Manicure Monday

Hello ladies!

Another Monday, another Manicure!

This time you may notice in the length and shape of my nails.. because I finally got my infills yay!
Don't know if anyone in Surrey is reading (hello if you are *waves*) but my landlady suggested I visit Horley Nails, and I did and they were very good, super quick! I think the infills, filing, painting and drying only took about 20 minutes! Super impressive! Infills are £15, little bit cheaper than I've been paying in Manchester so I was happy with that!

I decided to reduce the length of my nails, my claws look beautiful but when you're entering in numbers on the computer it's very easy to make a very big mistake so I thought it would be safer! I rounded them as well, the points are hard to keep up with and I actually broke one not that long ago and I didn't want that to happen again!

The shade I'm wearing is China Glaze's 'Traffic Jam' it's a deep raspberry pink colour, and I've kind of been obsessed with that shade for a while now, so when I seen it I knew it was going straight on my tips! If you like the colour, you can buy it for £4.17 at BeautyBay at the minute!

What are you wearing on your nails this week?

Let me know! 

Thanks for reading! xxx

Manicure Monday

Evening guys! 

Hope you've had a good Monday! Usually Mondays are a bit depressing but today I've been feeling positive! I like this Instagram pic I stumbled upon, it's a good way to wake up in the morning thinking good thoughts for the day ahead!! 

This is just a quick post to show you what's on my nails at the minute. My acrylics are seriously overgrown so I needed something to disguise it until I could get to the salon!

On the base I have Headline Colours in 'Gunmetal' and China Glaze 'Your Present Required' on top! I think the grey background really works with all the multi coloured sparkles!!

What do you think of this combo? 

What are you wearing on your nails this Monday? Leave me a link to a pic if you've blogged about it! 

Thanks for reading!

Xxx

Nails of the daaaaay!

Hellooo!

Just a quick post to show you what colour and polish I'm currently rocking on my nails because I loveee it!

Just to let you know my nails aren't natural, I do have acrylic nails on that I get done at Lilly Nail and Beauty! They're so professional and last SO long! I've had mine on a fortnight and there has hardly been any growth at all! I usually get them infilled every 3-4 weeks! All the girls at Lilly's are lovely and so welcoming! 

Currently I'm wearing Barry M's Hi Shine Gelly Nail Paint in the shade 'Watermelon'!

Watermelon is a dark teal colour that dries lovely and dark on the nails! It's a perfect autumn colour because of its deep rich colour and I think I'll be wearing this colour a LOT. 

The colour actually dries darker on the nails than it does in the bottle!

I love these polishes - they're so glossy and shiny, they really do look like you've paid for gel nails whenever its a bargain at £3.99 from Boots or Superdrug!

It dries well on the nails even if the application is a bit streaky, within a few minutes the polish settles out to give a glossy, streak free finish!

At £3.99 these are some of the best nail products available at the moment from either the high street or high-end beauty products! They're the only type of nail varnish I even consider purchasing anymore!

If you haven't tried them I suggest you do! They have a great colour selection and every time I dander into a Superdrug store they have more colours available in this finish!

Barry M have also recently released more new autumn shades in a matte finish so I'm really looking forward to trying them and seeing how they compare! I love matte nails as well as shiny, glossy nails.. Oh to be honest I love most nail varnish finishes and Barry M have a finish to suit you!!

Barry M is currently on offer at Superdrug, and if you spend £9 on their products you get a free mascara so everyone hot foot it down there now or there'll be none left because I'll have bought them all.. :)

What do you think of these Hi Shine Gelly Nail Paints?

Are there any shades that you would recommend? 

Let me know!

I'm off to Alton Towers tomorrow for my first time so I'm hopefully going to get a good few photos up for all you thrillseekers out there!

Speak soon lovelies!

Rachel xxx 

My first Glossybox experience - part one!

Hi! Hello! Bonjour! Hola!

It's the 7th of September and today it is officially COLD! Say goodbye to summer clothes and prepare for an influx of autumn clothes, umbrellas and random animal hats and scarves over the next few weeks!

I've been reading about Glossybox for so long and always wanted to try it, bu for a poor student £9.99 per box (plus p&p) was a bit of too much commitment! Glossybox had been running an offer that you could purchase 2 boxes for £12.00! I thought this was a bargain and went for it! 

I received the Glossybox 2nd birthday box for May and the Seaside Splash box which was released for July 2013!

I'll talk about the boxes in two separate posts! First the 2nd Birthday box!

There were 5 products with 2 other small additions in the box!

The products were:

1. Headline Colors Nail Polish - 'Gunmetal'

2. Jelly Pong Pong Fairy Lashes Mascara

3. Awapuhi Wild Ginger Shine Spray

4. Collection Fast Stroke Eyeliner - 'Black 1'

5. Beautiful Movements Cosmetics Prime & Create Mixing Medium

There was also a packet of Glossybox mini nailfiles and a Green & Blacks chocolate! 

This nail polish is fullsize and costs £9 per 10ml! It looks gorgeous in the bottle but it looks even better on the nails! You are advised to apply two coats of polish to the nails, the first to apply the polish to the nails, and the second to provide a glossy top coat! I followed this advise and didn't even need a topcoat on top to make it shiny! This polish has UV absorbers to reduce chipping and flaking of the polish! From this I'm really impressed with Headline Colors and would be interested in trying another colour from them! The colours on their website (here!) look really vibrant and glossy!

Jelly Pong Pong's Fairy Lashes was the next present to be discovered! This has an RRP of £15 and there was a full size sample in the box! This mascara is said to be "non-clumping, lengthening and volumising".. I would agree that the mascara is non-clumping but I didn't really thing it did much for my lashes! In fairness to the product I have a mascara combination that really works for me at the minute so it probably was a little disadvantaged! Mind you the mascara is £15 for a tube, I'd rather splash out a few extra pounds and repurchase Benefit's They're Real or Lancome Drama mascara!!

Awaphui Wild Ginger is a brand I've never heard of before so it was good that the box would introduce you to products you maybe wouldn't have found before!! This Shine Spray retails £18.95 per 125ml can, and thats what you received in the box! 

The ingredients of this product are meant to condition and illuminate hair! It provides shine to hair and also protects your lovely locks from daily wear and tear! When I opened the box I presumed I wouldn't use it as my hair is generally quite silky and shine, but when I read into it I thought it would be good to give it a go as my hair needs a bit more protection since I began my transition to blonde! It smells like hairspray infused with ginger (which I suppose is obvious from the brands name!!) but it's quite refreshing on your hair because it makes it smell fresh! I don't know if I would repurchase as my hair routine is pretty simple but I'll certainly make sure I use up the can!

I was glad to see the Collection eyeliner in the box, I love their products and its always nice to see what eyeliner works best for you to create the cat eye look! This eyeliner has a really fine nib and a long handle which I love on a liquid eyeliner! It's a really black black which is great especially considering the liner is only £2.99! Happy with this product and I'm definitely gonna use it up! There's a blue version as well which I'm now tempted to try... ;-)

The product in the middle of this photo is a strange one! It's a clear Aloe Vera multi-use gel that can be used to create cream blushes, liquid eyeliners and help that last drop of foundation go a little bit further! I have to be honest I haven't really tried to use this yet! I'm a little afraid of it but I do plan to use it to turn some of my favourite eye shadows into eyeliners! My best friend is a make-up artist so this might go her direction as she'll probably have more of a clue what to use it for! You received a fullsize version of this gel which retails for £20 per 20g. It's pricey in my opinion!

The wee square of dark chocolate was a nice treat as well ;-)

I've been really impressed with my first Glossybox experience and my review of the Seaside Splash box will be up during the week! It's got some goodies hiding in there too so come and check it out!
Unfortunately this 2 for £12 offer is now over but I still think Glossyboxes are a nice wee investment! £10 a month (+ p&p) to get a present delivered to yourself for products that equate to waaaay more than £10! I'm thinking of asking for a years subscription for my birthday! :-)

Talk soon lovelies! xxx

Freebies time!!

Holaaaaaaaa! It's official, our summer is over! Long gone are the temperatures in the 20's and back come the torrential downpours you think you'd only find in monsoon season in a rainforest! It's depressing, I've got all my summer clothes out and now I've got nowhere to wear them :-(

But when the weathers bad, what better to cheer you up than some freebies!!

My favourite Facebook page at the minute is an absolute brilliant one called '10 Ways To Have More Money As A Student Without Working'!! It's a site run by some brilliant smart and savvy guys that have an eye out for freebies, price glitches and special offers! You can sign up to their Facebook just by pressing the little thumbs up button, sign up to their e-mail updates HERE! or follow them on Twitter! I'd advise signing up to the e-mail updates, there's no spam and it means you get every single little bit of data they post, because sometimes Facebook can delay the posts and it means you miss out on the offers!

My two favourite freebies I've claimed from 10 Ways recently are a Chanel mascara and 2 FULL SIZE Cetaphil products! Neither of these are cheap, especially when you maybe just wanna try something out! So it's definitely worth while checking them out to see what goodies you can find!

These are two great products from Cetaphil's Restoraderm line! I got a body wash and a moisturiser! They're formulated for sensitive skin which I think is great because it means everyone can use them! They are both fragrance free and the moisturiser is preservative free as well - super if you like to keep things natural! I'm totally chuffed with both of these products and really wanna try out some more Cetaphil products now!!

I got a lovely little sample of Le Volume De Chanel Mascara and I loveeee it! I always manage to get addicted to new mascara, and they tend to have a big pricetag! I love the brush on this mascara, it's a plastic brush with lots of little bristles that mean you can catch every lash! The fullsize version is £24 though so I'm gonna have to think long and hard before I run out to purchase this!

 For some reason all this months magazine's are firing out absolutely brilliant freebies as well! It's just made me more tempted into buying them! Marie Claire (rrp £3.90) have a mini Ciate Caviar Nail Polish set and it's absolutely gorgeousss!! The set is made up of a mini version of   Cookies and Cream and the caviar beads in 'Shooting Star' which is a mix of gold, pearl and iridescent coloured beads! It's so pretty! I never would have purchased it myself, but after trying Ciate's polishes I'd definitely be more likely to try now! They're a gorgeous consistency which goes onto the nail flawlessly and only requires a few coats to become opaque! Even without the beads Cookies and Cream is a beautiful nude that's gonna be suitable for all year round!

   Glamour, which is on offer at £1(!!!) has a choice of 5 Model Co products to choose from, all of which are worth either £15 or £16! To me that just makes sense and therefore I had to buy all the options I could find! I got a nude gloss, a nude lip pencil and a black eyeliner! All of which are lovely! The pencils are lovely and creamy and don't tug on your skin and the gloss has the nicest taste ever! It tastes (and smells) like the whistle lollipops you used to get when you were small! So nostalgic! They also have a mascara and a red lip gloss, and I'm definitely gonna try to find them before the magazine goes off the shelves! £5 for £78 worth of product is brilliant! High 5 Glamour!!

 Other magazines have freebies too! I've seen makeup bags possibly in Company, a pair of nice sunglasses in another and a Leighton Denny polish floating about too in Harper's Bazaar! I couldn't find a colour I liked but if I do I think I'll be picking one up! The magazines are definitely using these products as loss-leaders to shift sales and hopefully recreate return purchases! But if they keep up the good work I know I'll definitely keep buying! I apologise for the crappy picture quality because they're so small, Blogger and me were having a rough patch because he wouldn't co-operate! Hopefully we'll have sorted out our differences by next time..

Until then my lovelies <3
xxxx

Nails Of The Day!

Hi guys! Just a quick post on my current nail look! I'm a bit of an acrylics fiend but because I'm home and can't afford to keep up my addiction I've tried to go cold turkey!! My nails are in such poor condition because of the acrylics, so please excuse their disgustingness! 

This is a very simple nail look but I think it's quite an effective one! If you used other colours you could have the other 4 fingers painted the other colour, but unfortunately the white wasnt strong enough to cover the blue!

I just used Sellotape to cover over the white and give me a straight line for the blue! Easy peasy!! 

I used Miss Sporty's Cool Clubbing Colours in the bright blue shade, but it doesn't have a name unfortunately :( I think you can find this cheap as chips in Superdrug, probably around the £3 mark!!

The white is an Essie polish in Waltz! It's not the strongest white and you do need a few layers to make it opaque.. But it was a bargain! I got this on Fragrance Direct at £1.99!! Definitely worth checking it out to see if they're still at this bargain price! I got 4 Essie polishes for the price of one in Boots!!

Finally the top coat I used was MUA's Clear Top Coat.. As per usual with the majority of their products it was £1! Can't beat that :-) I think it's a good top coat, and if you use it every other day it really does keep your nails looking shiny! I had Seche Vite's top coat but it went gloopy far too quickly and the brush was too short, so half the polish went to waste! I wouldn't spend £8 on Seche Vite when you can buy one I find just as good for £1!

Let me know of any other simple nail art, I really struggle and any ideas would be appreciated!!

Rachel x 

March Wishlist..

Hi everyone!

I have a little bit of a problem with online shopping, most of the time when I'm on my laptop and not doing work I'm staring over numerous websites finding lots of lovely little gems that I want to buy with my non-existent money! The joys of student life eh? 

These are some of the pretties I've had my little eye on.. (NB.. only some :O )

1. Real Techniques Core Collection Kit

2. Real Techniques Expert Face Brush

3. Essie Nail Polish - Bachelorette Bash

4. ghd Limited Edition Candy Collection IV Styler - Lemon

5. Bioderma Crealine H2O Cleansing Solution 500ml Sensibio

6. Topshop Chunky Tribal Aztec Navajo Necklace (Not it's proper name eek!)

7. Rimmel Apocalips Lip Lacquer - Nova

8. Nike Blazer Hi Suede - Blue

9. NARS Bronzing Powder - Laguna

I love all of these products so much!

 Especially the Topshop necklace, I'm gutted it's sold out! I'll be praying to Mr Topshop and asking him to bring it into stores again! I'm not willing to bid online for it because the price always goes waaaay beyond the usual RRP instore.. Silly eBay! 

As for the Real Techniques brushes, I've heard so many different reports on each type so I'm bewildered about which one to get, £20.99 is good for 4, while £10.99 is dear for one.. *confused Rachel*. 

Think I might need to think about that one for a bit longer before I commit to anything!

I've already made my way through one 100ml bottle of Bioderma and my skin LOVES it! 

Looks so much healthier and it really does take all your make-up off! My trusted wipes have been cast to the side of my desk where things which aren't getting much use live... Sorry baby wipes :( 

What products are on your wishlist this month?
Do you like these types of post?

Let me know, I love finding new gorgeous things I can stare at and want to buy when I have no money... 

Also, if you know of any Topshop's close to Manchester/Liverpool/Craigavon/Belfast/Newry (weird mix I know) that have the necklace in.. Tell me, I will be your best friend forever, promise :) 

I'll chat to you all soon, hopefully with my bank balance still intact.. *closes eyes*

Loves, Rachel! x 

Nails of the day!

After heading Rimmel had released new smaller nail polishes I made a straight dash to SuperDrug to grab some! They're a steal at £2.99 each!

I bought shade 430 'Coralicious' & 825 'Sky High'!

I think they're both really pretty colours, and perfect for spring! I had been wearing OPI 'A Thrill From Brazil', and I think that these two colours together have really lifted my nails and cheered me up from all this miserable weather we've been having! It's FREEZING here in Northern Irelandi hope Manchester won't be as bad when I return tomorrow!

Here are some pictures of how the colours look on my nails, a swatch and the bottles of the nail polish!

Have any of you tried the new Rimmel colours? What do you think of the smaller bottle size? :)