MUA Pro-Base Complexion Kit in Ivory

Hi Guys,

I can't believe I'm managing my third post this week! You can tell I'm relaxing and not that busy... Literally I haven't left the house in two days! I have a really sore throat today believe it or not, and there was me thinking I could get through one trip to Holland without being ill! 

Tonight I have a MUA Complexion kit to show you. I love MUA, they're my favourite budget friendly makeup brands, and I usually buy from them if I want to try a new product.

This is the Pro-Base Complexion Kit in Ivory, which is the lightest colour.

Inside, you will find a large pan of foundation, and smaller ones of concealer and a pink toned highlighter, as well as a foundation sponge and a little brush. It has a mirror on the centre part of the lid, the bit that is covered by the silver card in the picture above, and that you can kind of see in the photo below.

Let me just take this time to mention the new white and silver packaging. I love it! At first I thought it looked a bit cheap compared to the black, but it has really grown on me, it looks quite high end to me, and it's nice to have a bit of white inside my makeup bag, because I feel like everything I own is black!

Here are the products swatched on my arm (not blended):

And here is how everything looked on my skin. I primed my skin first with the MUA Undress Your Skin Primer. Then I used the sponge to apply the foundation first, and then the concealer under my eyes and on the inside of my nose. Lastly I used the brush to apply some of the highlighter onto my tops of my cheekbones.

I'm not wearing any eye makeup here so the focus isn't taken off the skin! I hate myself without eyeliner!

As far as this product goes, I liked it. I didn't love it... The colour match was good for my skin even though the shade was Ivory, so I don't know how people with fair skin could use it. My skin is very pale, but olive, not rosy toned, so I think this could show up orange on fairer skin tones. 

The formulation of the foundation was nice, it went on smoothly, and it was a light/medium coverage that is buildable if you want it to be. The concealer was great for my red bits on the inside of my nose but didn't completely cover the grey bags under my eyes. 

As far as wear goes, by the end of the day most of the makeup was gone, but this is a cream to powder foundation, so I expected it. My skin leans more towards the dry side, so if I want to wear any kind of powdery product, I need to reapply it throughout the day.

All in all, this was a decent product. Not the best, but by no means the worst, and for £6, it's ideal to throw in your bag. It's nice if you don't want a heavy coverage (if we ever get a summer - this will be ideal) and the mirror in the lid makes it perfect for any touch ups during the day.

I bought this from my local Superdrug for £6, but you can also get it here on the MUA site for the same price. MUA have got a 3 for 2 running on their website at the moment, so you might want to check out their other products too!

MUA Undressed Palette

Hi Everyone,

I am so tired, this will be a quick-ish post because I need to put my son to bed, have dinner, and then have a bit of downtime before trying to get an early night! I've been trying so hard to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, but TV and the book I was reading was making it too hard!

Tonight I've got something different to show you, an eyeshadow palette! I have always thought that the New Year would be the perfect time to shake up my makeup routine, and going into 2013, I still feel like that. My favourite way to do this is with eyeshadow. It is a relatively easy way to create a look that is dramatically different from what you are used to. 

A little while ago I was on a plane and they were selling the Urban Decay Naked2 palette. I didn't buy it because anything around £30 mark isn't for me, but I set to work researching it as soon as I got home. I realised then that I preferred the original Naked Palette. That was when I came across this MUA palette on a beauty blog - I really can't remember which one it was - and I knew I had to have it! I bought it around November last year and it is beautiful!

This is called the Undressed Palette (undressed, naked, get it?) and the shades are near dupes of the Urban Decay shadows.

The packaging and shadows in the sunlight

Inside in the natural light

Numbered Swatches - Indoors

Numbered Swatches - Sunlight

The shades are as follows (not named, just numbered... how creative!):

Shade 1: Very pale peach with a slight pearl effect

Shade 2: Pale pinky brown shimmer

Shade 3: Tan matte, as you can see by the swatches, this didn't really show up on my skin

Shade 4: Mid-brown shimmer

Shade 5: Mid-brown matte

Shade 6: Gold shimmer

Shade 7: Bronze shimmer

Shade 8: Dark brown pearl with gold pearl shimmer

Shade 9: Darker pinky brown shimmer

Shade 10: Dark brown pearl with cooler brown pearl shimmer

Shade 11: Charcoal grey shimmer

Shade 12: Dark blue shimmer

I have got a lot of use out of this palette in the time I've had it and I love most of the shades. The ones I use the most are: 2,6,7,8 and 12 but I have used them all more than once, even the mattes which I HATED at first. I found them really dull, but then I realised they could be used for a really subtle daytime look. 

I'm hoping that when I improve a) my makeup application technique and b) my photography skills, that I can show you some of the looks I have created with this palette, but until then, I urge you to go and buy this!

Did I mention the price??? It retails for £4!!!! You can get this at most Superdrug stores, my local Superdrug is TINY and they still stocked it. You can also buy it online at the MUA online store. It's definitely worth buying, I would have been happy to pay slightly more for this, it's so well pigmented! For £4 this is amazing, and one of the main reasons I'm such an advocate for MUA! They bring out so many amazing products and I think 2013 will be their year!

That's it from me for this evening, see you all soon! I need to sort out a camera ASAP to get some swatches up... I didn't bring mine with me to my Mum's and the bad weather means I can't leave yet. I don't mind though, I'm having too much fun!

NOTD: Winter is Coming!

Hi Everyone, 

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers. I had a turkey and stuffing burger for dinner to celebrate!

Sorry this post is going to be short, I'm so tired, I've been out all day and it's 11:30 now, I'm ready to collapse! I went to an indoor play centre with one of the other mums from playgroup (and the kids obviously) and while I was there I got a text saying my son's shoes had arrived, so I had to go and get those. Rush hour traffic was horrendous on the way back so I really need to sleep. but I wanted to show you guys my nails!

For this NOTD I wanted something really wintery, and white with glitter really signifies this for me. The base colour is MUA All Nude (so they've finally started naming their shades I guess?) and in the bottle it looks off white/pale nude but on the nail it looks white to me. I picked this up in Superdrug last week, it's one of their new shades. The glitter is from the Models Own Wonderland Collection and it's called Blizzard. I'm working on swatches of this collection but as I mentioned the other day, the weather is terrible!

Photos below show three coats of All Nude, followed by one thick coat of Blizzard. I topped it off with two coats of NYC Get Up To Speed Turbo Dry Top Coat. This top coat is amazing, think I'll be reviewing it soon. 

Flash

Macro - the reflection of my camera is making the glitter looks black

The reason I don't have a natural light or sunlight photo is because there is no sun right now and the natural light was throwing off the white base. 

I think this combination is so pretty, and I love Blizzard over white! I love the blend of metallic, holographic and iridescent glitter, but I won't say too much about it because it will be part of my review on the Wonderland Collection!

MUA All Nude retails at Superdrug for £1, and Blizzard is available at all the usual stockists for Models Own where it sells for £5.

See you tomorrow!

Gradient Nails and Guest Posting

Hi everyone,

Did you all have a good weekend? I spent most of mine with my brother, we went shopping, out for lunch and just hung out at my house, so it was nice. Also, the weather got better yesterday at last! It's been raining every day for weeks now so to have a bit of sun has been amazing. 

Today was so hot and sunny, while my son was asleep I laid out and actually had some pretty decent tan lines after an hour. During the winter I always hate the fact that I have olive skin because it looks awful without a tan... I look at everyone else with their pale pink skin and hate my washed out yellowy face! But in the summer I love my half-Arabic genes, I can be out in the sun for 10 minutes and catch the sun. Don't get me wrong, it has its downfalls... If I'm wearing a vest and forget to tuck the straps in, I have strap marks forever until they even out!

Anyway, onto the polish! I have a gradient manicure to show you. I actually did this for my guest post over at Island Girl Insights (you can see that here) but I love it so much I have to post it here too!

I used MUA Shades 12, Wet'n'Wild White, Revlon Girly, along with a sponge. It's the normal big yellow one I use for everything, it's a car washing sponge from ASDA and I bought it for 50p.

The method I used for the gradient was the one that The Nailasaurus posted here, but I started with a white base. Mainly because the polishes I used had different finishes, so I wanted to make sure they both popped, rather than painting my whole nail with one colour first, in case I could see it underneath, if that makes sense!

Here is the result, I used two coats of Seche Vite on top!

I was so in love with this mani that I wore it for four days. The only reason I took it off was because I had to finish the other half of my guest post. I do two manicures for under £5 and this was the first one I did.

I hope you liked my gradient mani! Over the past couple of months I've had some unsuccessful gradient attempts but I think this was a real success! 

See you tomorrow!

MUA Shade 12

Hi everyone,

Oh my, I'm so tired today! I went to my pram exercise class this morning and I'm so tired! I had my dinner and collapsed on the sofa for a while before writing this! I've got a feeling this is going to be a short post because I can hardly keep my eyes open! 

I have a MUA polish for you this evening. Shade 12 is kind of like a darker version of a bubblegum/Barbie pink and it has a semi-jelly finish. It's not something I used to wear very often but I saw it in Superdrug and it caught my eye enough to buy it for £1! 

The application on this was pretty good. I like MUA polishes a lot and own quite a few. Generally I like the formula of all of them, the only thing that bugs me is the brush! The bristles are really stiff, so I find if I have to go over the same part of the nail twice, the bristles go out sideways and dent the rest of the polish. That's 100% my only complaint though, I love these little bargain bottles!

Here are some photos, I used three coats of Shade 12 and a coat of Seche Vite. Like I mentioned, it's a jelly-ish creme, so I still had a tiny bit of VNL at 3 coats, but I loved how it looked.

Shade

Sun

You can find this in Superdrug where it retails for a teensy weensy £1! It's definitely worth getting for that price! It reminds me of an untried Barry M that I have in my stash (whose name alludes me...) so I might have to dig it out and do a comparison, even though I'm sure the Barry M is lighter...

Sorry for such a short post, I'll make up for it tomorrow, I have a good idea for a post so hopefully I'll get my nails painted tonight before I pass out for the evening!

Hello! And my amazing layering combo!

Hi Everyone! 

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! I really enjoyed having a few days to myself, I read half a book, enjoyed the weather which was half sunny and gave my house a good tidy. I finally got around to hoovering my living room as well so everything looks much better! 

I'm also buzzing with ideas for the blog. I did lots of swatching, enough for two weeks of posts, but I've got more ideas of weekly or monthly features too. I'm also thinking I might start doing the odd OOTD (outfit of the day) and FOTD (face of the day) post, as well as a couple of more personal posts to give everybody a little insight into my life! Although this is primarily a nail blog, obviously, there's no reason why I can't add a few other ideas into the mix for the sake of diversity.

Today I have the layering combination that I mentioned before the weekend. I love this combo and really talked it up (too much maybe?) but I still think it's worth the talk and I'm considering painting this back on again tonight! The only problem is I can't find my nude polish. I'm sure it'll turn up so maybe I'll recreate this later on in the week instead. 

For this mani I used two coats of MUA shade 19 and put 2 coats of Barry M Hologram Hexograms on top. This glitter is like nothing I've seen before in the UK, and I love it. It's holographic hex glitter with what looks like micro glitter. However, I'm not sure if it is micro glitter... The hexs look like they're disintegrating slightly in the base, as you might be able to see in the macro shot below.

Natural light

Flash

Macro - you can see a few of the hex glitters have holes in, but the colour has disintegrated...

Hologram Hexograms is a strange polish. I had never heard of it, never seen it on Barry M stands (and believe me, I'm always at them!) but I stumbled upon it on another blog and had to have it. There is a purple version too called Lavender Hexograms which has purple metallic hex glitter, it's really pretty and next on my Barry M list. It's available on the Barry M website for £2.99 but I bought mine from Nail Polish Direct for £2.95 with free delivery. 

Nail Polish Direct is also a UK stockist for Essie, OPI and China Glaze and their prices are really reasonable for the UK. I'd definitely recommend their website. They offer free shipping on all orders too and the stuff arrives really quickly. I'm eyeing up some China Glaze Summer Neons right now on there!!!

Blog Announcement and a little nude!

Hi Guys,

I know you're probably sick of hearing this, but I've had a really busy day today! I went to town to post my giveaway prize to Charlotte and to do a bit of shopping and I was so tired when I got home. It's about a 25 minute walk to town, which really takes it out of me when I'm pushing my son in his pram!

I have a bit of an announcement to make anyway. I'm going to focus on post quality from now on, not quantity. When I first started this blog I planned to post every other day, but it ended up that I started posting every day and just kept that up. 

This afternoon I realised it's all getting on top of me. I'm struggling to keep my house tidy, swatch polishes and eat three square meals a day all at the same time, as well as providing my son with all the love and attention that he deserves! So something has to give, and that's the blog! I always said I'd treat this like a job and focus on it, but I realised I don't want to feel like I HAVE to blog, rather than wanting to!

So from now on I'm going to post four times a week... I'm thinking Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, but of course that could change. This way, I'll have my weekends off and a day in the middle!

Thank you all so much for your support thus far, I'm eternally grateful.

So... Enough of that and onto the polish! It's just a quickie though!

I've been wearing a lot of black recently and it's given me some staining. Plus I've been doing a lot of preparation for a series of guest posts I'll be doing for Island Girl Insights and that's left me with raggedy cuticles! Sooo much polish remover has been on my skin the last couple of days. When I'm in this situation I go for naked nails, or, better yet... A NUDE! I just bought a new one from MUA, it's called Shade 19 and it's a greige-nude creme. I's kind of a coffee colour and I'm in LOVE!!!!! I don't wear a lot of nudes because I don't think they suit me, but this one really does.

I used two coats for this photo, which doesn't do it justice by the way!

Pretty, shame the colour in the bottle has separated slightly

I'll also have a layering combo of this coming up after the weekend that could possibly be my favourite layering combination of all time!

You can find this at Superdrug where it retails for £1... Go out and buy it now, I insist!

Nail Mail and haul!

Hi everyone,

I've had such a busy day... That's all I ever seem to say these days! My Mum rang me at 9.30 to ask if I wanted to go to the gym so I did that, did a bit of shopping, came home and did some washing, then went for a walk with my Mum and her dogs, then finally at 7pm I had my first meal of the day! Then I planned a guest post for another blog and took half the photos I need... The life of a single (while the bf is away) mother and nail blogger is a very busy one! Now I'm going to sit and watch some TV and eat chocolate brownies, only a couple I promise!

The polishes I bought today evened out at about £1 each which is amazing in my opinion!!! I'm sure my boyfriend will agree too if he's reading this! Most of these are for my upcoming guest posts over at Island Girl Insights but a couple are because I NEEDED them!

Revlon, MUA, 2true and NYC Colors goodies!

The MUA polishes are always £1, which I think is really good, they're small bottles but it means that you can get lots and mix and match. I got the 2true polishes in a 2 for one, and I saved money on the NYC ones because I bought two (one was to add to my giveaway). On my way out of town I thought I'd stop in Poundland. I'm always checking in there for nail polish, mostly because I always hear Americans saying they find great old discontinued shades in dollar stores. Anyway, I found these Revlon polishes in there! The green on the left is a matte finish, and I'm sure it's an old bottle because it had leaked all over the place and was sooo gloopy!!! The other four are amazing though, great formula and great shimmery glass fleck appearance.

When I was feeling stressed this afternoon trying to tidy up, the post lady arrived at my door with some nail mail! I got my two Ozotic polishes from the Llarowe birthday sale and my first order from Nail Polish Direct. They sell China Glaze, OPI etc for more reasonable prices than other sites. I bought one of the China Glaze Prismatic colours as well as Barry M Hologram Hexograms, it was cheaper there than on the Barry M site with free delivery, and I've wanted it for ages so I thought I might as well buy it! 

Here they are!

Pretties!

I haven't done a haul post like this in ages so I thought today was the right time! See you back here tomorrow for a normal post!

Jelly Glitter Sandwich - Pic Heavy

Hi Everyone,

Today I have my first ever glitter sandwich to show you! If you don't know what this means, it's basically a technique where you alternate between layers of jelly finish and glitter polish to create a manicure that has a special depth to it. 

I bought a few new polishes yesterday and chose them specifically because I wanted to create this look. The glitter I had in mind was NYC Colors Lights Camera Glitter because of the larger hex glitter, but my local Superdrug doesn't stock it, so instead I bought Miss Sporty Sparkle Touch instead. Sparkle Touch is literally a dead on dupe for Rimmel Disco Ball which I already own but didn't bring with me here! 

The jelly I'm using isn't a true jelly. I only own two of these and they're both at home, so instead I used MUA Shade 18, which is a very sheer milky pink creme. 

The technique I used was to apply my basecoat (Nubar Ridge Filler) then one coat of Sparkle Touch, a coat of Shade 18, a coat of Sparkle Touch and then a final coat of Shade 18. Then I used Wicked Fast from Cult Nails as a top coat. Even with Wicked Fast, which usually dries really quickly, this took AGES to dry, I guess it was because of all the coats. MUA polishes usually dry really quickly, but the Miss Sporty polish took forever. I'm hoping that's not a standard thing with their stuff because I bought another two from them yesterday!

Here are the results anyway:

In natural light this leans very pink, very pretty!

Click "Read More" to see the rest of the photos.

Easter Egg Nails

Happy Easter Everyone!

Sorry I'm posting so late today, I've been so busy!

I felt like doing some nail art so I've got a really pretty Easter manicure to show you that I did earlier. I've seen so many Easter egg manicures online recently and it inspired me to try and recreate them! I actually did this last night but it got messed up and dented overnight while I was sleeping so I had to redo it!

The polishes I used from thumb to little finger were:

Left hand: Essie Absolutely Shore, MUA Shade 9 blue, Essie Navigate Her, 17 Supreme Shine Simply Pink, NYC Colors Lexington Yellow.

Right hand: Rimmel Lycra Pro Aqua Cool, Essie Tour de Finance, Oh My GOSH Baby Blue, Rimmel Lycra Pro Peppermint, BeautyUK Smokey Lilac.

I painted each nail with my chosen colour (ten in total) and then took a ziploc bag and dropped one drop of the first nail polish onto it. Because I don't have a dotting tool I used the end of a biro pen to pick up a bit of polish and dot it onto all of the nails that didn't have that colour painted on them. I repeated this for every colour until I had done all ten, then added a layer of Seche Vite and this is what I ended up with, hope you like it!

The picture of my left hand was taken in the shade and my right hand in more direct sunlight. The sunlight picture was the only one that showed a difference between the baby blue and peppermint polishes on my middle and ring finger!

Left Hand

Right Hand

Hope you like my nail art! Enjoy the rest of your bank holiday weekend!

MUA Shade 9 Blue

Afternoon everyone! Hope you're having a lovely weekend! 

Today I have a Make Up Academy polish to show you. I actually really like MUA nail polish, it's so cheap and the bottles are a half decent size at 6.2ml. 

Shade 9 (don't you just love that imaginative name...) is a true blue creme. It went on like a jelly and I got a bit excited, but in reality it's just a very sheer blue creme! The application on this was pretty good considering it's so sheer. I used 3 coats and you couldn't see my nail line in real life even though you can in the photos!

Inside in the natural light

Shade

Sunlight

This colour is really nice for spring if you'd like a break from the pastels! Buy it here at Superdrug online or in store when it retails for the bargain price of £1! I can't stress enough how much these MUA nail polishes are amazing value for money!!! As a side note, their clear polish is really nice to use as a base coat because it dries super fast... Who can say no for £1?!