August beauty and nail haul ;)

Hey!

Sorry I haven't blogged for a few weeks. I think I had blogger's block! That and the fact I haven't been up to much lately, bar from working...so not really very exciting haha.

I have however been buying bits and bobs, which of course I will show you!

First off, if you didn't already know, the September 2011 issue of Marie Claire comes with a free Ciate nail polish, and Dove damage therapy intensive repair conditioner. Obviously I bought it, mainly so I could try the Ciate polish which everyone keeps raving on about. I can't complain as I only paid £3.60 for the magazine, where-as the polish would have been £9 from their site. They are offering two different shades, a deep plum/black shimmer and a pale nude shade. I opted for the purple as I would be more likely to wear this. I swatched it on my nail (sorry no pic yet!) and over my nail plate it was a really nice shimmer deep purple, but on my free edge it actually looked black! Bear in mind I only did one coat. I liked the consistency of the polish, very smooth and no air bubbles, but not so keen on the colour on my nail. I will swatch again when I take my current polish off, and do two coats (which I normally do anyways!) and see how it looks.

As I said before though, I can't complain really as I got it a lot cheaper than if I were to buy it from Ciate's website.

I have yet to try out the conditioner by Dove, but I am sure it will be fab, as I already use a lot of their products and have never had a problem with them.

I was in Superdrug the other day, on the hunt for my foundation as I have ran out (noo!). They did have it but unfortunately not my shade, so it looks like I will have to order it off the net. I did buy a couple of other things though.

I bought this gorgeous eyeshadow from the Famous by Sue Moxley in Shade 3. I had swatched it the last time I was in but didn't buy it (trying to be good and not buy things I don't need!) but when I saw they still had it I gave in! It was only £2 so it didn't exactly break the bank, and I just love how it is a shimmery green, with flecks of gold in it.

It is quite subtle but you can build it up to make the colour more intense. I would definitely buy more from this brand! I also picked up a cute lip balm in I love... Strawberries and Milkshake for 99p. It smells so yummy, and feels really soft on my lips, another bargain!

Finally I want to show you some nail products I have bought in the past week. The first is a Nail art kit from Poundland for...you guessed it... £1!!!! I actually bought this same kit at Christmas, and was really impressed with how much you get in it that I went on the hunt for another as I have nearly ran out of my old kit. Thankfully they still sell it in the bigger stores so I picked it up in Newcastle the other day. You get pearl rhinestones, normal coloured rhinestones, various shaped flat shimmery flakes, two wooden orange sticks and a nail file. They are so handy and great to use over nail polish or embedded into gel or acrylic. I probably should have bought a few to keep me stocked up for a while!

I also ordered another wheel full of rhinestones (you can never have too many!) from Ebay for £3.49. I would say that is about the cheapest I have found for them so far (I got approx 1200) as most nail sites seem to sell them for over £7 which is just ridiculous!

I have also recently wanted to try nail art stamping as it is the latest craze now. I looked around the net for ages for cheaper alternatives to Konad though as they seem quite pricey, and after seeing other girls using "fauxnad" kits I thought, what's the harm, they do the same job, but are cheaper!

I found a really cool site called MoYou which sells their version of the nail plates, stampers and polishes plus kits at really good prices. They are based in the UK and are really fast and delivering!! I decided to buy 3 nail design plates from them for around £2.99 each (bargain!!) and they were delivered within 2 days of me placing my order, fantastic!

I will be trying these out tomorrow night so I will post my results and thoughts on these then!

I found a stamper and scraper complete with christmas designs plate for a few quid from a website called Beautiful Nails Shop. This is also UK based, and she sells nail art products, gel and acrylic systems and other items. I had looked at this site ages ago as I have been wanting some coloured acrylic powder to do my 3D nail art. I use EZ Flow products for my l+p but didn't want to spend a fortune on their coloured powders, so decided to get 3 coloured powders from the Beautiful Nails shop as the site claims you can use them with any monomer. I know mixing products isn't ideal, but as I am only using these to practice with, I have no problem. Once I become fully qualified I will be buying EZ Flow coloured powders :)

Finally, I ordered some Konad polishes from Blush Cosmetics as from what I have read, using these polishes are specially formulated for nail stamping, so work the best. I will try my regular polishes as well though as I know certain brands can work too! I also bought a little tub on pearl hearts for nail art as they were on sale for 50p, and a glass nail file for my mum. I tried to get the same file as mine from vivalanails but they have discontinued theirs :( Hopefully this handbag sized file will do for her!

I hope you enjoyed my post and well done if you read it all, I think this could be my longest post ever hahaa!!