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.

So So Skullicious.

I know, I know, Halloween is still roughly a month away, but aw hell I just don't care. These polishes are just too cute to keep them hidden away for that long! Now I must let it be known now that I am a complete sucker for anything with a skull on it, an in particular anything sugarskull (hence my inclusion of these super cute sugarskull note holders, aren't they lovely? I just couldn't leave them out of this post, too appropriate). I just think they're the most beautiful things, and when I saw these polishes I was in an absolute frenzy! I looked high and low across the internet and the best price I came across was here, fairly reasonably I feel for these little O.P.I cuties, and they came next day. Always a bonus. I have never really been a big buyer of O.P.I, mostly because I buy most of my polishes off the high street on total shopping binges and also O.P.I's tend to be over priced and hard to come buy where I live. Having said this I needed to have these. I already have the Nicki Minaj mini collection and I found myself surprisingly impress with the gloss and finish of those I thought why not? Four cute polishes and some sugar skull decals, can't go wrong.

♥♥♥Let's start with A-Rose from the Dead, shall we? A beautiful deep pink creme, with a crazy high gloss shine. A really nice pink to add to any collection, not a truly bright Barbie pink, but not boardering on a purple shade either, so a really versatile shade. I would definitely recommend a quality base coat with this polish due to it's high pigment nature, but if you're wearing as a one off for say, a party and you're maybe in a rush, I'd say you could maybe skip a top coat, because the shine you get from the polish alone is ridiculous, from what I've seen it does last a few days before chips and peels normally begin.
♥♥♥

♥♥♥hi, Pumpkin is a delicious, rich orange with an equally lovely finish to its pink counter part. I can't say that orange is always the first colour my eye is drawn to when polish shopping, but this one is adorable. If you want to mix things up and move away from the typical peach or coral shades that are increasingly making an appearance, opting for something like this really does stand out, but in the best way! It's a little twist on a current trend and one that I really like. It looks very chic contrasting with blues, pair it with a navy polka dot dress and keep things a little more modern than the classic red nail accompaniment.♥♥♥

♥♥♥Every nail polish collection should include a high quality black varnish, and Mourning Glory is exactly that. The formulation of all of these polishes is some what thin, but they are super pigmented and this black is totally a one-coat wonder. Again I recommend a base coat, but the super shine and quality means you could maybe skip out a top-coat. Really lovely to wear on its own, or with the decals next to a colourful outfit, a floral playsuit maybe (something super girly), for contrast, or it provides a gorgeous base colour for Metallic 4 life (a black and silver glitter found in the Nicki Minaj set).♥♥♥

♥♥♥Normally a bright yellow is something I would not buy. The reason for this being that I did buy one, a cheaper polish from Claire's, and it really put me off. The cover was awful, and I have to use about three/four coats to cover the bald spots on the nail, meaning it took an age to dry. Candlelight however is lovely! Currently reforming my opinions of bright yellows this polish's formula is complete different from that awful little cheapo polish. You definitely, 100% need a base coat with this, purely because of it's colour not because of brand or quality of it. I tend to wear this one of miserable rainy, winter days to brighten up my life, and it really does make you a little happier ♥♥♥

Before I forget, a little note to the cute little sugarskull decals that come with the polishes. They're very easy to apply, soak them in water for a minute or two and remove the waxy paper back. Then slide the decal on to the nail and press down gently. Leave them to dry for a couple of seconds, if they start to curl up dab a small amount of water on them to flatten them back down. Once they have dried you can either continue with a little nail art, like I have above, (I think the few polka dots really set them off, I do love anything over the top, to do this I just used the white, black pink and yellow Models Own Wah nail pens) or topcoat them to keep the decal in place. Overall a really cute little nail set from O.P.I, that I definitely recommend. What's your favourite O.P.I mini set? Xxx.

Iridescent love.

Sometimes us ladies (and maybe even some men) like to dress up our digits with a nice mint, or a cute little pink polish, and the simplicity of that one shade sets off your outfit in just the right way, and we feel like most sophisticated woman to walk into where ever since time began, but sometimes we want to feel like fancy bitches and shower ourselves in shimmer, with a sexy little polish that makes you wiggle your finger tips in another lovely's face until they notice how sick your nails look, and their face express nothing but jealousy. For this I look to duochromes and iridescents. Duochromes and iridescents are two of the easiest and cutest ways to jazz up more ordinary polishes. In this post I'll look at three of my favourite iridescents, ways to wear them and why I love them. Now I do realise that if I totted it up, the majority of my current posts would be about Models Own polishes, but there's a reason for this. I adore them. I am also aware that the Beetle Juice collection has been out for quite some time now, but I feel that the age of a polish should not stop me from posting about it if I feel that there is something to say, whether that be quality, value or new ways to rock that shade. So I have picked my favourite Beetle Juice gems, rather than posting on the whole collection, and this post is dedication to them.

Now the shades I have picked are fairly sheer when painted on a bare nail. Which I love. Quite a few of the Beetle Juice polishes are darker in colour and more densely packed with pigment on the nail, and in my book this pushes them over the boarder line into duochrome territory and when condensed in the bottle, the three polishes I'm looking at appear to cross that line too, however when worn in the way shown below I tend to class them more so as iridescent, because of the subtle nature of the colour change in them. The sheer quality to theses iridescent polishes makes them super versatile allowing us lovely ladies (and maybe men) to get more looks for our bucks! The three polishes I am looking at are the glorious Tropical Sun, Indian Ocean, and Pink Cocktail, and to demonstrate their versatility in the best way I have decided to swatch them on multiple base colours.

The first of these beauties is Tropical Sun which I bought for £5 from Boots. A wonderful warm pink with orange and peach tones running through it. To bring out the best features of this shade I have swatched it on a bright white from Essie called Blanc, a very yummy peach from Nails Inc by the name of Wellington Square and three lovely little Topshop polishes, the purple Parma Violet, a lovely baby pink called Day Dream and War paint, a fabulous coral red.

The chosen colours really do make Tropical Sun look great. To me it creates a wonderful vision of beautiful Saree fabrics. Packed with a great richness of colour that gives and gives. With each movement it hints at more colour and depth, and you can enhance this with the base colour you chose to layer it on. By choosing both complimenting and contrasting base colours you can create multiple looks for all three of these beautiful iridescents. Personally I'm a bit of a sucker for anything purple and my favourite colour combination is the contrasting lilac and orange, I feel the two polishes just transform each other and look fantastic next to say, an all black outfit.

The second polish I'm looking at is the gorgeous Indian Ocean, again £5 from Boots. Now you may notice at this point that some of the base colours I swatch against are repeated, but that's just because they're yummy on their own and look even better next to these three fab polishes.

Indian Ocean itself is a lovely pale blue with hints of lilac and green shinning through. Making it only fitting to swatch it over purples, greens and blues! Again using Essie's Blanc to showcase it polish alone, then we have another three cuties from Topshop, Easy Breezy mint, Parma Violet purple, and the delicious Celestial blue.

These swatches remind me of two things. The purple and white based swatches make me feel like a fairy princess, I don't know why, but I feel like Tinkerbell just went and sprinkled a crap load of fairy dust all over my mani and made me look super swag. The green and blue swatch though create a beautiful sense of mermaid chic, if nail polish worked under water, we all know, The Little Mermaid would be rolling with these shades.

The final polish I want to look at is the perfect Pink Cocktail. A polish so beautifully pink that it would turn Barbie into a clepto! I Acquired this little lovely in the Beetle Juice mini's set and it's rather beauts! £8 for a set of three polishes bringing its individual price down to around £2.66, bargain!

It's vibrant pink with micro pigments of lilac and pale blue hidden within it, and my favourite way to wear it means pairing it with equally girlie base colours. Keeping this in mind I've coated it over Blanc, Day Dream and Parma Violet. These pastel shades provide a lovely even base palette for the shimmer and shine of Pink Cocktail, picking out and complimenting each aspect of the shade.

I can appreciate that such a sweet candy pink polish and its variations may not be for everyone, but if you are feeling particularly femme, this is a really nice addition to your chosen outfit, I will say though, they the perfect purpose for these pink pretties is to help little girls, and girly girls at that, stop biting their nails. They see it, think "Oooh Disney princess" and immediately stop themselves from nibbling away. Mission accomplished!

All of the polishes in this post were originally bought from Boots, however you can also pick them up here! What are you fave iridescents or duochromes? Xxx.

Busy bees.

I start with apologies. Lately I have been severely distracted and neglectful to my precious little blog, and for this I do apologise. I have been a very busy bee, starting up a little Etsy shop, and focusing on university again, but I'm now back on track and preparing new reviews and blog entries. Slowly I am documenting and photographing my beautiful polishes and as ever hunting for cute new ones to buy. In the next week I am hoping to post on my favourite duo-chromes and ultimate purples. So keep an eye out lovelies. Xxx.