My (rather late) Birthday post!

Hi, it was my birthday in July and I just thought I'd show you some of the gifts I received.

Emery Board, Nail Clippers, Tweezers, Barry M Lip Gloss (from Impulse gift set)

Technic Nail Art trio (purple, white, gold)

Technic Nail Art trio (silver, pink, black)

Sinful Colors: Paris 856| Cha Cha Red 32| Hot Spot 943| Daddy's Girl 841| See You Soon 931| Aqua 104

beauty uk Glitter Brown| Astor Fash'n Studio Black| Barry M Nail Paint 122 (from Impulse gift set)

Aaaand finally, Technic Carnival x2

Oi! Oi! That's yer lot!

DISCLAIMER: All products featured in today's post were gifted to me by my lovely mother for my birthday. 

Oh. My. GOSH!

Hi everyone, I have been very quiet lately so first of all I would like to apologise for that. I have been mega busy with stuff, my son and sister went for a photo shoot at Max Spielmann, we are really pleased with what we got for the money, I won a competition with Collection (2000) for me and my friend to go to their 25th Birthday and rebranding party in London, I won another competition with Fairy, I also did a few days of interviewing customers at a big technology store which was loads of fun and did wonders for my confidence, it was my lil sister's first birthday so we all went to the zoo, the Alton Towers tickets came with the dates that I wanted (during the October Scarefest when the park is open til 9pm and they have a few extra scary things going on), and then it was Easter. So, did you have a nice Easter weekend? Thomas got spoilt rotten, I think he will still have some eggs left by Christmas!

Moving on, today I went shopping just for nail polish. 

First of all I got these:

L to R: Beauty UK - Lilac Girl (35), Beauty UK - Slate (50), Max Factor - Fantasy Fire (45),  Revlon Cuticle Remover, Technic 21129 Mermaid (looks like it MAY be a dupe for the Milani Jewel FX in Teal off my wishlist, yay!), City Chick - Sparkly Nails Black.

I wasn't gonna buy Fantasy Fire really, because of the size and I have seen it talked about loads so its not really new anymore, until I went into Superdrug and saw it. It is simply stunning so I had that as my special treat for the day. I have noticed that Meganails and Lozza Nailed It! mentioned on their blogs that there was a clearance on some GOSH makeup in their local Superdrug so I looked around for it and didn't see any :-(

So I was quite happy to buy Fantasy Fire instead:

So off I went down the toiletries aisle to get to the tills. Then, I noticed loads of makeup in a big cardboard stand, some of it was broken, opened and in a bit of a sorry state to be totally honest, but I had a closer look anyway. Then I noticed that it was all GOSH products. There were loads of eyeliners and eye dusts but I didn't really see any that took my fancy so I had a good rummage and found some nail polish.

GOSH - Magic Star 562

This stood out to me because of how sparkly it was so I popped that straight in my basket.

GOSH -Yellow Bombay 552

I didn't own any yellow nail polish at that point and this has a nice shimmer to it so I decided to buy this aswell. I think it was at this point that I started to pay more attention to what I was looking at as this one is definitely discontinued. There seemed to be a couple more bottles of Magic Star but one looked a bit different as it seemed to shine more red so I picked it up to have a look..

I nearly dropped the bottle in shock! That was GOSH - Rainbow 546 I had in my hand! My beloved flakie that has sat on my wishlist for a long time. I had given up all hope of finding this one as I hadn't even seen a trace of it on eBay so I quite literally couldn't believe my luck. I then went through all of the other nail polishes until I came to the last one. It was quite a dull silver colour in comparison to the others I had chosen, but on checking the label at the top it said 549 Holographic. I checked twice as in the bottle it didn't look holographic at all!

It doesn't look that special does it? Maybe thats because I've hunted for this for so long that I expected to have more of a presence about it, or for music to play when I held it my hand.. At this point a practically ran to the tills with a crazed grin on my face. I was in such a rush that I didn't even take any notice of the price, it wasn't until I checked my receipt afterwards that I realised they were £2 each. I nearly fainted. Just the day before, I nearly put a bid on this on eBay for £20 and now I had it for a fraction of the price!! Result!

I don't want to seem like I am bragging too much because I know there are plenty of people out there that haven't been as lucky as  have and are still on the lookout for these. I can assure you though that these ones have gone to a very good home where they will be loved and cared for and given the attention that they deserve. I am a little bit scared to try them though as I have dreamed of this day many times over the last year and I'm worried I'm expecting too much of it. Anyway, if you are looking for these polishes, get your ass down to your local Superdrug ASAP! You never know, you might get lucky! If you manage to find any bargains there, let me know. 

Sorry for the long post but I think these nail polishes deserved it!

St Patrick's Day NOTD (+ easy how-to)

Sorry that its a day late, I needed to get a tripod for my camera in order to photograph an awkward hand pose. Here is my version of a manicure inspired by St Patrick's Day.

The gold represents a pot of gold, the multi coloured glitter is supposed to resemble a rainbow and the green is *cue awkward hand pose*...

A lucky shamrock!

Here is what I used:

L.A Colors Energy Source, L.A Colors Atomic, SNB Gold 06, Saffron Gold Speckle, Technic Carnival and L.A Colors Voltage.

If you would like to recreate this look, here is how to do it:

Step 1. Paint all nails with a white base coat.
Step 2. Paint nails 1 & 3 with a green nail polish. I used 2 coats.
Step 3. Paint nails 2 & 5 with a gold colour, followed by a gold glitter.
Step 4. Paint nail 4 with a multicoloured glitter. I used about 8 coats to get it opaque.
Step 5. Finish with a clear top coat.

Please note: each coat of polish should be completely dry before doing the next coat.

Did you do a Paddy's Day mani? I would love to see your take on it.

Haul Unboxing

I had a delivery today nice and early this morning, I was expecting one package to come yesterday as I already arranged with Royal Mail for them to deliver on that day. I waited in all day and they didn't turn up. They didn't even let me know so I was a bit annoyed by that. It finally turned up today though so all is forgiven (almost). Mini rant over, phew! 

I had 3 lovely packages today, you may notice in the photo above I kinda cheated and opened the box, I wasn't gonna include that in this post but I changed my mind.

This is a set of 4 eyebrow stencils, they were 99p including delivery from eBay.

Here they are, I know the picture is bad as the stencils are clear but they have the markings on them so you can match them up easily with the angle of your natural brows.

This is what was in the box, its loads of magnets to use with magnetic nail polish. I actually sell these on but I thought you might like to see the different styles available:

They work with any magnetic nail polish so its nice to be able to do different patterns now.

Next is the package that should of arrived yesterday..

It was very well wrapped in lots of bubble wrap.

*in Aussie accent* Can you tell what it is yet?

Ta-da! L.A Colors haul!

Left to right: 

Energy Source NP402

Atomic NP420

Exotic Pink NP434

Lightning NP422

Nuclear Energy NP417

Left to right:

Electrified NP408

Live NP409

Tropical Storm NP439

Goddess NP442

Left to right:

Treasure Island NP444

Aqua Crystals NP448

Glistening Purple NP445

Left to right:

Voltage NP401 (clear)

Sparkling Diamonds NP446

Star Light NP443

Jewel Tone NP447

Sassy Sparkle NP441 

I also got Saffron Speckle in Gold and Silver (these were the closest things to the Milani Jewel FX I could find in the UK) It will be interesting to see if they perform.

Look at the shape of the bottles though, is it just me that thinks they are a bit weird different?

This is the one I am most excited about , Technic - Carnival!

The nail polishes were from http://www.themakeupbagonline.co.uk

For all 20 nail polishes & delivery, they cost me £26.40. Not bad! 

Oh , I forgot to mention, they also threw in a free gift in the shape of 5 make-up bags:

I love the way these were packaged - a bag in a bag in a bag in a bag in a bag!

That is everything that I got so as always, I would love to hear what you think of them!

DISCLAIMER: Everything included in this post was bought and paid for by myself. Except for the bags which were a free gift for spending over £20!

Technic Crackle Polish & my neon rainbow crackle nails!

So, today I bought a bottle of Technic Crackle Effect Top Coat in 21106 Black. It only cost £1.99 and I have never used crackle polish before, so I thought I'd give it a go.

First of all, I painted my nails the colour I wanted to show through the crackle polish. I only did one coat so if you wanted a more vibrant finish you could do more or use a white undercoat first. In this case, I chose a different colour for each nail using these polishes from my collection:

Once that had dried, it was time for the star of the show to make an appearance.

I applied one coat of Technic Crackle Polish onto my freshly painted nails, being careful to paint each area just once, no overlapping or this will ruin the effect! Then, the magic happened before my eyes as the black started to crack in a random pattern and reveal the colours underneath.
Once this had dried I noticed the black was looking a bit dull, and almost chalky but once I applied a thin layer or two of clear top coat (which you need to do anyway to keep the colour on your nails), it had a nice shiny wet look to it once again. This is what it looked like:

It was so quick and easy to apply and I am not skilled at all when it comes to nail art, plus my nails are really short so it proves that you can still have pretty nails whether they are long or short.

The only really tiny issue I can find is not in the product itself but in the instructions that come attached to the bottle. It doesn't mention that you should apply a top coat to finish your design. someone who didn't know you had to do this would be a bit disappointed and not understand why the colour did not look its best. any tutorial online (and there are loads!) will tell you that you need to do this.

I absolutely love this product, I think it does it's job as well as more expensive products out there and I will DEFINITELY be buying more of these in as many colours as I can find!

Hope you enjoyed reading!

DISCLAIMER: All products used here were bought by myself. Woohoo!