Liz Earl Skin Trio

There is no hiding that Liz Earl cleanse and polish is very popular amongst beauty bloggers! I had previously tried Cleanse and Polish and my mum treated me to the Liz Earl stocking set for Christmas, giving me a small size of other Liz Earl skin products to try. The reason I haven't posted about this sooner is because I really wanted to give the products a try before I told you all what I think. In the set I got the blogger famous 'Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser' and also the 'Instant Boost Skin Tonic', 'Skin Repair Moisturiser', 'Orange Flower Botanical Body Wash' and 'Nourishing Botanical Body Cream'.

I am not going to lie I have only tried the face trio of the cleanser, skin tonic and moisturiser so I won't talk about the two body products in this post, however I will try these very soon and do another post about my thoughts!
I can really see the benefits of these products to my skin. My skin is left feeling silky smooth and I have also noticed that my make-up has stayed on better throughout the day as a result of using these products on a daily basis.

I normally apply the three face products to my skin in the evening. I begin with Cleanse and Polish, massaging the cleanser into my face and removing with the hot cloth (which also came with the set and which can be purchased if you by cleanse and polish!).

After using Cleanse and Polish I move onto the Skin Tonic. I apply the tonic by placing some onto a cotton pad and gently swiping this across my face. Next I move onto the Moisturiser. The great thing about this product is a tiny bit goes a long way. I usually place a pea size amount on each cheek and my forehead and gently rub this into the skin using my fingers. One of the great thing about these products is they do not leave my skin feeling greasy; there is nothing once than a greasy moisturiser that doesn't soak into the skin and leaves your face feeling wet.

I would highly recommend these products to anyone thinking about making a purchase. They really did live up to the blogger hype around them for me and I will definitely be re-purchasing the full sized products when I use these up! You may think the products are slightly on the pricey side with the set of three costing £43, however they do last a long time and I think they're worth the money!

Have you tired any of these products? What are your thoughts?

Samantha xx

Dog Tooth Pattern Nail Art

I'm back with another nail art post and today I created a dog tooth pattern. You may be thinking it looks really complicated and it will take ages, but its so simple to create and doesn't take long at all. As always I have produced a step-by-step guide as to how I created the design; and I have to say a little thank you to the WAH girls as I used their book to help create this nail art (more info about their book at the bottom of this post).

What will you need?

To create this look all you will need is nail varnish in white and black, a top coat and a nail art striping brush. I used Illamasqua Boosh and Scorch and a Nail Supreme top coat.

Step-By-Step Tutorial:

Step 1: Paint all nails in the black nail varnish.

Step 2: Using the striping brush and white nail varnish create three vertical lines down your nail.

Step 3: Next, again using the striping brush and white nail varnish, create another three lines but this time horiozontally across the nails.

Step 4: Taking the black nail varnish on the end of the striping brush draw two very thin lines diagonally from the top right and bottom left corners of each black square.

Step 5: Using the black nail varnish again on the end of the striping brush, draw two small lines coming from the bottom right corner of each square. 

Step 6: Once all nails are dry paint a top coat onto each in order to seal in the nail art and create a shine over the nails. 

And there you have your dog tooth design! 

So as I mentioned above I used my WAH girls nail art book to help create this design. I got this book from my friend Rose for Christmas and I love it! Ive got so much inspiration for this book, so I thought it was about time I used it in a blog post. Basically it is a book filled with nail art, including some step-by-step pictorials as to how to create some of their looks. I used their 'houndtooth' tutorial to help create my dogtooth nails!

What do you think of these nails? Have you created any nail art recently?

Until next time, Samantha xx

Rimmel Apocalips in 'Stellar' Review

Sorry it has been a while since I last posted, I took some time off blogging as I went to Bournemouth last weekend to go back to uni for my mid-placement lecture! Anyway I'm back to blogging with a product review. I know I'm slightly late on the Rimmel Apocalips bandwagon, however I won their nail art competition and was send a bag of goodies from them. I was so excited to see an Apocalips lip lacquer amongst other amazing goodies, as I have seen the hype about them on many blogs but never tried one for myself!
With all lip products I look for three things: strong colour pay off, long lasting power and easy application. Therefore I have split this blog post into these three categories to review my Rimmel Apocalips in 'Stellar' and see if it lives up to my lip product standards...

Colour Pay Off:

I would describe the shade of 'Stellar' as a bright coral. I am loving a statement lip colour at the moment, and this shade really is one to wear as a statement! The colour pay off is so strong and the thick texture of the lacquer meant I only needed one layer to achieve an opaque wash across my lips. The only down side to the shade to me is I wish it had more blue undertones. I always go for colours which have blue undertones as they are known for making your teeth look whiter, and I feel overall they look more flattering on me. However all in all the shade is nice and bright with a fantastic colour pay off on the lips.

Lasting Power:

Lasting power is an important feature of a lip product for me. There is nothing worse than applying a lip colour and it being almost gone in the hour and a half it takes me to travel to work! Therefore I really did put my Apocalips to the test before I thought about wearing it out the house. The lasting power was great for me, after two hours I looked in the mirror and the product still looked exactly the same on my lips! So now it was time to put it to the eating test. After eating the product had moved from the centre of my lips and gathered slightly around the edges, however it didn't move as much as lip products I have tried previously, and bearing in mind it is more of a gloss than a lipstick, it is understandable for some of the product to move/ be lost. Also once I pressed my lips with my finger, to remove some of the product gathered around the edges of my lips, it left my lips with a nice stain! Therefore overall I was reasonably happy with the lasting power of my Apocalips and I will allow myself to wear it to work without worrying about funny looks I might have got on the train!

Ease of Application:

Apocalips lip lacquers come with a doe foot applicator which I found very easy to use to apply the product to my lips. The shape of the wand makes it easy to create the 'perfect' lip shape and work the product around the cupids bow area. The product spreads evenly across the lips and if I did slightly over draw the lips, it was easy to wipe the product away without wiping it half way across my face! As I mentioned above, when removing the product from the lips, if you lightly wipe away the product, you are left with a nice stain on the lips which would also look nice if you didn't want such a colour intense glossy finish on the lips!

Overall I was very impressed with the Rimmel Apocalips in Stellar and it will be a product which I see myself using a lot in the near future! The images below show Stellar on my lips in two different lightings, and in both the product is SO colour intense and vibrant! Also just incase you were wondering, I am wearing Rimmel Stay Matte Foundation in these images. You may have seen me talk about this in my advent calendar post at the beginning of January. I am honestly LOVING this foundation and the coverage is amazing.

All Rimmel Apocalips Lip Lacquers can be purchased from Boots and Superdrug for £6.49!

Have you tried Stellar or any of the other Rimmel Apocalips shades? What do you think of them?

Until next time, Samantha xx

Pattern Heaven Nail Art

I have to start by saying I have cheated slightly here and instead of creating the pattern myself I used a nail art stamping tool. I usually create all my patterns myself with a standard dotting tool/ nail art brush, however stamping is perfect for creating intricate designs which would otherwise take hours on end to create by hand. I have a Konad stamping kit which I used to create this nail art design, and this took around 20 minutes to create.

What will you need?

To create this nail art I used nail varnish in barbie pink and white, a top coat and a Konad Stamping kit. As you can see from the image above in order to stamp you need a pattern disk, a scraper and a stamper. 

The nail varnish shades I used were Illamasqua Scorch (which has unfortunately discontinued) and Barry M Shocking Pink. 

Step-by-Step Tutorial:

Step 1: I began by painting my nails in the barbie pink shade. I added two coats in order to ensure the base of my nails were opaque, to ensure the nail art pattern stood out against the base.

Step 2: Once the base coats were completely dry I took my stamping tools and added to pattern over the nails. To use the stamping tools you first paint white all over the pattern of your choice, next you take the scraper and wipe away the excess nail varnish leaving just the pattern covered in the nail varnish, finally you take the stamper and roll it over the pattern on the disk and then transfer this onto the nail using the same rolling motion.

Step 3: Finally once everything is dry paint a top coat over each nail. This will seal the pattern into place, even out the nail and ensure all your nails have a shine!

I hope you have enjoyed this nail art post! Have you ever used a nail art stamping tool before? 

Happy nail art-ing! Samantha xx

Removing Glitter Nail Varnish

Glitter nail varnish is always the most amazing thing to apply to your nails and add a sparkle detail to nail art, but when it comes to removing it it is always something I dread. There is nothing worse than taking a cotton pad and dragging it over and over your nail trying your best to get every grain of glitter off.

The only method I use to ensure I'm not there for hours removing glitter polish, is one you may have seen on other blogs. All you will need is 10 pieces of foil, ten semi-circle pieces of cotton wool and some nail varnish remover.

I begin by applying nail varnish remover to a semi-cirlcle piece of cotton wool. I then wrap this around my nail and cover in foil. I complete these steps on all nails, until I look like my nails are ready to jet off to space!

I leave these on my nails for around 5 minutes. When removing the foil and cotton wool from each nail gently twist from side to side, to pick up as much glitter as possible. After removing the foil and cotton wool from your fingers, take a full cotton wool pad covered in nail varnish remover and run this over each nail. You will find the glitter polish easily comes away from the nail and you are not left with a ripped, deformed piece of cotton wool like you would be if you tried to scrub off a glitter nail varnish straight away.

I hope this has helped! Let me know if you have any other methods of removing glitter polishes by commenting below.

Until next time, Samantha xx

Aztec Nail Art

With Christmas out the way it feels weird moving away from themed nail art looks and being able to create whatever look I wish! This time I decided to create an Aztec nail art look! As always I have put together a step-by-step guide as to how I created this nail art look and what I used.

What will you need?

To create the aztec nail art all I used was nail varnish in white, black and coral and a thin nail art brush. I used the thinnest nail art brush I had as this helps to create fine details. The nail varnish shades I used were Barry M 'Matt White', Miss Sporty 'Black' and Collection 'Hip Hop'!

Step-by-Step Tutorial:

Step 1: To begin I painted the base colours on all the nails. Therefore I painted my index and ring finger in white and the rest in the coral shade.

Step 2: Once all the base coats were dry I began the nail art. Using the thin nail art brush I took the black nail varnish and created the aztec designs. There are many different designs you can create and I chose to apply two different designs to each finger. The key point here is to be patient and take your time! The more time you spend on the aztec designs the neater they will be.

Step 3: Finally once all nails are dry I applied a top coat to each nail to seal in the designs and add a shine to each nail.

I hope you enjoyed this nail art! If you have any ideas for future nail art let me know in the comments!

Until next time, Samantha xx

My Very First MAC Palette

For my Birthday I was lucky enough to receive House of Fraser vouchers. As I make-up lover you may find it shocking that I have never owned a MAC product myself! Therefore, there was only one thing I wanted to use this voucher for, and it was finally time to get my hands on my very own MAC eyeshadow palette. After watching many YouTube videos, I decided on the shades I wanted and off I went to loose my MAC virginity and make my very first MAC purchase.

Recently I have been loving berry tones mixed with neutral browns, so it was no shock that the colours I picked matched this theme. The shades I got were 'All That Glitters', 'Twinks', 'Woodwinked' and 'Cranberry' (Shades listed in a clockwise direction). I have seen many tutorials and blog posts from people who love All That Glitters, Woodwinked and Cranberry, but I have to admit that Twinks was an impulse purchase. I had planned to get Antiqued but they didn't have it in stock so I replaced it with Twinks. I love all the colours I selected and they all complement each other beautifully!

The MAC eyeshadows make it so easy to create flawless blending and the texture of the eyeshadows make it easy to pick a small amount of product onto a brush to prevent fall down. This means I can do my make-up in any order I wish, without worrying about fall down which I then have to wipe away before I start my base make-up. My colour selection means I can either create the classic neutral brown eye, add a slight contour in the crease and create a more smokey brown eye, or add a pop of berry colour using Cranberry.

If I had to choose my facourite colour I would choose Cranberry. Berry tones are on trend at the moment and I love taking Cranberry through the crease or all over the lid to add a pop of colour to my make-up. All That Glitters would fall closely in second place as I love the wash of sparkle it creates across the lid in a more neutral look! Woodwinked and Twinks are both beutiful to take in the outer corner of the eye and under the lower lash line to create a more smoky eye.

Below are two different looks I created using my MAC palette over the Christmas period...

In the look on the left I used All That Glitters all over the eye and then took Cranberry through the crease and under the eye and added Woodwinked to the outer corner of the eye. In the right look I took Cranberry all over the lid and under the eye and used a small amount of Twinks in the outer corder of the eye and through the crease to add some definition. In both looks I decided on quite a dark look as I feel they complemented the berry tones. I also added a winged liner along the top lash line to frame the eye, but left the lower lash line just being defined with the eyeshadows to bring more attention to the berry shades.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my choice of shades which make up my very first MAC palette. I definitely will be purchasing more from MAC in the future! Which eyeshadow shades from MAC do you love?

Thank you so much for reading! Samantha xx