W7 Sheer Collection swatches

W7 is a brand I've previously overlooked. It's a brand sold in a local beauty shop near me, they sell really cheap £1 makeup and some older/discontinued l'Oreal/Maybelline/Revlon...I'm sure you know what I mean. They usually have a few stands of overly orange/shimmery bronzers, yeah... I think I may have had a few pieces of W7 makeup in my early teens. I shudder thinking back. Their polishes, however, are a totally different story, and I'm quickly becoming a massive fan.




As with the name of the collection, these are designed to be sheer, and they're done really really well. With three of the polishes, they hit opaque at just two coats, which is pretty amazing for a sheer polish. At one coat, they're semi-sheer. They do bring colour to the nail instead of just a slight tint. The other two are opaque in three and tint the nails at one; semi-sheer at two. I will say that even as one coat these apply really well. They don't streak, they aren't uneven, which is something even high-end brands can't get right. The best bit? These polishes are £1.95 from Nail Polish Direct and contain 15ml. I'm sure if you look around local independant beauty places you might come across them though. As far as I'm aware, they aren't sold in Superdrug or Boots. Onto the polishes!

I should point out that I only went to two coats with all these polishes since they're meant to be sheer.


Sheer peach is a...yeah, sheer peach. Can't really argue with that. More of a yellow peach than a pink one though.

Sheer Pink is a fairly neutral pink, not too blue, not too yellow.

Sheer Mauve is a sheer lilac.

Sheer Blue is...why am I even bothering? It's kind of pastel but not pale. This one would take three coats before it's opaque.

Sheer Lemon is...wait, it's not called sheer yellow? Shock! It's a sheer pastel yellow. Again, it's a three-coater.

Uh oh...I did some nail art...kinda!

I've always believed that I'm that bad at drawing I should never attempt to do pretty nail art. Well, I'm now on a mission to prove myself wrong. This was fairly basic and easy to do (though things got 100x more difficult when it came to using my right hand to paint - yup, I'm a lefty!) but I think it came out quite pretty!



Leopard Print Nails!!!

I used a gold base, in this case it was H&M Sparkle & Shine Baby, just one coat of that, followed with one coat of China Glaze I'm Not Lion. I then used a fast dry topcoat because they were taking forever to dry, and I'm a fairly impatient person. I created the "spots" using Andrea Fulerton Dot and Flick, which basically has a cap you pull off with a tiiiiiny tip to make dots and draw with, and you can unscrew the cap to find a very long, thin brush for striping. I literally just dotted the spots on. I then filled the spots in with China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, but decided it was a bit too neon, so went over the top of that with Nicole By OPI Wear Something Spar-kylie (paaahh I'm in love with this). A slick of Seche and I was done.

Not sure if the pink ruins it or adds a fun girly touch, but either way me likey! I'm actually really pleased with how they came out considering I am absolutely terrible at drawing anything (even my stick men just look wrong).

Hopefully I'll be attempting more nail art!

*I just found my old digi camera that shockingly has a macro function, so I'm testing it out to see how  it performs

Barry M Giveaway!

I have 3 Barry M's up for grabs; Pink Silver Glitter, Aqua Glitter and Jewel Britannia.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Jewel Britannia

Pink Silver Glitter

 

T&C stuff - Giveaway is open worldwide, all you have to do is literally follow this blog. That's it! Extra option if you fancy telling others about it, but it's not necessary.
Giveaway opens at 12.01am EST, which is about 5am UK time on the 27th July (that's today!) and will end at 12.01am EST on the 3rd August 2012. Good Luck :D

EDIT: extended til the 10th August, for some reason I thought it was already set to two weeks. Clearly I've lost a week somewhere!

Alternate Smokey Eye - Green/Teal/Purple

So, for something different I thought I'd do a tutorial of sorts. I saw this look whilst flicking through a magazine and wanted to re-create it. So...here goes (be nice!)

I started with MAC Painterly Paint Pot all over the lid, to the brow. This is about the only thing that will stop my shadow creasing! I then went in and very messily applied MAC Undercurrent over my lid and into my crease a little, then blended with a 217. This liner is amazing - it's a blue teal shot through with gold sparkle and it blends like a friggin' dream. I then took a cotton bud with some eye makeup remover and sharpened the top line. Basically I wanted the colour on the inner part of the eye to almost touch the brow, and then slope it down towards my outer corner.

I then took MAC Grand Galaxy Extra Dimension eyeshadow (rich shimmering purple) and applied that to the inner eye, above the crease, and tapered it towards the end of the line on my outer eye, so it goes from thick to thin.

I then took MAC Lucky Green (frosted chartruese) and applied it to the inner lid to about half way over, and on my outer lid I applied MAC Jealousy Wakes (vibrant emerald green with teal and gold).

I then decided that the very inner part of my lid wasn't light enough, so I went in with MAC Sun Blonde to lighten it a little.

I then took Undercurrent on the lower lash line and blended with a pencil brush.  Just like the top lid I added Lucky Green and Jealousy Wakes.

I also decided to highlight my tear duct, so opted for Hii-yah from the The Balm Muppets Palette. I also used that on my brow bone. To finish my eyes I used Benefit Bad Gal mascara with a touch of Illamasqua Volume mascara in Lewd on the bottom lashes.

OK, so it's not quite as perfect as the magazine pic, but I quite like it!

And...some really bad pics taken with my iPad...

For the rest of the face I used Chanel Mat Lumiere in 10, MAC Skinsheen Bronzer Stick in Tan Tint, Illamasqua Powder Blush in Tremble, MAC Light Year Mineralize Skinfinish and MAC Growing Trend Lipstick.

*And yes, I'm well aware I have a massive nose...it runs in the family :(

Avon 24k Gleam Of Gold Eyeshadow Palette Review and Swatches

So, for something different, I thought I'd review an eyeshadow quad! I picked this up from Avon online a few days ago. They had a few deals on and I'm really, really bad at resisting sales/deals.

Gleam Of Gold contains four shadows; a slightly frosted ivory/off-white, a yellow based slightly muted gold, a medium dark red based purple and a chocolate brown. All have slight gold shimmer in them (that's said to be 24k!).

 One thing I will say about this is that all these shades are on the sheer side. Not terribly so, but they definitely aren't opaque. I think it actually works that they're sheerer; somehow I think this would be naff if each shade had amazing colour payoff. The fact that they're sheer and muted seems to work, it's much more subtle. It also means that the frosted off-white, which is usually a colour I strongly avoid, actually works really nicely as a highlighter.

 I didn't experience any fallout and they blended really nicely. I did have to pack on a few layers of the gold but it wasn't anything too painful. I followed the "instructions" on the back of the palette on how to use this quad - I think it looks really nice, except the brown barely shows up on my top lash line, so next time I'll add it into the crease to create more depth. Overall I think this is a great palette, sure it's sheer but it's also more subtle, which in this case I think works brilliantly.

Nails Inc Cheyne Walk Mirror Metallics swatches

More duochrome goodness? Oh, go on then!

Cheyne Walk is a murky, bronze-y browne-y olive-y base shot through with a gorgeous vibrant purple/violet duochrome. It's a bit of a bizarre combination to me, but it is nice! Opaque in two coats, again the formula was top notch. There seemed to be less visible brush strokes in this one compared to Swiss Cottage.

Nails Inc Swiss Cottage Mirror Metallics swatches

Swiss Cottage is a green/teal/blue duochrome (triochrome?) metallic. This is extremely pretty. Easily one of my favourite polishes I own. It's green in direct light, but around the edges of the nail and in the shade it's blue. When I saw this I thought "Hmm, OPI Just Spotted The Lizard dupe perhaps?" and thankfully, it's not. JSTL is waaaaay more gold, this is simply green and blue. It's opaque in two, and whilst there are visible brush strokes they don't seem that bad. They certainly don't stop me wearing it! Application was pretty much flawless!

Apparantly there are four of these polishes in total, the two here and two more called "Stratford" and "Primrose Park". They aren't available on the Nails Inc website or ASOS, but they are available on the US Sephora site, nothing on the French site unfortunately.