Beauty Rehab

I haven't posted one of these in a while but have still been trying to make my way through plenty of products!

It seems endless and although I always seem to be finishing things I feel I need to step it up a gear in time for Christmas.

This moisturiser was bought ages ago and it took me a while to use it up.

It was ok, the 'firming' ones never seem to work as well as they claim they do!

I wouldn't buy this again as it took quite a while to sink in.

These are both good tanners but not worth the money, sprays always seem to run out so fast and I personally prefer a lotion now, even if sprays can be easier to use on the back and hard to reach areas!

I personally felt that the Sanctuary Pore Refining Toner was, for want of a better word, pointless.

The smell was too floral for me and the spray felt like a waste of product, when the product was on my skin it felt like it didn't do a thing.

Liz Earle is obviously my favourite cleanser and every time I finish another bottle I die a little inside.

Maybe a little dramatic but it's true.

I am so tight for cash but this is one of the things I'd buy with pennies!

Loved the Dreams Unlimited butter, it sank in and didn't sit on my skin for a long time.

I personally would buy this again but the price of the Body Shop puts me off.

The Soap and Glory butter is just as moisturising but much cheaper.

The Tigi Control Freak Conditioner was great, and it smelt gorgeous!

I would pick this up again in TK Maxx as I feel it is worth the money.

Sebastian Potion 9 was bought ages ago on recommendation from my previous hairdresser.

I did enjoy using it and it did have a positive effect on my hair and maybe I'd buy it in the future but currently have so many hair products to use I can't afford the space.

The M&S Lime body butter was divine. I couldn't stop smelling myself whilst wearing it!

The smell lingered for a while but wasn't overpowering and my skin felt hydrated, would definitely buy it again!

As far as mattifiying moisturisers go the No 7 worked nicely. Seeing as my skin has become drier of late I found this does not provide enough hydration and so needed something more, and would be pointless in repurchasing.

I find Simple products a little boring. When I was younger they were great for when I had no idea what to use and my skin was more sensitive, but now I just felt like I was applying a cheap moisturiser and one that isn't quite so innocent as it seems.

How tastes change!

Benefit They're Real Mascara was in my opinion, amazing!

I did love it, but as with all mascaras they always run out or dry up and sometimes this seems a little annoying for the price tag.

I would pay for this again, but due to my current financial situation I will be sticking to my current new find which I will be blogging about soon!

The Pretty Quik nail drying spray was another pointless buy.

I never find that they help and always leave my hands greasy so I think I will have to remember this every time I consider it!

What have you been using up recently? Have you been trying to use more before Christmas?

L xxx

Earrings for Sensitive Ears

Ever since I got my ears pierced I had nothing but trouble with them and wearing earring for any length of time just made them itchy and irritated. As I got older they got worse. Where silver and gold used to be ok I now couldn't wear these for any length of time either. In the end I stopped wearing earrings all together. For half an hours wear on a night out my ears would hurt and it wasn't worth it.

As I got new body piercings as soon as the six weeks was up I'd go and get plastic body jewellery as they seemed to help the healing. I don't know why but until I was in Matalan on Sunday I hadn't thought to look for normal earrings made of plastic.

So when me and mum were browsing the jewellery I think she was just as excited as me to see these.

9 pairs of studs in a range of colours for only £6 bargain.

And even better, they are completely plastic. I snapped them straight up. Or I should say my mum did for me! I was so excited at the prospect of being able to wear normal earrings all the time I almost when straight to the piercing shop to get more done.

As soon as we got in the car I put a pair of these bad boys in. Honestly they hurt first off (my ears haven't had earrings in for probably a year and when they have it's been for very short periods of time) they are quite thick and my ears weren't used to it. After 10 minutes they felt fine. I have slept in them and worn them for 48 hours now and know problem.

Such a simple thing but I really hope Matalan bring out more earrings like this or more companies embrace the plastic for the bit that goes in the ear so I can wear more earrings! 

I can't find them online but in my local store they had quite a few pairs.

Do you wear earrings regularly? Do you have problems with discomfort from them? Would you consider plastic ones?

Love M

xxx

NOTD: Halloween Theme!

Aaaaah Halloween week! 

We love a theme and what better than scary spooky Halloween?!

We went a little nail crazy with ideas and decided to put them all on one post so you can see for yourself and hopefully get some different ideas!

First up is a galaxy nail style design:

I used the following polishes:

Nails Inc Black Taxi was the base coat, with the Max Factor Silver and Nails Inc orange from in Style sponged on top in galaxy style. I then added some stickers from the picture below (Andrea Fullerton at Superdrug) and then the Saffron glitter on top.

It was a nice relatively easy style to do and a little different!

Next up I attempted to do my own spin on the Sugar Skull nails which was SO MUCH fun:

I started off with a white base coat which looked a bit flat so added on a shimmery white polish on top.

Then I used Models Own black nail pen to draw on triangles for the nose so I could keep the whole face as central as possible:

After this I used my dotting tools using the largest dot and applied the eyes and mouth using this.

I used 5 different bright colours on each hand, using 4 big dots to create the eyes followed by a line (of sorts!) for the mouth, as shown below:

Then I used the pen again to outline the eyes and putting a dot in the middle, and also lining the mouths and creating some teeth.

To make my own little spin on this I then added in a few dots, lines, squiggles etc so mine ended up looking a bit tribal!

I loved this design and it was definitely my favourite.

I had so many compliments, even from men serving me on tills in Superdrug and Tesco!

How random.

The last of my designs features a somewhat gimmicky polish from Barry M.

I've been using black and white a lot lately so picked up these colours from Barry M in Superdrug, and currently their promo is when you buy 2 products you get their limited edition orange 'web effect' polish for free.

I would never have bought this but as its a freebie the blogger in me wanted to give it a go:

As you can see it is different to a crackle effect, but not really producing a web effect!

The white does look pretty effective but the polish isn't opaque enough to cover the black polish sufficiently enough for you to see it, so this was a bit of a let down in my view and i was glad it was free!

Hope you like my designs!

Which one do you prefer?

L xxx

Today's post is a little late going up! I'm currently mourning the loss of the Ciate Advent Calender that was never meant to be I guess. No nail varnish everyday of December for me!

Anyway onto my Halloween nails. L's sugar skulls are my favourite. I was so impressed when she sent me photos of hers! I decided to have a go at a spooky castle type of nail art. Please ignore my grown out acrylics. They have been removed tonight!

I started off with two coats of Max Factor Max colour effect in shade cloudy blue (which isn't a cloudy blue shade at all) to creat a dark night sky. It reminds me of OPI Russian Navy. I really like the formulation of this polish and one coat was opaque but I did two for good measure.

On top of that I applied my new Sally Hansen polish I picked up in American in the shade glass slipper. I love the colour of this and the way it looks on the nail. It gave it a really starry night effect and you get so much glitter in one coat.

Partially as I wanted to try another new colour (OPI Altar Ego) and because I wanted it to look a little more foggy and spooky I applied a thin coat of Altar Ego which is a pearly white shade. I'll be interested to see what this looks like on a bare nail.

I really liked the effect and colour the combination of these three gave on the nail and I can't wait to use Altar Ego and Glass Slipper over different shades to see what they look like.

Once my nails were dry I used my Models Own nail art pen in black to drew the castle outlines.

I filled them in using the nail art pen too. I really need to invest in a good black nail varnish. I'm regretting not picking up OPI Black Onyx. What's your best black polish?

I then used OPI You Don't Know Jacques to draw a thumb on my nail and OPI My Pointe Exactly to create windows and my white Models Own Nail Art pen to Add a moon. 

Then using my Models Own Nail art pens I added details to the door, a cat and a ghost in the windows and some birds in the sky and on the moon. I like to think of them as Ravens.

and a close up of the thumb.

I wish they'd turned out a bit neater. I need to steady my hand more but overall I quite like them.

Have you tried Halloween Nail art?

Love M

xxx

Cardiff Fashion Week

During the week I was luckily enough to talk to Georgina from Makeup-Pixi3 and she told me about the event on Saturday night for Cardiff Fashion Week.

I was SO excited as we'd both tried to get tickets to attend the Thursday event but unfortunately were too slow and completely missed the tickets as they sold out so fast.

This was the first time ever that Cardiff has held it's own Fashion Week and we were really excited.

You can find some more information here.

Unfortunately by the point M had already booked tickets to go home for the weekend so I would be going on my own....but I told myself to man up and go and meet some other bloggers and enjoy myself!

I met Georgina and a few other bloggers before the event for a quick drink in Starbucks to get to know each other. I will link everyone at the bottom of the page so it's easier!

After this we made our way to Jamie's Italian for some food and drinks.

As you can imagine the food was OUTSTANDING.

I spent most of the time just staring at the food and sipping on some Prosecco, yummmmm!

After this we went outside to watch the final catwalk of the show, the finale if you like!

Here are some of the photos I took!

We were lucky enough to be at the end of the cat walk so we had the models walking straight at us, there were some other camera men there too so please ignore them!

They opened up with a dance routine, and I am absolutely in love with these shoes and the leopard print jacket at the front!

I really need to find out where those are from!

After this the evening gowns from Coast came out....and I want every single one!

These two are my personal favourites. The girls look stunning in them and are so simple but look great.

Love floaty maxi dresses!

I know M is personally after the dress on the right in the above picture, it's gorgeous and flowy!

Office wear was next and they performed another dance routine.

I was just impressed they managed to move in pencil skirts and sky high heels so well!!

Mmmm, male models in suits!

These kinds of dresses are my FAVOURITE!

I love sparkle and the heels here are from Quiz, NEED!

I especially need the heels if they make my legs look this good??!

This model looks amazing in them!

It was a lovely surprise to find out that Calvin Klein also had a part to play, especially when the male model strutted his way out.

Hello! 

I also really like the underwear on the model below, so will have to go in there and check them out as the print was gorgeous.

Cannot remember the brand here but thought the male models looked pretty good!

They finished off the cat walk show with another routine/song with the sparkliest glittery black dresses known to earth and they looked amazing under the lights.

I especially like the one at the front of the photo above!

She can move in it (below) and its so well fitting and comfortable looking as well as looking stunning.

After this a group of us went to Nandos for some chicken and a gossip!

I had the lushest time meeting everyone and can't wait for the next meet up.

The cat walk show was great to watch and as you can imagine I will have to stay away from Jamie's because I will surely put on a stone every time I go otherwise!

Hope you enjoyed the post!

Do you enjoy watching fashion shows and cat walks?

What do you like from the pictures I took?

L xxx

Here are the bloggers I met and their blogs!

Georgina: http://www.makeup-pixi3.com/

Laura: http://www.whatlauradid.com/

Kelsey: http://cutepandaa.blogspot.co.uk/

Charli: http://charli-dot-dot-dot.blogspot.com/

Amy: http://bonjourcupcakes.blogspot.co.uk/

Cariad: http://www.cariadity.co.uk/

Sara: http://uninterruptedmusings.blogspot.co.uk/

Liz: http://www.tantibacix.blogspot.co.uk/

Michaela: http://cardifforniagurl.blogspot.co.uk/

Stacey: http://bitchwithbite.blogspot.co.uk/