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?

Mini Haul: Illamasqua Sacred Hour Collection

As soon as Illamasqua launched their collection I wondered what I was going to get! The colours are beautiful for autumn and the collection as a whole really shows how savvy Illamasqua is when it comes to having collections with something for everyone. From soft neutral eye colours and insanely pigmented blushers, to interesting shimmery polishes and berry lips, I defy anyone to not want at least one thing from it!  Not really being able to justify any of it, I was very good and got just two bits.

 

Lipstick in ‘Shard’

First up is Illamasqua’s lipstick in Shard.  A beautiful blackberry colour, I was instantly drawn to this, but stumped up the cash because the word ‘shard’ always reminds me of The Dark Crystal! Sadly the formula isn’t one of Illamasqua’s better ones. Lovers of the brand will know their lipsticks tend to be on the dry side, but some are better than others and this isn’t the best. I found it to apply a little patchily, making my lips look poorly taken care of even though they were freshly buffed and balmed. I’m frustrated at the application because having watched an Illamasqua girl apply it on my friend, I know it doesn’t always look like this, yet I’m confident enough in my lipstick application to say the formula isn’t stellar. It’s still plenty  wearable, however, and the colour really does make up for the poorer formula. While it goes on with a bit of a sheen, it dries down matte and when worked in as a stain (which the colour is *perfect* for) it lasts all day.

Just for funsies, here’s Shard layered over a similar coloured lip liner from LA Colours. I love how this looks!

If you really love the colour – and it’s going to suit pretty much everyone! -you’ll be able to put up with the formula but if can’t be dealing with a poorer formula for the price, skip it - The shelves will be awash with berry colours this fall.

Nail Polish in ‘Hemlock’



Sadly my rubbish photo taking doesn’t capture the beauty of this polish. It’s not left my nails for about a fortnight – I’ve reapplied it straight away! As you can just see on my index finger, the green flash in this is really strong, yet it’s set against the most beautiful, hard to describe, dusky pink-gold-taupe base. I bought it because I thought I could get away with it for work, and I have! Hurrah! It wears wonderfully well – at least five days strong and two coats will give you a fairly sheer wash of colour with a nice strong flash of green. An absolutely stunning polish,

Did you pick up anything from this collection? What are your favourite Illamasqua products?

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?

Manicure Mondays: Zoya Robyn and L’Oreal Top Confettis

I’d been searching high and low for the new(ish) top coat from L’Oreal and finally found a lonesome one in Boots Westfield. I know it’s not the most unique offering anymore and that tons on indie companies have released similar glitters, but in the UK we’ve not been able to easily purchase anything like it. I love how it looks over the blue crème and I’ll be trying it over some more pastel colours soon!

Feel free to share your current manicures!

Mani Madness! (Pretty things from the States")

Todays post is features gorgeous polishes sent to me from that there ‘Merica by Wendy. I’ve not really been doing mani posts for ages as my hands, nails and cuticles are really nasty at the moment, so I’m hoping staring at pictures of them will shame me into taking care of my hands better! Anyway, less talk about grossness, more look at niceness.

 

Icing “Lemme See Your Peacock” over Accessorize “Black” (Boring UK polish!)

Lemme See Your Peacock is possibly the most fun I’ve ever put on my nails. A really, really pretty mix of blue, green and fuschia hex glitters that I can’t wait to try over white as well! Instant favourite!

 

Sinful Colours “Cinderella” with Jordana “Cosmic” on the ring finger.

Justice. It is not done. If you’ve not got Cinderella, stop what you’re doing and fix that. It’s the most perfect, princess-y pastel blue with orange/pink glassy flecks in. Jordana Cosmic is a super pretty glitter polish with different size blue and green glitters in it and I thought it upped this mani into mermaid territory.

Color Club" “Holiday Splendor” with China Glaze “Snowglobe” over Barry M “Mint Green” (Boring UK polish!)

I loved this mani. LOVED IT. You can’t see the awesomeness that is Snowglobe or the holo glitters in Holiday Splendor, but trust me. My mind was blown.

Jordana “Copper Blaze.”

IT LOOKS LIKE PENNIES.

Revlon “Whimsical.”

A dupe for Deborah Lipmanns “Glitter in The Air,” I think everyone knows how adorable this polish is by now. I love how sheer it is so you can see the layers of glitter! I actually got a lot of compliments on this shade.

Fingerpaints “Asylum” over Accessorize “Black.”

 

OOOOOOH, LOOKIT THE COLOURS. Don’t lookit the smudges and cuticles. I first tried this over a green, which I thought would look awesome but it sort of sucked the blue away from the finish and it didn’t look that awesome. Over black it’s just… drool worthy. Yeah boi.

 

Do you follow seasonal trends for your nails or just whatever takes your fancy?

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?

Are you sick of crackle polishes yet?

WELL SAAAAAAAAHRRY.

MUA Nail Quake in Broken 'Arrow' over Sinful Colors 'Irish Green.'

'Irish Green' should be called 'Irish Raver Green,' or something, as it's mega neon in real life. Anyway, I saw a lonely stand of a few of the MUA crackles in my Superdrug (missing several of the colours as well as, you know, the rest of the MUA pro range) and I instantly knew that Broken Arrow had to come home with me to have a bit of a snog with a neon green!

No more crackle spam, I promise ;)

Foiling Around: Primark Nail Foils

Primark's beauty stuff, for the most part, is pretty gash but occasionally they bring out something fun and interesting, like these funky nail foils!



HOW PRETTY?!I'd wanted to try nail foils for a while now, but they can be a little expensive, and the prints in shops are often a bit boring or plain. So when I saw the Primark had the foils for £3, and they had skulls and leopard print, I didn't think I had much to lose.

So how easy are they to apply? I think it's a practice thing. The foils folding over themselves and creasing is the main problem - I have a couple of kinks on my nails, which you can see clearly in the picture of my middle finger above, and even with blasting them with the hair dyer (which is hot, obviously :S) I couldn't get them out. Other than that, it was pretty simple. These particular foils come with both written instructions and a picture tutorial:




I think that's pretty decent for a Primark product!

So how did they wear? I applied them on Tuesday evening, and I took these pictures early Saturday evening.



Wear on the left hand.



Wear on the right hand.

The chunk taken out of my middle finger has peeled away in a spot where I know I didn't file it down properly in the first place, and it only came off this morning. I'd say you get three days of good wear with these, and then they start to look a teeny bit bedraggled, but you can still get a another day or so if you're not a perfectionist. So I'm really impressed! And they peeled off easily without leaving a residue. A+, Primark!

I should mention that I don't think they'd be good for large hands. Though I have quite big hands for a laydee, my fingers are fairly slim and some of the smaller ones would be way too small for some people, so if you have wider nails, take a butchers at them closely before you buy. You do get 18 foils for ten fingers, though, so I guess they would probably work for most people.

Have you tried nail foils? Or any other snazzy new nail products? I've picked some of these up for an upcoming giveaway, so keep your eyes peeled!

NOTD: Green Glitter Gradient

Alright, alright, its a nail of the... last week sometime!



I don't think I've ever done a glitter gradient before - I think I did okay considering. The most difficult part is getting the glitter to fade out at the bottom - it's difficult to get the right amount on your brush. I think I've found a good use for foam eyeshadow applicators! The base coat is a nameless sheer white glitter from an Accessorize set and the green is LA Colours Treasure Island - one of my favourite glitters!



Proper post for you soon, I promise! I was going to have a purple eyeshadow week, but I've been in a rush most mornings and have only had time to do mascara and lippy some days. I'm going to Volupte tomorrow night, so hopefully I'll have some nice retro hair and make-up to show you guys this weekend.

Tried any fun nail techniques recently?

Bargain of the Week: Accesorize Trick Or Treat polish set

Ooooh, I do love a bargain! I went into Accessorize to try and track down some of their new polishes, and while they didn't have any, I snapped up their Trick or Treat polish set for just £2.40!




Cute packaging....






And an amazing purple! Not quite a blurple because of all the purple sparkles in there but it has a hint of navy in there all the same. This is the worst application ever but I literally could not wait to try this out and therefore smudged it right away. Three coats, although two would do, and a little tip wear after two days with no top coat. I haven't tried the black, and the orange looks a little like bean juice without a top coat but I am so, so happy with this just for the purple!

Bought any bargains recently?

Since I am dead I can take off my head....

...also, the cake is a lie.


One of my favourite films ever is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Yes, yes, yes, it's totally cliche for anyone who has ever worn a black t-shirt to love that film but I don't give a rat's arse because it's awesome. It's totally and utterly adorable, the animation is fantastic and the Burton/Elfman partnership was never better. Anyway I've been wanting to do a Jack mani FOREVER and I finally decided to do it seeing as I had to cut my nails short (I sliced one of my nails open.... long story.)








I'm really, really sorry I didn't clean my mani up, I know it is very lazy blogging, but I finished it late at night and I wanted to snap a picture before I inevitably chipped it the next day, which I did (sadness!), and I didn't have time to take pics in the morning. Also, the dust is face powder, not crack. Pretty awesome, huh? I'm pleased with the one... my favourite is my left ring and thumb. I just did this with acrylic. And I'll tell you one thing - drawing twelve faces that are composed of just a few blobs and a line REALLY makes you appreciate how talented the animators on this movie were!


And geeky mani no. 2:




Weighted Companion Cube. You are the cutest cube ever. Unfortunately I cannot do you justice, as I used the wrong colours, and just pooed it up a bit and had to take you off right away. Good idea though, right?



Kisses x

Quickie review - Barry M Nail Instant Nail Effects Crackle Polish

Much to the joy of UK beauty bloggers who very rarely get to play with any exciting polishes, Barry M recently released a crackle polish called 'Black Magic,' just in time for Hallowe'en! About a pound more expensive than their regular range at £3.95, it's nevertheless cheap and I got it with another polish at £5 for the two which is a pretty regular deal.






Over Model's Own 25k Gold.

The label on the bottle tells you not to overlap the polish, whereas in the video on their website, you can see them doing it. I prefer it when you do overlap them - in the smaller picure, I've overlapped the polish and in the larger one, I haven't. If you don't overlap, you kind of get a streaky effect.





Over Claire's Moody/Shy colour change polish.

Pretty cool, huh? Despite being thick, gloopy, stinky and matte, this stuff is pretty awesome - dead easy Hallowe'en mani!


xxx

What's that stuff you use to like, paint stuff with?

Oh yeah. Paint.

I have problems using nail polish for nail art. My mum got me a set of the dual-ended pen/striper tip polishes for Christmas last year, and while I do like them a lot - for creating larger shapes such as my poodles and Pikachu nails, polka dots, etc - the pen nibs are a little large for detail work. I bought a set of nail art brushes off eBay a while ago and ruined half of them before I realised that you can't get polish off of them. Also, I find that, even with Seche Vite (which I hate but I don't have another top coat atm) that polish often smudges when you apply a top coat.

So I though I'd dig some acrylics out and see what I could do!







Base Coat - Barry M Red Black
Flowers - black and white acrylic

So sorry about my manky hands. They're so chapped and dry at the moment - I really need a better hand cream!

Anyway, I tried to do the one-stroke thing... Didn't come out so great but I can see where I went wrong. One-stroke is basically where you have one colour on one side of the brush, one on the other and this creates a gradient sort of effect. Anyway, the acrylics were really easy to use on my nails! The best thing is that acrylics dry super fast, and if you have any whoopsies, you can clean it up with water!





Base Coat - Barry M Matte White
Writing - acrylic for the black writing, LA Colors Perfect Sunset for the orange.

Just a fun manicure! I love Paramore! The video for Misery Business came on telly the other day and right away I realised I should do the album cover. Writing 'Riot' a hundred million times really makes it look like gibberish! I'm glad I didn't do this with nail polish as it would have taken aaaaaages to dry and I'd have smudged it. It doesn't look so great up against the album cover but my friends liked it and that'll do for me!

I was planning on having a couple more manicures to show you guys but I have a massive cut on my finger and I didn't want to subject myself to the agony of inevitably getting polish remover in the cut. Anyway - big thumbs up to using acrylic. There are cons to it - most of us will probably want to use the different colours and finishes of the polishes we have being the main one.

What craft items find their way into your beauty routine?