LOTD and Swatches: Etude House Minnie Touch Highlighter and Minnie in The Nails Polishes!

It’s taken me a long time to really dip my toe into the beautiful waters of Asian cosmetics – I’ve bought a few bits and bobs here and there but between the total cuteness of some Korean brands and the exciting luxury of some Japanese brands I’ve mostly tried to stay away. However, as a Disney fan, this adorable collection really caught my eye and I had to get a couple of items! From the packaging, this looks to be an official collaboration with Disney. As well as the polishes and highlighter I’ll show here, there’s also a blush, loose glitters, two lipsticks and some false lashes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First up is the Minnie Touch Highlighter. Isn’t this beyond adorable?

 

 

 

Face: Missha Signature Wrinkle Filler BB Cream, Illamasqua Loose Powder.
Cheeks: Etude House Minnie Touch Highlighter, Etude House Cherry Tint (pink)
Lips: Etude House Cherry Tint (pink)
Eyes: Darling Girl Spectral Shift in Ramblin’ Rose, MAC Just Before Dawn , Etude Houe Minnie Touch Highlighter

 

 

It’s SO hard to capture this in photos (and swatches where I could only capture it as white), but with all the shades swirled together, it’s a very iridescent, smooth cool pink highlighter. If you’ve tried the MUA Undress Your Skin highlighter or like the sort of shade of MAC Strobe Cream then you’ll really like this. It’s very smooth to apply with no chunky glitter or shimmer particles, and a little goes a long way although it's pretty buildable.

 

 

It’s quite a soft powder, so I don’t think that the lovely Minnie embossing on the powder is going to last very long, but the compact itself is so adorable I really don’t mind. I’m debating whether to get the blush or not as it has a different drawing on it, and the cute drawing style is what really drew me to this this product.

 

 

This powder was approximately £10 from this eBay shop, which has free shipping and they threw in some lovely samples as well.

 

 

 

I also checked out the polishes from the range – they have two gel colour polishes, and four glitters. Two of the glitters have the shape of Minnie’s bow in the polish, but the ones I chose have the shape of her (or rather Mickey’s) head as I didn’t think the bow shaped glitters were that obvious. I love the Mickey Mouse symbol so couldn’t resist! I got shades #3 Minnie White Face and the rather awfully named #6 Minnie Black Face.

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, the packaging is absolutely adorable. The sticker sealing the lids down is Mickey shapes, and they have have the Etude House logo moulded into the tops of the caps, which again have the Mickey motif on.

 

 

The polishes themselves were a bit of a pain the butt to apply – I had to fish for the face shaped pieces of glitter in both shades and the shade with the black Mickey glitter I had to place the glitter on. The one with the white faces was much better and seems to have a lot more glitter – large and small pink and white matt hex glitters with square copper glitters, small pink tinsels and some shimmer as well as the matte white Mickey face. The one with the black Mickey faces in has small and large pink and white matte hex glitters and small black matte hex glitters in. The base polish is really glossy with both of these, and while they were a pain the butt to apply, they’re just beyond cute and I don’t find the large pieces are too large to sit flush on the nail which is great!  If you want an alternative to polishes, there are also some loose glitters in the range that are shaped like Minnies and bows for around £3 each.

 

 

I got these from the same Korean eBay seller for about £3.37.

 

 

 

 

I also got a few free samples – I’m wearing the BB cream in the photo above (thankfully it was an ok match!) as well as the pink cherry tint. I love getting samples from eBay seller, especially when they’re brands I’ve never heard of, let alone tried! I've got three uses out of the BB cream and have fallen in love with it... D'Oh! I also quite like the Cherry Tints - they smell like strawberry laces! I'll have to update you all on what on earth 'the smim' is though!

 

 

Will you try any of this range? Are you a Disney freak like me?

Instanails!

I have been SO bad with taking photos of my manicures lately, especially as I’ve been making more of an effort lately. I’ve thrown together a quick post with some recent manicures, and they’re all Instagram photos, and they’re all rubbish, and there are SO many missing. Bad blogger!

Orly Honeymoon in Style, sponged over with a grey-blue Zoya and topped with China Glaze Snowglobe. I LOVED this manicure and wished I’d taken a real photo!

My new favourite – Sinful Colors Hottie, a beautiful blue jelly glitter. It takes a few layers to get opaque, but it’s SO pretty. The dark colour is a super-old Collection polish.

Good old L’Oreal Confetti over Barry M Yellow, with Barry M Navy sponged on the ring finger.

The gorgeous Illamasqua Purity, with Zoya Robyn and Barry M Pale Lilac and a white nail art polished  over the top.  I blobbed the colours on randomly and them picked them up with cling film. Possibly I used a touch of a mint polish too, but I can’t remember.

Some cutesy nail art for a shoot – didn’t get used in the end, I’ll have to think of a way to incorporate them into something else! Very fun to do though, it’s a different feel to doing your own manicure. More of a craft project!

Zoya Robyn, Barry M Navy used over the top with cling film again. LOVED this one.

Illamasqua Corrode, a hot neon pink, with some ‘drips"’ using a nail art polish. Topped it all with Maybelline Cosmic Flash, one of my favourite toppers. This is an awful photo, so google it!

 

 

Awful post, soz babes. What have you been wearing on your nails lately? What do you think the next nail craze is going to be?

Tape Manicure Fails

I’ve been playing with tape manicures this week, and let’s just say I’ve not got it down yet!

 

This is Zoya Robyn and L.A Colours Live layered with… ugh, a sheer green from Kiko. While I like the idea of this, I don’t think I should have used one of the foil-y, micro-glitter polishes as the lines haven’t come out so crisp. I also think I should have made the spikes larger.

Sorry for the terrible picture quality here. This Barry M Purple on the top layer and the same Kiko polish as a base. This looks awful on camera but nicer in real life, I promise. I’m not happy with it at all, though – the purple polish was very thing and I think it snuck under the tape a little, especially where I crossed it. I’m going to try with a nice opaque creme polish next time and perhaps switch up my tape – I’ve been using masking tape and I think I might need to try scotch tape.

 

 

Have you tried layering tape for manicures? Any tips for me? Pleeeease?!

Playing with Water Decals

I've seen water decals on a lot of nail blogs and You Tube channels and always thought they were adorable. They remind me of the stick on tattoos that you'd get in sweet packets (and, er, lick to stick on your arm. Just me? Liars.)

This set was sent to me for review by Born Pretty, which has 10 bajillion nail art things on it. It costs just over $4, but there are also tons of designs on eBay, including full nail designs, starting from about £1 so they're pretty inexpensive. I've just bought these corset ones and am lusting over all the French tip ones. Not so much the JLS ones though!

These are super easy to use - at least in theory. You put cut them out, take them off the plastic backing, soak them in water for around 30 seconds, slide them onto your finger and then place them onto your nail. I followed Leanne's tutorial here. Where I had trouble was placing them neatly onto my nail. I started using tweezers to place them after the first two times, which is fiddly and you can rip the decals, but in my opinion, its better than wonky nail art. I might try putting them onto the rubber Konad stamps next time as well.

Edit: ndrcvrngl tells me that coating your tweezers with wax helps to stop them tearing the decals.

Pros:

-Cheap
-Tons of designs
-Wear as long as your top coat does
- They sit flat on your nail

Cons:

-A wee bit fiddly

-Some of the decals I recieved are enormous - not a massive con to me, but if you have tiny hands it is!

-Can't really wear them over dark polish as it will show through the decal.

Have you tried water decals? What nail art have you been sporting lately?