MUA NOTD

Currently listening to: Short Hair from the Mulan soundtrack

Hi girls,

Here's my first bottle of nail polish from Superdrug's MUA range.

I don't really know why I chose this colour (shade 5), I suppose I just wanted to try the product and felt this was a shade that I didn't already own. I didn't expect much from it to be honest because, well, it's green, and I don't know why I would want green nails. Turns out I really like it though.

( It's more green and less grey in real life)

Application wasn't a problem. I used three coats, possibly could have done with only two if I had been more careful. It's a small bottle (only 6.2ml) so it's not going to last for long but for £1 I think it was a good buy.

Bye for now,
Laura

Stars NOTD

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy season 5

Hi folks,

Going back down to Manchester tomorrow for another flat-hunting session. Joy. Boyfriend's arriving next Thursday. Yay. Genuine happiness. By then we will have been apart for nearly six weeks. At first each day was horrible and I was trying to do everything quickly in the belief that it would make the time pass more quickly. It didn't really work though, I was just impatient all the time and couldn't enjoy anything as I was simply waiting for every individual activity or event to finish. Come on, hurry up and finish lunch so we can go out visiting relatives then come home for tea, watch Top Gear, blog, go to bed, say goodbye to Sunday, wake up to Monday.....repeat for four/five/six weeks..... Now that I have a definite date for our reunion, I'm on a new countdown, a different one, which asks that time slows down a little so I can get everything in order and be able to relax while David is here and enjoy our final days in Scotland. Can't do anything without nice nails though ;-)

Konad special polish in white and Natural Collection Hibiscus
were my chosen colours for this star manicure:

I think you can tell from the number of photos that I love it :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD

Currently listening to: Broken Wings by Tupac

Hello girlies,

Hope you've all had a nice weekend. It's been ages since I last blogged but here I am, back again, with a new manicure to show you:



This was done using a Polish brand of polish (MV by Editt Cosmetics) for the background colour, a Miss Sporty shade for the stripes and BM image plate 16. I love it. It's the first time I've ever done animal stripes but I definitely plan to use this image again with various colour combinations. Needing to double stamp some of my nails was an issue but it doesn't matter too much with this type of unstructured pattern. I could probably have filled in the "gaps" using a brush.

Are you a fan of animal prints?

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD

Currently listening to: Back Here by BBMak

Greetings from me and my short nails. Today I was busy sorting out all my cds so that I can either sell them or donate them to charity shops. What fun I had! Additionally, I only recently discovered the beauty of having a youtube account and being able to create playlists so my musical finds in my house this morning sparked off a jump back in time to classic hits such as BBMak's Back Here ;-) I was never that much of a fan of youtube but now I love my youtube playlists. Not only that, I also went through the pile of clothes that was sitting on the top of my wardrobe so I now have three extra pairs of jeans to wear that I'd completely forgotten about.

The main excitement of the day, however, was my trip to see a secondhand car. Now I didn't share this at the time but last week I almost bought a car. I didn't, because the gits at Arnold Clark sold it behind my back, but nonetheless, it was a step in the car-buying direction. Today was the second step. My dad successfully negotiated a price and we took the car out for a test drive, on the assumption that if it was a good drive, I'd buy the car today. Of course it wasn't a good drive. It was very noisy. So we don't know if there's a problem with the engine or if we're just looking for a reason not to buy it (because although the price was dropped, it's still a lot of money)... This was at 5.15pm, ie too late in the day to hang around and investigate, so I think someone at the dealership will take it out for a test drive tomorrow morning then give us a call to let us know their verdict. On the plus side, I bought a TomTom sat nav yesterday and used it to guide us to the dealership today :-)

Anyway, enough of this blethering, here are my nails of the day:

Barry M Mushroom with a Spanish pastel pink shade for the stamping. I'm looking at my nails now (and of course I can't like them that much because they're shorter than I'd prefer) and while I can't say I love the colour combination (yet again), I think this manicure might look better in tomorrow's daylight. We shall see.

Bye for now,
Laura

NOTD (Bit of a fail)

Currently listening to: Quelqu'un m'a dit by Carla Bruni

I spent about eight hours cleaning on Saturday and totally wrecked my nails so once again I've had to cut them to a length that's so short I want to cry every time I look at my hands. They look awful bare so this morning I went for a polka dot design using Eyeko Lilac Polish and Nails Inc Spitalfields:

It looks okay in real life but the colour combination isn't that great for me as it looks very similar to a pastel purple and white polka dot design I did a couple of months ago.

Before leaving you for the day, let me present the collection of suits I've managed to recently acquire:

From right to left: Black, black, grey, black, black, ooh charcoal! I'm really going to brighten up the office in this attire. Pfft.

Bye for now,
Laura

Revelation

Currently listening to: Terrified by Katharine McPhee

For someone who apparently doesn't like blue polish that much, I have a surprisingly large amount of it in my nail polish collection.

It came as quite a surprise.

Are there any surprises in your nail polish collections?

NOTD

Currently watching: Seven Pounds

Good afternoon ladies,

Today I used Boots No 7 in Magic Cerise and a gold shade from the M&S Autograph range for my nails. My camera wasn't in a good mood so unfortunately I only have some blurry photos of my Konading:

What do you think?

Purple Comparison

Currently listening to: Broken by Lifehouse

Earlier this week I was in Boots and got tempted by the Barry M 2 for £5 offer on nail polish. One of the colours I got was Pure Turquoise (yesterday's NOTD) and the second one I chose was Berry Ice Cream. I knew I had a similar shade at home (pictured below on the right) but the application is terrible so I was happy to get a higher quality dupe. However, I also thought it was a similar shade to Eyeko's Lilac Polish (again, bad application) but after today's swatching session, I now see how wrong I was.

Left to right: Milo, Barry M, Eyeko

Left to right: Eyeko, Barry M, Milo

Left to right: Milo, Barry M, Eyeko

As you can see, the Milo and Barry M shades are really similar (and even more similar in reality than in these photos I have to say) so I'm pleased about that. However, I was surprised to discover that the Eyeko shade is a lot darker and more purple than I had pictured it in my head. I'm actually quite pleased about that too because, despite the poor application, I still think it looks great on my nails so I will definitely be using this more in the near future :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Pure Turquoise NOTD

Currently watching: Sex and the City The Movie

Hi ladies,

I finished watching the season 4 boxset of Grey's Anatomy last night (such a short season but so good, I want to go back and watch season 1-3 now) so for background entertainment this morning while I was painting my nails and studying, I decided on the first Sex and the City film. I liked it when I saw it at the cinema and today, second time round, I thought it was even better.

Now on to the nails. Today's colour was Barry M's pure turquoise:

Then I Konaded some butterflies with Konad Special polish in white:

Then I added Essence glitter topper (looks better in reality):

Have a nice day :-)

5 Product Face

Good evening girls,

The lovely Carrie recently tagged me for the "5 Product Face" challenge, where you're supposed to do your make-up using only five products. It may surprise you to know that for someone who has the word cosmetics in her blog title, I don't actually use or have that much make-up therefore this tag was really easy for me and I thought I'd just show you the products I used today:

1) Superdrug Vitamin moisture lotion
2) L'Oreal Matte Morphose foundation
3) A very old Collection 2000 shimmering glow powder
4) Editt Cosmetics 3D superblack mascara
5) Collection 2000 Brilliant Shimmer lip gloss (I don't usually wear lip gloss or lipstick but I won this one last month and kind of thought why not give it a try)

So that was what was on my face today. What products did you choose? Give it a try if you haven't already been tagged :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Taking a break with Barry M

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy season 4

Hi girls,

It feels like ages since I last blogged and I suppose that's true since my most recent posts were actually written at the start of last week. Thanks for the comments on my photos; I'm so pleased that you enjoyed seeing my holiday snaps :-) I've finally finished choosing which photos I want to print from the ones I've taken during the last six months and the total comes to 1200. Which will cost £60. Plus £7 for each 200-picture photo album. £102. Ouch. So getting my photos developed in a big batch will just have to wait right now as I don't have that kind of money to spend on non-essentials.

Why? Because I'm moving from Edinburgh to Manchester to start my first proper job, my starting salary is low, and I have a lot of fixed expenses. As I mentioned in my scheduled posts, I was in Manchester last week to look for accommodation. What a nightmare. Where are all the affordable, one-bedroom, first floor flats with washing machines and off road parking hiding?

I start my job on 27th August and I am so stressed now, I dread to think what I'm going to be like nearer the time. Accommodation is problem number one. My job (I'll be a trainee accountant) involves driving so I need to buy a car. Problem number two. I passed my driving test six years ago but I've had very little driving practice since then. I've been out driving with my dad almost everyday since I returned from Poland but I'm not a confident driver. And if I'm having problems driving in the city I grew up in, how am I going to manage in the great unknown that is Greater Manchester?

So I'm supposed to be finding accommodation, building up driving experience, researching cars, researching satellite navigation systems, selling my flat in Glasgow, studying accountancy (my degree is in Economics and French so I have no idea what's in store for me), buying suitable work clothes, preparing for the big move in other words, but sometimes I need to take a break. If that means watching Grey's Anatomy and painting my nails then so be it. Ok let's take that break now and look at my NOTD:

This is my first Barry M nail polish (the shade is Mushroom) and now I see what all the hype is about. It was very easy to apply, needed only two coats, and looked glossy even without a top coat. I haven't tested its "staying power" but it didn't chip when I washed my hair in the shower so that's a good start!

What do you think? Is brown a colour you have in your nail polish collection?

Hopefully I'll be able to try some more of the Barry M range in future :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

PS Well done if you managed to read all the way down here, back to "cheerful" posts from now on, promise.

Souvenirs from Slovenia (Part Two)

(The Julien Alps)

(Soca river)

(seaside town of Piran)

PS This is a scheduled post as I'm away. I will read and reply to any comments on Saturday :-)