catching up - it's been a very long week........

.........and a sad one, sadly we had to say goodbye to our cat Ronnie on Thursday. She was 13 years old, senile, arthritic, with a suspected thyroid problem and chronic kidney failure. She was a very very pretty cat and we had her and her sister since they were 7 weeks old and she was never quite the same after we lost her sister Reggie to cancer last year right before we got married. The kitty household has never been without a cat so it is going to take some adjustment to get over the loss. So as you can tell I have no felt like writing much this week.

Still life goes on and so would shopping it would seem. I took my weary hubby and me to Bicester Village on Saturday for a much needed cheering up and some time out of the house. The train journey there from London Marylebone is beautiful and it was nice to escape the city for a while. I enjoyed wandering round the shops even though it was hubbys worst nightmare and I acutally managed to do quite well for myself.

I got

2 dresses and a top from Monsoon

1 pair of earrings from Accessorize

1 pair of Cath Kidston plimsoles

1 pair of Tommy Hilfiger pumps

and

a small selection of Mac Makeup.

Now I have not bought much from MAC in the past I used their foundation and concealer along with the prep+prime range for my wedding and I bought a couple of bits from the Hello Kitty range (more because I am a Hello Kitty fan). I thought this may be an excellent opportunity to get to know a few more bits from the brand. I got the Charming Garnet:Glamour Basics (classic glamour) set and a mineralize eyeshadow in Blue Sorcery. The set included - Belightful iridescent pressed powder, zoomblack zoomlash mascara, black funk eye pencil and a slimshine lipstick in Bare.

All the bits and bobs

mineralize eyeshadow

swatches top to bottom - eyeshadow, liner, highlighting powder, lipstick.

here is the look

I used

Prep+Prime Face Protect SPF 50

Select Foundation NW15

Select Moisture Cover Concealer Nw15

Prep+Prime Powder to set

Hello Kitty Beauty Powder in Pretty Baby

Then I used everything I had bought :)

I have a love hate relationship with mac products, I love the Prep+Prime range but the foundation doesn't seem to sit well on my skin it makes me feel hot and flustered. The Hello Kitty powder does nothing for me, too light for a blush, too dark to be a setting powder not really sure what to do with it.

As for the new products the lipstick is a perfect nude on me and has really good staying power the blue from the eyeshadow is really gorgeous but you get a lot of fallout from the silver. The eyepencil is lovely goes on really smoothly and I would imagine it would smudge out nicely even though it stayed exactly where I put it even in the rain. The mascara was soso and the illuminating powder is gold so it will only be a summer product for me but nice all the same.

MUA - the Superdrug £1 brand

OK so unless you have been hiding under a rock of late you will have realised the Superdrug have launched a range of makeup where every item costs only £1. The brand is called MUA (make up academy) and has a pretty comprehensive range of products including mascaras, lip and eye products. I happened to be passing Superdrug on Thursday and I couldn't help checking it out, there were some pretty colours but nothing spoke to me. I was passing by again at the weekend and my curiosity got the better of me I had to give it a try. Of course the colours I had been interested in has sold out but I did pick up 3 items. Eye shadows in shades 18 and 13 and a nail polish in shade 12.

with flash

natural light

My expectations were not high and the packaging reinforced that, very plastic fantastic and the nail polish is tiny but the shadows are a good size. Nails being my passion I couldn't wait to try out shade 12 and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, of course the bottle felt like something you get off the front of a magazine when you were 12 but the brush was not at all bad and it really did go on rather nicely. The consistency is similar to Bourjois and the shade I picked seemed to be very pigmented so base, 2 coats of colour and my seche vite and this nail colour could have been by anyone. I had it on for 2 days and it wore well with no chipping and hardly any tip wear so I can say I will definitely be trying out the other shades in the range.

on to the eyeshadows, this is the look I did

I have to say the colours are great I love the shades and the pigmentation is not at all bad but we have seen some very good budget brands recently (NYX & Sleek) so we have been kind of spoiled. The lasting power of these shade was phenomenal it stayed in place with absolutely no budging till I took it off tonight and we are talking no fall out or creasing here. This I think is what my main problem was this morning, I used my UDPP as usual and I could just not get them to blend, the seem to stick fast which made the application a chore. The end result is nice don't get me wrong but working with them was a challenge, it would not put my off buying more I just think I have to work out a better way of using them.

Have you tried anything from the range? What did you think?

some recent nails

So here I am again with the nails I've been rocking this past week starting with the most recent. Some good, some bad and some classics, Enjoy!

OK so this was in my set from the fragrance direct haul its a ciate paint pot from back when they were round bottles, the colour is called Jennifer and it's a pinky purple colour. The application and formula to this (as with the Marilyn from the same set) were outstanding, the polish is lovely and fluid and you only need 2 coats (you could get away with one if you were careful) I love the colour of this as it is unlike anything I have already I would class it as a bright but somehow it is not in your face bright and you can easily get away with this if you have a conservative job/dress code. My only struggle with this again was the shrinkage and tip wear, as soon as the Seche Vite is applied then it starts to shrink and after only 2 days you have about 3mm of tip wear. It does not chip or dull and tip wear is not something that overly bothers me it is just a crying shame for such a nice polish.

On to the next from the brand alley haul, this is OPI play till midnight and it is my second OPI that I am not impressed with (first being Lincoln park matte) I wanted to love this so much it an inky blurple with fushia and lilac micro glitter, sounds great right. Wrong! this polish is so thin the application is a nightmare, it takes multiple coats to build any colour and it floods the cuticle. I am not big on clean up as you may have noticed to if a polish proves problematic I will not use it. The finished product was fairly nice more dusty on the nail than the vibrant colour you see in the bottle but not completely hideous. It suffered tip wear really badly which I think stems from it being so thin.

Oh well can't win em all.

An in complete contrast we have Dulce De Leche from OPI. this is another one of my go to polishes when I can't decide what to wear or need to look sophisticated ( I had a VIP customer on Tuesday so needed to look my best). It is a taupey creme and it just goes with everything, it is just a shade dark enough to avoid giving me the horrid mannequin hands look that I don't like and the application is perfect and also very forgiving around the cuticles allowing you so look polished to perfection, I have to say that this is one I will be buying a back up bottle of.

And finally we have the Carlo Di Roma PURE Cosmetics polish in Bright Blue (sale haul from a while ago coming up later in the week). Now you know me, I am not one to shy away from colour and Bright Blue is certainly an accurate description of this colour. I have worn all sorts to my job (mad as a hatter, for audrey, disco ball sparkle and d.c cherry blossom) and never given it a second thought but this one was just so bright I felt self conscious of it all day. The application was nice but the frosty shimmer seen in the bottle didn't come through on the nail at which was a disappointment. If I had paid full price for this I would have regretted it but at the price I paid it is an OK polish just not sure when I would wear it.

Brand Alley Haul

I have had my eye on Brand Alley for a while now and last month they finally had a couple of brands I was interested in, of course OPI is a given but I was also tempted to try Stilla as I have good things about it. So without further ado here is the haul.

1 x Indulgent pamper set

which included

Avoplex high intensity hand and nail cream

Avoplex cuticle oil to go

Original nail envy

Play 'Til Midnight polish

Glamour Game polish

A Ruby For Rudolph polish

Nifty little bag to put it all in

1 x playful pair set

polish and lipstick in Little Red Wagon

1 x Love - ly polishes collection

I Pink I Love You

Love Will Blossom

Heart To Resist

And from Stilla I got their Angel light powder foundation in shade A and Stills lip rouge liquid lip stain in Smooch.

Here is what I have tried so far of course I couldn't resist the playful pair

Killer red lips, this is the smooch lip stain used as a liner and then the little red wagon lipstick. The Stilla is fab and I have used it nearly everyday and the OPI is very nice. The colour is very intense and glossy and the two together made my lips look fuller than the ever have check out my lips here for a comparison. The only think I found is that it wasn't very long lasting and I am very lazy at reapplying so that was a pain.

OPI - nuff said very vampy dark red love it.

Lonely haul

Ok so I really shouldn't be left on my own, the hubby is away on business and I hate it when he is gone so to ease the pain I popped into boots/superdrug for a little retail therapy to take my mind off things. I haven't bought in ages due to trying to do the 10 pan project ( I am actually getting on really well with some of the products ) but I just couldn't help myself.

Heres what I got

The new Bourjois 1001 lashes in black quartz (nearly finished my doll eyes)

Revlon 3 for 2 at boots Creme illuminance eyeshadow in 01 wild orchid, super lustrous lipgloss in lilac pastelle and firecracker.

From super drug some of their mini eyeshadow powders.

1001 Lashes

naked eye - my lashes aren't too bad on their own

With 1001 lashes, I love this the brush really grabs the lashes and coats them individually. It isn't very thickening but it does lengthen nicely and I love the natural looking finish.

Mini bourjois swatches

really hard to capture with the camera as they are quite sparkly. Top to bottom it's 15, 11 and 12.

Revlon lip glosses

Lilac Pastelle

Firecracker

Tuesday Haul

Well I am a very lucky girl today, not only did my E.L.F splurge arrive but the hubby came to meet me from work and we went to Selfridges to get our Nespresso pods. Whilst walking back through the beauty hall ( I always like to have a little look ) I was over the moon to stumble upon the OPI pop up store to promote the launch of their new Hong Kong collection.

Now I was simply content to get the "Jade is the new black" polish I have been lusting after and I was having a look through the range when the beautiful assistant approached me to ask if I wanted to hear about the offers. Offers? I thought, awww shucks here is my wallet why don't you just rob me now. So anyway the offer was this 3 colours from the range (of your choosing you don't have to take the selection in the box) 1 start to finish full size, 1 hoof stick, 1 mini file, 1 mani/pedi papaya lotion and 1 mani/ped1 papaya scrub.

all for the princely sum of £39.95 (worth £64.25) plus they would paint your nails when you bought the box set of you wanted.

The colours I got were Jade is the new black, Lucky lucky lavender and Meet me on the star ferry. Having had my honeymoon in Hong Kong back in October this set is a nice little reminder for me.

On to the E.L.F splurge. I have been hearing good things about this brand all over the internet mainly because of the price point. The normal cosmetics are £1.50 each and the Studio Line are around £3.50 each. I got

Shielding Hydro-Tint SPF 15 in Ivory

Complexion Perfection powder

Eye Primer and Liner Sealer

Concealer Pencil and Brush in Fair

Corrective Concealer palette

Eye Transformer eyeshadows