Lipsticks et al.

My quick nip into town the other day just to use my free No7 voucher resulted in me coming back with this little lot...

This post is a little late as you may notice the Grazia magazine is last weeks issue. I used to buy Grazia and Look magazine both religiously but due to a lack of funds recently i've been sticking to the monthly's instead, but Grazia was only £1 exclusive to Tesco so couldn't resist and i have missed it!

Lauren Conrad's Style book has been out a while and when it was first released i was going to buy but after reading a review by Lollipop26 and then having a quick flick in WHSmiths i decided the £14.99 price tag was not worth it. However i spotted it at £4.99 - a bargain if i say so, even if the text is rubbish the pictures are enough to keep me happy and reminds me why i miss The Hills.

The cuff is a sale purchase from Dorothy Perkins, my first cuff in fact and thought it would like great teamed with piles of bracelets including my Pandora, i like the armour feel it has and have been scouring Asos for some armour rings to go with.

The No7 Gel Eyeliner i picked up using the free £5 voucher so it only cost £5, i've not used it yet so look out for a review soon. I did struggle to pick something to be honest, i've heard good comments about the Hot Cloth Cleanser a rival to Liz Earle's but i didn't need another cleanser and there wasn't much from their make-up line i needed either. I decided the Limited Edition collection was the best option as it's the only new make-up they've had in ages. I did want one of the lipsticks but they were sold out so settled for the eyeliner, i never used a gel one before so any tips would be good, hopefully it will be as good at the Bobbi Brown ones.

Now onto the lipsticks, i didn't intentionally go in to buy any other make-up but was having a play with the Rimmel colours and found one i liked and then saw it was 3 for 2! The 3 lipsticks are from the New Colour Show Off collection that Georgia May Jagger advertises and cost £6.49 each. 




L-R: Stare At Me, Shake Up Pink, Tell No One






Swatches:

Stare At Me 250

Shake Up Pink 020


Tell No One 030

My favourite has to be Tell No One, it's a lovely bright coral colour that's very on-trend, sometimes i combine it with Revlon Super Lustrous Lip Gloss in Coral Reef which is a perfect match. I am a little disappointed with Shake Up Pink only because it swatches differently to application, it goes on a bit sheer but a few layers later it look ok.  The only other negative if i had to say is the price, they are the most expensive lipsticks of all Rimmel's ranges but like i said Boots has 3 for 2. I'll definitely be going back to buy some more colours as they're really moisturising which doesn't always happen with pigmented lipsticks, hopefully a watermelon pink if they have one.

Va Va Violet Lips

One of my favourite beauty trends this season is purple lips. I want to embrace my inner goth/rock-chick and work that mysterious sexy look that Rihanna is rocking so well right now.

These are of a few of the celebs who have managed to nail this tricky trend:





Rihanna looking fierrrrrce!



Leighton Meester teams bright lips with a nude palette

Agyness Dean - Maggie Thatcher icon lookalike?



The Hills girls sharing Tom Ford's Lip Colour in Bruise Plum £35 (Picture courtesy of Look magazine)



One of the models for Peter Som

Peter Som's catwalk make-up inspiration

 As readers may already know purple is my favourite colour and as my eye-shadow blending skills are up to scratch yet i do like to have lips as my main focus. I didn't want to stretch to the Tom Ford lippie favoured by The Hills girls for a very trend-led look so i ventured into Boots and picked up Revlon's Va Va Violet (663) lipstick. I think it was about £7.50 but i got it on the 3 for 2 offer.  Now i know many of you out there might shy away from such a bold dramatic look but i think this is perfect for the make-up novices who may not be that skillful with a brush but can definitely operate a bullet!

The Hills girls are going to be my make-up inspiration for the office party and i am going to attempt to recreate that nude eye with a flick of eyeliner and a dramatic lip. I'm not too sure what my colleagues may make of it but for our last night out i wore Revlon's Fuchsia lipstick so they should expect a bold look from me (i hope!).

Take a look at what it looks like on - honestly it's not that scary!

Yes - i have been playing around with photoshop!

My X Factor style photo no1!

and photo no2!

I've tried to show the colour of the lipstick in different lights and with flash and without. I've quite full lips and thought this might look too much on me but i love it!

Here's the eye make-up look i will be recreating to go with the lips:

I like the feline flicks, so will definitely need to practice this!

And if I'm feeling brave i might go ahead with a bold brow as well as seen in Grazia:

What do you think of purple lips - thumbs up or thumbs down?

And a quick how not to do purple lips from Taylor Momsem!

Working that Kevin the teenager angst

Don’t you just love a freebie?!

Today i set my alarm for 7.30am in preparation for snagging a freebie! When i say a freebie it’s kind of one of those offers where you have to buy something to get a freebie, but if you’re planning on flexing the plastic anyway it’s a win-win situation. 

The item in question is Pandora jewellery – now unless you’ve been living on another planet recently, you can’t have escaped the phenomenon of their charm bracelets. I first fell in love after seeing them advertised in Grazia a few years back, they were quite exclusive and not readily available.  Now it seems as they’ve gained more publicity, everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and you can’t walk through my local town without a girl wearing one, forget Girl With the Pearl Earring, how about Girl With a Pandora Charm Bracelet?

My local family-owned jewellers Pearces were running the promotion – Spend £75 or more on Pandora jewellery and receive a free leather bracelet, now i know this has been running all over the country and i imagine has been very profitable! I’ve had my silver snake chain for over a year and have mostly silver charms but i was looking for some coloured beads inspired my newly painted nails!  After queuing for about 30 mins i purchased 2 charms, a pink Murano glass £28 and a Pink Opal £50 and picked a white single braided leather bracelet worth £35 for free!

Have a look at the goodies:

Along with my purchases and free bracelet, came some chocolates, polishing cloth to keep my silver super-shiny and brochure of Pandora’s full range of jewellery, ready for me to eye up my next buy.

Polishing cloth – missed off man pic.

 

Free leather bracelet!

Two new charms!

What my silver Pandora bracelet looks like with the new charms.

And need to show you my inspiration for the pink charms – my newly painted Revlon Pink Nude nails with Leighton Denny’s Angel Dust over the top for a sparkly finish.

With flash so you can see the glittery finish – best i could do with the camera after about 10 attempts!

Just to mention as my laptop has been slowly dying on me, not to mention the cracked screen after i stood on it oops – note to self don’t put laptops on the floor beside my bed, i bought a netbook from Curry’s. The one i got is advertised on TV, Packard Bell Dot something in the Bank Holiday sale until wed was £329.00 now £199.00 – complete bargain. It comes with a pouch to keep it safe and software including Photoshop so i can make my pics look better – (no cheating on beauty pics though!), Windows Home XP, webcam and a wonderful invention Windows Live Writer. A program that lets you upload your blog posts live to you blog – genius.

 

And it’s so dinky it can fit in your handbag – have a look compared to Glamour mag – now i just need to find a new handbag worthy of my netbook , get me I'm officially a proper blogger hehe! Soon to be found on my day off in Cafe Nero with a fruity frappe and a chocolate croissant (what calories?) – oh i do miss Starbucks please open in my town!

Well that’s about it for today, before i go a quick shout-out to my new hair – hardly new really but finally got my fringe cut so i can see again – also working the No7 Plum Rebel i got the other day with a bit of eyeliner (cheap & cheerful Collection 2000) and Clarins Eye shadow Colour Quartet Palette in Earth over the lid. Not gone into too much detail as you can’t really see the make-up – sorry, i will try harder in future!

What bargains have you got recently? Please share!

Nail polish haul

There are many things that i love so much that i have a huge collection, these are in no particular order:

- Shoes
- Handbags
- Dresses
- Watches
- Lipglosses/Lipsticks
- Nail Polishes

The last of which is where this new post comes in, i just picked up 4 new colours to add to my ever growing collection of polishes.

This is already what my collection looks like!

Boots still had their spend £5 and receive a free £5 Ruby & Millie or No 7 voucher offer on so i couldn't resist a little pre-pay-day beauty splurge.

The polishes are from left to right: Revlon Nail Enamel 900 Pink Nude, Revlon Nail Enamel 028 Minted, Rimmel 60 Seconds 805 Grey Matter, Rimmel I Love Fruities Lasting Finish 053 Apricot Punch.

Now i have been trying to get my hands on the Revlon Minted for ages but is always seems to be sold out but today it was in stock and they had a 2 for £8 offer on so after debating over the dark reds i indulged in the pale peach colour which compliments the green well for a mani and pedi duo.

The Grey Matter from Rimmel is one of their new shades and i predict along with the usual muddy browns and vampy reds, greys will be big for this Autumn/Winter, you can tell by how popular a colour is by how many their are left on the shelf and they were only two of this colour but plenty of the rest of the new collection which included a shiny black and deep purple.

The final polish is from the I Love Fruities collection, which i think is only available in some drugstores, i got mine from Superdrug as my local Boots didn't stock them. Now i think these have been out a while and the colours are more suited for summer, there are 4 shades in the collection, Cranberry Zest, Lemon Drop, Strawberry Fizz and Apricot Punch. They are all quite bright fun colours that would look good equally on toes and hands. The reason why they are called I Love Fruities is that when dried they have the scent of the name of the polish! I was a little sceptical but when i tried the Apricot Punch it definitely smells of apricots, which beats that nasty chemical smell that gives you headaches. I'm not sure how long the scent lasts but its a great novelty idea to encourage us beauty lovers to part with our cash on yet more nail polish. The best thing is the colour has great depth so you only need one coat - bonus!

Take a look at what they look like on and in comparison to the bottle.

These are all with 2 coats - but like i said the Apricot Punch only needs one coat and the Pink Nude could probably do with a third. Which one is your fav?

As mentioned in my previous post i did pick up the other lipstick shade from the Limited Edition Autumn Collection its called Plum Rebellion and costs £9.75 or £4.75 with a No 7 Boots voucher.

It looks quite pinky on camera but in the flesh it is a dark raspberry colour.

And the swatch - just one coat.

This is the perfect shade to team with camel - the new black for the season, just take a look at Fall 2010 Runway show from Chloe - divine!

Heres's a sneak preview of my next post for all you fashion fans i will be looking at the must-haves for Autumn/Winter, I'm talking the Camel, Aviator Jackets, Leather, Pointy Courts, Shearling Boots, Old Lady Handbags - Neo Speedy anyone? Looks like we're heading back to the 70's.