And still more China Glaze Holiday Swatches!

We're nearly done now! I've been busy swatching on my already destroyed fingernails and here are five more for you. There are some corkers here :)

First up, Mistletoe Kisses.

It's glitter, but not as we know it. It's glittery, ever so slightly gritty but one coat of top coat fixed it and here's the miracle bit, it comes off really easily. Well by glitter standards anyway! I think its because the glitter particles are so tiny. No picture can convey how sparkley this is. I couldn't stop looking at my nails. Its a very pretty mid green, not really my colour, but gorgeous anyway. Two coats (as shown) looks ok at a glace but when the flash hits it is clear how sheer it is, didn't bother me at all, no one will be looking closely under a flash.

Next Ruby Deer.

The other red cream of the collection along with Phat Santa. Ruby Deer is lighter and brighter and equally gorgeous. One coat shown in the pictures. Its beautifully glossy and opaque. Defintiely this collection has ignited my passion for reds!

Next up is Snow.

A white creme finish. There's not much to say about this really. I think white's are a love them or hate them thing. I love them. This one is fantastic. Pretty much the best creme white I've ever used. It's not thick and gloopy. It's not streaky or patchy, it's just perfect. I really like it.

Last but very definitely not last is Naughty And Nice.

Sorry for the shoddy application. This is beautiful and one of my favourites. These pictures were taken with a flash and shows up my patchy application but trust me, I'm looking at my nails now in daylight and they look perfect. At a glance they are black, but obviously on these flash pics you can see that they are a blackened berry shade. A sort of Rouge Noir shade. I love it.

St.Tropez Skin Illuminator

Following This post, I've had a chance to play with the Fashion Week Kit products and the stand out item for me is the Skin Illuminator. £15 for 30mls, you don't get a lot for your money, but you only need the smallest bit of this stuff (unless using it all over your body) but if you're using it on your cheekbones or collarbones for example, you'd only need a tiny amount. I would imagine a pea sized blob would be far too much. 

Be warned, this isn't your white, silver or gold based highlighter. No, this is blue. Well it's a white cream, with a very strong blue highlight.  It blends out like a dream, perfectly and if you find the effect is a bit too full on for you then you can blend it with your face moisturiser or body lotion to get a more subtle effect. It is of course, being from St. Tropez, designed to compliment a tan but it can of course be worn alone.

Here are some pictures of the product, firstly, unblended:

And blended out a bit and then fully:

A really beautiful product and highly recommended by me!

*Disclaimer - PR Provided Sample*

Fyrinnae Frustration.

It's not often I'm compelled to do a blog post moaning about a company. In fact I don't think I've ever done a blog post moaning about a company before.  I'm also sorry that the company I'm moaning about is a small one. I know they're incredibly popular though and I doubt my experience will make much difference to that.

After seeing so many fabulous blog posts and swatches of Fyrinnae products over the last year or so I have been deliberating over placing my own order for a long time. Last weekend I finally made up my mind to place an order for about 18 samples. I spent an enjoyable hour filling my basket with samples, got distracted by the children, went back, my basket was empty. Annoying! However, this does happen on sites where you're not logged in so I went through it all again adding my samples to the basket. Only I couldn't check out. I created an account but when I got to the payments page there was no option to pay. There was however a message saying if no payment methods appear please try again tomorrow. Annoying again, but oh well, my order was saved, I'd just try again the next day.

So the next day, I logged in, checked my order was saved (it was) and proceeded to check out. Yep, this time there were payment options. Fantastic! I selected paypal... got logged out. Logged in, selected paypal, got logged out. Repeat a few more times until hooray! I get taken into Paypal. I attempt to pay... logged out! It was completely infuriating.

Against my better judgement I tried again the next day, only this time I was greeted with a message on the home page "10/23: Checkout will be closed for a few days. During this time you may be unable to log in intermittently. " Fine. Highly irritated that the message had gone up after I'd had all these problems, but at least I knew at long last that it wasn't just me and that it was a recognised problem. Well not a problem for them obviously as its intentional I assume.

So that message says checkout would be closed for a few days and is dated the 23rd. (Although I don't think that message was there on the 23rd but hey ho). So it's now the 28th, I thought I'd have another go. Turns out checkout is still closed, which I suppose is ok, annoying, but ok.

While I was logged in this morning however, I decided to check my order was still safe. Guess what? It's now marked as cancelled as I hadn't paid.  You have got to be kidding me right? I've been trying to pay since Friday the 22nd. Now my order is cancelled and I can't just pay for it now. I have to refill my shopping basket and start again.

Um no thanks. Having already spent upwards of 3 hours trying to purchase from Fyrinnae I shan't be wasting any more of my time on it.

I was so looking forward to trying Fyrinnae. The colours look beautiful and I hear fab things about the Pixie Epoxy but ordering online shouldn't be such a headache. I'm not interested anymore.

Thanks but no thanks Fyrinnae.

Anyone recommend any similar brands for me?

More China Glaze Holiday Swatches

Hello!

After my day off yesterday I thought I'd ease myself back in with some nice nail varnish swatches. So here are three more from the China Glaze Holiday 2010 collection. I'm starting to notice something a bit special about a lot of these colours. It's almost invisible to the naked eye in most cases but many of the polishes have absolutely minute red, silver and green sparkles, whatever the overall shade is. Its a gorgeous Christmassy touch!

First up is Sugar Plums:

This is a medium-deep red with a lot of teeny glitter in it. It's sadly for me much more beautiful in the bottle than it is on the nail, but its nice enough And here's close up of some blurry shimmer:

Next up is Cheers To You:

It's a pretty but ordinary silver foil. I don't like these on me much but I must say I also have China Glaze Millenium and I'm not sure what the difference is but much prefer the application of this one.

Saving the best till last, Peace On Earth:

The flash brings this up a little brighter than it really is:

I don't think there's much I can say, the pictures speak for themselves, all I can add is that it applies perfectly and I'd be surprised if this doesn't end up my favourite of the whole collection.

Finally, a glorious close up.

Any of these take your fancy? I might have to do more than three per post otherwise we'll be here all year!

No post today!

I've not done a blog post for today as I've been away at my sister's wedding and I just can't be bothered today if I'm honest!

As you all know I did her make up and I do plan to do a proper post about this but for now I'll just leave you with a snapshot of my beautiful sister Elisabeth.

Estee Lauder Extravagant Lips for Christmas

So yesterday I showed you the Extravagant Night nail varnish from Estee Lauder's 2010 Holiday Collection and today I bring you a selection of the lip products from the same collection. I've already mentioned that the theme of the collection is reds, berries and golds and the lip products are all in that vein, beautiful and rich shades and perfect for parties.

First up is the beautiful Pure Colour Lip Palette in Extravagant. In the same format as the eyeshadow palette's from the Blue Dahlia collection, this lip palette is similarly gorgeous. It contains two lipglosses, two sparkling lipstiacks and a satin red lipstick. You can layer or wear alone, whatever takes your fancy.

This is really glorious, which for £34 you would hope it would be. I've had a good play around with it and that red in the centre is really gorgeous, its not too blue or too orange. Its a gorgeous shade.

This is the red alone followed by the red topped with the gold sparkly gloss (please make sure you enlarge the second one):

 

Also included in this collection are three lipglosses, the beautiful Pure Color Glosses. Electric Ginger, Star Ruby and Extravagant Plum. I don't mind telling you that I've pretty much worn Star Ruby since it popped through my letterbox. I love the formula of these glosses, light, not sticky and with a gorgeous fig scent. Whats not to like? Have a good look at the gloss in the tube (again, I urge you to enlarge the second pic):

 

 This is so pretty, but not one for people who don't like glitter! Have a look, I love it

Lastly there are two Pure Color Long Lasting Lipsticks in Extravagant Red and Extravagant Berry. I was sent the gorgeous Extravagant Berry which is a) extravagant thanks to the coating of gold glitter and b) very on trend this winter.

Again this lipstick has the fig scent which I personally really like, but it is a strong scent. The formula is fantastic on these, it's really opaque, and looks and feels really luxurious on. Although the outside of the lipstick is coated in gold glitter I've yet to experience any transfer to my lips but that may well come as you get further down but it's such fine glitter I'd be surprised if it showed up at ll on the lips.

The colour of this one is beautiful but sadly for me, as a boring stay at home mum, its probably not one that will get much use from me, perhaps to my husband's work Christmas Party. My annual night out ;)

Here it is on (hastily applied in a not very good light I must add before you think I'm the worst ever at lipstick application!):

Final snap is swatches of the whole lot, Star Ruby Gloss, followed by the Extravagant Berry lipstick and teh palette swatched in the same layout as it appears in the pan:

There are obviously items in this collection that I don't have to show you but the main one on my wishlist is the gorgeous looking Eyeshadow palette which is gold themed. I've lusted after it since seeing it in use over at Beauty Blogging Blonde. Simply stunning and on my christmas list!

The Extravagant collection is available from Estee Lauder counters now.

*Disclosure - PR Sample * 

Estee Lauder Extravagant Night Nail Varnish

This Christmas Estee Lauder are bringing us a glorious and appropriately named Pure Color Extravagant Collection. The shades are berries, golds and reds and I'm delighted to be able to show you the nail varnish from the collection. The entire collection is limited edition and available on Estee lauder counters as of now!

Extravagant Night (£12)  is one of the two polishes in this collection and I think I'm going to find it pretty hard to describe! In the bottle it's at first glance a dark purple with very fine silver glitter. On closer inspection it also apears to have a browny tinge to it and a little hint of goldy-green dochrome.

On the nails there is no sign at all of any duochrome and it's the strangest colour!It's actually beautiful but as I say, very hard to describe. In some lights it's a pretty purple polish with silver sparkles. In other light's it's got more than a hint of brown to it, with silver sparkles. And then when the light hits it really well you see a whole range of silver different purple shimmers sparkling at you.  So, I ended up taking LOADS of pictures and I'll leave you with a few of them to try and demonstrate some of the ways this appears on the nail. Some of the pics are blurry which, whilst not intentional, do show the dimensions to good effect.

Looking brownish:

 Looking burgundy with bright pink & silver sparkles:

 More purple with lots of sparkles:

 And saving the best til last....under bright electric light:

 It's clearly a chameleon of a colour. The wear is average on it, not brilliant, not awful and it applies like a dream.

A gorgeous colour for nights out and parties... what do you think?

Dirty Works Stocking Fillers!

If you're looking for secret santa ideas or stocking fillers then you can't go wrong with Dirty Works products. Pocket friendly prices and exclusive to Sainsbury's which means you can chuck them in your trolley while doing the weekly shop. Handy!

I just wanted to show you a couple of the items I was sent for review purposes.

 First up the Leave the Bags Behind Eye Mask. This is your standard eye mask, full of beads (normally these have gel?). Anyway, keep it in the fridge, and when your eyes need de-puffing then pop this on and leave it to work for a few minutes. I don't know how great these things are at depuffing but I like to have them chilling in the fridge because they are great for migraines! A bargainous £2.99 and a perfect stocking filler.

Please forgive the stock photo, once again I rushed to use it before I remembered to take pics. Anyway, this is the Buff Your Stuff Body Scrub. Its a nice refreshing light scent. A shower gel consistency with plenty of scrubby bits it does a decent job. I personally prefer more scrubby particles and less gel, but I think this kind of formula is popular and as I said, it does a decent job of scrubbing, my skin was left feeling smooth and soft. I'd be more than happy to get this in my stocking. £3.99.

I'll definitely be having a look at the rest of the range when I'm in Sainsbury's tomorrow.


*Disclosure - PR Sample *