Monday Manicure: 2True Glossywear Nail Polish No 9 Silver NOTD

I’ve rediscovered my nail polish stash and found a heap of nail polishes that I haven’t used yet. Here’s just one of many metallics that I’ll be posting about over the coming weeks.

Today’s nail colour is courtesy of 2True from Superdrug and was a bargain at £1.99.

I’ve shown in the pictures what it looks like with 1,2 and 3 coats as it really builds up nicely. The best part is that it’s easy to take off and you don’t need to use the foil method!

These dry quickly too which means you can even do your nails on the train.

Overall, these are great value, easy to apply, quick to dry and last around 3 days before starting to wear. Thumbs up!

Selfridges Treats: Christmas Comes Early

Longchamp Le Pliage and Cath Kidston Cake Stand

To make a change from makeup and clothes, here’s just a few little treats I got from Selfridges during the 20% off week way back in November.

First up is the classic Longhamp Le Pliage fold up handbag. I used to have a smaller version of this bag but much prefer this one as an overspill/overnight bag rather than a day to day handbag.

I go this in the large-ish size in navy to make a change from standard black.

The second is this lovely three-tier cake stand from Cath Kidston. I love cake stands and have amassed a bit of a collection to complement all the cupcakes I end up making! I’ve been looking for some real vintage ones for ages but they’re so hard to find, so in the end I went for this Cath Kidston one.

Did you get anything in the 20% off week?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Here's hoping that 2013 brings you everything you wished for. One of my resolutions is to pay more attention to the blog and that means posting at least once or twice a week.  One of these posts will probably be Monday Manicure with a longer post later in the week.

Apologies for being so sporadic with posting over the last few months, life is mental at the moment!

2012 was a good year, what with opening the Birmingham Made Me shop in May and seeing Coco's Closet grow. I never could have imagined I'd have an opportunity like this to open a real bricks and mortar shop and I'm really thankful to have had this experience.

This year I hope to keep it up (the shop will be open in The Mailbox until June) and make sure I put more up on ASOS Marketplace and on the website.

In terms of my beauty resolutions, I'm definitely going to try and buy natural/organic when it comes to skin and haircare in particular so keep your eyes peeled for more adventures from me.

Do you have any beauty or blogging resolutions for 2013? Leave me a comment so I can be inspired!

Monday Manicure: Barry M Gelly Nail Paint Watermelon NOTD

I know these have been out a while but this is the first time I’ve tried out the Barry M Gelly polish.

The hype: So these Gelly polishes are meant to replicate the high shine finish of a gel manicure. Although they supposedly only need 1 coat, what can I say, I always use 2 to get a good finish, help them to last and to get total coverage. However, you probably could get away with using 1 coat. As always I used Seche Vite base coat first.

This was easy to use, gives a great finish, nicely transparent and a great colour! I don’t usually use blue and green colours but I really did love this one. It’s a dark, rich green that looks like the comedy green colour of watermelons in cartoons! It is very shiny, and yes, it’s a little shinier than most nail polishes but to be honest, I don’t think they’re shiny enough to warrant that as a USP. But, I will probably be trying out some more colours from the range as the colours all look divine!

Verdict: Juicy colours from Barry M in 9 shades at £3.99.  Great colours, quality, application and value.  

Monday Manicure: Nails Inc St James NOTD

After bulk buying December's Glamour (see this post) I started trying out the nail polishes immediately. (patience is not my thing).

First up is St James by Nails Inc. Although it's the first one I've tried, this is definitely my favourite shade of the four I picked up already and a contender for holy grail status as my favourite red shade.

In the picture it's come out really pink, but it's not! It's actually a true pillarbox red as you can see from the picture taken from the Nails Inc website below.

As with most Nails Inc polishes, it goes on smoothly and lasts around 5 days without a topcoat before it looks tatty. I used 2 coats, as always!

Is it just me or are you guys always on the lookout for that perfect red nail polish too?

What’s In My Handbag – Emma Hardie Amazing Face Cleansing Balm and WIMY Code

What’s In My Handbag is a beauty focused website which was launched a few months ago and as well as showing you what members have in their handbags, lets users try out products, buy products and sample kits with bug discounts and share reviews.

Although I signed up before the website even launched, I completely forgot that I’d applied to try this product and couldn’t believe it when this beauty came through my door! Have you ever seen cuter packaging? It even has a little seal with my name on!

Fabulous packaging aside, what was in the box? Well, it was this gorgeous 15ml sample pot of Emma Hardie Amazing Face Natural Lift and Sculpt plus an Emma Hardie Dual Action Professional Cleansing Cloth.  With the full sized 100ml tub costing £34 on www.emmahardie.com, this is a pretty luxury product.

About

Key ingredients:

Moringa seed extract, Wild Sea Fennel and Vitamin E: 

 -Balance, purify and help to minimise the appearance of open pores
Orange, Neroli and Mandarin extracts: 

-Rejuvenates and revitalises the skin.
Jasmine, cedarwood and Rose: 

-Helps to recondition dull, dry, dehydrated and mature skins

Directions:

Mix a few drops of warm water with a little Moringa Cleansing Balm in the palm of your hand to create a milk. Apply to the face, neck and eye area using circular motions and massage thoroughly to melt away make-up, excess oils and grime.  To remove, soak your professional cleansing cloth in warm water squeeze out the excess and gently wipe over the whole face and neck, taking extra care around the delicate eye area.  Use the gently abrasive muslin side of the cloth to exfoliate dry, lined, thickened and congested areas and the smoother micro fibre side for more delicate and sensitive areas. Skin is left feeling clean, smooth and supple; never tight. Use morning and night.

Basically

Take a little bit of the product, pop it into the palm of a wet hand, mix it up to make a milky water and lather all over your face. Rinse off using the cloth.

Verdict

I have literally not spotted using it since I received this and I really want to try out the full regime as I’m so in love with this.

My usual gel/foaming cleansers are fine in summer, but now that it’s colder they’re far too drying on my skin.

Using this product feels so luxurious. It’s a rich soothing cleansing cream that leaves my skin soft, supple and hydrated. I can’t wait to try out the rest of the range.

Thank you What’s In My Handbag!

Don’t forget there’s £10 off purchases over £20 now on using code XMAS10. Happy shopping!

Glamour Magazine and Nails Inc Freebies December 2012

Oh hello fabulous freebie! Glamour has teamed up with Nails Inc once again and brought us four full sized bottles of Nails Inc polish for just £2 a bottle. With an RRP of £11, I bought all four bottles, it would be rude not to.

The colours are Motcomb Street, Elizabeth Street, St James and Glamour Glitter.

Motcomb Street looks black in the bottle, but it actually comes out a dark green colour, very similar in fact to the Barry M Gelly Nail Effects polish in Watermelon. Elizabeth Street is a translucent ballet - pink colour which can be layered for an opaque finish. St James is a stunning true pillarbox red colour that may well become my go to red, whilst the Glamour Glitter is a special edition clear micro glitter topcoat in gold.

Inside the magazine there are so may freebies too! There’s a one use sample of Thierry Mugler Angel Eau De Parfum and Elie Saab Le Parfum, Rimmel BB Cream Sample, Nivea Express Hydration Primer and Max Factor Face Finity All Day Flawless 3 in 1 foundation.

And all for £2!!!

Thank you Glamour!