Hello Kitty Turquise

Up today is one of the lovely Hello Kitty that arrived in the package from the lovely Felizarine from Alizarine’s Claws, you can see the rest of that package here.

Hello Kitty Turquise is as the name suggests a lovely turquoise coloured polish, it has an almost imperctible shimmer to it. Even as I look at the polish, I know there is glitter in it and I can hardly make it out, but it lends an extra depth to the polish. I’ve included a blown up picture of the bottle to show the glitter.

Now on the nails, 

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, flash

I had planned to take more pictures of this but I managed to chip the mani after a couple of hours.  Application was great these pictures are two coats. The wear wasn’t great as I’ve mentioned I managed to get a chip less than 12 hours after I applied it and I was asleep for many of those hours!

As I said,this polish was part of the package I received from Felizarine for winning her giveaway, so I’m not sure of the price. The bottle is bigger ( 16 ml) than the normal H&M polishes (9ml) so I don’t know if that makes it more expensive. I'm pretty sure the normal H&M polishes retail at €4.50.

Topshop Gypsy Night

So I celebrated a birthday recently and among all the other lovely presents I received, little sis bought me some nail varnish. One Topshop polish and two Essence from the Return to Paradise collection.

From L-R Topshop Gypsy Night, Essence Back to Paradise and Essence Jungle Drum. 

They are all beautiful, little sis  has great taste! But the minute, I saw the Topshop polish I knew that was my next mani. It didn’t disappoint.  This is my first Topshop polish in since I was about 14, I remember going to London and coming back with the most amazing aubergine colour Topshop polish and wearing it all the time.  

While I was wearing this I couldn’t keep my eyes off it, every time I glanced at it the colours it threw up were slightly different. I couldn't decide if the base was black or a had a brownish tint to it. There are flakies and glitter in the polish. In the bottle there are orange and green flashes from the flakies. I’m pretty sure these are what give the brownish tint to the base colour in the polish. The glitter then flashes every colour of the rainbow. I’ve included some out of focus pictures to give and idea of the colour of the glitters in the polish.

This picture shows the orange flakes on the ring finger and in the bottle, 

The out of focus pictures show more of the colours.

The one downside on this polish was the wear was quite rubbish, but the polish was so amazing I can live with that.  (There’s tipwear evident in the photos taken a few hours after I applied it.)  Since the polish was a present, I can’t be totally sure of the price but I think it was about €8, and the bottles hold 8ml. (The essence polishes pictured above are 10ml)

I’ll do a post soon on the other two polishes.  Comments as always are welcome! 

Prudence Beauty Awards

On Thursday night, the Prudence Beauty Awards where held in the new (and very lovely looking) Gibson's hotel in Dublin. Your's truly couldn't go because work got in the way and I was going to treat myself to a stay in the lovely hotel too :( It looks like a great night was had by all. Prudence is a bimonthly Irish magazine, which as the name suggests centers on spending money wisely. I personally love Irish magazines mostly because items featured are *usually* easy enough to obtain. There's nothing worse than reading about something and thinking I want that, only to find it's impossible to get in Ireland.

The full list of winners are in the magazine released on the 1st September, but here's a peak at some of the winners. (Pictures and text from the press release)

Independently judged by a panel of industry experts, Prudence’s beauty awards are now in their second year and are dedicated to rewarding great beauty buys that perform for pocket-friendly prices. The awards also feature ‘splurges’ – more expensive treat buys which are worth the cost because of their high performance.

The Prudence Best Buy Beauty Awards will be published in a special handbag-sized booklet along with the September issue, in stores on September 1st.

Aldi's Lacura Face Care Double Lift Regeneration Cream (€6.99)won the Day and Night Creams category, beating off competition from established skincare brands like L’Oréal Paris, RoC and Bliss. A peptide, retinol and vitamin E mix convinced judges that this performance skincare product is a great buy for Irish women who are crying out for quality products that don’t break the bank.

Irish brand L’Onglex, which cleaned up in the Hands and Nails category for its excellent Acetone-Free Nail Polish Remover, €3.67

Penneys (Primark), which scored two gongs for its SPF30 Sun Lotion, €2.70, and Ta Ta for Now Concealer, €3, which judges said mimicked much more expensive brush concealers.

Want to know the rest of the winners? Well go get the magazine on the first of September, I know I will!

Have you tried any of these products? What do you think of them? What product would you vote as a winner in beauty awards? Let me know! 

Things I'm loving and Things I'm not loving so much

And now for something a bit different...........


Things I’m loving

• My new jacket. I knew the minute I started seeing all the aviator jackets coming through for AW I’d end up with one. Although I was trying to hold off on buying one I saw this and love ensued, less than 5 minutes later I was leaving the shop with the jacket (and minus the boots I’d actually gone in to buy!)

Source: River Island

• Lovely soap and candles from the dolly tub. They do lovely candles in teacups, which are extremely pretty and lovely goats milk soaps. There’s pictures on their website although the website doesn’t seem to be working too well. http://www.thedollytub.com/index.html

• All the lovely irish bloggers! They’ll either cost you money or make you hungry. Check out my blog roll. (I was going to make a list but was afraid I'd leave someone out!)

• Books. I love reading, although I tend to read non-improving books, because I spend so much time reading for uni and it’s nice to switch off. (That’s my excuse anyway!)

Things I’m not loving quite so much

• My ability to be swayed by pretty things, for example see jacket above!

• My age, I *celebrated* a birthday recently and I’m now into the final year of my twenties!

• My cuticles, are being extremely badly behaved, lately!

• My inability (or maybe my camera's inability) to photograph blues and purples, true to life.

Is there anything you are loving (or not loving) at the moment? Well share it, don't keep it bottled up inside!

China Glaze For Audrey

Let me introduce you to the lovely China Glaze For Audrey. For Audrey ofen comes up when people mention their favourite polishes and is a lovely Tiffany blue, so when doing my last internet order it was one of the first that came to mind. Well, this one definitely didn’t disappoint, two coats of creamy loveliness!

Artificial light with Flash

There isn't much more to say other than I LOVE this polish! What’s more this colour didn't give me lovely red hands, which is always a bonus. This is two coats with a layer of Seche Vite.

Have you tried For Audrey? What do think?

Essence - All Access

Today is Essence All Access, a beautiful deep green, glass flecked polish. The polish is a lovely dark green, not so green that is appears black (OPI here today Aragon tomorrow, I’m looking at you!) and the glass fleck makes it appear ‘lit from within’. I’m gonna let the pictures speak for themselves with this one.

This two coats of polish with a coat of seche vite. I'm sorry about the rubbish pics of this, I never got one in natural light but I love this polish and even better this one was half price so cost me the grand total of ONE euro, in a random pharmacy. (If only I could get the pink sticker off). The wear was good on this I think I wore it for 5 days before I got a chip.

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?