On My Nails This Week: Revlon Nail Enamel in Posh

This week saw my first foray into Revlon nail polishes. I don't know why I hadn't gone there before, as I'm a big fan of Revlon as a brand and love their makeup, but for some reason I had never thought to try out their nail-related offerings. However, while on the hunt for a dupe of Essie Mojito Madness, I stumbled across this beaut, which is called Posh (Shade 571). As well as this being a first for Revlon nails, it's also the first time I've welcomed such a shade to my collection. You'll often find me wearing mint and pastel greens, but emerald and forest greens were lacking in my collection until I saw the lovely Helen from The Lovecats Inc (if you don't already read her blog then get yourself over there after reading this post - Helen posts daily outfit posts and always has the most wonderful selection of beauty products to talk about - her hauls are second to none.) post an image on Instagram of various different green Essie nail polishes. It was a bit of a no-brainer really - I love emerald green, so why hadn't I thought about popping it on my nails?

I have to say, I'm really quite impressed with the formula of this nail polish. It goes on so smoothly without the merest hint of a streak, and it seems to dry pretty quickly too. (I used the Post Trauma Nail Treatment  - also Revlon as a base coat, but we'll talk more about that one later.) In terms of chipping, the tips of my nails did need a bit of retouching after a couple of days, but I have to take responsibility for that one as I didn't use a top coat.

These polishes come it at £6.49, which is a pretty mid-range price, and considering how high-end I think the sturdy packaging looks I think it's pretty good. You get 14ml for your money, which is more than you would with some of the more expensive brands, which is another bonus.

Have you tried any of the Revlon nail polishes? Which are your favourites?

xx

What I Wore - Outfit and Nails

Shorts, Zara  -  Shirt, Zara  - Spike Necklace, Ebay  -  Sandals, bought in Brazil   -  Bracelet, Ebay  -  Sunglasses, H&M

Buongiorno, it's a little bit late in the day, but better late than never is what I say, and anyway, who makes the rules? I like living on the edge.

Today's outfit is a bit of a Zara-fest, and is finished off with a pair of sandals that you will probably keep seeing popping up in my OOTDs, as I rather like them.

Nail-wise, I've opted for a spot of glitter, in the form of a Hit Nails polish in 'Rio' (how fitting) over Essie Liquorice (a creamy jet black), which is a current favourite combo of mine. To be honest, I think their are few pairings that look better than glitter against black or white.

I had the day off today, as I don't work Fridays, and neither does the hubby, so we went for lunch together and spent the afternoon chatting over coffee. He's headed off to work this evening, which means I'm left to my own devices, and am going to take full advantage by having a bit of a pampering session. My skin has gone a bit mental lately, and I seem to have constant break-outs on my skin, so I'm trying to do a detox mask a couple of times a week to help it along. Other than that though, I'm trying to keep my skincare pretty basic, as I'm not sure what exactly it was that was responsible for my skin troubles. With this in mind, I'm sticking to a couple of products that I know I can always rely on to keep my skin in check, and yesterday I finally caved and bought the La Roche Posay Effaclar Duo, which I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about, but needs must now that my skin is misbehaving. If anyone is interested in my fail-safe 'back to basics' routine, then I'm most probably going to be posting about it next week, so keep an eye out for that.

I haven't got much planned for the weekend, as I'm trying to save my pennies for our big move, but I've decided to go back to my Sunday 'Week in Photos' posts, as although I know they are a bit of a blogging cliche, I enjoy sharing my snaps at the end of the week. I've been getting much more into Instagram lately which means I will have plenty of photos to pop into the post, and I miss having rounding up my week on a Sunday, and having that weekend routine. What I post during the week is very much what I feel like at the time, but it's nice to have something regular for Saturdays and Sundays.

I hope you've all got some lovely things planned. Have a fantastic weekend.

xx

Nails Today: Fireworks

Hello beauts, today's post, as you can see, is another nail one. I hadn't done any for ages, and now there have been two in a week. Ooh, get me.

As with my previous nail post, I have gone for a beautiful glitter polish by a brand called Hits, and it contains gold, pink, blue and white flecks of sparkly goodness. All of the polishes in this little line, known as Glitter World, are named after famous cities, and this one is called Rome. Not too sure how the two are related, as it's not really a polish that screams 'Rome!' or 'The Pope!' or 'The Colosseum!' to me. But who am I to complain? Itlooks good, so I'm fine with it.

For the base colour, I went for a simple black polish from OPI, in the shade Black Onyx, and I think this really shows the glitter polish off to it's full advantage. It almost looks like fireworks against a dark night sky. It's a combo I'm really liking, and again I think it's perfect for the festive season, although I am now looking to hunt down some glitters containing more traditional Christmas colours - perhaps some wines, Emeralds and golds.

Do you know of any festive glitter polishes in these colours?

xx

Carnival Nails

Finally, a nail post! It's been such a long time since I've done one, mainly due to lack of inspiration and the fact that I seemed to be rocking variations of the same combos over and over, but finally, I have come up with something that makes me happy.

If you can excuse the less than perfect manicure ( this was taken on day four!), I have gone for a bit of Miss Sporty nail polish in gold (shade 312), and then a good dose of 'Rio Glitter's World' glitter polish, by a random brand called Hit. The polish contains turquoise, orange, pink and purple flecks and I love the contrast between these colours and the gold. To me, this look just screams 'party', which is very fitting for the festive season, although the colours themselves are not traditionally Christmassy ones.

I do think I could have layered on the glitter a bit more, but this time it wasn't the look I was going for. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out and will be experimenting with this combo again.

What's on your nails this week?

xx

Experimental Jungle Nails (Rush Job!)

If you read my post on Dior's new Golden Jungle collection over the weekend (if you didn't find it here), you will know that it's probably one of the most exciting new lines due out for A/W 2012,  featuring earthy greens, leopard print and crocodile effect alongside nudes and rich browns. One of my favourite things from the collection is undoubtedly the Golden Jungle Nail Art Duo in Crocodile Leather Effect. The combo features a golden base coat along with a khaki top coat, which, similarly to crackle polishes, dries to create the croc leather effect.

Well, last night, I found myself with chipped nails and no nail varnish remover, so I decided to do a quick patch-up job until I could get my hands on some today.

I slapped on a couple of coats of this Gold Miss Sporty polish, and then I painted on a thin layer of Up Colours Green Chrome Crackle polish, and this is the effect I got. As you can see, due to the layers of polish already underneath and the fact that my nails were badly in need of a shape and a file, the end result is not even a tiny patch on Dior's offering, but the look is not a million miles away and captures the luxurious urban jungle colour scheme that is going to be all over the place next season.

I just did this as a quick experiment really, to see how it would turn out, as I had never actually used my green crackle polish and was excited to try out the colour combo! I think that if I actually started from scratch and shaped my nails nicely, painting them carefully and finishing them off with a clear top coat to even out the surface a bit then this could actually look reasonably good (admittedly, as it is it looks a bit crap!), but I think I am definitely still going to find my debit card 'accidentally' making it's way into the chip and pin device at my nearest Dior counter before long!

If you pop on over to my Golden Jungle post (linked above) then you will see exactly what I mean - there is absolutely no contest!

What's on your nails today? Do you like the idea of the Golden Jungle colour scheme?

xx

Polka-Dot Nails

Just a 'spot' of nail art for you this evening.......sorry, couldn't resist that one!!

I have been wanting to try polka-dot nails for a long time now, but I had always assumed that I was just too clumsy to be able to do it! I used to be horrendous at doing my nails, but nowadays I am reasonably good, so after a little bit of a foray into crackle effects and ombre nails, with successful results, I decided that now was the time to give this cute little look a go.

I decided to go for this gorgeous pastel turquoise shade as a base, which is called 'Maltese', by popular Brazilian nail polish brand Risque. This is actually from their 'Dogs' line, which features an array of pretty pastels with a hint of shimmer, all going by names such as 'Poodle', 'Husky' and 'SharPei'. A bit of a random theme to go for, in my opinion, but the polishes are lovely all the same.

'Maltese' goes on pretty smoothly, and only requires one to two coats to achieve opacity. In the bottle, there is a subtle hint of shimmer, but this does not appear to translate onto the nail. I did find this particular formula to be a little slow-drying, but nothing too excessive.

For the polka-dots, I used OPI's Alpine Snow, which is a lovely bright, opaque white. I used an orange stick to dot it carefully onto the nails. As you can see, the look this created is not completely uniform, and the dots are not perfect, but I think it turned out pretty well nonetheless and quite like the results.

What's on your nails at the moment?

Have you tried any nail art this week?

I've said it once already today, but I'll say it again: Hope you've all had a splendid weekend!

xx

NOTW: Ombre Effect

Please excuse the state of my nails in general, I have been sporting this look for about a week now and have only now got round to taking some pictures for you!

I had been wanting to ombre my nails, but my first attempt a few weeks ago was far from successful, and very messy! But, not one to be deterred, I decided to give it another go, and this was the result.

First, I painted all my nails with two layers of Colorama's Pop Art Yellow and waited for it to dry completely.

I then took a plastic folder (just one of those cheap flimsy ones you put in ring binders) and painted on a generous line of each of the three colours I was using, from lightest to darkest (I chose Miss Sporty 326, which is a gorgeous bright coral, and 302, a pretty hot pink) . I used a small piece of sponge to soak up the polish and moved it up and down a little bit while doing so in order to blend the colours.

Then, I just pressed the sponge onto each of my nails, making sure to cover the whole surface, waited for it to dry and repeated the step a couple more times to achieve my desired result.

A couple of words of warning if you've never tried this before: 1) It is reeeally messy! Make sure you've got plenty of nail varnish/polish remover at hand before you start, as you do not want to run out and find yourself with rainbow hands you can't get rid of! And 2) The sponging means that the texture of your polish ends up being quite rough and bumpy, so you will need a couple of layers of a good clear topcoat to smooth things out and protect your artwork - I don't know about you, but after spending such a long time doing my nails and cleaning them up, I want them to last, even being someone who gets bored with my nail colours so easily!

I love this look for the summer, and love that you can mix it up with loads of different colour schemes. Next time I'm going to try some pastels and some pretty greens.

What's on your nails at the moment?

Have you ever tried to ombre yours?

xx

Little Catch-Up

I'm officially back and ready to blog!

Those of you who have read my previous post will know what happened, so I won't bore you with the details again! Although I will say that, despite all the time my laptop spent in 'hospital', it is still not fixed properly, and I am not impressed! My wireless is also still being a royal pain. It says I am connected and have perfect signal, but it also says that I have no internet access...!? I do not understand. So anyway, those two things put together mean that whilst I do indeed have internet access again, I am only able to use it if I plug in the ethernet cable and constantly wiggle it around in its socket in order to maintain the connection. Ideal.

While we're on the subject of technical troubles, can I also just have a quick rage about the fact that a) I couldn't use my new tablet thanks to lack of WiFi, so I returned it in favour of getting b) a new phone, which will neither connect to WiFi nor access the normal type of internet you get on your phone from your provider (I'm so tech savvy, can you tell by my description!?)

Anyway, that's it as far as ranting goes, just had to get that off my chest!

On a more positive note, the highlight of my week has been winning my first giveaway! Thanks to the lovely Natasha at Clouds and Cuticle Oil, (go and have a read when you've finished here!) I am soon to be the lucky recipient of an amazing sample set of The Hollywood Collection (skincare) by  Erno Laszlo, an MUA eyeshadow in shade 24, and a Stila Lip Glaze in Kitten! These are all new products for me, so I'm really looking forward to trying them out and writing some reviews for you. Thanks, Natasha! 

So that was a nice way to start my week, and here's hoping my lucky streak (let's pretend the technology probs don't exist!) continues and I end it with a lottery win! Ha, well we can all dream, can't we?

In beauty news, I have just ordered myself some samples of some gorgeous Benefit bronzers and blushers, and I can't wait for them to arrive! I have basically been wanting pretty much all of them for a while now, so as I was struggling to choose, I thought this might be the best way to go about it. Sadly, I wasn't able to get my hands on the Hervana blush, but I did get Coralista and Posie Tint, as well as the Hoola and Dallas bronzers.

I have also successfully managed to ombre my nails this week, NOTD post up about that tomorrow :-)

Hope everyone is having as pleasant a work week as possible so far! If you are off on holiday or just have some free time to relax then lucky you! I am so looking forward to making myself a cuppa now and settling down to catch up on all the blog posts of yours that I have missed!

xx

NOTD: Maybelline/Colorama with Stars!

Ok, so I know that a lot of my NOTDs feature Brazilian nail polish brands, but that is because I have a LOT of Brazilian nail polishes! I really like them, and they are great value for money. But if you are fed up of them, don't stop reading, because I have made an interesting discovery!

But today, I'm wearing Colorama polish in 'Blue Horizon', which is from their Africa collection,  and after some research, I have discovered that Colorama is actually by Maybelline! It doesn't say so on the Brazilian bottle, but it is indeed the same as the Maybelline Coloramas available in the UK!

 On top of that, I am also wearing Mohda's 'Glitter', which I am absolutely loving because it is full of little silver stars! The only problem is that it's a bit difficult to get them onto the nails, as they tend to stick to the applicator brush!

I've seen another polish that is the same but with little hearts in it, wish I had picked that one up too.

What's on your nails this weekend?

Are you having or going to a Jubilee party?

xx

NOTD: Crackle Effect

Bonjour, beautiful people. A little NOTD post for you today!

This week, I decided it was about time I got my hands on one of the 'crackle effect' nail polishes I have been hearing so much about of late, and see what all the fuss was about.

Until about a year ago, I was absolutely horrific at doing anything with my nails, and it would take me so long to do them that once they were finished, I would leave them for a good couple of weeks, avoiding having to do them all over again for as long as possible. So you can imagine that my nails would not be looking in the best state by the time I finally cracked (excuse the pun) and gave them another go.

These days, I am quite the opposite, and I love painting my nails and changing my look a few times a week, although I must admit, I am far from perfect at doing them and still find it a bit fiddly (I did this look in a bit of a rush, and I took the pictures before I had cleaned around the edges, so please excuse that!).

Anyway, the polishes I used to complete this look were: Miss Sporty Quick-dry polishes in 346 (a deep turquoise), 330 (a mint green) and 312 ( a beautiful shimmery gold), along with Risque's Crackle Polish in black.

First, I painted all but my ring fingers with two layers of the deep turquoise, before deciding that I would like a lighter base, which is when I painted a layer of the mint green on top. On the ring fingers, I did two layers of the gold, which is pretty opaque, as gold polishes go.

When all the colours were dry, I then painted a thin layer of the crackle polish over the top and waited for them to dry.

I've got to say, I am so impressed with this crackle polish and I really love the effect it has produced on my nails! Having seen pictures of nail looks done with crackles before, I was sure there must be some sort of catch, because it looked so arty and I just couldn't believe it could be as easy as just painting it on and waiting! But it is, and it's brilliant. I will be rocking this look for weeks to come, with various different shades underneath, and I'm also hoping to get my hands on some other crackle colours.

Next week, I'm going to try it with a lovely pastel lilac, and a lemon yellow on the ring fingers. :)

A little tip for you, if you want to give the crackle polishes a go: You only need a very thin layer! You might also want to put a layer or two of clear base coat over the top to seal the look and give your nails a shine, as the crackle polishes themselves usually tend to have a matte finish.

Hope everyone is having a splendid weekend!

xx

Little Catch-up

I'm back! Hooray. I have finally managed to get someone over to sort out the internet in my new house, so here I am, with lots of posts and blog-reading to catch up on! I would really like to give you an exciting update, but the truth is that the weekend was spent mostly moving house, unpacking belongings and tidying up. However, I did manage to squeeze in a visit to the circus on Thursday, and also found time to dye myhair back to more or less it's natural colour on Sunday. I used a semi permanent shade from L'oreal's Casting Creme Gloss range, which is called 'Brownie'(454). Sounds delicious, and I'm really happy with the way it - it's left my chronically over-dyed hair feeling really soft, and looking lovely and shiny, which is something I had almost given up on after going lighter last year, which really dried it out.
Anyway, here it is, in all it's glory, if you will! (I just left it to dry naturally as I was only pottering around the house that day).

Makeup:

Benefit Erase Pate in shade No.2

Mac Studio Fix Fluid SPF15 in NW30

mixed with

Mac Mineralise Satin Finish SPF15 in NW20

L'oreal Glam Bronze Duo Sun Powder in Blonde Harmony

Topshop Blush in 'Powdered'

Mac Mineralise Skinfinish in 'Soft and Gentle'

Max Factor Masterpiece Glide and Define Liquid Eyeliner in Black

L'oreal Volume Million Lashes in Brown

L'oreal Colour Riche Serum Lipstick in Radiant Rose.

At the Circus

             My new absolute favourite nail polish! 

All will be revealed in a NOTD post within the next few days - 

just need to get some better photos to show you!

Moving Day

So that was pretty much my week. Still no sign of my Ebay haul, which I am just itching to get my hands on and am looking forward to featuring here and doing some reviews for. In the meantime, I have plenty more to be blogging about!

Hope everyone had an amazing bank holiday weekend!

xx

Nails Of The Day!

I just wanted to quickly show you the look I have been enjoying on my nails for the past few days before I take off the polish and do them a different colour, but unfortunately, my camera is still up the spout, so I have had to find pictures to illustrate what I went for online. So, picture credits for this particular post must go to http://oxentechique.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/verniz-poodlegemssamba-juliana.html, and I do hope she doesn't mind. I want to make a point of saying that this would not be my normal approach, I just really wanted to show you how my nails are at the moment, and this was the only way to do so!

So, for this look, I used Brazilian brand Risque's nail polish in 'Poodle'. It's a lovely pastel lilac colour, but I have to say that I was slightly disappointed after application, as though smooth and fast drying, it had appeared to have some subtle shimmer in the bottle, which didn't transfer to the nails.

The second polish I used is this pretty glitter one, which is 'Gems', by Milani. Actually, I did it slightly differently and only applied the glitter to my ring finger nails, but I couldn't find a more accurate photo for you!

Milani nail lacquers are available from their website, but you can also find them quite easily on Ebay. For a choice of their gorgeous glitter polishes, as well as some other brands like Kleancolor and NYX Girls, visit Joy's Cosmetics ebay store. Joy is a top-rated seller.

Unfortunately, I can't find a supplier of Risque in the UK for you ( I picked mine up in Brazil), but I will keep my eyes peeled and let you know if the polishes become available.

Milani Glitter Polishes (£2.75 - £2.90) in Gems, Gold, Silver, Fuchsia, Lavender, Teal, Hot Pink and Red.

Hope everyone is over the Monday blues and having a lovely evening!

xx