Christmas Haul!

Hi guys,

Sorry its been a while, but i've been busy spending time with my family and friends, because its Christmas and all that, so I haven't really had much spare time in which to write a post.

I said in my last but one post that I would do a Christmas Haul of my presents, so here is a quick run down, in pictures. of some of the gifts I got (not all of them are beauty related but I thought I'd just put some of the others up anyways, like my calendar, because they're cool!):

I also got a Beauty at the Boars voucher.

And... a couple of days before Christmas these came through my door (originally there was 12, 3 of each, but my mum nabbed one, and my sister another!). I won them in a Collection 2000 competiton, so I will get trying them and do a few reviews of these soon.

I hope you found this at least a little bit interesting; I know I always like to see what others get as gifts. I'm really excited to try all of these products properly, and already have tried some, so they'll be coming up in full in future posts, so watch out for that! Ooh, and here are my Christmas Nails, in case any of you are interested, and my Christmas Socks, which I got as a present last year!

It's my birthday tomorrow (eeek :D), and I'm having a party at Lush in a couple of weeks so I'll do another haul post then of what I get - I'm pretty excited!

As always, thank you for reading and remember to follow/subscribe if you like my blog!
Happy New Year!
x x x

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to say a very Merry Christmas to you all! I got some awesome gifts, including a new camera, and a huge Soap and Glory box, plus lots of Lush and stuff too, so I'll definitely be doing a post about all that in the upcoming days! Hope you all got what you wanted, and again, Merry Christmas! :D x

Santa Nails!

Hello again!
So it's getting even closer to Christmas, and I am so excited! I LOVE Christmas, and everything about it - it's my favourite time of year! Plus it's less than a week between Christmas and my Birthday which makes it even better!

I said I had plenty more ideas for nail designs, and as I was watching a Christmas film a couple of nights ago, I decided to try Santa nails and I have to say, I was quite pleased at how my Santa turned out!

I started by painting my nails blue, I used my new Barry M nail polish from the goody bag I bought at the Clothes Show. This nail polish doesn't have a name, just a code, and so I think that it might have just been a colour for Clothes Show, but it is a very nice colour. I usually am a bit wary of Barry M nail varnishes as I find that sometimes you get a really good quality, nice nail varnish, but other times, you get a gooey, gloopy consistency which is just unusable. When you get a good one, which does tend to be the majority of the time, it is excellent, and I do still tend to buy them because the colours are so nice, but you just have to sort of hope for the best!

Then I decided to add a bit of glitter over the top (seeing as its Christmas!), with my gorgeous OPI in Absolutely Alice on all my nails except for the thumbs.

So time for the Santa! I can't really tell you 'how' to do this unfortunately, as I just sort of did it- there are no steps, you just have to try and draw a Santa, but hopefully you'll like it!

I'm hopefully going to try to do a Rudolph on my other thumb, so if that turns out well I'll try and get a picture and upload it too.

Thaks for reading, and please remember to subscribe if you like my blog!
Oh, and if I don't put another post up before Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS guys! Hope Santa is very kind to you all! ;D

x x x

It's a Lush Life! So White Bath Ballistic!

Hi!
My last two posts have been nail tutorials, and I think I'll be doing another one again soon, as I still have plenty of ideas for nail designs, so I wanted to do a post on something else today, and thought I'd do it on one of my favourite things - another of my addictions: Lush!

I adore Lush, and am a self-confessed addict! I'll probably write a bit more about them in a future 'It's a Lush Life' Post, as I'm hoping to make this like a sort of series, but for now, I'll just say that I generally love the products, the ethics, the shops, and the staff - especially those in my nearest Lush shop! Because of all this, their general good quality and reasonable prices, my sister and I are fairly regular customers!

Every year, for different occasions, Lush bring out special products, and the biggest occassion of all, of course, is Christmas! They have some old favourites which they bring back each year, but also have new, fantastic inventions each year too! My all time favourite Lush Christmas product is by far Snow Fairy, and I love Angel Delight soap too with its Jelly Baby smell! So, as well as stocking up on some of my faves, I decided to try some new products too.

So White is actually a reasonably old Lush Christmas product, however I had never tried it before, so thought I should this year which is why I picked one up for myself, as well as some for gifts. Plus it was only like £1.90, and I had a discount so it wasn't exactly a massive spend!

My sister (a fellow Lush addict) had tried So White before and had told me it wasn't anything special, especially in comparison to other Lush Products, but I wanted to try it for myself and see.

The little description bit on the bag says "Top off your bath with a carpet of apple scented snowy froth." So White itself is a very small, round, white bath bomb and when you drop the bath bomb in, it isn't really that exciting. It just fizzes away, quite slowly really, and releases a faint apple-y smell. I was dissappointed that the scent wasn't a lot stronger actually as it was really beautiful, and so christmassy and comforting too. It does create some bubbles, although nowhere near as much as a Lush Bubble Bar for example, so if you are looking for bubbles I would definitely reccommend looking at one of those instead, but the bubbles that are created by So White are really nice, soft and creamy. It also makes the bath water really soft too.

So overall, definitely not the most exciting bath bomb, it lacks colour and movement, but it is really nice, soft and subtle. It really does depend what you are looking for; I think it would make a good gift for older relatives such as mums, aunts, or grans, or for those who perhaps aren't into the more colourful bath bombs, but I would still reccommend trying it for yourself too. I was dissappointed the smell wasn't stronger, but it did make for a nice relaxing and christmassy bath, and for £1.90, its quite a cheap treat!

I also picked up a couple of other Lush treats for myself which I might do some reviews on soon too. I'm also hoping to do a Christmas 'haul' type blog sometime between Christmas and New Year, on some of the gifts I recieve, and another present 'haul' sometime in the New Year as it is my 16th birthday very, very soon too (I'm very excited!).

Thanks for reading again guys! Remember to subscribe if you like my blog!
I'll have another post up soon!
x x x

Christmas Pudding Nails!

Hi guys!
Sorry its been a while again - it's been another busy week!

Anyways, if you've read my blog before, then you will know that I love doing themed nails, and if you haven't, then now you know! I haven't done Christmas Pudding nails before, so I thought I'd try them, and they turned out to be quite easy actually!

Quick steps:
First paint your nails with a brown nail varnish. I chose Barry M mushroom as it is the only brown I have but any darkish brown will do.
Then pick a white or pale pink, preferably one with a satin or shimmery finish instead of a matt finish as this looks a bit more like icing. Then use a cocktail stick or small brush to paint this at the top of your nail as if its dripping down. I don't really know how else to describe the shape - it just needs to look like icing on the top of a cake.
Next, you need to get a red, and paint two or three dots at the top of the nails, for the holly berries. I didn't have a red, so I decided to use a pink instead and I added two red gems to each thumbnail.
Finally you need to paint some holly leaves coming from the berries. I did this by dipping a cocktail stick in some green nail varnish, then drawing a line and dotting either side along the line to create a jagged effect like that of a holly leaf.
Finish off by adding a coat of clear nail varnish, and your Christmas Puds are complete!

Hope you all like the tutorial and design!

I'll be back with another post soon guys, and if you like my blog, please subscribe!
Thanks for reading,

x x x

Gold Gift Nails!

Hi again Guys!

So I said I was going to paint my nails and perhaps put a post up on it, so here it is.

I decided to use my new gold nail varnish from Models Own which I got from the Clothes Show Live, and painted two coats of that onto my nails. I was very pleased with the colour - it was exactly as it looked in the bottle and is gorgeous! It has all the good quality of Models Own Nail Varnishes; it lasts a long time, only needs thin coats to create full coverage, and is a great colour! The only thing which I can fault it on is that, although the nail varnish feels like it dries quickly, it actually takes a long time to dry fully, so you just have to be a bit careful for a while after they feel dry.

I really liked just the gold nails by themselves, but I really wanted to add a bit more to them, and my friend (who has just set up a blog called Time of My Life if you want to check it out) sent me a link to a YouTube video the other day showing some ‘gift’ nails, so I decided to try them out. I don’t remember what the YouTube video was called or whose it was, but I think if you search something like ‘Christmas Gift Nails’ it might come up? :L Anyways, this is my attempt at it!

 To get started, you just need to paint a base coat on your nails; a nice Christmassy colour would work best, such as gold. Then you need to pick a colour you want to use for the ‘bow’ part. I chose black as I didn’t want to overload with glittery or metallic colours, plus, black and gold go so well together!

Unfortunately for this design, you can’t really use cocktail sticks as you need smooth lines. So, instead what you can do, is to take a brush from an old nail varnish, or perhaps an old make up brush, and cut it to create a thin brush. Or, and I just thought of this and am wondering why I haven’t before, but you could use the brush from a liquid eyeliner – that would work perfectly! Or alternatively, of course, you could buy a nail pen, which is more convenient, but is also more expensive.

Then, simply dip the thin brush you have created, or bought, into the nail polish in the colour you have chosen, wipe of the excess and paint a vertical line going down the middle of your nail.

Next, paint a horizontal line across the middle of your nail. These two lines should cross in the middle of your nail.

You could leave your nails like this; however, adding bows really completes the nail.

To add the bows, take your brush and create two loops in the top two quarters of your nails. Then paint two little lines going out from the middle in the bottom two quarters. This creates a little bow!

Repeat, on all your nails, or as many as you like, then you have completed your ‘gift’ nails!

Or, if you like a bit more ‘bling’, you could add little gems to your nails in the centre of the bow. I decided to just add gems to my two thumbnails as gems tend to fall off quite easily, so if they’re only on two nails, it means there are less to stick back on!

Hope you like the design, and sorry I can’t remember the YouTube video I saw it on!

Thanks for reading guys, and don’t forget to subscribe if you like my blog!

 x x x

The Body Shop Bargains!

Hi again guys!!

First of all, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to any of you who viewed my last blog post about the Clothes Show Live, I got well over 150 pageviews which is just amazing! So thank you!

It's been a very busy week - it's been my first week of mock exams, and although I'm not really that bothered or stressed by them, they're still really draining, so I'm glad that it's finally the weekend! So, I thought I'd do a little blog post on one of my recent purchases, and I think I'm going to paint my nails later too, which I will try and put up on here as well.

So, the other day, The Body Shop, had a 50% sale on practically everything on their website! Of course, I couldn't resist such a good deal and decided to pick up some goodies, which arrived today!

I got: 3 Born Lippy Lip Balms (£1 each, in Raspberry, Passionberry and Mango & Peach - I did want Watermelon as well because then I would have all of the flavours but unfortunately it wasn't in stock :L); a Vitamin E facial cleansing bar (only £1.50 - I've never used Body Shop Facial wash before so I thought I'd try it out seeing as it was so cheap!); Seaweed Ionic Clay Mask (£6, which my lovely mum bought for me, as I've used this before and it is actually amazing and lasts for ages too - my last one lasted for about a year even though I used it once every 1 - 2 weeks!); and finally, my mum bought a Lip Care Stick balm in Cocoa Butter (£2).

These all arrived today and I was very pleased when I got home and found the box waiting for me! All the products were absolute bargains, and delivery was only £2.99, which isn't too bad, although I do hate it when companies charge for postage and packaging - they make so much money from the products  that they really don't need it- but I didn't really mind it so much for this order because all the items were half price so you were saving so much anyways. So, I'm very happy, and I will hopefully put full reviews of the products up in the near future! Oh, and if you check out the Body Shop website at the moment, they've got lots of other offers on, like 50% off winter items etc. so if you're a fan of the Body Shop, go check it out!

Hope you have all had good weeks, and for those of you looking forward to Christmas (yay!), watch out because I think I might be able to do some festive posts/reviews soon! :)

Thanks for reading, and please subscribe!

x x x

Clothes Show Live: Birmingham!

Hi guys! 

So, yesterday I went to Clothes Show Live in Birmingham NEC, and I had an amazing day and got loads of 'stuff', so today, I thought I'd blog about it for you all! I think what I might do though is to blog about the day, which goody bags I got, and a list of what was in them today, then talk more about what was in them and what they're like in upcoming blogs. Just because there is so much to talk about! Also, that means I have more time to try the stuff out too so that I can review it a bit.

For anyone who doesn't know what Clothes Show Live is, it’s basically a massive fashion and beauty event which happens every December at the Birmingham NEC. It always has a massive range of companies there, from brand new designers to well established make up brands; lots of bargains and freebies; and every year, it always has an amazing show in the Fashion Theatre. I have been for the past two years so this was my third year running, and it's definitely still as amazing as the first. I have been to Clothes Show with a few different people, but always with family and their friends, so this year; I went with one of my friends.

So, we arrived just after 9.00, and I have never been Clothes Show that early before (it opens at 9.00), and was amazed at how few people there were there. I mean it was still very, very busy, but nothing compared to how it gets during the rest of the day. So, we took advantage of this and went round to the main companies who I knew tended to do good deals, and came across a few more on our way - in fact, I think we did about 3/4 of our shopping in that first 45 mins because there were just so few people and we could just go to the stand and be served really quickly with minimal queuing!

I'm going to get onto what I bought in a bit, but first I want to talk about the rest of the day. After the first 45 mins, we had to go queue up at the Fashion Theatre for the Fashion Show, because ours was at 10.00. The first year I went Clothes Show, I really didn't know what to expect from the Fashion Show, I thought it would just be stick thin models walking up and down the stage in various combinations of weird 'fashionable' clothes. I was so wrong, I mean there was, and still are stick thin models walking up and down the catwalk in weird clothes. But that's only a tiny part of the show - each year the show has a theme; the first year I went it was a Winter Wonderland; last year, a Night at the Movies, and this year, A Night at the Department Store, and each year they put on an incredible show, with dancing and music. For instance, last year, they did like sections out of movies, so a bit of Dirty Dancing and a typical spy movie style scene, where the model did all these cartwheels and slides dodging lasers to get to a jewel on a plinth. For the last two years, the Shows have been amazing, and this year, they didn't disappoint either.

This year, they did all the different 'levels' of the Department store, such as sportswear, underwear and even wedding clothes, and they use music to suit each 'level' too, such as Bruno Mars I think I wanna Marry you for the wedding level. Again, it was amazing, the dancing and staging was awesome and it really is a 'show'. How on earth those models manage to do them again and again all day I don't know because it looks exhausting! But, anyways, if you do ever get the chance to watch the show, I wouldn't turn it down because it really is something!

The show lasts about an hour, so once we came out of the show we went round shopping again, but as I said, I'm going to leave that till the end of this blog, so instead I'm going to skip to later in the day to the mini style stages. So, amongst all the stalls at Clothes Show, there are also various stages. So there's a dance stage, a mini fashion stage, a beauty stage and some others too such as a 'stop and chop' stage where you can get your hair cut by a professional in front of a crowd, and it’s basically to advertise products. But anyways, these mini stages have 'shows' going on throughout the day, from fashion shows to competitions, to demonstrations. If you have time, or happen to be wondering past these stages it’s definitely worth a look, and most of the time they give out free goodie bags too (if you get to the front and scream very loudly. (Not something I've ever done but I've seen it work for others!) So those are a really good part of the show too, and most of the time they are celebs who host these mini shows, so you never know, you could get lucky and see someone you never thought you would!

And now (drum roll please) the amazing bargains that I picked up at the Clothes Show!

Okay, so for now I'm just going to put some pictures up and do a list because this post is already very long, but as I said, I'll definitely be doing some more detailed posts soon!

So first of all, here are all my bags, then carry on reading to see what was in them all!

Rimmel Goody Bag: £10. You get a choice of two - Baby Doll or Urban Chic (I got Baby Doll). Includes: Sexy Curves Mascara, Extra Super Lash Building Mascara, Vinyl Lip Gloss, and three Nail Varnishes.

Barry M Goody Bag: £10. Includes: Two dazzle dusts, two lip glosses, two liquid eyeliners, three nail varnishes, two pencil eyeliners and an eye crayon.

 

Models Own: Buy three products for £10 and get free Goody Bag (absolute Bargain!). Includes: three products you buy ( I bought three nail varnishes), three eyeliners, two duo eye shadows, nail file/buffer, three lip glosses, two loose eye shadows (like dazzle dusts) and a waterproof mascara.

 

Jelly Pong Pong: £5. Includes: Cheek Tint, Lip Gloss, Bronzer, Wide Awake Palette and a box that you can 'build' for it all.

 

 Company/Cosmopolitan Magazines and Goody Bag: £3. Varies, but mine included: Lip Gloss, Body Shop Card with value from £3 - £100, Tissues, L'Oreal sample and 'mood enhancing' Drink (which was quite nice actually).

 Benefit: Free with my tickets to Clothes Show (if you booked them at a certain time you got vouchers). Free Creaseless Cream Eye shadow in Slippin and Dippin. Also offering free makeovers (I just couldn't be bothered to take all mine off just to have it redone again).

Lipcote: Free to have your lips painted and sealed with Lipcote. I then bought one for £2 (got £1 off).

Books and The City: Free - just sign up. Includes: Nail file and book.

Mizz: £2. Includes: magazine, poster, sweets (which were veggie - yay!), samples and either MUA loose eye shadow, or jelly Watch. (I got MUA).

 

Clothes Show Live Bag: Free. Includes: toothpaste, sudocrem, Nivea samples, Dove Conditioner Sample, vouchers and Fenjal Vitality Sample.

Diet Coke: Free mini cans by the Diet Coke fashion stage.

Haagen Dazs: Free mini tub of ice cream (I got chocolate and thought it was gorgeous!)

Samples/Vouchers/Promotions: Free. Loads of people are standing around just waiting to give you stuff - let them! (And if you like what they're giving you, go round again and again - I got eight free Nivea samples yesterday!)

 

Deals I didn't get but might be of interest: Wow London Goody Bag £10; MeMeMe Goody Bag £10; Glossy Box buy one get one free £10; Orly 3 mini nail varnishes for £5 or three large nail varnishes for £10; various fragrance stalls selling 5(ish) perfumes for £20. I'm sure there were plenty of others I missed or have forgotten but as you can see, there are loads of really good deals!

Overall, I LOVE Clothes Show Live! Providing I have enough money I will definitely be going again next year, although this year I did only spend just under £50 and got a hell of a lot for my money so I actually did very well! It’s an amazing day, your shoulders, back and feet will be killing by the end of it under all the great bargains and freebies you've got, but it's all definitely, definitely worth it! Most amazing of it all though is the show, so if you do ever get the chance to go to Clothes Show - grab it!

Sorry this was so long guys- there's just so much to say!

Hope you like, and as always feel free to comment or ask questions!

Thanks for reading!

x x x