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 ♥

At Home Gellure/Shellac/Gel Nails Kit!

I am aaaaaalways in a constant battle to stop biting my nails. I wear falsies regularly cause my own nails are just so ugly. However, my sister bought a Shellac kit a few years back and whenever she did my nails I used to manage to not bite them and so they grew a bit! But everytime I took the Shellac off, the addiction kicked in! Grr! So I bought my own kit. :)

 

In case you're not sure what Shellac is, it's a type of gel nail polish. This is the polish you get done usually at a salon, it is 'cured' under a UV lamp and so dries instantly. It lasts about three weeks and as far as I can tell in my experience, causes very little to no damage to your nail. Now CND Shellac were the first 'brand' to do this that I have heard of, but now there's lots. I bought my generic kit from a Groupon offer, it was about £75 including the lamp, a top coat, base coat, dehydrator, cuticle cream, remover, buffer, orange stick, lint-free pads and four colours. Not a bad price. You can also check out eBay.

 

Here's my kit:

It came with paper instructions and an instruction DVD, but I just used the paper info cause it's really straightforward.

 

You need a 36 watt lamp that has settings to allow for 2 minutes and 3 minutes (mine has 90 seconds and 120 seconds which works).

 

It's super easy. You push back your cuticles, buff your nails and then use the dehydtating solution on them. Then it's base coat (cure for two minutes), two coats of colour (cure for three minutes each coat) and top coat (cure for two minutes). Then wipe with dehydrating solution again to get rid of any excess gel and done!! I manage to stick both my hands in at the same time haha so it only takes me about fifteen mins to do a three week manicure. Awesome!

 

The shades the kit came with are actually nice (I thought they'd send me random stuff no one wanted haha) -

Left to right: a deep purple, a pinky-gold, a bright red and a baby pink.

 

I have the bright red on my toes (yup, toes can be done too!) and the pink on my fingers. Because my nails are still soooo short and fugly, here's my mum's:

 

 

That's the baby pink. So far it's been a week and there's no chipping/peeling etc so looks good! Got my eye on some fun colours on eBay so hopefully get some long-lasting nail art done too. :)

 

What do you think of these kits? Worth the price tag? Would you splash out on one?

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 ♥

Mattifying Nail Polish - Review

Changed my layout AGAIN - more subtley this time tho, I messed about with the HTML a bit to make the centre column wider, what do you think??

In my recent post on my ELF Haul I mentioned that I purchased the Matte Finisher ClearNail Polish. This is currently in the sale here for £1. I bought it because I've been lusting after something like this for a while, it seems like such an easy way to freshen up old colours.

It works as a topcoat to change your regular glossy, shiny finish to a matte finish, and comes with built in Vitamin E for strength.

I used it on these nail polishes (I tried to go for a variety of colours):

On one hand, I painted over the colours with the ELF Matte Polish, and with the other hand I used my trusty Seche Vite topcoat. I wasn't sure whether I'd actually see a difference what with using a £1 product, but I'm actually quite happy with the results!

Here they are, pre-mattification (yes, I made that up):

Oh and a quick apology for the state of my nails. I am losing the nail-biting battle. :( :(

And after!

Comparison photos:

It would also look really cute in a French manicure style. Unfortunately my wee bitten nails (sadface) are too short for this right now, so here's how it would look with falsies. I'm using these polishes:

Tragically I have two Chanel Black Satins and I have lost them both so I refuse to buy another - Asda will do!! =p

These were both taken without flash, but at different areas of my room (I have spotlights in my room). The gold has a matte body and a glossy tip, and the black has a glossy body and a matte tip. They actually look more effective in person, I think it's quite an unusual look!

So what do you think? A nice way to add a little something extra to your own polishes? A serious bargain at £1?! Or is the matte look not for you?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

Barry M Limited Edition NOTD

I 'accidentally' went shopping again - I need to stop doing this, I have nooo money! Hahhahah. So I managed to not spend too much, but I did have a bit of a Barry M splurge. Here's what I got in Boots:

I needed loose powder as my ELF HD one has ran out, so I decided to try the number 17 Shine Control Loose Powder (£5.49), and as it was 'buy two cosmetics an get this free totally pointless make up bag' I also bought the BB cream (£6.99). I normally use the Garnier one, but it's nearly finished so I thought I'd give this a go.

The Barry M Nail Paints were a bit of a con! I was immediately drawn to the sparkly silver, it's their new 'Limited Edition' polish, and it was free if I spent over £6 in Barry M stuff, excellent! Only problem was, the nail paints are only £2.99 each so I actually had to buy three in order to get the free one. Meh.

I have been eyeing up the red glitter for AGES, I just think it's so festive and lovely, and I wanted to green too for Christmas nails. As I had to buy an extra one, I figured Peach Melba was the way to go as it's so wearable.

Limited Edition, Peach Melba, Red Glitter and Spring Green

I rushed home, eager to try the Limited Edition colour and BOY was I disappointed. I'm not sure what's meant to be special about it, but it's literally just a silver glittery nail varnish. It would work as a top coat if you applied it as one layer, but I wanted a solid colour so I did three coats untiil it was opaque. It went on easily enough, took a wee while to dry but that might be because I was slapping on the layers thickly (oops) to try and get it looking how I wanted it to.

The red coat was also sooo dissapointing when I used it - more like a top coat too. Why can't it look like it does in the bottle?! But I persevered, and after three coats, it looks sooo pretty! I love it, it's so festive.

APOLOGIES for my nails. I'm in a never ending battle of nail biting, and right now it's not going well. :(

Without Flash     ¦        With Flash

Without Flash   ¦       With Flash

So I defo think the red glitter is super cute, but the silver just left me feeling a bit let down.

UPDATE: I wrote this post a few days ago and scheduled it (cause I'm super organised like that) and I have to say, since then my opion has changed a bit. I put on another two layers of nail polish, taking it to five coats, and I'm much happier. I don't know if it's because I've never really worn glitter varnish or whatever, but everytime my nails catche the light it's soooo pretty! So maybe I like them a bit better now. =p

Anyways..

I also popped into Sainsbury's and saw their Dirty Works products. They look a bit like a rip off of Soap & Glory, but I thought I'd give them a try as I'm always willing to try new stuff! I bought 'Bye Bye! Dark Circles' which is a little cube you open up that has two different shades of concealer inside.

Here are the swatches:

Without Flash     ¦         With Flash

They felt very creamy to touch, and quite soft actually which I'm not sure about. I've not tried them out for their intended purpose yet, but I will let you know!

I just wanna say a huge THANK YOU to all my loyal followers, and a big HELLO to my new ones! Every single new follower and every single comment on my blog actually makes my day, so thank you, thank you, thank you!

Anyways, enough of the cheesiness now. Have you tried to the Barry M Limited Edition Nail Paint? What do you think about glittery varnish? And have you ever tried Dirty Works?

Let me know!

~ Lauren ♥

p.s. Stevie at Things That Make You Go Ooo! recently did some interviews with her favourite bloggers, and I was one of them! Check it out, it's a really interesting post to find out different bloggers' tips and opinions! Thanks Stevie!! ^_^

p.p.s. I'm now gonna look super popular (hahah) because Tara at Me, Myself and I...My Loves, My Life has also interviewed me for her blog! It's a completely different interview from Stevie's, so make sure you check it out too. Both ladies have done an amazing job of turning my mundane life into something iteresting!! Thank you Tara!! =p