Born Pretty Store Glitter Nail Wraps

DISCLAIMER: I've been sent this product by Born Pretty Store for my honest review which is exactly what I've given you!

Hi everyone! So a few weeks back Allison from Born Pretty Store contacted me asking if I would like to review some of their products on here which was very exciting for me as I've had this blog for just over a year now and this is the first set of products that have been sent to me! I've read a couple of other reviews and have looked at the site before and what was such a pleasant surprise to me was the price - everything is so reasonably priced! From placing my order to receiving it took just under a month but their delivery times vary based on your location!

So as well as choosing 3 stamping plates (which you can read about here!) they also kindly let me choose 2 other items and this is the first one I'd like to share with you. Now I've only really used nail wraps once before and it was a bit for a disaster to be honest; they didn't fit my nails properly and I didn't put them on very well so there were creases everywhere but I thought it was time to give nail wraps another go! So I chose these Glitter Gradient Wraps which are only £1.84!!! With this design there are 13 different colours to choose from and I chose #5 which is a a warm brown shade as I thought it was something different to what I usually wear on my nails!

In the pack you get 12 wraps of varying sizes and although they probably won't be exactly the perfect size for you nails you can get pretty close and there some handy instructions on the back if you've never used wraps before. 

So you peel off the protective cover and then very carefully you can peel off each individual nail wrap and then place it onto your own. 

Once it's on it's quite hard to readjust so my advice would be to just hover it over your nail when you are trying to position it. Place it onto you nail and then smooth it down starting from the middle to ensure there are no creases. This was all a lot easier than I remember it being and I had no creases at all! All you've then got to do is cut off the excess and file it to neaten the edges. You don't have to but I put a top coat on just to make sure they stayed on.

I was so impressed with these wraps! They look so pretty and I like the gradient effect they have and I got a surprising number of people ask me how I managed to do it! They're great if nail painting isn't your strength or a major selling point for me is how quickly you can put them on and don't have to wait for them to dry! They last remarkably well without chipping too! I had them on a whole week and the only damage to them was me getting some glue on them in DT and it accidentally taking some of the wrap with it when I peeled it off!

With free shipping and them being so cheap anyway I will be ordering some other colours to try out! If you like any of the plates I chose or there's something else that takes you fancy you can use my 10% off code on your next order!

Hope you enjoyed this review - let me know what you think! Do you use nail wraps or do you prefer painting them? Thanks for reading! 

Vaseline Spray & Go Moisturiser Review

Hi everyone! So I mentioned in my post on my New Years Resolutions that I would make more of an effort to moisturise my skin and we're a month into 2014 now and I've actually been sticking with it! Okay I've not moisturised everyday but I'm doing better with this one than my other resolutions. This has been mainly thanks to this wonderful product - Vaseline Spray & Go Body Moisturiser in Cocoa Radiant! It's £4.99 in most shops and I think I picked mine up from Boots using my Boots points!

I was a bit hesitant with it because I didn't really know how much like they advertise it would be, but I was pleasantly surprised! I tend to use it in the morning once I've had my shower and all you have to do is spray it on and give it a quick rub and you're done! Granted, it doesn't dry as quickly as it's portrayed in the advert but it still drys full in about a minute and then you can go ahead and get dressed.

As for the packaging I like that you can lock it by twisting the nozzle part round which means you can pop it into your suitcase without the worry of it accidentally spraying all over your clothes. As for the scent, it's nothing special really, just a sweet cocoa smell and I find it doesn't last for a huge amount of time which I guess could be a pro or a con.

I'd really recommend checking this out and if cocoa isn't your thing there are 2 other scents. Let me know what you think of it if you've tried it. Thanks for reading!

Review of 'Rimmel London I Love Lasting Finish Fruities' in 'Strawberry Fizz'

Hi everyone! I was scanning through my nail varnish collection and this caught my eye as I don't think I've worn it before. It's not really a colour I wear so I was surprised I had bought it but then after reading the back I realised it was a scented one! (Which is what I imagine compelled me to buy it). You can pick them up pretty much anywhere as they've been around for a while now for £2.99.

It's a very Barbie Pink kind of colour so I'm not really sure why it is named ' Strawberry Fizz' as I don't think I've ever seen a strawberry that colour!

I used my Barry M base coat as usual, to make sure my nails were protected.

Then, I applied the first coat of colour. I have to say I didn't really notice the scent at first but after it had been drying for a little bit it was quite noticeable. However, I would not have said it smelled very life like, it was a very sweet sickly strawberry scent sort of similar to those scented fruit balls you can get. It did go on very smoothly though just like the other Rimmel nail varnishes I own which was a great plus although it was a little streaky.

After applying a second coat the smell got a little bit stronger but you did have to sniff the nails quite hard to get a whiff. 

I only applied a top coat onto one of my hands as an experiment to see if it masked the smell. By the next morning the scent had definitely faded more on the nails with a top coat which wasn't really a surprise! However, by the day after your could no longer smell anything from nails without the top coat on either! They did manage not to chip a huge amount though which I was pretty impressed by as I've been doing my DT coursework all week which has included gluing and sanding of wood and plastic and by the end of the week they still looked somewhat acceptable!

I wouldn't really recommend you buy it if it's the scent you are after because it doesn't stay around long and is very artificial - although I did read that some of the others in the range have a longer lasting scent. Personally, I don't really like this colour as Barbie pink doesn't really suit me, but the fact that they stayed on so well was a huge bonus! Let me know if you've tried scented nail varnish before and how it turned out for you! Thanks for reading!

New Year Resolutions!

Hi everyone! It's that time again where we pick out all the bad things with out lives and make a statement to try and change them. I've not had a great track record with my resolutions, I usually break them after a month or so. But this year will be different! I thought if I wrote a post about it it would motivate me more to keep to them so we'll see!

1. Be healthier - I joined a gym last year and was going like 3 times a week but once I got a job I found I didn't really have the time to go anymore so this year I want to make time to go to the gym and actually work out there because before I would go on the cross trainer but slow down at the first drop of sweat or when I could feel a burn! Also I want to eat healthier too like not just eat because I'm bored!

2. Pay more attention to this blog - I said in a post that I've put this down as my skill for DofE but I don't want to feel like this is a chore or like something I 'have' to do, I actually want to put more into this blog and enjoy it at the same time!

3. Read more - I used to read so many books but when I started my GCSEs I just didn't enjoy it because I felt like there was other stuff I should be doing. I just need to spend less time on Tumblr and more time reading again!

4. Don't get too stressed out about school - I know A Levels are a big thing and by this time next year I will have applied to university and may have heard back from a few which is really scary but I don't want to get too bogged down in it if I'm struggling or don't know what to do with my life!

5. Look after my skin - I really need to start to moisturise properly because my skin gets so fragile at times and I got plenty of body butters for Christmas so I really have no excuse!

What are your resolutions for the new year? Let me know! I hope you have a great 2014 and thanks for reading!

Review of 'Instant Nail Effects Crackle' in 'Black Magic'

Hi everyone! So I thought I would try a new thing out on my nails! I got this crackle effect last Chirstmas but I always thought it looked a bit tacky (I still do if you match it with the wrong colour) so I haven't actually tried it until now. I think you can buy it for £3.99 which is the average price for any effect nail varnish Barry M has.

I have been loving the rockish look lately of mixing black with gold and I really wanted to see if I could apply this to my nails. First I painted my nails gold (which I wrote about HERE) which acted as my base colour. On it's own, I'm not too sure about having full gold nails so I probably wouldn't use it without placing some sort of effect over the top.

I then applied the first coat of the crackle effect whilst the gold was still drying (I'd left it about 5-10 minutes but it was still a little tacky). I wasn't quite sure if I should be applying it with a thin coat or a thick. The first nail I did, I painted a very thin coat on, but then found I needed more polish to cover the whole nail. However, by the time I had got some more on the brush the thin strip had already began to crack. So, my advice would be to make sure you have plenty of varnish on your brush and just paint a slightly thick coat over the top of your chosen base colour.

The cracking started almost instantly and it only took about 1 minute for the whole thing to be done. I continued painting all my nails until my whole hand was done.

I like that the crackle is random so every nail is different, but I found, especially with my pinky, that the crackle had basically split into 4 sections. Personally, I think this works best when there are lots of thin cracks all over the nail.

I then added a top coat to give it a lovely shine as the crackle is kind of matt. I LOVE how my nails look as I think it is quite edgy and something different than just a plain colour. I've received quite a few compliments on my nails this week because of it (including a couple from some guys!). I think it works really well with the gold as a base colour, but you definitely have to be careful what you use as a base colour because obviously some will look great and some will just look plain tacky.

I would recommend this product as I think it livens up your nails and although I haven't tried the other colours (I think I'm right in saying you can also get it in purple, pink, blue, white and gold?) I think that black is probably the best colour to get, as in theory it will go with a wider variety of base colours!

Let me know what you think of the crackle effect! Thank you for reading! (:

Review of 'NYC Quick Dry Nail Polish' in 'Full Metal Jacket'

Hi everyone! I bought this nail varnish when I went through the phase of buying nail varnishes from NYC as they were on a 3 for 2 deal and are only £1.79 each anyway. I had picked it up with the intention of using it at Christmas to jazz up my nails, but I thought I would give it a little test now!

It's a very strong gold metallic colour and I wasn't too sure about wearing it as I think sometimes it looks a little bit tacky when people have gold nails. I don't really like gold anything to be honest - most of my jewellery is silver. I think this dislike of gold has come from seeing pirates in films and cartoons with gold teeth.

I applied my base coat, which some of you may have noticed is not my usual Barry M, but in fact my old Collection one! This is basically because I couldn't find my Barry M one when I was painting my nails (although I've found it since).

I then applied the first coat of colour and was pleasantly surprised! With only one coat my nail was fully covered without the usual streaky appearance that lots of the nail varnishes from NYC seem to have. You could definitely get away with only applying this one coat, but I wanted to apply a second more to protect the nail varnish from chipping!

So the second coat made very little difference to the colour, which is great as it proves you can get away with only applying one coat of colour!

I didn't apply a top coat as I wanted to test out something on top of it which you will be able to read about in a few days time!

I love how well this nail varnish goes on and how your nail colour looks the same as the bottle after one coat, but I'm still not sold on the idea of having purely gold nails. If you like having metallic nails then I would, without a doubt, recommend you get this as it is one of the best ones from the NYC collection. If you have never tried metallic nails then this would the perfect one to try out because even if you don't like it you won't have spent a huge amount on it.

Do you like metallic nails or have you never tried them? Let me know! Keep an eye out for what I tried next with this look and thanks for reading! (:

Review of MUA Lipsticks

Hi everyone! Until about 3 months ago I'd never heard of  the brand MUA. That was until my sister came home raving about an eyeshadow pallet she had just bought. It's basically a brand that is only available Superdrug or online and it is so incredibly cheap but the amazing thing is although the price is low the quality of the products isn't (or at least the ones I've heard about)!

As you may know I don't really wear much makeup - a little concealer and a dab of mascara and I'm good to go! But I've been feeling a bit facial/cosmetically boring lately so I thought I would buy some lipsticks to spice things up so I went to have a look at MUA in my local Superdrug and saw the lipsticks were only £1!!!

The packaging isn't anything fancy, but then again, neither are some other high end lipsticks such as some of MACs lipsticks. I quite like the simple black tube with a silver ring as a break in the middle as it I think it looks quite elegany. I absolutely love that you can take off the little pot on the bottom of the tube and use it with a brush when your lipstick runs out! I thought this was a brilliant idea as it gives you some time if you run out and can't get to buy another one straight away.

The first shade I picked up was 'Shade 1' which is a very deep wine red. I've especially seen Zoella wearing a dark shade of red on her lips in her recent videos and it looks really nice on her so thought I would give it a go!

It's really nice to apply, the colour goes straight onto your lips and your lips feel sort of moisturised rather than the sticky feel some lipsticks have.

I think it's a little dark for me personally as I'm pretty pale and it just makes me look paler but that might just be because I'm not used to wearing anything like this.Maybe if I wore a little more face make up, like foundation, it might look better?

The second one I picked up was 'Shade 14' which also has the name 'Bare' on the label. It's a nude colour that looks amazing on.

This one looks the best on in my opinion and it really moisturises your lips at the same time!

This was my favourite one out of the 4 as I am happy to wear it out as it isn't too bold. I've worn it quite a few times now and I think it looks gorgeous!

The next one I picked up 'Shade 13' which is a much brighter red than previously and more of the classic red you see lots of people wearing.

This one was similar in application to the dark red; it went on smoothly and felt really good on my lips.

I love the colour but as I'm just starting out wearing lipsticks I think it might be a little too bright for me at the moment as I'm still not 100% comfortable wearing lipstick out. Fingers crossed that will change!

The final shade I picked up was 'Shade 2' which is a sort of bright pink colour which I found matched my hair when I dip dyed it for the second time.

Again it's really nice to apply. I felt this one more so than the first seemed a bit cakey but once I had blended it with my finger it was good to go!

I really like it as it's something different from the classic red and the simple nude colours but I'm not sure many occasions have arisen where this colour matched with my outfit but hopefully I'll find something soon!

I really like all of the MUA lipsticks I have tried and for a £1 it's an absolute bargain! I would wholeheartedly recommend you having a look at the lipsticks MUA has to offer as they've got quite a broad selection for you to choose from if you didn't particularly like the colours I picked up. I know I will be going back in and picking up a couple more in different shades.

Let me know if you've tried anything from MUA and what you thought about. Thanks for reading!

Opinions on Low Back Dresses

Hi everyone! So I went out recently to celebrate one of my friends birthday which I had missed because I was away in Europe at the time. We decided to go to TGI Fridays in Bath, which is not a particularly posh restaurant but we decided to dress up a little for the fun of it!

I decided to wear a dress I bought from Forever 21 which had a pretty low back (I actually included it in a haul which you can see HERE) with some wedges as I am one of the shortest in our friendship group!

Before going out I did a bit of a search on low back dresses to see what people thought of them when I came across a Wikipedia article on backless dresses which stated:

"The wearer usually had to be slim to be able to pull off the effect"

I'd never really thought about about what body type people had to be in order to pull of this kind of dress but when I searched for 'Low back dresses plus size' literally nothing came up! I don't really see myself as being thin as I wear a size 10/12, but then again I'm not particularly plus sized either, yet I thought this dress looked okay on me?

Lots of people also seemed to dislike the idea that you had your whole back on show. I know Fleur (FleurDeForce) mentioned in one of her haul videos that she didn't like dresses that had the lower back cut out as it wasn't very flattering, but I don't know if she meant a dress like this or I've seen some dress that just have a piece cut out just above your waist. Granted this dress isn't fully exposing my back but there is still a fair bit on show.

I know this is a very short post but I just wanted to know your opinions really - do you think you have to be super slim to pull of a backless dress or can it suit anyone? Let me know and I hope you enjoyed reading this!

Review of 'MUA Nail Constellation' in 'Pisces'

Hi everyone! So as you know I normally just do plain nail varnish reviews but I thought I would try something different! I'm also thinking of doing some patterned nail tutorials and things like that in the future, if you are interested in that?

This isn't mine by the way, it's actually my sisters and she kindly let me borrow it so I could try it out. I believe you can buy them at £3 from MUA which is a brand you can only find online or in Superdrug and I'd not heard of this brand until pretty recently but they basically do super cheap make up and from what I've heard most of it is actually pretty good!

So I am using the colour Pisces (which is actually my star sign) but I think I am right in saying there are 4 other ones in a variety of colours. This one is mainly green with bits of pearly pink and white infused into the mixture.

I have already painted my nails with a colour I found to match the green balls best which I got from the NYC and you can read a review of that HERE . I didn't have any that matched the pearl or white but I think it would have looked more effective if I had been able to use a pearl colour as my base.

So what you have to do is paint your desired nail with your base colour and whilst it is still wet and tacky pour the small balls onto you nail. This can be a bit messy so make sure you have something underneath to catch the mass of stay ones! Once your nail looks fully covered gently push the balls down onto your nail and then apply a clear top coat on top to secure them.

My whole nail is covered! Honest! It's just that the green balls blend in the my base colour

I only chose to do one nail thus acting as an accent nail because I had never tried anything like this and thought it might be a little bit too much if I did all my nails like this!

Although the bottle is very well designed to pouring the balls out it is a bit tricky getting them back in. For some reason I couldn't remove the funnel part of the bottle as you are supposed to do so I have to try and pour the stray balls back through the tiny hole they came out of! I managed to get there in the end but it was a bit annoying.I'm sure by removing the funnel it is a lot easier to pour the balls back in but I was just unable to do so.

Excess balls 

I quite like the overall effect although I did find it strange to have things sticking out of my nail! Considering the price of £3 I would recommend this as it is a great way to jazz up your nails although personally I would try a different colour out as I don't think this one was right for me!

Let me know if what you do to spice up your nails and also if you would be interested in me doing some tutorial/nail pattern design things in the future! Thanks for reading.