OPI - Fragrance Direct

OPI nail polishes are currently £3.99 on Fragrance Direct so of course I had to treat myself to a few. I usually buy them from ASOS (I particularly love the mini collections), but the full size varnishes usually retail at around £11 or £12, so they're pretty expensive as far as nail polish goes, and I only owned a couple of the full size ones before this order. I'd never used Fragrance Direct before, but if they frequently have discounts like this I'll definitely be using them again. Also, unlike what their name suggests, they actually sell a whole range of things other than perfume.

Left to right: Care to Danse?, Pedal Faster Suzi, Kiss Me On My Tulips, Color to Diner For, I Don't Give A Rotterdam, I Have A Herring Problem

One of the reasons I love OPI, aside from the colours of course, is the fact that all the names are kind of quirky and tongue in cheek, linking in whatever theme the collection has. The polishes I ordered were actually from 3 different OPI Collections: Holland, Touring America and New York Ballet. You can probably guess from their names above, which collections they belong to. I like make up brands like OPI that don't take themselves too seriously and actually have a sense of humour, it's quite refreshing! All the collections they release keep things exciting as well; I think my favourite themes are the countries (they've also done Germany) and film tie-ins (Skyfall, Oz).

I've only worn Care to Danse? so far, which is a lovely pale lilac and very sheer lacquer. You end up with nails that are almost nude but with a twist and a gelly-like finish. All the other polishes, aside from Kiss Me On my Tulips, have a shimmer. I love a bit of shimmer because it's kind of like having a glitter polish but nowhere near as difficult to remove!

As I spent over £20 buying these, I also got to select a free gift, which was a nice surprise. You actually got to chose what you wanted as well, it wasn't just something you probably wouldn't like thrown in to the parcel as an afterthought. I chose Macadamia Nourishing Leave In Cream, because I've heard really good things about the Macadamia haircare brand recently, and I have dry, difficult hair so anything with added oils and moisturisation works for me. It smells delicious and does leave my hair feeling very soft, so I'm intrigued to try some other products in the range now too.

I feel like I've written a sponsored post raving about Fragrance Direct, but it was just quite a surprising discovery for me! Sometimes it pays to stray away from your usual tried and tested websites and try something new.

Glossybox: March 2013

It's not even been a month since the last one arrived on my doorstep, but the March Glossybox already landed on Monday this week. I'm not complaining, I'd rather not wait any longer than I have to for my monthly box of surprises!

This month's theme is City Chic. The box comes with this cute little travel book, which includes mini guides for a number of international cities. I love to travel and I'm actually going to a few of the destinations in the book over the next year or so (Berlin, Vienna, Tokyo) so gladly the book won't be purely theoretical. It's scrap-book style with lots of snapshots and little scribbled facts - also space to write your own notes and a set of stickers in the center. A very well-designed, nice little extra to go with the products in my opinion. As always the box also came with a leaflet explaining the products within.

Top: My little travelling book; Bottom: Product Guide leaflet

A peek inside My little travelling book - Amsterdam!

Unsurprisingly London, my home town, is also featured in the guide; so apparently I am already in the perfect location to go for the city chic look the products have been chosen for! The products in my box are:

Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Skin Protectant Fragrance Free (7ml)

Nails Inc in St. James (4ml)

Couture La La Eau de Parfum by Juicy Couture (1.5ml)

Tresemme Salon Finish Extra Hold Hairspray (100ml)

Jelly Pong Pong Cosmetics Lip Blush (full size)

On the whole I feel much more enthusiastic about this box than last month's. I'm glad there are fewer makeup products because colour is such a personal thing, it's easy to end up with something that's not very 'you'. I've not used any of these products before, which is perfect - one of the reasons I subscribed was to try new things after all.

I've never used anything by Elizabeth Arden before, but this cream is a bit of a classic. I like the fact that it is multi-functional, and can be used for dry lips, hands or the face. It is a pretty small sample but apparently a little bit goes a long way. I just hope the sample is big enough to give me a sense of whether I really like the product or not. This will probably go in my overnight bag as it's the perfect size for that (ie. tiny!)

Shockingly I've never tried any Nails Inc. polishes before! But of course I've heard good things so I was excited to try this one. St. James looks like a classic red - nothing too exciting but equally not something you can ever really go wrong with either. I tried it last night and you can see the results on the thumb nail that crept into the middle picture above!

Couture La La "blends sparkling mandarin with bold white florals". I'm not really a huge fan of perfume samples because if I want to try a fragrance I can just go to a counter, get a spritz, wear it to see how the fragrance develops and then decide whether I like it or not. I don't need a 1.5ml vial to decide if I want to buy the full size. The only time I see the value of samples is if a fragrance is not readily available to try in a shop and all you've got to go on is a written description online. I'm generally quite particular about my fragrances and I'm afraid this one from Juicy Couture just doesn't do it for me.

The Tresemme hairspray I think I'll get on with but, and I know I've said this before about Glossybox, it's hardly high-end is it?! I don't mind too much as I've always found Tresemme products really effective and do buy them from time to time, but still.

Continuing on the theme of not-exactly-high-end: The Jelly Pong Pong lip blush looks like a knock-down version of a Clinique Chubby Stick. It retails at £12 so not exactly cheap but the packaging sure feels it. I'll try not to knock it too much before I've tried it (literally not knock it for fear of breaking the packaging!); it claims to be moisturising and sheer so I think I'll probably really enjoy using it actually despite not having the best first impression of it.

Ending on a positive note: I am feeling relatively low-levels of 'glossybox-envy' this month, so I think that's definitely an indication of a good choice of products this time.

I actually purchased a Darphin flash box from Glossybox recently as well and have been using those skincare products, so a review of that is on it's way soon.

This Month's Magazine Freebies

Just a quick post to point out a couple of pretty good magazine freebies that are available this month.

The Marie Claire April issue has a free Neal's Yard Bee Lovely Hand Cream (50ml) which retails at £10.

The cream blends organic honey and orange essential oil. I've not actually tried it yet but it smells sweet and zesty! Purchases of this hand cream help to support Buglife, Landlife and Pesticide Action Network UK in their work to protect bees. A pretty important campaign given how in recent years honey bee populations have been declining around the world for a variety of reasons that are still being figured out.

Marie Claire also includes a 20% discount coupon for Neal's Yard valid until 3 April 2013.

The Glamour April 2013 edition comes with one of four  Percy & Reed haircare products.

Left to right these are: Quite Frankly Flawless Finishing Polish (100ml), Smoothed, Sealed & Sensational Volumising No Oil Oil for Fine Hair (30ml), Really Rather Radiant Colour & Shine Shampoo (100ml) and Really Rather Radiant Colour & Shine Conditioner (100ml).

There are some good natural ingredients in these like grape seed oil, aloe vera gel, raspberry oil, horse chestnut extract etc, so I'm looking forward to trying the range. I can't get enough of hair oil at the moment so I'm particularly intrigued by what this no oil oil will be like. I don't have fine hair by any means, but I don't see how any oil-type hair product can be volumising so I reckon it should be ok! Glamour costs £2 so I think £8 to try all these different products from the range is pretty good; and although they're not full-size they are very generous 'samples'.

This month's Good Housekeeping Magazine comes with a free Balance Me Super Moisturising Handcream I believe, but I've not got my hands on that one!

I'm sure all these freebies will disappear off the shelves pretty quickly so if you want them, grab them while you can.

I'll post my thoughts on the products once I've had the time to try them.