Elf Mint Cream

Next up another ELF polish, this time ELF Mint Cream. So, I really am not feeling this polish, I love the idea of mint green nail varnish, but it gives me lobster hands! Although I do like this version better than the Essie alternative Mint Candy Apple, comparison pictures below.

Ok so now for some pictures of the lobster hands, I’m not sure what to be more apologetic over the lobster hands or the terrible application that I wasn’t aware of until I saw the photos. You’ve been warned!

The application was actually better than some pastel colours, which tend to be streaky. The first coat was horribly streaky, but it evened out on the second and third coats. The only complaint would be the couple of stray long hairs on the brush of the polish which contributed to the horrible application.

I wore Mint Cream for 3 days before I took it off, there were no chips and no obvious tip wear. Mint Cream was £1.50 from the Elf website.

I then did a comparison between Mint Cream and Essie Mint Candy Apple, the application of both was very similar. The first coat of both was a streak-fest and I felt that the ELF polish actually applied slightly better.

From L-R, Essie MCA, Mint Cream, MCA, Mint Cream.

I so smudged my baby finger, for some reason my pinkie always squishes into the finger beside it! Personally, I prefer the ELF polish to the Essie, what do you think?

What did I pack?

Those of you who follow me on twitter will know that I was away in Spain for work last week, so I thought I'd do a quick post on the makeup and beauty stuff I brought with me.  I thought I packed light but when it was all sitting on the table I realised how much I brought! (I've not included any nail varnish and removed duplicates.) 


Skin care, hair care etc, 

 

My favourite moisturiser is this Liz Earle one, so that was a must, but I also brought the benefit samples I received here, to try out also. Burt's Bees are one of my favourite brands and the people I like best know that so often buy me the mini kits for presents.  The Milk and Honey body lotion smells yummy and moisturises well but is also very soothing after being in the sun. The Soap Bark & Chamoile Cleansing cream is lovely and one of my favourite cleansers, the fact it smells like sherbet helps too! ( I also brought some No7 Makeup remover wipes with me too, just for heavy duty makeup). The Hamilton Everyday Face Sunscreen, is my favourite, as I'm often allergic to suncream, it also is brown(but it doesn't even out your skin tone like a tinted moisturiser) in colour (like a tinted moisturiser) which means your face doesn't get shiney after you apply it . The Umberto Giannini Curl Scrunching Jelly, just doesn't suit my hair at  the moment unfortunately, I've tried and like it before but I'm having bad hair at the moment! Instead of polish remover I brought these wipes they are not very nice, but easier to transport. Finally, I rarely go anywhere without a bottle of tea tree for spots and cuts (and usually a bottle of lavender for sunburn, bites etc, but I couldn't find it when I was leaving!)

I tried to keep make up to a minimum and knowing that it was going to be hot and foundation was probably going to melt off, I decided to bring 2 MAC samples I'd got at the counter when I was looking for new foundation, in case I did want to wear any (they are the two little pots)  and my battered (it generally lives in my handbag!) Bourjois powder. Eyeshadow wise, since it was a work trip, I kept it very safe. The Rimmel quad doesn't have great colour payoff and was a panicked airport buy! The 17 trio, is good for a smokey eye. That's an ELF eyeshadow brush in the picture too, I have a few of these from both the £1.50 range (like this one) and the Studio range (£3.50) and I like the cheaper ones better.  Mascara is probably my favourite bit of makeup, although since I started wearing my glasses all the time earlier this year, I find I don't wear it so much.. This one is Maybelline One by One Volum' Express (I've no idea why they felt the need to remove the E in Volume?!?), it has a spikey brush and I think it gives good length and definition to my lashes. Also pictured are Benefit Cha Cha tint and a small High Beam, that I got with Glamour last month, I've used both of these every day.  I'll talk about the lipsticks and glosses, further down, so that just leaves the Benefit Tweezerman Tweezers, which I love, and MAC Fix +, which I also love but it comes into it's own in a hot country, particularly when you keep it in the fridge. 

I thought I'd do the lipsticks and glosses seperately, from L-R, Benefit Who are you wearing?, Elf Mineral Pagent Princess,  Elf Mineral Runway Pink, Elf Mineral Pouty Petal, Elf Mineral Party Pink, Benefit Do Tell, Benefit Flirt Alert, Mac Russian Red. Swatches below in the same order.  (Pictures are clicky for larger images as always!)

Phew - I didn't expect this post to be quite so long!  Is there anything I should have brought and didn't? Whenever I'm going away I pack things that I wouldn't mind losing because they were cheap or easy to replace, one because I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached and secondly because I've arrived sans luggage one too many times! What are your must haves for holidays?


Edited to Add: I got the inspiration for this post from Karen at http://www.lovelygirliebits.com, and wrote it about 2 weeks ago, but didn't get to post it due to blogger/lack of internet issues, but I've seen loads of people do it in the mean time.

ELF Glitter Glam

Today’s NOTD is another one of the ELF Christmas collection, ELF Glitter Glam. This is an icy white, silver glitter. On to the pictures,

Close up of the bottle,

On the nails,

Slightly out of focus to see the glitter

This is 3 coats with a coat of Seche Vite on top, the surface isn’t very bumpy because the glitter is quite fine. The visible nail line in the pictures isn’t really apparent to the naked eye and is more down to the macro setting I used on the camera. In fact I only used two coats on my right hand and it’s sufficient coverage. The application is good on this one, the big ELF brush helps with the glitter I think. I’ve worn this for two days at the time of writing and no chips or anything. I never expect glitters to last too long.

I actually ended up wearing this for 6 days and had no problem with wear.

ELF Purple Party

Today's NOTD is Elf Purple Party. It's a lovely deep purple, think aubergine colour, with glitter in it. The glitter is silver but this is covered by the base colour so when it's on the nail it's not really possible to see it's silver.


First up a close up of the bottle to show the glitter,

On the nail, 

A slightly out of focus nail shot to show the glitteryness, the first picture is more colour accurate, this one is tending towards navy. 

This wore well, I think I wore it for about 5 days with minimal wear. Application was fine and once I put a topcoat of Seche Vite on top, it didn't feel gritty at all.

NOTD ELF Twinkle over Eyeko Rain.

Before we get on to the polish, a quick apology. I know I have been lacking on posts lately, unfortunately life has conspired to cause me a few problems which has left my blogging time diminished, I *think* I have everything back under control, so hopefully I'll be around more, from now on! 


So I mentioned I got the the new Elf Christmas collection polishes recently. Elf Twinkle, is more of a top coat than a polish you'd wear alone, with blue, pink, gold and orange glitter. So first 2 bottle pictures, the right one is not in focus to show more of the colours. (You can click on this picture (and all my pictures!) to make it bigger)

The blue colour in this polish reminded me of Eyeko Rain which I happened to be wearing at the time and I  popped a coat on top of the Eyeko Rain.  

I liked this it wasn't too in your face but was still really nice. I only wore this for one or two days, I had already been wearing the eyeko for  a few days, but the wear was fine for those couple of days. Application was fine.  


Since these polishes are a Christmas collection and I doubt they'll be made permanent,I'll get these up on the blog as soon as possible.  Other than this one and yesterday's metal madness there are 3 more in the Christmas collection.

ELF Metal Madness

Today's NOTD is ELF Metal Madness. This is one of the polishes ELF released for Christmas.  The base colour of this is a metallic charcoal colour, and it contains holographic micro-glitter. The base colour it's self is lovely and applies with out brush strokes which some metallic colours seem to suffer from. The holo micro-glitter (I'm calling it micro glitter because it's so small, if it wasn't holo, I think I'd be inclined to call it a shimmer?!) is subtle and in certain lights, it really pops. 

First, some bottle pictures to show you the holo. 

A lot of time the polish looks like this, a lovely dark grey metallic, 

But bring it in to the right light. 

I wore this for about 5 days and it wasn't really until the 5th day that I started to notice tipwear. The application was fine, the elf brush is generally ok, unless you get one with a few stray hairs. This, and a few of the polishes I got in this order, seemed liked they'd been over filled, there was polish on the outside of the bottle and on the threads, the bottles were full, and there was no obvious spillage. (The elf polishes come in boxes, so it would be obvious if the spillage had happened in transit - leading me to think they were overfilled)  For £1.50 this is a lovely polish although if the holo was more pronounced this would be amazing! 


What do you think of this one? Have you tried any of the ELF Christmas polishes?

ELF Mango Madness

I recently picked up most of the new Elf polishes while they had free shipping, the matte topcoat and one other were sold out. I got Passion Pink, Mango Madness, Purple Pleaser and Rosy Raisin. The Passion Pink and Mango Madness were labelled incorrectly but there was a note in the box.   Since I got these, the Christmas collection has been released, and I ordered those polishes on Friday and they arrived on Monday (with free shipping), they are really nice, I'll pop some pictures up on the blog, during the week.

This is Mango Madness, it is a very very bright Orange, with a hint of pink in it. The bottle colour is probably the most colour accurate, but it sometimes looks like the colour on the nails too, depending on the light. 

Application of this was fine, the pictures show 2 coats, with one of Seche Vite on top. The ELF brush is usually fine except when you have a stray hair or two, in this lot all the brushes were fine.  I wore this for maybe 3 or 4 days and the wear was fine, just a little bit of tipwear.  This one is not bad at all for the princely sum of £1.50 if you're in Europe or $1 if you are in the US. If you follow elf  

Have you tried this one? What do you think? 

Comparision OPI TMF V Elf Innocent V ELF Desert Haze

So when I saw the two Elf polishes, Innocent and Desert Haze, the first thing that struck me was how alike the looked and the second was they look a lot like one of my favourite polishes ever, OPI Tickle My France-y from the French collection.

I love TMF its my favourite mannequin hands shade, it’s one of those colours that goes with everything and it practically applies itself the application is so good. It’s also a completely work appropriate colour.

So let’s have a look at the bottles, from L-R, ELF Desert Haze, OPI TMF, ELF Innocent. 

In the bottle, Elf innocent looks very closer to TMF, than Desert Haze does. 

We’ve seen all of these polishes before, here’s some links, Desert Haze, TMF, Innocent,  so here is a quick comparision of the three on the nails.

Picture taken in natural light no flash, from L-R, ELF Desert Haze, OPI TMF, ELF Innocent.

The picture shows 3 coats of Desert Haze and TMF and 4 coats of Innocent.

While they are not dupes, they are 3 variations of the nude theme, Desert Haze, is a more brown nude and Innocent is more peachy nude. Tickle My France-y is in the middle of the other two, it has a little bit of brown and a little bit of  peach.

The application was best on TMF, closely followed by Desert Haze, I struggled again with the Innocent application. My favourite of these 3 is definitely Desert Haze! I originally complained about the application of Desert Haze, the first time I used it, but I applied it in a hurry that time. I only painted two nails (although I'm only showing one here) this time and had no issues. (I'll go back and edit the original post I think.)

Have you tried any of these three? Do you have a favourite mannequin hands shade?

NOTD ELF Innocent

Today's Notd is the last of the ELF polishes, I bought recently. This is Elf Innocent, it's a nude cream that leans towards peach.  Apologies for the photo, this is one I took straight after I applied it (cuticle oil and all), and I never got a chance to take any more.  


Here's the photo, artificial light and flash

This is 3 coats of Innocent, over a basecoat of CND Stickey and there a topcoat of Seche Vite on top. Looking at the photo, I now realise that there's some bald patches and it could of done with a fourth coat. Application was fine, no issues at all. I didn't love this colour, I felt its peachy-ness didn't suit my skin tone and I only wore it for a day, so can't say much at all about it's wear. If you are looking for a peachy nude, this is the one for you. ELF polishes are available from their website and cost £1.50. 

A bit boring? Mais Oui!

A few days a go I was changing my polish and realised that I had meetings the next day, that I needed to look “respectable” for, so I looked round my stash in vain for something to put on and wasn’t really feeling anything. Then I spied a French base and thought I must have a white somewhere I’ll do a French manicure. To be honest, I was a little surprised that I had the makings! I wasn’t go to do a post about this given it’s only a boring French manicure, but while I was wearing it I got to thinking that in a round about way French maincures were why I started the blog!

(If you are not in the mood for a ramble, skip the next three paragraphs, and down to the pictures with you!)

Before I started back at college, I worked a 9-5 (more like 8-7!) in a conservative setting, most weeks I’d get a manicure as a treat to myself, nearly always French. I gave a lot of courses and chaired a lot of meetings in my job so I was always loathe to go for any thing too flashy on my nails. But the girls in my usual place were really good and were always trying to get me to do something a little less safe, so we used to play around with bases, like using pink bases that subtly flashed another colour in the light, add a line of glitter in between the white and the base. Of course, if I was going out or on holidays I’d have something even better! It turns out, I was spoiled with that salon, the girls were really knowledgable, they used seche on top of every mani, so it dried quickly, etc,

I moved back to Ireland and now I was a student, so my rare manicures were an even bigger treat, because money was tight. I found myself paying double the prices I was paying before for really bad manicures, where there was no quick dry topcoat and they’d paint on the polish so thick it wouldn’t dry. After trying 5/6 places, I was getting really upset, my one treat, the thing I knew that if I was having a bad week, would cheer me up and make me feel better and ready to face the world again, wasn’t working.

This is when I decided that instead of wasting money on bad manicures, I could buy around 6 polishes for the price of one manicure, and at the same time improve my own application skills.

The base is an essence pink base for French manicures and the white is from ELF. While, I know it’s not the best French in the world, I don’t think I would have been able to do this months ago, so I thought I’d show it. It's still not perfect but I'm improving!

It may be a boring French but it definitely grew on me!

ELF Desert Haze

Elf Desert Haze is another one of these nude polishes that I love, they are very work appropriate and when you’re in a hurry they are much easier to put on than some of the unforgiving darker colours.

 

Right for the picture, this is flash and artificial light.

I love the colour of this polish but I found the polish a complete and utter nightmare to apply, it seemed to lack the ‘self-levelling’ properties of most polishes and while a big thick layer of Seche Vite, over 3 coats of polish, helped it didn’t completely work! I haven’t had this issue with any of the other polishes that came in this order and I was in a hurry to go out as I was doing this mani, so I will try it again and see if application is any better.

But back to the colour of this polish, this sparked a lot of conversation over a couple of glasses of vino with my friends we decided, it’s a lovely cafe au lait type colour, with maybe a little bit of grey in it. It’s a little like OPI Tickle My France-y, but I think that's more peachy in colour. I’ll do a comparision soon.

So, do you know of a polish a similar colour without the application issues? Have you tried this, did I just get a dud bottle? 

Elf Smokey Brown V OPI IDKJ

Today a comparison between ELF Smokey Brown and  OPI You don’t know Jacques (YDKJ).  When I saw Smokey Brown it reminded me of YDKJ, so I pulled out the bottles and what do you know, there were very similar so first up a picture of the two bottles.

Looking at the bottle, you can see the ELF polish is a little lighter than YDKJ. Next up, on the nails. From L-R YDKJ, Smokey Brown, YDKJ and Smokey Brown.

Flash Picture

No Flash

Again Smokey Brown looks lighter on the nail, the ELF polish need three coats but the OPI was fine with two. For the sake of comparison I did three coats of each. There’s no top coat on these swatches. I don't own Particulare to compare the ELF polish too, but I do know that it is also lighter than YDKJ, so this might be a good bet to replace that, although I think that Particulare has been re-released. 

Elf Smokey Brown

Today’s NOTD is ELF Smokey Brown. Smokey Brown is one those browny-greyish taupes, that  are quite popular at the moment, like OPI You don’t know Jacques, Essie Mink Muffs and Chanel Particulière.

The first coat of this was quite sheer but by 3 coats if had built up to a good colour.  All of these pictures are one coat of CND Stickey, 3 coats of polish and one coat of Seche Vite.

First up a picture in artificial light, I always paint my nails at night time and take pictures there and then. I then try to get some daylight pictures, if I manage to get home in time from work and the day isn’t too overcast. I actually got some daylight photos of this one so these follow.  While I’m having a ramble, I should apologise for my cuticles, I recently switched to acetone based remover and think that this is the cause, so doing my best to make them better. 

So now for a flash picture,

And finally a picture with no flash. 

I really liked this polish, although it needed 3 coats. I can’t comment too much on the wear because I only wore it for a little over a day after I ruined it doing a pedi. The pedi (in Rimmel Coralicious, in case you were wondering!) was then ruined because I went to bed before my right big toe was dry! So all in all a waste of a ruined mani. 

Elf Lilac V OPI Parlez-Vous OPI

Wow, I have followers, welcome to my rambling world!  Today I have a comparison because the whole time I was wearing the ELF lilac polish I kept thinking it reminded me of another polish and all I could come up with was OPI Parlez-Vous OPI. I think it was the dustyness in the colour, but I was very wrong, but since I took the pictures I thought I'd show them anyway.

First up the two bottles

Now on the nails, from L-R Parlez- Vous OPI, Lilac, Parlez- Vous OPI, Lilac.

This picture is very colour accurate, given the purples are so hard to photograph, I only wish my hands weren't so lobster-ish! The formula on both of these is good, but the ELF brush is no where near as nice as the OPI pro-wide brush, which is one of my favs. That said the ELF brush isn't that bad at all.

ELF Lilac

First of the recent ELF haul is ELF Lilac. As the name says a lilac colour, I thought the colour was a little dusty. The colour was very light but the polish was quite pigmented after two coats there was very little VNL (visible nail line) but I went for 3 coats over one of CND Stickey and a coat of Seche Vite to finish it off. I took about  a hundred photos of this polish, to try my best to capture this.  So I'm going to show you two pictures and the true colour is probably in between.

The first photo show the lovely  lilac colour with a ( I think anyway) slight grey tinge.


The second picture gives lovely lobster hands but shows the nice jelly, squishy finish to the polish.

I didn’t love this colour, when I had it on but I think that was nothing to do with the polish itself, particularly since looking at the photos I'm dying to try it out again.  I wore this for about 4 days and there were no chips and minimal wear when I took it off, so no problems with wear.   I should probably point out here that I sit at a computer all day and try my best to avoid housework, so my polish tends to last week.   

Again this polish was 1.50 stg from the ELF website. Comments as always welcome. 

Elf Haul

Recently ELF (eyelipsface.co.uk) had a promo code, spend £10 get free delivery and 3 lipglosses. They’d recently had new nail colours released on the UK site, I don't believe they were new to the US site. So I put an order in, for five polishes and a brush.

First up the five polishes from L-R, Innocent, Desert Haze, Smokey Brown, Lilac and Mint cream.

As soon as I saw the polishes in real life, a couple looked familiar, so swatches and comparisons to follow!

Also I got the one of the studio brushes the powder brush. Although it’s called the powder brush I had read that its great for liquid foundation. I’ve only used it once and didn’t fare that well with it, but I’ll try it again. Also in the picture are the 3 glosses I received free. The two coloured ones are very similar and had no names when they arrived and a clear one, I haven’t used any of them yet. So, no comment on those.

The ELF polishes are £1.50 each, as are most items on there website. The studio range mostly is £3.50, as are items from the mineral range. (If you are in the states things are a little cheaper) Check out their facebook fan page they often have promotions.

Bottle pics of each of the polishes.

First up Innocent.

Desert Haze

Smokey Brown

Lilac



and finally Mint Cream

Have you tried any ELF polishes? How did you find them? As always I'd love to hear any comments!

My Stash

Today, I thought I'd post a few pictures of my small stash, so to start off here's a picture of most of my polish stash. I found a few more lying around the place after I took the pictures and I know my Mum and sister have a few too. I must make a spreadsheet because I have no idea how many polishes I have, I guess around 60.

Next up, The OPIs

The China Glazes.

The Orlys and Ruby&Millie.

Elf and No7

Essence

17

Collection 2000, Rimmel, Maybelline and H&M

Essie, Claires and mini OPIs from the Spanish collection

That's it for now. Have a great weekend!