Nails To Go Dotty For

To celebrate my last day of freedom before I go back to school I decided to get my nail art on. Today I got out my sharpie and had a play around, and this is what we ended up with…

You will need:

Nail prep – Sally Hansen Maximum Strength, Boots Nail & Cuticle Oil 
Base colour – Rimmel 800 Black Out

Sharpie Gold 
Top Coat – Rimmel Pro Wear

Directions:

1. Prepare your nails how you usually do. My nails are still recovering from gels, so I’ve been using a hardening base coat and a cuticle oil. Seems to be doing the job!

2. Apply two coats of your base colour. Personally I like black with gold, but you can have a play around with whatever colours you desire. Make sure that you leave each coat to dry completely before moving on.

3. Get your Sharpie out and get dotting. You can make your dots big, or keep them small like mine. Leave this to dry for as long as you can or else it will smudge when you put the top coat on. If you make a mistake, you can try and rub it off to start again; I found this worked well with a bit of water.

4. Finally apply your top coat – but listen carefully; you must do it really quickly and really lightly. Just sweep as quick as you can and your dots should stay intact. However, if you do do a bit of smudging; just touch it up with a bit of  the base colour to make them dots a bit more dotty. No one will ever notice.

And there you go. This Sharpie my new best nail friend. You can play around with other designs and just see what you come up with.

Half Moon Nail Tutorial

One of my first posts was about my slight obsession with nail varnish. At the time I had around 50 bottles, that has now grown to over 60. I really should stop but I wont. Usually I just do a plain nail but once in a while I’ll be adventurous and do something a little different. My favourite look is the half moon nail which looks a little like this (excuse chubby fingers!)…

It doesn’t take a lot off effort to get this nail look, but I think it looks super effective. Remember to use a lighter colour for the half moon and a darker colour on top.

 

1. Prepare your nails in whichever way you do… I buff mine with a buffer from Boots, and then use Sally Hansen Maximum Strength as my base coat, it’s made my nail strong again!

2. Use a lighter nail varnish and apply one coat (two if you need more coverage). Make sure this coat is smooth or else it will be harder to  I’ve used Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Lychee because it’s a nice nude colour.

3. Once the lighter coat has dried, put a reinforcement washers near the cuticle so the outer side makes a half moon shape. You can adjust them to make the half moon larger or smaller – it’s up to you, but keep the size consistent or else it’ll look weird. Make sure they’re stuck over the whole nail and right to the edges. I cut my stickers in half to help them last longer.

4. Paint 2 coats on the top part of your nail with the darker colour, my colour is the Rimmel Salon Pro in Punk Rock. Let the coat dry for at least 10 minutes.

5. Once the nails are completely dry carefully peel off the reinforcement washers from each nail and use a top coat. I’ve used Rimmel Pro Super Wear Ultra Shine Top Coat.

Et voila! 

July Favourites

Can you believe it? July has come and gone and we’re already a week into August. I’d love to use my superpower to slow down the summer because I’m enjoying the holidays way too much! Especially because a week today I will be arriving in Thailand for two weeks and I’m SO EXCITED!

The end of the month means it’s time for my July favourites... Sidenote: Excuse the blurry-ness of the pictures; my camera was running out of battery really quickly so it was a quick photo session!

BEAUTY

I am absolutely in love with Rimmel Kate Moss Matte Lipstick in 107 (available here). It’s a rich wine shade and it looks really nice with a natural face. At first I thought they’d be super-drying but it’s just right (although it does start to feel dryer as the day goes on. he pigmentation is amazing, and it just has great staying power (trust me – I spend most of the night saying “Is my lipstick still there?”). I enjoy this lipstick very much, go forth and love it too!

I very rarely wear make up in the day so I always carry a lip balm around with me. Currently I’m using the Blistex Raspberry Lipstick Blast (available here). It’s so creamy and it keeps my lips smooth all day. It smells and tastes absolutely delightful.

These Sleek Blushes are just delightful. On the left is Rose Gold and the right in Pomegranate. Rose Gold blush is perfect as it leaves a nice amount of shimmer with a touch of pink in it. Pomegranate is a rich berry colour with a slight shimmer in it. Both of these blushes are really pigmented so no need to use a lot which makes them great value for money!

I’ve always been a sufferer of those pesky bags under the eyes so I recently started using Botanics All Bright Refreshing Eye Roll On (available here). I’ve been using this for around 4 weeks now twice a day and it really has helped reduced the bags under my eyes. It definitely has made me feel more comfortable with my eye area.

Finally, we have Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Lychee and Rimmel Salon Pro in Punk Rock. I’m always all about nail varnish and like to change it up all the time, and these are my current go-to shades. The Barry M polish is a lovely nude shade that is perfect for summer, while the Rimmel shade is a wonderful purple with a slight greyish tone. Stay tuned for a nail tutorial with these two colours coming on Friday.

FASHION

I’ve never done any fashion on this blog, but I needed to share this gorgeous purple lace skater dress from Matalan (available here). I wore this to a wedding last Sunday and it was so comfortable and just the right amount of dressy. I'm not a fan of my thighs, but these skim my legs in just the right area so they don't look huge. I have three more weddings over the next couple of months so this is great to recycle for another one.

I also am not a jewellery person at all, but I am loving these skinny rings at the moment. The group on the left are from Primark (part of a multi-pack) and the others on the right are from New Look (part of a multi-pack). These rings are so versitile; they fit into a casual outfit perfectly (I teamed a few with a white t-shirt and green jeans today), and look fabulous with a more dressy outfit.

AND THE REST

Firstly, I need to share my birthday present from my two good friends. One of them works at Magic FM so he gets to meet all the big names. And he got me two mugs from work. They’re not just normal mugs, they have been signed; the first by ALL OF THE BACKSTREET BOYS and the second by MARK OWEN!!! That’s right, wonderful Mark Owen of Take That (and yes, that does say "To Sarah with love Mark Owen"!). . I actually wept when I opened it. I’m such a mess!

If you don’t know, I’m a huge fan of Mumford & Songs and I absolutely love the new video for Hopeless Wanderer. It’s fantastic. So much that I’ve watched it five times today, and Facebooked it to my boyfriend so he can enjoy it at work. The boys have made a parody video using the talents of Jason Sudeikis, Ed Helms, Will Forte and Jason Bateman. Watch and love guys.

I’ve also been loving my new tv and unit that we got last week. My auntie had this 50 inch television, but that wasn’t big enough so she upgraded to a 60 inch. And guess who got the last one – that’s right, us! We, of course, had to get a new unit for this television so a trip to IKEA happened. And the above is what we came back with. The unit is the BORGSJÖ tv unit in white (available here) and we got two Lekman boxes in red (available here) to keep bits and bobs in. And there's a lovely reflection of my living room in the tv for you...

And that’s everything I’ve been loving in the month of July. Here’s to August!

June Favourites

Well it’s July already… Which means the countdown for my birthday starts – 25 days if you’re wondering. It also means it’s time for me to share my June Favourites with you. This month my favourites have been all about the face. I purchased my first brush for foundation this year, and I’m starting to venture into the world of eye shadows now (I’ve always been a tinted moisturiser and gel eyeliner kinda girl – so this is a big deal for me!).

First is the Real Techniques Expert Face Brush (available here). I researched the devil out of this as I wanted to know I had made a good choice for my first proper foundation brush… And I have! It really blends my foundation in well and gives it a flawless finish. I’ve since bought two other Real Techniques brushes (I see an addiction forming).

In line with the brush, I invested in some Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation (available here). I’m late to this as everyone has been using it forever. I started with Natural Beige which was just a tad too dark of me (but works with my holiday tan), so I got the Classic Beige to mix in and it looks great now.

MUA is a brand that is slowly building up in my collection. My newest addition is the MUA Undress Me Too Eye Palette (available here). As a whole this is great and I have used a few of them together to make a natural daytime eye, or to make a slightly stronger smoky eye for the night time.

Finally is part of my daily skincare routine (a post coming soon); Botanics Gentle Cleansing Cream All Bright and the Botanics Cleansing Toner (both available here). I use these day and night and they just clean my skin right up. I’ve never been one to suffer with spots or acne, and this helps to keep it that way.

Other things I have been loving this month are:

• The return of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model. Preferably minus Danni Minogue but we can’t all be happy.
• The arrival of my friends two adorable Shit-zu/Poodle puppies. They are just little balls of fluff. I’m always too distracted to take pictures of them for you.
• Festival season. We’ve just had Glastonbury (see my fun times here) and then next weekend we have Wireless!
• Arctic Monkeys. I’ve rekindled my love for them after seeing them last weekend.

And that is that. June was fun, but hopefully July will be better (sun and birthdays - what else do we need?!)

Just a Small Confession...

"What's in the big box?" I hear you say...

Ta da!

It's my nail varnish collection! The box is from an old Body Shop gift set, but I found that it's just the perfect size to house my growing collection.

Some people are addicted to make up, hair accessories, bags or shoes. I will admit, I am known to buy bags or shoes on (not so) rare occasions.

But my real addiction is nail varnish. At last count I'm pretty sure I had 50+. The most insane part is that I have gel nails done every 2-3 weeks, so I actually don't need this many. But over the years, the collection has just grown.

Most of the nail varnish I own are either Barry M or Rimmel. Unlike Rimmel, I have never really used Barry M for my general make up needs, however I really rate both of these brands for nail varnish. They're so easy to apply and the colours come out really bright and beautiful.

Here are my four favourite nail varnishes...

Rimmel 600 Deliciously Dark;
Barry M 273 Raspberry;
Rimmel 500 Peppermint;
Rimmel 060 Hot & Spicy

Deliciously Dark is quite possibly my favourite ever nail varnish. It is a dark, rich purple colour that is so ridiculously beautiful. It's actually the colour I want my bridesmaid dresses in!

Raspberry is just a lovely rich berry colour that I love for everyday wear.

Peppermint for me, is more of a Spring/Summer colour so it is perfect for the sun we are (finally!) getting.

Hot & Spicy is more of toenail colour for me. It's orange/coral/somewhere  in between.

What are your favourite nail varnishes?

x

Bloglovin'

P.S. Please excuse the picture quality. This is the first post with my own pictures and all I am using is my digital camera.