Born Pretty nails

A while ago I was contacted by the lovely people at Born Pretty who asked me to choose a product from their website to review. I asked for a surprise as there was so much to choose from I couldn't decide.

So I was sent this Laushine cracking polish in L022 which is a very blue toned purple (or blurple, if you will :P). I know tonnes of people are bored of crackle polishes, but I love them so I was very happy.

Now call me a cynic but I didn't expect this no-name brand polish to be much good but I was very happily surprised! It gave me a nice even crackle effect that looked basically the same on each nail (sometimes I have problems where the nails will all look different because each nail will have a slightly lighter or heavier coat of crackle polish), it dried really quickly and the effect is quite chunky, which I prefer to some crackles that give you just little 'fault lines' of shattering. I actually liked the formula of this polish better than the china glaze and models own crackle polishes I've tried, and it was as good as the Barry M Nail Effects which I love. I was really impressed.

So I tried it out over a few different base coats to see how nicely it would contrast with various colours. 

 

Over (left to right):

Illamasqua Rare, Models Own 24 Karat, Color Club Screaming Tangerine, Nubar Marble Tower

 

And over Rimmel Black Pearl. It's less shattered here as I accidentally did a ridiculously thick coat :P

I really liked it over the gold polish and it was pretty over Screaming Tangerine but I wonder if you can guess what I went for for my full mani? :P

   

Ahh yes, Rare by Illamasqua. It's a fantastic colour, a real eye-searing neon yellow but it applies a bit patchy. To get it looking nice I have to use at least 3 coats and then it gets a bit thick looking. The crackle disguises that a little and also makes for the most 80s looking nails ever! :D

I've been wearing this for about 4 days now, without a top coat. It's hard for me to discuss wear in comparison with my usual manicures as I nearly always wear a top coat but for this I wanted to keep it matte because it looked so cool. But anyway at the moment I've had a tiny bit of tip wear of both polishes but no chipping so I'm very happy.

After trying this I am looking forward to actually ordering from Born Pretty. They have some other unusual coloured crackle polishes from the same brand as well as some bizarre looking glitter polishes, nail art pens and other equipment. They also sell some random cosmetics and false eyelashes. The prices are very fair, if I had paid for it this polish would have cost me $4.91 which I think is very fair. They also ship for free worldwide.

I was told it would take 2-3 weeks to arrive but actually took about 1 week, if not less! I can't say if thats true for actual orders but considering I was told 2-3 weeks, which is what I'd imagine most parcels from Singapore to the UK might take, I can assume it might be a similar delivery time.

They were also kind enough to give me a coupon code for all my followers to use :)

It expires on 31/12/2011 so you've got plenty of time to use it!

*I was sent this product for review but all my thoughts and opinions are my own*

(Almost) Free nail polish :)

Hi everyone, sorry you've probably had this post pop up a lot on your blogroll over the last few days! But incase you haven't I'm sharing this deal.

I was sent these 2 lovely polishes by Sammy from Jam (thanks Sammy!). One - Atomic is a beautiful, nearly neon orange (possibly a dupe or similar to Illamasqua's Gamma) and the other - OMP! (Oh My Pink!) is a bright pink.

You can get them yourselves for (almost) free by picking up The News of the World on sundays. You need to collect 3 vouchers printed over the next 4 weeks from Fabulous magazine (The first voucher is released tomorrow 19th June) then take the vouchers to Tesco and redeem them for the polishes between the 3rd and 11th of July.

So they're not completely free (unless you already buy the News of the World on sundays) as you need to buy 3 issues of the paper. But I guess that will come to about £3 and the polishes are worth £22. Plus there are codes on the back of the polish box for 20% off at the Nails inc website. Plus you can get a half-price manicure at participating Nails Inc Salons. So it's a really good deal as long as you like the colours :)

I've never tried Nails Inc polishes before so this is a great opportunity to pick up something out of my usual price range. However I have some similar colours already, so there may well be a little giveaway coming up (when I can afford postage :( )

You can see some lovely swatches and a brief review of the polishes at Get Gawjus' blog here

a FOTD and some recent nails

I've finally caught up on replying to comments! Woooo! My Makeup Critic rant took quite a while because all of you guys were great and had really good things to say :)

Here's a simple FOTD from a little while back. I know my lipstick is Topshop's Brighton Rock which is a fantastic coraly-pinky colour. It reminds me of Barry M Flamingo Pink polish. Other than that it's just some black eyeliner, mascara and some sort of pink blush. I need to start making little lists of what I'm wearing when I take photos!                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

 

I have wet hair, which is why it looks so weird. I can't explain the mental look in my eyes though :P

And now for some nice manicures I've done recently. I have terrible looking nails because I have a nervous habit of ripping off my cuticles and the skin around my nails. I'm trying to keep my nails polished at all times because it means I'm less likely to do it and ruin my polish!

This is 2 coats of Barry M Fuschia and then about a million coats of Barry M Once Upon a Time. It was incredibly irritating as the glitter polish seemed to take hours to dry so I kept smudging, but it was oh so worth it!

 

Flash:

 

This is 3 coats of Accessorize Pink Spice polish (it only needed 2 to be opaque but I added an extra 

layer just because) it's an amazing red/copper/pink metallic multichrome colour. You can see a bit of tipwear but these photos were taken after 4 days of wear and there was no chipping :) I tried my best to get good photos of the colour shift, but it's much more beautiful in real life.

 

  

This is 3 coats of China Glaze Light as Air (again it only really needed 2 coats) and 1 coat of Barry M  Lavender Hexograms. I applied this one horribly, you can see a huge dent in one nail :P

And finally this is 2 coats of Sinful Colours Let's Meet, 1 coat of China Glaze Lighthouse and 1 coat of China Glaze Crackle Glaze in Fault Line. I love crackle polish, it's such a quick and lazy way to get an interesting and arty looking manicure :P

What are you wearing on your nails at the moment?

I want to start a hosiery blog because I own so so many pairs of tights and stockings and socks and never get round to wearing the vast majority of them. I thought a blog would be a good incentive for me to wear more of them. I can't think of a good punny name though, so far people have suggested:

Stocking Filler, Funny Face Lovely Legs, Tight Spot and just Lillian's Lovely Legs 

do you have any ideas? :)

Do my work for me so I don't  have to do anything crazy like make my own decisions!

Illamasqua Toxic Nature Nail Polish in Gamma

Disclaimer: this was given to me as a gift for attending a blogging event, but all thoughts are my own.

I love this nail polish a lot. It is hideously, eye-wateringly bright neon orange. Seriously, it's the most bright orange polish I've ever seen, it's so much more eye-searing than in the photos, it looks like a high-vis jacket or something!

The formula is great, it's very smooth and creamy and opaque in 2 coats (I did 3 because i stuffed up a couple of nails). Usually neon polishes dry matte but these were sort of semi-matte and rubbery, like the Orly Plastix polishes I think. I liked it a lot! I didn't put on a top coat because I wanted to show the finish (don't know if I succeeded). I wore it for 3 days without top coat and oddly there was no tip wear at all but it did start to chip. I've never for a polish that doesn't chip without a top coat though. I'll try it with one and see how it lasts then.
Also I think there must be some sort of fluorescent in it, we have these blue fairy lights up and when I got near my fingernails just glowed amazingly!

What do you think? Bright enough for you?

NOTD

I absolutely love my nails at the moment. I decided to use my Barry M Nail Effects for the first time and absolutely love it! Now I want crackle varnish in every colour of the rainbow. I neeeed the China Glaze ones but am poor :(
Anyway here they are:

 

 

I used Sinful Colors Let's Meet which is a shimmery yellow with a tiny hint of pink to it's pearl, then the Nail Effects.

I Loooove watching the Nail Effects crack, it's so cool, I could watch it forever! It hypnotises me. 

I actually preferred it without the top coat because then the black shatter is matte which, against the contrasting shimmery glossy polish underneath, looks amazing. But I wanted it to last a long time so i put on a shiny top coat. It still looks great.

Here's a picture of it sans top coat:

 

I love this. The black crackle look both classy and grungy at the same time and looks a bit like leopard print from a distance. Not only that but it covers up any problems in the application of the base coat (if you look very closely you can see some air bubbles in the yellow) :P

But of course now I want to get rid of it to have a valentines mani! But as it's still perfect I won't.

What you wearing on your nails at the moment? What are your feelings on shatter/crackle polish?

Illamasqua Throb Manicure semi-tutorial

It's a semi tutorial because I am too rubbish to even have done this manicure very well, so I can't expect anyone to be able to follow my rubbish instructions! But still, I thought you might like to have a look :)

Here is the original:

  

Illamasqua actually made a tutorial of how they did this, you can see it here. I couldn't do it that way because I don't have any false nails.

And here is my take:

I don't have a cream or plain black nail polish (well I have a black one, but it's very old and has gone too gloopy to use. I must get some thinner!). Illamasqua used their new 'Load' and 'scorn' polishes for this cream and matte black look. So instead I used Models Own 'Snow White' and Eyeko Vampire polish, which is a lovely black with red shimmer. 

Please go under the cut to see the steps I took :)

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!

Topshop makeup - my haul and thoughts

Topshop's makeup brand launched just over a month ago to much fanfare from the press and bloggers alike. Personally i had some high hopes from the brand as Topshop always seems to aspire to high fashion with a (slightly higher than usual) high street price tag so i thought maybe they would take some risks with their makeup line. I was a little disappointed when i first saw pictures from the launch because there were no real bright, exciting colours or innovative seeming products, but i did see some nice looking things so i  headed off to Oxford Street to see for myself.

I must say that my first impressions of the brand have been very favourable! I think the prices are fair (highest being £10 and the lowest £4 meaning they're slightly over drugstore prices but not as pricey as mid-end brands like Mac) and they have a nice selection of products. I like the fact that there will be a limited edition collection 4 times a year, it means that there will be exciting new products to see, but you'll have a whole 3 months to make up your mind and purchase. Everything I tried seemed to be of very high quality and, while the colour range might not be as exciting as, for instance, Illamasqua, but they're not dull either. There's lots of bright, fun eye colours and lots of highly pigmented red, pink and coral lip colours, not just lots of nudes and neutrals.

Personally i love the packaging. I think it's fun but classy, love the stripes and spots and like the fact it's made of metal, it's unusual. I also love that some products come in black boxes with illustrations of the product inside. 

Anyway here are my thoughts on the range.

The main range, so far, has nail varnishes, eye shadows, crayons, liners and mascaras, sheer foundations, highlighters and a concealer, cream blushes, lipsticks, crayons, 3 different kinds of glosses and balms.

The SS10 Range consists of false eyelashes, glitters, a lip and cheek stain, a big, golden pressed powder (possibly baked?) highlighter (seems to be sold out on the website), 3 trios of baked eyeshadows, 4 shimmery nail polishes, 2 pencil eyeliners and 2 soft metallic crayons for all over the face.

The packaging is similar to the main range but with gold and silver added to the otherwise monochrome packaging. Some have golden stars on the boxes and the crayons come in very luxe golden tube-things.

I tried the lightest foundation (Skin Tint in Fair) and it was too dark and too yellow for me but seemed to be a lovely consistency, feeling more like a moisturiser on my hand (where i swatched it) than a foundation. The colour range of the foundations isn't great with only 4 colours, however it does at least go up to a dark colour which looks like it would be suitable for lighter black skintones as does the highlighting liquid. I tried the eye crayon in Black Jack, which is a black with silver glitter, the pigmentation was great but I found the formula a little odd, to me it felt like i was rubbing charcoal on my skin, it certainly wasn't creamy like eyeshadow pencils often are. There are 3 different types of lip gloss, Glosses, Glazes and Polishes. The Glosses come in a squeezy tube similar to a Lancome juicy tube and are the most highly pigmented (apart from the clear one obviously), coming up quite similar to Illamasqua Intense Lip Glosses (which, in my opinion is wonderful!), they are very shiny. The Glazes come in a stiff plastic tube with a wand and are sheerer and slightly pearlised and the polishes come in a small pot (the lip balms also come in this packaging) and are quite pigmented, 'stiffer' not runny like the other 2 types of gloss and shimmery. 

From the SS10 range i only swatched the eyeliners and crayons. I didn't buy anything but having thought about it for a while i am definately going to get all of them (and possibly some of the nail varnishes). The eyeliner pencils were just beautiful, coming in stunning metallic pink and blue colours with hints of silver, the applied smoothly to my skin. And the crayons, well when i first applied them i thought i didn't need them because i have the Illamasqua liquid metals. The colours and consistency when first applied are very similar, but the crayons were slightly thicker. However after i got home from my day of shopping i realised that while all of my hand swatches had either disappeared entirely or faded into one big stain on my hand, the gold and silver crayons had stayed absolutely perfect. Even when i watched my hand they stayed strong. And so i need them, particularly for my eyes as i imagine they wouldn't crease as much as their Illamasqua counterparts.

And now onto what i actually bought!

 

Neon Rose - a vey bright but light orangey coral and Crushed Berry - a true berry colour

I LOVE these. They are a cream-to-powder formula and are beautifully pigmented and... just lovely! I like to apply them with my fingers, but they do dry quite quickly so sometimes they can be a little hard to blend.

 

 

Rio Rio - an orange toned red and Brighton Rock - a slightly corally pink

These are beautifully pigmented and have a great matte finish. They are slightly drying but nothing terrible.

  

Rosa - a bright fuschia pink and Pulp - a shimmery true purple gloss

I haven't worn the Rosa Lip Stick pencil yet but it applied wonderfully to my hand and felt soft and was slightly glossy and really brightly pigmented. The Pulp lip gloss is nicely pigmented, but not quite the colour it looks in the tube. Also it's a tiny bit shimmery with a slight blue sheen.

 

Gypsey Night - a stunning black with holographic glitter and coppery flakies.

I also got the Matte topcoat, but forgot to photo it.

The formulas of both seem fine, nothing amazing but certainly not bad at all. They dry quite quickly and were nice and not at all thick or gloopy to apply.

Swatches:

 

From left to right:

Neon rose applied sheerly, Neon rose applied thickly, Crushed Berry applied thickly, Crushed Berry applied sheerly, Rosa, Brighton Rock, Rio Rio

 

Pulp

 

Gypsey Night (craply applied and with a top coat that caused shrinkage, the polish itself applied very well)

There will be proper reviews of everything when i've used it properly. But so far i really like everything i bought. 

Hope you found this interesting! You can buy Topshop makeup from the website (available to the US too and possibly elsewhere, not sure) and selected topshop stores across the UK.

My nail polish collection

So this came about second in the voting on my 'little round up' post but i decided to do this one before my 'top 5s' because i am lazy and those posts will take more effort than this one! XD

Basically i store my polish on these weird little 'shelf'' things in my room. I'm not sure what they are, maybe an odd form of picture rail? But they're just perfect for displaying all my polishes so i can see them all easily. It also saves me a lot of space because nothing else will really fit on the tiny shelves :P

I have only recently got very 'into' nail varnish having seen so many gorgeous, exciting colours and manicures on various nail blogs. The frightening thing is that i have probably bought more than half of these in the last 6 months :O

Wall of polish!:

 

Nails - OPI Mad As A Hatter

Hi everyone. Apologies again for having disappeared for a while, i've really been trying to knuckle down and paint every single day. I should be doing that anyway but i've had a big crisis of confidence lately and hadn't been. And then i wanted to catch up on everyone's posted I'd missed so i did that before writing my own posts.

Anyway here's just a couple of photos of a manicure (and i use this in the loosest sense of the word :P) i did recently using OPI's Mad as a Hatter polish. I have a stupid story about this. Basically i missed out on getting the bottles cheap from one of the US sites (i forgot the first rule of shopping: 'thou shalt buy when you first see') and didn't want to spend £10 on a bottle of polish so i bought the mini set of all 4 Alice in Wonderland polishes even though i had no interest whatsoever in the 2 reds. When i got it i was so enamoured by Absolutely Alice and Mad As A Hatter i decided i had to get full bottles of those 2 and sell on the mini set. I've never used up a nail polish in my life, but.... well i needed the full bottles! XD

 

 

Mad As A Hatter is a multiocolored glitter in a clear base. As you can probably see the colour looks very black and silver overall but there is red, blue, green and purple in the mix as well. These were the best pics i could get but it's a lot more exciting in real life. These photos show 4 layers with top coat (i use Collection 2000)

This and Absolutely Alice are the first OPI polishes i've ever tried and, while i still wouldn't pay £10 for a polish unless i was totally besotted with it like these ones, they probably have the best formula i've tried so far. Usually with glitter polishes i need to do at least 3 layers before they look remotely opaque and at first i thought these would be the same. The first coat was very thin and sparse but when i added the second i was shocked that it was somehow practically opaque already! But i was also amazed at how quickly this dried, after about 30 - 45 seconds each coat would be completely dry. So i did 4 coats of polish to make it absolutely opaque as it was just so easy to apply! (sick of reading the word 'opaque' yet :P). It also lasted brilliantly, after 5 days of wear i had a tiny amount of tip wear and one chip (and that came about from me biting my cuticle so it was my fault) but i felt like a change and took it of then, i don't know how long it would have lasted if i left it.

So yeah, i'm really really happy with this, even though i think the UK price is stupidly expensive.

While i'm talking of polishes i've had a rather frustrating time lately relating to them. I basically decided that, as i have a little bit of money lately and have become raher obsessed with polishes, i would do a big haul from one of the US sites which sell polishes cheap. I ruled Head2toe beauty out as they don't ship China Glaze to the UK so i went to 8ty8 and started filling my basket. When I'd finished my (shamefully large) haul and went to check out i saw that they ask international buyers to email them first if they want to know approximate shipping costs. So i did so and got a reply (which was very quick so that's good) saying that they weren't actually taking any international orders at the moment and won't be for at least 2 weeks due to a backlog of orders. So then i decided to go to Transdesign which i had heard great things about from other UK polish hounds. They used to do flat rate shipping boxes for polish at a really reasonable rate (i think around $18 for up to 9 polishes and $50 for up to 50 polishes or something) but apparently not anymore :( Now it seems that no matter how many polishes you have in your cart (i had less than 9 when i tried to check the shipping price) the international shipping will be over $40 because apparently nail polishes are hazardous. I've emailed them about it because somewhere on their site it still mentions the flat rate boxes but still no reply and it's been about 4 days now so i doubt i will get one :/

So now i think i will be forced to beg someone in the US to let me ship to them and then pay them the money to send them to me (like many of you kindly offered when i wanted some stuff from Sephora but i didn't take anyone up on it because i realised i didn't have enough money at the time) but that's so annoying :( Boo on you transdesign! So if anyone's up for that i would be in your debt. Or if anyone knows any websites that sell polishes to the UK for reasonable prices (i'm interested in color club, OPI, China Glaze and Orly mainly) please tell me and i will be very grateful.

Quick Review of Paul and Joe's Nail Polish Remover

Ok i'm just going to go out and admit it straight away, i bought this purely because of the bottle. I know it's ridiculous but... well when you see it you might understand, it's so beautiful! While the rest of my room is very silly and circusy i want my dressing table to look vintage, like something from a 1950s magazine and Paul and Joe's aesthetic is just perfect for this.

 Firstly it comes in a lovely cardboard box, the pattern looks like retro wallpaper:

And here is the actual bottle:

 

Beautiful ain't it? I love the shaped glass and the delicately pink ridged lid and the beautiful pale raspberry colour of the liquid, so glamourous <3

So yeah, i basically bought it on the strength of its packaging, but i'm glad to have discovered that the product is actually very good. In fact i can honestly say it is the best nail varnish remover i have ever used. Basically it's great because you only need a tiny bit to remove all your polish. The polish comes out of quite a small hole (about the size of a 5 pence piece) so i tip it up onto a cotton pad and it will leave a circle of remover the size of the hole. It only takes about 3 of these little circles to remove all the polish from one hand, even glitter polish! In fact it's brilliant at removing glitter polish, usually i struggle horribly with it (often i end up naughtily nibbling my polish off), but with the Paul and Joe it comes off just like other polishes (though it does take a little more remover than regular polish). Also, while this does still have an undernote of the classic acetone scent, it's the only remover i've tried that has a perfume. It's floral and nice, and when i've done taking my polish off my nails smell like the perfume, not like the acetone. When i usually have taken my polish off i often forget and eat things with my fingers and the taste of chemicals gets on my food but that doesn't happen with this.

However at the end of the day it's just a nail polish remover and while it is better than others it is no miracle. They all serve the same purpose and unless you're a millionaire i think it would be foolish to buy this at its price instead of a cheaper bogstandard one.

This retails for £9.75 for 100ml which, yes, is ludicrously expensive for nail varnish remover. I certainly wouldn't repurchase it, even though it is a very good remover, but i'm very glad to have it. I have a stunning bottle to refill with whatever remover i choose and the remover it comes with looks like it will last a good while.

(i also own the makeup remover which comes in the same gorgeous bottle, i'll be reviewing it soon up against a lot of other high and low end makeup removers :P)

Nails!

Lately i've been trying to keep my fingernails painted almost constantly, because having pretty nails has really helped me to stop biting my cuticles and the skin around my nails. I haven't stopped completely but i'm a lot better now, i used to have horrible wounds and the whole area around my nails were red and sore. Having pretty polish stops me biting so much because i don't want to chip my polish. So i think this month is going to be pretty nail heavy :)

Here are just a few pics of some manicures i've done recently including my first ever attempts at nail art (apart from french tips)

 

Candy Cane nails

 

My fist attempt at Marbling (little-finger-nail did not go well :P) supposed to be like a peppermint.

 

Models Own Disco Mix (LOVE this one)

 

GOSH holographic (SO so beautiful)

Haul!!

Ok like i said in my last post i've been very very naughty recently.
Firstly i got some bits from Asos:




Models own lip glosses in blackberry, fuschia and red.

The Asos/Ciate nail paints were only £1.50 each! I got all 3, Mary Kate which is A black with gold sparkles, pixie which is a sort of racing green colour (it looks much lighter and brighter in the pot than when you swatch it) and Agyness which is a sparkly purple. I realised Agyness is basically exactly the same as my Barry M vivid purple, so if anyone would like this i'll sell it for £2 including shipping in the UK (i've only swatched it once. On asos it would be £3.50 including postage).
I also got some gorgeous tights that were in the sale (they're gold and black and sort of a houndstooth design). I also got 3 Models Own lipgloss and nail polish sets in red, fuscia and red/black (you can see the red/black set is in it's case) which also included a nail buffer thing and were £4 each. The red and fuschia lipglosses are gorgeously opaque but the blackberry one is sheer, also the red/black polish is a dupe of my Barry M red/black colour so again if anyone would like this set it's yours for £5 including shipping (and also i'll be donating 10% of anything i sell for a while to Haiti). Finally the only thing that wasn't in the sale was the Urban Decay lip primer potion, but even then i got a discount as there is an Asos 20% code :) Haven't tried this yet but will keep you posted.

Then I went into town to get something secret for my Goomba's valentine gift and ended up getting far too much for me!

Firstly i went a bit mad for nail polish in superdrug. I've gotten really into nail varnish at the moment, i'm absolutely desperate for some China Glaze and color club, but as i cant afford the shipping from the US at the moment i thought i'd stock up on some cheap drugstore brands. The collection 2000 polishes were under £2 each and go on really nice and opaque. I also discovered a secret clearance stash of old Urban Decay polishes (they must have been hidden in the stock room, i don't even remember when my superdrug sold UD!) so i got 3 of them for £1.99 each. I also picked up a collection 2000 base coat/ridge filler that isn't pictured.


From left to right the colours are:
collection 2000 Hot Looks: Wham (a light grey), hoola hoop (a sort of bubblegum pink), minx (a pinky-purple glitter), vixen (a fuschia glitter), BMX bandit (a kind of cornflower blue, love the name!), button moon (a very pale blue with a slight green tinge. Again wonderful name!).
Urban Decay: Trip (a bright fuschia pink with slight blue pearl), X (a sort of brown/purple/gold duochrome) and finally Freakshow (which is purple with green and blue duochrome).

and here are swatches of all the polishes, including the ones from Asos. A lot of them look awful, they're gorgeous in real life. Annoyingly the 2 i'm hoping to sell don't look anything like they do in real life so if you're interested please tell me and i'll try and take a better photo!:



Models own red/black, red alert and foxy fuschia, Asos/ciate paints in pixie, agyness (looks dark grey here, actually a metallic purple) and mary kate (which has gold shimmer in real life you can't see at all here), Urban decay in X, trip and freakshow, collection 2000 hot looks in minx, wham, bmx bandit, hoola hoop, button moon and vixen.
Then i got this gorgeous pearl necklace from Accessorize. I've always wanted a necklace with just giant pearls (a bit like Frank n Furters :P) and while this one isn't my perfect version it's pretty close:



And lastly, Lush. Now i know, i know, i have already got enough toilletries to last a year or so, but i couldn't help but grab some of the valentines range and some others of their new products. I was also really really brave and it payed off! I love the sound of their new Turkish Delight shower smoothie but as it's £15 i couldn't possibly buy it without trying it out, so i asked for a sample. Now this might sound like nothing but because of my disability i was literally shaking and on the brink of tears thinking about asking because i was just so scared. But i managed to find the courage and asked and as a reward for my bravery (though of course the lovely guy at the checkout didn't know it was a reward, he was just being nice :P) not only did i get a sample of Turkish Delight, but he gave me a little pack they'd put together which includes their new Creme Anglaise body lotion, Sexy Peel Soap, American cream conditioner and Smitten hand cream. I left feeling really proud of myself :)



Anyway i picked up Love Soap (and of course i had to get it in the gorgeous heart shaped box even though i'm keeping it for myself!), magic mushroom bubble bar, space girl bath ballistic and Happy blooming bath melt and my sample pack :)

So that's all the shopping i'm allowed to do for myself for at least a month! (though internet shopping doesn't count :P) I'll be reviewing most of the things anyway, but if there's something specific you want to know about just leave me a comment :)