Neon Skittles

Everything beauty is just so Christmas focussed, I wanted to take a little step back, break from the mould and write about something a little different. I will embrace Christmas when I am ready but for now I want to write about something bright, something neon. Some of you will associate neon colours more with Summer. For me, neon is there anytime you want to brighten your mood and this is just what I need at the moment. Without wanting to throw my doom and gloom on you, I've spent most of the past week under the weather, mourning the loss of a close friend of mine. It's been quite cathartic to cry but now I feel the urge to shake myself out of it and inject some brightness into my life again.

 
Cue the Nails Inc 'Neons and Nude' boxset of mini polishes. I was lucky to win the boxset in a blog giveaway and the neon shades had to go on my nails first.
   
   





For you today, I have some swatches of the 3 neon shades: Westbourne Grove, Portobello and Notting Hill Gate.



The first shade which I felt compelled to try first was Westbourne Grove, the neon yellow-orange shade. I am not going to beat about the bush. I was very disappointed. Whilst I find the colour absolutely gorgeous, the application was laborious. The formula was smooth enough, but it was way too sheer. I paired it with my favourite nude polish underneath but even then it took 3 coats of polish to be able to appreciate the colour of Westbourne Grove. Then it's the finish I had trouble with. I do like matte polishes but when Westbourne dried on my nails, it looked decidedly dull.





Portobello and Notting Hill Gate were a little bit better in terms of coverage but they still required the application of a nude polish underneath, which defies the object of 'quick, let's just apply a bright ass nail polish to cheer myself up'. Enjoyment of the neon part of this box set takes time and patience.





There's something as well you should know. Bottles only contain 4 ml of product. Do not be fooled by the photos. 4ml is not much at all which explains why I only opted for a skittles manicure to show you how it looks when applied on the nails. The set is very cute but I find the price tag of £22 a little steep for sheer polishes. Maybe the other half will fare better in terms of opacity?  
   
   



If you like Westbourne Grove but feel slightly put off by its pigmentation pay off, I'd recommend BonBon by Beautyuk. You’ll have your bright orange/yellow fix quicker and with less effort. I moan, I moan but I am quite happy to be the owner of this set. It brightened my mood, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

   

I am once again eternally grateful to Sirvinya, without who this blog would be very bare at the moment. Take a moment to check out her blog, if you have a few minutes to spare. If we hadn't had this sunday blogging date going on, I am not quite sure I would have updated my blog at all these days

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Releasing my inner Minaj

I can't believe how hot and sunny it has been lately and I have got just the brightest polish to give the bright sun a run for its money. This is aciiied from Models Own.





It's definitely not safe for office work, it's loud, in your face and it reminds me of Nicky Minaj luridly bright hair, outfit and makeup. In fact it's too bright for me and had I seen swatches of this 9 months ago, I probably wouldn't have bought it. Yes this is how long it has taken me to play with it.






Aciiied offers a superb coverage (the photos show 2 coats of polish) but application was a bit laborious. It's not streaky, nor patchy but the formulation is quite thick and I found it quite hard to control the flow and place the polish where I wanted to. It felt as if the polish was controlling me. My first attempt at painting my nails was a disaster. The second one was much better: I had to take my time, I made sure the brush was lightly loaded (I usually load it up and wack it on) and just go very slowly basically.








If you like bright acid green verging on neon yellow, you'll go past the distinctively strong smell of the polish and its application woes. I think it would make a perfect dupe for OPI 'did it on em', but at half the price.  Aciiied made me realise that I'm much more a lime green type of person and that my favourite lime green to date was not so bad after all.


what: Models Own Aciiied Nail Polish, NP 114
how much: £5
where: Boots nationwide and Models Own online.

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Papaya Smile, Neon Turquoise Nails & special feature :)

Early hours in the morning. I should be tired, sleepy and grumpy. Instead I am wearing a huge papaya smile (Mauritian expression to describe a large grin from ear to ear) and I can't take it off. Beautyuk Cosmetics asked me if I wanted to feature on their website as their blogger of the week. Yes please! :) If you want to see my little 'blogger spotlight' feature, and read about more me, click here.


And then, then, THEN, as I didn't feel special enough, Beautyuk chose my little blog to host a competition to win a fabulous massive bag  jam packed with with £50 worth of Beautyuk makeup. Now, a 10 eyeshadow palette costs £3.99, a nail polish costs £1.99 so you can imagine how much stuff you'll get. To know all about this competition/giveaway, and enter, click here. It ends on Saturday 5 March, so don’t hang around.


For now, I wanted to show you very quickly another little gem from BeautyUK. Meet Neon Turquoise nail polish. Hard to believe this is again just £2: application was a walk in the park and immaculate even coverage was achieved in 2 coats. Shimmery enough to add oomph, depth and dimension to the shade, but not too metalliccy to show brushstrokes. Perfect! Why spend more? Photos show 2 coats and no tidy up whatsoever.






 

Next, I fancy trying the little gift set called ‘Midnight Minx’. It costs £4.99 and contains 6 mini polishes. IF I get it, I’ll give one of you the ‘blue’ from it, as I already have it in a big version. Shall I get it? :)

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BFF series - Un regard fluo - Makeup Look (Recreation)

I might just as well post these photos, right? It would be shame if it went to waste. In continuation to yesterday's  post (or this very early morning’s post more like) this is another look recreation from my friend spittingglitter on YouTube. There is no tutorial for this look, but my friend used mainly neon eyeshadows from affordable brand stargazer cosmetics. This is spittingglitter's look .





And this is my recreation. The pink, purple and green colours are from sleek makeup acid palette (what else, lol). As for the yellow, i totally 'cheated' and opted for a kinder shade of yellow (nyx mellow yellow) rather than a pure neon yellow. 


 








Overall I don’t mind my recreation, it’s all right even though it’s not as neon (fluo in French) as the original. I wish I wasn't so heavy handed on the purple and deposited a soft wash rather than a heavy purple rain. I like to pile it on baby.

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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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