NOTD: matte candy nails

Primark Haul

Hometown Challenge

Hometown Challenge

• Day 1 – Where is your hometown?

My hometown is Stratford, London.

• Is your hometown famous for anything?

Stratford has become famous for being the Olympic City and London is famous for being the best place in the world ;)

• What is the population of your hometown?

Google is not being very clear but 250000 seems a safe bet.

• What is the best season in your hometown?

Even though it's my least favourite season Summer is def the best season in Stratford because even grime and crime looks better in the sunshine. And everyone seems a bit less threatening. Lovely(!)

• What is the best thing about your hometown?

Transport links. Though I hate to travel Stratford is a great place to live travelwise, whether you are commuting to work or getting to an airport.

• What is the worst thing about your hometown?

The ghetto school children. How can you be born in England and not be able to speak English? It hurts that they are the future. And it embarrasses me.

• What is there to do in your hometown?

As of Sept 13th there is Westfield Stratford City!!!!! Prior to that, there was Poundland :)

Chop chop!

I'll 'cut' to the chase (haha!) I got my hair cut on Wednesday and I am not happy. As we all know, I just hate having my hair cut. I got it trimmed (wash and cut, no blow dry)for £13.50 (I paid £15 with tip) at H2O in Stratford InShops. I always get my hair cut there by the same person every 6-8 weeks. It's a proper granny salon (they don't even do hair treatments) but I love my hair dresser (even though I am always complaining but that's me not her).

Sorry about the picture quality, I guess a non-black dress would have been better but oh well, it's nothing exciting anyway!

Just had a few inches off the back and snip snip snip at the front.

I do have a confession though. Once I got home with my soaking wet hair (it's £28 for a wash, cut and blowdry; I am not paying an extra £15 for a blow dry!!!) I gave myself a bit of an extra snip.

My outgrown fringe (which I tell my hairdresser not to cut because I am growing it out) came to my collar bone once she cut off 2mm and as you can kind of see in the [above pic] after I cut it a bit more it's now chin length.

I always wonder if she notices that my fringe area never gets longer when I see her? My friend says that if I don't trust her to cut my fringe I need to change salons but a) I can't afford to change b) I don't trust anyone so I'd do it this way regardless. No one knows what you want as much as yourself, and when it comes to haircuts it's so difficult to get what you want across.

I don't think my hair is ever going to reach my waist because when it gets near it's time for my haircut. Oh well. Round and round we go!

Review: Natural Collection & Rimmel's matte finish

Hi Guys!

So a few weeks ago I purchased some stuff from Boots and I just wanted to let you know what I thought about them.

[Above]

3 items from Natural Collection, Boots. Cost me £3.98 for all 3 items because of a 3 for 2 promo.

But anyway, what did I think?

Foundation: Frankly, this was crap, but RRP £1.99 who cares! I just wanted to have something in my bag to refresh my face if I was out and this does the job. I think that if you had great skin (which I do not) this would actually be an ok product. But for me, I could not use this in the morning, it wouldn't be enough for me, I would scare grown men. The consistency is a bit runny and so coverage isn't great. I actually really liked the colour and dewyness (is that a word?!).

Concealer: Firstly, I could have probably gone a shade darker but that's not Natural Collection's fault. Similar complaint as the foundation - too runny. It takes the redness out of my spots/blemishes but it's not hard core enough for me. I got this as a possible replacement for my clinique concealer but I am def going to have to invest in a new concealer.

Blusher: YAY!!! Love this blusher!! The colour is really pretty, just pink and gorgeous. Surprise surprise the staying power isn't great, but I don't mind reapplying. Great cheapy item to have. I've been using this everyday. I think I will get the other colours.

Overall conclusion: You get what you pay for. I am not put off Natural Collection at all. I would recommend this for people with great skin who just want to wear make up rather then people who depend on make up (i.e moi!). Also, i think this would make a great starter kit if you are just getting into make up. Safe pretty colours and nothing too fancy.

[Above]

Rimmel's Matte Finish.

What can I say? I love it. Totally happy I finally bought one. I will review this in two parts:

Rimmel: This is a Rimmel product (obviously). You can get a matte finish topcoat from quite a few brands now. I am glad I want for Rimmel as I love the maxi brush, especially for a topcoat where you can just plop it on; perfect!

Matte Finish: I love the matte look. But there are two things you need to know if you are venturing into matte nail world:

1) matte chips easier then 'normal'. Just a heads up!

2) the matte top coat fades. E.g I painted my nails last week and finished off with a matte topcoat. At the beginning of the week my nails were matte green and pink leopard print, by Wednesday they were shiny green and pink leopard print. There are two things you can do about this: i) reapply the matte topcoat, easy peasy ii) embrace the change, i just see it as a 2-in-1 nail look!

****************

OOTD: A medley

Hello!

Had a punch of pics on my phone that never made it into an offical OOTD post but I thought I'd share with you anyway. Hope you enjoy despite some of the dodgy lighting.

[Above]

I've been meaning to do a proper post on the above outfit because it features an item from my latest asos haul (that I never did a post on oops getting sloppy). I am wearing a pair of shorts, yes shorts!! that I really like, with a black bib shirt and a blazer, accessorised with my giant bun and owl pendant.

[ABOVE -me and Marilyn and BELOW - me and giant cutlery]

This is what I wore to drop my dad off at the airport. Just a casual throw on. Felt like a right lump of lard but sharing anyway ;)

Wearing a...cream cheesecloth top/capey type thing with black detailing from Primark many moons ago with black skinny jeans.

[ABOVE ]

In the above outfit I am wearing:

Ochre (or maybe mustard?) top from Primark

Peg leg trousers from Tesco

Tan belt (came with the peg leg trousers)

Black Focco

Very old tan pumps from Primark

[BELOW]

I sense a theme here....

Ochre/mustard dress from Primark

Black blazer

Pumps as previous outfit

I am trying to inject colour into my wardrobe as I've mentioned previously and I think I am doing really well. I still love my all black outfits but I am getting more comfortable wearing pops of colour - my fav being mustardy yellow (is that cheating? Cos it could be considered from the same family as beige.....? IDK)

Hope you liked my medly of OOTD's :)

OOTD: is that an egg?*

Hello Guys!

I am so excited to share this OOTD with you guys!I loved this outfit so much and felt really happy wearing it. And I got to wear a bunch of previously unworn stuff so that was fun. Jesus I am so shallow but whatever.

I am wearing:

Chiffon blouse with dip back from Tesco (loving tesco!)

Mid blue skinny jeans from Forever21

Pendant from Ebay

And once on road also wore:

My beloved Gap coat

Dirty nude suede pumps from Primark

My black Focco

[ABOVE]

Close up of my pendant (and non existent cleavage - where are my boobs hiding!?). I got this off ebay...I can't remember for how much exactly but it was under £2 (inc p+p). The chain is really long (bust length) but I did it up so that it would just peek out from under my collar. It looked really nice like this when my collar was done up all the way but settled with a few buttons undone because otherwise I would have suffocated.

*The title for this outfit of the day is due to SF's babygirl (aged 5). She seemed to find my pendant fascinating and kept asking "what is that?", I told her it was a stone (I don't think 'pendant' is in a child's vocab) and she said that she thought it was an egg. How cute is that!? (I hope she meant it looked like a really nice egg lol)

[BELOW]

Loving my new jeans! I got these from the Forever21 in Westfield Stratford City branch. I will post about my experience in another post but jeans wise I am so pleased! Buying plus sized skinny jeans in store is no easy feat. Firstly, there aren't many stores that do plus size (FYI there is no Evans in the new Westfield) and even stores that do plus size (i.e Dorothy Perkins, Newlook, Next) don't often stock the range is store, and if they do, it's pretty lame with, ironically, slim pickings. But anyway, the important thing is I got my jeans and they were only £15.25!!!! They are a tad long for me, bit they fit great and I can even walk properly and sit down and stand up. Happy days!!

On a side note - it's really weird that my two favourite OOTD's have been different from my usual look. I think I am known for my skirts and dresses but my favourite looks have been my homage to chanel and this one - both featuring...well, no skirt or dress.

This is really sad, but I can't wait until pay day, not for the obvious reason (kerching) but because we usually get a non uniform day at work (actually, we don't wear a uniform so it's official dress down day) on payday and I am soooooooo wearing this entire outfit. *excited squeal*!!!!

Feeling 'really rosy'

Hi Guys!

A big thank you to SF who has made this post possible :)

She gifted me with an avon lipstick (also facecream and black patent make up bag) which I am modelling below:

It is the Avon Ultra Colour Rich Mega Impact Lipstick in the shade 'really rosy', hence my cheesy blog title :)

[ABOVE AND BELOW]

The lipstick bullet is a weird shape but it actually makes application very easy as you can use the 'sharp' bits to get into your cupid bow and be precise.

The lipstick looks glittery but once on there is a slight shimmer (it isn't matte) but as you can see in the swatch it's still a gorgeous colour and finish.

I got this yesterday and have worn this twice now (night and day). Even though it's a bright colour it's a great shade, as the name suggests, it's a rosy pinky red colour, or reddy pink colour lol and for me I am happy to wear this to work.

But my favourite thing about this lipstick is the formula. It feels really moisturising on the lips, which makes it easy to wear. And it faded really well. I know it is weird to praise a lipstick fading but realistically all lipsticks fade (even if you coloured in your lips with a red sharpie it would fade) but this stained and faded at the same time so that I didn't end up with my mouth half nude lip and half red ring stain.

This is my first avon lipstick and I am really impressed and I would recommend the Ultra Colour blah blah blah - only improvement I'd suggest is a catchier name haha (I have a few lipglosses from them which are also great - also courtesy of SF the generous avon addict lol)

[BELOW]

Dodgy pic alert!

I wanted to do an OOTD but the pictures were so crap and not showcasing the outfit so I'm just gonna post this one crap picture (which also shows my lip of the day).

Wearing a chiffon peach pussy bow blouse from Tesco. Really really scratchy material but it was £14 (and I got 20% off) and I like it. I'll try to do an OOTD with this blouse when I next wear it...

Takecare and thank you for reading xoxo

Fun foods

Hi Guys!

This is just a really random post but the stuff makes me smile so thought I would share with you.

[ABOVE AND BELOW]

My lovely lovely friend at work brought me this for my desk. I like cute things, and I love post its. So my friend got me this post it apple!!!!! How cool is it!? (Available from Amazon, also comes in a pear theme).

[ABOVE PIC]

Another gift from my friend (he's my work neighbour) - it's a cadbury's SCREME EGG!!!!!!!! I dedicate this egg (in my tummy) to V, a fellow lover of the original creme egg.

[BELOW PIC]

*DISCLAIMER - I saw/got this online*

Spooning banana's. Nuff said!

[BELOW PIC - Skittles: Crazy Cores]

OMG Have you tried these!? Courtesy of SF I have tasted the new rainbow in town and I love. IMO much yummier than the original skittles (and the sour skittles make my face hurt). The shells and the inside have different flavours (for example: mango and peach, cherry and lemonade, and watermelon and strawberry).

If you don't know, GET TO KNOW!!!!

Sept 2011 In's and Out's

Hi Guys,

Wow I haven't done one of these in forever but here is a September In and Out post. It's that time of the year that is probably more about 'new beginnings' than January is - people going back to school, coming off term time work, weather changing...erm well, it makes sense to me.

In's

Doctor Who - I love Doctor Who. I am a massive fan. And I am a massive fan of Matt Smith. I'm not going to get into a Matt vs Tennant debate here but I love Smith's doctor a lot and glad they gave a young newbie a chance.

X Factor - Admittedly, I haven't been into this as much as usual. I have missed quite a few shows and not bothered with catching up, but if I'm home and it's on I will watch it. I feel that this show doesn't have an awful lot of singing so erm, what's the point? But I like seeing what Kelly and Tulisa are wearing. And yay I love Gary Barlow. Looking good old guy!

Leopard print - This probably does not need to be mentioned but I am loving leopard print. MY phone case, oyster card case, nails, shoes, scarves, shirts; if it comes in leopard print, i want it!

Scarves - Probably something to do with my current chest infection but I am loving thin large scares at the moment. Adding a pop of colour to my outfits and acting like a security blanket when I'm all fluey at work.

Creamed Mushrooms on toast - mushrooms, olive oil, garlic, philadelphia cream cheese, parsley, salt, pepper OMG chuck it on some buttered toast and mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :)


Out's

Fake tan - I don't know why since I fake tan every year but this time it broke me out and gave me a rash which is still playing up even now, I hate you. I still think bronze and beautiful is better than pale and interesting but oh well. Goodbye fake tan!

Droopy crotched tights - I love wearing tights (80 denier from primark best tights IMO) but omg how annoying are tights that are constantly falling down? OR when the crotch is just hanging by your knees? WHY?!

Bare feet - I love winter/fall fashion (hides my rolls better than summery clothes) but I hate winter footwear. Boots are beautiful, but in my opinion they seem to destroy a lot of people's dress sense. I will miss pumps and the like, but even I know that they are now OUT.

*********
Well I thought September was a bad month due to sickness and personal issues but my In's have me focussed on the things that make me happy and it's always good and healthy to count you little blessings (Doctor Who is a blessing? Yeah!)

Ciao!

Westfields - Stratford City

Hello Everyone,

WOO HOO Westfield Stratford City is OPEN for BUSINESS!!!!!!! :)

Ok, admittedly, I wasn't that excited (quite excited, but not as much as people were assuming considering my love for shopping).

It opened Tuesday 13th September. I made a vow to myself that I would not go for one month.

And at about 5.25pm 13/09/11 I found myself in Westfield LOL

I apologise for the lack of photo's but it was so packed I couldn't take any pictures. It was crazy. I could feel the person behind me blinking it was that packed!!

The intention of me and my work friend was to just 'pop into primark' cos we are chavs innit but the mall was so busy it was impossible to pop into anywhere. You just had to follow the crowds. I must say I was proud of myself for not freaking out; I just kept my held down and kept moving, I didn't let myself think about how enclosed I was.

We did go into Primark (it's all right, Lakeside still rules IMO) and we did fill up our baskets but we ended up ditching them (sad face) because we realised that we wouldn't be able to move around the mall with bags.

Once we got to the Primark exit we couldn't just go out (literally out of Westfields) so crowd control meant we had to go aaaaaalllllllll the way around the mall (yeah yeah we did visit other shops just to have a look-see, it would have been rude otherwise!)

We ended up in Waitrose because I needed a sugar fix and yay I got a opening day freebie!!!! Pictured below mid munch - a fruit salad :)

So I went to Westfield on the opening day and got a freebie. I feel on top of the world :)

(So haulage wise I got a bottle of coke, sandwich, pain au chocolat and my freebie fruit salad).

********

So have any of you guys been?

What did you think? Glad it's here or do you think it's a literal waste of space?

Welcome to Wahaca!

Hi Guys,

I ate dinner at Wahaca* for the first time the other day in Westfield Stratford City and thought I'd share with you:

(*Wahaca serves mexican street food. Kind of mexican tapas style where you order loads of bits and pieces. There was also 'big' stuff on the menu in case you don't like to share;) lol )

This is what I ate (with a friend). It was yummy. And actually price wise it wasn't too bad for my pocket (still a major treat for me though). The selection plus a wine and a diet coke was about £13 each including tip. And I feel better paying for food that I can't cook.

And the pork pibil was AMAZING!!!!

The food was great. And the atmosphere was buzzing. We got there at a great time and it was pretty quiet and plenty of seats but by 8pm people were queuing out the door. I would say this is a nice place for a second date type thing or a quick catch up with a friend - a casual but special atmosphere (a step up from nando's!!!) It was very noisy which is why I said second date and not first date (where you would want to be able to talk properly), likewise not a great place to eat to have an in-depth catch up with a good friend (unless you like shouting at each other).

The service....tbh it left a lot to be desire. I appreciate it was friday and really busy and as a new restaurant with new staff there's going to be some glitches but I did expect more. Service was inattentive, rushed, and the food came in dribs and drabs in a bad order. There was a lady on the table next to us waiting for someone to join her and she was there for about 10 minutes before she called over a waitress to order a drink since no one came to her. We had the opposite problem where our waitress asked what we wanted to drink within 30 seconds - er I don't know I've just sat down.

So drib drab food? What I mean is that, as you can see from the menu/photo's, we ordered a set selection of food. I either expect to be told that the food will arrive as and when, otherwise I expect the food to arrive together. Our meat dishes came first which were devoured, And then the bread, rice and veg stuff came last (and half way through I had to cancel a seperate order of coleslaw and I was challenged as to why "because we've eaten everything else" - why would I want to eat coleslaw by itself fool? Especially when I told the waitress at the beginning that I wanted the coleslaw asap.

Er......ok despite all that I enjoyed it though. I'm glad I went as an experience, but I am not sure if I would go again (or not too often anyway). And if I did go again I am just going to eat 10000 pork pibils!!

Oh! And the best thing about Wahaca was the decor. Really different from anywhere I've ever been and they're really into recycling/reusing; the 'walls' leading to the toilets were made from plastic water bottles. Cool or what?

I give my Wahaca experience 6.5/10

NOTD: Green & Pink matte leopard

[ABOVE photo with flash - LA Colors in Palm Tree]

Hi Guys!

I've finally chopped off my talons and given them some love.

My friend at work sweetly left me a gift on my desk Friday; LA Colors in 'palm tree'. Pic above is 2 coats. LA Colors is a bargain at £1 and I have a few colours from them already and most of them are really good for the price (my beloved silver glitter is from LA Colors).

I wanted to do a strawberry or watermelon design on my nail (I like to optimise my short nails before they turn back into talons) but.....too lazy and stuck with what I knew.

[ABOVE photo L-R 12345] These are the polishes I used and the order I used them in:

1) Painted all my nails in palm tree, 2 coats

2) As you can see I've progressed from using toothpicks and blu tack. This time I used a bobby pin (photo BELOW) to draw on my uber messy leopard pattern . I poured collection 2000's ebony into a vaseline tin lid and dipped a bent out bobby pin to use as my tool. I used the yellow bobby pin for the next step...

3) I used Elf's 'fluorescent pink' to make little blobs inside my leopard pattern.

4) I then used Elf's 'clear' to seal

[ABOVE photo with flash - without matte finish]

and then

5) My new baby, rimmel's matte finish to make everything matte

[BELOW with flash - with matte finish - the final NOTD]

No7 lipliner

I obviously enjoyed my time in Boots!

My friend gave me her £5 off any no7 product voucher and this is what I spent it on....

'Perfect Lips pencil' in shade 20 nude. RRP is £7.50 but I paid £2.50 for mine once redeeming the voucher. Happy days :)

I've been wanting a nude lipliner for a while; I only own one other lipliner and it's a browny reddy pink aka not very natural, but I didn't want to splurge on a liner since I don't actually wear lipstick per se. But it's nice to have something to play with, and I have loads of light and nude tone lipsticks so maybe I can try them with my new lipliner.

Natural Collection (mini) Haul

Hi Guys,

As I mentioned in the last post (matte notd) its 3 for 2 at Boots so I also got some other bits and bobs.

Natural collection is Boots cheapy brand of make up and all items cost less then £2 and they usually have a 3 for £5 offer on, but with the 3 for 2 promo going on I got all 3 products [pictured above] for £3.98!!!!!!!

I got a colour foundation in almond rrp £1.99. I am not expecting much from this coverage wise; not even sure if the colour is a decent match cos the security guard was stalking me (hate it!) but I thought that I would keep this in my make up bag or at my workstation for any unexpected touch ups. All I hope is that it (and the rest) doesn't break me out!

This blusher is the reason why I was browsing the natural collection section - this is one of the products beauty bloggers are raving about so I had to be my usual sheep self and get my hands on one too!!

It is a blusher in shade "pink cloud" and rrp is £1.99. Erm, I'm not too sure what to say apart from it's a pretty pink and for £1.99 its good but staying power isn't great but you get what you paid for.

[Above - swatch with no flash]

[Below - swatch with flash]

And lastly, the product I'm most excited about. Basically, for blemishes (aka the craters on my face!) I use Clinique's concealer in 04/medium ('line smooth concealer' rrp £14) which is actually for concealing lines and wrinkles but I find the consistency perfect for truly fugly spots but I'm literally scraping the bottom of the barrel and would be happy to repurchase bar the price so I thought that for £1.99 I can risk trying this out and then if I do end up having to repurchase I haven't really wasted any money.

So I haven't actually put it on properly yet but so far my swatches seem good. [Below] the left swatch is natural collection in medium and right swatch is clinique. As you can see the natural collection concealer is slighty lighter which isnt ideal because clinique's was as perfect a match as you could wish for BUT since winter is fast approaching the slightly lighter natural collection should be fine. Plus once foundation and powder is on and blend blend blend no one will no the difference.

So all in all I am really happy with my £3.98 haul lol

Have you tried natural collection? Any recommendations?

NOTD: matte temptation

Hi Guys!

Finally I got my hands on a matte finish polish :)

(Matte finish is used like a to coat, pop it on top of a nail colour and it will make it look matte).

Been wanting something like this for ages but wasn't sure if it was worth the bother. Well, I've had it for a day and a night and I am happy I got it.

FYI Boots are having their 3 for 2 event on beauty products (also baby products and hair products) so I grabbed two matte finishes (one for me, one for EK) and I also got a 2-in-1 top and base coat. RRP £4.59 each so I got 3 for £9.18, which equals £3.06 each.

(I was initially going to get 17's matte finish (under £4 btw) because it was the cheapest and had decent reviews, but when I saw rimmel's version I had to get it because I love the rimmel maxi brush polishes)

Anyways, enough with the words; typing is wearing down my nail tips lol ;)

As you can see, the matte finish is a...murky whitish colour. It does not lighten your polish, just makes it matte and bang on trend ;)

[BELOW PHOTO] Top thumb is with the matte finish, bottom thumb is without the matte finish...

[ABOVE photo] - Revlon's Tropical Temptation (a corally type shade) on it's own (2 coats)

[BELOW photo] - With one coat of Rimmel's matte finish

Last pic [ABOVE] taken by my mummy, both hands together.

Conclusion?

Ok so it's not curing cancer or ending world hunger but I think it's great and (hopefully) it'll encourage me to use more of my polish collection and it gives all colours a second life. And for me personally, a matte finish is the style I want - crackle top coats, nail art and glitter is all very well (and bloody fun) but matte finish in my opinion is cool and toned down, and with the right colour is, ironically, very grown up and polished.

Have you tried this? Interested or just another fad?