Festive Polish Haul!

With Christmas only a week away I have recently bought some new colours from Jessica and Essie to glam up my nails for the festive season! 

I am excited about the colours so I thought I at least get some bottle pics ups for you tonight and will swatch soon!

 

L-R Black Ice, Majesty Blue, For Your Eyes Only, Sexy Siren

Black Ice is totally gorgeous, it is a black polish with very sparkly silver glitter, it really does glitter in the bottle. I think I'll wear this on Christmas day!

Majesty Blue I have worn this week and is a stunning sapphire blue, quite eye catching.

The last two are so difficult to take a picture of, they aren't nearly as light as the picture would have you believe. I have taken dozens of pictures but all are wrong! For Your Eyes Only is much more purple in reality a true Blurple, hate that word but its the only way to describe it!

Sexy Siren is a rich wine colour I wore this for my work Christmas party.

As always with Jessica polishes the application was perfect on the two I have worn at least and I expect the same from the others.

L-R Hot Coco, Going Incognito, Smokin' Hot.

These lovely Essie polishes, from their newest winter collection, only came today so I haven't had a chance to wear them yet however I will be painting on Going Incognito later tonight!

Hot Coco is VERY similar to Mink Muffs, I can't really tell the difference in the bottle other than Mink Muffs is a hint darker. I feel a little cheated.

Going Incognito is GORGEOUS! A dark green, darker than Essies' earlier Pretty Edgy and a different shade of green to OPI's Jade Is The New Black.

Smokin' Hot is a greyed out purpley colour, quite sophisticated and very fashionable. 

I am really becoming a fan of Jessica polishes and I will look forward to their collections for next year. The quality of their colours is exceptional. Essie is on a roll at the moment and I anticipate their Spring collections too!

xoxo

Let it snow!

I LOVE the snow! 

It's still a fairly rare occurrence here in the UK but especially unusual in November, I have never known it before! I hope it stays until Christmas! A white Christmas in the UK happens once in a blue moon!

I am lucky to live in such a beautiful part of England and even more so in the snow, so indulge me here and have look few piccies of the fluffy stuff in and around my village!

xoxo

Ginger Nuts!

Since winter has firmly arrived my skin has freaked out! My body has gone especially dry and I am trying whatever I can to keep it moisturised.

However I hate moisturising! I need to use a product that I love or I just won't do it!

Browsing around the John Lewis beauty department I happened across the Origins counter where they enticed me in with their fab Christmas displays, I'm a sucker for anything red or snowflakey!

Most of the display was devoted to their Ginger range, I have encountered this range before and last year I purchased a body wash and absolutely loved it. I thought I would try some more from the range and purchased the body oil from the range but had a terrible reaction to it and left Origins well alone for a while.

Despite my reaction to the product the scent of this range is divine, and even more-so at this time of year. 

The scent has always drawn me to this range and something I haven't forgotten, being a little wary I thought I would try some body lotions on my hand and leave it on for a while to test it out. Thankfully no ill-effects were encountered so I went back and purchased Ginger Rush.

Described as an "Intensely Hydrating Body Cream" this is a thick rich cream that leaves my skin velvety soft. I I use it after a bath for a warming wrap of moisture and yummy fragrance.

The aroma of the cream is rich and spicy but not sweet, its very appropriate for this time of year. I may be fickle but I can't see me using this outside of winter, it just seems wrong.

I'm sure I'll use this little pot up this winter and go back for more next year! 

xoxo

Getting WAH'd?

I don't mid a bit of nail art, nothing outrageous, a little leopard print, some polka dots or a few stripes will do me.

I recently came across a nail art salon in London called WAH and quickly became a fan of their work. They have their main salon in London and they are available at Topshop on Oxford Street too.

They do some fab nail art and their artists are very talented.

They have a blog where they post many of their manicures from the day, here are a few of my favourites.

I could go on.....!

Depending on the design a manicure costs around £30, I'd love to go. Check out wah-nails.com for more pics!

Models Own and WAH have teamed up to create some nail art pens, the first colours will be black or white. I will most definitely be trying these out and upgrading from my usual cocktail stick dipped in polish! Nail art is huge at the moment and this is just the right time to bring something like this out, Models Own claim eventually their whole colour range will be available in pen form allowing you to create some fabulous designs. 

What do you think, would you sport any of these designs?

xoxo

NOTD - Grey Leopard

My obsession with leopard print is not subsiding so I thought I try a different colour-way.

I used,

♥ China Glaze Recycle

♥ Nails Inc Kingly Street

♥ Chanel Black Satin

♥ Nails Inc Albert Bridge Topcoat

♥♥♥♥

Chocolate Nail Varnish?

Yes you read that right! 

The wonderful worlds of chocolate and nail varnish have collided and created the Dairy Milk Bliss collection from Nails Inc. To launch the new chocolate bar, Bliss from Cadbury's, Nails Inc have launched two new colours. Vanilla Bliss and Cocoa Bliss.

I picked up Vanilla Bliss.

Obviously the lighter of the two colours, Vanilla Bliss is a cream colour with gold shimmer running through the polish. The gold shimmer is quite obvious and very pretty. I really like the colour it felt quite retro and a bit vintage whilst it was on. This was three coats.

Check out Cocoa Bliss on the Nails Inc website.

On a chocolatey theme I also purchased Cadogan Square one of Nails Inc's most recent colours.

Cadogan Square is my favourite colour of the moment, camel. It looks amazing with black, maybe a little nail art could be done here! It feels very sophisticated to wear and very high fashion. Camel is everywhere this season, coats, jumpers, bags all straight off the catwalk. This was two coats.

Without the flash you can see the colour a little better.

xoxo

Winter Wears

I don't want to keep banging on about it but since losing 5 stone since last winter, my winter wardrobe needs a little updating!

My old black boots no longer fit my calves and look a bit like wellies so I started the mammoth task of finding some new ones!

I thought I'd go with grey boots this year, anything I can wear with black I can wear with grey right? After much research and many web searches and actually saw these in Office on a recent shopping trip. They are called Echo and were £98, not a bad price I felt, most boots I was looking at were over £100.

I also needed a new coat.

I went with this one from Laura Ashley. Its wool and I know it will last all winter. I love duffle coats, sooo cozy and very in right now. One of my lovely readers Claire was asking what my coat looked like after I mentioned it in my post about the purple handbag, so here we are! I don't like black coats, everyone wears one and personally I just prefer to mix my colours! I chose the teal colour because I can wear it with everything in my wardrobe, purple, black, brown, pink, grey etc! I have many colourful scarves that will go with this and hats and gloves! 

I still feel I need a slightly smarter coat but I may get one in the sale!

Do you love colour in the winter?

xoxo

Haul - The Nail Polish Kind!

I splurged a bit on polish over the last few weeks and here are the spoils!

Chop-sticking To My Story is a warm pumpkin orange hue from the Hong Kong collection. Very autumnal, its a little darker than the picture I'm not really sure what colours I'll wear it with yet!

Funkey Dunkey from the Shrek collection. I'm sorry about the quality of the picture but any picture taken with a flash gave a very false view of the colour, this is much more true to life.

I saw Mary J Blige wearing this colour on the MTV VMA's a few weeks ago and it jumped out of the tv at me, a little research online and I found out it was this little beauty. I have nothing like it in my collection.

Just A Little Rosti At This is a gorgeous medium dark red from the Swiss collection. It falls between those classic bright reds and the vampy dark ones. I really enjoyed wearing this one, it's similar to Malaga Wine but maybe a little more towards the red. This one really needs three coats to get it even, you can get little patches that need a bit of filling in.

William Tell Me About OPI also from the Swiss collection is a dark aubergine. The lighter friend of Lincoln Park After Dark. You can see more purple than black in this one. A great staple colour for winter. Again I would do three coats of this one as before it can be a little patchy near the cuticle.

Tease-y Does It is a stunner from their newest range the Burlesque collection. It has an amazing sparkle to it thanks to the pinky, goldy glitter within a beautiful burgundy base colour. Gorge!

Black Onyx is a patent black it has a lovely shine to it. 

Essie Sew Psyched is a greyed green from their Fall collection. I really like it, its so different from anything else in my collection and it feels like a very fashionable colour. 

I bought all of these from Transdesign.com.

Sooo, I guess that should do me for a bit. Althoughhh have you seen Essie latest collection, prettttty nice!

xoxo

No Mambo Jambo by H&M

I was browsing through H&M on Wednesday night when this little beauty jumped out at me in the accessories section.

No Mambo Jambo is a shimmery green teal. H&M have redesigned the bottles and I am in favour of this move, I like the new cap and the bold font.

I used two coats and wore it for two days with no sign of chipping or wear, I have to confess I got a little bored of the colour quickly but I did enjoy it for the first day. 

I am a fan of these fashionable polishes from H&M, they seem to add and remove colours quickly as they do with their fashions. These polishes are only £2.99. H&M have a selection of the line in their new online shop.

xoxo

In Love! +

Today I became besotted with two new things,

The Bristol from Modalú.

I saw this bag whilst I was casually flipping through Look magazine. I wondered if it came in grey so hot stepped it down the the handbag department in John Lewis to find it.

No grey, but the purple was so vibrant I was instantly drawn towards it. I have a pair of leather gloves in this colour that contrast beautifully against my new winter coat that is a teal shade, and my favoured winter scarf is pink. I just love this combo of colours.

I'm pretty sure this will be a pay day purchase!

I tasted my first Hazelnut Latte today and it was deelish! I am only a social coffee drinker, I do not need it to get started in the morning or as a pick me up in the afternoon, however I do enjoy a flavoured coffee every so often, Starbucks is usually my venue of choice but Costa have an amazing Gingerbread Latte too! 

I'm sure the delight that was the Grande Hazelnut Latte I experienced today will be the first of many this winter :)

What are your new favourite things?

xoxo

A Ring Thing

One of my many obsessions :)

My most recent additions,

♥ Black flower ring- Accessorize £12

♥ Gold bling ring - River Island £7.99

♥ Green deco ring - Accessorize £12

xoxo

MAC Haul! +

I went shopping yesterday with the intention of buying clothes. 

I bought one top...

Most of my shopping involved drooling over the new MAC collections and making a large purchase!

So here are the goodies!

The Venomous Villains collection is MAC's most recent and one that seems to have split opinion. Some have been buying up the whole collection whether you be a Disney fan or a MAC collector. Some dislike the whole concept. I am a fan! I am a HUGE Disney fan and the combo of both MAC and Disney made me giddy when I first heard the news! I like that they made it edgy instead of cute.

The product most seem to be longing for are the nail polishes from the Maleficent part of the collection.

 I saw swatches of these and I have to say I wasn't totally in love. I reserved judgement until I saw them in person. As soon as I saw the sparklefest that is Bad Fairy I knew that would be a purchase but I think I got swept up in the hysteria around Formidable as it was the last one left. I have yet to decide if it's my thang. I'm just not sure that I like the two tone effect.

Bad Fairy is mostly a rosy toned glitter occasionally you will catch a green hint to the polish. The colour was great after two coats. It was impossible to capture the sparklyness of this polish but it really glitters.

Formidable is dark purple base with teal and purple glitter. It has as an oil-slick appearance. I wasn't sure about this one but I like it on. It most definitely needed three coats maybe four for a very deep colour. Again another sparkle-licious polish but the colour hasn't taken very well, I think this particular one doesn't translate well in a photo.

I also purchased a Mineralize Eyeshadow in She Who Dares also from the Maleficent quarter. Again this was a decision made on impulse and on hindsight I'm not sure how much I'll use it, however it certainly is a pretty product! The MUA had a swatch of the blue and green over a black Greasepaint Stick and they were incredible.

My last post was about the amazing Superslick Eyeliner I mentioned I was inclined to purchase more and I did!

Marked For Glamour, a gunmetal grey. Its a little darker than this picture would have you believe. I have this on today and I love the colour, to me it feels more casual than the black version a bit more daytime. Its not a flat colour either, it has some multi-coloured pearl when you apply the liner that dries to give a shimmery effect.

Defiantly Feline, a chocolate brown. I love brown eyeliner! I just think it look stunning with Mulch, Tempting etc. Again a nice casual, easy going look. As with the previous liner it has a pearl effect when wet then dries to leave a subtle glisten. While I was there I got a new Blacktrack Fluidline, a makeup bag staple!

I "Back-2-MAC'd" a few things that allowed me to get two lippies.

I replaced Lovelorn, a colour I had for about two days, wore once, then lost it!

Then I chose Speed Dial. I was really looking for an easy to wear pink.

They are different! 

Speed Dial is darker in colour, I feel Lovelorn is more blue toned. 

So that was what I got!! I forgot to get a new Retrospeck, can't run out of that baby so will have to order online along with a green Superslick liner!

xoxo

My New Make-up Bag Essential!

On a recent trip to the MAC counter I picked up a new eyeliner. 

My faithful Blacktrack is on its last legs and MAC had just released the Fabulous Felines collection with the new Super Slick Liquid Eyeliner as part of the collection.

I threw caution to the wind and purchased On The Hunt a deep dark black.

I felt I could by Blacktrack anytime so gave the new one a go, I'm so glad I did!

Its an intense dark black, darker than the Fluidline I'm used to, its a real statement. 

The brush is fabulous, its sturdy at the base but has flexibility at the tip to allow for a flick or a wing, a trend that is big for the winter. I do like a wing and find this really easy to do with this brush.

The liner itself is extremely long lasting and it keeps is dark black pigment throughout the day and this baby doesn't budge! I wore it to travel home from holiday I had applied it at 10am and removed it at 1am and it still looked fresh, a little faded but not noticeable. 

I have a feeling these are limited edition, I will purchase a back up they are not sold out on the MAC website and are priced at £14.50. Other colours are available, I quite fancy the grey one!