September Lust Haves

I've never done a Lust Have post before, but I've seen a few things recently, on various websites, that I have really fallen in love with, that I decided to put together this blog post in replacement of my Hottie and the Nottie post, which I've gotten (yet again) out of sync with writing anyway!

Poppy Fur Lined Boot

From Pixie Footwear, the Poppy Fur Lined Boot is so adorable and perfect for winter as they look so warm, and with thick soles which should be great for puddles (and hopefully snow!).

I also love the fact that the boots can be worn either high-leg, as shown, or unzipped and folded over to create a smaller boot.

Personally, I'd buy the camel colour boots as in the picture, however they are also available in Black, Chocolate and Grey.

For £64.99 they are slightly expensive, but still cheaper than most Ugg Boots!!

Check out these cute books on the Pixie Footwear website.

Soot Sprite Acrylic Necklace

Anyone who is familiar with Studio Ghibli films My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away will recognise this cheeky little critter as a Soot Sprite. Being the proud owner of a Totoro necklace, and a huge fan of Studio Ghibli films I really need this because it is just too cute!

It's cute, it's quirky and it's so simple in design. Oh man, I just love this necklace like *squeeee* and now I shall calm down ;)

Priced at £7 this is a pretty decent amount for a truly awesome piece of jewellery.

Pick yours up from the Jiji Kiki website.

Funky Diva Glitter Nail Polish

It's no secret that I am a huge nail polish-a-holic, and I absolutely love BeautyUK's Posh Polish Collection. At the minute, I am the proud owner of both Sunstone and Amethyst from the collection, and I can not wait to add Funky Diva.

Purple is definitely my favourite colour, especially when it comes to nail polish and the fact that it's glittery makes me go a little weak at the knees. First, because I have a real thing for glitter at the minute, and secondly because I don't own any glittery purples, so yay!

These polishes cost £3.49 which is pretty good, me thinks.

Grab a bottle from Superdrug or the BeautyUK website.

What are you lusting after this September?

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NOTD: How NOT to do it...

This post was SUPPOSED to be a Nail of the Day....but, it kind of didn't entirely turn out that way. But, I decided to share it with you anyway, as an example of why it's so rare that I actually share the things that I attempt to do with my nails. You see, when I'm just wearing one colour, generally I'm fine. The problem generally arises, when I attempt to be clever or arty, and this is of course an excellent example of how rubbish I can be when it comes to doing my nails, purely because I'm not a particularly patient person when it comes to doing my nails!

It all started when I received my Giveaway Prize from Navilicious Beauty at the end of last week, and the purple Ciate nail polish that came free with this months Marie Claire. And I really wanted to try out one of the polishes that I received along with the purple polish. More specifically, the polishes that I "attempted" to use were:

• BeautyUK Glam Nails in Snow White (No. 47)


• Ciate Paint Pots in Wait Until Dark.

First Attempt

I started out with a base coat of the Snow White shade, and I found that it needed about three coats to create a base that was really bright. On it's on, this colour really does not suit me at all. As I mentioned the other day, I prefer to use sellotape strips that are thin, but for this look I liekd the idea of using thicker strips, but on my first attempt I tried applying the sellotape far too early, made a mess of the white polish, and had to start all over again.

Second Attempt

On my second attempt, I left the white base coat to dry for a good few hours before I applied the sellotape and this proved to be a very good move!

Once the tape was in place, I applied two coats of the purple shade, and I have to say that although the colour was of course tainted by the white, I love this shade, it's so vibrant and very me. I took the tape off, and everything went according to plan. Some of the nails were a little jagged at the edges of the white, but most of them came out looking quite crisp and clean.

And oh boy, should I have taken a photo of my nails, as this point, because this is the only point that my nails looked fantastic!!

Why? Because then, I applied the Top Coat. Now, I learnt a long time ago, that it's important to wait a while before applying a top coat, because I've had smudging caused from not waiting, and even when I do it, I expect it.

So, what did I do wrong? I didn't wait for the top coat to dry, in fact, I completely forgot that I'd even applied a top coat, and this is what happened....

For the record, those white lines...yep, they're all supposed to be completely straight! Although, I do have to say that the waviness of the nail on the far right is actually kinda cool, and has an uncanny likeness to the Pepsi logo ;) You can also see on that same nail predominantly, but most of them really, that I smudged them so badly, that the white base has been uncovered at the tips of the nails.

What this photo doesn't show you, is the lumps, bumps and awful marks that were left on my nails, and I managed to get the purple all over my fingers in the process as well!

You might also notice that I haven't watermarked this photo, because, well, who in the right mind would want to steal it ha :)

I have to say that I feel gutted to have put so much effort into this look, to have ruined in at the very last hurdle, despite everything eventually falling into place, up to this point.

No one is perfect, so come on, 'fess up, what faux pas have you made when doing your nails? And which mistakes do you make every single time, and never seem to learn!? They can't be as bad as these ones...*cringe*

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BeautyUK Nail Polishes in a Whirl of Colour

Three years ago, the Receptionist at the place that I was working once commented on the fact that I'd painted by nails blue. The comment was followed with something along the lines of: "oh to be young and free to wear what colours you like." Now, personally, the idea that only "young" people can wear anything either than browns, pinks etc is a load of rubbish, and I know I'm not exactly middle aged, but I would really like to hope that my addiction to bright and colourful nail polishes will never wane.


So, on my recent trip to Lincoln (it rained), I was on a mission to find out if Superdrug were selling the MUA Quake polishes (they weren't) and if they had the BeautyUK in Yellow, that Liloo blogged about back in March (they didn't), but who am I to resist a 3 for £4.99 offer? I mean, that would just be plain rude. I know I'm only saving just over 90p, but ah who cares??

Voodoo is an amazing colour. I've really taken to red polishes this summer, and I love that this is really shimmery, because the other red polish I own (by ELF) is more of a Matte shade, so it's nice to have a little shimmer shimmer ;)

I like this red, because it's a bold colour without being to "in your face" or tacky.

Lilac Girl is as you might be able to guess, a light purple shade, which I am amazed that I don't own because lilac is actually my favourite colour. I own an OPI mini that claims to be lilac, but I always think that it looks more like a very pale pink.

After I applied this polish, I really thought it looked okay, but it wasn't until I looked at these photo's closer (you perhaps can't tell, because they were taken on my phone, which I should apologise for, but my camera needs new batteries argh!) and I noticed that the colour looked very uneven, and could definitely have done with a third coat, which is a little bit annoying, but never mind.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this colour overall. It's nice, in it's own way, but I can't help finding the colour a little "grey". That probably sounds weird, but I know what I mean :)

Electric Blue is a bright metallic blue. I actually own a similar colour, by BarryM but I've had it for years, and it's inevitably gone yucky, so this one makes a good replacement. In fact, I think that I prefer this one!

I don't think that the photo really does this colour justice, and the fact that my nails look really messy isn't helping (I should just say that this was the third out of four polishes that I did over the space of a bout an hour :)) but this really is a gorgeous blue colour, and most definitely one of my favourites.

Priced at £1.99 each, or £4.99 for 3 these are an absolute steal. They're available in Superdrug, but I couldn't find any polishes available through the Superdrug website.

Oh, and here's something of my creativity. Yep, the photo's are still shocking, but you get the idea ;)

On another note, my Glossybox finally arrived yesterday, and I really am in two minds about whether or not to blog about it. I will be honest and say that I have not cancelled my subscription, not because I'm a mug, but because I think after just two boxes, it does seem unfair to judge so quickly, yes, Batiste isn't exactly a luxury item, but my box wasn't as bad as other peoples' seemed to be. And, Glossybox did handle my missing box very well, I do have to say, which is pretty good considering that I really went off on one about it. I really am in two minds about how long I shall stay subscribed, but I will say that they have a heck of a lot to prove in order to keep my custom, because with the addition of Batiste, and a "free sample" alongside the £2.95 for P&P increase, I do think that they've handled everything wrong. But, we'll see I guess...

What colour nails are you sporting today? :)



*Apologies for the rubbish photography on this blog*

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BeautyUK Soho Bright EyeShadow Collection

A few weeks ago, I set myself the challenge, of buying at least one product from a cosmetics brand that I have never used before, during a trip to Meadowhall, and as a result, I quite happily settled on this eyeshadow palette from BeautyUK.

BeautyUK are a UK-based brand that have been big talk across beauty blogs over the past few months. With regards to their brand message of:

"A beautyuk woman makes her own statement."

I can't help but compare them to another UK-based cosmetics brand, which is Barry M. I really hate comparing new companies to already established ones, because whilst comparisons are often considered to be a huge compliment, I always feel that doing it, is casting this huge shadow over them, before they've had a chance to come out on their own. And it also leads a little doubt in the brain, as to how "original" a new brand and/or product is, which again seems to be incredibly unfair.

Nevertheless, I think that BeautyUK could be a brand to watch, as they are very affordable and we should all be supporting small UK companies at times like these ;)

Why did I chose the Soho Bright Pallette?

Price: The first thing to hit me about these palettes, was the price: £3.99 for ten shades is a very good deal, in my opinion, especially when you consider that brands like Urban Decay charge over £20 for six or seven shades, in a palette!

Packaging: The packaging of these palettes really is not a big selling point for me. They're quite uninspiring, unoriginal and look cheap. They actually remind me of the cheap eyeshadows that I used to buy in my early teens from the local market. Ultimately, they feel a bit dated.

Nevertheless, does the packaging really matter when it comes to a budget line of make up? Are you paying for the packaging, or the quality of the product? And we all know that if you want to save money on any cosmetic, you can not expect both the packaging and the product to be top notch, because something has to give, otherwise the company wouldn't make a profit. And I know, we hate the idea of a company making any kind of profit, but if they didn't make one, you wouldn't get your beauty products. Fact.

Colours: There are six palette's overall, but I chose the Soho Bright collection, purely because I don't own either a yellow or an orange shadow and I was really keen to give them a try.

But, the colours in the other palettes were a little too neutral for my tastes.

The only colour that I was skeptical about was the pink in the top left corner, which I thought would be a bit too bold my my complexion.

Swatches: I've never done swatches on my blog before, of eyeshadows, but I've noticed from reading other blogs, that people seem to really like them, so I decided to do a couple for you:

Top Row of Colours

The top row seems to be the bright colours. And I should note here, that I didn't swatch any of the colours using any kind of primer, so the colours that you are seeing are straight onto the skin. This of course means that they could (and probably will) look brighter with a good primer, but I wanted to showing them "as they are".

Bottom Row of Colours

All of the colours (yes, including the pink) are gorgeous, and I think that they work really great together. So far, in my experimenting with this palette, I have used two colour combinations:

1. The yellow (bottom row, middle) over the eye lid, and the orange (top row, second from the left) just below the brow bone. When I started doing this look, I imagined that I was going to end up looking ridiculous, but I actually liked how subtle the two colours are, especially beside each other, and luckily they didn't need too much blending to work.

2. The bright purple (bottom row, first on the left) and the bright pink (top row, first on the left) and this is another that I really expected to look stupid, because I can't normally wear a bright pink. However, the pink was a lot more subtle than another bright pink that I own, and paired with the purple, it worked really well. Unlike the yellow and orange, however, it did need to be quite blended to work well.

From these two experiences, I seem to have come to the conclusion that this palette works well, if I use the bottom row over the entire lid, and then use a colour from the top row beneath the brow bone. So far, this method has worked extremely well, but only time will tell if that will remain the case.

Long Lasting...? One tip I will offer to anyone considering buying this palette, is to make sure that you wear them with an eyeshadow primer. I know that this is pretty much an unwritten given for most people, but to emphasise how much it is needed with these colours, when I was swatching them, I was actually taking photos of a wide range of products, and ten minutes (if that), after doing these swatches, I looked down at my hand, and they'd all gone. I hadn't washed my hands, and I hadn't rubbed them, so I am guessing that without a good primer, these shadows are not going to be sticking around on your eyelids for very long.

Overall: For a cheap little palette, this one ticks all the fundamental boxes. It doesn't matter that the packaging looks cheap, because that's not what you're paying for. If you want nice packaging, you'll have to spend more cash for it.

The colours are absolutely fab, and I really loved them. Just remember to use a priming base on your lids before applying them.

If you wanted to see what you can do with this palette, the amazing Lauren Luke recently did a great YouTube video about it :)

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Just Checking In

Hey Guys. Just a really quick post to fill you in on a couple of things.

First of all, I'm really happy to tell you guys that I'm featured on Just Nice Things, as this weeks 20 Questions, so  please make sure that you check that out. Especially check it out if you want to know a bit more about me, and to find out my biggest secret ;)

I've just got back from a couple of days away with the boyfriend, celebrating five years together. We went to see Thor, had some lovely meals and of course, fit in some shopping at Meadowhall.



Anyone who was around Twitter earlier this week, might have seen that I set myself a challenge to buy a product of at least one cosmetic brand that I had never tried before, and I actually had two in mind:

The first was Sleek, because everyone seems to be raving about them on their blogs, and I wanted to know what the fuss is about. But, on visiting the Sleek stand, in Superdrug, in Meadowhall, I was instantly turned off the idea. Why? Because, considering the shop had been open less than half an hour, the Sleek stand was absolutely disgusting. Most of the areas were empty, and those that had products in were so messy and all over the place. I didn't stick around to have a better look.

The second brand that I had in mind was BeautyUK, after seeing Liloo's review of the pearl eyeliners. And, to be honest, the BeautyUK stand was only a little better than the Sleek one. There were more products there, but every single pencil-type eyeliner that I picked up was either broken, or when you pulled the lid of you could tell people had been sampling it, and I seriously do not fancy buying something that some horrid person has smushed all over themselves. Gross.

I did actually end up buying a palette from the BeautyUK stand, because at least when something is wrapped up in cellophane, you know that no one has touched it. Plus, for £3.99 I thought it was a good bargain. I'll hopefully have a review of that on here soon, when I've had chance to have a little play.

I also picked up a GOSH Kabuki brush which I'm looking forward to testing out, and whilst I was at the GOSH counter, I swatched three really nice eyeliners, that I'll be talking about a little bit in a future post. I didn't buy them, but I'm starting to wish I had :-/

As always, I am still accepting pledges for the Positive Beauty Pledge, just shoot me an email and I'll send you the details that you need to send me in order to pledge.

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