Going Barmy For Balmi?

I love lipbalm, but I dont apply it as often as I probably should. When I do, I generally go for my trusty Nivea Soothe and Protect, beause its cheap, convenient and I like the scent. I also think it works really well and moisturises my lips when they need it.

I took two Nivea Soothe and Protect away to Uganda with me, and came back with neither of them. Travelling around all the time meant that things got lost easily, (I also managed to loose my neon pink tangle teezer, boo) and the fact is when I was leaving I met lots of people who still had a while left to go, so I ended up leaving things like shampoo and shower gel behind for them, and it made more room for bringing stuff home!

Anyway, the upshot of this is that I needed a new lipbalm. I was perusing the aisles of boots, when I spotted Balmi. The little spherical balms reminded me instantly of the US cult favourite, EOS lip balms. I was intrigued, and seeing that they had SPF 15, I was sold.

They come in five flavours, strawberry, coconut, raspberry, blackcurrant and mint. I went for raspberry and I have to say the scent is lovely. It's quite strong, but it doesnt hang around for long enough to be annoying.

Then you open the container the balm inside is domed, so you can just mash the whole thing into your pout, and this makes it surprisingly easy to apply.

Some of you might not know this but I hate vaseline with a passion, because when you apply it it just melts down to too thin of a liquid, which I really dont enjoy the texture of, and I get this really wierd sensation of my lips almost like tingling but really unpleasant. I also really hate the petroleum-y taste that it has, and unfortunately, this is similar in taste and texture.

That being said, I know that a lot of people LOVE vaseline and will be jumping for joy at the fact that this is similar! I will still be using mine up, so it isn't as if my issue is a complete deal breaker either.

I also really love the idea of adding a keyring attachment to the bottom of the balm, it even has a removable clip so you don't have to hold your entire bunch of keys up to your mouth!

Great idea Balmi, but could you bring out a paraben and petrolatum free version? Pwetty please? I'd go Balmi for that!


 Balmi lip balm is available here and is priced at £4.99.

Nailed: OPI Mermaid's Tears with Your Royal Shine-ness

Again, apologies for the high number of nail related posts!

I absolutely love this mani, and didn't want to take it off! Definitely one I'll be repeating. OPI Mermaid's Tears (Pirates of the Carribean collection) with Your Royal Shine-ness (Serena Glam Slam) on the tips. Application was fine, tips were done with a small paintbrush, all smoothed out with a coat of Seche Vite. Removal was without issues :)

TK Maxx OPI Haul

Sorry to be coming up with so many nail related posts recently, I'm really trying to vary my content a bit more but I dont have much makeup with me at my temporary flat, just enough for 2 or 3 every day looks really, while I've got all of my nail stuff, so my nails have been getting a lot of my attention recently!

not long after I got back from Uganda I went shopping near my parents house on the Isle of Wight. TK Maxx has only recently come to the Island and is something of a novelty there! Obviously we have TK Maxx in London where I spend most of my time, but after nearly 3 months in the wilderness it seemed like a pretty exciting prospect!

I don't love shopping in TK Maxx for clothes, I find it kindof stressful and too much like a jumble sale, but for accessories and beauty products (and weirdly, ski wear) it doesn't bother me at all. I've never owned or even used an OPI polish before so I was pretty excited when I saw them!

I got two sets in the end, a trio, above, which was priced at £14.99, and a Serena Glam Slam duo, which was £9.99.

The trio doesn't seem to be from any particular collection, the colours are, from left to right, Mermaid's Tears, which was from the Pirates of the Carribean collection, Shatter The Scales, which was from The Amazing Spider Man collection, and Your Royal Shine-Ness, which was from a different Serena Glam Slam duo! I really like the colours though, and it's nice to have some limited edition shades.

The colours in the Serena Glam Slam duo are Pros and Bronze (right), and Love is a Racket (left). Pros and Bronze is definitely my favourite out of these two, its just so interesting! its a really coppery tone, and on the nail has a bit of a pink colour shift! It's so pretty and striking, I couldn't stop looking at it when I was wearing it!

 I was pretty pleased to get these at only £5 each rather than the usual price point of around £10. I like to change my polish often and although I like these, I don't think I could justify spending that much on one polish. If I saw them at this price again I would definitely buy more though!

Everyday Makeup 4

Face: Shu Uemura UV Underbase BB Mousse in BB Beige, MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural in Light, MAC Blush in Fleur Power, Collection 2000 Lastin Perfection Concealer in shade 1, Light

Eyes: MAC Paintpot in Rubenesque, MAC Eyeshadow in Mulch, MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack, Maybelline the one by one mascara in Black.

Brows: MAC Eyeshadow in Omega

Lips: Balmi Raspberry Lipbalm

Nailed: Barry M Neon Pink

I'm so sorry I've been MIA the past couple of weeks, I've been staying with a friend in London while I looked for a new flat/house to live in for my second year at uni, and I let my camera at my parents house. I've got it back now and found a house, thank God!

Anyway, recently I was in Tantrum in Westfield in Stratford, where they do nail art stuff, and recently seem to have added a lot more makeup and jewelry to their stock. They also do nail art for you in store, which I need to check out some time soon!

They had a big Barry M stand and seemed to stock the entire line of Barry M makeup. I was very excited about that as I have a bit of an obsession with Barry M Nail Paints, but I have the most popular ones which tend to be stocked at smaller stands! I found a few polishes that I don't already own, but it was the neons that really caught my eye, and I came away with Neon Pink and a blue nail art pen by Tantrum. I would link to their website but there isn't much of it, you can find their facebook page here

Neon Pink is a really bright, almost, but not quite, highlighter pink. The thing that makes it slightly more interesting than a flat neon is that it has a very fine blue shimer to it, which accentuates its brightness. If you enlarge the photo the shimmer becomes much more apparent. It was opaque in 2 coats but I'm a 3 coat girl and used 3 for a perfect finish. One thicker coat could even have given adequate coverage.

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.

Back to Britain Haul!

Since getting back to blighty on friday, there have been things that I have needed desperately, either because I took them to Uganda with me and left them behind, or because I finished the up before I left. Yesterday was the first time I had been able to get to the shops just for general shopping, and there were quite a few things that caught my eye, so I thought I'd do a haul!

The first place I stopped was Superdrug, where I picked up some oh-so-interesting tweezers, makeup wipes, and eyelash curlers. The eyelash curlers I'm ulikely to even use, I love my NYC eyelash curlers, but when the little rubber pads get worn out I generally just go and buy a cheap new one, whichever comes with the most spare pads! this one comes with 3, so thats why I chose it. The wipes are my usual Kleenex Eye Makeup Remover wipes, which are really soft and don't scratch my eyes like other brands seem to.

Next I headed over to boots, where I spotted 17 Colour Switch nail polish, which I was really intrigued by, so naturally I had to buy one! I also saw that Barry M seems to be doing a version of this too, but I chose the 17 one mainly because I liked the colour (Imaginitively named Silver) better. 17 had one of their free gift pack offers on too, if you spent over £5.99. I wasn't planning on doing so, but then I remembered that I could do with a plain boring clear lipgloss. I picked up what I THOUGHT was a lipgloss, but when I got home it turned out I picked up lash and brow gel instead! D'oh!

Although I wasn't tempted by Barry M's Chameleon polish, I DID notice that they had a couple of new glitters, which I was very interested in! I got Silver Multi Glitter and Aqua Glitter, which are both gorgeous!

Because I spent over £5.99 on 17 cosmetics, I also got a Get Bronzed set, containing In the Nude lipgloss, Statuesque eyeshadow, and Creamy Bronzed cream blush.

Lastly I skipped off to The Body Shop, mainly because I needed shower gel and moisturizer, which was sold out all over the country and online just before I left for Uganda.

I actually got some really good deals, I got my shower gel at buy one get one half price, the had the moisturizer in stock (winner, even if i didn't save any money!)  and as my Love Your Body membership had run out while I was away, meaning that I also missed my birhday gift voucher worth £5, the lady behind the counter was really lovely, renewing it for free, and then giving me a £5 voucher because I had enough stamps on my old card.

The RRPs of each item are; Hemp hand protector, £5. Seaweed Mattifying Day Cream, £9, Shower gel/cream, £4. so with all of that and my new love your body card it should have come to £27, but with all the deductions it only came to £13! bargain!