Aloha Sun Mattified (NOTD)

Currently reading: ICAEW Principles of Taxation Study Manual :-(

Hello!

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

Following a comment on yesterday's post, I decided to mattify Essence Aloha Sun using my Rimmel matte topcoat. Here are the results:

I like how it looks and I love the texture too so I'm very glad I tried that. I just wonder how long it's going to last. The topcoat apparently has the power to last for 10 days but somehow I doubt it will...

Looking forward to the week ahead, I'm dreading work this week as driving to the client I'm going to work with requires using the motorway. I don't mind the motorway itself, it's working out which lane to be in as I go round these crazily busy, big and badly signed roundabouts in order to get on to the motorway which I'm worried about.

Next week I'm going on a business trip to Holland. It's really bad timing as I'm away 7th-12th November and I have two exams on 15th November. Hopefully I will be able to prepare all my study materials this week and then next week I can revise at night in my hotel room. That's the plan anyway. And at least I won't have to drive so that's one less week of driving that I have to worry about, yay.

Enjoy the last remnants of your weekend :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Essence Aloha Sun NOTD

Currently watching: Have I Got News For You

Aloha :-)

I ended up liking my Essence Jelly Baby polish so much that yesterday I ordered two more plus an Essence manicure polish. They arrived this morning (amazing service from my ebay seller) so here are the recent additions to my Essence collection:

(The most recent additions are the 2nd, 5th and 6th polishes from the left)

This afternoon I decided to try Aloha Sun in Pink Hibiscus :

Lots of nice shimmer in this. I used two coats but it possibly needs three to look its best. The photos are fairly accurate although it's a slightly darker pink in reality.

What do you think?

Bye for now,
Laura

Fauxnad Fail

Currently listening to: Toucher l'Instant by Grand Corps Malade

Good evening girls,

Tonight I thought I'd show you the results of my latest attempt at stamping on nail tips because of course I just couldn't leave yesterday's manicure alone.

Out came my Bundle Monster kit, my stamping set and my Konad special polish in white.

What I was aiming for was a simple yet intricate white tip design.

This is what I ended up with:

(probably the most successful finger)

Now, from afar, ie in these pictures, this doesn't look too bad but in reality it looked awful. There were two problems with this manicure. First, it's really difficult to position the stamp correctly. Second, there's the usual complaint of the Bundle Monster images not being wide enough so double stamping was called for and that led to some very messy looking white overlapping. Not pretty at all so as soon as I took these photos I removed it all. Bare nails for me tomorrow :-(

Do you have any tips for successful tip stamping?

Bye for now,
Laura

PS Any tips on how to space posts and actually get Blogger to place paragraphs where you want them??????

Essence Additions (NOTD)

Currently watching: Loose Women

Hello! Today I took possession of some Essence nail polishes which I bought from Ebay.

From L to R: Very Berry, Pink Hisbiscus, Bubblegum

I decided that Bubblegum would be my first manicure and oh how happy I am to have bought this shade :-)

This is a very light, almost peachy, pink jelly polish which is absolutely perfect if you need neutral nails for work. I don't have a shade like this and I don't think I ever have so it's a bit of a discovery for me. In reality it is slightly pinker and deeper than these pictures show.

What do you think?

If I was skilled at Konading the tips of my nails I would definitely stamp a white pattern on top of this but I'm not so I may just leave it as it is for today and try some stamping tomorrow.

Bye for now,
Laura

Essence Most Wanted NOTD

Good morning girls!

Hope you all had a great weekend and are ready to start the week with a spring in your step :-) I'm spending this week studying in the office, which means I will be sitting in a room by myself from 9am-5.30am, Monday - Friday. Although I'm not overjoyed by this prospect, there are some upsides, mainly that I won't need to drive this week as I can walk to the office and, since I'll be on my own, I can get away with wearing brighter nail polish.

With that in mind, on Saturday I chose Essence Most Wanted. I've had this shade for over two years but I think I've only worn it once. I have no idea why because now I absolutely love it.

I was definitely wrong to shun this for so long.

Bye for now,

Laura

Seriously, what's the point? (NOTD)

Currently listening to: Dive In by Darius

Hi girls,

Following on from my last post, I gave myself a French manicure last night since I'd had to peel off my Ciate manicure due to extreme chipping. Well. It looked lovely this morning but as soon as I got to work I noticed it had started to chip. This is what it looked like by the end of the morning:

I try to project a professional image and this is what I end up with. Ridiculous. Not happy today.

Bye for now,
Laura

ASOS Paint by Ciate- Blake (NOTD)

Currently watching: The Apprentice

Hi girls,

Today I'm showing you Blake by Ciate's ASOS Paint.

This colour didn't photograph well at all. In reality, it was more of a fushia pink. I quite liked this shade, and even managed to wear it to work yesterday (my company's logo is pink and yesterday we were told that if we came to work wearing pink then money would be donated to charity). However, I had to redo some nails this morning and by the time I got to work, I already had some serious chipping. I couldn't believe it. It looked so bad that I actually just spent five minutes peeling it off. I'd rather people saw my own nails, horrible as they are, than be at work with chipped nail polish.

I'm really fed up with polish that chips so easily. I've tried so many topcoats and they just don't work for me at all. The one I used on this was Barry M 3-in-1.

Can you recommend any topcoats that prevent chipping?

Should I invest in some more expensive nail polish (say, OPI) and hope that doesn't chip?

What do you think?

Bye for now,
Laura

The Versatile Blogger

Hello folks :-)

Leanne, over at Do Not Refreeze tagged all of her readers for The Versatile Blogger award so here I am, doing the same.

The rules: tell us 7 things about yourself then tag 6 other bloggers for this award.

1. One of my favourite books is Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I've just finished reading it for probably the tenth time. It's about two families in America, one American and one Iranian, who both adopt baby girls from Korea. The story is not particularly dramatic or fast-paced but that's why I love it; it's about the day to day lives of these two families, observations about culture and behaviour, and what it is to be an outsider.

2. I want to start taking Spanish classes next year.

3. I haven't had a proper, genuine, carefree conversation with another girl for about 10 weeks, since I moved here. I don't have any female friends here and I'm beginning to miss girlie chats.

4. I'm a Scot living in England and not a day goes by without someone reminding me of this.

5. When I was younger I wanted to be a stock broker when I grew up.

6. My favourite singer is Josh Groban. Although there are a few of his songs which I dislike, I absolutely love Oceano, All'improvviso Amore, In Her Eyes and Awake. His new album comes out on 15th Nov and I just can't wait to hear it (I've been waiting for a new album for three years) despite being slightly apprehensive as apparently this album shows Josh taking his music in a new direction.

7. I've been with my boyfriend for a year and seven months. He makes me happy :-)

I pass this award on to everybody who reads this and feels like joining in the fun!

Bye for now,
Laura

ASOS Paint by Ciate (NOTD)

Currently listening to: Rushes by Darius

Hello,

Hope you've all had a good start to the week.

Today I have one of my new ASOS nail polishes to show you, this shade is called Lily from the ASOS Paint by Ciate range.

I tried all the settings my camera has and yet I was unable to capture the true shade of this polish in pictures. It's a lot greener in reality, the kind of green that I wouldn't want to Konad over with white in case people thought I supported a particular football team, and less turquoise blue. I assume this was in the sale because it's considered a spring/summer colour but actually I think it would be suitable for winter, particularly for red and green Christmas-themed manicures.

These pictures were taken when I had two coats on but I later added a third coat (it didn't show up any better on my camera). When I bought this it was £1, reduced from £6. For £1, it's a super polish. If I'd spent £6 on it I wouldn't be happy. Application was a dream. But then it started to chip. Within less than a few hours. And when I removed it, all the polish went under my nails so I had green, not white, tips. Pretty. I won't dismiss it yet though. Next time I'll use a topcoat to see if that prevents it from chipping. There's not much I can do to make removal any better though as I did wear a basecoat.

Have you tried any of these polishes? What was your experience?

Bye for now,
Laura

Hello Kitty

Currently watching: The X Factor

Usually when I go to Tesco and want some fun distraction from my food shopping it's the Healthy & Beauty aisles I head for. Today, however, it was the Toys aisle which caught my eye and in particular this Hello Kitty soft toy

Aw. I didn't buy it but it's still in my thoughts. Why does Hello Kitty still have the power to command my attention? I'm 24 not 5 years old...

Goodies

Currently watching: Have I Got News For You

Hello ladies,

Look what was waiting for me when I got home today:

Ooh. The box is ridiculously large but never mind. I read about Ciate nail polish on a couple of blogs and one of them mentioned the fact that although they retail for £9, they are often heavily discounted on the Asos website. Of course I had to have a look and found Asos Paint by Ciate on sale for £1. There were six colours available and I chose Lily (green), Blake (pink) and Lauren (blue). I know I've said before that I don't really like blue polish but I just felt like having these as they were so cheap. Additionally, postage was free! Can't wait to try them.

And what's this? Oh, my new office stationary. Lovely.

I love my new calculator.

How has your week been? My week's been very good. I was auditing a new client for four days. My superior on this job was very helpful and good at explaining what I needed to do and why I was doing it so I had a good understanding of how my work fitted in to the overall audit programme. I even managed to make up a complex (for me) formula on Excel. I don't remember it exactly but it was something like IF (E5<(D5*0.5),E5,(D5*0.5)). Who knew you could put words in formulae?

And today I was back in the office for a study day so that was a nice and relaxed end to the week.

Bye for now,
Laura

Boots 17 Even Tone Corrector Stick

Currently watching: X Factor

Good evening girls,

I had a lovely weekend in the Lake District; the weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful. I'm sure some pictures will be on their way to you shortly ;-)

As I mentioned last week, I bought quite a few products in Boots last Monday. One of the products I bought was Boots 17 Even Tone Corrector Stick:

What they say: Helps target and correct areas of unbalanced skin tone and rosy complexion.

Directions: Apply and blend in before foundation.

Price: £3.49 for 4g

My skin tone is very uneven as the tops of my cheeks and the top of my nose are quite red in comparison to the rest of my face. I don't think it's so obvious when I wear my glasses but it's very obvious when I wear my contacts and I hate how uneven my skin tone is. This product is something which I hadn't heard of before but which just happened to catch my eye last week. I was quite surprised when I took the lid off the tester and discovered the corrector stick was green but I suppose that's what neutralises redness.

So does this product actually work? Hmm, yes and no. I had high hopes for this product, I really did, and at first I was quite impressed by it. Now that I've been using it for almost a week, I have to say that although I think it's worth having, it certainly isn't perfect nor is it a true corrector for uneven skin tone. My main issue with it is that it's difficult to blend in. After applying my foundation on top of this, I can see quite clearly where I've applied the corrector stick; it's as if I have patches of dry skin on my face.

And yet sometimes it does work and I'm happy with the results when I look in the mirror so it's a tricky product to judge. I suspect it's like face primer; you don't notice a huge difference but you become dependent on using it and feel a bit lost without it.

Has anyone else tried this product? If so, what do you think of it? Do you have any similar items you would recommend?

Bye for now,
Laura

MUA Butterfly NOTD

Hi girls,

I'm currently away for the weekend in the Lake District but thought I'd post my most recent NOTD anyway :-) This was done using MUA shade 5 and Konad Special Polish in white. Autumn lighting is giving me all sorts of difficulties when I try to capture my polish shades so unfortunately these photos are not a good representation of the colour; in reality it's greener, like green agate or green jade.

I've blogged about this polish before but it's still worth saying that this costs £1 from Superdrug's MUA shade and is well worth having!

Have a great weekend ladies :-)

Bye for now,

Laura

PS Next week I'll be blogging about my recent skin care and make-up purchases :-)

Purple Perfection NOTD

Currently watching: The Apprentice :-)

Good evening ladies!

I tried my new purple Primark polish and I love it so without further ado, here are the pictures:

Bye for now,
Laura

Beauty UK NOTD

Good morning!

I passed my exam on Monday! What a relief.

Now on to my NOTD, which features Soft Lilac No.42 by Beauty UK. Here's how this shade fits in to my purple collection:

The shade is captured perfectly in that photo but I had a really difficult time capturing the colour on my nails so the pictures you're about to see do not do this colour justice at all. In reality it is an almost perfect pastel shade.

(fairly accurate representation)

If you live in the UK and want a good pastel purple then I would recommend this one. It's from Superdrug and costs about £1.99 for 9ml. I didn't use a topcoat and experienced only one small chip during 24 hours. Today's going to be my second day of wear so we'll see what it looks like at the end of the day but I have to say I do like this.

Bye for now,
Laura

PS My Tea Rose Polish and Twinkle combination lasted for less than a day before it all started to peel off. This always happens to me when I wear glitter polishes, especially pink glitter polishes! Does this happen to anyone else??