Happy New Year everyone!
I know I am a bit late with my beauty Christmas haul, but I didn’t want my post to be lost in a sea of Christmas present posts & I was having far too much fun over Christmas and New Year to even attempt to write this – hence now I am back at work and writing it :/
I didn’t get too much in the way of beauty pieces this year, I mainly asked for money for my upcoming holiday TO VEGAS!!!! I also got a new camera to take with me so the rest were just bits and bobs.
To start off, my sister did me proud with the presents this year. As well as a few books she made me a beauty box of all different little bits inside and I loved it! I have swatched the polishes, but the box in total contained the following:
1x Clarins Satin Smooth Body Lotion
1x Clarins Hand and Nail Treatment Cream
1x Clarins Beauty Flash Balm
1x Clarins One Step Gentle Exfoliating Cleanser
1x Clarins Mascara
1x Clarins Lipstick
1x OPI Polish in ‘Who The Shrek Are You’
1x OPI Polish in ‘Servin’ Up Sparkle’
1x OPI Polish in ‘Bullish on OPI’
1x W7 Polish in ‘Gold Dazzle’
1x W7 Polish in ‘Teal’
1x W7 Polish in ‘Metallic Mercury’
1x Models Own Polish in ‘Lemon Meringue’
1x Nail Art Gems
1x Nail Glue
1x Set of miniature nail files
1x Large nail file
1x Manicure Stick
As you can see it was quite a haul in this box and I really liked it. I haven’t had a chance to properly try all the Clarins products yet, but I’ve had a go of some of them. The exfoliator smells absolutely beautiful and I scrubbed the back of my hand with it a little bit and it felt so smooth afterwards – not the best advert for it but i’ll have a go and let you know my thoughts with it properly. The Hand and Nail treatment cream I have used, and it left my hands feeling really soft. My nails are really weak and tend to flake because I bit them for years and then suddenly stopped and have painted them literally every day since. The treatment cream makes your hands soft and softens your cuticles but also claims to strengthen your nails too – I have used it a little bit as I hardly ever use hand cream and it is good, but I haven’t had the bottle to leave my nails unpainted yet and whacked some of this on – I think i’ll have to wait until I am ill and not planning on leaving the house for a couple of days to try that one!
I needed a new mascara as I have been using the False Lash Effect mascara from Max Factor for ages so wanted to try a new one. The one I got in my box was ‘Wonder Perfect’ mascara. When I initially opened it it seemed really thick and gloopy, and that made me a bit paranoid as there is nothing worse than mascara that clogs up your eyelashes and makes it look like you only have about 5. I tried it though and I liked the results – I used eyelash curlers as although I have long eyelashes they aren’t very curly, but i’ve attached a before and after picture so you can see the difference!
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| Before |
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| After |
I quite like the colour of the lipstick too. I normally wear deep red lipsticks when I go out but I like this one as although it’s a nice strong colour, it’s not TOO in your face – this is perfect for me if I am going out after work and I want to wear a nice lip colour but don’t want it to be too in your face for the office. I did half and half so you can see the colour variation between my natural lip colour and the lipstick. All in all nice work from my sister me thinks!
Next up, we have the polishes...
I was really impressed with the ‘Who The Shrek Are You’ polish. Initially I didn’t think I was that keen on the colour and thought it was the sort of polish that would make your nails look like they had some fungal infection, but once it was on I was really impressed. In the picture I have 2 coats, and as you can see it’s a nice thick block colour and it’s not as fungus looking as I initially thought. Will definitely be busting this out in Spring!
I love ‘Servin’ Up Sparkle’ – My sister said she had been trying to track down Rainbow Connection from the Muppets OPI Collection for me but it’s sold out everywhere. My friend Emma is a beautician had it so I borrowed some off her for my Xmas Eve nails but I still can’t find my own bottle anywhere, which is really annoying as I want it desperately! Anyway, I love Rainbow Connection because as well as multi coloured glitter, I love the different size chunks within the polish. Although Servin’ Up Sparkle is all silver, this has the same multi sized chunks within – as you can see from my nails I like the effect it has, I find normal glitter polishes look too ‘neat’ whereas the different sizes in this one give it a bit more of an edge! I do like a nice bit of silver glitty over a bold colour underneath too, and I think it goes perfectly with the Shrek polish!
‘Bullish on OPI’ is a standard red polish. I like red nails but I don’t like really deep reds, reminds me a bit too much of Bett Lynch. The reds I tend to go for have a bit of an underlying tone of pink in them, and luckily for me this one has a pinky base tone. This layering in the picture is only 1 coat, so you can see how thick and bold the colour is. One more coat might have made it a deeper red, but I liked it like this – minimum effort, maximum colour!
Before the Muppets collection came out I hadn’t really tried OPI polishes, and i’m not even sure why. I think I had borrowed one off Emma before and it was a bit gloopy and even after I assumed it had dried, the polish kept denting like it was really thick and wouldn’t set and that put me off. The Shrek polish has impressed me greatly, and you all know how much I love Rainbow Connection - I think on payday I am going to go and have a OPI splurge, they have some lovely colours and I love the whole Muppets collection so I think that might be my first port of call.
The W7 polishes were also a nice surprise for me. I hadn’t used W7 Cosmetics before, although if I remember rightly they were at the BNTM Live event and I checked out some of their eyeshadow compacts. I assumed W7 were a bit of a knock off OPI so wasn’t sure how the varnishes were going on come out, but I really liked them all. The gold one is perfect if you are feeling a bit festive, and although the blue isn’t really my colour I think that would be lovely on your toes on holiday, nice deep sea blue colour. The browny purple is nice as it has an underlying glitter tone in it – it’s very apparent in the picture but it’s not as in your face sparkly in real life, so it’s a little bit of sass on the quiet when you are at work J
Last but not least, my mum surprised me with the Soap and Glory Big Splendour set. Every year at Christmas my sister and I wait with baited breath for the last Better Than Half Price offer from Boots because it’s always the biggest Soap and Glory set they do. I remember the year it was the Hat Box, I searched all over Canary Wharf for it and they had sold out, so hot footed it to Lakeside after work and managed to snag the last 2 – This year wasn’t a disappointment! I thought my mum had just bought it for my sister so this was a lovely surprise on Xmas morning. The bottles in this set are HUGE, and there are so many different products in it. Body butter, exfoliator, face wash, face wipes, hand cream, foot cream, shower gel, bubble bath. I will take great pleasure in trying all this out, but haven’t had a chance yet as I haven’t had the luxury of having long relaxing baths as i’ve been so busy and normally have somewhere to be! When I try them all I’’ll do a review...
Anyway, that was my Xmas beauty haul. What did you all get for Xmas? Any new beauty products you are really impressed with? I am always on the look out to try and review new things, so if you have anything good that you think i’d enjoy feel free to let me know J
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