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.

Illamasqua Nail Varnish: Prosperity & Speckle

The other week I went to the Illamasqua flagship store on Beak Street in Soho and picked up a couple of the new nail varnishes that had caught my eye online. I'm loving purple varnishes at the moment, so both  the varnishes I picked up were in this shade.

The first one is Prosperity, from their new limited edition Rubber Brights collection. The varnishes in this collection all have a matt, rubber-like finish, and come in a range of bold colours, including this purple.

I have to say, when I first applied this I wasn't massively enamoured with it. I liked the matt finish but it didn't really have as much of a rubber-like texture as I had expected. Due to the fact that I hurriedly applied it quite late on a school night, I instantly noticed how important it is to apply a polish like this with care - which I definitely hadn't. A shiny finish conceals a multitude of sins, but this matt finish is quite unforgiving, so you need to apply it as expertly as you can! Next time I'll definitely be more careful. I think I'll also apply 3 coats rather than 2 as suggested on the box, as I'd like it to be that little bit more opaque. I started to enjoy Prosperity more the longer I wore it though, so I think this one is a going to grow on me.

Speckle on the other hand was pretty much love at first sight! Part of Illamsqua's new I'mperfection collection, it is inspired by the colour and speckles of a bird's egg. It definitely lives up to the brief, even if this pastel purple hue reminds me of mini eggs a little bit more than real birds' eggs.

I love the way that the varnish almost seems to become three-dimensional as you build up the layers: you can faintly see speckles in the bottom layers in stark contrast to the ones right on top. It's a very cool effect - but as you can see it's nothing overly crazy, unlike some nail effects that are doing the rounds at the moment, so it's very wearable. I like it a lot! The picture below is three layers of application.

Lastly, I think I'll write a few words about this new I'mperfection collection. The concept behind it is that the products celebrate the imperfections that make us all unique. Although coming from a make up company you have to take this with a massive pinch of salt, I think I still quite like the sentiment behind it. And really, there are two ways you can use make up: to make yourself blend in, to 'normalise' yourself in the way that society expects - or you can use it to enhance and celebrate your individuality. And generally I think Illamasqua caters to the latter of those two categories really well.