Tuesday 23 November 2010

My Change4Life & the Beauty Bloggers Christmas Weightloss Challenge: Week 6

So, another week has passed.  And after last week's disappointment, I can be forgiven for not relishing the opportunity to have another stand-off with the bathroom scales. But I am happy to report that I am...

-1lb lighter this week!

The lovely The Bristol Beauty Blog informed us that collectively, the BBWLC have lost 51.5lb!! A MASSIVE achievement. Well done ladies and still another fortnight to go.... 


Gidders1 (via Twitter) 
Alice @ Super Gorgeou

Saturday 20 November 2010

Impromptu NOTD for WBB and Debbie


Quickly changed my nail colour this morning before we went to see Harry Potter (yes, it was awesome!), so here it is.  Essie Smokin Hot, especially for WBB and Debbie.  It looks much darker on the nail than in the bottle. But that only serves to make me love it even more. I'm so glad I picked this one.

What do you think?

Thursday 18 November 2010

Nails: New Arrivals


Look at these beauties!

I came home from work to find that my eBay nail varnish mini haul had arrived from the US of A. Whoop Whoop! And so while I've just jumped in the bath, I enlisted the help of The Boy to photograph my new purchases (Thank you x).

First up, is China Glaze Bogie (pictured above) and is taken from their Vintage Vixen collection.  As the name might suggest, it's named after Humphrey Bogart and is quite simply, a classic.  It is a gorgeous plum metallic.  It does look a little darker in the bottle, but that's just up my street.  I'm so glad I picked this one.


Also from the China Glaze Vintage Vixens collection, I picked Emerald Fitzgerald, a teal blue/green. In natural light, you'd be hard pushed to say this wasn't black.  Gorgeous. I love colours like this.


Essie Going Incognito is from their winter line. This beautiful jewel like green really jumped out at me. I have a scarf and hat in this colour.  Again, this a deceptive colour.  At first glance it appears to be almost racing green, but give it a bit of flash/natural light and you have got a gorgeous vibrant Jade.  I wear alot of black. So I get a feeling that this will be worn lots.  Looking forward to trying a bit of Konad on this over the weekend.  Would be the perfect base colour to show of white Konad designs.


Woah mama! Essie Smokin Hot is the most amazing murky guruple.  It's not quite mauve, grey or taupe. What it is, is seriously lovely.  If you like those dirty, muted colours. This one is for you.  Instantly I can list about 4 people on Blogger/Twitter/YouTube that will adore this colour. WBB, you are one of them!!


Currently on my nails I'm wearing William Tell me about OPI (Swiss Collection) which I adore.  I would have taken a pic, but its been on for a week and is getting a little shabby. Will try and do a NOTD over the weekend using my new additions.

What do you think ladies? Anything that has caught your eye?

Tuesday 16 November 2010

My Change4Life & the Beauty Bloggers Christmas Weightloss Challenge: Week 5


So it's week five and I've hit a bump in the road.and put on 1/2 lb.  To be honest, I've not been as good as I know I can, and have been since the BBWLC began.  The change to the Weight Watchers programme to ProPoints has lulled me into a false sense of security too.  But no excuses, it happens!.  This is a brand new week and I am back on the WW wagon.  I'm not too upset,  I've still lost 8.5lb overall in 5 weeks.  So that is nothing to sniff at.

Hopefully I'll be back next week with tales of loss! 

Ladies, how goes it this week? Lots of success I hope.

Gidders1 (via Twitter) 

Sunday 14 November 2010

I'm done with: TBS and Philosophy shower gel's and Elvive Shampoo and Conditioner


The Body Shop Wild Cherry Shower Gel was certainly nice enough.  I think I bought this when it was on offer, 2 for £7 maybe.  I love anything cherry scented but I wasn't blown away by this.  It was nice, but not amazing and the scent was a touch synthetic for my liking.  I'll purchase from this range again, but probably not this particular scent.

Philosophy Coconut Macaroon 3 in 1 was a pleasure to use.  It came from The Cookie Exchange set that The Boy got me last Christmas.  As you know, I don't like coconut to eat but I love the smell.  For me, this was a perfect combination of coconut and cake.  Sort of coconut and vanilla if you will. Exactly what it said on the label.  It made for a very warming, comforting bath-time.  Perfect for chilly autumnal evenings.  I love the recipes on the front of the Philosophy products and I always think I should give them a whirl, I just never get time! Has anyone tried out one of their recipes? I'd be very interested to hear the outcome. Again, I'll be certainly re-purchasing from the range but not this particular scent.  It's not made it into my Philosophy top ten!

L'Oreal Elvive Full Restore Shampoo and Conditioner was purchased yonks ago and it has taken an eternity to finish them.  That's great news for your purse, but only if you love the product.  Thankfully the brand advocate (Cheryl Cole/Tweedy - or whatever she is calling herself these days) didn't put me off purchasing.  Anyway back to the products, I think the main reason I bought this was that it was seriously reduced in Superdrug, I needed shampoo/conditioner so I gave it a shot.  It's by no means the greatest shampoo I've ever used but it was adequate.  I got the "weak, limp, lifeless" version. Do you think they may have been referring to Cheryl with that?!?!? Ok then, just me!   Elvive was supposed to improve my hair's strength, density, vitality, shine and silkiness.  I'm not sure if I can say truthfully that it achieved any of those claims. Certainly if it did improve any of those 5 key areas mentioned, I sure as hell didn't notice it.  I wouldn't rush out to re-purchase this. But if its was the only thing I could lay my hands on, I'd use it again.

There's nothing I'm particularly bowled over with this week.  Anything you are mad for at the moment? I could do with a bit of inspiration.

Friday 12 November 2010

The Boy is now an MCSE!



Apologies, this is totally non-beauty related post.  But oh well, I'm afraid you will have to humour me.  I'm a very proud girlfriend and I want to share it with you. 

The Boy has been working his little techie arse off for the past 2 years to achieve his MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) qualification.and today he finished his final exam.  He has funded this qualification himself, with no assistance from his employer (that's another story!) yet they will stand to benefit greatly from his achievement.  To put this into perspective, he is now the most qualified member of the IT Services Team.  I just hope he gets the recognition he truly deserves from work. Although, that appears doubtful!! 

I just want him to know how incredibly proud I am of him and his achievement. See, all that hard work has been worth it in the end. Well done, you little IT Geek! ;o) 
xxxx
  

QVC Beauty Day - Sunday 14th November


Could I love QVC any more than I currently do? Hmmm I don't think so.  So, just to seal the deal they are having another Beauty Day on Sunday 14th November.  Have a look at Alison Young's preview video here

I believe the TSV is Gatineau .  Not something I'm interested in and I have my Mother's Christmas present already, so it will be a no-go for me.  Still, fingers crossed they will have a few Beauty Day special prices and gifts. I think I'll have a jarmie day on the couch on Sunday.  Not sure if I'll be able to distract The Boy from the xbox for that long though. Wish me luck ladies!

Tuesday 9 November 2010

My Change4Life & the Beauty Bloggers Christmas Weightloss Challenge: Week 4

Week 4 already, blimey! eBay helpfully reminds me that its 46 days to Christmas - no pressure there then!!!!
So this week has been a toughie for me.  I've had a nasty cold through the week and went out for dinner on Saturday (special occasion).  But I am pleased to report...

I lost 1.5lb!!

I continue to be delighted with my current downwards trend, even when I've been under the weather for most of the week.  How has everyone else done this week?? Has anyone else found Week 4 tough?

Gidders1 (via Twitter) 

Tuesday 2 November 2010

My Change4Life & the Beauty Bloggers Christmas Weightloss Challenge: Week 3


So here we are at week 3 already. Doesn't time fly in the run up to Christmas?  As you already know, a group of Beauty Bloggers are aiming to lose 7lb by the 6th December. And we are well on track to smash this goal.

  I was actually dreading my weigh in this week. It's TOTM for me and I'm full of cold, so I wasn't feeling  as though I'd had particularly successful week.  So this morning I edged onto the scales and realised that....

I lost another 1lb!!

Considering that I had everything crossed that I didn't put anything on, I'm both surprised and delighted that another lb came off! 

That makes my total at week 3: -7.5lb. But I am not stopping there!  No, I'm going to carry on and see what happens.  My WeightWatchers online membership runs until January. So I will just keep plodding along my merry little way.  The lovely The Bristol Beauty Blog reliably informs us that we have collectivley lost 38lb so far. Well done ladies.  I'm so proud of us!! 


Gidders1 (via Twitter) 

Monday 1 November 2010

OCC Lip Tar's ***UPDATE***


I've been wanting to try these OCC Lip Tar's for aeons, so when Nic introduced me to the Love Make Up website a few weeks ago, I snapped up a couple.

I didn't find the pictures very useful in helping me decide on what colours to go for. They are stock website images that don't show colour very well.  So, I turned to my fellow bloggers to help me out..  I checked out the colours and decided that I wanted a "classic" red and a winter berry shade.  So with that in mind I chose Stalker and Strumpet for £8.99 each.  You can check out the OCC Lip Tar's here.  There are so many shades to choose from ranging from nude's and berries, to blue, green and even black! If you are a MUA, I imagine these would be a really useful addition to your kit.  Being able to mix custom lip shades on demand would be awesome.


Don't be disappointed at the small size of the tubes, you get 8ml of product and that is tonnes, trust me.  I'll be honest, this product is going to last you for the rest of your entire life! Even if you used it every single day, you only need to use the tiniest drop of the product to get a very dramatic effect.  At first glance the Lip Tar looks just like a regular lip gloss, but a word of warning - they are nothing like lip gloss and you will need a lip brush to apply the Lip Tar. 

The consistency of the Lip Tar's are much runnier than lip gloss and certainly not sticky. In fact, I think they are a cross between a liquid lipstick and a lip stain.  They certainly are not for slapping on whilst on the train to work, otherwise you'll end up looking like coco the clown.   I think this requires a bit of precision application to get the finish just right, hence the use of a lip brush.  


 Stalker (left) and Stumpet (right) are incredibly pigmented and opaque, as you can see from the swatches above.  They also have a slight minty scent to them, which I really quite like, but might not be to everyone's liking.  These are certainly the kind of colours I would reach for to create a dramatic lip. They dry down to a kind of satin finish but could easily be made glossy with an application of lip gloss over the top.

  I have worn both of these shades to work over the past few weeks. However, I think that I personally would keep these products for use on evenings out.  That is more of a reflection on me, than on the Lip Tar itself.   I don't really like high maintenance looks, especially at work.  I barely have time to pee some days, let alone check that my lippie hasn't migrated all over my face.  Which is why I am obsessed with lip stains, but I digress and will save that for another post.  The Lip Tar's were surprisingly long wearing, but they would probably require a bit of a touch up throughout the day to maintain the original colour intensity.

If you fancy watching a You Tube video on the subject, I can totally recommend QueenofBlendingMUA who has several videos on the OCC Lip Tar's, including colour swatches and application technique.  You can watch those here, here and here.  You can also check out this video in which she reviews the colours I chose which are from the A/W10 collection.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the OCC Lip Tar's and certainly think I will add some other colours to my collection. Perhaps not black though!

Have you tried the OCC Lip Tar's before? What do you think?


***** UPDATE*****

So I was asked for lip pics by Debbie and Jan, so here they are. I'm a good girl and do as I am told!!  I was a little haphazard with the application but you get the general idea, don't you?

So on the left we have the OCC Lip Tar in Stalker and on the right is Strumpet - both pictures are taken with flash.

Ladies, does that help?? x

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