A Trip To Westfields

A couple of weeks ago Claire and I took a trip to Westfields which at the moment is my favourite place to go shopping. It really reminds me of a peoper huge American mall, has tonnes of shops I really like and it's really spacious and airy so it never seems too crowded (which means I feel less anxious). 

I didn't do very interesting makeup as I wanted to get out the house quickly.

 

Claire wanted to take a picture of my (not particularly interesting) outfit but as we went out to the garden I realised that the burly polish builders working on the house next door (who constantly play really loud Europop from the nineties) were watching us, which explains my expression (I hope).

 

Our first stop is always at Butlers Chocolate Cafe because it is AMAZING! It does the worlds best hot chocolate and you get a free fancy truffle with every drink.

 

Drinking a delicious chocolate milkshake and wearing my fake Jeremy Scott sunglasses ( I wanted the real ones but these were £6).

 

Claire likes her Chai tea.

We shopped for a while and then had lunch. The food court is great, it has loads of choice and healthier items. I got falafel and hummous and Claire had a huge vegetable burrito.

Westfields is absolutely great for a makeup fiend like me. There's regular shops like Superdrug and Boots then higher end brands like Makeup Store, Mac and Inglot (I think it's the only Inglot shop in the UK, but I may be wrong) and Debenhams which has various brands like Chanel, Dior, Urban Decay etc.There's also an OPI shop (which I think is the only place in the UK to get Nicole by OPI polishes), some kind of mineral makeup place and Kiko (which is a great shop with bargain prices and fun colours but seems to always playing really horrible loud club music). There's also Beauty Base which is..odd. Beauty base is like a big discount perfume place (though some of the discounts are only 5p off RRP) and then it has some high end makeup brands like Shiseido (which seemed to have no discount) and also really cheap, obscure brands. You can get L.A. Colors there which is great because everythings under £5. And finally (I think, I may have forgotten some shops) a Models Own shop has just opened. 

The shop looks cool because it's in the shape of a nail polish bottle!

 

(photo belongs to Models Own)

 

My experience of the shop however wasn't that great. The staff seemed very nice and friendly but there were  a group of about 5 SAs standing in a big group chatting to each other. This meant there were bits of the shop I couldn't access and they continued their conversation even when I was paying for my goods which is a real pet peeve of mine. The stock seemed a little odd, they had hundreds of the nail polishes but they seemed to be arranged by colour, while this might usually be helpful it means if you want something from their collections (I wanted some Beetlejuice colours) you have to go hunting for them all individually. And there were about 4 sections, all of which had the nail polish in a slightly different order (some colours were on all sections, some were only on 1 etc). Models Own has a huge variety of products but the shop only had certain products. Finally the check out system is just weird. Instead of scanning barcodes the SAs are all equipped with tablet computers and have to manually search for the colour you're buying, it seems really inefficient, especially as it took took of them (one to call out the name of the product and the other to find it on the tablet)

On the plus side however you can make your own little gift box of 6 polishes for £20 (on the website you can only get premade selections)

 

Those are (rather terrible) swatches of the new Models Own Matt Brite lipsticks. from top to bottom:

Flaming Red, Annalise's Pink, Pink Hawaiian and Orangeade. 

Then an amazing thing happened, I was in Topshop looking at some glittery brogues when I heard a call of 'Lillian?' and turned to discover Robyn, my fellow Makeup Hero, looking at the same shoes! :D

Topshop wouldn't let us take a photo inside for some reason (they also wouldn't let Claire come in the changing rooms with me which sucked because I wanted her opinion on a dress I was trying) but we took one outside. Robyn is just as beautiful in real life as in her blog and a super funny awesome fellow!

 

We ended up both buying the aforementioned shoes. Oooh friend, shoe friend!

All in all a good day was had.

My nail polish (and one lipstick) haul is under the cut. I got a few other bits too (mostly tights) but I haven't taken photos of them yet. 

Todays face

Ok You're probably bored of my big ol' face by now, but tough luck, here's mah ugly mug again! :P

Nothing interesting (once again, I really need to get my makeup mojo back and do some more exciting looks!) but I thought the eyes were pretty.

Face: Illamasqua Skin Base foundation in 02, ELF Studio HD powder, Barry M blusher in no 6

Eyes: MUA Professional Heaven and Earth Palette, Mac Neon 60s glitter, Illamasqua Masquara

Lips: Mac Lip pencil in Magenta, homemade lip gloss

New Years Eve

 Going way back in time here to New Years Eve! Claire and I went to see one of our favourite bands David Devant and his Spirit Wife. Usually I avoid doing anything on New years because it's so busy and scary but the gig was really fun and not too crowded and getting home wasn't even that horrible!

I decided to dress up as my friend Mikey (the singer), because obviously that's what a normal person does. Originally Claire was going to dress as the guitarist, Foz, but she ran out of time to make a proper outfit.

Here I am being a super cool person:

 

 

Wearing:

Face: Illamasqua Skin Base Foundation in 02, ELF Studio HD powder, ELF Studio Cool bronzer

Eyes: Illamasqua pure pigment in Synth, Sugarpill Pressed shadow in Bulletproof, Sugarpill Chromalust shadow in Stella, Sugarpill Chromalust in Tiara, Illamasqua Medium pencil in Sophie, Benefit Theyt're Real mascara.

Lips: Can't remember :(

Claire made me a lurex jumpsuit, I look like a very plump, glittery slug :P

  

Here's a pic from the night where I'm propping Mikey. This was probably taken about a minute before he toppled over taking me with him :P

Ahh posting my New Years look in March, I am clearly the best blogger ever :P

A Haul from Wendy :D

Hullo everyone.

A while ago I got the lovely Wendy to cp me a few bits, but she was naughty and sent me gifts too. Ohhh naughty generous people :P

Have a look at my goodies!

First I got the Deborah Lippmann 'Get This Party Started' set which includes 3 polishes in 'Happy Birthday', 'Candy Shop' and 'Forget You'

   

These were a lot bigger than I expected. I've only seen photos of the bottles from straight on and I imagined they were cuboid/rectangular, like Barry M polish bottles. Instead they're square and pretty huge!

 I had my Lynnderella polishes (which I mentioned in this post) delivered to Wendy.

  

The colours are Snow Angel, Connect the Dots, The Glittering Crowd and Throwing Water into the Ocean (a freebie :) )

And in the US ELF had a 70% off sale, and as it's about half the price there than it is here I thought I'd grab some bits.

 

ELF studio Angeld Eyeliner Brush, ELF mineral Flat Eyeliner Brush, ELF Zit Zapper.

 

ELF Studio Glitter Gloss in Jeweled Jam , ELF Studio Minty Lip Gloss in Houston, ELF Studio Pout Perfecter, ELF Studio Radiance Enhancer in Spotlight, ELF Studio Lip Lock pencil.

This delightful thing is a candle holder from Bath and Body Works.

 

Ad then some gifts from Wendy <3

2 Bath and Body Works PocketBacs (antibacterial hand gel stuff)

 

The ghost is Chocolate Chew scented (smells JUST like a Tootsie Roll and the ghostie glows in the dark :D) and the Lichtenstein-esque Whaam! Is Fruit Punch scented. 

And some Makeup! I am spoiled :)

Milani Lipsticks in Orange-gina and Blackcherry, Jordana Lip Out Loud gloss in OMG, Sinful Colors polishes in Frenzy and Hottie

Thank you Wendy!!

Swatches of most things under the cut :)

Lynnderella - princess of polishes!

A while ago I ordered some polishes from Lynnderella. You may have heard of her, she's a fantastic frankener who, a few months ago, finally gave in and started selling her amazing glitter creations. I love the colours I got, particularly Connect the Dots, an amazing and completely unique black and white glitter polish.

Here is one coat over Illamasqua Jo'Mina.

It's just so amazing! Like instant nail art. It looks great over all colours of creme polish!

I also made a video about the polishes, you can see the other colours I got :)

 

Her shop only opens at certain times so she can handle the orders easily and it's actually about to open tonight! She only ships to the US at the moment (I got mine through Wendy) and there is a 5 bottle minimum order. Unfortunately this means I can't afford to buy any more right now :( But if you can you should get what you like while she's open!  Some of the Halloween collection are just gorgeous looking. Boo hoo!

Flakies!

Mmm flakies, one of the most glorious kinds of polish ever. I love glitter but flakies are like opals for your nails! I also like the name, 'flakies' sounds a bit... nasty, it reminds me of flaking skin and that amuses my childish mind  :D I only actually own 3 and need more, particularly some of the gorgeous ones from Inglot. Anyway here's a couple of manicures using lovely flakies.

 

 

This was Models Own Spring Green with GOSH Rainbow over the top.

 

And this was ELF Mango madness with NFU-Oh 47 on top. It was subtler than the green mani but still very pretty. But I can't leave my nails alone so I...

 

Mattified it! Ahhh <3 I'm not usually the biggest fan of matte nails but putting a matte topcoat over flakies somehow makes them look even more magical, like hidden glowing jewels.

What's your favourite flakie polish?

Neon Nails

So in my little haul the other week I got a set of Starry Temptress Color Club polishes from TK Maxx.

These are all neons with glitter added, a fabulous idea that you'd think would have been done a long time ago!  Oh and a glittery top coat as well.  

I found the polishes to be very thick which meant application was a little difficult s they were kind of gloopy. However once on the thickness sort of helped and they were fully opaque in two coats. They also dried quickly nd looked smooth when they were dry. This is my first real taste of Color Club (I only have one other polish from the brand) and I don't know if the thickness is a trait, or if it's just this collection or if my set is just a bit old or something. I need to buy some polish thinner anyway so when I do I'll add a drop in these and see if it helps.

Firstly I did a manicure alternating my nails between the green (Glitter Envy) and the brighter, hotter pink (Ultra Astral)

     

In the bottles the glitter looks holographic, like theres all colours of glitter shimmering in there. However on the nail it all look sort of the same colour and not really... sparkly?  It's hard to desribe. The glitter in the green polish looks sort of gold and in the hot pink it looks blue. I would prefer it to look the way it does in the bottle but it's still kind of cool.

Then I added a layer of the top coat

Now it's more sparkly! :D The top coat is clear with multicoloured glitter, on the nail it looks mostly like a mix of blue and yellowy/orange glitters but every so often you see a little flash of a different colour as well.

I wore this a couple of days and then got a chip (I only got the one chip the whole time I wore this polish, about 4 days) on the tip of one of my index fingers so I decided to go super ridiculous.

  

Aww yeah. I added french tips using the bright orange (You Got Soul-ar) and blue (Otherworldly).

Super ludicrous and bright but due to both my terrible application and the thick polish the tips look super lumpy. 

I really like these. Again I would prefer them to have the glitter shine through on the nails as it does in the bottle, but the colours are still really cool and I've never seen a glittery neon creme before.

I'm really into nail polish at the moment. I get bored every few days and have to change whats on my tips regardless of how it's wearing. Do you do that or do you keep your polish on as long as it looks good?

Things I want but can't afford number 2

Deborah Lippmann glitter polishes! 

A year or two ago if anyone asked me whether I would ever consider spending £16 on a nail polish I would have fallen about laughing. Oh how I wish I could go back to those days! It's all evil nail blogs fault  I never would have known about this brand if I didn't follow them! Now I'm longing for these so much I'm feebly trying to justify the cost. Some of them are just so cool and unique. I mean look at this, Funky Chunky:

(photo nicked from Vampy Varnish)

It's just... SO COOL! Huge black sequin chunks all covered in a black creme like tar or something.

While the creme and shimmer polishes don't really thrill me to much I love basically all the glitter polishes. Bad Romance, Glitter in the Air, Across the Universe, Marquee Moon and most especially Happy Birthday! 

Ohh Happy Birthday. It's called a 'party in a bottle' which is just the perfect way to  describe it. The bright, multicoloured, different shaped and sized glitters remind me so much of being a small child at a birthday party. Or well the aftermath anyway! Floors strewn with confetti, streamers, party hats and so on. And those thoughts give me happy memories of jelly and icecream and musical chairs and party bags.

While there are some very, very similar polishes around (Milani Gems which I own, Wet N Wild Party of 5 Glitters, Ulta Pinyata-Yada-yada) none are complete exact dupe as none of those have the tiny square shaped glitters. 

Now I had decided to just give up on my high end dreams and collect more of the cheaper dupes came along but then I saw this:

This is a new collection for Nordstrum in the US that should be coming out any day now. It contains Happy Birthday and two very similar polishes but with sheer pink and black bases. SO SO AWESOME!

And my little evil brain is going 'hmmm well it's $42 for 3 polishes, that's only $14 a bottle. That's about £9 and they sell for £14 -£18 over here. I'D BASICALLY BE MAKING MONEY!'

Somebody stop me before I shop again! D:

Brazen Cosmetics Haul, swatches and review

...Finally. God I suck :P

Brazen were on my 'to try' list for a while, and while they did not win my little indie brand poll, I decided to ignore your wishes and order from them first because they had a sale on :P

I ordered:

4 3gram Lip gloss pots in La Femme, Make Out, Pixie and Burlesque

Good glitter gone bad in Naughty Gold

Yummy Gummies lip scrub

The beauty guru sample set

Brazen is available on both Etsy and Artfire, but I found out a special sale through their facebook page (4 3 gram pots for $10 ) so I made my order by just emailing my list of wants to them. There was a little delay because they didn't have the ingredients for something I ordered, but it was only a few days and communication was great, I was kept well informed throughout. Sandi, who I spoke with, was really friendly and very helpful. One of the colours of lipgloss I wanted was sold out (it was the limited edition Blaze, which is now back for a small time) but she suggested La Femme, which is in a similar colour family and she had seen from my wishlist on my blog, the fact that she'd taken the time to look seemed really great to me, it showed she really cared about giving me what I would like best. The package was sent on the 4th of march (I got a shipping confirmation email, which I appreciated) and arrived on the 11th of march which is really quick for a parcel from the US (and yes, this should have been written 2 months ago, I know, I suck).

So here's everything I recieved:

Review and swatches under the cut :)

Goddess of nails

Hi everyone
once again i'm sorry for not posting in a while (God this is getting to be a recurring theme!)
I've been having a bit of a stressful time at the moment. I may have mentioned a while ago that i was very happy to have got a few pieces of my work into an exhibition at a (rather highly thought of) local commercial gallery. It was due to open a few weeks ago no-one got in contact with me and because i am so shy i didn't ask and I thought i had missed the private view, which made me sad. Anyway i finally emailed them about it and recieved no reply. Then about a week ago the gallery seemed to shut down, we assumed this was because the show was being put up and i was relieved. But low, a huge 'TO LET' sign has been put up. I've emailed everyone at the gallery whose address i had but haven't got any reply.
So obviously my work won't be exhibited and while that is disappointing i don't really care now because i am just so panicked about getting my paintings back! It's terrifying that no-one will reply to me and tell me when i can pick up my stuff!
I've also been trying my hand at making gloves (ho ho ho i am making a pun) and god it's awful! The pattern is so so tricky (partly because you use just a 3mm seam allowance and partly because of the insane gusset things between the fingers) and i don't even know if they'll fit when they're finished. Grump!
Anyway that's what's been going on.

A while back Cherry Culture were having a 20% off (which actually they are again at the moment! Use code B2S20 until tuesday sadly i cannot afford to get anything) and i picked up a huge amount of nail polishes :) One of which was this:

LA colors Goddess

 

This is a lovely muted slightly nude toned gold with tiny and large silver holographic glitter.

It's lovely and i know i'll where it on it's own at some point, but I just wasn't feeling it. I needed more bling!

So i popped on a thin layer of my gold holo glitter franken and then some silver large square glitter (Essence nail twins but i don't know the name!)

 

Ta daa!! Much more tacky :)

What's on your nails at the moment?

My First Franken :)

Well as you can see from the title this post is about my first Frankenpolish (the term Franken baffled me for a long long time). I really love the idea of making my own polishes and having seen that it really isn't that difficult at all means i am severely tempted to get myself frankening. But i doubt i will for a while because i need to get supplies like bottles, ball bearings, a nice supply of clear polish etc
However i thought i'd make one that is insanely easy. I've been wanting a gold-glitter-hologram polish for a long tme, as i've never seen one, only silvers and various other colours but no gold (please correct me if i'm wrong. Also anyone know a gold hologram polish that isn't glitter as there's no way i can make that :P) and i already had a load of the correct glitter from some art projects.
So basically i just bought a £1 clear nail polish (thank you MUA) and poured the glitter in, then shook it up.
It's not perfect, the glitter settles very easily and requires a lot of shaking, but the effect when it's on is quite good, especially as it only cost me a pound.

 

Settled

 

Shaken Up

 

After about 5 thin coats

 

And blurry to show the pretty colours :)

So you can see it's still a bit sheer, i think i'll wear it over a gold polish :) I'm please at how well this worked for how little effort it took, i'm going to make one more, using a black glitter i have. I hope that one goes well too because i've always wanted a black glitter polish (no other colours, just reflective black)

In other news it is too bloody hot. I hate it. I can't find my sunscreen so i know i'm going to born (luckilly my high SPF sunscreen is around) and i sweat and it just makes me miserable. And the doggies are miserable too, but they're also sleepy which makes looking after them a doddle :)
And i just realised that it is the football. Go on footballers and do your thang!