Essence Nail Art Kit - Marble Mania - UPDATE

Just an extremely quick post to update about the Nail Art Kit a few posts ago.  I said at the time, I thought the brush might be a little bit too floppy to be any good. Well after a lot of playing around with it, I haven't changed my mind. I found the brush to be rubbish, it didn't hold polish well and was way to floppy to use it with any precision.




So instead, I bought these off ebay, a full set of brushes and a set of dotting tools. They cost about €4.50 altogether including postage from Hong Kong. I haven't had a chance to play with them yet (stupid work making me all busy!), but I'll update when I do.  However, don't hold your breath for any amazing nail art, I'm afraid I was born with out the artistic gene! 

  

Ren Moroccan Rose Otto Body Wash

Today's post is a little different, I recently won a prize over on the lovely Fluff and Fipperies (if you haven't checked out this amazing blog yet, do as soon as you are finished reading this post) from beautyboutique.ie. The giveaway was to advertise that for every purchase of Ren Moroccan Rose Otto Body Wash, you got a free Essie Chocolate Kisses. So I won one of each! The offer is still on, as is an offer of 3 free samples with each Ren purchase.  

So I don't normally blog about things related to skin care because I have stupidly sensitive skin and it takes a bit of a push for me, to try new things because of the fear of a reaction. One of my favourite treats is a nice shower gel, well you use it everyday so I usually have 3 or 4 on the go. I'm the same with shampoo and conditioner as well and even toothpaste, I get bored of using the same things all the time and need to rotate.  There's usually one or two original source ones in there ( I'm liking the shea butter and honey one at the minute), a J&J baby one and one that's a bit of treat. My usual treat one is L'Occitane Verbana, which I love, or the Elemis frangipani one but I mix it up a bit, particularly now I'm bathless and can't enjoy my Aromatherapy Associates bath oils :(  

Anyway, on to the Ren product., I don't loads about Ren but they don't contain parabens, sulphates, mineral oil and assorted other nasties, so that's always a plus.  I have no pictures of it before it was used, as my mother held it hostage!  I get my post sent to my parents house because there's usually someone there during the day and Rose is her favourite 'flavour' of body products, so there was no way it was coming home with me, once she knew what was in the package -which, incidentally arrived very quickly.  I bartered with her by giving her a L'Occitane shower gel, that someone bought me as a present and I can't use because the smell is so overpowering it gives me a migraine. 

I really like that it has a pump, it means you're not using more than you want, you really don't want all your €20 shower gel spilling and going down the drain. Although, I don't know if the pump will mean the last bit is harder to get out, we'll have to wait and see.  The smell of this is really delicate and in no way overpowering, it reminds me of turkish delight. I think that's because it's Rose Otto and not Rose Absolute, which I should really ask the da mammy since she is qualified in all things like this. 

I tend to use 1-2 pumps on a shower puff or exfoliating gloves in the shower and we're good to go. It's not drying and slightly moisturising. I don't usually use body lotion after using this beause it smells so nice and get away with it. It doesn't bother my dry sensitive skin, so I'd rebuy this and I'm looking forward to trying some more Ren products. 


Have you tried this or any other Ren products? Any suggestions of what I should try next? Do you splash out on shower gel as a treat or just use whatever is on special offer, or a little of both like me?

Max Factor Fantasy Fire

Max factor fantasy fire, what to say? Firstly it's amazeballs! Secondly it's dupeish to the most beloved discontinued polish ever Clairins 230 (aka Unicorn Pee ). The third thing to add is, that this is most definitely a top coat, I've seen some people bemoaning that 6 coats later it's still not opaque. Stop, put it atop of what you are already wearing particularly if it's a blue, green or purple and prepare to be amazed! 


The sun didn't play nice the first couple of times I wore this, so I decided to show you some bottle and nail wheel pictures today and since I took these eleventy-billion pictures (this post has been a long time in the making), I managed to get some natural light photos of it on my nails so these will follow, shortly.




Some bottle pictures to start. Here and elsewhere, you can click the pictures to make them bigger, so do it!

So I said it was dupeish to Clairins 230, I don't own the Clairins polish so can't do a full comparision but in the bottle they look similar, layered over another polish they look similar, but on their lonesome on the nail they look different. The Clairins is a red base and the Max Factor is a purple base but because there are both so sheer it's seems to not matter one jot. Fantasy fire definitely has the green flash, just like Clarins 230.  The green flash was hard to pick up but I think you can see hints of it in the second bottle picture and the last nail wheel picture. 


In retrospect, I should have rotated this photos  The four polishes use are Green : OPI Jade is the New Black, Blue: OPI Dating a Royal, Navy :  Essence Midnight Rocker , Purple Revlon Rock.

The last thing to say is the bottle is tiny (6 ml) and costs €5.49 ( around £3.99, I think) and only seems to be available in the UK and Ireland. In Ireland, I've only found this in Boots, other chemists which do Max Factor don't seem to have this, so if you want this you'll have to get to your nearest Boots. 

Have you tried Fantasy Fire? What do you think of it?

Essence Nail Art Kit - Marble Mania

The current essence collection on stand is the marble mania collection, I picked up the nail art kit yesterday and none of the polishes, they weren't really floating my boat. The full details of the collection are available here.  I thought I'd do a quick post as the collections can move quite fast. 

The kit contains 2 orange sticks, 2 pieces of sponge and a stripper brush.  The pink card also contains instructions for use of the stripper brush, the sponges and a how to marble.

The stripper brush. 

And a close up. 

The bristles are extremely long and fine, and I'm not sure they are stiff enough to accurately control the brush. I've only had a very quick play with the brush but found it hard to control and a little bit floppy. Perhaps, with a bit of practice I'll get better.  However, I caveat the last statement with the fact that I'm extremely challenged when it comes to nail art, so it is probably me that is rubbish and not the brush!


I've added a picture to show the brush in comparison to a regular nail varnish brush (Cult Nails top coat), so you can see the difference in size.

 The nail art kit retails for €2.79, so it's as cheap pick me up. I need a bit more time to play with it to decide if it's worth it, but for €2.79, I won't be crying if I don't get too much use out of it!  

Another way to follow

Just an extremely quick post today, to add to this post, on ways to follow the blog.  I recently joined hellocotton, so if you prefer this way to follow blogs, you can follow this blog there either by follow this link or press the little gadget over there on the right.  (If you are reading this on hellocotton, hello!) 


If you haven't heard about hellocotton, it's a website that collects all your blog subscriptions together and is slightly more interactive, than say bloglovin. You don't need to have a blog to have a profile, but you can only follow blogs which have a profile on hello cotton.  


Have you tried hellocotton? What do you think? 

Catrice Run Forest Run - St Patrick's Day Mani

Having to find a chemist over Christmas to get a prescription filled for the Granny, led me to a chemist I don't normally go to (and totally out of my way) and when in there I spied a Catrice stand, finally! I was in a hurry that day and kind of forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago, when I was walking by with little bro and little sis on the way back from the bro's birthday brunch - Ok, I totally engineered the walk by with the sister when the brother was in the loo.  He wasn't best pleased when he realised what we did and wanted out pretty pronto, but we got a bit of look and when I saw this one, I knew  I had to have it for the name alone, even better it was half price and better again I had no cash on me, so little sis bought it for me!(Thank you lovely!)  

After that long spiel, today's NOTD is Catrice Run Forest Run, and this ended up being my St Patrick's day mani.  I shall spare you my thoughts on Forest Gump, which is one of my faves - but I totally love the name of this polish! Unsuprisingly, Run Forest Run, is a forest green creme polish. 

Natural Light ( That's not a chip on my pointer, it's light reflecting. )

Flash Picture 

The first coat of this was patchy and uneven, but the second coat evened everything out. I used Cult Nails base and top coat with this (more on this at a later date - also when the bottles were sitting on the table I noticed the bottles are the same).  So far we have an amazing names, great colour and ok application, unfortunately wear wasn't great.  On the second day of wearing, I spent more time than usual in the kitchen and got major chippage on my right hand and shortly after the polish on one nail popped off.  I'm not sure if this is to do with the polish or maybe Catrice doesn't want to play nice with Cult Nails - even though they are bottle twins. I've heard of polish popping off but it has never happened to me before, which is why I'm wondering if it's a topcoat/basecoat not playing well with the polish issue. 

Essence Applause Applause - The glitter

We saw the creme side of Applause Applause yesterday, so now for the  second side of Applause Applause which is a red glitter in a clear base.  Now I imagine you are all yawning in the background, because there's loads of red glitters out there but this one is pretty unique, it's got your regular red glitter and also red square glitter. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another polish like it, there probably is one, though!

Picture with flash.

Natural light

Nail wheel shows from L-R, two coats of the creme, two coats of creme with one of glittter, one coat of glitter, two coats of glitter and 3 coats of glitter. (Click on the picture to make it bigger and see the two different types of glitter )

Again no issues with application or wear, other than the fact I couldn't open the other side of the polish with wet nails.  I'm dying to try the glitter side over black I think it will be gorgeous.   I paid €3.99 for this which is a pretty good bargain for 2 polishes! This came in two other colour combos,  pink glitter/ pink creme and gold glitter/ black creme, but I didn't feel the need to buy either of those.




Have you tried any of the Circus Circus polishes, should I have picked up one of the other 2? Are we liking the whole 2-1 design?