Eye Kandy Glitter Review!

Hey Beauts,

So it is that time of year again, and IMATS tickets for London 2015 have been released! Whilst I won't be attending this year, I had the honour of going last year with a close friend who is a make-up artist and had a brilliant time. One thing I just had to pick up when I saw the display was some Eye Kandy glitters. I think I speak for everyone when I say Glitter is stunning and us girls are drawn to glitter like a dog is to a bone. 

Spearmint - Sizzlin' Cinnamon - Candy Coin - Double Bubble - Confetti - Marshmallow

Double Bubble & Candy Coin - Spearmint & Sizzlin' Cinnamon

The kit included 6 glitters of my choosing, a brush and some liquid sugar. It was a long time ago now, but I think it cost £30 which is a fantastic price for what I got. Full price on the Eye Kandy website it is £30 for the same set but it only includes 3 glitters and not of your choice, singular glitters being £6.50 each. So I would definatly say it is worth picking this up at IMATS if they are there again this year with similar deals. I have to start off by saying these are fantastic. I don't wear them that often - maybe on the odd night out - but when I do, they are stunning. It takes a little bit of getting used to, figuring our how much liquid sugar to use with how much glitter, but once you have that sussed you are ready to go!  I find it applies really well and you can customise the glitter mixtures to make them as opaque as you want. If you really want to, you can even mix colours (as pictured above) to custom create your own shades. I really like combining Double Bubble and Candy Coin for a beautiful rose gold shade that really is stunning on the eyes.

However, as with any glitter you do want some great packaging to really make sure the glitter doesn't get everywhere. Well, this packaging isn't that great and I have already had my fair share of spillages to deal with. I find working with these over the sink works well as you can just wash away any messes you create really easily. Just make sure you screw the lids on tight when you have finished.

As you can tell I really do love these (Who doesn't love glitter?!) and they come in some really stunning shades. I highly suggest checking them out, even if it's just to look at some pretty glitters! Have you ever tried them out before? If so, what do you think of them? I love creating looks just for the fun of it even if I'm not going out the house at all. Would you be interested in seeing them if I posted them in other blog posts? Let me know below, I love reading your comments and thoughts on these products! If you aren't already, remember to follow on GFC and BlogLovin' so you don't miss out on future posts.

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Nails of the Day - 24/02/2015!

Hey Beauts,

Lately I have really been getting back into painting my nails and I think that is due to the fact that I will be starting back at work in a couple of weeks and we are not allowed to wear nail polish (Very boring, I know). So today I thought I would share with you beauts my favourite creation lately. 

This look was really simple to create, even though it doesn't look like it. I just painted all of my nails with a base coat then a nude colour, then went over my ring finger with a gold nail polish and then two different gold glitters, one fine, one chunky - just to really make that nail sparkle. I then used a dotting tool on my little and index fingers just to add a little accent dot in gold near to the nail beds. The flowers were created by dotting five white dots in a circular fashion using the dotting tool. I then added a gold dot in the center of the flowers and in the nude spaces I added little white dots. Lastly I went over all the nails with a top coat. If you don't own dotting tools, cotton buds are a great alternative. 

These are my nails at the moment, but what are your nails currently looking like? What colours do you usually paint your nails? I never use nude colours but I am really enjoying this shade! If you aren't already and don't want to miss out on future posts you can follow on GFC and BlogLovin'.

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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That 'On a whim' haul!

Hey Beauts,

So it's about time we got a bit festive around here and what better way to do that than to buy a few early gifts for myself? Last week I went out and bought a lot of nail polish and a lot of candles (haul coming soon) so I thought I would share these with you as there are some great deals going on at the moment within Boots and Superdrug!

Huckleberry - Green Berry - Cancun

Raspberry - Black - Matt White - Mustard

Atlantis - Rockstar - Jingle Bells - Christmas Tree

So I went a bit crazy with the Barry M nail paints, They were 3 for 2 in Superdrug and I just couldn't pass up on the Christmas glitters. The nail paints were £2.99 each and the Glitters/Gelly/Matte paints were £3.99 each, which you really cannot go wrong with. Especially with prices like this! Following that, Sally Hansen had a great deal on my favourite top coat - Insta Dri - at £3.99 and I decided to pick up the Hard as Nails at £3.30 too, which is also a great base coat! Finally from Superdrug the Garnier Micellar Water was £3.32 and I thought I would try this out to see if it is as good as the L'oreal version which again, I love.
On the way home I popped into Boots as it was 3 for 2 on all cosmetics so I picked up the L'oreal Telescopic mascara (£10.99) and Maybelline The Falsies Waterproof mascara (£7.99) as I had just run out of these and together they work great! As it was 3 for 2 I decided to pick up the Boujois Healthy Mix Foundation (£9.99) because there are so many positive reviews out there and I will discover if it is worth the hype.
Finally, I decided to add in a recent pick up of this trio of Origins face masks from Boots -  Out of Trouble, Clear Improvement and Drink Up Intensive. All of these are 75ml and it came to £23!! What a bargain! I will try to get reviews up of these products as soon as possible, but all I can say is I tried the Drink Up Intensive mask once and loved it.

Have you tried any of these products out? What did you think? And what do you think of the Barry M Nail Paints?! I would love to hear your opinions in the comments down below and if you aren't already and you are enjoying my blog, remember to follow on Blog Lovin' and GFC so you don't miss out on future posts! 

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Barry M Glitter Nail Paints - Review!

Hey Beauts,

So today I am bringing you a review of the Barry M Glitter Nail Paints. With so many different nail polish brands on the street, why do I choose the £2.99 versions over the high end versions?

    

So one thing I struggle with finding along the shelves of the very small Boots nearest to me is the perfect glitter nail polish that lays down a beautiful glittered layer without having to have a billion layers of nail polish on my finger nails. Today I have the answer to all of my issues - Barry M  Glitter Nail Paints! From top to bottom we have shades Aqua glitter, Silver multi glitter, Masquerade and Pink Sapphire glitter. Whilst these are all I own at the moment, at £2.99, I am sure my collection will grow very quickly! 

So not only are these nail polishes very cheap, the quality is beautiful! The opacity is stunning, the formula amazing and all I need is two thin layers and the outcome is perfect. The only issue with these polishes being is that the brush is very skinny which would be perfect if you have small nails, but for me, especially my thumbs, it takes a good few strokes to get across. It is worth it though for the amazing finish they give. I just can't wait to go out and pick up a few more, especially with the amazing colour range Barry M have.

So do you beauts own any of the Barry M Glitter Nail Paints? Have you tried any of them out? If so, which shades and what do you think? I would love to hear your opinions, so comment down below and let me know! As ever, if you aren't already, remember to follow on GFC and Blog Lovin' if you enjoyed this post and so you don't miss out on future posts.

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Aqua Blue Glittery Nails!

Hey Beauts,

Now in a recent post about nail polishes, I mentioned how much I love it when my nails are blue and glittery and have sparkles all over. Some may say it is a bit over the top, but from time to time everyone loves to go a bit over the top, almost like wearing a red lip in the day time (which I do most days). Following this, I thought I would show you how I'm loving wearing my nails at the moment!

So I started by applying my favourite base coat, after that I placed two coats of OPI Fly from the Nicki Minaj collection on every nail and let it dry for a good hour as a lot of glitter polish is about to come. On my ring finger I placed a coat of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Mermaid's Tale (my all time favourite polish) and on every other nail I painted a coat of Barry M - 340 Aqua Glitter. As if this wasn't enough glitter I then put a layer of Rimmel Lasting Perfection 500 - Disco Ball on my ring nail and thumb nail for that extra sparkle! Finish with a super shiny top coat for extra shine and you're done! The perfect glittery nail manicure that looks beautiful in any colour you choose!

Remember to comment down below on what colour/style manicure or nail art you would like to see next, I love a challenge and to give a couple of tips to help out with nail polish art to make it easier. Did you enjoy this post and would you wear your nails as glittery as this on a daily basis? Don't forget to follow on GFC and Blog Lovin' and I will speak to you again soon. <3 

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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LOVEing Nails!

Hey Beauts,

So last week was Valentine's day and everyone either went cuckoo for love or got upset that they were single. Personally my boyfriend and I don't celebrate it, it's too commercialised for us and his excuse is 'Why do I need a certain day to tell you I love you?'. Plus, it's my birthday the next day so half the time I'm too excited about my birthday to care about Valentine's day, and the fact that I was turning 21 - I was super excited! But this doesn't mean I don't like pink and red and glitter and love hearts, so I am continuing to paint my nails with the Valentine's theme this week as well! 

Love hearts and pink are very girly connotations and it just makes me feel very femenine having nails like these, especially when I got lots of compliments on them! So I though I'd show you my nails and give you tips on how I achieved the look at home without special tools and equipment. I believe I only used a toothpick, sellotape and a cotton swab. So here we go! :)

First off, excuse the sloppines on these nails, I took the picture before I cleaned up the edges (whoops). The thumb is just done by swiping the nail polish brush up the nail with three different colours after each layer has dried and then on the thumb, pointer and pinky I have just dabbed the top of the brush on the nail and put on a little red gem that I had in a craft kit. The ring finger is a dark red with a simple chunky glitter on top and the middle finger is done by putting nail polish on a cotton swap and dragged down twice to form the heart and the tip of a toothpick dipped into nail polish dotted around the edge to blur the rough edges of the heart.

The pinky and middle fingers are just a plain colour with two different types of glitter on top - one fine glitter, one chunky glitter. The pointer finger was done by pulling purple polish up the nail in lines with a toothpick (I personally don't like this nail) and the hearts were done by cutting a love heart out of some sellotape and painting over the pattern on my nail (The pink heart is my favourite). 

I hope you all enjoyed this quick post. I think you can wear nails like this at any time through out the year as they are just happy, lovely nails! If you recreate them, write a blog post and comment down below or tweet them to me here; TWITTER. Comment down below if you like these nails or what you would change about them if you could. I love inspiration for my nails, especially if it comes from you beauts! :D Tell me what you did for Valentine's day too! I know I don't celebrate it but I love hearing your stories. Also I was wondering if you would like a birthday haul seeing as though it was my birthday but I don't know if you'd be interested in that? Again comment down below and remember to follow on Bloglovin' and GFC so you don't miss the post if I decided to do it! :D <3

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Nails of the Day! 29/01/2014

Hey Beauts,

This morning I decided to paint my nails! I find it so therapeutic and calming and I just love it when they turn out great with hardly any on my skin! It's only a very simple look, but I personally find it very classy and I am in love with my ring fingers! On my thumb, pointer, middle and pinky fingers are just two coats of No7 Salsa and on my ring fingers are two coats of Sally Hansen Coat of Arms with two coats of No7 Gold Glitter Top Coat (They really could have come up with a better name for that like 'Christmas Sparkle' or 'Northern Star').

The No7 bottles are so miniature, super cute and so adorable. They were both part of Christmas gift sets from boots so I'm not quite sure if you can still buy them, but you can literally just walk into Boots and easily find dupes for these colours from Barry M, Sally Hansen or Essie. I really love this look and this is the fourth time in a row that I have actually painted my nails in this way - I really just love the gold accent nail!

Thanks for reading this post! I think you guys like my NOTD posts? They seem to get great comments! Do you want to see any nail art posts? Or do you just like simple ones like this? Tell me what you want to see on this blog down below & remember to follow on GFC and BlogLovin' so you don't miss out on any future posts! :) Mucho Love <3 <3

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Nails of the day! 12/01/2014

Hey Beauts,

Last night I painted my nails and this is how they turned out!

On my pinky, middle, pointer and (hidden) thumb is No7 Beanie and on my ring finger is No7 Salsa with ORLY Head Band on top. Salsa is such a beautiful colour and the name just makes me happy! But the colour Beanie really disappointed me as in the bottle it is a lovely taupe colour that would go really well with the gold glitter but it just turned out this dull grey colour. The formula isn't that great either and on my other hand and you can really see where it has clumped together and just doesn't create a smooth finish. I'm really not a fan of this combination so expect another NOTD post again really soon, haha!

I also thought I'd share this beautiful sunset with you as I'm a sucker for beautiful sunsets. As you can see the golden arches appear everywhere - Yum! 

So do you know of any perfect dark browns nail polishes? and do you have a love of sunsets too? I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment down below and don't forget to follow on GFC and Blonglovin' if you enjoyed this post! :)

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Recent Nail Polishes - Review!

Hey Beauts,

Yesterday I posted a 'Nails of the Day' post and today I thought I'd give you a little review of the polishes that I used. I have used all of these polishes quite a bit over the past few weeks so I've definatly had enough time to formulate my opinions on these formulas.

From left to right we have Revlon nail enamel in 761 Scandalous, No7 Stay Perfect in Totally Teal, Barry M Nail Paint in 347, No7 Stay perfect in Vivid Violet and finally Sally Hansen complete salon manicure in 675 Mermaid's tale.

So first up is No7 Stay Perfect. I absolutely love this line of nail polishes and truly think that they are completely underrated! The formula is not to thick and glides onto the nails effortlessly, full opacity is achieved in two coats which is pretty much the same as any other nail polish these days and the colours are absolutely gorgeous! Here you can see Totally Teal to the left and Vivid Violet on the right. I was given these two shades in a miniatures gift set for Christmas but I owned Totally Teal in full size previously and used it up completely. The only thing I don't like about these polishes is that the brushes are thinner in the miniatures than in the full size bottles. However, the brushes are perfect in the full size (RRP: £7 EA)

Next up is Sally Hansen complete salon manicure in Mermaid's Tale (RRP: £6.99). In my opinion this nail polish has the best name out of my complete collection of nail polishes and is one of the most gorgeous shades in my collection. Let's face it, this is my most favourite nail polish I own. The formula is perfect, the glitter shows perfectly and the brush is lovely and big! This polish works best with a similar colour painted down first with this on top, however full opacity can be achieved with just this colour but it does take about 5 coats. I really love that this isn't just a blue coloured polish and contains lots of green specks to break up the blue and add a bit of dimension to the nail. Revlon nail enamel in 761 Scandalous (RRP: £6.49) is a very similar nail polish but in all purple. Although this polish contains a lot more finer glitter and more of it is put on the nail in one stroke. Full opacity with this colour can be achieve in only 3 coats but I personally like it better when on top of a similar purple shade. The only down side to this polish is that it leaves a very dull finish to your nails but a mega-shine top coat fixed that easily.

Finally we have Barry M Nail Paint in 347 (RRP: £2.99). Now I'm just going to say that it really let's me down when companies don't come up with inventive names for their nail polishes. If a nail polish has a beautiful name, I am definatly more inclined to buy it. For example, this could be called 'Innocent Fantasy' or 'Shimmering Lights', But it's not, it's called 347 (Okay, rant over).  This polish was limited edition, but I do love it. It applies a perfect amount of glitter to the nail in one coat which is perfect to add to an accent nail. It is quite a 'gloopy' polish but still applies to the nail evenly and the brush is average, a bit on the smaller side but again, dispenses a perfect amount of polish to the nail. For £2.99, I am not complaining and as this is the first Barry M Nail Paint I have owned, I am completely won over and will have to purchase more of these in the near future! 

Again Beauts, I cannot express how happy it makes me - Seeing the amount of followers I have on GFC and Bloglovin' really makes me happy - I think my boyfriend is getting annoyed with me saying 'look, LOOK, another one!' So thank you, really! I Love you guys! <3 

  Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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Nails of the day! 07/01/2014

Hey Beauts!

I've not got much free time today so I thought I'd post a quick nails of the day post for you!
So something that you won't really know about me so far (unless you already follow me on Tumblr, Instagram or Twitter) Is that I really, really, really love to paint my finger nails! It's so calming and relaxing, mostly because you have to go so slow to achieve such a beautiful polished look (Haha, did you see what I did there?). Today I have Blue on one hand and purple on the other! I love, love, love painting my nails - Even more than make-up! 

On the thumbs and pinky fingers I have the No7 polishes with the chunky glitter on top respectively and then on the ring fingers I have the same, with the silver glitter on top. On the pointer finger I just have the chunky glitter polishes on their own - which took a few extra coats for full opacity and on the middle fingers are just the No7 polishes. Of course I have used base and top coats - Collection 2000 2in1 base coat (I found it in the back of my chest so I thought I'd give it some life) and then Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat! 

Hope you enjoyed this quick post - I really do love painting my nails so there will definatly be more posts like this in the future and reviews! :)

I'd just like to say also that I am very, very, very happy that you take the time out of your day to read, comment and follow this blog on GFC (&BlogLovin') Sometimes I just sit there clicking refresh to watch the numbers go up. Thanks Beauts! <3

Be happy, Be beautiful and Be YOU!

Ellie, xx

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