Saturday 22 November 2014

New skincare products!


Hi everyone!

Something a little different on the blog today - some new handmade skincare items. I am not a big skincare buff, but I do love to take care of my hands and have a million and one hand creams, cuticle balms etc. I also love lip balms, so I have one of those to show you today as well! 

My newest love is the handcare range from Lovely Cosmetics. Lovely Cosmetics is a natural skincare company based in the UK (Sheffield). I ordered and received my items within 5 working days and they came wrapped in a recycled pink box with eco-friendly recycled packaging inside (and sweets!)







All their products are handmade and are packaged beautifully in little glass pots / jars etc as you can see in the photos below. So cute! (I am a sucker for packaging!). LC make a wide range of products for face, hair, lips, hands and feet, so be sure to check them out online. You can also find them in quite a few local stockists in Sheffield but also Makers Emporium (Rotherham), Fabrication (Leeds) and Libby's (Chesterfield).  All their products are cruelty free and ingredients are locally sourced, such as Honey from the Sheffield Honey Company and lavender oil from Yorkshire.

Anyway, onto the review!

I bought the Hand Butter, Hand Scrub and Cuticle Salve bundle and the Vanilla Honey lip balm which came to a respectable £21. They aren't the cheapest products, but neither are they expensive considering the quality of ingredients. I also received a free mint chocolate sugar scrub either by mistake or for free (if it was free then thank you very much!) and would also like to mention the generous portions which I will come to a bit later.



So the first thing I tried was the cuticle salve. These come in cute 15ml glass pots (HUGE!) and cost £6 alone. If you buy as part of the bundle you save £5 so definitely worth getting the extras. 



It has a dark greenish colour in the pot, and to look at has a dryish consistency with a light, lemony scent. I was concerned it might be grainy and hard to apply but it melts quickly when you rub it and soaks into the skin well without leaving any colour. It is made fully from unrefined avocado oil, shea butter, British beeswax and lemon essential oils. I have carried this with me every day and applied once and on the odd occasion twice a day for the past week or so and my cuticles are in the best condition theyve been in for ages. My hands really suffer in winter so I am over the moon with how good this is.

       

My second favourite product is the lip balm which is priced at a reasonable £5. If this was edible, I'd have eaten it with a spoon - it smells divine. (It actually does tastes really nice as well!) In the tub it doesn't smell the same (odd - maybe its just me?) but when you apply it to your lips it smells like vanilla ice cream. The good quality creamy kind, not the cheap stuff. It is softer than any other lip balms I have used, a milky white colour and has a grainy texture when you take it from the pot. Again, I was concerned about the graininess, but it breaks down really smoothly when you apply to your lips.  With the weather, I have been applying two to three times a day as I have felt is necessary and I have hardly made a dint in the tub. Again, its supposedly 15ml but the tub is huge and will last me for ages. Ingredients wise, this one is made up from vanilla infused sweet almond oil, shea butter, honey, beeswax and vitamin e oil.



Next up is the hand scrub which comes in a 55ml tub and is priced at £7.50.



 It is made from demerara sugar, sweet almond and coconut oil, honey, ground almonds and beeswax. I have used hand scrubs on occasion, but I am more of a moisturize and go sort of person, so I don't have a huge experience of using these often. I have used this twice so far - just once a week but I can say that my hands do feel lovely and soft afterwards.


One little confusion I had was that the instructions say to rub into wet hands and then rinse away, followed by a moisturiser. I was surprised to see the ingredients include sweet almond oil and coconut oil, so it was a little difficult to rinse away afterwards (I wasnt sure how much to use, so I would say I used around a heaped teaspoon (by heaped, I mean a very big heap), so maybe I used a bit much. But I rinsed as best I could and patted my hands dry both times and they do feel lovely. I didn't follow the instruction to moisturise as well because my hands were already left well moisturised afterwards.

The last thing I have to share is the hand butter.



 This is also a 55ml tub and also priced at £7.50 if you buy separately. It has a clear lavender smell, but rather than a butter consistency I would describe it as more mousse-like.



 It is light and bubbly to touch and when applied it melts to a more oily consistency. You only need a tiny amount as it does leave your hands oily, so I would recommend this as a night time hand cream rather than for general use during the day.

Overall I am really pleased with these. I am all for supporting local and small businesses, especially UK ones so its nice to have a new company to shop with. I also really like the ecofriendly outlook they have so I know my money has really gone to a good place.  

Company Information:

Lovely Cosmetics

Please let me know if you have any questions / comments - I love hearing from you! Have you heard of Lovely Cosmetics? Tried anything of theirs? 

Rachael xxx

Monday 20 October 2014

Pick and Mix - Week 4

Week 4 time! I really struggled with inspiration for this one.

The choices were 70's or Grey and Colour. I really wanted to try 70's, but I found it really hard to come up with any ideas.

So here is my mani!






I used OPI French Quarter for Your Thoughts - a warm nude leaning grey, Sinful Colors - Snow Me White and China Glaze - Yellow Polka Dot Bikini for the accents. I had seen something like this somewhere recently, but after an extensive search of Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest I just can't find it. I really wanted to credit my original inspiration aswell. Nevermind.



What do you think?

Rachael xxx



Monday 13 October 2014

Pick and Mix - Week 3 Texture

Hi again! We're on week 3 already!

This week is Matte / Texture or 60's. I'm not really a massive fan of either, but I do like the odd texture so will give it a go!

So I raided Becca's (Kitty's Painted Claws) polishes for this - I (We) chose a base of Sally Hansen - Bewitched and Barry M - Duchess for the texture. I own Duchess myself, but it has sat untried for around a year.. poor polish!

I applied one coat of Barry M - Duchess to my thumb, pointer and pinky, and 1 thick coat of Bewitched to the other nails. 



I then wanted to try the 'quilted' sort of look, so I taped some criss cross diagonals and painted over with some Duchess and then removed the tape. 





I then added a second coat of Duchess to my other nails as it didnt look even. You can see the shift between purple to goldy-brown quite well on the above picture.

What do you think? Are you a texture fan? Have you done quilted nails before? Would love to know your thoughts!

Rachael xxx


Sunday 12 October 2014

Halloween Nails - Take 1!

Good afternoon!

I wanted to get an early start on halloween nails this year, as I didn't get the chance to get many designs done last year!

This is my first design - I used my new gradient skills (still a bit shaky!) to create a blue gradient background using 3 Barry M shades - Huckleberry, Elderberry and Matte Malibu. I then used Nails Inc New York Noir to freehand a graveyard design across my nails.





We've recently released our Glow in the Dark Halloween range in our etsy shop, and I was dying to use Ectoplasm - our GITD topcoat. We made two different colours, so I decided to use the Aqua version in keeping with the background of my nails.




As is usual for GITD, it works best over light colours (especially white) but it does still work over dark colours. I have traced the outlines of my graveyard scene, highlighted the moon and also added a ghost on one nail so you can see the varying degrees of glow. It was SO HARD to get these photographs!

What do you think? I would love your feedback!

Our topcoat retails at £3 for a 5ml bottle and you can choose either green or aqua blue. Alternatively, you can get a free bottle when you buy a full size bottle of Stay Puft. Our other two halloween offerings also glow in the dark - please check them out!

Rachael xxx

Thursday 9 October 2014

Pick and Mix - Week 2 - 2nd Prompt

Hiiiii

Well, I was feeling challenged, so I thought I would give a 3 colour gradient a go! I saw some beautiful nails over at Shamelessly Polished. I can't pull off those tones, but they inspired me to try my own version.


I used two coats of L'Oréal - Rose Bagatelle as a base, then sponged over a gradient of that plus Sinful Colors - Timbleberry and Sinful Colors - Soul Mate.

Here's my final gradient - not 100% but hopefully some more practice will make it better. I am certainly happy to have my beautiful points back anyway.

I then thought what can I add to improve this - the answer is always glitter. So I put a layer of China Glaze - Fairy Dust on it. 



What do you think? If you have any tips on gradients I'd love to hear them!

Rachael xxx

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Pick and Mix - Week 2

Hiiii!

Well I had this fantastic idea, but as per usual it involved something I am no good at - chevrons!


Practice will make perfect I hope! Anyway, this week one of the prompts is pink. I used two coats of Sinful Colors - Timbleberry, and one coat of Sinful Colors - Pinky Glitter for most of my nails.


My accent is 3 coats of China Glaze - Glistening Snow with some fairly wonky chevrons of Nails Inc - New York Noir.  I cut strips of Scotch tape and laid them over my accent nail before adding a layer of polish, but for some reason even though I removed straight away, the tape broke in two places so I had to go all surgery on them with a pair of tweezers to try and salvage it.

What do you think? If anyone has any tips for chevrons then I would love to hear them!

Rachael xxx



Friday 3 October 2014

Pick and Mix - 52 Week Challenge - Week 1

Good morning! Long time no see, I thought I would try and get myself back into the swing of things with a challenge. This one is Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Pick and Mix Challenge.

Every week there are a choice of prompts. You can choose to do just 1 prompt, both prompts seperately or a combination of the two. This week is Teal or 2-colour gradient.

I chose to combine the prompts - I did actually do this in advance, but then being a complete tool I forgot to photograph my nails, and I had to remove for work. I was gutted and so annoyed at myself! They were much better gradient wise than these, as I had the expert help from Becca (Kittys Painted Claws). I just can't do gradients! Maybe in another 2-3 years haha!

Anyway, I digress as per usual! The base for my nails is Zoya Wednesday and Sally Hansen Fairy Teal. I then used Nails Inc New York Noir and freehanded a sort of tribal pattern. 




And I'm going to be honest, I stuffed up my ring finger twice so if in doubt, cover it all in China Glaze - Glittering Snow.

Ta da!

What do you think?

Rachael xxx

Monday 11 August 2014

BNB Colour Me Crazy - Pink

Hey everyone!

I am going on holiday tomorrow for a week, so I thought it was a perfect time to do my pink nails!

Even though I am not a great fan of pink, I have 57 shades. It wows even me!

My favourite shades of pink are definitely neons, so I thought I would use my latest addition - China Glaze Pool Party as part of my manicure.


The other polishes I used were my trusty Models Own Hypergel - White Light, and Kate Spade for Nails Inc - New York Noir.


I freehanded the design on my middle and ring fingers over two coats of White Light using a nail art brush from Born Pretty Store. I have no idea how many coats of Pool Party I used - it is very streaky, but at least dries matte and very fast so it didnt really bother me that there were as many coats. Everything of course has a generous coat of Seche Vite on.. can't be dealing with nasty matte. Not for me!


Somehow I feel something is missing, so I may need to add some glitter somewhere before I fly tomorrow. Maybe its just how bad my freehand is.. but nevermind, they look okay from afar I think.

What do you think?

Rachael xxx

Saturday 9 August 2014

BNB Colour Me Crazy - Blue

Hey!

Here are my blue nails to bring me up to date. These are inspired by @sr_nails from instagram.


I had decided ages ago that I wanted to use my new OPI Blue Chips for this mani. I just didn't know what exactly I wanted to do with it. OPI Blue Chips is a renamed version of The Flowers are Blue-ming from the Katy Perry collection. Whatever the name, its really pretty and worth the £3.99 price tag I paid for it.

My thumb, pinky and pointer are 3 coats of OPI Blue Chips. My ring and middle fingers are two coats of Models Own Hypergel White Light, striped with Kate Spade for Nails Inc - New York Noir and the flowers are freehanded with the above black, white, blue and an added lighter shade of MoYou holographic blue polish. I didn't realise how hard zebra stripes are!



What do you think?

Rachael xxx

Don't forget to check out everyone's blue nails!

BNB Colour Me Crazy - Green

Good afternoon!

I am super late with these, but after seeing the gorgeous nails by Anna Bean, I had an idea to do some of my own. Green is also my fave colour, so I didn't want to miss out doing these nails for the Colour Me Crazy challenge!


The base is 2 coats of Barry M - Key Lime, with one coat of Abuse the Ooze by Femme Fatale Cosmetics. This is one of my favourite brands and is particularly special as my other half specially went out and chose this colour for me.


I then used a design from MoYou London plate Artist 03 to stamp over and a generous coat of Seche Vite to smooth it out.


What do you think? Are you a green / glitter / stamping fan? 

Rachael xxx

Don't forget to check out everyone else's green manis!


Monday 4 August 2014

Mani Swap with Pocket Money Polishes

Hey all!

I am away all this week in the beautiful Glencoe in Scotland. But even though I am pretty much signal-less and internet-less, I have managed to get on at least this once to share my nails with you.

So we decided to pick one mani that we liked and recreate. Both of us prefer to be a little creative, so we decided to produce a mani that was loosely based on the others original.

I know that the lovely lady at PMP loves OPI, so I decided to create my own version of this mani below, using a new OPI I had just bought.


I didn't have an exact colour match, so I used the opportunity to use OPI Stir-fried Eggplant that I had just bought. This is one of the re-named NOPI colours I believe, but either way, its pretty beautiful especially for purple. It's less eggplanty on the nail to the bottle I think, but it has beautiful flecks that shine gold and pink in the light.


I also couldn't find a gold to match - I'm sure I own a gold glitter polish somewhere?? But my eyes fell on a Revlon Moon Candy Nail Art duo in one of my drawers. The brown it is paired with isnt anything amazing by itself, but the shard/flakie end is lovely, shining blue to green to gold. Its very thick though, so I just dabbed it onto my nails.


What do you think of the end result? I really like it, considering its purple.

Have you ever done any mani swaps before? Would you like to do one? I've really enjoyed this one so if you fancy doing one with me, let me know!

Check out what Charlie chose to recreate here!

Rachael xxx

Wednesday 23 July 2014

BNB Colour Me Crazy - Yellow

Good morning!

Today I have my yellow nails to show you! (My red and orange are on route, I promise!) I was really expecting to hate these, but I super love them! I love splatter nails, theyre just really easy, lazy nail art which I love doing!




I used Models Own HyperGel -White Light as a base, and Nails Inc Notting Hill Carnival and New York Noir for this mani.


Hope you like them - what do you think? Do you like splatter nails? Are you a yellow fan?

Rachael xxx

P.S dont forget to check out everyone else's yellow nails this week! 






Sunday 8 June 2014

A-Z challenge - H is for Essie Hip-anema

Today I have for you one of my favourite colour families. Red / orange. I have terribly shrimpy pink toned skin, so many colours just look terrible on my hands. But I do love orange leaning reds, orange and coral. 

I actually spotted this on 'the barrow' a little makeup/nails stand in the Metro Centre. They often have OPI, Essie, Sally Hansen and many other brands at reduced prices. They're generally older collections, but if I like a colour, I really don't mind how old or new it is. This only cost me £2.99.


This is Essie Hip-anema, which I pronounced 'Hip-anenema' to Becca who promptly laughed her head off. It's a beautiful red/orange jelly, with the perfect brightness for summer which had complete coverage at 2 coats. As you can see, there is a slight VNL, but thats not something that bothers me. I was also quite surprised as Essie do not usually wear well for me.. but this wore really well and lasted 4 days before I got any tip wear, and another day before I got the tiniest of chips. 

What colour could you just not live without?

Don't forget to check out everyone else's H Manis at the hub page!

Rach xxx


Saturday 7 June 2014

A-Z Challenge - G is for China Glaze Glittering Garland

Hey all!

Another day of the A-Z challenge as I attempt to catch up - this is Glittering Garland. This was one of the very first polishes I bought in my fall into addiction.. and I still love it! I havent rated much that China Glaze has released recently, but I love this - the formula is beautifully smooth and pigmented - this is just one coat. Its also beautifully glossy - this is without topcoat.



Even though many people would probably wear this during the winter months or around Xmas time, I still love it and often wear it as a day to day colour or for work.

What do you think?

Go check out all the other G manis here!

Rach xxx

Friday 6 June 2014

A-Z Challenge - F is for China Glaze For Audrey and PMP Fairest of All

Good morning!

I have two F polishes to show you today! The base is China Glaze For Audrey, and the beautiful silver and holographic shards are a topper by Pocket Money Polishes called Fairest of All.

I am lucky enough to get to paint my nails often at Becca's (Kittys Painted Claws) house, which means she gives me full choice from her helmer. She is very organised and has every single polish cataloged in a spreadsheet. I started to follow her example, but I gave up when  I expanded to a 2nd helmer,  I couldn't be bothered after around 20 polishes into the 1st helmer. 

So she looked up all her F polishes for me and as soon as I saw For Audrey I had to try it.. it's such a beautiful mint shade. But then I saw PMP.. I have so few PMP polishes (I came into the game late!) that I had to try one that was new to me. Most of my PMP polishes are part of the colabs that Charlie did with Tara from Taras Talons. Oh how I miss the colabs! 

Anyway, I digress... here is my mani!



Sparkly! <3

What do you think?

Check out the other F manis over at the hub page!

Rach xxx

Thursday 5 June 2014

A-Z Challenge - E is for Layla Emerald Divine

Hey all!

Today I have a beautiful holo for you - Layla Emerald Divine. What a beaut! However, it is an absolute pain in the backside to apply without an aqua base (which I do not have!) and so this was 3 extremely careful coats and 4 on my middle finger. It just refuses to stick, and any sudden movements and you remove a full nail! ARGH!



..But it was worth every painful application for this holo! Wow!

Anyone got any hints for applying tricky holos without an aqua base?

Check out all the other E manis at the hub page!

Rach xxx

Wednesday 4 June 2014

A-Z Challenge - D is for Asda Denim

Good morning!

Today I have a gorgeous denim polish for you. It's an absolute steal - only £1.99 and available in Asda. Forget buying the expensive Ciaté original - this is just stunning. A one coater (maybe only for my short nails) with a lovely smooth formula and a rich navy colour that dries to look just like denim.




I know some people are way over denim look nails, but I still love them! Do you?

Check out all the D manis here!

Rach xxx

Tuesday 3 June 2014

A-Z Weekly Challenge - C is for Mentality Cyclone

Hey again! 

3 days in a row! WOW!

Well today is a little more complex - this is by far one of my favourite manis ever. The base is Mentality Cyclone, a lovely holographic pale purplish brown colour, depending on how the light hits it. The formula on this was excellent - one coater for my currently short claws.

I then took Mentality Monsoon and used this to stamp over with a floral MoYou XL image from their Pro 14 plate. The effect was pretty subtle but it was just perfect for a week at work, and lasted a whole 6 days before I had to remove it!



What do you think? 

Rach xxx

(Don't forget to check out the hub page for all the C manis!)
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