Flicks and Pouts!

Just a quick little post today, and it's based around by very talented friend Kelly! She has FINALLY set up a fantastic little blog for her beautiful make up skills, and I think we should all go take a look. This lovely lady is very creative and has some wonderful Halloween make up ideas aswell as, I'm sure, some fabulous ideas for the rest of the year. So take your booty over to her page and have a look, no excuses I've made it easy for you, just click the pic! I promise you, you won't be disapointed! Xxx.

Tkmaxx haul!

I have to tell you, I have had such a busy little week, I have been on major travels, mostly back and forth between Birmingham and Bristol, going between a visit to my Mom's and University, and whilst on these travels I popped into the lovely Tkmaxx at Merry Hill in search of bargains and boy did I find them! I have said before how much I love the nail polish deals you can find at Tkmaxx and absolutely nothing has changed. The price of beautiful nails can often rack up and make serious dents in a Lady's bank balance, and one of the ways I like to keep the cost down I to buy polish sets, that my be miss labelled or out of season from these kinds of discount shops. There are massive savings to be made this way and gorgeous polishes to be bought. I managed to pick up fourteen polishes by four different, quality brands and at a fraction of the RRP cost. Now the stock in every store is obviously different, and you also have to contend with those cheeky people who take advantage of the less than secure packaging on some of the brands and swap the polishes to create the perfect package for them, so the sets I've bought may not be the same as some of those that are still out there, but there are some great sets available, and I guess it's just luck of the draw really. So here's what I bought...

Being the Models Own fan that I am, I could not resist this cute little trio for £7.99 (even with the half price sale polishes I ordered online making their way to me in the post). There were other trio's available some with crackles and shimmers and whatnot but I really liked the look of this one, the reason being, the colours are so beautiful.
1. Peach Puff, A lovely dusky, pinky peach colour which looks super girlie and has that vintage feel to it.
2. Gold Digger, An almost bronzey gold shimmer polish which is ideal for the Autumn season.
3. True Blue, A bright, almost royal blue and really primary tone which stands out but can be worn anywhere.
To make these shades even more appealing, they work out at £2.66 a polish, now normally you'd be paying out £5 per polish, which means you're saving £2.34 on each bottle and £7.01 overall!

Essie is one of those brands who produce fantastic polishes, however at £7.99 per polish, if you're a fan of their work things get pricey pretty quickly. So how does four polishes for £9.99 sounds? Pretty fantastic is what I'd say! As I've said before sometimes when you buy Essie's from Tkmaxx they come in the old style packaging, with a thinner brush and often miss printed names, but with these four that's definitely not the case. They are correctly labelled and even better, they come with the fabulous, wide, flat and tapered style brush.
1. Sugar Daddy, A rich but sheer nude pink colour, perfect for French Mani's.
2. To buy or not to buy, A yummy lilac shade with tiny pink and blue shimmer specs.
3. Orange, it's Obvious, well the name says it all, a bright and true orange perfect for Halloween!
4. Navigate Her, a dusky olive green which looks gorgeous in contrast with neon shades, or as an alternative to the commonly seen mint coloured manicure.
The saving on these beauts? £5.49, each! That's right, they work out at £2.50 a bottle, can't complain with that now can we? The third set I bought was also Essie, but with these three I did, sadly, fall prey to the miss labelled, differently packaged polishes. By which I mean the old style bottle or thinner brush.

Unfortunately all three of these polishes do have that thinner brush, don't get me wrong the thin brush is not a massive tragedy it's just like a normal polish brush, but it is quite different from the newer thicker brush, which I find to be higher quality, which is why I mention it. Anyway after researching the colours I have learnt that two of the polishes in this set do have the correct label, which is a lovely surprise, it's just the white polish that is miss labelled. It's actually labelled as 472, which is a pinky colour, and this clearly is not. After hunting around I'm pretty sure this colour is actually Marshmallow, but do take this with a pinch of salt.
1. Midnight Cami, a deep navy shimmer which is really nice for this miserable darker weather.
2.Lapiz of Luxury, a pale pastel blue, very similar to Topshop's Celestial.
3. Possibly "Marshmallow", either way this is a very sheer white polish and like Sugar Daddy is great for more subtle nails like French Mani's.
These three do work out slightly more expensive at £3.33 per bottle, the set being £9.99, however compared to the RRP of £7.99, I think we can live with this, can't we?

When it comes to Nails Inc, my cheap, reluctant to spend money side comes out a little bit. At £11 per bottle this brand can become rather expensive, and sometimes I simply can not justify that sort of spend, especially when I consider that by purchasing them as Colour Collections I can make a massive saving and still get the quality I expect. On this set I spent £14.99, which does sound like a lot, but when you think about it in terms of spending £44 buying them individually, this definitely makes a lot more sense. Besides, realistically then only work out at £3.75 per bottle, for a full size, normally £11 shade. So let's run down the colours.
1. Mansfield Mews, A sheer white which is set apart from similar colours with micro specs of blue and pink shimmer.
2. Stratton Street, A rich, deep shade which boarders the line between navy blue and dark purple.
3. Great George Street, a perfect and pure navy blue.
4.Elm Park Gardens, a natural and deep green which suits the current season.

The final set I bought is one that I am particularly happy with. Orly is a brand that I really do like, but really struggle in finding on the high street. Sometimes I can find it in larger Boots Stores but more than likely I have to order then online, which of course involves paying delivery charges and worst of all waiting, which I can not cope with. So to find this mini trio really made my day. In researching the price to these little cuties I found them here for £13, but if you can find them in Tkmaxx they are only £7.99 so it's worth hunting around for them. Let's do the run down.
1. Prelude to A Kiss, the classic sheer pinky peach.
2. Jealous, Much? Another classic colour in this delicate mint mini
3. Faint of Heart, my favourite of the three, (purely because it's even so slight differently to things I've already seen) an off grey mushroom toned polish which works beautifully in the Autumn and Winter months.
I do say this alot, but mini's and sets are a great way to try out some of the more expensive brands, so I really do recommend shopping for polishes in this way, firstly it saves you money and it's means you can experiment and find the things you like without feeling terrible about your bank balance.
If you've stayed with this post the whole way, I commend you. I know, it's been a bit of an epic, but I really wanted to show all the deals in one post to emphasize how good these little sets are, so thank you for reading this far. Hope you found some deals from it. Xxx.