EOTD - Urban Decay Book of Shadows Vol 1

I purchased a new Mascara today so wanted to give it a try and did a quick eyeshadow look to match.

I used:

Shattered

Goddess - as an upper lash liner and in the crease

Midnight Cowboy - brow/inner eye highlight

Wet n Wild Mega Length Double Action Mascara

Models Own Haul

Today all my Models Own goodies arrived, woooo!! I used the free delivery service so was very glad when I found out they send their items first class.

I was also quite impressed with the packaging, a lovely black envelope with my order details inside.

All nail varnishes were neatly packed in twos, in little bubble wrap parcels.

 This little black eye pencil came free, as this was my first order with Models Own. The pencil even has its own sharpener! Genius.



These nail polishes look just as fantastic in real life as they did on the website - I can't wait to try them out! The one that probably surprised me most was Deep Purple, I didn't know it was going to be a black/purple duo chrome, but I don't have any polishes like that so I'm really glad.

Have you had any pleasant surprises from Models Own products, or any other products for that matter?

Are there any nail polishes you can't wait to try for Autumn??

Bongo Beat Nails

When I first saw this shade of nail polish I thought it would be my dupe of Peacock Green by Models Own, to stop me buying it, but I ordered it yesterday - hopefully it will arrive soon. My partner said that Peacock green had slightly more blue in it...so if he says they are different colours I can definitely justify having both!!

Bongo Beat, with and without flash



Peacock Green

In the mean time I decided to use Bongo Beat for a nail design using my art deco stamps, as I have been wanting to do a 2 colour stamp for a while. This colour makes both black and white stand out so it was the perfect choice.

I thought I would do something a bit different so I've also used a silver glitter by art deco for my nail tips. What do you think??

August & September Favourites

I only just realised I had missed out my August Favourite so I'll do them both together as we're almost at the end of September now! Scary really, it's almost Christmas!!

AUGUST

Arguebly the best mascara I've ever used. I've found it made my eyelashes look a lot longer, and somehow that there were more of them!! Either that, or I'm rubbish at using normal mascara and this helped me apply because it actually says what you're supposed to use each of the three different parts of the wand for! The tip is for applying the mascara, one side is for making your lashes longer and the other side is for separating lashes!! Brilliant.

SEPTEMBER

These are my new favourite nail varnishes, £1.79 each or 3 for £5!! I actually purchased a purple shade first, but when I got it home I realised I already owned a very similar colour, so got the red shade instead! I am hoping to apply Bongo Beat today, I am soooooooo in love with it and it's one of the first shades I have seen that can work as a dupe for Models Own - Peacock Green (which I wanted as soon as I saw it on the website and still do!).

Anything you're loving at the moment? Please let me know! Thanks for reading! xx

Achieving A Flawless Finish

Ok, so lately I've been watching a few videos by Kandee Johnson, the make up artist. I was especially excited about her perfect skin video which included contouring! For my post today I have kept two of her videos in mind.

Click here and here to view Kandee's videos on youtube, and click here to view her blog.

Here is a video of how I created a flawless contoured look.



I used Beautifully Balanced Cleanser and Toner, St Moriz Instant Self Tanning Mousse, No.7 Essential Moisturiser, NYC Natural Matte Foundation in shades 004 and 005, No.7 Perfect Light Loose Powder in Medium, Avon Bronzing Pearls, NYC Smooth Mineral Blusher and Natural Collection Gold Blush Creamy Cheek Tint.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.0

Youtube Flower Nail Design

Hi all, today I have been watching quite a few nail tutorials on youtube. The one I have applied to my nails this evening was my partner's favourite. See the video here.

It was quite an intricate design so I've only applied it to my thumbnails, which took about 10mins each!! Overall I took about half an hour, the base colour for my nails was 2 coats of one colour then a third coat in another colour, so each time I had to let the layers dry.

I used:

Quite a few different colours just for one thumb, but it was an experiment worth trying...one that again showed I'm not a great artist! I'm not sure my flowers actually look like flowers...perhaps more like white blobs? Hehe.

I'd be interested to hear if and how your copies of youtube videos have gone - it doesn't have to be nails.

Hot Pink FOTD

I took pictures of my FOTD way too late to post yesterday, so I repeated the look again today! I chose 3 colours, at random, from my Shiro Cosmetics collection. Squirtle, Mew & Articuno.

This is how it turned out:

FACE

NYC Natural Matte Foundation 004 all over face

NYC Natural Matte Foundation 005 to contour cheekbones

No.7 Perfect Light Loose Powder in Medium

NYC Smooth Mineral Loose Blush Powder  in Almost Apricot

EYES

Urban Decay Primer Potion

Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy

Shiro Cosmetics in Mew for inner corner

Shiro Cosmetics in Squirtle for outer corner

Shiro Cosmetics in Articuno for lower lashline

No.7 Exceptional Definition Mascara in Black

Rimmel Kohl Eye Pencil in Jet Black - upper and lower waterline

LIPS

No.7 Stay Perfect Lipstick in Nude Rebellion

Gosh Lip Jam 102

My New Haircare Routine

Hi all, as I showed you my new facial skincare routine last night, I thought I would also enlighten you with my new haircare routine. The reason I decided I needed a new routine is because I hadn't changed it since having all my hair cut off...

I had noticed that my scalp was getting very dry, perhaps from dying my hair over the summer... so with my Boots points I picked up these three "Boots Expert" products for dry scalp! The are around £3 each so I still had a few points spare.

I was once told it is best to alternate shampoos so that your hair doesn't get used to one, then it won't have as much effect, so I will continue alternating with my Aussie Miracle Moist Shampoo & Conditioner, but I've also added a V05 hot oil treatment which I didn't used to do!

What products do you use on your hair - is it long or short? I'd be keen to know what works for others!! Thanks for reading :)

New Skincare Routine

Some of you may be aware that recently I have been purchasing quite a lot of the No.7 collection in Boots. Mainly because their products have never let me down, but also because some wonderful people have given me £5 off No.7 vouchers to spend!! I have bought nail polishes, blushers, liquid eye liner, mascara (shame I purchased my mascara before they started giving away the free gift!!), foundation, lipsticks, powder, and then I moved onto the skincare section after reading Sophie's blog.

I now own

• a cleanser, toner and moisturiser for morning (day)

• a make up remover, cleanser and moisturiser for evening (night)

• and an exfoliator and mud mask - not No.7 but part of my new skincare routine (weekly)

So far I am one week into my new routine and have noticed my face feeling a lot smoother, and although I am not always spotty, I can be prone to break outs and the odd blemish, but have not had any appearances yet!

I enjoy a good face mask so when the above mud therapy products were on special offer in Superdrug I couldn't resist, so I will be alternating them - tomorrow is time for Raspberry!!

I will continue to update you on my findings, but so far so good, as always with No.7. I also find that the hot cloth cleanser before bed definitely helps open my pores to let the night time moisturiser set into my skin.

What's your skincare routine? Have you got any of these products? What do you think of them??

Night Out Nails

I bought a few new nail varnishes the other day, only 3 for £5 in Superdrug - Collection 2000. I got Wham, Teeny Bikini and Bongo Beat. I liked the way wham and teeny bikini went together so decided to use an art deco stamp in black and white.

With flash

I really liked the colour of wham, but it required 3 coats to make it opaque. Shame it would use up a lot of nail varnish this way, but the overall finish was very satisfying. Sometimes the nail varnish can dry bubbly when you apply a few coats.

Without flash

The teeny bikini seemed to get better with more coats, I used three to match wham, but you could easily leave it with one coat.

The art deco went on very easily, it hardly even smudged when applying a top coat, which quite often happens.

EOTE

Hey all, firstly I want to apologise for not posting since Wednesday. I was supposed to blog on Thursday evening but I ran out of time and didn't feel like it due to being involved in a minor car crash. I'm ok, cuts and bruises, which is lucky really. But I just haven't been in the mood to put make up on - let alone post about it!!

My friend got me to leave the house last night as it was two friend's birthdays and we wanted to at least see them. I did my nails (separate post to come) and did an experimental look with my Barry M Glitter dusts. I don't own many - probably about 10...so sometimes I'm quite restricted for colour, but this look really didn't give that impression.

With flash

Without flash

From below

I used:

Urban Decay Primer Potion
Barry M Dazzle Dust 31 - middle of eye, 58 - inner corner, 69 outer corner
Blue from No.7 Colour Rebellion Eye Palette for crease
Urban Decay Glide on Eye Pencil in Zero
No.7 Exceptional Definition Mascara in black
No.7 Amazing Eyes Liner in black

EOTD - based on a YouTube video

Hiya, I saw this video on youtube and thought the look would be fun to recreate. I chose all the colours from my 120 palette - 5 in total. The ones I used are circled below:

It turned out like this:

I was pretty pleased with the result, it's the first YouTube video I have followed, I am hoping to follow another this weekend to give my friend some sexy pirate eye make up.

The only thing I don't like is the picture as it shows my little eyebrow hairs that I obviously need to pluck!!

My Neon Nails

I hadn't used my Saffron neon nail varnishes yet so I already knew that I wanted to test one out. My fiance chose this blue colour, out of pink, green, orange, yellow and purple. It took three coats to get the blue looking as bold as this otherwise it was quite sheer. I'm not sure it looks really neon either...hopefully when I test some of the others they will be a lot brighter!

I thought that the black art deco stamp would go well on top. In the picture I only did my thumbnail but have since done the rest - this was done on my lunch break at work :)

I'm tempted to put another one of the same design on but in white...any thoughts?

FOTD - Liquid Eyeliner in Mojito

I wanted a look where I could use my No.7 Glitter Eyeliner in Mojito. This is it!!

I used:

FACE

No.7 tinted moisturiser in medium
No.7 light pressed powder in medium
Rimmel blush in santa rose

EYES

Aromaleigh Creme eyeshadow in Carbon
Barry M Dazzle Dust in silver - eyelid
Gosh Effect Powder in steel - crease and outer corner
No.7 Liquid Glitter Eyeliner in Mojito
H&M Glitter eyeliner in black - lower waterline
No.7 Exceptional Definition mascara in black

LIPS

Fyrinnae Lip Lustre in flavor of the day
No.7 Lip gloss high shine in hint

It reminded me of the sea because the black cream eyeshadow base has given the silver a blue tint. What do you think?