NOTD: China Glaze Pool Party

Day 3!

This beauty is my absolute favourite at the moment!

It goes perfectly on fingers and toes and pretty much any occasion when the weather is this blooming lovely!!

Check out that SUN!

I managed to go a bit pink on my shoulders today from my 20 minute sit down at lunch time, woohoo!

This is another polish I picked up from America, from a brand that me and M love, and I'm pretty sure M introduced me to.

China Glaze prides itself on having no toluene, DBP or formaldehyde in its products which we of course LOVE on this blog, chemicals are bad!

Pool Party is from the Neon collection so take a look at how it turned out:

It even contrasts beautifully with my room behind it haha.

It was a beautiful colour to put on and needed the usual 2 coats to be as bright as you can see!

It really is a beautiful neon colour that you can't take your eyes off.

The only downside to this (for me) was that it dried with a kind of matte finish, it wasn't as matte as you get when you apply a top coat but it was definitely more matte than a usual polish.

It was odd and not quite what I look for in a polish as I love the shiny finish

So as I always do when painting my nails, I applied a top coat and had the wonderfully shiny finish as below:

I just cannot get enough of this colour, and even though I bought a silly ridiculous 17, yes SEVENTEEN nail varnishes whilst in the US, this one is hands down my favourite of the bunch and the others aren't getting much of a look in!

What do you think of Pool Party? Do you like China Glaze?

You can still buy them in the UK but unfortunately only on eBay as far as I know, though you can still get them for around £8!

L xxx

NOTD - Tuxedo Nails

So Day 2 of our 21 days of nails! Today I'm showing you tuxedo nails. Everyone went crazy for these after Zooey Deschanel was spotted with this very cute manicure on the red carpet. I'm a little behind and decided to give it a try last Saturday as I was wearing a nude and pink dress and wanted some nail art to blend with it.

As I'm yet to own nail art pens (I use my dotting tool) and I don't have a steady hand I decided on a feature nail. You'll notice I favour this manicure a lot through these nail posts.

Firstly I painted a base coat of OPI Nail Envy Maintenance (the best at the moment for me) then I painted all of my nails with two coats of  OPI bubble bath. Its a gorgeous slightly sheer nude pink. Even though it's sheer I actually really like the colour which surprised me. It applied easily. I have the small bottles as I have the best of the best collection ( a great set of 10 mini OPI polishes in their most popular shades. I fully recommend it.)

When it was completely dry I started by doing the bow tie. I did two little triangles and a dot for this. You could use a kirby grip if you are like me and don't have nail pens. (I should add yet, as I don't think I can resist the Models Own stand much longer) I used OPI Lincoln After Dark for this. I always use this for my dark colour in nail art as I don't own black nail varnish.

Excuse my disgusting stubby nails, I bit all this hand the other day, naughty me!!

Then using my dotting tool I did 3 dots for buttons and used the brush in the pot for two triangles at the side. I really like this look and will definitely do it again.

Did you try this manicure before? Would you try it again? I think nail art pens would make it much easier.

Love M

xxx

21 days of nails! Day1: Revlon Nail Treatments

Me and M have both bought quite a few new nail bits and pieces recently so we decided to make it a theme and do 21 Days of Nails.

I'm sure many other blogs have done something similar but we have so many nail things to share with you that we couldn't resist doing the same ourselves!

So Day 1 is based on the wonderful new products from Revlon.

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of one of the products as it seems to have disappeared which is rather annoying!

I'm a big fan of their new nail treatments and now between me and M I think we have them all...

Mine include the Post Trauma Nail Treatment (no photo of this unfortunately!) Calcium Nail Hardener and Liquid Quick Dry.

I've had a problem with my nails since last December time (ish) where they've been peeling and generally in bad condition for no reason really!

Nothing I could do would make it go away.

The first products that have got rid of ANY peeling at all and any softness in my nails have been the use of both the Post Trauma nail treatment and Calcium gel nail hardener.

Below in the photo I have on the Post Trauma one:

It's a light pink colour in the bottle but as soon as you paint it onto your nails the colour disappears and the polish appears to melt into your nails and mattify them, it's such a weird thing!

After using this whilst I was in America and digging a hell of a lot using my hands I never thought there was a hope it would work, but it actually did!!

I couldn't believe it.

I then applied the Calcium Gel on top of the Post Trauma which as you can see in the pictures above is a white colour, but it dries clear on your nails with a shine.

You can use both of these on their own for a specific problem, combined for the ultimate in nail treatment and protection, or under your normal manicure of choice and the effects are still brilliant.

I would more than recommend these in place of other more expensive nail treatments such as OPI Nail Envy. I have never used the Nail Envy and I know that it is very popular but for those who are on more of a budget this more than does the job!

What do you think of these treatments? Would you try them over OPI?

I hope you enjoy the 21 days of nails, we're really excited about all the posts we've got coming up!

L xxx

L bought me back the gentle cuticle remover and I was so excited to use it. I've recently started looking after my cuticles so this was something I was excited to try. I tend to use cuticle oil on my nails every night then a cuticle remover once a week when I give myself a mini mani. I was recently ussing my mums Sally Hansen gel cuticle remover which was like a scrub which I loved. I really like this Revlon one though as it's more gentle on the cuticles which is a bonus as they are delicate and it will last longer. I'm also off to town today to pick up the post trauma treatment.

If you've read nail posts written by me you'll know I'm in love with OPI nail envy (review found here) It's the best nail strengthener I've used. After I used that bottle up I then picked up a bottle of the nail envy maintenance which I equally love but it's quite expensive and I've almost run out so I'm keen to see if I can get as good results as L did with the Revlon ones.

What is your go to strengthener? I have very weak nails after biting them very very short for 21 years of my life. I'm still resisting at the moment. I find I bite them less if I have them painted. I'm determined to have pretty long nails.

Love M xxx

Review: Mac Eye Brows

I am SO excited to show you this purchase!

I have wanted a higher end eye brow product as after having my eyebrows done in Mac for my birthday makeover I absolutely loved the look they gave me and my Sleek brow palette, whilst great for every day use isn't quite the right colour for me.

After browsing the Mac website I decided I was going to get an eye brow product. 

It's odd as it's like a pencil but they don't call it a pen, pencil, crayon or anything like that, it's just known as 'Eye Brows'....but I've decided it's a crayon!

It's boxed as usual in the iconic black and white packaging and is a really streamline small box which I always like as unnecessary packaging is....well unnecessary. 

It's a waste of time, money and materials but Mac are always ahead of the game with this kind of thing, particularly with their Back to Mac scheme

I picked up the crayon in Spiked, which for me is the perfect brown.

My eyebrows are actually black but as my hair is brown, having black eyebrows would look a bit silly (in my opinion) so I needed a dark brown that isn't too reddy in tone as that look silly on me too!

So onto the crayon itself:

It's a sleek pencil shaped product with a plastic nib area that you twist to get the product out.

This is very handy as it will never snap and you never need to sharpen it, genius!

It's got quite a small tip so application is pretty easy and precise

In fact, it may even be a little too precise for my liking, it takes a little while for me to fill in the gaps in my brows and define them to a look I like!

You can see in the picture below how small the end is, which I would much rather prefer than it be too big and end up with me drawing all over my forehead...

So here's one of my eyebrows....I had serious issues trying to take a picture without me squinting, pulling a face and generally not getting my eyebrow in the shot so the photos aren't great, sorry!

All I have on is foundation in this shot:

You can see they're pretty dark but need filling in because I have some gaps in them.

I've never had my eye brows done but always wanted to. Maybe one day I'll get round to getting them done professionally!

So I filled them in using the crayon which is so easy to do and you can easily add more as you go if you don't want to do too much in one go:

In the above picture I have generally filled in the gaps and shaded lightly which I find is all I need for day wear, especially as my skin is so pale!

The crayon is so easy to use and doesn't drag on the skin at all. I also find it lasts all day and doesn't smudge down your face at all during the day.

When I go out however I up the ante in all respects!

More foundation, more bronzer, eyeshadow etc etc and define my brows to match.

I don't have eyeshadow on in the picture below but you get the idea!

Do you have any brow products you love? Have you tried the Mac crayon?

What do you think of the results?

L xxx