Polish Profile: Nicole by OPI She's Lily Something

Hey everyone!

About a month ago, I noticed that Superdrug had started to stock Nicole by OPI polishes. SCORE! It was last week when my nearest large Superdrug had its Nicole stand inserted, and I was all over it like a giddy child on Christmas morning.

There was a decent selection of colors available, and I was particularly pleased to see that the Modern Family collection; the most recent limited edition collection was also available.

I picked up She's Lily Something, which is a pink iridescent top coat with pink star glitter inside. I layered this over L'Oreal Acid Watermelon, a neon pink from the new Spring/Summer '13 collection. She's Lily Something was fairly easy to work with, as it applied smoothly and I was able to place the pink stars on my nail without having to resort to using a toothpick to fish them out! That said, I'm not a huge fan of the odd-shaped Nicole bottles- the brush only reaches halfway down the bottle! I can't imagine that this polish will be easy to work with once it's half empty!

So, here's the swatches! (all taken in direct sunlight)

Note:~ Acid Watermelon is so much more neon in real life- it freaks my camera out!!

The selection of polishes available in Boots and Superdrug now is absolutely sha-mazing! Both stores have Essie, Boots have Sally Hansen, Sinful Colors and Mavala; whereas Superdrug have Nicole by OPI, and GOSH and Accessorize which have some great polishes in their cosmetic range.

Have you picked up any NIcole by OPI polishes yet?

L'Oreal Chrome Intensity Eyeshadow - Eye Look and Review

Hey guys!

Here is a look I did this week with a L'Oreal Chrome Intensity eyeshadow in Blue Jeans. This shadow had been catching my eye in the shops for a while because of it's deep, royal blue colour and shimmer.

 

Blue Jeans.

 

 

Without flash.

 

With flash. Damn chrome effect packaging- almost blinding!

 

 

Ooo. Look at that shimmer. Beautiful!

 

 

 



This look was super easy to create. I started by tracing a faint line above my socket crease using a blue eyeliner. I then used a dampened MAC 272 brush (sadly now discontinued) to pack the eyeshadow colour within the traced line, and blended it into and above the line, to avoid a harsh 'sketched-on' look.

 

I then wanted to give this gorgeous blue, what I consider to be an 'imperial' look -I think I'd been reading about Russian tsars! So, I lined my upper lid with a 17 Cosmetics Starry Eyes Liquid Eye Liner in Stardust, a dense gold glitter liner. These eyeliners are da BOMB! Seriously, for less than £4, you can pick these up, and in they're just as good as the Urban Decay or Too Faced glitter liners. They apply well, with a good amount of glitter, and they don't feel gritty or irritable on my skin. Result.

 

The eyeshadow is an awesome colour, however the pigment is seriously lacking. I originally attempted to apply Blue Jeans with a dry brush, but soon gave that up as a bad job! The sponge applicator that come in the case is also pointless- it just didn't deposit enough shadow and it looked washed out. However with a damp brush, and some perserverance in packing the shadow on,  the result is pretty good! I also found it easily blendable, especially when my 272 brush had dried after packing the colour on. I just wish that L'Oreal did this colour in it's Color Infallible range, because the formula and pigment on those shadows ROCKS.

 

Starry Eyes Glitter Eyeliners are £3.99 and are available exclusively in Boots stores or on boots.com

 

L'Oreal Chrome Intensity Eyeshadows are around £6, and are available from Boots or Superdrug.

 

 

Beauty Products I'm Loving This Week

Hey everybody! Hope you're all well. Today is a rather mixed post, because I am going to show you the beauty products that are either a) rocking my world creatively or b) products that I simply cannot live without!

So without further ado, here's the first:-

Illamasqua Fundamental Palette

Without flash

With flash

Shades from l-r clockwise Powder Shadow in Hype, Liquid Metal in Surge, Powder Shadow in Inception and Cream Pigment in Bedaub.

I absolutely adore this palette and have already created a number of looks with it, which I will be posting over the next couple of days. I love how wonderfully bold the colours are in this palette, yet they are surprisingly versatile and I will show you how to use these colours to create a beautiful daytime look. Stay tuned!

Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation and Concealer

If you haven't already tried this foundation, you NEED to. Just to give a bit of context on my skin, it is combination/dry, with an oily t-zone, prone to breakouts (especially hormonal breakouts), but I do get a bit of dryness around the jawline, and on my forehead. With this in mind, I normally opt for foundations specifically created for oily skin types, but there was something that particularly attracted me to this foundation... probably the orange packaging! I won't go into too much detail here, as I would like to do a more detailed post, but I will say this much. Wake Me Up is an incredible foundation. It gives my skin a healthy, radiant boost, and makes it look plump and fresh. It also kinda covers over my dry patches and doesn't make them glaringly obvious like Double Wear or Dream Matte Mousse can do. The concealer is also pretty good, as it can be used to cover both dark circles and blemishes.

No7 Beautiful Skin Melting Gel Cleanser

No7 has recently revamped their skincare range by renaming and repackaging their products and in this instance, created a brand new product. The packaging recommends this gel cleanser for normal/dry skin, and just lately I have been experiencing quite a lot of dry patches around my jaw and my cheeks have been quite dehydrated. I knew I didn't want to change to a heavier moisturiser, so a richer cleanser like this seemed to be a good solution to boost moisture in my skin without making it too greasy. This cleanser starts as a gel, which then melts away to an oil, which turns rather milky when washed away. It smells DIVINE. It cleans my skin relatively effectively without drying it out. In short, I love it. I look forward to washing my face with this. 'Nuff said.

Garnier Intensive 7 Days Hand Cream for Dry/Extra Dry Hands

I picked this hand cream up when it was on offer in Superdrug. I suffer with dry skin on my hands, my cuticles can be particularly haggard at times (too much contact with nail varnish remover!), and my nails sometimes peel because they are dehydrated. That's why I picked the dry/extra dry formula (there were about two other hand creams in the range). Oh, that and I love the scent of shea butter. As you can see in the pic above, this is a rich hand cream, but it spreads really well over the skin and it quickly absorbed, which is great because I really hate sticky, thich hand creams that take, like, forever to sink in! I recommend this hand cream- great price, great formula and lovely fresh scent.

Revlon Liquid Quick Dry

Since becoming a beauty blogger, who mainly blogs about nail art and nail varnishes, I tend to be waiting around a lot for polish to dry! When I saw this in Boots, I pretty much added it to my basket without hesitation. And it rocks. It dries freshly painted nails to be touch dry within a couple of minutes, and within the hour, they are pretty much nudge proof depending on the drying ability of the colour itself. It gives the nails a glossy finish, and it smells nice. Bonus.

L'Oreal Elvive Nutri Gloss Crystal Sparkling Shampoo

Without flash

With flash

I don't even really need to tell you why I decided to try this, it speaks for itself. A sparkling shampoo. It just kinda bounced off the shelf and into my basket! (I'm such a sucker for packaging!) On a semi-serious note, I normally use the Nutri Gloss light, with the pink bottle and green band, as I have mid length hair that gets greasy quickly, but I really wanted to try this new addition to the Elvive range. To be honest, I can't really tell the difference between the two shampoos, but this certainly looks prettier in my bathroom, and for that shallow reason only, I am gonna keep on buying this!

So there are my current beauty essentials. Are any of these products in your make up bag or on your bathroom shelf? If not, please leave a comment to tell me what your current beauty essentials are!