Tutorial Tuesday: Glitter Jellyfish

Hey everyone! Today I have a brand new tutorial tuesday for you, this time for some cute little glittery jellyfish. Don't forget to check out the tutorials tab at the top of my blog to see my previous tutorials! I've wanted to do jellyfish for ages, and I was really tempted to do them with needle dragging but I was in one of those 'it will probably fail so I wont even try' moods, and I'm quite glad because I like how these turned out. Perhaps I'll try needle dragging some time in the future instead. I'm starting to run out of ideas for tutorials, what would you'd like to see on future tuesdays? I only have a couple more tutorials left to post before I need to make some new ones, so any suggestions are welcome. Just don't ask for Christmas tutorials, I'm one of those spoil sports who doesn't even like the mention of Christmas before December begins. Anyway, the rest of the post will be after the jump! I've seen a few of you saying that you prefer it that way, as you can scroll through my blog much easier

Orly Black MegaPixel FX Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have another review for you (I have a lot to get through), using the new Orly Black MegaPixel FX polish*, but this time I've included a bit of nail art. I'm actually really proud of these nails and I kept them on for a whole 3 days! Hopefully you will like them as much as I do. There's quite a few pictures in this post so I'm going to put them after the jump.

Layla Polishes Review/Swatches

Hey everyone! Today I have a selection of Layla polishes from Look Fantastic and Sally Magpies to show you, there's another holo polish, a mirror effect polish, some ceramic effect polishes and a soft touch effect polish (which I think is my new all-time favourite polish). I hope you like it! Full review will be after the jump

Which is best? Comparing Hand Creams

Hey everyone! Today I'm back with part 2 of my new 'which is best?' series. Thank you all for the amazing response to last week's post, I didn't expect it to be quite so successful! I hope you will be equally as happy with this weeks comparison of hand creams. I will be comparing Crabtree and Evelyn Jojoba Oil Moisturising Hand and Cuticle Cream*, Avon Care Glycerine Hand and Nail Rich Moisture Hand Cream, Neutrogena Unscented Concentrated Hand Cream, Clinique Deep Comfort Hand and Nail Cream*, Bliss High Intensity Hand Cream*

Many of you may be wondering why I chose to do a hand cream comparison post, but it must be remembered that hand and nail care are at least 50% of having a good blog, and hand creams are a must

Before I start I just wanted to announce that the giveaway winner Brady was chosen and was contacted, I didn't announce it publicly because I didn't feel the need to but I've had quite a few emails asking me about it, so there you go! Please dont feel disheartened as I'm sure that there are plenty more giveaways to come, and I hope you will all continue to enjoy my blog

Comparison No. 1: Drying/Absorbing Time (After 5 minutes)

1. Avon (9/10) - takes just a few minutes, if that, to absorb into your skin, and doesn't leave a greasy residue
2. Crabtree and Evelyn 9/10 - dries quickly, pretty much the same as the Avon one does
3. Neutrogena 8/10 - pretty quick at drying
4. Bliss 6/10 - takes quite a bit of time to dry (although not too long) but once it does it feels great
5. Clinque 4/10 - struggles to dry, which is really annoying because I tend to want to get on with something after using hand cream, like a lecture or doing my nails, and with this it's difficult

Comparison No. 2: Greasiness (After 5 minutes)

1. Avon 9/10 - nothing there except what can be expected
2. Crabtree and Evelyn 9/10 - not greasy after 5 minutes
3. Neutrogena 8/10 - still a bit of a residue after the same amount of time but not too greasy 
4. Bliss 6/10 - relatively greasy after 5 minutes
5. Clinique 4/10 - still really greasy after 5 minutes

Comparison No. 3: Smell

1. Neutrogena 10/10 no smell at all, just as it claims on the bottle
2. Avon 9/10 has a pretty neutral smell, like very very weak nappies 
3. Clinique 8/10 - very faint citrusy smell
4. Bliss - 7/10 - stronger smell but still not too bad
5. Crabtree and Evelyn - 2/10 Absolutely stinks, if I was to describe it I would describe it as 'granny-like', it's very perfumed and flowery, and as I tend to do quite a lot after using handcream, I prefer a more neutral smell (like the others)

Comparison No. 4: Does it do what it says?/Overall Feeling

• Bliss ("High Intensity hand cream") - Yes, this leaves my hands feeling the best out of all the hand creams once it dries. Avon was by far my favourite hand cream before I tried this but I think this has definitely overtaken, my hands just feel so much better after
• Avon ("Rich Moisture Hand Cream") - Yep, I use this as my go-to hand cream in my uni bag when my hands are feeling dry. It's absorbant and non-greasy and doesn't really leave a smell
• Crabtree and Evelyn ("Moisturising hand and nail cream")- Yep, this really is a brilliant product, it's just the smell that is off-putting, but if that doesn't bother you then I'd definitely recommend it.
• Neutrogena ("Instant relief of dry, chapped hands, just a dab needed") - Yep, or so I've found it to. But my mum used it before me and found it to be quite drying, so I guess it depends on your skin type. I also found that I needed more than just a 'dab'
• Clinique ("Deep Comfort Hand and Cuticle cream") - Yes and no, once it's dry my hands feel comforted, but whilst it's drying I feel pretty uncomfortable, but it is brilliant for my cuticles

What do you think? Do you own/want any of these products? Let me know in the comments! 

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review, and some were bought with my own money, but all opinions are entirely my own

Spotted Rose Curtains

Hey everyone! Just a quick post today because I've left it until late (yet again). I decided to recreate my 'rose curtains' nails for a tutorial for lookfantastic.com and once that was done I decided that I wanted to add a bit of a twist to them. I just got this Nubar Black Polka Dot nail varnish* from feelunique.com and I just couldn't wait to use it, so I thought I would combine the two. 

You can see the colours I used for the roses within my tutorial but the base is OPI - My Vampire is Buff and then I used 2 coats of Nubar Black Polka Dot*, with a bit of placement for the bigger pieces. I absolutely LOVE this glitter, and if you dont own it, you should. You can get it here 

Please let me know what you think of my tutorial, I tried something a little different this time around by not using my full hand, so let me know if you still think it's okay!

What do you think? Will you be buying Nubar Black Polka Dot?* You can get it from feelunique.com for just £6.80 (definitely worth it) and they have free worldwide delivery!

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review but all opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way

Butter LONDON Marbs - Review and Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick review of Butter LONDON 'Marbs'* from Butter LONDON's new Summer Holiday 2013 collection. It's a lovely gold with a hint of silver in it as you shall see. I couldnt resist creating a bit of nail art for you too using my new Orly Dotting Tool* and Orly Striping Brush* that I received from HQhair (a deceiving name considering they also sell nail products too). 

I originally tried to create a design with dots and triangles together on the alternative nails but it looked overcrowded so I ended up redoing it. I used the striping brush for the triangles and touched it up with the dotting tool. For the ring and pointer finger I used striping tape. The black is China Glaze - Liquid Leather 

For me the striper was too long to use as it was so I cut it down, but once I had it worked brilliantly. 

This was just one coat of Marbs* with no top coat, it's ridiculously opaque and it looks brill!

What do you think? Will you be buying Marbs? You can get it here on lookfantastic.com for £12 with free postage worldwide! You can also get the striper here and the dotting tool here on HQhair.com for £7 each, again with free shipping worldwide, and I'd definitely recommend them!

Also, my giveaway is now over so dont forget to check your emails to see if you've won!

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review but my opinions were not influenced in any way

Seven Deadly Sins: Week 6 - Envy

Hey everyone! I'm a couple of days late with this post, I've been enjoying the sunshine and freedom from exams for a few days, but now I'm back! We're nearing the end of the challenge now unfortunately, and I'll be sad to see it go, perhaps I'll redo it next year! We shall see. This week's prompt is for envy and it says 'who would you like to be? let us know by recreating another challenger's work'. I would like to be Ana, who is a very lovely friend of mine, so these are loosely inspired by this design and this design by her, but I tried to make it my own as much as possible.

The colours I used for this were:

Butter LONDON - Bit Faker*

Barry M - Blueberry

Butter LONDON - Molly Coddled*

Essence - Upper Green Side

Barry M - Bright Pink

There were tonnes of Ana's designs that I would have loved to recreate but I really wanted to use my new ButterLONDON glitter polishes (review coming soon) so I decided to create these with a base of 'Bit Faker' which you can buy here at lookfantastic.com. I am surprised by how much I like this polish, copper colours are not usually my thing but it looks really beautiful, as you can see from the swatch below. This was 2 coats of Bit Faker with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat. 

Butter London - Bit Faker

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

*Products in this post were provided to me for review, all opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way