Happy New Year!

Image © mako77 on deviantArt

Thank you all for another fantastic year of beauty blogging!

I hope you've all had a good year in 2010, and wish you every success in 2011. Thank you for sticking with me and I hope you continue to do so!

Whatever you're doing to celebrate the New Year, I hope you have a fabulous time.

Here's to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011! Cheers!

Review: Sleek MakeUP Molten Metal - Sound Familiar?

We all know that drugstore brands (particularly in the UK) are becoming more and more adept at making products from high end brands more accessible to those on a tighter budget - some might call it blatant copying, some might call it resourceful to be cashing in on the success of a more expensive product. Think along the lines of MeMeMe blush boxes - if you don't recognise what that's inspired by then you can hang your head in shame - call yourself a makeup addict? ;P

I'm kidding. Anyway, more often than not I tend to find that the drugstore versions of high end products tend to be just what they appear to be - cheap imitations with no hope of even coming close to matching the quality of their high end counterpart. I think that Sleek MakeUP have broken the mould and come up trumps with this offering, though.



No prizes for figuring out that this metallic cream duo draws its inspiration from my beloved Illamasqua and their cult Liquid Metals. I have four liquid metals, but I have to admit that I barely use them because creams, by their very nature, crease! I occasionally use them as eyeliners but they largely lie untouched in my eye product drawer. I knew it would definitely be interesting to see how the Sleek MakeUP counterpart would hold up, especially after reading the accompanying press release which makes some very bold claims indeed.

"The intense coloured cream eye shadow smooths on to the skin like a dream and lasting long after the night has finished. Unlike most cream eyeshadows, Molten Metal stays in place whilst never creasing thus giving you a strong metallic look that will stay perfect."

*Cough*. Sorry Sleek, as much as I love you, there's no such thing as a cream eyeshadow that will stay perfect and never crease. But I will certainly test your application and longevity!



The duo contains two colours named Pewter and Gold Leaf. Naturally, I couldn't help but compare colours to Illamasqua's Surge (a pewter colour) and Solstice (true gold). You can see that the colours aren't dead ringers for each other, but colour isn't the main concern here - performace is! Top ones are Sleek, bottom ones are Illamasqua.



I first gave the Motel Metal a whirl as part of my Christmas Day makeup. Here's the photo again if you missed that post - I used the gold side of the duo and set it with Urban Decay's Maui Wowie eyeshadow, and I used a mixture of Inglot black eyeshadow and a touch of MAC Satin Taupe in the crease. Not setting a cream with an eyeshadow is just asking for trouble.



I must say, I found the Molten Metal easier to apply than Illamasqua Liquid Metal. I have to use Liquid Metal with a finger as it doesn't spread nicely with a synthetic brush (don't even bother trying to use cream products like these with a natural hair brush - NOT happening!), but Molten Metal glided on easy as pie with a synthetic brush. I also found it easier to blend powder shadows over it than the Illamasqua ones which sometimes end up being a bit too sticky to blend powders over. Nice job on the application, Sleek!

As for longevity, I did check how it was holding up in the mirror every couple of hours. It remained looking the way it did when I put it on for at least 6 hours, which I was actually very impressed with. No matter how much of a thin layer of Illamasqua LM I use, it's always started creasing before I've even finished the rest of my makeup. I took it off after about 10 hours of wear, when it had reduced to this:



Not very sexy, but certainly a bloody good job for a drugstore product that costs less than half the price of it's high end cousin. So to say it will last all night whilst never creasing and always looking perfect is definitely an exaggeration, but overall I am really, really impressed.

You should know how much it pains me to admit this, as Illamasqua is my favourite brand, but Sleek MakeUP have absolutely rocked this. Nice one, Sleek!

I don't know if there are plans in the pipeline to come out with more colours, but I would love it if they did. A rich Cadbury purple would be amazing!

Sleek MakeUP Molten Metal launches on the 5th January 2011 as a permanent product in Superdrug stores nationwide as well as on the Sleek MakeUP website. RRP £6.99.

Blogs to Watch in 2011!

I just wanted to take a little opportunity whilst we're still feeling all festive and loving to give a shout out to a handful of blogs that I love. They're not all necessarily new, but certainly deserve a lot more followers if you ask me!

Without further ado, let me introduce...

Beauty's Bad Habit



Lily is a northern stunner with training and experience in all fields of makeup from bridal to special effects and prosthetics. If you like FOTD posts, you'll love Lily's. They are KILLER, I promise you. And she's not afraid of voicing her opinion; check out this post about Dita Von Teese's makeup line!

S.B.V.



I don't follow many fashion blogs, but Sarah's freaking adorable blog is an absolute must-follow. I only discovered her blog very recently myself, thanks to a share the love post on the beautiful Sailor Jennie's blog. Despite that, Sarah's blog has quickly jumped into my favourites list. The girl has a seriously enviable collection of dresses; I am particularly enamoured with this one!

Beauty Fulfilled



Not only is the gorgeous Kaushal full of reviews and F/EOTD posts, but she also posts some super resourceful DIY type posts. Check out her DIY Ring Holder, or the Kim Kardashian-esque hair chain!

Dottie K



In case you've been living under a rock, Kim is basically my BBFF (that's Blogger BFF), so you might say I'm biased but trust me, she writes some of best product reviews out there with a perfectly structured system. And she is the QUEEN of the leopard print mani, I swear. Check this bad boy out!

Lady of the Lane



No word of a lie, Charlie is a true MILF of the first degree. A truly gorgeous woman, inside and out, with a real flair for this whole blogging malarkey. You will find every sort of post imaginable on Charlie's blog, and it's certainly not a 'jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none' situation, either. Everything she posts is simple quality! One of my favourites is from when she did the makeup for her sister's wedding - plus we get a cheeky peek of her adorable daughters!

The Beautiful Accord



If you've been around the blogosphere for quite some time, you might know this Charly as 'What Charly Thinks'. She was MIA for a long time whilst she was bogged down with education, but she's since finished everything and is back under a new moniker! I love her reviews, check this one on N-Spa's Angel Cake bath melt - doesn't it sound divine? It would be great if Charly could be welcomed back into the bosom of the blogosphere with some new followers!

The Brrrds Nest



Last, but certainly not least - The Brrrds Nest. Alaina might be a very new blogger with only a handful of posts under her belt thus far, but I can tell she's gonna grow fast! She can probably rival Kim in the leopard print stakes - feast your eyes on this sexy little lime green and purple number! I for one can't wait to see more from Alaina and hope you like what you've seen so far as much as I do.

So there you go, some blogs to keep an eye on in 2011 if you don't already. Please feel more than free to suggest some blogs you love in the comments section, and I'll be sure to take a look if I don't follow them already!

Festive Face and Fingers

Morning! I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday, that you got everything you wanted and aren't nursing too much of a hangover! :)

Most random gift of the year award goes to my dad, who was clearly running out of ideas and got me a Stylophone, but it definitely kept me amused for ages! He also bought the electronic version of Monopoly for us all to play - have any of you played it? It's awesome, you have bank cards instead of paper money and stuff, and the prices are huge in comparison to the traditional game. I won, by the way, after buying out both my parents, my sister and my grandparents with a grand total of £46.9m ;P What did you all get up to, what are your family traditions?

But I digress - I barely ever wear eyeshadow or anything these days, partly because I never have the time to construct an elaborate eye look of a morning, but mostly because I am much more partial to a black liner and pink lips look. Since it was Christmas, though, and I had plenty of time to put my face on, I thought I'd go for a nice festive gold and black eye. It felt weird wearing stuff on my eyes but kind of nice - perhaps I'll make more of an effort to do some nice eyeshadow maybe once a week or something.





Face and Lips

:: Illamasqua Satin Primer
:: Kryolan Ultra Fluid foundation in Alabaster
:: Illamasqua powder blush in Rumour
:: Inglot cream blush 94
:: Eyeko Extra Glow cream
:: Revlon Super Lustrous lipgloss in Peach Petal

Eyes

:: Sleek MakeUP Molten Metal (Keep an eye out - review coming on Thursday)
:: Urban Decay Eyeshadow Maui Wowie
:: Inglot black eyeshadow mixed with MAC Satin Taupe
:: BeneFit Eye Bright
:: Bourjois black kohl pencil
:: Illamasqua eyeliner cake in Mislead
:: Collection 2000 Big Fake mascara
:: Anastasia brow pencil and brow gel



And of course, I couldn't possibly show you my Christmas day makeup without the nails as well! I must say they kinda look more like New Year themed nails than Christmas, but I wanted a gold and black theme to go with my eyes. Just an old black NYC polish, and the stars are from Bundlemonster plate BM21 stamped with China Glaze Passion.

What were you sporting on your face and nails for your festivities?

Joy to the Blogosphere Giveaway!

Here's my little Christmas present to you lovely lot! I have three prizes from The Body Shop to give away :) take a looksie!


Contains:
:: Love Etc…™ Body Wash 60 ml
:: Love Etc…™ Body Lotion 60 ml
:: Love Etc…™ Eau de Toilette 1.2 ml
:: Pink Bath Lily


Contains:
:: Coconut Shower Cream 60 ml
:: Coconut Body Butter 50 ml
:: Coconut Body Scrub 50 ml
:: Ultra Fine White Bath Lily


Contains:
:: Moringa Shower Gel 60 ml
:: Moringa Body Butter 50 ml
:: Moringa Body Scrub 50 ml
:: Ultra Fine White Bath Lily

(Is it just me who loves how they call them 'bath lilies'? I'm a commoner, it's just a shower scrunchie in my dictionary!)

Let's get the hard part over with, shall we?



Rules/Entry Requirements
:: Must be a follower of Do Not Refreeze (I will check).
:: Must NOT be a MoneySavingExpert vulture or similar!
:: Open worldwide.
:: Closes on Friday 7th Jan at midnight GMT.
:: The first thing I want to know in your comment, is your number one favourite product from The Body Shop.
:: The second thing I want to know, is what your beauty related New Year's Resolution is! Examples: Stick to a strict skincare routine, try a specific new brand/product, do a Project 10 Pan or similar.
:: Don't forget to leave your email address so I can contact you if you win.
:: Winners will be chosen by random.org.
:: Whichever of the 3 winners is the first to reply to my email gets first choice of prize and so on.

I don't think I've missed anything out, but here's an example comment for you. Because despite making the rules as clear as possible, there's ALWAYS someone who just says 'enter me!'. Nuh-uh. You do that, and your entry will be deleted.



Good luck, and I wish you all a very merry Christmas! x

Boots Christmas Stars

Do you remember me posting about the Boots 'Be a Christmas Star' Competition last month, the grand prize of which was a whopping one million advantage card points? Cor, what a Christmas present that would be... *daydreams*

Boots have picked their winners, and I just wanted to share the montage video with you. It's great to see how many women of all shapes, sizes and ages entered :) HERE COME THE GIIRRLLS! Do do do do, do do do do do, do do do, do do do, do do do do do doo..
Sorry if you're not in the UK, you won't have a clue what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with the Boots adverts!



The very, VERY bloody lucky winner was Kylie Martin from Leatherhead with a classic smokey eye.



Here are Kylie's five steps to recreating her look:

1. First step is to apply eyeliner. I tend to use liquid for the top and pencil for the bottom lid. Smudge pencil underneath for shadow
2. Apply light shadow up to the brow line
3. Now get your darker shadow and with an eyeshadow brush, apply along the lash line and blend up to the crease of the lid
4. Apply several coats of mascara, wriggle the wand on the lashes to separate
5. Lips and eyes are like legs and boobs - you don't do both together so keep your lips nude

That's certainly different, I don't know anybody who applies eyeliner before shadow! Or am I just being ignorant - do a lot of people do that?

The question is, if you won ten grand to blow in Boots, what would you buy?

Polish Porn Alert!

Haha, I wonder how many creepy Google search hits I will get from that title.

If you follow China Glaze on Twitter, you may already be a aware of this, but for those who aren't or who missed the tweets, I HAD to show you this promo image for the upcoming Tronica collection!



HOLOS! You know how I love me some holos :)

:: Techno Teal – Turquoise Holographic
:: Virtual Violet – Violet Holographic
:: Electra Magnenta – Magenta Holographic
:: Gamer Glam – Purple Holographic
:: High Def - Blue Holographic
:: Hologram - Silver Holographic
:: Hyper Haute – Rasberry Holographic
:: 3D Fantasy – Peachy Pink Holographic
:: Digital Dawn – Dusty Rose Holographic
:: Cyberspace – Taupe Holographic
:: Mega Bite – Gold Holographic
:: Laser Lime – Lime Green Holographic

Swatches haven't been released, but I can basically guarantee that I will want them ALL. Well, if I had to narrow it down... Techno Teal, Virtual Violet, Electra Magenta, Gamer Glam, Hyper Haute, 3D Fantasy and Digital Dawn. So not really narrowing it down at all. Haha!

According to the Twitter account, Tronica will be available exclusively at BSG from Jan/Feb 2011* and at Sally's Beauty Supply from March/April 2011. I'm not sure if these are just dates for North America and if it will be any later for the rest of the world, but if I find out I'll be sure to let you know.

So which ones are you loving the sound of?

*Don't know what BSG is? I didn't, either - check here to shed a little light.

Easy Peasy Festive Nails: Presents!

I don't often do the same nail design on myself twice, but I'm seriously considering re-doing this one as my Christmas day manicure. It's so, so easy and looks super cute. And here's how to do it - Christmas nails all wrapped up ;) (see what I did there?)

This would look so good with any colour combination, but I went for a red background as that's what I already had on (Revlon All Fired Up). I think it would look amazing with dark green, navy, purple etc. Next choose your ribbon colour - I went for gold (China Glaze Passion) but silver would look just as festive! Start your design by creating an off-centre cross on the nail. I just used the polish brush but if you're not confident doing that then you can use a thinner nail art brush.



Now to add a bow - but you're actually just gonna make a square over the intersection of the cross at this stage, if that makes sense. Just do two small horizontal or vertical lines over the intersection. In case I'm talking gibberish, I made a little picture to show you what I mean...





You see? Easy :) now the only thing left to do is outlining the ribbon and bow. That's easier than it sounds too - we'll start with the bow, so create a like, half-triangle on each side of the square. Then add a little circle to the centre, and finish off outlining the remaining ribbon. You could also maybe add a little rhinestone to the centre of the bow, but I decided not to this time.



Lastly, just seal your design with a topcoat and clean up the edges of your fingers if necessary. Then go show off your adorable festive nails!



This doesn't necessarily have to be a Christmas design, though. If I have an idea for a nail design in my head but I'm not sure how it'll turn out, I usually give it a test run on a nail wheel first. When I did that for this design, I had baby blue 'wrapping paper' and bright pink ribbon which looked SUPER cute, so there's no reason you can't change up the traditionally Christmassy colours for something else and use it for birthdays or anything else :)

Revlon Fire and Ice: Thoughts and Comparisons

"For you who love to flirt with fire... who dare to skate on thin ice..."


Revlon have recently relaunched their classic Fire and Ice lipstick (and All Fired Up nail polish), 58 years after it originally came out in 1952. Reported to be one of the most iconic beauty launches and ad campaigns of its time, the original campaign featured American supermodel Dorian Leigh. The promo images have been re-shot this year by Mario Testino, who incidentally is one of my favourite photographers, featuring the stunning Jessica Biel sporting the classic red lips and nails.

As much as I love the campaign images (and Revlon overall, for that matter), I couldn't help thinking 'but it's just red lipstick and nail polish... aren't they all the same?'. Well, here's what I concluded after giving it some thought.





The single best thing about Fire and Ice lipstick is that is doesn't bleed! I often find with red lipsticks that if I skip lipliner, it'll bleed and feather into my fine lines after just a couple of hours. This one, though, I wore all day and didn't experience any bleeding at all. It was also super long lasting, only requiring a little slick to top up the colour after eating lunch. But how does it compare to my other red drugstore lipsticks, colour wise?


L-R: Maybelline Color Sensational Fatal Red, Maybelline Color Sensational Ruby Star, Revlon Colorburst True Red, Revlon Fire and Ice

Instantly you can see that Ruby Star is considerably darker, and I think Fatal Red is a little more of a 'classic' red. I also think Fatal Red suits me the best as it is more blue based than the others - Revlon's reds seem quite orangey. There's not a lot of difference between True Red and Fire and Ice, although I'd describe Fire and Ice as a more 'luminous' red.



All Fired Up is gloriously opaque with a lovely shine, not to mention a beautiful colour that suits my skintone. But, it's basically just your standard red nail polish. I hate to say it but all it is, is all that I expect from a red polish! It's drying time is also pretty slow, too, so if you do wear it make sure you slap on a quick drying topcoat. Revlon's nail polishes are one of the most expensive drugstore polishes and for that, I must say I expect a faster drying time.


L-R: Eyeko Saucy Polish, Maybelline Express Finish Cherry, Revlon All Fired Up

I have to be honest, I think there's barely any difference between these three in terms of colour. All Fired Up is probably the nicest to apply, though. I can't often appreciate 'subtle differences' between different red creme polishes - OPI particularly annoy me with their billion and one red cremes, they're all the bloody same! But that aside...



Fire and Ice and All Fired Up are definitely products worth getting if you a) don't have much in the way of red lipstick/nail polish or b) love red lipstick and nail polish. No harm in adding to your collection, and it's cool to think that glamourous women were wearing these products (although I don't doubt their formulas have been significantly improved) 58 years ago!

Fire and Ice lipstick is £7.29, and All Fired Up nail polish is £6.29, both exclusive to Boots. Don't forget that Boots has a 3 for 2 across all cosmetics at the moment, so now's the time to snap them up if you like them!

Milani 3D Holo - Hi Tech

If you know a little about the basics of my polish loves, you'll know that a few of my all time favourites include some China Glaze holos. Specifically, TTYL and FYI from the OMG collection - these were very 'smooth' looking holos, for want of a better word. What I mean is, they didn't comprise any large particles or anything. But my ultimate favourite, I think, is China Glaze Let's Do It In 3D which was from the Kaleidoscope collection. This is more a of a 'chunky' holo - bigger, sexier particles and just an amazing appearance all round. Now, these two China Glaze collections aren't available any more apart from online outlets and eBay. I always wanted to get more of the colours from the Kaleidoscope collection but just never got round to it.

A while ago, I did a swap with Kayla from GlamGeekChic and randomly thought to ask for a few of the Milani 3D holos. I'd not actually heard much about them, I must have seen them in passing on somebody's blog and remembered the name. Good thing I did too, because they are quite frankly FREAKING AWESOME.



Meet Hi-Tech. I don't even know if this suits my skintone but I don't care because it's just so cool to look at. These remind me so much of the Kaleidoscope holos.

Hi-Tech is a crazy yellow-green colour that looks stunning in low light but just goes crazy under artificial light or bright sunlight. It can achieve full opacity in two coats, which is pretty good for a holo of this nature, and it dries quickly.

The thing I love the most about these is how deceptive they are! They look as if they're packed with crazy holographic glitter that would be a nightmare to get off, when in actual fact they are completely smooth to apply and a piece of cake to remove. I don't think I'll ever understand how 'chunky' holos have these properties, but they really are some of my favourite polishes of all time!

Sadly there's absolutely nowhere in the UK to buy Milani, and nowhere that I know of online either unless you get lucky on eBay or something. UK and worldwide ladies, find yourselves a swap partner in the US/Canada pronto to get your hands on these! At $5 each, they are a total steal.
Edit: I've been told that Milani is available in the UK from BeautyBase in Westfield shopping centre (Shepherd's Bush, London). Thanks Shortiee for the heads up!

I also have Hi-Res, a purple, Digital, a pink, and Cyberspace, a blue. Please let me know if you want swatches of those ones too :)

Review(s): SLS Free Haircare

Before I begin, if you're unfamiliar with what SLS is, I suggest you check out this post on Lipglossiping where you can can find all the info you need condensed in Charlotte's classic witty manner.

I went SLS-Free with my hair about 6 months ago. I never had a problem with SLS in shampoos and conditioners in my life until then, so I don't know why my scalp suddenly flared up then (I hadn't recently changed my shampoo/conditioner when it started). My scalp was dry, flaky and incredibly itchy. Nasty stuff! It was around this time that I attended The Body Shop's Baked to Last blogger event and shortly afterwards received their Rainforest Haircare range to try. This was my first foray into the world of SLS-Free haircare, and I've tried two more since then. Here's an overview of how each of them fared in the shower!

The Body Shop Rainforest Shine

Price: £4 each (250ml)

6 months on, I'm still very on the fence about this one. It smells nice, almost like nettle, but try as I might I just can't get used to using it. It doesn't really foam up at all. I KNOW that we are all just conditioned to think (see what I did there?) that mounds of foam on your head equals a good cleaning for your hair but it's very easy to use a lot more of the shampoo than necessary. I don't know if it's just me, but I impulsively pile more on in the hopes of creating a luscious later but to no avail. It also makes my hair INCREDIBLY tangled and difficult to manage. You'd hope the conditioner would help with tangles and smooth down the frizz that the shampoo creates, but apparently not. The conditioner doesn't really appear to do much at all. I'm still puzzled as to how the shampoo manages to make my hair a bit frizzy - I have oily hair and it's never been frizzy in my life! All in all, a reasonable pair which deserve 3 stars for a good, albeit almost foamless clean and a good price.

Burt's Bees Very Volumizing

Price: £9.99 each (354ml)

Let's get the price tag out of the way - OUCH. I received these from Burt's Bees to review some while ago and I'm glad I did, because I never would have paid £20 to try new shampoo and conditioner without knowing what they were like. But it does appear that you get what you pay for - I absolutely cannot fault these. The 'Very Volumizing' products are scented with pomegranate and soy, and oh my word it smells delicious. The shampoo gives a nice later with only a small amount, and leaves my hair squeaky clean. The conditioner is pretty much standard, it doesn't do anything spectacular for my hair but it's just nice to use matching products, isn't it? I can't say much about the volume claim as my hair is so thick anyway that it's very voluminous on its own. If you'd have asked me a few months ago whether I'd pay a tenner for shampoo, I would have laughed in your face but I am a convert. I plan to repurchase Burt's Bees shampoo although I will perhaps stick with a cheaper conditioner. Whilst confirming the price of these on the website, I noticed they also do a 'Colour Keeper' range with green tea and fennel seed which I may try instead as I've dyed my hair dark since starting to use this.

Naked Colour Protect

Price: £3.99 each (250ml)

DON'T. GO. THERE. I hate these. My Burt's Bees stuff started running low around the time I dyed my hair, so I decided to give these a go as they are much cheaper. I bought them in Boots, and sniffed the conditioner rather than the shampoo to check I liked the scent before buying 'cause the shampoo has a seal thing on it and I hate to open sealed things in shops. Bad move - the conditioner smells lovely but I HATE the smell of the shampoo. It's like cinnamon but not in a nice way, and also a bit like aniseed or something. But I could see (sniff?) past the scent if they did a good job - which sadly they don't. Residue city! It's disgusting. The first time I used it, I started to blow dry my hair after my shower and realised my hair still felt really greasy. I originally thought I'd just somehow managed to not rinse the conditioner out properly, so I was very thorough with my next shower. Nope, same problem. Next time, I skipped the conditioner altogether, assuming that was the culprit and figuring I could cope one time without conditioner as my hair tends to get greasy quickly anyway. But NO! The shampoo is just as bad. No matter how thoroughly and vigorously I rinse, this leaves disgusting, greasy residue in my hair. I simply can't use it. *Vom*

So there's my thoughts on these three pairs of products. Burt's Bees comes highly recommended from me if you don't mind paying a bit more for your haircare, but The Body Shop is also worth a try on a smaller budget.

Have you tried any SLS-free haircare you could recommend to me? I'm still on the lookout for cheap products that work wonders! Unfortunately most Lush shampoos contain SLS, which sucks because I used to love the solid ones when I worked there. Anyway, fire away if you have any recommendations for me!

I know you can't see anything! (UPDATED)

Evening ladies!

A quick apology - I know that my background isn't showing up, and nor are any of my images. My images are hosted on a server belonging to one of Colin's friends in America, and he hasn't been online in two days.

I'm looking to change my hosting, I've had too many problems with this. I do get it free from Colin's friend but I'd rather pay for hosting than have my images become unviewable every few weeks - I don't know about you lot but it drives me absolutely mad!

So unfortunately, until the guy shows up online, there's nothing I can do about it! With any luck he'll turn up this evening and I can try and get it sorted for you but until it's fixed, I'm really sorry!

If anyone has any recommendations for (preferably cheap) hosting, please let me know! I mean 'proper' hosting, I can't use any of the image hosts like Photobucket because I exceed the montly bandwidth limit within a few days.

EDIT: I think we're pretty much set for now! I ended up buying a year's worth of Photobucket pro - I had originally disregarded that as an option as I assumed I'd be able to find something cheaper, but it was actually a fantastic price and it's convenient for me. I've uploaded all my blog photos from the last 6 months (I started using that other server in July, all images prior to that were hosted on a free Photobucket account anyway), and am now in the process of going back through all my posts and editing the image URLs. I've done all of December and November, and will work back through the other months over the coming week. Panic over!

Review/Dupe Hunt: Nails Supreme... or should I say Migi?

Ooh, I'm not sure where to start with this one! ...How about at the beginning, that would make sense wouldn't it?

About six weeks ago I had a random but compelling urge to get my hands on Migi nail art pens. I'm sure you'll have heard of these - if not, here's their website. I used to own a whole ton of generic eBay nail art pens but the quality of them was just abysmal so I wanted something reputable. Anyway, I searched high and low all over the internet for where I could get hold of them in the UK. Even eBay and Amazon came up short, and when I asked my fellow UK blogger/Youtuber Klaire de Lys where she got hers, they turned out to be PR samples so she didn't know how I could get hold of them either! I sent Migi a message via the contact form on the website (no direct email address) to ask about where UK consumers could purchase them, and also left them messages on their Twitter but never had any replies. In the end, I thought 'sod it' and set about looking for an alternative!

I ended up finding Nails Supreme, and grabbed both the Matt (#1) and Metallic (#2) sets from this UK seller on eBay at £36 for both. Not bad for 20 different colours, really! I wasn't sure what to expect but I was definitely pleased. Here, take a little look.









As you can see, all (well, most - not so much the pearly coloured ones from #2) of the colours are wonderfully opaque; no wishy-washy eBay watery rubbish here! They come with a regular sized polish brush for painting a base colour, and a tiny nib for intricate designs. If I could make one criticism here, I'd LOVE it if they had a thin striper brush rather than a regular brush. Stripers are so useful!




Here's the kicker - they are absolutely identical to Migi's pens except for the name printed on the barrel. Pens by both brands are interchangeable - they unscrew in the middle so you can switch colours around. Both brands have small flowers round the cap. Both brands include 4.8ml of polish in each pen. Even the boxes are stupidly similar!




It's very, very obvious that these come from the same manufacturer. Despite this, when I googled it to see what other people had said, I couldn't find ANYTHING about it - I surely can't be the only one who's noticed this?

Migi do have a much wider range of colours - I think they have 5 permanent sets and they often have limited edition holiday sets, whereas as far as I can tell Nails Supreme just have the two sets. Shame really, 'cause I really like the look of the Migi pastel set!

Regardless of where or who they came from, I think these are fantastic pens and super versatile. I definitely recommend them - the seller I used on eBay was excellent (they were with me two days after ordering) and you can order the sets separately if you only want one rather than jumping in at the deep end and buying both like I did. Although, if you don't want to own that many colours and would perhaps just like to start off with black and white, I'd recommend the Models Own ones instead. You can see a post featuring one here.

Pros
:: They are basically Migi nail art pens!
:: Super opaque
:: Quick drying
:: Reasonable value for money
:: Imagination is all that's needed for limitless designs
:: Sets come with a little book of nail designs for beginners

Cons
:: They could really do with a striper brush instead of a regular brush
:: Set should also include a pin to unblock pens when required

Have you tried Migi/Nails Supreme pens? What did you think?

Easy Peasy Festive Flowers

Here's the next instalment of festive nail designs - really hope you enjoy, and maybe give it a try yourself! :D

As always, start with a clear base coat. If your nails are stained and nasty like mine, you might also want to throw on a coat of a French manicure polish to help disguise the yellow-ness. I put on a coat of Eyeko's Petite Polish, but if you have nice, healthy looking nails you won't need the French polish.

Once your base is dry, add green tips to your nails. Green glitter is the most festive I think, but if you haven't got one then any dark green will do! I used China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. Do the tips in whatever way you find easiest - you could use a striper brush to mark the outline of the tip first, or use tip guide stickers. There's even a Konad plate (M19) to do tips. Or you can just freehand it like I did - whatever works for you!



Once the tips are dry, add some sort of red flowers to one side/corner of each nail in whatever method you choose. I picked Eyeko Saucy Polish for this. I was lazy this time and stamped the flowers (fauxnad plate BM16) but you could maybe use red stickers or water decals, or go freehand. There's a lot of different types of flowers you can do freehand - please let me know in the comments if you'd like a post on that :)



When your flowers are dry, you can embellish them a little if you like. I dotted the centre of each flower with a gold nail art pen and, for an extra sparkly touch, placed a gold rhinestone in the centre of the biggest flower on each nail.



Seal with a topcoat, clean up the edges et voila!

I really hope you enjoyed this. Have you decided what you'll be wearing on your nails for the 25th yet? Emerald Sparkle is my absolute favourite Christmas polish (although I'd love to own Party Hearty, also by China Glaze) but I wore it last Christmas, so might go for Ruby Pumps this year. I'm still undecided! Only two weeks to go!