Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

Today's NOTD is Revlon Facets of Fuchsia, a dark purple glitter polish with microglitter and larger hexagonal glitter in an almost black jelly base.  I have to say I picked this up about 4 different times before I bought it, I'd seen the pictures everywhere, I knew that it was dupish to Deborah Lippman Bad Romance (There's a comparison here on Bright Lights Big Color, the base colour of Bad Romance is slightly darker) and everyone loved it but I wasn't sure I even liked it.  Finally, it ended up following me home from Boots one day and I thought I better try it, well consider me surprised, I loved it.  In fact it reminded me of one of my favourite polishes of the last year, China Glaze Mummy May I, except this contains additional hexagonal glitter.

The glitter gives the polish a lit from within type of finish and mean it catches the light all the time but it's still subtle enough for work. The pictures show 2 coats with a coat of seche vite on top, the seche vite more or less removed the glitter bumpiness from the finish but you might need two coats if you wished to eliminate it completely. After the first day of wear I had two tiny chips on the tip of my baby finger and index fingers but the never got any worse and weren't joined my any friends in the five days I wore this polish. 


When I bough this it was on special offer it Boots for €6 but I think the usual price is nearer €8, but this gets a giant thumbs up from me, go get it! 


Edited to add: Dollyrouge's comment below reminded me, I forgot to mention removal. It was a giant PITA! It seriously was the hardest polish I've ever found to remove, I have a small bit of L'onglex with acetone remover left (which I can't find anywhere to buy a replacement) and I save it for hard jobs like this and normally it removes glitter polish with ease. Not this one, it was glued on!  


Have you tried this? What do you think?

Essence Choose Me

Today's NOTD is Essence Choose Me. This is a beautiful Blue-y green duochrome glitter polish that reminds me of the sea. It flashes from blue as shown in the below photo, to a sea green (which I couldn't capture at all!) . It's very much in the same vein as Zoya Charla, OPI Catch Me in Your Net and Orly Hayley's Comet, while I don't have those other polishes I believe this a dupe for them.  

And really close up

Application of this was perfect, although I always this the brush is a little stubby on the these colour and go polishes, but it's perfectly fine to work with and it's just me nitpicking, for less than €2  I can live with it!  The pictures show 2 coats topped with a coat of seche vite. Wear was good I got  about 5 days out of this before minor chippage started appearing. 


I have to say this was a grower on me, I loved it in the bottle and was slightly dissapointed when I first put this on first but the more I wore it, the more I loved it particularly the duochromeness of it! 


Have you tried this or one of it's many dupes? What did you think? 

Best in Beaut.ie Awards

(picture courtesy of Beaut.ie)

A couple of weeks ago (ummm 3 at this stage! Bad blogger!) myself and the little sister took ourselves of to Dublin to attend the Best in  Beaut.ie beauty awards. The awards were organised by the very lovely beaut.ie sisters Kirstie and Ailsling  Beaut.ie McDermott (who will hence forth be known as the mothership of Irish blogging, since they have been called this so often recently!)  in conjunction with West Coast Cooler.   If you haven't already checked out their blog, you should once you finish reading this post,. The blog is 5 years old, in fact they are celebrating their birthday this month, and they already have one book under their belt, with another on the way shortly. You should definitely check out the blather posts, which is a daily open post were people discuss anything from beauty to current affairs. 


The awards were not only voted for my Beaut.ie readers but the shortlist also came from their readers, so these were definitely a true reflection of what Irish (since they are a Irish based blog the majority of readers are Irish!) gals use and love.

Mmmmm west coast cooler!! 

(picture courtesy of Beaut.ie)

We arrived at the very lovely Dylan hotel and promptly were given a glass of west coast cooler and found some beaut.ies I'd met before and some I hadn't we had a great evening chatting and catching up lubricated by copious amounts of West Coast Cooler - which I hadn't tried before and actually it's quite nice! Then, the awards themselves were announced you can find the whole list here. I'm going to talk about the nail related ones but you definitely check out the whole list, some strange things won awards like the winner of the Best Skin Care Tool was the humble facecloth!


Best Polish brand was won by Rimmel, see the runners up here. The best base coat award went to OPI base coat, see the runners up here. The best top coat went to Sally Hansen Diamond Shine Base and Top Coat, runners up here. The best nail tool went to Boots Buffing Block, see the runners up here. The best hand cream went to (one of my favourites) L'Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream, see the runners up here. Last but not least the best footcream award went to Scholl Cracked Heel Repair Cream, see the runners up here.


After the awards were announced, we had some more to drink and some more chats and got given lovely goody bags, the contents of which are below, 

From L-R : No 7 Lash Adapt Mascara, Sally Hansen Cafe Au Lait, Rimmel Vinyl Addict Max Lipgloss in Addictive (this has the most mahoosive applicator see below!)  I'm dying to try the Sally Hansen polish, because they've just started carrying them in Ireland but I've yet to find somewhere that sells them,

Some Kiehls samples which came in a lovely bag which didn't make it into the photos, I've been dying to try Kiehls for ages so was very happy to see these. From Clockwise from the top left, we have Ultra facial oil free lotion, Creme de Corps, Midnight Recovery Concentrate, Epidermal Re-Texturing Micro-Dermabrasion, Rosa Artica. 

There was also some bottles of West Coast Cooler in the goody bag but they didn't make it to the pictures..........

I just had to show this, the Rimmel lipgloss pictured above has the largest applicator ever, see below for pictorial evidence, there's Benefit lipgloss on the left for comparison, it's ginormous! 

So what do you think of the winners, are your favourites among them? Have you tried any of the winners, what did you think?

What I picked up in Spain

As those of you who follow me on Twitter know, I was recently in Spain for work. While I didn't have much time for the shops unfortunately, I picked up a few Essence bits in a cosmetic shop (kind of like a pharmacy without the drugs!). The selection there was much bigger than that which we have any where I've seen in Ireland - the stand was about 3 times bigger and a lot of the extra was nail stuff.  They had lots of nail stickers and much more polish as well as stamping kits. I only picked up a few things hoping to get back but never made it. 
So here's what I got.


From L-R , the stampy set, two extra plates 01 have fun and 02 style it up!, Nail  Art Twins 02 Julia and Nail Art Special Effect Topper 02 Circus Confetti.

And in more detail.


The stampy kit, this cost €3.49. This contains  a stamper (on top), a scraper (left) and one plate (right)

The two plates, have fun on the left and style it up! on the right.

The two polishes Nail  Art Twins 02 Julia, on the left,  and Nail Art Special Effect Topper 02 Circus Confetti, on the right. Circus Confetti looks very Happy Birthday-esque to me on first look and Julia is a chunky holo glitter. Both of these  are very sparse so a base coat will be needed with them. 

I also popped into H&M and as well as buying a few dresses I picked up these Moody Model,  from the last post and one more polish I can't find anywhere (which has made me mad!!!- I'm pretty sure it made it home with me, unlike my phone charger but that's a whole other story!)  




I did find a Sephora but didn't pick up any polish there, it was quite small and any that I liked the look of were out of stock :( 


Expect some stampy manicures soon, just as soon as I manage to get to grips with it!  

H&M Moody Model

Today's NOTD is H&M Moody Model, a lovely deep teal cream.  I picked this up in Spain for €3.99 and if memory serves me right they are €4.50 here in Ireland. ( I live nowhere near a H&M). I picked another H&M polish and a few more things, in Spain, which I'll show you in the next couple of days.

This has amazing application,  the polish applies really well it's not too thin or too thick and it's very pigmented, pictures show two coats with seche vite on top, if I did the coats a little thicker it might have been a one coater. This is one of the new bottles and the new cap isn't great, because it's so big but I found holding it sideways made it easier to apply the polish, and as soon as you have worked out a way to hold it, it becomes less of an issue.

17 Lemon Soda

Today's NOTD is 17 Lemon Soda, a yellow pastel cream from Boots cheap, cheerful and on trend brand 17. I picked this up ages ago but it was still on their website when I checked, so I think it's still available.  The picture below was taken with the flash but it is pretty colour accurate (I did take pictures in natural light but my cuticles were so horrible I couldn't possibly bring myself to show you!!!) 

Application wise - This wasn't great but it also was not as bad it as I thought it was going to be. Pastels are historically tricky to apply, as are yellows, so let's face it, it was never going to be easy! The pictures show 3 coats and most of the issues were evened out by then, the coat of Seche Vite on top didn't hurt matters either!  This wore well and I think I got about 5 days wear out of it before there was chippage (Surely this is a word?! If not it should be!). 


I know yellows are a bit of a marmite issue with people so what do you think?  I think this was one of the nicer yellows out there. Are there any other yellows you'd suggest?

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.