notd, bourjois red

Bourjois 10 Day Nail Polish in 11 Coquelicot, £5.99

I bought this a while ago on my quest for a perfect orange-red, and I was going to sell it when I did it like it, or give it to a friend, but I dug it out the other day in my quest for a red nail varnish and I actually quite like it! It's a pretty, warm red, with orange-hints. It also has the teensiest bit of shimmer to it, which is barely noticeable in the second picture. It also apparently lasts for 10 days with no chips. I didn't leave it on that long to tell, but it was very good with chips after a few days. Now I've got some time off work, I might leave it on for longer to tell. I know some people really care about the chipping of a polish, but I change my nails like I change my underwear, so I never really notice! 

It does have a weirdly angled brush, though, like an eyeliner brush or something. I don't really it it, if I'm honest. I'm a fan of short, wide brushes, and the angle doesn't work for me. Supposedly it's for "touch ups" but it just irritated me. Also, I didn't like the shape of the handle/lid. You can't really tell but they're short of pinched in the middle, which does sort of make it easy to hold, but I like to sort of flip the brush around and paint two nails with one dip in the bottle, and I kept on dropping it when I tried this. 

Price: 3/5 

Packaging: 2/5

Colour: 5/5

Formula: 4/5

Overall: 3/5

Would I buy it again?: Probably not. I've tried a few Bourjois nail polishes and  I just don't find them that spectacular for £6ish! 

simply red: my red lipstick collection..

"If you know me, you know I'll like… (fill the blank)." I start a lot of my posts like this. I am a Lipstick Person. I know a lot of people are not Lipstick People. I am also a Red Lipstick Person. 

Therefore, over the years, I have amassed a large collection of red lipsticks, and I thought I would take it upon myself to show you a variety of swatted colours. For reference, I'm a pale-skinned girl, around the NW20 shade in MAC Foundations, with dark hair and eyes, so red lipsticks are one of those things that suit me like a glove, luckily! If you've never tried a red before, I recommend starting with something light, or sheer, like Revlon's sheer lip butters (see my review below!), then working up to these..or, ignore that, and jump right in..!

(If some of the applications are a little sloppy, please excuse me, I was wiping them right off afterwards.) 

MAC Russian Red

This is the red-lipstick I would recommend to everyone who wants a good, solid, matte red. It's a blue-toned red, which is good for making the teeth look good, and it has a very nice, 50's kind of red feel. I think this is the best of MAC's 'staple-reds', far outshining Ruby Woo, MAC Red, or any of the other ones they do (that I have currently forgotten!). It is what I describe as 'high maintenance'. You need to keep an eye on the application throughout the day, it's also quite drying, but on the plus side - it is long lasting as hell! 

MAC Lady Bug

Lady Bug is my every day red, and its perfect for it. It has the colour of Russian Red and the quality of a MAC lipstick without being as drying. It's like Russian Red's glossy sister. You can layer it up so it's darker, or you can wear it a bit more sheer, like in this picture. 

Rimmel Alarm

Rimmel's selection is as good as MAC's, and at a much cheaper price. I've had this one for years, I think it was the first red I'd purchased. I still think it's as good as you can get for a super affordable price! It's got a really nice, cherry-ish scent, too. If you want a cheap, well pigmented, smooth lipstick, go for this one! I'm not sure if you can get 'Alarm' (I've had it for ages), but you can get the same colour with a different name.

Sleek Pin-Up (Pout Paint)

I'm including this in the lipsticks, because it's such a staple-red, but it lacks a lot in application. It's got the staying power of a lipstick, but unless you're super slick with the application, it bleeds like hell, like you can see in this picture. 

Christian Dior Rouge Bella Vita

This is a recent addition to my lipstick collection (you can read a full review here) and I am head-over-heels in love with it. It's a beautiful orange-toned red with the perfect combination of staying power, colour, moisturising qualities and sheen.. I cannot recommend enough!

MAC Crazee

Crazee is a funny kind of red. It's a lustre or something, and it has this shine. I do sometimes enjoy this red, it's super shiny. Sometimes I feel like this, but I often don't. It was limited edition lipstick, but you can find frosty-reds in hundreds of brands' collections, if you really want them! Generally, I really don't get frosty-lipsticks. They're just not my kind of thing. Maybe if I had a perma-tan.. haha

MAC Rapturous 

Another limited edition, I'm afraid, but these kind of colours are ten-a-penny.. and not my thing at all. In my hunt for the perfect deep-red lipstick, I found hundreds of berry-reds.. which are really just not want I wanted at all. It's a nice lipstick, another high maintenance colour, and it does bleed quite badly, but if you like a purple-ish red, this is the colour for you!

NARS Fire Down Below

In my opinion, I saved the best until last. This is probably my All Time Favourite Lipstick. Dun-dun-dunnnn... Yes, I have picked one! Haha. It's a lot darker than my camera would pick up. I swatched many a lipstick to find this beauty. It's both everything I love and everything I hate. It's drying and high maintenance and it can bleed if you're not careful.. but I put up with all of this for the colour. It's a dark, blue-toned red, which is apparently incredibly hard to find! I found a million brown-reds and purple-reds and everything in between until I found this beauty. My tips? A really good, heavy duty lip-balm underneath. Carmex or Burt's Bees are my choices, and then a good lipliner all over helps. 

That was a long post! My apologies, I can wax lyrical about lipstick, and apparently I have done! What are your favourite reds, and do you think I've missed anything major from my collection? 

revlon lip butter review

Revlon Colourburst Lip Butter in Candy Apple, £7.99 rrp

I know everyone and their mother has posted about these lipsticks (lip balm?) recently, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents. They are.. nice. Maybe that's harsh. They alright! They're a nice, tinted sheer lipstick - I wouldn't actually call them balms, because they don't really moisturise, I feel. 

What I think they are good for, and when I generally reach for mine, is when my lips are feeling a little bit dry, I'm not wearing much makeup and I need a bit of pick-me-up. This is a good colour if you want a little bit of colour, or you're not used to wearing bright lipsticks, or can't be bothered with the high-maintence of a fully pigmented lipstick. They are very sheen-y though, and I do generally prefer a matte, but that is just my personal preference. 

I really love the style of the packaging, particularly the little seethrough top and the colour tube. I know there are people that only like the tapered-style traditional lipstick and don't like this kind of flat-end, but I don't really have a problem with that! 

The price is a bit steep, though. I got mine in a 3 for 2 thing at Boots a while back, but they're currently on sale at £5.99 at Boots (see link above) and I still think that is a bit pricey. I know Revlon market themselves as a higher-priced drugstore brand, but I think if they'd aimed them around the £4.99 mark, I'd be a lot more receptive to it!

Price: 2/5
Packaging: 4/5
Colour: 4/5
Texture: 2/5
Would I buy this product again?: No, none of the other colours appealed, I'm more of a solid/bright lipstick person. 

Have you tried these? I think they're generally not that well received in the blogging world, which is a bit sad! 

dior, dolce vita red - review

For my 5-year-anniversary at my work, I got given £20 worth of gift vouchers.. and I decided that a new lipstick was exactly what I needed! I've been looking for a sort of orange-toned red for a while, and I thought I'd have a wander around Reading looking for one. I thought the answer would lie at MAC, Chanel or Yves Saint Laurent, but it actually was hidden at Christian Dior! I've only ever bought foundation from Christian Dior, when this lovely caught my eye. However, I didn't know the packaging would be quite so.. odd;

I don't even know what this looks like, haha. The top round thing and the blue lifts off and it's just a circular base with the lipstick inside. It's really strange, haha. It's also very shiny and gold, which is nice. My mum thought that it looked like something that Cleopatra might have had, haha. 

Like I said, I had the gift vouchers but they usually cost around the £25 mark, depending on where you buy them. 

Anyway, the colour and formula are really lovely! It's a creamy matte-ish colour that doesn't dry out much, like MAC's mattes. It's also got a pretty good sticking power, only fading a little bit in the middle of my lips, so I generally rate it pretty highly.

Rouge Diorific in Dolce Vita Red 14 

I'm pretty pleased with my choice in all, here's a quick snap of me wearing it, but I'm pretty sleepy and I'd been up early and shopping all day, so excuse my tired face! 

Price: 5/5 (gift vouchers!)

Packaging: 2/5

Colour: 5/5

Texture: 5/5

Would I buy this product again?: I think I will definitely explore other Dior lipsticks form now on, yes!

What do you think of this colour? Have you bought any Dior lip products? Let me know! I hope you're all having a lovely Easter Sunday!

What's red, black and.. black?

Me, apparently, with my mini-haul that I got the other day. I wanted to check out the new MAC collections (Fabulous Felines), and my friend needed some hair dye, so off we went to town! And this is what I got!

China Glaze Nail Polish in Agent Orange

MAC Superslick Liquid Eyeliner in On The Hunt (Black)

MAC Lipstick in Lady Bug (Lustre)

I bought these separately, sort of. I had a free Back to MAC lying about, and wanting a new kind of red lipstick, as my Russian Red was running low, and wanted a slightly more glossy red, a lighter more "day" red lipstick.

This nail varnish is gorgeous, but super awkward to photograph. It's called Agent Orange, but I wouldn't really call it orange, even though it looks it in this picture! It's a reddish-orange, with pink undertones, in some light. I genuinely don't have anything like it, and think it's a really unique colour! It's super pretty, and I've worn it every day since, I love it so much! It looks boring in the bottle, and I thought I might regret it (I'm trying to buy more "traditional" colours!) but I definitely don't, which is good news. (:

And then I got them home and tried them both on, and realised just how perfect they look together! They're very pretty, I'm also wearing the new eyeliner - it has a weird wet-look effect, which I like on its own, but not when paired with eyeshadow, I found out today, haha.

And if you're wondering what awesome new scarf that is..

That would be this bad boy, £6.99 from H&M and I absolutely adore it! H&M scarves always sucker me in, and I buy a few every Autumn/Winter, cause I love them so much. There's another two I want to go back and get.. You can't really tell in the picture but the orangey bits are a super bright orange, and they're lovely and I love it and there is lots of love.

Thought this was a cute little post to do! Anyway, today I'm off to the gym and to see my friend for lunch!

Primark Rings and Other Things...

...and how I could be in the Sound of Music.I'm joking. I've also never seen that movie all the way through. But that is beside the point.

Yesterday I went into Reading to see the loveeeeely Miss Rachel. Even WITH the decidedly awful weather, we had a nice wander around the shops, a lunch that was eaten outside, precariously, under Pret a Manger's awning, lots of gossip and laughs, and we even trekked it up to Primark, which was an effort because of the rainnnnn.
But they have redone Reading Primark! I am quite impressed. It looks 1000x better than it used to. If you've ever been to that one, it always looks a bit of a mess. So I'm quite glad that they've done it, because they don't have those silly tower things where they fold clothes on anymore, and they've sorted out the jewelery section so that actually HAVE a good one now..and that is where I picked these babies up!

These are awesome! I've generally never really bought any jewellery from Primark because I've just never found anything that I really like. Then recently I've found loads of stuff I like. I bought an awesome pair of owl-earrings the other day which I'll show you at some point, and I got the snake ring in the top right at the same time..Buttt

t I got the rabbit, the bee/bug, and the ball. They look kind of funny lying down like this, and I realised this when I was editing the pictures, so here is a Photobooth picture, to show you what they look like on..

I loveee these. They were all £2 each! That's a right bargain. And I'm a sucker for anything animal themed. However, I have learnt my lesson all too well with cheap jewelery, so when I got them home, I immeditaely painted the inside of the bands with clear nail-varnish, and this will protect the metal from tarnishing as quickly and will stop your fingers from turning green! Which is really handy. I love the one of the bug in particular even my mum was like, "Clare. These are so weird." Haha, I don't think she understands me sometimes.

I also realised the other night that I have no like.. 'traditional' nail varnishes. I have loads of blues and greens and purples and things, but very few reds or pinks or corals, so I wanted to expand on that by buying a deep, vampy red. And I got a damn perfect one!

This is Barry M's Wine Red. And it's gorgeousss. I had to do a little clean up on my index finger and it stained it a little bit, but it's a beautiful vampish red jelly. It's a little lighter than the bottle, but if you layer it up it gets darker. But I demand you all go out and get it because it's beautiful and I just had to take it off because I have work tomorrow and that makes me sad.

And it's late now and I have to go to bed now or I won't wake up in time for work and then my manager will be angry and I could lose my job. Fun stuff!