notd: china glaze street chic

I've been really loving autumnal shades again recently, which is probably lucky due to the great british weather at the moment!

this is Street Chic, part of the China Glaze Metro collection released last fall, and it's a taupey brown with a very slight purple undertone, I like that it's not too warm but not so cool it makes my skin look funny.

I couldn't for the life of me get a good picture of the colour (desperately need an actual camera), so the first picture I changed the colouring of slightly and it's now pretty damn close.

The colour looks a lot like cadbury chocolate; a kind of muted chocolately brown.

This polish, like 99% of the China Glaze colours I own, goes on like a dream. This was two coats, and applying it actually feels like applying a smooth chocolate sauce to my nails! It's naturally really shiny on its own but I've added one coat of Seche Vite as always to enhance this shine.

I don't actually like chocolate, but I shall be getting my chocolate fix from this at work tomorrow!

You may have noticed how long my nails are getting, I'm absolutely chuffed, although I keep breaking my right index finger so I then have to file the rest down, which is annoying. I talked about my experience with Nail Envy when I first started this blog, but I've continued using it and it actually seems to be working rather well. I just apply one coat before my base coat (china glaze strong adhesion), and it doesn't seem to be affecting the wear a at all. I might do an updated review of it shortly...

xx 

Follow

new purchases

Helloooo! Thought I'd show you some stuff I've bought over the past couple of days.

daddy took me shopping earlier (I swear this has never happened before. it was weird) because I needed some new flats as my current ones have a huge hole in them. I wear heels at work and only ever have one pair of flats at a time because I only really wear them for running to the bus stop in the mornings haha. I liked the look of these loafery things; they did have them in leopard print but they looked a bit too much like slippers AND I always wear black tights so I prefer having black shoes. They were £6.

I also got some new tights... I get through these SO fast; they don't ladder but I'm forever burning holes in them or catching them on stuff. I always get a medium for some reason even though they'e a bit too big. It makes them more opaque so I prefer them. These were £3 for 3 pairs!

On the way to the till I demanded that my dad get me a wallet, because I lost my last one. I really liked this because it has a clippy open thing as well as loads of compartments. I was going to get it in brown but realised the black one matches my bag!

Now this I am very very excited about. I finally got LiLash!

I've literally wanted this for about 3 years, and finally decided to take the plunge. I've used the Kiss EverLash MD and Revitalash but neither of them really did much. I also have the Mavala Double Lash but always forget to apply it. I'm gonna post an update of my progress with this in a month or so, I've already taken pictures with and without (!!) mascara so we can all track its effectiveness!

I have heard that this is amazing so I'm hoping for big things (mainly lashes). I got it from Amazon for £51 and got free next day delivery because I have Amazon Prime.

And finally I got Missguided nail polish in Misslead free in Cosmo. They also have an orange (Missmatch) and a hot pink (Misstify). They did this a couple of years ago and I got a black with gold glitter which I quite liked so I thought I'd try this out.

I really couldn't choose which colour to get but went for Misslead because I don't have a yellow. When I applied it I remembered why I always give yellows away. 5 coats in and I was still seeing the smile line! So I removed it all and started again, but this time beginning with two coats of China Glaze White on White (the only white cream I've ever found that isn't a psycho), and this was much better. It's a proper bright yellow with silver microglitter which lifts it up a bit. With one coat over White on White it applied really nicely and pastel yellow, but I added another and it's now bright as you can see! I still don't really like yellows on my skintone but I'll see what I can do with it. I think it might try it as an accent nail with a purple polish.

So that's that! Have you bought anything exciting (or not), recently? Are you looking forward to my LiLash review?

Follow

notd: opi did you 'ear about van gough

I bought this polish a while ago and have only just got round to wearing it. It's from the OPI Dutch Treats collection that I swatched some of here I bought it because although I can't get enough nudish cremes, I don't have anything much like this.

First picture is without flash, second with.

It's a putty grey nude, definitely too cool to be a true nude, but rather unique and I really like it. The picture without flash is closest to what it actually looks like but still not entirely accurate, it's a little bit bluer than that. And it's nothing like the flash picture, which looks quite similar to Stranger Tides from the Pirates of the Carribean collection, which is probably actually a mixture between those two above pictures. Confusing.

Anyway, this was three coats, but I'm pretty sure that was because my first coat was waaaayyyy too thin.

In other news, it's payday tomorrow FINALLY. I'm going shopping so there should be lots of fun stuff to post about! I'm definitely getting St Tropez Dark so I'll be posting a comparison between the original in the next few days, and I'm seriously considering buying LiLash... Seen it on amazon for a bargainlicious £52 and I've wanted to try it for years. Watch this space!

x

Follow

notd: nailgirls metallic leopard + review

Two posts in one day? WOW! At the moment I'm lucky if I manage one a week!

I've been fancying having leopard nails for a few days now, and was therefore thrilled when I recieved these two beauties in my July JolieBox!

nailgirls are a London based company owned by two sisters. They own a salon and sell all of their nail polishes in there as well as on their website.

These two are from their Olympics themed Medal Collection, one is a true gold foily shimmer and the other is a bronze with a slightly less sparkly finish. I tried them both on seperately earlier and I love 'em! The gold base literally only took one coat, I am so impressed! There's also a silver in the collection.

My leopard nail tutorial is HERE!

Follow

notd: maybelline forever strong dark denim

i love these nail polishes, the brushes are fab, the formulas are brill and I love the colours. so good for the price

dark denim is a new for 2012 colour and as soon as I saw it I fell in love. I've been obsessed with navy cremes ever since I got bored of OPI russian navy back in the day, I still loved the colour but the shimmer got on my nerves.

This is beautiful, pretty much exactly the colour of dark denim funnily enough, I love it. it's a bit more muted than it looks here.
it's a perfect navy in my eyes, not too dark and not too electric blue, just right.

The above pic is 3 coats but I could have done two I think, a thick coat of seche vite and flash, but pretty close to real life.

look at it shiiineee!

I'm going to London tomorrow and Wednesday for a course on supervisor skills for work. I'm scared about getting there, my co-worker is coming with me but I'm shit at travelling; I've never got on a train by myself.. ha

Follow

notd: china glaze high maintenance

flash

indoor light

this is probably my favourite red I own. It's a slightly blue based jelly, it looks a bit like fresh blood and that's just how I like 'em.

This is three coats because I always do three, but it looks fine at two. It's closer to the flash pic but a bit deeper and not quite as bright. my skin looks really yellow on camera for some reason but it's actually really pale and pink toned, and this looks lovely with it if I do say so myself. It's really not a summery colour but the weather hasn't been lately so I don't care.

I also love the name of this polish, although it's not a high maintenance polish to apply. my ex thought it was hysterical when I bought this. I'll let you guess why.

:)

Follow

notd: pearl accent nail, nails inc basil street + china glaze golden enchantment

hello ladies!

fancied a bit of nail art today, so I thought I'd jazz up my usual accent ring finger with some flat backed plastic pearls. I wasn't sure what colour to go with on the rest of my nails, and I've been wanting to try golden enchantment for ages so I went with Nails Inc Basil St for my base, as it's my FAVOURITE nude ever. I'd misplaced it and searched high and low for an hour, messing up my base coat in the process! The colour doesn't really show because of Golden Enchantment, but it's a lovely beigey nude, I'll do a seperate post on it soon.

Golden Enchantment is a really fine gold holo glitter in a clear base, it's not very dense at all, but looks beautiful with one coat, although this is three, I love it, it'd look gorgeous over virtually everything!

The accent nail is quite straight forward to do, but if anyone wants a tutorial I can do one :)

Follow

notd: china glaze fuschia fanatic

To keep up with this weather I decided it was time to paint my toenails which I have neglected for the past week. I did myself a mini pedicure and painted them this lovely colour. I also did my nails to match, which is a rarity, and in 2 days max will no longer be the case!

I know a lot of people in the UK haven't tried China Glaze polishes as they're quite hard to get hold of, but I'd really recommend them; they're a definite contender for OPI in my opinion, and a bit cheaper. I get all of mine from Sally's, I've got about 11 now, and every one is beautiful. They have a great range of colours and the application is generally a dream.

This is a blue-based hot pink, similar in colour to MAC's girl about town lipstick which I LOVE! it's darker and less neon-looking than in this picture because it was taken in sunlight, but still a gorgeous bright pink. perfect for summer and classic enough for all the other seasons too I think!

Follow

notd: models own indian ocean

I've spent today out in my garden enjoying the sunshine before it disappears again. I went all out, playsuit et al, and have managed to develop about 13,73,856,486,345 additional freckles on my arms and chest, as well as a "tan" line where the playsuit was tied, where my skin looks red and there's two lines which are insanely white. fab. I might fake tan later to try and hide this. I also feel a bit woozy from being out in the sun all day because I'm so not used to it.

notd: nails inc victoria

excuse the messy cuticles...

I know, I said I'd try to keep polish free and just use my nail envy. I failed. I happened to suddenly remember one of my all time favourite colours. this.