This Week's Nails #4 - Grey-t to be Here

'Grey-t to be Here', another Essence polish for €1.79!

I'm gonna be totally honest and tell you that I mainly bought this polish because of the punny name. It's not bad though! Sorry about my wrinkly hands in these pictures. I don't actually have the hands of an 80 year old woman. The cold weather just dries them out and makes them look that way!

It's a light grey with pink shimmer. The shimmer isn't as prevalent as I'd like, though :( The caps on the new Essence bottles often quite accurately reflect the colour of the polish when applied, although this one looks a lot more pink and glittery on the cap than it turns out on my nails.

Here's an extreme close up:

The pink's really really subtle, even when looking at it super close. It does give the colour a slight lift, I suppose it could be a little drab without it, but I'd much prefer if it were more obvious. I didn't think I'd be that fond of this one, but it actually goes well with a lot of my clothes. I think it will be a nice colour to wear in the winter!

Look - Glitter Glam

Hey people!

I wanted to share this look I did yesterday. There's a contest on Makeupbee at the moment by Lit Cosmetics, and I submitted this as an entry.

This is the first time I've used glitter on my lids. I have a good bit of eye safe glitter but I don't use it as much as I should! I think I did okay with the application. I probably could have applied some more actually. I wanted it to sort of blend out at the outer corner. There are a couple of parts I missed, that you can see when the eye is closed. I've been working on my shaping and blending too.  I have a tendency to over-blend and everything ends up smokey!

Here's the list of products that I used:

• Essence 'I Love Stage' eye primer
• Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
• The Body Needs - Heliotrope
• The Body Needs - Steal The Night
• The Body Needs - Hot Pink (glitter)
• The Body Needs - Iced Pink
• Sugarpill - Tako
• NYC Liquid Liner - Pearlized Black
• Essence Kajal Pencil - Black
• NYX Candy Glitter Liner - Hot Candy
• Bourjois Volumizer Mascara
• Essence Eyebrow Designer - Brown

I love glitter, I'll be using it a lot more from now on! It's so pretty ^_^

I'll leave more pictures below, and here's the link for this look on Makeupbee if you'd like to give it some luv! https://www.makeupbee.com/look.php?look_id=64235&qbt=userlooks&qb_lookid=64235&qb_uid=35317

This Week's Nails #3 - Naughty and Pink!

Sorry for two nail posts in a row! I've been trying to find time to do a makeup look, but I've been pretty stuck for time lately. I made time to do my nails though, I can't stand them being bare. It makes me feel so blokey >.>

This one is called 'Naughty and Pink!'. It's by Essence, and it's priced at €1.79. In the photo it looks crazy bright, but it actually looks a few shades darker in most light. I wasn't sure of it at first because it looked a bit strange against my skin tone, but it grew on me!
I'm using a different top and base coat this time. I was at my mother's house and I forgot to bring mine with me. She had a Sally Hansen one, it's both a base coat and a top coat. I believe it's called Diamond Shine. It's in an all silver bottle. Initially I was really impressed with it, it dried really fast and the polish felt really solid on my nails. The next day though, I got a chip. You can see it in the photo, at the tip of my middle finger. Now most of the nails on both hands are chipped quite badly :(

To be fair I did a TON of housework that day and I was super rough with my nails, so perhaps it's not entirely the fault of the top coat. I know that Sally Hansen products have a good reputation. I'd like to get it for myself and give it another go because I liked that it dried quickly. I normally use an Essence top coat, but it seems to take much longer to dry and I often mess my polish up trying to do stuff in the meantime.

I shall return and report my findings! :D

This Week's Nails #2 - Vivid Violet

Hello there! ~_^

This week I'm wearing No7's Stay Perfect polish in Vivid Violet. It's a beautiful colour, one of the best purples I own! I'm not sure what the exact price was, since it was a birthday gift from my little brother (he's such a sweetie!). On the Boots UK site the price is £5.50, which is about €7. If it's much different here in Ireland I'll be sure to let you know!

This week I sucked especially hard at application. Deeply sorry, but sometimes I just have an off day! Any mess or bumps are completely my own fault, not that of the polish.
I applied it Sunday night, photographed on Monday evening, and it truly has 'stayed perfect' so far up until today (Wednesday). It still looks exactly as it did the day I applied it. The brush is nice and thick, too. Not as thick as the Essence brush in the polish from last week so it doesn't give quite as much coverage in one stroke, but it's not far off!
This No7 polish is a really nice break from the norm for me. I mostly own Essence ones since I'm often quite broke and they're the best quality low cost polish that I've found. I think I'll try a wider variety of brands from now on!

Urban Decay Naked 2 palette - Review with look!

Last Friday I was in town, and there was 10% off all cosmetics at Debenhams. I normally dodge that place because I'll spend all of my money, but I ended up there through no fault of my own and the Urban Decay counter caught my eye. Mostly because I knew where it was and I wanted to see, so I looked. I'd wanted one of the Naked palettes for a long time, so I thought screw it, now's as good a time as any. I got it for €36.45, reduced from €40.50 which is a real steal!

I chose the Naked 2 palette. More of the colours appealed to me than in Naked. Here are some photos!

Outer packaging

I really like the packaging, it's tin so you know your shadows are going to be quite safe in there! Also, the opening grooves are deeper and longer which gives you a good grip, and you don't have to pull hard to open it, so you never feel like it'll fly out of your hands.

The insides!

The palette consists of twelve shadows, a mirror, and a double ended 'Good Karma' brush. There's a good dense shadow brush on one end, and a crease brush on the other. I really like the shadow brush, it works really well, but I'm not too keen on the crease brush. I'll use it a bit more and see how it goes, but the bristles are longer than I'm used to for a crease brush, and it's a bit stiffer than I'm used to for a blending brush. The shadows look great. There is a good range of shades and finishes. You're spoiled for choice! 

Take a closer look:

Swatched over Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy, I wanted to bring out the best in the shimmers:

Half Baked, Chopper, Snakebite, Suspect

Pistol, Verve, YDK, Busted

These I swatched over NXY White base:

Foxy, Bootycall, Tease, Blackout

You can barely see Foxy, it's really close to my skin colour. My lids are dark enough though so it will be useful for me. The colour payoff with these is great, they're really pigmented. Lots of them are sparkly and shimmery and they look great! There are a few that have more of a satin finish (e.g. Bootycall, Busted), and some mattes too. I'm sure you can do a lot of different looks with this palette, I can't wait to really get into it! If you're a fan of neutral shades definitely pick up this palette, or its predecessor. They're good for the price considering the number of colours, quality of the shadows and range of finishes.

I don't actually have a huge deal of experience working with natural shades, which is why I wanted to get a Naked palette. It's something that I need to learn. I have the Sleek 'Au Natural' palette and I'm fond of that, but they're all mattes. I'm getting the hang of them and I do like them, but I wanted to try some shimmery natural shades.

I did one look with this palette which is kind of a mess to be honest. I shouldn't really have put shimmer with shimmer, and highlighted with more shimmer, lol :) I was excited and they were very shiny. I'll post a picture of it here anyway so you can have a good laugh, but I'll work it out and come up with something good to show you in the future!

Half Baked, YDK and Verve

Other products used:

• Maybelline - Master Smokey Eye pencil - Smokey Chocolate
• Maybelline - Scandal Eyes waterproof pencil - Bronze
• Essence - Metal Glam eyeliner - Got A Date?
• Essence - All Eyes On Me mascara - Deep Brown

Thanks a lot for reading! :D

This Week's Nails #1 - Go Bold!

Hello! I do my nails just about once a week, so I'm gonnna post a pic here each time I do them!
This week it's an Essence polish. The shade is 'Go Bold!', it's one of the new ones. They recently released new packaging for their polishes, the new bottle shape looks so much nicer. The new bottles contain 8ml, the previous smaller bottles contained 5ml, and the price of these new ones is 50c more at €1.79 which is fine for 3ml more of polish.
There are a ton of new shades! Some of the old ones are still available, but it was a real overhaul for the polish line. I'm glad I have so many of the old shades since they'll be discontinued now, but I wish they all had the new brush that's in the new bottles! It's much denser and wider, it makes things so much easier. I'm not the best at painting my nails. My left hand usually goes ok, but to be honest when I do my right hand it looks like I've used my foot. 

Without further ado, here's a pretty picture that I took with my new camera and ring light that I got in the mail today! Hooray for not relying on daylight anymore \o/

Classy colour, right? It's a really nice pale gold. Definitely one of my favourites from Essence! It's one of those colours you can wear anywhere too, it's not too flashy for the office or school, and it's still exciting enough to wear on a night out! I totally recommend the new line of Essence polishes, they're such a cool change from the old ones and you can't beat the price! I got most of them recently so you'll definitely see some more pictures here in the coming weeks. See ya soon!

Sugarpill Black and Purple Smokey Eye - Look with Tutorial

Hello! Sorry that I've been away for so long. I didn't have a camera for weeks. I was using a borrowed camera to take photos with, but the owner needed it. Luckily my family was awesome enough to get me a Canon EOS1100D for my birthday so I'm sorted now! I'm still terrible at photography but I'm working on it.

So my friend and Starcraft 2 team mate Michelle (MsCupcake) asked me to do a purple and black look for her. She said that when she tries it looks like someone punched her in the eye. Here's a tutorial to see if we can avoid that in future! :D

Product list can be found below the tutorial.

Step 1

Prime the eye. I used Essence's 'I Love Stage' primer, followed by NYX white eyeshadow base.  Don't forget to prime below the eye too, since shadow will be applied here.

Step 2

Apply purple shadow all over the lid. I used Sugarpill's '2am' 

Step 3

Apply black shadow to the outer V and crease. I used Sugarpill's 'Bulletproof'

Step 4

Blend the black up and out. Keep blending until the lines are gone and you get a smokey effect. Also blend it into the purple on the lid.

Step 5

Blend a little pink above the black. I used Sugarpill's 'Dollipop'.

Step 6

Apply white shadow to the brow bone and blend it with the pink. I used Sugarpill's 'Tako'. Also apply white to the inner corner of the eye. Then apply pink or purple liner to the lower lash line. Set this with purple shadow, and put some black shadow on the outer part of the lower lid. Blend these colours together.

Step 7

Line the waterline and upper lash line with black.

Step 8

Finish the look by curling the lashes and applying  mascara, I used Maybelline Falsies. Also fill in your brows, it gives the eye area more definition. I used Essence's Eyebrow Designer pencil and a dark brown shadow to do this.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful! If anyone has a look request, post a comment below and I will try to come up with a tutorial for you. The same goes if you have any questions about this look. Thanks for reading!

Product List:

Eyes:

Essence Eyeshadow Primer - 'I Love Stage'
NYX White Eyeshadow Base
Sugarpill Eyeshadow - '2am', 'Bulletproof' and 'Tako'
ELF Kohl Pencil
Maybelline Master Precise Eyeliner
Maybelline Falsies Mascara

Eyebrows:

Essence Eyebrow Designer - Brown
Sleek Au Natural Palette - 'Bark'