Festive Berry NOTD

Before we go all in with red nails and gold glitter, I wanted to try out a slightly different festive nail look using purple polish and silver glitter.

I recently bought yet another Barry M polish in the shade Berry Cosmo.

This is such a lovely purpley wine colour and the name makes me feel like getting in the party mood.
It lasts around the usual four days with a little bit of wearing at the tips when worn by itself.

To glam things up a bit, I applied one coat of Holo Silver by Precious Polish to each nail and then sealed everything in with Jessica Brilliance topcoat.

Precious Polish glitter polishes are great because the glitter lays flat and doesn't catch on things. I only put on the topcoat to prolong the wear time.

I think this is a great combo and it's perfect for this time of year.

I'll have a slightly more traditional Christmas nail look for you all next week.

What's your favourite festive nail polish colour?

Thanks for reading! :) ♥

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NOTD: Barry M - Vintage Violet

This week's polish is a new release from Barry M.

If you follow me on Twitter or know me in real life, you'll know I was ready to sell my soul for this nail polish. Every week since it came out in the UK, I ventured into town, only to be met with disappointment. Until last week!

My local Superdrug did a big reshuffle of their stands and with it came all the new Barry M nail polishes.

Vintage Violet is a dark, muted lilac colour. It almost looks brown in some light. It's one of those strange colours that only Barry M knows how to create. 

It looks slightly more vibrant in the photos than it does in real life.

It's perfect for this time of year if you aren't a burgundy nail kinda person.

It takes two coats to be completely opaque and dries within a few minutes.

The colour in the bottle is slightly more pastel than when it's on your nails

This is a Nail Paint rather than a Gelly so it doesn't have a massively high shine. 

Like most Nail Paints, it lasts around four days with only a bit of wearing at the tips. It's also cheaper than a Gelly polish, costing around €3.95 in Superdrug. 

My love for this polish knows no limits. It's basically me if I were a colour. 

Have you tried any of the new releases from Barry M? 

What's your go-to winter nail colour?

Thanks for reading! :) ♥

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Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer

Concealers are something I really struggle with. I have massively dark circles under my eyes that also get a little red. I also get very dry under the eyes.

I had heard some great things about the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer so I decided to go ahead and get it. At €10.99 I was hoping it would mark the end of my concealer search. It didn't.
Sidenote: Is this called Instant Age-Rewind The Eraser Eye?..

I got the shade Light which was my first mistake because it's very grey against my rather yellow face.
It offers quite good coverage. It's buildable but feels light on the skin. It doesn't completely cover my darkness but it does cancel out the redness.

My big problem with this is the applicator. Most people dislike it because it gets messy - which is does - but I don't like it because it's very rough. I have ridiculously sensitive and reactive skin so even gently rubbing the weird fuzzy thing under my eyes feels like razor blades. I also find you have to twist it so much to get the product out, otherwise you have to dab the applicator onto your skin which hurts even more!!

It looks a little caked in the picture but I've never actually had that problem before. I'll continue to use this because it does a reasonable job once layered over foundation but I think I'll be giving in and buying Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer when I'm in Dublin this weekend!

What's your favourite undereye concealer? Let me know if you've tried this and what you think of it.

Thanks for reading! :) ♥

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Realash Eyelash Enhancer 1 Month Update

If you guys remember, I started using Realash Eyelash Enhancer to help grow and thicken my lashes a little over a month ago.
Now technically, it's been a couple of weeks more than it should have been since that post but I'm still counting it as my one month update because you all know, I haven't been well enough to post recently.

Since I've been using Realash, I've noticed a big difference in my lashes when I use mascara. My bare lashes look slightly longer but it's very hard to pick that up on camera.
As always, I've been using Maybelline The Falsies Mascara so I know it's not that that's been making a difference to my lashes.

You can see how my lashes are nearly touching my eyebrow and that's with one coat of mascara!

If you pop over to my Doll Halloween Look, you can see just how long my lashes get when I layer on the mascara. 

In my last post, I mentioned I hadn't had any irritation but since then, I've found my eyes to be very itchy in the morning after using Realash overnight. I stopped using it for a week or so and my eyes were still slightly irritated in the morning. I do get extremely itchy eyes at the best of times so I honestly don't know if my use of Realash has had anything to do with it. 

Either way, I will continue to use this and update you all with one last post in a couple of months. 

Let me know if you've every tried anything kind of similar to this and if it worked for you.

Thanks for reading! :) ♥

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NOTD: Catrice - Vino Tinto

There seems to be a new trend emerging of sneaky nail polish colours that look black from afar but are actually a very deep purple when seen in the right light.

Catrice's Vino Tinto is one of those polishes. It's a beautiful dark berry colour. My camera is picking it up as a slightly more vibrant purple than it actually is. 

I love Catrice polishes. For €2.99, they offer an amazing shade range and a great quality formula. 

I find they last about four days without chipping, depending on how rough you are with your nails. I had the polish on for two days in the picture below, without a topcoat and you can see slight wearing on the tips. 

Again, my nails look much more purple in this picture than in real life. At a glance, my nails look off-black but not quite purple.

I'm seriously loving this shade and I've been wearing it so much now that it's cold outside! It's just a perfect Winter colour that matches all my clothes for this time of year. 

It's also great if you aren't one for black nail polish. I find black nails can make my already yellow skin, even more yellow looking so this is a perfect compromise. 

Let me know what nail polishes you've been loving for the past few weeks and if there's any I'm missing out on. As if I need more nail polish?!

Thanks for reading! :) ♥

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Updated Nail Care Routine

I've accumulated a few new nail care items over the past couple of months so I've been using them to try and get my nails back to a healthy condition.

I did a Nail Care post quite a few months ago and it seemed to go down pretty well. Since then, I've been really neglecting my nails.
I paint my nails every few days but I've been really lacking on the moisturising/buffing and cuticle care. Because of this, my nails got very weak and flaky again.

Oriflame The ONE Cuticle Scrub

I'm quite lucky that I don't have the kind of cuticles that hurt to push back. They also don't really stick to my nails so I don't have to use a Nail Hoof to push them back.
This scrub is brilliant for removing any dry skin around the nail. I would really recommend this if you have a hard time with your cuticles.

It's a thin gel that contains little tiny grains and larger blue beads that exfoliate your skin. You just massage it around your nails until it disappears. Even though it's a scrub, it's very hydrating. I tend to get some cotton wool and wipe any residue off my nails before applying any polish.


MICRO Nail Electric Nail Polisher

When this arrived at my door, I was very excited but a little sceptical. I've used electric and manual buffers before so I knew to expect a smoother, shinier nail after use.

To say this is amazing is an understatement. I think I'll do a full review on this next week so I'll refrain from putting in before and after pictures but believe me when I say, you will be blown away with the results you get from this little gadget.

Oriflame The ONE Nail Shield 

This nail strengthener has improved my nails so much over the past few weeks, I can't stop going on about it. It has honestly made my nails harder and stronger. It hasn't stopped breakages all together but it has dramatically decreased the frequency of them. I have a full post on this here if you'd like to read it.

Soap&Glory Hand Food

I get terrible flare ups of dry skin on the back of my hands during the cold weather but this year, I've developed eczema on my wrists too. Once I managed to get that under control, I dug out my old faithful Hand Food. This cream soaks in very quickly and isn't greasy. Having OCD doesn't help matters either because there's a lot more hand washing during the day than there should be which just exasperates any dryness I'm already experiencing! By using this after I wash my hands, I've been keeping my hands moisturised and quite soft.

I hope by continuing with this routine, my hands and nails will be in a much better condition soon.

Let me know what products you use in your nail care routine.

Thanks for reading! :) ♥


some of these items were sent to me for review but all opinions are my own, as always :) x 

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Be Right Back

image credit

I've been really slacking with the blog over the past couple weeks due to a few different things that I've had going on.
I had fully intended on getting back on track this week but my body had other ideas and now I'm on bed rest until I'm better.
I'm on a couple of very heavy duty medications and the last thing I want to do is write nonsense posts - not to mention I'm not allowed to get up and take photos.

I just wanted to let you all know that things will be back to normal on Monday and will stay that way for as long as possible. I hope you all understand, I can't wait to be back to my little corner of the internet.

See you all soon :) ♥

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