Turquoise NOTD

As I mentioned in my previous Nail of the Day I'm trying out more adventurous nail colours. I was looking in M&S the other day which is something I very rarely do and I stumbled across their make up section and saw they had quite a few bright nail polishes.

I bought this colour called Jade as I think it's lovely bright summery shade and I'm loving turquoise at the moment.

Please excuse my wrinkly dry hands! Should have put some hand cream on...

The application was a bit streaky as the polish seemed to dry as I was trying to apply it. To avoid this you have to make sure you have a lot of product on the brush. You definitely need two coats with this as the first coat was quite sheer.

I'm pretty impressed with this polish as I'm writing this on the 3rd day of wear and it hasn't chipped apart from a teeny bit on one nail which you can see in the picture. Most polishes usually chip within a day on me. I didn't apply a top coat either as I wanted to test it out.

What are your favourite spring nail colours?

Spring/Summer Make Up Trends for 2011 & Coral NOTD

I've been flicking through some magazines recently and the Spring/Summer make up looks this year seem to be quite 70's, with neutral brown smokey eyes, nudes and corals. But at the same time acid brights are in too so there's something for everyone.

Bright corals (images from Google)

Neutral eyes and soft lips

Acid brights at Christian Dior  

I really like the neutral/coral trend as I tend to stick with neutrals anyway and I love coral... So I am loving this years' make up!

I like seeing acid brights on other people but just not on me. If you're looking for some inspiration, Nic at Pixiwoo has recently done a really good acid brights tutorial- watch it here.

Another good thing about the neutrals/coral trend is that I have a lot of products for it in my make up bag already! I've picked out some things I'll be wearing this spring...

My MAC Athma Palette from the Mickey Contractor collection arrived the other day- it's the first time I've ever bought anything from a MAC collection. This is a really nice wearable palette and has a couple of nice shadows which are great for neutral eyes and aren't overly sparkly. The other two colours are a dark reddish brown & a matte black

I especially like Jaan (above) and Vivah (below)

I'll also be wearing MAC shadows (left to right) Era, Arena, Amber Lights

Era is a nice neutral with a lovely sheen to it, Arena is a good peachy colour and Amber Lights is a daring shimmering gold/orange, which looks similar to Vivah in the picture, but Vivah is more brown

Barry M coral blusher & MAC Hush CCB for peachy glowing skin.

Peachy pink, nudes and coral lipsticks

(left to right) Rimmel Tell No One, Vasaline lip tint, MAC Shy Girl, Rimmel Nude Delight, MAC Honeylove

• Tell No One- a bright, long lasting coral
• Vasaline Lip Tint- gives a sheer flush of pink while moisturising your lips
• MAC Shy Girl- a new lipstick which I got along with my Athma palette, it's a lovely peachy/pink nude colour
• Rimmel Nude Delight- a nice sheer nude although it doesn't stay on very long
• MAC Honeylove- a matte nude, can look too heavy and dark on me so I sheer it down and use lipbalm with it

Today to escape from the dull wintery weather I painted my toenails in a bright coral from Barry M. 

I used this colour on my nails when I went on holiday and loved it. Barry M polishes are really good and I really like the finish they give. They're also one of the very few I've tried which don't chip on my nails.

Excuse my ugly foot and lazy nail painting effort..!

Another polish I have which ties in with the trend is a nude polish- Frozen Fantasy from Estee Lauder. I got this with a free gift ages ago and haven't really used it that much, but I think it's a perfect colour for spring especially if you don't want bright nails. 

So there's my take on the spring trends! Take care x

MAC Cham Pale, Stylishly Yours and Mickey Contractor Collections

I've been drooling over the MAC website today and have been looking at the Cham Pale, Stylishly Yours and Mickey Contractor collections.

I love the skin colour eye pencils and the paint pots in the Cham Pale Collection, and along with everyone else out there I'm dying to get my hands on Virgin Isle Cream Colour Base! (Which is out of stock..grrr am I ever going to get my hands on it?!)

The Mickey Contractor collection is also rather interesting, as this Mickey fella is MAC's Director of Make Up Artistry for India and has made a collection of his ''must haves''.

His main focus is natural skin and gorgeous eye shades. I am in love with the Athma x4 Palette which is in the collection. So much so that I have just ordered it!

So here's what I'm liking out of the three collections. (All pictures in this post are courtesy of Google)

Mickey Contractor Collection- 

The Athma Eyeshadow Quad- Lovely wearable colours

Swatches- (left to right) Jaan, Folie,Vivah, Carbon.

Fluid Line-

Swatches- Ivy, Siahi. Gorgeous colours!

Gana Powder Blush- I think this would be a lovely highlighter

Stylishly Yours Collection-

Infamous Virgin Isle CCB-

Moive Star Red CCB- Could be an alternative to Virgin Isle although it's pinker..?

Cham Pale Collection-

Chromographic Pencil NC15-NW20- Have been after a skin coloured pencil for ages.

Paint Pots-

 Swatches- as this isn't my picture it's hard to tell what the colours are. I have ordered the last colour though which is Dangerous Cuvee and is a shimmery grey.

So they are my stand-out products, have you bought anything from the collections?

Plum Lips

The other day I bought a plum lipstick. I have been seeing a lot of plum make up looks lately and I think it's a really nice look especially for Christmas/New Year parties.

So I played around with a bit of make up today and here's what I ended up with!

I have sort of ended up with a Daisy Lowe/Vamp look... But I quite like it!

Products I Used...

• Lily Lolo Foundation & Bronzer
• MAC Prep+Prime Finishing Powder
• Clinique Gel Liner
• Clinique Airbrush Concealer
• Clinique High Impact Mascara (wow I'm using a lot of Clinique at the moment!)
• Max Factor Lipstick in 701
• Rimmel Nude Lipliner
• Collection 2000 Kohl Pencil in Brown (in crease)
• Beauty UK Palette- Shadows Used- two brown colours on top row & the black.

So there's my plum make up look!

Do you like the plum/vamp make up that's around at the moment?