Collection 2000 BMX Bandit

One layer of Collection 2000 BMX Bandit. It's so much better than Barry M nail polishes which are more expensive and go on watery and streaky. This applies easily and covers well with one coat, dries quickly, and is the prettiest periwinkle blue. I think it actually might be the colour of my Periwinkle Crayola crayon I liked when I was little. Total win.

BMX Bandit is part of the Collection 2000 Hot Looks nail polish which includes 80s colour names like Button Moon (weirdly a blue-green not yellow),and Dynasty (lilac). They're like less than 2 quid each but are often discounted at 2 for £3 or something like that.

Glitter Nails

It's my birthday tomorrow! So I painted my nails a suitably special colour.



Sally Hansen nail polish in Perfect Cherry. I bought it from the pound shop some time back and it doesn't actually wear very well, only about three days (bearing in mind I do wash my hands several times a day) but it looks really hot. Sometimes my Poundland has some good stuff in it, but usually it just has the Revlon Vital Radiance stuff and some not very exciting Rimmel stuff.

I painted over it with another polish I got from the pound shop. It's a Revlon colour called Hot Roxx, which is a very very sheer purplish pink with loads of purple and hot pink glitter. It's no good on its own because it needs a few coats, but it's good on top of other polishes, especially black, purple, and red. I normally use it as a pinkifying glitter topcoat. I can't find it on the actual revlon website and when I google it I find one review and a bunch of what I reckon are Polish pages, so I'm guessing it's from Revlon Poland, but maybe it isn't.



On top of Perfect Cherry:




I'm not very good at applying nail polish.

I also painted my toes. I have long, not very nice toes, and at some point I also injured my big toe and it's mended a bit wonky, but here's a picture of them anyway:



Judge not the feet.

I used a Rimmel 60 seconds nail polish in Pompous, and the Revlon Hot Roxx thing. Pompous is a dark purple with loads of glitter. I'm actually quite fond of these Rimmel 60 seconds nail polishes. They aren't thin and watery and apply easily, and last a decent time (about a week) - better than the Sally Hansen above. The best thing is they come in loads of colours and are cheap, and not only that, Rimmel stuff is often on offer in Superdrug, so you can get 3 colours for the price of 2.

Sleek Original palette and cheapness

Sleek is a line of cosmetics for women of colour (it has a great range of foundation shades) and you can find it in Superdrug. They've got a few palettes out, there's a Storm palette that I might just get because of the wonderful neutrals, and there was a neon Acid palette out that was sold out really quicklyI think they've got a new one out but I haven't seen it in shops yet. From DvoraDivine's swatches it looks like it has some similar colours to the original palette. I have that one and today I've used some colours from it. I've read a lot of good reviews about this palette and I concur that it's amazing for £4.99. Depending on how posh you are that's about how much dinner costs.




I flipped the swatch pictures around to line up with the colours in the palette. The colours are pretty and pigmented though a few colours look the same on me: the second and third on the bottom row, and the fifth (bottom row) reminds me of MAC retrospeck in that it looked like gold glitter on me. When applied sheerly the third pink looks yellow on me when I use it on my lid, I have to apply more than one layer for the pink to show up and I really prefer sheerer eye makeup. It also looks like the copper colour doesn't really show up on me but it actually does show up copper and metallicky in real life, I'm just a similar colour to copper, but a bit less shiny and orange.

No I didn't use a primer, I don't have a primer. It's generally not a problem with me since the eyeshadows I have show up well without a primer, or with just a light-coloured base shadow, including these, so I'm pretty much cool with not using a primer. Maybe I'll get one in time, like when I get a proper job with some proper taxable disposable income, but I'm pretty sure lots of women don't use eyeshadow primers and use lipstick on their cheeks and all I say they're just fine the way they are. I also have a philosophy with more expensive eyeshadows (read: more expensive than, say, Rimmel - MAC is pretty much the top end of what I'm willing to spend): if I'm spending that much on a bit of makeup it'd better work well without extra effort and expense.

I heard that if you put concealer on your lid it also works, but I'm kind of paranoid about doing that often. I don't think concealer was formulated to go on your eyelids. I've got a white shimmery Miss Sporty cream eyeshadow though which I sometimes use and works pretty well for sticking eyeshadows. That's like £1.95. Bonus.

Another thing is that I personally feel that all the colours are quite glittery except the black which they had the good sense to make matte.



Sure it looks pretty but I'd apply just one of the colours on top of a more subdued base for more everyday makeup, if only because I'm just that bit more boring than your average Superdrug shopper. That said, this is a great I don't find the colours chalky and I'm especially fond of the purple, it's a great purple. I haven't got any mid-greens like the one in this palette either, which will come in useful. but I'm going to use this as a going-out palette since it has a huge mirror and all the different colours together and it's all shiny and glittery and pretty and most importantly fits in my handbag. I don't know how small your hand bag is though, some women have the very tiny wristlet-handbags that won't fit a chihuahua in.

What I used today:

Eyes:
Sleek eyeshadow palette bottom row: colours 1, 3, 5.
Rimmel twisty eyeliner.
L'oreal mascara with the little ball instead of a wand. This mascara, I'd like it better if it had a better, less wet formula. I like rolling the little ball around but the mascara clumps a bit, and is a bit wet.

Face:
Boots Natural Collection foundation in Walnut. This is the darkest colour in the Boots Natural Collection and it ain't really that dark - I use Bobbi Brown stick foundation in honey so it's probably equivalent to that except it's less yellow and sheerer, obviously. It's a shame there aren't more colours because it's only £1.95 and doesn't break me out. Sometimes I have terrible-looking skin but I don't want to use a massive heavy stick foundation. That's for special events like weddings and celebrations - things involving distant relatives and photography.
Superdrug MeMeMe Pussycat lip & cheek tint (Benetint knock-off).
MAC studiofinish concealer in NW35.

Lips:
C.O. Bigelow lip balm.
MAC Sandy B lipstick.

short skincare post

Status: knackered.

My skin is particularly terrible right now and I noticed little lines under my eyes - I haven't been moisturising my undereye area and have generally gotten careless about my skin since about September when my new course started. So I've got two new things: a night cream and an eye cream.



The Boots Botanics 'Eye and Lip Correction Serum' promises results in 4 weeks on the tube. It ain't exactly cheap at £8.80 and has all sorts of things including horse chestnut. I have faith in the Botanics products in general but I'm doing a pharmacognosy course and am probably biased in favour of Things With Plants. I'll be testing this over 4 weeks and I'll review it at the end.

The other thing I got is the Superdrug Vitamin E night cream because I thought I should start using one, and vit E will apparently reduce acne scars and stop lines forming, and I'm running out of money and it's less than three quid. I was going to get their Vit E oil but the top ingredient's mineral oil so I decided not to in case it broke me out further. I was thinking of making my own vit C serum but then realised I didn't have ascorbic acid or glycerin or anything else. I might get some vit C tablets and make a mask though. Or if I have some money at the end of the month I might get The Body Shop's vit C mask (it's got a fancier name) because it peels off, and that's fun.

Vit C Tablet Mask Recipe

Materials:
vit C tablets (a small box in Superdrug is about 90p or something)
warm water

Methods:
Smush together and put on your face until dry
Wash off or wipe with a cotton pad/cloth/etc.