Hello Holo :)

What? Another nail post. Yes. I really need to mix things up a bit before this blog turns into a nail polish blog but I am trying to get back into the habit of updating my blog more frequently and nail polish is the only thing I can stick my teeth into at the moment. I hope the little beauty I have to share with you will make up for it.





Hot from the Boots oven, this is 'Silver' 17's take on the holographic trend. About time the high street gave Gosh Holographic a little bit of competition. The Silver Holo is much more subtle that the legendary holographic from Gosh, recently renamed 'one night only'.It also doesn't quite have the 'metallic wave' effect which you find on your typical holographic craft paper, but it still just as hypnotising.

   

  




Like the Gosh Holo, you just can't quite comprehend what's on your fingers, the effect is just so magical. Application was far more superior than the Gosh Holo: effortless, smooth, with the added bonus of being fast drying.
   







You need this in your life.









The end.


what: 'Silver' Holo Nail Polish from Boots 17 Cosmetics
where: erm, Boots.
how much: £2.99 or £3.99 (I don't remember)
bought by me

A big wave to my blogging friends Claire (Eyelining Obsessions) and Liz (Cappuccino Lace) for joining me tonight for a #bloggingdate.

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Mascara Monday: The Battle of Mascaras.

Today, I have the honour to introduce you to Sophie from Melovemakeup Blog who has kindly volunteered to help me out reviewing 2 mascaras. I love Sophie: her blog is amazing, her makeup tutorials in her youtube channel are inspiring and a delight to watch. Over to you Sophie:






Firstly, thanks to the lovely Liloo for giving me the chance to try out both of these mascaras. I've road tested them both now, so I will share my thoughts..


Before I start, here are the wands for the two mascaras, both totally different.. The Exceptional Definition (left) has the shorter bristles on the right, longer on the left, and then the little spikes at the top.  The Essence mascara is a standard bristle brush, but is absolutely massive!

Boots No7 Say:

"No7 Exceptional Definition Mascara. This amazing new mascara has a truly magic wand and unique, conditioning formula. The innovative three-in-one brush gives lashes exceptional definition and volume. "

Essence Say:

"The ultimate lash-wonder for eyes which will take your breath away: the extra large brush ensures even more volume. ophthalmologically tested."

Here are the Mascaras in action.. As you can see, I have very fair natural lashes, so a great mascara is a big  must for me.

No7 Exceptional Definition:

I love this mascara! I have never used a mascara with 3 wands in one before. This wand is so good for grabbing every single lash, even the finest innermost lashes that you didn't know were there, that's what the little spikes on the end are great for. The double sided brush is great, I like to use the longer side to get through and coat my lashes, and then the shorter side to really comb through and remove any clumps from my lashes.

The results are luscious long looking lashes with both added volume and length, and also great curl too. In the photos (above) I have used one coat of  the mascaras - as you can see my lashes look long, but not overly clumped at all. This mascara lasted really well through the day too, no smudging, no flaking. It gets a big thumbs up from me!

Essence Lash Mania:

My first impression on this mascara when I applied it was great. I was wowed by how amazing my lashes appeared, they looked full and very voluminous. The problem I have with this mascara though, is that the wand is huge, and I'm talking the size of my eye huge! It is very easy to make a mess with this, and I did get quite a bit of the formula on my eye lid and lashline.

After about 4 hours I also noticed that this had smudged underneath my eyes quite a bit, and I looked a bit like a panda. I liked how this made my lashes look, but for me the brush is too large which caused messy application, I don't think it added very much curl either, which the No7 mascara did. The Boots mascara definitely wins for me!

Thanks for reading!

Want to see and read more from Sophie? Please make sure to check out her blog and her fabulous YouTube makeup channel! :)

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Weight Worries Wednesday: The Exante Diet – A Review

I am a big fan of meal replacement shakes diets. Not that I particularly love the taste of diet shakes, I prefer real food like everyone but I’ve found that diet shakes are the best option for me. There is no cooking/thinking involved which pleases the useless cook in me. Boredom issues aside, it’s just an easy diet to follow. While I was googling for Cambridge Diet supplies, I stumbled on the Exante Diet and thought I could try them for a change. So I succumbed to the bumper package offer at half price and bought a box of 50 vanilla shakes for £59.50.



I have already tried every diet shake under the sun (Slim Fast, Celebrity Slim, Tony Ferguson, Cambridge Diet) and apart from Slim Fast, I usually have to pay around £1.99 per shake, so I really wanted to try this diet, at just £1.20 per meal.

They say: Our diet shakes are thick & creamy. They have NO aspartame, NO artificial colours, NO MSG and have NO genetically modified products! 3 packs a day gives you 100% RDA's!

My order reached me in the speed of light. I was able to start straight away and then it hit me, from the very first shake. I knew I was not to expect a product as tasty as Tony Ferguson shakes (The shakes by Tony Ferguson are, hands down, the tastiest shakes I have ever had) but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. I should have smelt a rat by looking at the nutritional value details, but the offer was so good, that I chose to ignore my first instincts.




How can I put this diplomatically? I’ve never drunk a shake as greasy and heavy as this one. It reminded me of a liquid version of a typical British fish and chips. I could cope with the not-even-remotely-tasting-like-vanilla flavour but it’s the whole texture that I really had problems with. It felt as if I had swallowed a liquid lump of butter. I felt so uncomfortable after it. Not only I felt full, but I felt too heavy for comfort. Looking at the shake in my shaker was not a pretty sight as I could see the little bubbles of grease left behind sticking on the empty shake bowl.


Nutritionally wise, this shake kept me going from 12 noon till 9pm without feeling hungry w h a t s o e v e r. On that respect, the shake is really good value for money and I can feel that if I stuck with it, I could achieve ketosis (more on that in another post) very easily but I just cannot bring myself with drinking another one. A bit of shame to find that out after buying a box of 50, isn’t it?




If you’re a seasoned Fish and Chips eater, or like your toast heavily buttered, you will probably be all right and will be amazed on how long this shake can make you feel full for, but I just couldn’t get along with it. Why didn’t I follow my instincts and draw some conclusions that a shake 3 times more the amount of fat than in an average shake  (see comparison table below) was going to be very different to what I am used to, I don’t know but I could kick myself for it! Argh.

Happy dieting :) x

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*Bargain Alert* and Fearnesque Lime Green Nails {notd}

To say that it's been a while since I have not blogged properly and share my nail colour adventures is an understatement. I’ll spare you the drama about my computer woes. My nails have been in a bad condition since the beginning of November and everytime they grew a little, they shortly lived and broke and grew and broke etc.. The nail on my little finger is way too small compared to the rest of my hand, my index looks it's been filed with in pitch black but hey ho, I really want to get back into the swing of things and get to blogging again more frequently.




Today's manicure was not planned. I happened to visit a big boots shop (well bigger than my local one) on Tuesday and they had all the Fearne Cotton nail polishes on half price, reduced from £5.50 to £2.75. (It should really be £2.25, Boots, tut tut). Lime Green is one of my favourite colour, I fancied this particular polish for ages so it was too good an occasion to be missed.




So how did Fearne 'Lime Green' perform? I found the polish a little bit too runny for my liking but managed to get the coverage that you see in 2 generous coats which I am really pleased about. The colour is absolutely divine. If I had to come up with a shade of lime green, this would be exactly how I would like it to be.








Application wise, I don't like it as much as my other 2 lime green polishes the Superdrug 2true ‘Shade 4’ and 'Early Green' from Gosh, but the application remained very easy nevertheless. Colour wise, this is now my favourite lime green. The 2true is too 'apple' and not lime enough  while I find 'Early Green' from Gosh a bit too neon. Below an attempt a comparing the 3 polishes, in a bid to show the nuances in colour.



All the individual polishes from Fearne Cotton are at half price.
Snap them up here online in your local boots store before they're all gone.




What? Fearne Cotton Lime Green Nail Polish, 9ml
How much? £2.75 reduced from £5.50
Where? Larger Boots.

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Fashion Fawn Nails and Brown/Taupe Polishes comparison

I've been wondering whether I was a bit harsh with my review of Nails Inc Instyle Orange Candy yesterday. On Emma's positive experiences on Fashion Fawn and Electric Teal, the other 2 shades of nails inc polishes, also free on purchase of In Style magazine this month, I decided to buy 'Fashion Fawn'. Everything is all right with the world again.

Application was the usual easy and I couldn't fault the formula. I was able to be more in control the application again and no hint of gloopyness in sight. I had one hair on the brush right in the middle of the brush longer than the others but it was nothing that a quick snip with a pair of scissors couldn't fix. My photos show 2 coats of polish. Fashion Fawn gets my thumbs up!












I am not very good at describing shades, and comparing it with others. For me it's brown, a nice shade of brown. I am going to leave you all nail polish aficionados and taupe experts to appreciate the nuances in my little comparison swatch below. Thank you Emma for the comparison inspiration :) xx






I really enjoyed that exercise. I have found that:
- Barry M Mushroom was the easiest to apply (They have really nailed their formula!!)
- I still want to recycle / blog sale Accessorize Truffle: not too keen on the brush, it feels so short. I am not very comfortably applying it, the size of the cap of the truffle feels disproportionately too wide too big compared to the length of the brush. I can’t believe how grey and dark it looks here!
- My favourite brown from this little swatch is Jermyn Street and it made me appreciate it even more.
 

This is one of these times when I would have loved to be a freak, to have 4 more fingers on the same hand and compare more shades at once. Now if you want to compare nails inc london, fashion fawn, eyeko posh and no.7 'the brown one' I'd love you for ever :)

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Groovy Grey Nails from Gosh NOTD

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Last Saturday was pretty surreal. I remember it like it was ... well last week actually. I started off the day with my electricity company telling me I was in credit for a change, Tesco Express had just opened its doors in my little town, I was donated the much lusted after Golden Dragon from Gosh and and and and my friend bought for herself 'Groovy Grey' from Gosh which I was able to play with.






Now I knew I had to expect amazingness from this polish but I didn't expect I was going to be so blown away. All the photos you see are in one coat of polish. Yes, that's right just one quick coat gave me this stunning shade of grey. Application as with all the shades I tried from Gosh, (apart from the unique holographic) was a dream.


However, whilst one coat didn’t leave any patchiness and covered perfectly my nail line, I would recommend you to apply 2 coats unless your nails are perfectly ridge free and that you’re never going to do any housework.





If Lavender Love, Misty Mauve and Neon Baby, from the same limited edition collection apply opaquely and smoothly like Groovy Grey, boy you're in for a ride, a very happy one.





I leave you a with a little comparison: my latest favourite nail polish, Elf Desert Haze and Groovy Grey. Which colour do I prefer? Desert Haze, but its tedious and lengthy application in comparison will always make me choose Groovy Grey without hesitation.




Whatever you do this week end, include a little visit to Superdrug and grab your groovy grey, while the 3 for 2 for offer. You need it in your life, and preferably before the greedy gits sell it on eBay at 3 times its recommended retail price.




Name: Gosh Groovy Grey 003 (Limited Edition)
Where to get it: Superdrug
How much: £4.99

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Neon Bargain

Deliriously excited when I saw this little neon palette does not quite describe it. When I thought my day could not get better (was given a second hand iphone for free, and received some awesome giveaway prizes in the post today) I stumbled on this little NEON EYES palette in TJ Hughes. If you know me, even only un petit peu, you would know I like my bright colours, so I just could not resist and at £1.99, why would I even try to resist?



 


The neon eyes  palette comes  in 3 colours (same colours inside but different colour for the case) but it struck me as obvious to go for the pink one. The stand where it was displayed was bit of dusty mess, as per usual with such a bargain shop but I was super lucky as there were still lots of palettes totally fresh and never opened. I wonder whether they had just arrived? They also had 1 or 2 other more neutral palettes (Zzzzz) and I totally ignored them.





It feels very sturdy,  has a mirror inside, and was designed with a young audience in mind: with smiley faces on the shadows, and when you close the palette, you can see the eyes kinda winking at you, peeking through the transparent part of the case. It's very cutesy and might put off your average adult.





So, how does this £1.99 palette fare then? (I am hoping I am using the word 'fare' in the right context, it;s the first time I'm using it lol) Let's jump right into it and say that this will never replace my SleekMakeup acid palette which is my favourite sleek palette of all time but it's a lovely little addition. Considering this is a matte palette, (that I've found with lots of matte shades in general, that the colour pay off is disappointing and chalky) this is pretty impressive. I found the shadows very soft, and they are NOT  fragile like the 120 palette or the sleek makeup palettes, who crumble at the sight of a fingernail. After you swatch them, they wont leave either that waxy sheen that some cheap shadows (boots no.7, mua etc) leave. You will need to layer these over a white base (I used Nyx jumbo pencil in milk) apply the eyeshadow colour generously, and you can obtain these swatches:









I cannot believe this was just only £1.99. I would have preferred a more neon shade of orange rather than a orangey red) and the green is a miss for me (the less pigmented of all shades) but I am still over the moon and cannot wait to play with it. I would totally recommend this palette for makeup lovers of all ages on a budget or people who need neon colours for a particular occasion, and who can't justify spending lots of money for shades they're not going to reach out very often.
Do you like your neons?

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