Estee Lauder Pure Colour - Smashed - Review & Swatches

Hi again!

I was in Boots today looking for a lipgloss, and I got talking to the Estee Lauder woman.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some random blingy-ness, which turned out to be a range of their polishes I hadn't seen before.  This one caught my eye:

Well, I had a base coat already on my nails (I always go shopping with base coat on in case I want to try some), so I tried a few out.  They weren't all as brill as I thought they would be.  These are all just one coat:

The purple on my thumb I especially didn't like, it managed somehow to give me pink-finger when it wasn't even a red!  But the purple that had caught my eye in the first place still had potential, so I bought it.  It cost me £14.50:

It's worth bearing this very pretty packaging in mind, as it means it would make a brill xmas present which would be very easy to wrap indeed!

So lets get on to the swatches, I took quite a few pictures.  These are all 2 coats with no top coat.  I wish I'd done one more coat really.  Formulation was quite thin and workable and highly pigmented.  I found the brush ever so slightly too bendy.  It's a little bit self deleting if you go over the same spot too many times.

First one's at the window:

Next we have under the craft (l.e.d.) lighting:

Next we have under the kitchen lights:

And then, the obligatory bottle shot, which I took while I was in the window:

I'm starting to wonder if I should put a watermark on my pictures, what do you think, is picture theft a big problem these days?  Anyway, I digress.....

All in all, I loved this, the pink microglitter showed up even in low light, and under most lighting it looked like a blackberry colour foil.  I don't own anything like this, and although I don't wear dark colours alot I think this will be this winters party colour for me!  What do you think of it?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

China Glaze Swatches - Kalahari Kiss, Desert Sun and I'm Not Lion

Hi again :-)

This post came about because I was having a Twitter conversation with the lovely Catrine @unnakednails (hi hun!) about, what else, but nail polish.  (If you want to catch up with me on Twitter I'm @maspooase , always happy to have a nail polish chat!)  I was saying that I loved the look of Kalahari Kiss.  Now for some reason, I don't know why, I'd never thought to actually try to buy any China Glaze, in my mind it was just a brand that would be available in America, but because we were talking about it, I got on my trusty Amazon UK app, and amazingly it was available! It looks like they sell for roughly £6 each, but I plumped for a set which contained, in my opinion, the best 4 polishes.  'Heres the LINK to the one I got' which cost me £19.99 including P&P.
And here's a pic:

Please tell me if my images look OK, as I've found a program to resize them to 800 pixels so I don't have to pay extra for Picasa storage.  If they're no good this size, I'll just bite the bullet and pay it, but if I don't have to, then I won't, more money for polish that way!

So the first one I swatched was the one I wanted most of all, Kalahari Kiss:

The first thing that struck me was the smell, it's quite strong!  Not as bad as Seche, but still pretty potent.  The first coat was streaky, but opaque.  Consistency wise, it's runnier than something like Nails Inc, it reminded me a bit of Revlon Top Speed.  I had to make sure I cleaned the stalk off to make sure I didn't get blobs of blobbiness making its way onto my manicure. 

 

The brush wasn't one of the wide type, and it did have almost exactly the right amount of flex to it, I liked it.  Drying time was quite fast.  This is 2 coats with no top coat.  I really liked this polish, not sure it's quite right for my skin tone, but I think we'll see it around alot as a base for nail art as it's a nice 'almost' neutral.  It's just ever so slightly less yellow than it shows in this picture, in real life it reminds me very much of the colour of fudge, or a pale Werther lol.

 

The next one I swatched was Desert Sun:

The coverage on this one was a little more sheer, but still the same kind of consistency.  I found it OK to apply, although I did have a little bit of trouble getting it completely neat around my cuticles, as you can probably tell!  This one does have a lovely shine to it.  This is two thick coats, probably the equivalent of 3 thin ones (as I was a bit impatient), with no top coat.  Another lovely wearable shade, just slightly more toffee coloured than this in real life.

 

Next up I tried, I'm not Lion:

A fine gold & holo glitter combo in a clear base.  Under my craft light its a festival of awesomeness, but I couldn't get my camera to catch it.  Its very fast drying, this is two coats and they were dry in a flash. 

 

I also layered it over Kalahari Kiss which came out quite well.  Even without a topcoat it was quite smooth, and wasn't too hard to remove, always a bonus for a glitter!:

And last but not least, I had I Herd That to swatch.  I opened the bottle and.......

Oh nooooooo!  Where's the brush?!  It hadn't fallen off into the bottle, it just wasn't there, so no swatches of that one today.  I emailed the seller, who replied within the hour to say that they've dispatched me a new set with a pre-paid label to send the old set back, which is great service.  It's a bank holiday now, so I won't get it for a while, but when I do I'll swatch it and put it on the blog. 

 

So even though I'm sad about getting a dud, I was very happy with the customer service I got.  To be fair, without opening every bottle, you would never know if that was going to happen because you couldn't tell from the outside.

 

So to put the balance straight, and because I always do it, here's a picture of the brush.  Its interesting to note that even though the lids look quite rounded they still stand up by themselves:

And finally, because the colour inspired me, I decided to do some safari-esque nail art over Kalahari Kiss:

And there we have it, my first ever China Glazes, and I'm very happy with them.  They may be my first, but they won't be my last!  Do you have any CG colours you'd recommend to me?  

 

Until next time.....

 

MASPOOASE x x x

~Wendy~

Jessica Gelato Mio Collection nail art and review

Hi there!

Hope your day's going great, here's another polish review for you.

I love pastels, so when I saw the Jessica Gelato collection advertised I was super excited!  Scrangie reviewed them recently LINK HERE and as usual her pictures were mouthwateringly good.  What swayed me most of all though is that she said the formula was perfect and it was OK in two coats, which is quite unusual for pastels. 

So I went on to Amazon UK and ordered Banana Peel, which is yellow (surprisingly lol), and Strawberry Shake It, which is pink (no suprise there either).  They cost me £9.75 each including P&P, which is near the top end of what I'll usually pay, excepting the odd Chanel or extra special polish.

Here's what I've done with it today, please excuse both my dodgy dots and my super dry cuticles, I am still on the hunt for that 'it' treatment for my cuticles, there will be a very long post of 'what I've tried' when I do finally find it!

For a change my camera has picked the colours up quite accurately, they're just a tad 'whiter' than this, but not much.  While I like the colours, I myself didn't like the formula.  I found it runny, streaky at 2 coats, and sloooooowwww to dry.  This is 3 coats.  Perhaps it's because my expectations were so high, but I think you can tell on the dots quite well what the formula was like, which is why I did them.

The other bit of a let down was that I realised when I got it home, that I already had a very similar pink with California Dreaming, see:

Thats Strawberry Shake It on the left, not much difference, certainly not enough to justify owning both anyway, sigh....

And true to all my other polish reviews, here's a picture of the brush.  Jessica in their wisdom make a round end on their lid so it didn't stand up very well:

So there you have it, pretty colours, but the formulation was a bit of a let down.  I'm glad now that I didn't buy any of the other colours, I didn't mainly because I already own similar ones to them, and also they were expensive (to me anyway), but I think I will use the ones I got despite them being a bit of a pain.

I hope you found my review interesting, or at least useful, and until next time....

MASPOOASE X X X

~Wendy~

Bargain Bracelet

Hi there everyone,
A jewellery post from me today!  It's a really quick one, I just had to share this total bargain with you, I think I got it in Debenhams (Wallis department) last weekend, reduced from £10 to an amazing £2!  It bends open with a sprung hinge on the back.

Here's an outside pic:

I am loving it!

And yes, I realise I have to take the label off before I wear it haha!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE X X X
~Wendy~

Olay Firm & Lift Day Cream & Serum - Review

Here I am again! 

Sorry it's late this week, I've got loads of blog ideas at the moment and no excuse, I was just being lazy!  But typical me, here I am 'last minute' Sunday blogging.

Anyway enough of me! Lets get onto this face cream:

I was just wandering about in Sainsburys, and I noticed this on the 'Sale' shelf.  They had a few different ones, but this caught my eye as it had serum in it.  I figured, what the heck, at half price £6.14 for 50ml, so I popped it in my basket. 

I like the packaging, it makes it look more expensive than it was, but no clear window on the tube, and the bottom doesn't move up, so I won't know when I've run out until it's all gone. 

Heres the link to it on the Sainsbury's site, its still live at the moment but I assume after the promotion is over that this link will probably stop working  http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/OlayCream

It says on the packaging that you have to wait 21 days to get any firming or lifting results, and I've only been using it 2 weeks, so no lifting for me yet. 

The main reason I want to review this is that usually, as you probably know, I usually use Decleor Experience De L'age Rich cream, which I've been buying from Ebay in 15ml tubes for around £15 a time including P&P, and they last hardly any time at all, so it's an expensive face regime, but I just can't bring myself to shell out the fifty odd quid for a full pot.  I still use it though, because I can tell when I go back to other creams that my skin looks less lively and less plump, so I always end up going back.

However, as I said, it's been two weeks now with this cream, and my skin's behaving beautifully!  Actually the break outs that I got when I started using Bare Minerals foundation have also gone, which is an extra bonus I wasn't expecting.

The smell reminds me a bit of Nivea Cream, but it's really light and doesn't last long.

Heres a picture of it out of the tube:

As you can see it's starting to run down my hand, more of a lotion consistency than a cream.  One pump just about does face and neck, but I like to bring a cream a bit further down than that, so do an extra half pump for good luck. 

It sinks in nice and quickly, and leaves a primer like silky feeling on my skin, which would probably be pretty good for applying foundation over, but I continue with my current routine of doing a layer of Decleor Prolagene gel over the top and then finishing off with Bare Minerals foundation in Medium Beige. 

My skin has stayed moisturised all day without going greasy in the afternoon which some creams in the past have made it do.  I would class my skin as combination, as it can go dry on my cheeks and down the sides of my jaw, but my nose and forehead can go greasy really easily with the wrong products.

Overall I'm very happy with this cream, and have bought another to stock up with while they are still half price.  Am not sure what I'll do when they go back to full price, but the very fact that I'm considering it over my beloved Experience De L'age speaks volumes.

If you're passing it in Sainsbury's and you're starting to get low on face cream, I'd say give it a go!

Until next time....

MASPOOASE

~Wendy~

Lush Cosmetics Bubblegum Lip Scrub Review

Hiya All!
Today I'm going to review Lush Bubblegum Lip Scrub.  I wouldn't usually go into Lush, as it smells just that bit too overpowering for me, but I'd heard good things about their Lemony Flutter cuticle treatment, so while I was in there I bought a few other things (of course!).

One of the things I bought was the aforementioned scrub:

So thats pretty much all I knew about it, had never heard of it before, and it was just a 'pop in the basket' item. It cost me £5.25.  So therefore when I got it home I got a bit of a suprise!

I'd been expecting some kind of cream, not this strange grainy thing!  So I read the rest of the packaging a bit more closely. Ingredients: Castor Sugar, Organic Jojoba Oil (Simmondsia chinensis), Methyl Ionone, Flavour, Colour 45410, Colour 45380.  So basically coloured castor sugar mixed with jojoba oil.  Instructions: Scrub and buff your lips to softness, lick off the excess, then apply your favourite Lush Lip Balm.

So, tentatively, I had a go.  Wowee this sucker tastes delicious! Its a bit difficult not to just eat it rather than scrub your lips with it, but scrub I did.  I would say though, if you're doing this in the house, do it over the sink because it's hard to do without dropping some, and you don't want to attract ants, or leave the floor sticky.

I took a small pile on the end of my finger, and rubbed and scrubbed until it was all pretty much dissolved, then happily licked it all off (well it was in the instructions!).  My lips felt smoother and softer than they had done in a very long time indeed.  I love this product!

I actually am not a big fan of my lips, they're thin and weedy, and prone to cold sores (I should mention that the scrub didn't irritate them enough to make them feel like they might spring a cold sore either), so I usually just use a light coloured lipstick and hope no one notices them haha. Because of this they don't get much TLC.  But, because this tastes so delicious they might actually get a bit of attention from me for a while, for at least as long as I've got some of this baby left, and a sweet tooth, which I imagine will be a very long time indeed......

Thoroughly recommended, 5 out of 5

Until next time...

MASPOOASE X X X

~Wendy~

Nail Art - Daleks!

Hi again everyone!

Have given in to myself and decided to allow myself another couple of nail posts. Am house sitting for someone at the moment, so don't have all my 'lovely things' around me, but I did manage to pop back home for my polishes!  I had already decided on a sci fi theme this week, and eventually decided on daleks - here we go!

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

For the base I used Jessica Hologram Chic as it seemed to match the sci-fi theme, and for the Dalek's body I used Jessica Irridescent Eye.  The black and red are both Color Club nail art polishes.  It was easy/medium difficulty, and if anyone wants a tutorial, just let me know and I'll do one for you!

Ok, one last picture...

For extra geek points, my daleks were modelled on the 1970's ones, not these modern fangle dangled stair climbing ones ;-)

Hope you like them, and until next time.....

MASPOOASE X X X

~Wendy~