NOTD: Peach Melba

The sun is finally peaking out, it's a massive 22C so I needed a nail to match. Barry M's 'Peach Melba' is such a lovely shade. The peach tones really make my hands looked tanned.

 It's a beautiful colour but the formula for this polish is pants. It needs two coats as a minimum, it's very thick and gloopy but still manages to dry streaky as you can see in the photo below. I only put two coats on due to the thickness as this polish take forever to dry and even a day after applying it you can press on the nail and you are left with an indent. It doesn't chip per se, it more peels off in one swoop.

But I will continue to put up with this terrible formula just to get an hour or two wear out of this! Maybe it is just my bottle and if it runs out I may purchase another and hopefully that will be fine or Barry M might have changed the formula since?

If you know of a polish this colour that has a great formula please let me know!!!

Budget Daytime Smokey Eye

I've very recently hit pan on an eyeshadow which made me realise just how much I use it!
It comes from the below MUA Heaven and Earth palette that I bought about a year ago. I've hit pan on the top right shade which is a orange gold shimmer.

It's perfect to use with the darker brown shade below it to create a light daytime appropriate smokey eye.

I take the top gold shade and put that all over the lid, you can do this quite sheerly or pack it on for a bold colour. I then take the darker brown, and put that in the crease and outer V and blend away. Add some mascara and you have a quick and easy (and purse friendly) eye.

The palette costs about £4.00 from Superdrug, but I think I got mine half price in some sort of offer which Superdrug tend to have on all the time. The shadows aren't the best quality out there but they are highly pigmented, wear all day on me without creasing and I have no complaints. They do a few palettes, some neutral and some more colourful, so if you're on a budget they are definitely worth you checking out!

MUA Eyeshadow Palette in 'Heaven and Earth'

Cheeky Shopping Spree

Christmas always lends itself to receiving vouchers so you can treat yourself, so I took myself to Boots and Mac and had a field day!!

L-R - Mac Mineralised Skin Finish in Soft and Gentle

Stella McCartney - Stella EDP

Revlon Color Stay Lipliner in Red

Revlon Grow Luscious Mascara in Extreme Black

Mac Eyshadows in Satin Taupe and Woodwinked

Mac Retro Matte Lipstick in Ruby Woo

I had heard a lot about Stella and Grow Luscious recently. Stella is very sweet and floral, which I love and is a great daytime perfume for me. I haven't tried the mascara yet as I'm currently using Maybelline's The Falsies, but I know a lot of people absolutely love Revlon mascaras so I am excited to try it!

L - Revlon - Red

R - Mac Ruby Woo

 Ruby Woo is the most beautiful matte blue based red. It is slightly drying on the lips due to the matte texture, so make sure you use a really thick lip balm before you want to apply this. Teamed with the Revlon lipliner, this lip lasts for bloody ages and they are a perfect match for each other.

L - R: Soft and Gentle, Woodwinked, Satin Taupe

I needed a new highlighter so I chose Soft and Gentle because of it's bronze quality. I don't think an outright bronzer suits me, but the gold/bronze tones really seem to work with my skin tone if I don't go too wild with it.

I always try and get something I wouldn't buy myself usually when I get vouchers, so I decided to try Mac Eyeshadows. I have been super loyal to Urban Decay shadows since I got my Naked palette and didn't think I would ever need to deviate, but these two shades really caught my eye so thought I would get one of the quad palettes.

I'm so glad that I took the plunge as I really love these shades. Woodwinked and Satin Taupe are so interesting on the eye, and can be blended in such a way that you don't need an extra shade to define the socket, they do it all on their own. The colour payoff is amazing, so really need just the tiniest amount.

I think I will be going back to Mac very soon to complete my quad, and I can't believe I have bypassed Mac shadows for this long!!

NOTD: Essie's 'Go Overboard'

On my nails at the moment is this gorgeous shade from Essie. 'Go Overboard' is a very deep blue/green with a cream finish. I absolutely love the colour, and I don't think any photo can do it justice, it photographs a lot darker than it is. In person, the light bounces off it and it is so interesting to look at.

I have two coats in the picture above, but I think you could get away with just one coat as it is a really opaque formula and Essie brushes lend themselves to a near perfect application. Can you tell I just love Essie in general?!

I also love the name, I think it describes it perfectly, the blue of the sea and green of seaweed. I think this is a great colour to try if you are getting tired of the reds and plums that seem to come with winter trends.

Have you any suggestions of other great colours in the Essie line?

http://www.essie.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=406

Review: Boots Extracts Cocoa Butter Sugar Scrub

I've been using this scrub for about 5 months now so I think I have a well informed opinion on this!

 You get a lot for your money with this product, as you can see I have a lot left and I use it 2 or 3 times a week. It smells lovely, but if your smell it for too long it can smell a little plasticy. I quite like this scrub as the particles really do feel like they are exfoliating, although they feel more like sand particles than sugar.

 My only gripe with this scrub is that it leaves a very waxy residue on the skin afterwards, which is incredibly hard to wash off and slightly ruins the effect, but you may like that feeling or find it moisturising. It also makes your shower/bath very slippy and pain to clean off the grease.

This costs £7.95 at the moment, which I'm not sure it is worth at all. I won't be repurchasing when this runs out and I may not use it until it's finished just because I think I will get really sick of trying to wash off the oil every time!

http://www.boots.com/en/Extracts-Fairtrade-Cocoa-butter-sugar-scrub-400ml_997802/

Do you have any recommendations for a non waxy or oily body scrub
xo

Soap and Glory's 'What's Nude' Eyeshadow Palette

I've had this palette for about a year now and I've had quite a lot of use out of it. Soap and Glory's Lid Stuff Flawless Finish Eyeshadow in 'What's Nude' is a lovely little quad. It's perfect for the times when you don't have much time to pull together an eye look and want a little more than a wash of colour on the lid.

It comes with 4 shades, Vanilla - a matte white, Pink T - a matte skin toned pink, Mudhoney - a matte light brown and Aubersheen - a purple/brown shimmery shade. I love that there are so many matte shades, as nearly every palette from every brand is all shimmer shades or just one matte shade thrown in.

The typical look I throw together with this is to put a wash of Pink T all over the lid to even out the skin tone, then a wash of Aubersheen, taking it up into the crease and building it deeper into the outer corner, and then lightly fill in my eyebrows with Mudhoney and push it into my lash line for some definition. Sometimes I will use Vanilla as a browbone/inner corner highlight.

The only gripe I have, which you can see in the swatches below is that the shadows are slightly chalky and do have a tendency to drop down upon application. Soap and Glory promise 8 hours of no crease wear, which I can definitely say this is true for me, but I never have problems with creasing anyway.

I also really like that this palette doesn't come with a horrible sponge applicator that would fall out every time you open it, and which I always throw away anyway! This palette retails for £10.00 but Boots nearly always have a 3 for 2 offer or something similar in the lead up to Christmas.

http://www.boots.com/en/Soap-Glory-8482-Lid-Stuff-8482-Flawless-Finish-Eyeshadow_1243290/

Moisuriser of the moment

So England has pretty much skipped Autumn and gone straight to winter, which means my face is as dry as a pie.

No 7 Beautiful skin Day Cream for Dry/Very Dry skin is lovely. It is super thick and creamy and my skin just drinks it up. Because it's so thick, it is quite tricky to smooth into the skin and requires a bit of pressure, but I am more than willing to do so to get it into my thirsty skin!

Also it contains SPF 15 which is great as I'm lazy and cannot be bothered or have the time to layer an SPF under my moisturiser everyday!

The range caters for most skin types, but I can't speak for the Normal or Oily versions. This retails for £12.50 but I always wait for the Boots No 7 £5 off vouchers to repurchase this!

http://www.boots.com/en/No7-Beautiful-Skin-Day-Cream-for-Dry-Very-Dry-Skin-50ml_1245036/