Gradient Tutorial

On Sunday, I was in London again for the last game of the season (boooooooo ) Tottenham v Sunderland. Unfortunately we got beat (and I missed the goal!) and now I have a long summer with no football. No doubt I’ll spend even more time doing my nails! I had an hour to spare when I got to London before I had to meet everyone in the pub, and managed to spend that whole hour in Victoria’s Secret! But I did get a free umbrella, worth £70! (I don’t know why anyone would pay £70 for an umbrella!)

Its been a while since I first did gradient nails, so I decided to give them another go, and do a quick tutorial while I was on, even though there’s probably much better tutorials than mine!

Start off by painting your nails white, I used two coats of Models Own Snow White.

I use a make up sponge, they’re cheap to buy, and don’t have any large holes in like other sponges sometimes do. I then cut it up so its just larger than my nail.

Paint the sponge with the polish, you need to be quite generous, as it sinks into the sponge. I used Barry M Greenberry, Models Own Lilac Dream, and Pastel Pink.

Dab the polish onto the nail, side to side, and then slightly up and down to blend the colours together.

It is very messy! But that’s quickly cleaned up with a cotton bud, brush and pure acetone.

I also added some tribal nail art using the Barry M nail art pen.

Lyndsey

Pink Sequin Effects

Barry M recently released their sequin effects nail polish, they looked really pretty in the press release, and I couldn’t wait to try them, but I couldn’t have been more disappointed.

I ordered the pink sequin effects, which is a pink based polish, with multi coloured hex glitter. In the bottle they look like a jelly sandwich polish. On the nail, they’re a lumpy, gritty mess. I’m a big fan of textured polishes, but this polish looks as though it has pieces of sugar in it. It might have looked better with top coat, but to be honest, I was so disappointed with how horrible this was, I removed it straight away. I’m so glad I only bought one!

I’m a huge fan of Barry M, they’re my favourite ‘budget’ nail polish brand, but this just isn’t working for me.

Have you tried any of the sequin effect polishes?

Lyndsey

Stevie

Last week, Nail Polish Direct started selling Zoya polish and I could not have been more excited! I’ve seen so many swatches of the PixieDust collection, but could not find them anywhere in the UK, until now! Nail Polish Direct had a 10% discount code on their facebook page, and I had some birthday money burning a hole in my purse, and I ordered Stevie. Liberty is one of my favourite in the collection but I decided to go for something other than blue for a change! I’m definitely a little bit obsessed with texture polishes!

Stevie is a gorgeous lilac with silver glitter. The formula was perfect, I only needed two coats, and it dried really quickly. The texture isn’t as gritty as I expected either.

With top coat

This was a lot easier to remove than glitter polish, no foil needed!

Has anyone else tried the PixieDust collection? Which is your favourite?

Lyndsey

Lush Haul

My first beauty post! Last week, I went to the Metro Centre on my birthday, with the plan being for my friend to buy me something from the Disney Store as a present. That didn’t go to plan, so he bought me a few goodies from Lush instead. I used to only buy bath bombs from Lush, and Snow Fairy is my favourite shower gel (I wish it was all year round, I have to stock up when it’s released and make it last!) but I recently started using their face masks, and I got a couple of other things to try out. I love that Lush are totally against animal testing, and that they have as little packaging as possible, as well as giving you the option to recycle things like shower gel lids, and when you take back 5 Lush pots, you get a free face mask!

I wasn’t one of these lucky people to be blessed with great skin (jealous of you all!), so I’m always trying new things to improve my skin. I’ve used St Ives Blemish Fighting Facial Scrub for a long time, but I’d just ran out, and I picked out Ocean Salt scrub.

Does your skin feel washed up and abandoned? Get it ship-shape with coconuts and lime. When you think of a sea spray on your face, you can imagine the cleaning salt, the coolness and the freshness. We have tried to capture this in Ocean Salt – but without leaving you feeling dried out and tight, like the sea is prone to doing. We have taken lashings of fine sea salt to scrub and clean and mixed it with lots of great things that will moisturise and treat the skin.

It even has vodka in it! The first time I used it my face was dry and I scrubbed far too hard, which left my face feeling quite sore. I’m used to having to scrub quite hard with the St Ives scrub, but that definitely isn’t the case with Ocean Salt. I’ve found its best to dampen my face a little first. I love a facial scrub that you know is working, and you get that with Ocean Salt, immediately your face feels refreshed and soft, but try not to get any in your mouth, it’s very salty!

Cupcake was the face mask I decided to try out. I’ve always used Catastrophe Cosmetic or Cosmetic Warrior, but I was drawn in by the chocolate (which I had to make sure my friend didn’t eat in the display!)

Who wouldn’t want to sit around with chocolate on their face? We invented this mask for younger skins and for those who are new to face masks and want to use something that’s cheerful and cheeky but still effective and good at its job. The serious side of this mask has linseed infusion to nourish and soften the skin, fresh mint for toning, cocoa butter to moisturise and rhassoul mud to absorb grease and give a deep cleanse.

Cupcake smells amazing, and helps calm down breakouts. You can also get at least 5 uses out of a pot.

The main reason I wanted to go to Lush was to try out some hand creams. Unfortunately after trying out three, I found they were all too greasy, and for me, there’s nothing worse than a hand cream that takes 20 minutes to fully sink in, especially when you want to do something! Then, the lovely woman found me Vanilla Dee-Light.

Smooth is in the heart. A lovely light, fruity lotion for when your skin need a softness boost. Combines butters, oils and kiwi to nourish and treat the skin.

I immediately fell in love with the scent, it smells like cake, and even 8 hours later after I first used it, I could still smell it! It was super light and absorbed really quickly. The only problem I have is with it being a body lotion, it’s in a big bottle, so I think I’m going to have to buy a little travel pump bottle to put some in to be able to carry it around with me, but on the other hand, the big bottle will last for ages!

I did also buy the Twilight bath bomb, but I used that straight away!

Do you like Lush? What’s your favourite product?

Lyndsey

Birthday Nail Art

Today is my 23rd Birthday! I wanted to do a quick blog before I went out, featuring my Birthday nail art.

I used Models Own Snow White, Pastel Pink, 2true Shade 48 and Lush Lacquer Glitter Girl, along with the Barry M nail art pens to create the balloons and cake. For the candle I use acrylic paint.

Lyndsey

Mr. Bubble

Mr. Bubble is another polish I bought a couple of months from Lush Lacquer. It’s a clear base, with a mixture of different sized pink, blue and white hex matte glitter, and I LOVE it. The glitter applied perfectly, no bald patches, and the larger glitter came out easily.

I wore two coats of Mr. Bubble over two coats of Barry M Blueberry Gelly (which is super pretty on its own!)

Lyndsey

Into The Night

I recently picked up a few OPI polishes from the sale at Lena White, it’s almost my birthday, so I thought I’d treat myself. I ordered a couple from the Skyfall collection, and one from the Amazing Spiderman collection, which was Into The Night. The Amazing Spiderman collection was released around this time last year, and Into The Night was my favourite, I just can’t resist blue polish, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed with this one.

Into The Night is a lovely dark blue shimmer, which almost look purple in some lights. The formula wasn’t perfect, the first coat was sheer and watery, but it built up nicely. My pictures show three coats with no topcoat.

In my last post, I mentioned Barry M’s new Sequin collection. Another of their summer collections is the Confetti Nail Effects, which is similar to Nails Inc’s Feather collection. Check out some great swatches over at Polished Criminails. I can’t wait for these to be released!

Lyndsey