Friday, 14 September 2012

NOTD: Mermaid Gradient Glitter

Triple whammy NOTD post for you today!

I finally got around to experimenting with gradient nails when I got my hands on some sponges.
As my nails seemed to have grown like crazy and for once not flaked away (thanks to Revlon's Post Trauma nail treatment I believe!) I couldn't resist going for it this time so decided to cover 3 trends in one.



Firstly I painted my nails in this gorgeous turquoise colour from Rimmel 60 seconds, have no idea what the name is but its a metallic turquoise that has been available for a while and the colour is a must have!

(I also applied a top coat before this...my latest one is the calcium gel nail hardener from Revlon...dream!)


Then I nabbed one of my new sponges and used Max Factor's Odyssey Blue to sponge onto the ends to create a gradient effect:


Then I covered the design with a Saffron blue glitter which I bought off ebay (you can find plenty if you search for Saffron glitter!)


Which basically created this beeeeeeeautiful blue green shimmery mermaid tail esque design!
(What a mouthful!)


Here it is in different lights so you can get the full effect.
They are a little messy as these were pre clean up (silly me!)

I also used my favourite top coat (Sally Hansen Insta Dry) and so far, a whole week later and it's just starting to show the ends of my nails but still no chipping or cracking which is amazing!


What do you think of my take on mermaid nails?
Link us to your mermaid nails if you've done them as I love seeing variations!!


L xxx

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Thursday, 13 September 2012

Bloggers Unite to Loose Weight No2

So 1 week has passed since my First post, found here if you fancy a read.

This week has been up and down for me if I'm honest. I seem to keep having busy weekends (not a bad thing) but I struggle to be good when I'm out with friends and celebrating.

This weekend was a huge one for me. One of my closest friends from home got engaged! I was so excited I spent Friday night making her a wedding planner so I skipped dinner and traded it for a peanut butter corenetto! It was amazing.

For me now I'm trying to be good during the week so at weekends I can let myself relax a bit. This seems to be working for me as I don't excessively over indulged at the weekend.

During the week if I crave something I have it.....But if it's bad for me I make sure I exercise enough to burn it off. On Tuesday I couldn't get fish and chips out of my head. So I went for a run with my debit card in hand and told myself unless I ran for 40 minutes I wasn't having it. I'm quite bad at bribing myself with things to exercise but it works for me.

Exercise

Exercise is now becoming a battle. I'm running further which I love but I'm now finding my hips are so painful it's stopping me going further rather than my fitness. I think a trip to the doctor is needed soon for a check up and maybe some new trainers. I was hoping I could last till Christmas without trainers but I'm not sure that's the case.

Food

Last week I picked up the hairy dieters cook book and for anyone dieting or trying to eat better I can not recommend it enough. It is full of amazing recipes. Most are pretty easy to cook too.

For me food wise the best thing I can do is eat as much food that I cook myself as possible. I tend to do a huge shop then cook a lot for a week and freeze a lot of meals so that when I'm lazy I'm not grabbing a frozen pizza or take away. I used to eat a lot of take away.

The hairy bikers have an amazing sweet and sour chicken meal which comes in around 450 calories with rice but today I wanted to share with you Chinese Yuk Sung. It's such an amazing dish and with the lettuce comes in at under 250 calories!! I've given this recipe to so many people and the hardest thing is chopping some veg. 

I'm finding Chinese a popular food choice to cook as their meals are reasonably low cal when cooked yourself.


Ingredients needed sorry for the blurry photo. I always use white wine vinegar for it as it's what I keep in the house.

To start with spray a non stick pan with fry light and crush the garlic into it. Add the grated ginger and finely chop the spring onions and add. 

Finely chop carrots (I tend to grate them as I like them small) celery and chop the water chestnuts in half.


Turn the heat to medium and gently fry the garlic, and spring onions for a few minutes. Then add the minced pork and cook until the pork is sealed.


Once the pork is sealed add the chopped carrots, celery and water chestnuts and cook for 4 - 5 minutes.


Next add the vinegar, soy sauce, oyster sauce, cornflour and Worcestershire sauce


Cook for a further two minutes until  vegetables are soft and meat is cooked (I forgot to add sweetener today and tasted no difference)


Spoon a quarter of the mixture onto a bed of iceberg lettuce or into little gem lettuce leafs.


Weight loss

This week even with a naughty weekend (yet again) I lost another 1lb. I'm happy with this as I'm still getting to enjoy my food while gradually losing weight and I'm hoping to adopt a healthier life style now more than a diet.

One thing I'm really noticing now is my jeans feeling baggy. I'm pretty sure that only started this week. So far I've found it frustrating that the scales were saying I'd lost the weight but I didn't feel it. Though I still look in the mirror and I'm not seeing much shred from my stomach and bum it's nice to have my jeans feel loser and it's pushing me more.

So that's this weeks update. Hope you liked the recipe in it. Would you like to see more healthy ones? How is your weight loss going if you're trying?

Love M

xxx

Don't forget to check out some of the other lovely bloggers doing this challenge










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Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Guest Post: Beauty Bird

We have our second guest post here for you today!

Today we have Beauty Bird from Ramblings of a Beauty Bird, hope you enjoy!



First of all thank you so much to the girls at CSI Beauty Blog for asking me to guest post! I’m a regular reader of their blog, so it’s an honour to write for them. This is also my first ever guest post, so pretty exciting! 
In the past few months I seem to have had so much to pay for; my car tax and MOT fall in the same month and me and my boyfriend finally decided to go ahead and get a puppy! So I've needed to cut down in other areas and when it comes to beauty products I've set myself a "go cheaper" challenge. Basically the essence of the challenge is to replace any of my used up products with a dupe, or very similar product, that is cheaper. I've not set myself really strict rules on this otherwise I know I'll never stick to them! Especially as there's a few products that I just love too much to replace with something different. I wish I could do a spending ban but I know it would never happen!!
Here's what I've come up with for my go cheaper challenge! I've primarily shopped around online, with the aim of picking up some discounts here. Where I have found a product online cheaper than RRP, I've made a note of the website afterwards.

Dry Shampoo



Original Product: Batiste Dry Shampoo - £2.99 for 200ml
Go Cheaper Product: Girlz Only Dry Shampoo - £1.50 for 150ml
Saving: Overall £1.49 / £0.50p per 50ml

Concealer



Original  Product: Clinique Airbrush Concealer - £17.00
Go Cheaper Product: Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer - £4.19
Saving: £12.81

Primer



Original Product: Benefit POREfessional - £23.50 (technically I only have the sample size, but I want the full size!)
Go Cheaper Product: bareMinerals Prime Time Foundation Primer - £16.50 (www.escentual.com)
Saving: £7.00

Blusher



Original Product: Jane Iredale Pure Pressed Mineral Blusher in Parfait - £17.35 (www.mineralbeauty.co.uk)
Go Cheaper Product: Youngblood Cosmetics Pressed Mineral Blush in Petal - £13.50 (uk.strawberrynet.com)
Saving: £3.85

Foundation



Original Product: Cover FX Natural FX Water Based Liquid Foundation - £37.00
Go Cheaper Product: Vichy Dermablend Dermasmooth Corrective Foundation - £13.18 (www.escentual.com)
Saving: £23.82

Exfoliator



Original Product: Dermalogica Skin Prep Scrub - £19.55 (www.jerseybeautycompany.co.uk)
Go Cheaper Product: Vichy Purete Thermale Detoxifying Exfoliating Cream - £9.35 (www.escentual.com)
Saving: £10.20

Have you set yourself any beauty challenges recently? Do you try and "go cheaper" where you can?

Beauty Bird xx





We're really enjoying having different people post on our blog and were so excited when this one came through, think we'll be racing you to the shops for these products!


If you're interested in writing us a guest post, get in touch via twitter or email :)

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Tuesday, 11 September 2012

First FOTD

Hey all

Today I thought I do a FOTD for you I took these photos a while back but haven't braved putting them on here yet. Hope you like this post, let me know. Personally I like seeing these posts as I like to see the products people use regularly and how they look on.


So here is the make up I used. This day was a cheap face make up day and a lazy one, no priming, eyeliner or contouring!

Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation in True Ivory - £5.99
17 blush in shade in Nude - £3.49
Natural Collection pressed powder in Cool - £1.99
MAC MSF in Soft and Gentle - £21.50
Accesorise brushes (part of a set at Christmas)
MAC 168 Large Contour Brush - £26.00
Real Techniques Stippling Brush - £11.99
Eylure Shape and Shade Brow Kit - £10.99
Soap and Glory Thick and Fast Mascara - £10.00
17 Peep Show Mascara - £6.29
MUA Heaven and Earth Palette - £4.00
MAC Fanfare Lipstick - £14.00
No7 Lipliner Shade Nude - £6.75 or £1.75 with voucher
Nivea Lip Balm - £1.65

First I apply my eyeshadow. 9 times out of 10 I will do my eyes before my foundation so if I get any fall out from foundation I don't have to re do my foundation. I also apply lip balm so my lips are ready for lipstick.


First I apply the 4th eyeshadow on the top row all over the eyelid. Next I define the crease of my eye with the 5th shadow on the bottom and lastly with eye shadow I do a V on the outer corner of my eye with the 5th shadow on the top row.


Next comes mascara. I always wear two different mascaras. I use two different ones usually depends on what two I grab out of my bag first. I apply thick and fast first to define and separate my lashes. I then use peep show to add some volume to my lashes.


I apply some of the lightest eyeshadow to the inner corner of my eye to make it look wider.

Next is foundation and Blush.

I apply Rimmel Wake Me Up all over using my stippling brush to get a nice even finish.


Then whilst doing the suck the cheeks in face I put the blusher on the apples of my cheeks and add a sweep of MAC MSF over my cheek bones and a sweep down my nose and under my brows.

Finally filling in my brows and wiping of my lip balm I line my lips to help the lipstick last.


This is such a gorgeous natural lip shade and one that gets plenty of wear.

So after all that my face looks like this!!


And in natural sunlight you can see the effect of the mineralize skin finish. This is the best highlighter I have used and I use it almost every day!!


So that's my first FOTD for the blog, hope you like it.

Love M

xxx





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