17 Get Bronzed GWP

In my haul in my last post I showed that I'd got a 'Get Bronzed' gift with purchase, and I wanted to cover in a bit more datils what was in the kit and whether I think it's worth having.

In the kit is an Ultmate Volume lipgloss in shade In the Nude, a cream blush in Bronze, and an eyeshadow in Statuesque.

The lipgloss is pretty, but not really my colour. I think it would look amazing on black skintones, and would certainly work for medium white skintones, just not my extremely pale one! This is a plumping lipgloss and it does get quite tingly, which personally I don't mind, but if you do, this might not be one for you

The cream blush isn't really a blush at all. It's a very very shimmery, greasy orange cream. The texturereminds me of those garishly coloured 'makeup' sets you would get when you were about five, which were esentially washable greasepaints. Even making the hand swatch for this took a lot of effort to make it show up!

Top-Bottom - Statuesque, Bronzed, In the Nude

The eyeshadow is lovely. It's a very wearable colour and I think it would flatter most skintones. It doesn't require too much effort to get decent colour payoff, and it lasts well.

My overall impression of this set is that if you were going to spend £5.99 on 17 cosmetics anyway, then go for it, but otherwise, I wouldn't go rushing to get it. The lipgloss and eyeshadow are worth having, but the cream blush is terrible.

Nailed: French Gradient with Tutorial

Today I decided to do something a little bit different with my nails. I like the classic french manicure but I sometimes think it can look a little bit too prefect, and I know a lot of people think it can look tacky (though personally I like it!). This look is softer and is inherently easier than doing your own french manicure as well!

The steps are really very easy, but I'll go through them anyway. You're going to need a nude nail polish, I used Maybelline Everstrong in Ivory Rose (£4.09, here), a base coat, I used Save the Nail Repair and Rescue Base coat as my nails are quite weak (£7.50, here), a french white polish, I'm using Collection 2000 French Manicure in French White (£2.99, availbile from Boots and Superdrug, but irritatingly not online) and a topcoat. I'm using Seche Vite Dry Fast Topcoat (£10.50, here), a nail file and/or buffer, a makeup sponge and some sort of non-porus surface, I just use old packaging.

The first step is to prep your nails. File them into a shape you like, and then I always use a nail buffer to give a smoother finish, but you could skip this. Apply your base coat.

 Apply your nude polish, using enough coats for it to be opaque, though if your nail line shows it doesn't matter too much.

Once that is completely dry, you need to pour out a little bit of your nude polish onto the plastic. Dip the edge of your sponge into it and then dab it off on a clean part of the plastic. If the sponge is too wet you wont get a nice gradient, just a harsh white patch, so this bit is important! Start to stipple the sponge onto the tips of your nails. concentrate on getting a subtle wash of colour at this stage, and dont worry if your tips aren't completely white yet. Once you have done this on all 10 fingers, you can go back and use the sponge just on the very ends of your nails to make the tips fully white. Apply your topcoat and you're good to go!

Using a matte topcoat can make the gradient even more fuzzy and soft looking, it's a really pretty effect.

Nailed; Ivory Rose

I think I've found my perfect nude polish! I first saw this on Makeup Savvy and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it! I got it in Superdrug where I took advantage of their current 3 for 2 on all cosmetics offer.

It's from the Maybelline Forever Strong line and I absolutely love it. It's much more peachy than my other nude polish, which is from the same line but is the shade Rose Poudre. I think this is a great nude for fair skin as it doesn't make your hands look 'dead' or make them look red, which can happen with some nudes. I think it would look nice with a glitter topcoat too, if you wanted to liven it up a bit.