't know exactly how small as I can't see it on the bottle though), so I thought I'd make sure I don't run out anytime soon, plus there was a 2 for £5.99 offer (they are £3.99 each).

Natural daylight no flash

I'm sorry about the quality of the pictures, I had to use my phone camera as my normal camera refuses to pick up pinky purples, it just turns them into blue and this beauty is certainly not blue. The base is a lovely purple and it has loads of very fine red shimmer which also appear gold and blue depending on how the light hits my nails. On a cloudy day the polish is more bluey purple, but as soon as there's light, it turns more pinky and the red sparkles light up like little specks of fire. Absolutely gorgeous!

It does take 4 coats to achieve the colour you see in the pictures, the base colour is actually very sheer, so you really need to layer it to get the colour you see in the bottle. I guess perhaps painting it on top of a purple polish might work better, but I also really love the actual base colour, so you might lose that if you layer it on top of another purple polish. In any case it is gorgeous and well worth the time. It did dry pretty quickly and didn't chip on me for 2 whole days (which is pretty good for me as nearly everything chips on me within 48 hours) and now 3 days on it's still looking okay with just 2 chips and some tipwear.

As I said above, a bottle of this prettiness costs £3.99 and you can buy it from Superdrug, Boots and supermarkets.

See more pictures after the jump!

2011's Favourite Products: Part 3 - Lip and Nails

2011 was definitely the year of the lipstick for me. I purchased over 100 new lipsticks, spent a whole month wearing a different lipstick every day and really got into wearing bold, bright shades that I used to shy away from. So let's have a quick rundown of this year's favourite lipstick - in no particular order.

Guerlain Rouge G lipsticks have become one of my favourite lipsticks and this year out of them all Garconne and Girly, the two bright autumn shades were my absolutely favourites. Garconne is the most perfect red lipstick for me, and Girly is a fun bright pink shade.

Guerlain Rouge G in Girly (left) and Garconne (right)

Keep reading to see which other lipsticks made it into my favourites!

My Ever Growing Nail Polish Collection Part 3 - GOSH, Models Own, Dior, Chanel

As promised, here's the third and final part of my nail polish collection overview. If you missed part one and part two, you can check them out here and here.

So let's just get on with it shall we? Any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments!

My GOSH nail polishes

See more pictures of my collection after the jump!

Finished! The August Edition

Another month has gone by and I've managed to finish a few more products. Mostly skincare, but there are a couple of mascaras in there too. Let's start with the one thing I don't have a photo for, that's because I took it with me on holiday and managed to leave it behind. It was nearly finished, and since I don't have it any more, I'll consider it finished. What I'm talking about it a sample of Clinique's 7 Day Scrub Cream. It's an okay scrub, but not too special. Certainly not £17 per 100 ml special, so I will not be repurchasing it.

Onto the next Clinique product, I also had a sample of Take The Day Off make up remover. I did like this one very much, it's very effective at removing make up, and I will definitely buy a full sized one once my current Estee Lauder make up remover runs out. The full size (125 ml) costs £14.50, it's not cheap, but it is certainly a very good make up remover.

Read about all the other products I've finished this month and see more pictures!

Swatching My Stash Part 3: Foundations

As you know I am trying to shop my stash more since I realised how much make up I really own, although to be honest, I have just bought a ton while on holiday, so much for that. But in any case I thought I'd show you my foundation stash which is actually rather small compared to my whole stash of make up. I have 7 foundations, plus one I own in a darker shade which I'm hoping will suit me more in the summer as it's too dark at the moment.


First up is a foundation that isn't actually a foundation, although it is called foundation. I would actually call it "what was I thinking?" because in all honesty, I have no idea why I bought it in the first place. It is Max Factor Sheer Radiane Sheer Shimmer Foundation in 110 Shimmering Natural. It is basically a very shimmery highlighter that noone in their right mind should use on their whole face. Annoyingly though the pump dispenses way too much in one go, so you either put it all on your face (don't!) or wash it off your hands which is basically very wasteful. To my surprise the bottle is nearly half empty, although I have no idea when I actually used up half of this as it really is hideous. It's an okay highlighter, but there are much better ones. Mark out of 10: 1. Would I repurchase it? Not on your nelly!

See what other foundations I own and which one's my favourite after the jump!

Do you crackle?

I was probably the only person in the blogosphere that wasn't at all excited about Barry M's black crackle top coat when it first came out, and the subsequent versions by different brands, but I have finally given in and bought my first crackle top coat: Nail Xtras Crackle Top Coat by 17 (Boots's own brand). I still don't like the black top coat, but I thought I'd try out this metallic light gold version and see for myself what the fuss is all about.

To be perfectly honest, I'm still not that keen. I don't know why, when my 6 and 9-year-old daughters think my nails look really cool, I just don't see it. I have now tried it with 3 different nail polishes and have found one combo that I quite like, but I don't think I will be buying it in any other colour. Actually there aren't any other colours of the 17 version, but I believe that Models Own are coming out with their own range pretty soon, and so are some other brands. Back to this one though, formulawise it is a pretty nice nail polish, just the right consistency, applies nicely and cracks very quickly. You will see from the pictures below that the patterns are very fascinating. It costs £3.99 for 10 ml and is available Boots. 

See more pictures and find out which one was my favourite combo after the jump!

My first NOTD

I don't wear nail polish very often, mostly because it chips off my fingernails within a matter of days, sometimes hours. I have thin, bendy nails and nail polish just doesn't stick to them. I usually paint my toes in the summer, but in the winter when they're hidden, they're usually bare. However, I decided to paint my fingernails while painting my toe nails and decided to take pictures. So here it is, my first nail of the day. Can't promise there'll be many, but we'll see. I used Max Factor Nailfinity in 830 Dusky Rose. I love their Lipfinity long lasting lipsticks, so I thought I'd try their nail polish which also promises to be long lasting. So far I don't have any chips, but it's only been 24 hours. No doubt there'll be some tomorrow. Dusky Rose is a lovely shade, it's a muted fuschia colour, not too bright, but definitely noticable. The formula is pretty nice, easy to apply, but I'm not an expert on nail polish and haven't tried many, so don't know how it compares with other - popular - brands. I only used one layer as it's pretty opaque and I hate waiting for ages for my nail polish to dry. I'm also pretty bad at applying, so apologies for that. I do find though that the dry nail polish easily peels off my skin the following morning, so I tend not to bother tidying up the edges. Anyway, here are the pictures, let me know what you think.