Skechers BOBS - Is there such a thing as stylish slippers?

When I was in New York I saw this advert on TV for Skechers BOBS slippers. This led to an obsessive compulsive urge to own a pair - typical me.

I didn't end up buying them in NY, as I had pretty much spent all of my money or earmarked it for other purchases. So I looked them up on the UK Skechers website on my return and was gutted that I couldn't find any. Were they US only and I had missed out on buying them?!

A couple of weeks later I was in Covent Garden mooching around the shops before seeing The Bodyguard at the Adelphi theatre, so I popped into Skechers on the off chance.

Right there, on a central stand in front of the door, they had them! Granted they didn't have the colour selection that NYC had, but the black sparkly ones instantly drew my attention.

After a foot measurement (because why not eh?) and £29 on my debit card I was the proud owner.

It is actually strange that I liked the look of these so much, as I hate crocs and I suppose these are a similar shape. Anyway, I think they look great and they are soooo comfy. They have memory foam soles and a lovely warm faux fur lining. I wear them all the time indoors, so they are easily worth the £29. 

When these start to look a bit shabby, I am sure I will replace them with another pair of BOBS if they are still available. Hopefully they'll get some more in stock on the website and stock a larger range of colours like they had in New York.

The final pro is that by buying these you are helping charity. Skechers donates a pair of shoes to children in need worldwide for every pair of BOBS bought.

Lush lip scrub review

Lush lip scrub:  ★★★★★

I recently saw Holly Wakeham raving about the lush lip scrubs, so naturally had to pick one up. I carefully took my time sniffing the four available flavours (popcorn, bubblegum, mint and Santa aka cola) and after some deliberation I went for popcorn.

In the winter I guess many of us find ourselves with dry lips at one point or another, especially the lip stick wearers. The idea of this lip scrub is to remove those annoying bits of dry skin and leave your lips silky smooth ready for lipstick and/or kissing that special person under the mistletoe.

 

One set of unscrubbed December weathered lips:

  

Dip your finger in the scrub and gently rub it over your lips. Because of the popcorn flavour this one tastes both sugary and salty and you can't help but have a little taste.

   

Afteryou have finished 'scrubbing', wipe the excess off and your lips will be feeling soft and good to go.

Then select your lip stick or gloss of choice and enjoy the velvety smooth application. I've gone for MUA's matte in wild berry.

I would 100% recommend this product as it does the job and it tastes great. I haven't seen any other brand do these yet, and at £5.50, the next time you are purchasing a bath bomb I would advise you to treat yourself to a lip scrub too. 

New York haul

It was my birthday recently, on October 27th to be precise. If you know me, you know I love New York, and I had been going on about going there for my birthday for ages. After what seemed like talking about it for ever, we eventually booked it earlier this year in August.

Whilst in 'the big apple' I did a fair amount of shopping, I could have done more but was a good girl. Today, I thought I'd share what I bought.

My first shop stop was Tiffany & Co. I bought myself the Return to Tiffany heart shaped silver earrings that I had been eyeing for well over a year. You just can't beat that Tiffany experience and the enjoyment of coming out of the shop with your little green/blue box in the cute little bag - love it!

I then wandered into Apple to pick myself up a spare charging lead as my unofficial one wont work now - damn you and your restrictions Apple!

In Times Square there is an American Eagle Outfitters - great range of clothes at great prices. I got myself a couple of pairs of jeans, a NY hoody, a slouchy jumper and some bangles.

In FAO Schwarz they have a huge sweet/candy section. Here is most of what I got (some didn't make it home to the photo)!

They have so many different flavours in the US, from mint or pretzel m&ms to Raspberry cupcake chewing gum. Luckily we only went for 5 days, or I may have been over the weight limit.


Then there was my trip to Bloomingdales where I got my first Alex and Ani bangle. You can read all about that here.

Finally after following my boyfriend into Swatch, I got tempted by the pretty watches and bough this one called Lady Passion. It is silver and rose gold with some diamantes in the strap. I have such skinny wrists that I had to have 3 or 4 links taken out of the strap - luckily none of those had the blingy bits on. I think its a gorgeous watch to wear day or night.

 

We had such an amazing holiday, hopefully one day my boyfriend will take me back to New York!

Impress press on manicure review

Impress: ★★★★★

I spotted the Impress press on manicure a couple of years ago in Boots and thought it looked like a great product. However, I did some research online and read a lot of negative reviews about them popping straight off, so I soon forgot my urge to try them.

A couple of months ago as I was browsing through the Latest in Beauty luxury samples I saw they had Impress for £3. The usual retail price is about £7 or £8 I think, so decided I might as well give it a go.

The sample I got was a pink and black zebra type print. Not really my style so I was a bit disappointed. Ever since they have been sitting in a draw unused as I didn't want to apply them for work.

Anyway, I just so happened to finally give them a go this weekend. The set comes with 24 nails, so there is a variety of different sizes for you to pick the ones most suited, and also includes a mini nail file and a nail cleansing pad.

I started off by picking out the sizes I wanted and lining them up, then cleansed my nails one at a time in between applying the nails. I started with my little fingers and worked my way up to the thumbs as advised on the instructions. The application was really easy and only took about 5 minnutes to do both hands. I made sure to press them on quite hard to make sure they were really stuck.

Here is the finished result...

The design was way too lairy for me so I decided to paint black over three on each hand and just leave the print as an accent. I used my Kate Spade Nails Inc polish that I had got with my Glamour mag this month, it only took one coat to cover.


































 So, to the review.

I applied the nails on Friday night, it is now Sunday evening and they are still going strong. I have even washed my hair which I find is always a good test with false nails. I would definitely buy these again, especially for an occasion as they add a bit of length and still look quite real and I would recommend to my friends. They should also be pretty easy to remove without damaging my real nails which is a bonus.

If you had been put off trying these because of reading negative reviews, I would say try them yourself and see what you think.

Impress(ed) - I sure am! ;)

Alex and Ani bangle

During my recent holiday to NYC I made a compulsory trip to Bloomies and wandered round looking at all the beautiful expensive designer clothes I can't afford. Then, on the way towards the escalator on one floor I spotted an Alex and Ani stand.

I have wanted an Alex and Ani bangle for ages since I saw Maira Sparkles post photos of them on Instagram. I think they are harder to get hold of here in the UK though. I was so exciting to see the full range there on a table in front of me, I think my boyfriend wondered what was wrong when I squealed "Alex and Ani" at him.

I was going to go for this one that has the New York skyline on it as a bit of memorabilia from my holiday, but it was a brushed silver so didn't really go with the gorgeous new silver bracelet my boyfriend had bought for my birthday a few days before.

I then spotted the birthday stone bangles which are a shiny silver (or gold), so I went for one of those instead. It's still quite meaningful as we did actually go to New York to celebrate my birthday.

I am now a proud owner and will definitely expand my collection in the future. Knowing me I'll probably still end up getting the NYC skyline at some point as I absolutely love New York.

If you would like to have a little browse, the only place I have found that stocks them in the UK is www.argento.co.uk

Metallic Sharpie nail art

Each year, a couple of months before my birthday I start making a list of things I'm lusting after. Then when my family ask what I want, I send them the list.

This year, one if the things was the set of three Sharpie metallic markers. But I didn't want these for writing with, no, these were for nail art!

You can paint your nails, let it dry then use the Sharpies to draw intricate designs on your nails. Final step is to cover your art work with a top coat, then you have the finished decorated nails.

I still need to master the top coat as I have smudged it a bit by going over it too much. Really you need to try and do the top coat in one stroke. But with a bit of practice I know I'll get there. 

Freebie Kate Spade nail polish

The December edition of Glamour is out now and comes with a free Kate Spade nail polish. There a four Christmassy shades to chose from; gold, silver, red and black. 

The nail varnishes are normally £11 and the mag only costs £2. Definitely worth picking up a bargain.

I've gone for black. Which will you chose?

A spot of luck

I haven't blogged for ages! I've really wanted to, but literally haven't had the time. Work has been crazy and then I went to New York for my birthday, so it's been non-stop. Anyway, I'm here now and shall vow to be more regular in my blogging.

Today I want to tell you about some luck I had recently; I won my first ever blog giveaway! Sophie from sophiejanethorne.blogspot.co.uk ran a giveaway to win a Wet n Wild nail polish in red - and lucky old me won.

Sophie is so lovely that she actually included a couple of extra items for me to apologise because she had a slight postal delay. So not only did I get the Wet n Wild polish, but also a Maybelline one and a strawberry flavoured Lypsyl.

As I got these items a month or so ago now, I have had time to fully try them out and review them.

Wet n Wild Wild Shine nail colour
Love the colour, it is a really bright red with a hint of pink in a certian light and as it's a gel polish it looks great on. It's really shiny, especially with a top coat on. It lasted well, but not quite as well as the Maybelline.

Lypsyl Strawberry Polka-dot
Tastes great and contains SPF. It claims to be tinted, but I couldn't notice much, maybe a slight pale pink, but not really. The downside to this is that it is quite a hard textured balm, you really need to rub it on. It worked best when I had it in my pocket and then used it as the heat had softened it. 

Maybelline Super Stay 7 Days gel nail colour
This is amazing! The red was probably a shade darker than I'd normally go for as I have quite fair skin, but it looked great and lasts soooo well. In fact I put this nail varnish on for my 5 day holiday to New York and it last the whole trip. So not quite 7 days, but I don't think I had time to put a top coat on.

I will definitely buy more of these Maybelline 7 day polishes.

To finish, thank you very much Sophie for the gifts, it's so generous of you to run these giveaways. Everyone else head over to Sophie's blog for beauty reviews, recipes, fashion and more.

My New Hair candy - Popband Review

Popband ★★★★

I came across Popband on a blog earlier this week and the review instantly sold it to me.

It's a stylish hair tie, that is meant to be "kind on your hair, cute on your wrist." Popbands are meant to be better for your hair compared to normal hair elastics because they are gentler yet just as strong and they claim to not add a kink to your hair. They are also rather pretty.

I bought the Little Prince Popband which is navy blue with a silver crown (apparently special edition in honour of Prince George). There are a variety of colours with different charms available.

I ordered it Tuesday night and it arrived on Friday in a cute metallic pink Jiffy bag. Not bad for free delivery.

The next day, I tried it out. It is definitely cute and a little bit different to the usual boring hair elastics, so for that alone I would recommend that everyone needs something like this in their lives. On a slightly negative note, it isn't as tight/strong holding as the hair bands I normally use, so my high pony did slip slightly.

In terms of not kinking the hair, it mainly didn't. I don't think you can ever get away with absolutely no kink when putting your hair up, but this was pretty minimalist.

Little Prince

Overall, I really like the concept and design. I will probably by more, as I would like to have a handful of different colours and designs to choose from when putting my hair up.

You can get yours from www.thepopband.com.

Arm candy

Real Techniques Core Collection review

I have finally got myself some Real Techniques brushes, the Core Collection kit to be precise. I've been wanting some decent brushes for ages, but as usual for me it takes getting a 20% discount code for me to actually part with my money. I got them from www.hqhair.com but you can also get them from Boots, Superdrug and other websites.

The core collection contains four face brushes; buffing, contour, pointed foundation and detailer.

The brushes are so lovely and soft and have a nice chunky handle to hold so they feel great to use. They also come in a case that can turn into a stand so are great for travelling with.

I have tried them all and have differing opinions on each. Firstly the positives; I love the buffing and contour brushes. They do exactly what they say on the tin (or plastic packaging) and they are really luxurious to use. Now the detailing brush, I could take it or leave it. I used it with concealer round my eyes and whilst it did the job, I think I could have done an equally good job, if not quicker with my finger. 

My least favourite is the foundation brush. In my opinion it is just too small. It took me ages to spread my foundation out using it and it wasn't looking very even. So I ended up taking my beauty blender to even things out and basically fix the mess the brush made. Harsh but true. I will try it again with a different foundation, but I think this will go mainly unused.

So, there you have it. My fairly brief ramblings on Real Techniques Core Collection. Do you have this collection, how do you find it? Or do you have one of the other kits? Let me know by commenting below.

MUA haul

I have been wanting the MUA brow kit since I first knew it existed. I've checked 5 different Superdrugs and they've all been sold out for ages! I saw it was still in stock on the MUA website, but begrudged paying £2.95 postage on something that only cost £3.50. 

Last weekend the MUA Facebook page advertised free shipping on orders over £20. This coincided with them teasing me with the new Top Model palette for only £7.

So I decided to have a little browse and see if I could make up an order for £20 to get my free delivery.

Here is what I got...

The Artiste Collection £6

Brow Kit £3.50

Britain's Next Top Model Palette £7

Intense Gloss in Smooch £2

Fashionista Super Length Mascara £1.50

Exactly £20 worth. Now I know I would have been better off just getting the brow kit and paying the postage, but then I wouldn't have all this great new makeup.

It arrived during the day yesterday and naturally I tried most of it this morning.

The mascara is great, does add length and provides nice definition without making your lashes look like spiders legs.

The gloss is a great every day colour and  seems to last really well.

The colours in the brow kit are great, but the brush is not the best. I like the idea of the brow gel as I normally use clear mascara, but will have to see if it matches up to last well through the day.

The Artiste Collection palette has some nice shades and I always rate MUA eyeshadows. The blush shades and contour and highlight also look great. Though I think I need a new brush to apply the contour as my fake Mac brush put it on far too heavy.

The Top Model palette is my experiment for tomorrow.

Adiós!

Making beautiful photo collages for your blog

I'm a follwer of The Beauty Department and oh my how lovely their photo collages always look. I wondered if there was a specific bit of software that would do this for you so did a bit of research. It soon became clear that this is just the work of some very creative people.

So I did a bit more research to try and find out what software bloggers use to help thiscreative flare. It turns out that most people us one version of Photoshop or another. I don't own Photoshop but do hower have an open source (free) image editing software called GIMP (download here). I've done many a photo edit in GIMP so thought I'd have a go at my first ever collage.

This post I came across on The Beautiful Mess helped a lot too.

Now bare in mind this was never someting I made to share so it's rather basic and I need to experiment a bit more to get my own style. But I'm quite impressed and it didn't even take very long.

What do you think?

1. Miss Selfridge £26 2. New Look £24.99 3. Next £28

The basic idea is to use good quality images, make sure they don't have a background (or remove it if they do), select a couple of decent fonts and use full stops (periods) to point towards the products.

Now I know I'm along way off from perfecting this, but it was just a trial and I wanted to share the findings of my research on this.

I'll work on it and hopefully one day my collages will be good enough to officially use in my blog.

Pink ombré nails

I was going to go for a nice bright pink summery nail varnish today but couldn't pick which to use.

So I decided to put together 5 pink shades and do this ombré look. If you have the polish, then why not eh?! 

It's not the best graduation of colour, but it looks quite fun. 

I would love to see your ombré efforts. Feel free to post a comment and link to your blog so I can have a mooch.

Latest in Beauty Editor's Picks Unboxing

I've never bitten the bullet and got on the Glossybox bandwagon, but a subscription will be on my birthday list again this year. Maybe one day I'll get it!

I have subscribed to a number of beauty related sites since starting this blog and one of them is Latest in Beauty. I occasionally get emails from them and consider buying things, but until now I hadn't. They work different to Glossybox in that rather than having a subscription, they put together boxes and you can buy them as and when.

I got an email advertising a couple of their  latest boxes and had a little browse at the contents. The "Editor's Pick" box instantly grabbed my interest and bingo the email also had a 15% off code that lasted until midnight. It was 11:57pm and I was laying in bed so I swiftly clicked the buy me button and put in the discount code, it worked so I ordered.

Five days later my box arrived.

This is what I got:

1 x Bellápierre Mineral Eye Shadow (2.35g)
1 x AS London Candle
1 x EVE LOM Rescue Mask (15ml)
1 x Mavala Rouge Rubis Nail Varnish (5ml)
1 x Mirenesse Lip Lift Moisture Shine (1.5g)
1 x Nicky Clarke Instant Calmer (30ml)
1 x Nspa Melting Cleansing Gel (30ml)
1 x The Vintage Cosmetics Company Eye Shadow Brush (Full Size)
1 x Benefit They're Real Mascara (3.0g)
1 x Yardley Refreshing Body Spray (75ml)

Pretty good for £11 after the discount (original price £12.95 - still good value in my opinion).

I carefully removed the products one by one, inspecting each as I went. It was so exciting to have all these new products in front of me to try. They all were 100% usuable to me which was great. I know these boxes can be a bit hit and miss, and sometimes you get things and decide they aren't for you.

On first spray, I wasn't overly impressed with the Yardley "refreshing" body spray. I got the scent English Rose and found it to be quite old fashioned. But later it did grow on me, though I wouldn't call it refreshing!

Something that immediately impressed me was the Mirenesse lip gloss. I have no idea what shade I got but it is a nude/brown with maybe a lilac undertone. I love the colour and it lasts really well. It's got smart packaging and is very wearable. 

I will write reviews on the other products as and when I use them, and link them from the items in the list above. But in the meantime I would recommend you pick up this beauty box before they sell out.

Nivea Express Hydration Primer Review

Nivea Express Hydration Primer  ★★★★★

I don't give myself much time to get ready in the mornings as I prefer to get as much sleep as possible. So I try to have a pretty quick makeup routine and until now didn't bother using a primer on a daily basis. When I saw this advertised on TV - a moisturiser and primer in one, I thought I'd give it a go as it wouldn't add to my getting ready time. I picked up the one for "dry and sensitive skin" as my skin is quite sensitive to break-outs. 

I have been using this every morning after cleansing for nearly two weeks now and so far no breakouts. Not only that, I actually am reallly loving it. Can't fault it all all. My foundation lasts longer and looks more flawless after using this primer. Adding to the fact that my skin is moisturised and feels fresh when I apply it.

I forsee this being a beauty staple for me from now on. Well done Nivea for bringing out such an innovative product!

VO5 Hair Products Review

On a recent shopping trip I purchased me some VO5! So, was it any good I hear you ask? Let's see...

 

VO5 Dry Backcomb Spray ★★★★ 

I recently saw the VO5 dry backcomb spray being demonstrated on a YouTube video and immediately put it on my shopping list.

It claims to “immediately add fullness for amazing volume” and I wasn’t disappointed. You spray it in then place your hands in your hair lifting it and giving it a bit of a ruffle. It gives your hair an instant lift, and saves it from any damage that could be caused if you backcombed. The spray also seems to last well throughout the day. It smells beautiful too.

I’ve given this 4 stars as I love it, but it isn’t perfect. My only gripe is that it doesn’t quite give “backcombed” level of volume. It does increase the volume, and for that it is great, but not to the amount you’d get if you were backcombing. Maybe I haven’t quite mastered the use of this product yet, and if this is the case I will change my rating if I change my mind as I do with all of my reviews. 

In summary, I will buy again because it’s always handy to add some extra volume!

 

VO5 Tousled Texture Spray ★★★★★

The funny this about the tousled style spray is that I never would have bought it if Boots didn’t have an offer on. The VO5 item I already had in my basket was £3.89, so as it was 2 for £5 I thought I may as well spend another £1.11 to get another one of the same value! I scanned the products and this leapt out at me.

I don’t know about you, but when I get up the day after curling my hair and give it a brush, my curls look fluffy and undefined. I normally add some hair spray and/or mousse to try and get some definition back, but it doesn’t do all that much. This product is perfect for this purpose. It instantly gives curls and waves definition and smells good to boot. It also gives my blonde hair a lovely golden healthy looking shine.

I will certainly be trying more VO5 products in the future.

Buy buy buy!

Flat fluffy hair, first thing in the morning

Volumised hair after using the dry backcomb spray

Now hair has added texture after using the tousled style spray