Wednesday 31 March 2010

Do You Dare Go Pale?

You may remember back in February, I wrote about the new pastel shades of nail polish from the Boots 17 range. I was disappointed when they 'launched' because the store I went to didn't have any of them! I saw them last week but was in a rush so didn't buy them. The green, lemon and lilac stood out to me though. They are quite dusky colours which really appealed. My only issue is that I don't actually suit lightish colours on my nails. Although in saying that, I was obsessed with pastel nails when I was a teenager and had all those types of colours, lemon, pale mint green, lilac, baby pink and blue. My mates thought I was crazy!
Barry M are also going pale this spring with the launch of 4 new shades (shown here complimenting last years amazing Mint Green). 306 Blueberry Ice Cream, 307 Lemon Ice Cream, 308 Berry Ice Cream and 309 Strawberry Ice Cream all look totally luscious. The shades are already available from their website and will be instore early next month. I think I'm going to wait and see if they go on offer in Boots and snap up the blue, purple and yellow. I really love the BM nail paints, they are also fantastic value for money.

Video: Irregular Choice Love Games


I cannot get the beautiful colours in these shoes to show up in photos, no matter what lighting I'm in. So I wondered if a video would work better and it did! Absolutely glorious!

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Irregular Choice Are Here

My Irregular Choice shoes have just arrived and I've very quickly taken some images to show you. Unfortunately the lighting today is terrible, actually that's a lie, it's non-existent. Who said British Summer Time had officially arrived?

Rocko in yellow with carved lucite heel. These are a similar shape to my green, sparkly Oz that I got before Christmas. I find Oz slightly too tight across my foot, however Rocko are actually a little on the big side-which is good because I need that.
Love Games are stunning, such beautiful colours and fabric. However, my camera kept picking up the blue shades and ignoring the pretty purples, greens, gold and pink-so annoying. Love Games are of course exactly the same as my teddy pair, but can you believe I can't get my foot in? Not at all. My teddy pair are on the small side, but at least I could get my feet into them!
Toodle Loo in black and white are also too small. If I untie the bow, I can just get my feet in, but I wouldn't be comfortable in them. I'm a little disappointed with their finish. The orange crushed velvet is literally only the insole, the insides of the shoes are plain and look unfinished. I hadn't realised that until I got them.
Thankfully Cloggs offer free exchanges, so I'll send back the latter two for bigger sizes. It does mean I have to wait even longer and panic they'll sell out before I get them! My Matalan dresses arrived today too, I haven't had time to try them on yet. My Dorothy Perkins didn't turn up which is disappointing as the necklaces I ordered were for my Mums birthday today. She's away to Glasgow with my little sister to see the amazing dance group 'Diversity' who won Britain's Got Talent. I asked if they could go to River Island to get this necklace for me, because it is so hideously cute (they got it), so can't wait to see it. Hope you are all keeping safe and warm!

Monday 29 March 2010

MAC Highlighter Teaser

Horrible lighting today, so I didn't get to take the pictures I wanted. Coming soon are my lovely MAC highlighters with a little teaser today. I can't guarantee the lighting will be better tomorrow because Scotland is expecting snow! At the end of March, can you believe it? Living in a coastal, seaside town has it's advantages though because I think we'll just miss it. Having said that, it would be quite fun to get some snow at Easter time : )
Have you made your list for MAC Liberty of London? It's out 1st April and looks utterly delicious. The packaging is really cutesy and the colours are gorgeous. I can't decide whether to be ruthless and later regret the items I miss out on or to just get everything that I like! Example: do I really need Blooming Lovely if I already have Fashion Mews, Lavender Whip and NYX Power? It's so pretty though....

Sunday 28 March 2010

I Want This...

I haven't done an 'I Want' for a while and saw these new platforms on Kurt Geiger and was immediately drawn to the ginormous corsage. Gen are available in nude or black £260. I much prefer the contrast of colours on this pair. However, the shoe I'd like to feature here and will cry if I don't get is Beauty (lilac suede) or Amber (lilac) from the SS10 Kurt Geiger collection. The website is showing them as 'sold out', but I've been regularly checking for months and don't recall them ever being in stock. They are very Charlotte Olympia and I must, must, must have them!

Review: No7 Mascara

I often think it's difficult to make a decision about which mascara to purchase when you don't know what it looks like inside the tube. Nowadays more ad campaigns are showing the shape and feel of the brush-mainly due to the fact that brushes are changing and mascara is becoming a little bit more exciting. Personally I feel that the actual product is the least important part of what makes a good mascara. I tend to rate the brush first (Diorshow I hate you), application second (get into the roots and wiggle lots) and the liquid last. I own almost every No7 mascara in some form (mostly gwp's), so have decided to review them for you. I don't seem to have Lash 360 although I'd be surprised if I haven't received it in a gwp at some point, however it wasn't in my mascara bag earlier today. *UPDATE*: I found 2 gwp Lash 360's in my room-I knew they would be hiding somewhere! I haven't tried this one before, so will be keen to see the results. Full size No7 mascara retail for £10.50/£11.50. I'm going to describe the brushes in detail today and I'll try and review them in more depth throughout the following weeks. Off the top of my head, my favourite is Lift & Curve, which is discontinued ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it" springs to mind), Dream Lash is also quite good. My least favourite is the new Extravagant Lashes with cumbersome brush-total nightmare to apply and the finished result isn't even worth the hassle.

Lash 360: Quite a large unruly looking bristle brush. Apparently made up from different coloured (pink and white) brush fibres and tapered with the aim to add 360 degree volume to every lash.Extravagant Lashes (new formula): Really chunky tube with flexible (supposedly pink) boxy brush. It's made from rubbery plastic and in between each 'disc' are apparently very small bristles (designed to grip lashes whilst the discs coat them in mascara). The formula is very 'wet' which combined with the large brush can make even application very difficult.
Extravagant Lashes (old formula): A much slimmer tube which contains a 'real' bristle brush with a white mascara on one end and black on the other. The white is applied first and the black adheres to this. This mascara adds volume by building fibres upon your lashes, these wispy fibres are visible on the brush straight out of the tube-so you can really see how it works.
Extreme Length: Comes in a curved bronze tube and features a neon green plastic wand. The brush is much slimmer and it's perfect to apply to the corners and smaller lashes. The bristles are plastic and combined with the formula, it's easy to build without clumping.
Full Impact: Now discontinued, in a gold tube with spiral shaped bristle brush. Quite a narrow brush and glossy 'wet' mascara designed to give a false lash effect.
Lift & Curve: In silver tube, discontinued (nooo), does what it says (lifts and holds the curl). Very similar packaging to Full Impact, a slim spiral bristle brush.
Intense Volume: A much fuller head on this bristle brush which narrows to a point (to reach smaller/corner lashes). This is designed to seperate (hence the wide spacing between bristles) and curl lashes.
Stay Perfect: A similar shaped brush to Intense Volume, but on a much slimmer scale. A really thick, bushy head, quite a dry formula, supposed to be long-lasting.
Dream Lash: Black tube, silver lid and bright blue wand. A little more sparse than Stay perfect and in plastic, this does have a similar shape though. Buildable, non-clogging formula.

Saturday 27 March 2010

Amazing Cloggs (Irregular Choice) Discount Code

I've been sitting on this code for some time, but selfishly didn't want to announce it 'to the world' before I'd had time to use it (naughty I know). I'm glad I've waited though and you will be too, because yesterday Cloggs reduced their (already cheaper than most places) Irregular Choice shoes by a fiver each, so I'm saving you even more money. Now the offer is on new stock and is 3 for 2 (getting the cheapest item free). I found this way too good to resist. Stuff free shipping or 10% off when you're getting £50/60/70 shoes for free!
They've been adding to their IC stock over the past couple of weeks and have loads of new styles. You know I was gagging for the metallic, colourful Love Games (£59.99)-so they were a no brainer (they aren't even on the IC site yet). Throw in the fact you get the leg spatz too and I'm over the moon. I also got the yellow Rocko (£69.99) and black and white checked Toodle Loo (£49.99 FREE) which I'd been eyeing on the Office site.
BOS (Bank of Sis) had to help out with the payment for now as this offer is only available until the 30th March, so I had to act quickly. Cloggs also offer free shipping and there are several delivery methods to choose from. I was quite tempted with the new Excuse Me Miss (£64.99) or Bo Derek (£54.99) which would've given me a better deal, however I wanted the Toodle Loo more and you can't sniff at getting £50 shoes for nothing (especially when they're £60 in Office). Of course you could also choose to buy from other brands as this offer is valid on all footwear, not just IC. Please also note the teddy print Love Games do not come with the leg spatz and I ordered them a couple of weeks ago and the print is as shown on the Cloggs site (barely any teddies), so I returned them for a more teddy-ful pair direct from Irregular Choice! The code you need is SUM342, happy shopping!

Friday 26 March 2010

Discount Code/Haul Dorothy Perkins & Matalan

I've been waiting until pay-day to buy some more Irregular Choice shoes. Before I did so this morning, I checked my emails and found a 25% off code for Dorothy Perkins. I haven't been on the site for a while and found waaaay too many dresses I liked. I managed to whittle it down to 4. I also picked up some necklaces for my Mums birthday. The code is DPVIPD for 25% off everything (sale items included) and is valid now until 4th April. Free standard delivery on all orders over £75 (no code).
Here's what I took out of my basket
And this is what I got:
Spotty Collar Dress £35
Floral Tiered Dress £30
Ivory 50's Cotton Sundress £32
Black 50's Cotton Sundress £32
I also popped onto the Matalan website, because I quite liked the spotty dress that featured in their ads and brochure recently. I was in Matalan this week and they didn't have it and the website had sold out. Today though, they added a floral version (I really have to stop with this floral obsession) and they also had the polka dot one in my size (£16 each). I also got this Be Beau dress £22 and qualified for free delivery (orders over £40, automatically deducted at checkout).
I can't believe I've chosen clothes over shoes-it rarely happens! I actually needed to save some money for the Liberty of London MAC collection next month as there is tonnes I want from it. I'm selling some stuff on ebay this weekend, so hopefully I'll get money from that. I hate saying it but, the shoes will have to wait for now, eeek!

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Yellow Eyes and BB Sand

I was inspired by Beyonce to wear yellow eyeshadow today (I'll show you better pics tomorrow). Her makeup is seriously flawless in the Telephone vid with Lady Gaga and the yellow e/s look was my favourite. I used this Poptastic palette from Collection 2000 which I've had for a while but never tried. The colour is really pigmented, especially with Too Faced Shadow Insurance underneath.
I finally got my Lancome Color Fever Gloss in 022 BB Sand off my Boots points today. It was the last one, phew! It's stunning. The swatch doesn't even begin to show the green, purple and gold glitter, so you'll have to take my word for it. Click pics to enlarge.

Monday 22 March 2010

Harajuku Lovers Jewellery

I've spoken before about how it would be easier to set up an automatic transfer so all my money went straight into Gwen Stefani's bank account. Between her Harajuku Lovers and L.A.M.B. lines, I give her practically all my money anyway! My little sister adores the bags and t-shirts from HL whilst I love the shoes from both lines. We own all the dolls and all the fragrances and now there's a HL jewellery line! Big mistake! At the moment it's only available in the US, but we both thought it was too cute to wait for it to come over here and ordered straight away. Karmaloop are a fantastic site, I can't believe our order arrived today (by DHL), only a couple of days after we placed it. Amazing! You can also buy from Kitson and Nordstrom, although we found the best deal for what we were after at Karmaloop (my sis also got HL & Tokidoki bags and a Tokidoki t-shirt as well as a HL bracelet and earrings).
I ordered 3 necklaces and you don't really need me to say much about them, the pictures say it all. Baby is the large pendant that opens to reveal a small mirror (how cool is that?), $60.
G $40 is actually a whistle (yep it works), she is on a slightly longer chain and is smaller. The charm is just clipped on, so you could use it on a bracelet or anything. The attention to detail is beyond amazing, she is actually wearing red nail polish and all the chains feature these HL logo lockets as a closure (super kawaii).
Finally, you know I'm a sucker for pearls-so I had to get this. This unusual necklace $40 features large pearls on a pewter coloured chain with bright pink pom poms and a cute little Love head. I am over the moon with my order and now want to collect them all-I tried to show some restraint this time round! You also get little rings with their heads on them, which I really wanted, but wasn't sure how they would fit (I have quite big fingers). They are elasticated, but I envisaged them cutting the blood circulation off, so decided against them!