MUA Nail Constellations.. All of 'em!! =p

As soon as the MUA Nail Constellations were released, I knew I had to have them. Considering one Ciate Nail Caviar is £18, £15 for all five MUA shades was a pretty decent bargain to me. I have never tried this form of nail art before, so I was pretty excited.

 

Just for a disclaimer here, this post is not going to show you the Constellations in their full glory. This post will just show you my first attempt and the process I underwent. Trust me, these babies are really pretty and you can go onto the official MUA blog to see how they look, properly, on gorgeous long nails, not wee stubs like mine.

 

But anyways, my experience...

 

 They really are pretty, and there is SO MUCH in every bottle, these will last you forever. However, there is a LOT of spillage when applying these, so I set up a little 'Constellation Station' - nothing fancy, just a folded piece of paper opened back up, with something underneath each side of the paper to ensure all spillage falls into the middle crease. Ta da! 

Haha, told you it was nothing fancy. Worked a treat tho. The application process is relatively easy, you apply your chosen nail polish base colour and allow it to dry, before painting on a thicker second coat which you'll sprinkle the Constellations on to. I struggled with my first attempt, I was way too cautious and I couldn't get any beads out! Don't be afraid to SHAKE that wee bottle. Beads will come pouring out, but your Constellation Station (ha) will catch them all.

 

I didn't like to press down on the beads to seal them with my finger as some came off, so I pressed my nails down onto all the spilled beads that had collected on my paper. That worked really well. You then remove the top of the bottle and either using the funnel or just the paper you've shaken over, return the extra beads to the bottle. Easy.

 

Just for a simple contrast, I painted one hand with a white base and one hand with a black base. This was my messy attempt (thumb nails are rotten because I was too scared to shake lots of beads out). The left picture is always on the white base and the right picture is of the black base. 

I put Seche Vite on my thumb, index and middle finger, but I kinda wish I hadn't as, as you might be able to see, it kinda spoils the affect. On my other two fingers, I just sealed the tip of my nail with Seche Vite and after a few hours I have had no drop offs.

 

 Left - white base, Right- black base

 

As I said, my nails are too short and my first attempt too cautious and messy for this to show how pretty these actually are. For £3 each, I really recommend them. I love all the colours to be honest, can't wait to try them with different bases!

Natural light (left - white base, right - black base)

 

You can buy thesefor £3 each in your local Superdrug or online HERE.

 

What do you think? Have you tried Caviar nails? Would you try these? Which Constellation is your favourite?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

GOSH Holographic Nail Polish. :)

I have wanted this nail polish foreeeeever. I missed it when it first came out, so I am SO happy it's been re-released. In case you don't know the background, here's a quick summary: GOSH released the original Holographic polish a few years ago, but there were complaints about the fact it only lasted a few hours before chipping, so it was taken off the market. However, people who didn't care about it's longevity and were more excited about the fact it was HOLOGRAPHIC (omg!) still desperately wanted it and bottles were going on eBay for waaay more than retail price. So, GOSH decided to slightly change the formula, and re-release it as a 'One Night Wear' Special Edition in shade 'Holographic Hero'.

 

I was amaaazed my local Superdrug had it (it's not the best Superdrug in the world), and in fact they had TWO so I snapped them both up at £5.99 each.

 

 

The formulation is strange, it dries pretty much instantly, which I suppose is a must if it's only gonna last one day. In the shade, it looks like a standard silver nail polish - if you're gonna be under dull lighting all day, don't bother putting this on.

 

Still got stumpy nails! :(

 

But as soon as you step into natural sunlight, ta daaaaa!!

 

My pinkie shows it best. :)

 

OMG right?? I cannot stop staring at my nails!!

 

And with the flash (or, I imagine, with bright lighting like in a nightclub or something).Seriously, I love this. Such a sucker for shimmer and glitter!

Again, pinkie shows it best. :)

 

I applied two coats of this on Friday night (one coat is too sheer) and actually by Saturday night I had only a small chip on one nail! By Sunday midday though, it's like my nail polish just gave up and every nail chipped like crazy. So yeah, the 'one night' claim is pretty legit.

 

I have heard of people using the 'sandwhich' technique to maintain the polish for longer - a coat of Holo, a topcoat, Holo again, topcoat and lastly Holo. You can't finish with a topcoat as it ruins the effect.

 

What do you think of this nail polish? Is it worth it to only get one night's use out of it? Would you be interested in a mini-giveaway with my second bottle?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Nail Gel BARGAIN!! So happy! :) :)

I am in love with my new at-home gel nails kit I posted about here. It only came with four colours tho and I'm used to having hundreds of colours of regular polish, so I knew I had to up my collection! You can buy CND Shellac for around £15 each on eBay, which is tooo much for me. So I did some eBay searching and found UV Gel Builder sets. Essentially little tubs of nail gel, they're generic and so lots cheaper. I bought a set of mixed solid and glitter colours, they said there was about 8ml in each tub, compared with 14ml in my Gellure nail polish.

 

Here's what I got! :)

Top left are all the little tubs, and top right is the comparison size to regular nail polish. So it's about two thirds of the size, not bad!

Bottom is all my purple shades, the colour names seem a bit random at times but the colours are gorg!

 

These are my pinks, browns, blues and greens! :)

 

Whites/silvers, reds and then 'others' on the bottom.

 

And THE most amazing part - I got ALL of these (28 colours) for £16.99!! I got them from this listing. I am sooo happy with them. The colours are so pretty and there's lots of variety.

 

I also bought some cheap brushes to allow me to use them and also do nail art (£2.45 from this listing).

 

Aaaaand lastly, on my spree, I bought some nail art tape (£1.50 from this listing).

 

And here's my first nail art attempt (stubby nails sadface):

I used misty pink, a purple nail art strip and glitter silver. This should last for two-three weeks!

 

What do you think of my bargain? Have I tempted anyone to buy the at-home kits??

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

An Apology :(

Hey guys! Long time, no post. I know recently I've been awful at posting regularly, and I have no real excuse except I am completely bogged down with work. In the last two weeks, I have worked three 11 hour shifts, two 13 hour shifts and five 9 hour shifts. And then I do work at home too. I have just had NO time to blog and I miss it and I hope there are still readers who haven't given up on me.  :(

I'm also off Twitter just now, so you probably haven't seen me around there either!!

LUCKILY, I finish up for the summer in less than two weeks so after that be prepared for an onslaught of posts from me haha!

Here's some wee photos to enjoy:

My new Claireabella bag specifically for work! Lovelovelove.

My cat Dana enjoying the sun. <3

My new NOTD obsession - my 'kids' have called it a glitter waterfall, where I have a lot of glitter at the tip and then pull it down a little bit.

(Sorry it's Instagram filtered - wasn't in the blogging frame of mind!)

Hope you're all having a more relaxing time than me, and have enjoyed any sunny weather you got!!

~ Lauren ♥

NOTD - 'Gemstones' from Beauty UK :)

I have had a lovely long weekend, hope you guys have too! It was my boyfriend Scott's birthday on Friday, but he refused to do anything exciting to celebrate it, so we went to the cinema. His choice - American Pie. I've only ever seen the first American Pie and I didn't like LOVE it, so wasn't fussed about seeing this, but it was actually pretty funny! Crude, rude, toilet humour, yes; but quite funny all the same.

On Saturday I went to get new extensions put in, yay! It took five hours to remove my old extensions, colour my hair and put in my new ones - just as well I get on well with my hair extensionist!! I tried to take a few sneaky photos while no one was looking...

On the left is me with my sad own hair (sadface!) and on the right is me holding my new hair and drinking my complimentary wine, YAY!

I've not taken a pic of my finished result yet, will put that in my next post.

Saturday night was a party with Scott's family which was a lot of fun, and Sunday involved chillaxing with Scott and my cats with pizza and home made cocktails!

But aaaaanyways, the point of the post was not to ramble on, but to show you my lovely new nail polish. Whilst browsing in Superdrug, I came across Beauty UK's new nail varnish range - Posh Polish (not the best name in the world). There are 9 polishes in the collection, 3 foils which I'm not too fussed about, and six 'gemstone' colours - which I LOVE. Here's the photo from the website of the collection:

It was two for £5 in Superdrug, and I reeeally wanted to buy all the gemstone colours but I settled for these two:

Left is Moonstone, right is Sunstone.

They are shimmery, metallic-y colours that go on smoothly and opaque in one coat. Beauty UK is also cruelty free, which I am only buying from now on. Here is Moonstone with Nicole by OPI Kardashion Kolour in Kendall on the Katwalk (my favourite nail polish ever haha).

What do you think? Pretty?? Have you tried anything by Beauty UK? This is my first purchase. Did you have a good long weekend? :)

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Puuurty NOTD & Sparkly Jewellery!! :)

I am still glitter obssessive when it comes to my nails but I tried to tone it down a wee bit today. Today's nails are:

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have already seen these (and if you don't, why don't you?? I'm ThinkPinkLauren on there. =p )

I used Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolor in It's All About the Glam for the base, and Models Own Pink Fizz for the tips, finished with Seche Vite. Yes, it's not my neatest job ever, I wasn't actually expecting it to turn out so pretty.

All About the Glam is a gorgeous pearlescent shade which I have reviewed in more detail here, and Pink Fizz is just the best pink glitter EVER which I have reviewed here.

I think this look is super delicate and feminine, and for some reason it feels quite bridal to me haha?!

Goes nicely with my phone riiiight? =p

I also wanna show you by new cute Shamballa style bracelets. Yes, I have jumped on this trend but they're just so pretty! :)

The left is inside, the right is out in the sun. They really sparkle, but they're not showing up very well in the photos. The multicoloured one also has these colours at the other side:

Do you like my girlie NOTD? And what do you think about the Shamballa bracelets that everyone's wearing?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Little NOTD - Mermaid Nails. :)

Just a quick wee nail post for you! The falsies are back on, still not managing to kick the biting habit haha! Here we go:

The aqua is my new ELF in Mint Green and the ring finger is Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolors in Kendal on the Katwalk (full review on this here). I then added a wee French polish twist using Barry M in Cobalt Blue.

Feels nice and fresh and pretty!

Also thought I'd share some photos from the recent sunny days:

Clockwise from top left: Our little BBQ, me pretending to man the BBQ, the BBQ wasn't cooking my chicken fast enough so we stuck it in the chiminae haha, the cats soaking up the sun, me enjoying some cider and some heat, and the temperature on the way home from work yesterday! :)

How're you enjoying the sun? What do you think about blue/green tone nails?
Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Bargain NOTD + My Trip to York OOTDs :)

Hello to my new followers! Sorry I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front, I'm now working full time (yay!) with a lovely class of eight year olds and it's taking up all my time! I do want to say thank you to all my followers, so I'm gonna try get some bits and bobs for a wee giveaway soon. :)

A few weeks ago my sister moved to London and she found a shop in her local mall selling lots of nail polish of a brand she didn't know - Kiko. She posted me one to try out, and it's so pretty! It's called Blueberry Glitter randomly, as it's clearly pink.

No flash on left, flash on right. Colour with flash is more true to life.

It's a lot more subtle a glitter than my usual type, as it's a fuschia pink base with pink shimmer rather than solid glitter. It's so pretty though and such a gorgeous colour! This is two coats, it goes on evenly with a wide brush and dries quickly. So far I've had it on three days with no chipping. I'm pretty impressed with this wee polish!

Best of all, it was only £3.90. Sweet. You can shop online here. They have a large range of nail products -and- make up, so I think I'll be giving stuff a go next time I visit my sister!

Some of you may also remember that I went to York for my boyfriend Scott and I's seven year anniversary (aka Valentine's Day). I thought I'd share some of our photos with you:

(as you can see I've discovered Picnik haha)

Hope you're all having a lovely week and I'm so glad I've introduced some of you to the Kardashian polishes from my last post - if you bought some, please let me know if you blog about them! :)

Do you like this nail polish? Or are you over glitter haha? Have you heard of/used this brand before?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Kardashian Kolors OPI Collection NOTD

You may know of Nicole, the little sister brand of OPI, which offers OPI quality for a slightly cheaper price. Well, recently the Kardashian clan have collaborated (wow, try saying that ten times fast!!) with Nicole by OPI to release their own Holiday Collection nail polish shades. There are 14, which includes some glitters. The full collection was released in America in November and I looove them. I mean, OK, I am one of those people that actually really liked the Kardashians so liking their nail polishes wasn't going to be a stretch for me. But even if you're a hater, I defy you to hate on these shades!!

Images from NicolebyOPI.com

They have recently became available in the UK, in the last month or so. You can buy some shades from ASOS for £9 each, however I saw on Twitter that OPI stockist Lena White had a 15% off discount code available, so I checked out her site and low and behold, the Kardashian Kolors Kollection is stocked there for £9 each, £7.65 with discount, plus I think £3.95 p&p. After a LOT of perusing, I picked up four - Kendall on the Katwalk, Kim-pletely in Love (oh, the irony), It's All About the Glam and Follow Me on Glitter. Yes, they do all have the completely cheesy names.

After a bit of googling, I've found you can buy them from Chemist Direct for only £6.99 with free p&p - bargain!!

Here we go:

(L-R)  Follow Me on Glitter, Kim-pletely in Love, Kendall on the Katwalk and All About the Glam

All About the Glam

This was actually the one out of the collection I wanted the most! It's a gorgeous pearly shade, with iridescent blues and pinks when it catches the light. Sorry about the messy application with this one! The camera wouldn't pick up the gorgeous shimmer in this but trust me, it's there. I can't wait to rock this in summer with a tan! The only problem with this is it's very sheer, this is three coats applies and I still don't think it's completely opaque.

Kim-pletely in Love

This is a gorgeous pale pink, it doesn't look like anything amazing at first, but when it catches the light it has beautiful shimmers of pink and blue. It's so pretty and girlie, I love it! Again, my camera and the lighting struggled to capture the shimmery pinks and blues but you can see it a bit in the bottle. This colour pooled at my cuticles a bit when I applied it, and took three coats to get opaque.

Follow Me On Glitter

Wow wow wow! Now I love glitter polishes, but I have nothing like this! It's a black base with silver micro-glitter pieces, which is pretty cool by itself, but this also has the slightly larger multicoloured glitter in it. These bigger pieces catch the light to show aspects of gold, red, green, blue, orange and pink! So beautiful, I feel like this is a more 'grown up' shade than I normally wear, but the tiny pieces of multicoloured glitter still make it very 'me'!! I used three coats but two would have been fine. The finish is slightly rough, so if you don't like that a top coat may be a necessity.

And a close up (my camera could not focus ha!): 

Kendall on the Katwalk

Holy moly. I honestly think this is THE most beautiful combo of colours! I feel like I'm underwater haha! The base is a turquoisey blue, and there is a mix of tiny glitter and bigger glitter pieces in shades of green and blue to create this masterpiece! I can't fault this one, I love it!! This was the same as Follow Me on Glitter, I used three coats but could have used two and a top coat is probably recommended.

Close ups:

It was really hard to capture the colours to their full potential when I took all these photos as it's so dark and rainy in Scotland, so they're all actually much nicer than my camera makes out! There was about a minute and a half of sun just before I posted this, so I ran out and got some quick photos:

You can see a little better in this the iridescence in Kim-pletely in Love and All About the Glam. Beautiful!

The application of these were easy and very quick drying. The brush is nice and wide, so it goes on quickly and removal was also not too bad, the glitters obviously took a little longer but not by much.

The wide brush

The new Spring Collection is already out in America, but no date of when it'll be out over here. This is a much smaller collection, and features mainly pastel shades. Here's the promo shot:

Image from CelebBuzz

I'm not yet as excited about these ones, but we'll see!

So what do you think? Yes, I paid a small fortune for these but for £6.99 would you try any? I love them all!! 

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥