NYX Cosmetics Makeup Haul - Dec 2013

NYX Cosmetics Makeup Haul

 Hey girlies

I recently placed an order with NYX Cosmetics, how I did not know they had a UK website sooner is beyond me!  I ordered some gifts for a work colleague who was sadly leaving us, but made the most of the free postage and purchased some items for myself too!

I am going to rate the three NYX items I got out of 1 to 5 (5 being the bestest).

High Definition Eyeshadow Base - 5/5

I have an all over face primer that I use and am happy with but I wanted a specific eyeshadow primer so when I saw this one on the website I thought I would give it a go.  It cost £7.00 and looks like a foundation kind of colour on the stick.  It is UH-MAZING!!!  Not only does it help my eyeshadow colours go onto my eyelid in a much stronger high definition colour, but it also did exactly what it said on the tin; kept my eyeshadow on crease free for an entire evening at my work Christmas party.

NB: They also sell a powder eyeshadow base for £6.00 which comes in three shades.  I have personally not tried this product myself but after seeing mixed reviews on Amazon for this product, I am very pleased I spent the extra £1.00 and went for the product I did.

Liquid Illuminator in shade Sunbeam - 4/5

I found out about this product when I was searching for dupes of the Benefit High Beam and there were lots of videos on YouTube claiming it was the perfect dupe so I ordered this as well.  I am very impressed with the quality and sparkle of this product and shall certainly be placing another order if/when I run out.  You get a huge amount of product for the bargain price of only £7.00!! I think Benefit High Beam would cost something crazy like 3 times the price of that.

NXY Liquid Illuminator in Sunbeam

NXY Black Label Lipstick in shade Nude - 4/5

This is the perfect nude lipstick for me.  I prefer to wear nude lipsticks as I have blonde hair and blue eyes and I seem to find wearing nude lips make my eyes pop more as I like my eyes to be my feature when I do my makeup. This is just perfecto! It glides on soooo smoothly and leaves your lips feeling very soft.  Only downside to this and the only reason it is not 5/5 is that it doesnt last very long and I found myself re-applying quite frequently.

NYX Cosmetics Black Label Lipstick in 'Nude' BLL 174

NB: I could not find this lipstick available on the UK website so I had to order this from a different online location.  I am certainly going to order a couple more to keep my stocks up in case they decide to stop making this product! LOVE IT!

What are your experiences with NYX? What are your favourite products?  I would love to hear from you.

Robin Sparkles

Lush Longboard Limited Edition gorgeous girls board 44"

Hey guys

Today's post is just a quick one to show off my gorgeous Lush Longboard I just bought!

I grabbed a bargain off eBay as it had only been used a handful of times, I absolutely love it.

Its a really long board at 44" which makes it perfect for cruising which is exactly what I wanted it for, not worried about tricks or flips.  I have been out on it a few times (admittedly holding on to my husbands arm for support) but feel like I am getting more confident every time and slowly getting the hang of carving from side to side.

Next summer I'm hoping I will have mastered it enough to go cruising down the seafront on my gorgeous girlie Lush longboard!

Let me know what you think! Do any of my readers longboard?

Robin Sparkles

MUA Make Up Academy Eyeshadows BARGAIN! Perfect for the bronze eye shadow look!

Hey guys

This is one for my girlie followers based in the UK (not sure if MUA is available in other countries). In the UK a really cheap yet brilliantly good quality makeup brand called MUA is available in our Superdrug stores nationwide.  I first learnt about this brand over at Trying to be Beautiful blog here.

I had seen a "How to make blue eyes pop" makeup tutorial over on Lauren Curtis' YouTube channel using bronze based eye shadows to create a really beautiful look that I totally wanted to re-create for my work Christmas party tomorrow night!

So, I popped into my local Superdrug on my lunch break the other day and would you Adam and Eve it, they had the 3 most perfect shades for the look that were almost dupes of what Lauren Curtis used.  Wait though it gets better, they were £1 each!!! Yep £1.00.

I got 4 different shades in the end as I couldn't decide between the 2 lightest shades, which was the closest to what Lauren Curtis used and I didn't have access to the YouTube video at the time to check.

I got home that night very excited and I am very pleased to report that they are absolutely blooming perfect for the look and really really pigmented, they give off a really strong bright colour.

So without further delay, here are the beauties:



MUA Eye shadow haul



MUA Shade 30



MUA Shade 1



MUA Shade 24



MUA Shade 2

I cannot stress enough how much I love these eye shadows and how much I would recommend anyone to purchase them! And, to check out the makeup look on Lauren Curtis' YouTube channel as it is amazing, that is me sorted for tomorrow night!

Do any of my readers use MUA? What are your experiences with the brand?

Until next time blogettes.

Robin Sparkles

Luxury Dog Beds Article

Hello there!

I thought I would deviate away from my usual DIY projects / nail reviews and post a few blogs which are more informative on a boarder scale.

My main passion in life is animals, and at the forefront of that, Dogs. Myself and my husband have a fur baby and she makes us a family.  She is 4 and half years old now and is a Border Terrier cross Miniature Poodle.  Quite a bizarre mix I know, I don't think the lady we got her from had meant it to happen!

Anywho, I have been on a search for a while now to find her a quirky and fairly unique bed to go downstairs where she sleeps at night.  From day one we made the decision not to let her upstairs on our bed or in our room and it works perfectly for us. 

At the moment she has a pillow type bed which takes up a portion of our corner sofa - much to my hubby's dismay! We would still have her up on the sofa with us in the evening, but when it is time for bed we would like to find her a bed she can get into rather than stay there and us always lose half our sofa.

Soooo...that was a very long winded introduction to basically say this quest started me looking for funky little dog beds.  On this journey through Google I have discovered some beds that are brilliant! I probably wouldn't choose to have some of these myself but can see that they are cute all the same.

Now I shall share them with you:

I adore these little stairs up to the bed and can imagine my girl doing it.  For obvious reasons this wouldn't be the bed for her, as I said she stays downstairs but though I would share all the same.  The first bed has clearly been custom made with their dog in mind which I think is lovely.

Maybe if I was a "crazy dog lady" single and alone I would consider one...

Moving swiftly on:

I found these cute wood crate dog beds which I would absolutely love for her, but unfortunately the place I found that sold them didn't do a big enough size for her.

I then gave it a bit more thought and decided I wanted something elevated.  Our downstairs floor is wood and I don't want her to catch a draft so wanted something raised off the floor.  I then found doggy bunk beds!!:

As cuts as this is, I fear I would be going from one extreme to the other and my husband certainly wouldn't think it would fit in our kitchen!!

In conclusion, this is what I have set my sights upon:

The website I have found it on is £115.00, which I am really 50/50 about as to whether my husband will agree to it.  So I have 3 options. 1. Buy it off the website. 2. Ask my husband to make it (I am sure he could it's just we are building an extension on our house so not sure he has time!) 3. Ask our close friend who is also very good with wood creations whether he would consider making it for us.

I think I am trying for option 3 first and take it from there.

I plan to paint it a matte white so that it matches the room that it is going in.

Shall post pics if I ever end up with one, wish me luck!

Robin Sparkles

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Bundle Monster nail stamping onto Barry M textured polish

Hey girlies

Sorry I haven’t been around for a while, I have been uber busy with getting another project underway and haven’t been painting my nails or doing my arts and crafties as much as I would like.

Anywho, here we have it, my latest nail design!

 

 

I stamped using Bundle Monster plate BM-316, the cute lacey looking design on the plate, you will be able to tell the one.

I used my Barry M textured pink polish as my base colour and stamped using my Barry M blue polish I have. 

I have long been a fan of how stamping onto textured polish looks and I am so pleased I have finally had a chance to try it myself.

Let me know what you think.

Robin Sparkles

Work manicure - do your nails at work!

Hey blogettes

Have you ever done your nails at work when you are super duper quite then swoosh your arms frantically in the air to try and dispel the fumes before your boss walks in your room and notices?! - this is me, TODAY!

I have literally just knocked up this manicure from my very own work station hence the messy edges so please forgive me for that.  As I have the pots of nail polish with me I can tell you exactly what I used! -

• As usual I started off with a coat of my OPI Nail Envy as a base over all of my nails.
• Barry M Silver Foil Effects on the little fingers as a base colour.
• Rimmel London I Love Lasting Finish in 500 Disco Ball x 100 million layers to get it as sparkly as possible!
• Barry M in Peach Melba on the rest of my fingers.

I really love having an accent nail at the moment but equally when I see people who have gone for whole hands the same like Sam at The Nailasaurus has started to do again I equally think they look great to!

What do you prefer? Accent nail or same whole hand?

Without further ado, here is todays office creation. 

Sorry, hyped it up a bit too much for what it is! Whoopsy.

Have a great weekend guys n gals.

Robin Sparkles

Eylure Dybrow (formally Dylash) product review

 

Hey guys

Today’s post is a review of the Eylure Dybrow (formally Dylash). 

As some of you may know, I am a keen lover of HD Brows but as I previously mentioned, due to strict savings regime this is something I have had to cut out for now at £25.00 a pop! 

So I decided to tint my brows myself and on recommendation of my sister ordered the Eylure Dybrow kit in brown (also available in black) from Amazon UK for just shy of £5.00.  This is a bargain in itself as you can use this kit over and over many times, it is not a one use kit.

I followed the very simple instructions and sure enough it worked! I am not going to post a pic of my brows at the moment as I am currently in the process of growing them out to have them reshaped thicker but I can assure you I could see the difference and it was really simple to apply and use.

I will definitely make this part of my monthly routine and stay on top of them myself.

Great buy, great price, great product!

Robin Sparkles

 

 

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Romantic nail stamping design

 

Hiya

This is a very quick post just to show you a pic of a nail stamping design I created about a week ago and hadn't got round to posting.

All stamps used for this design are from the Bundle Monster 2011 and 2012 sets of nail stamping plates.

Let me know what you think, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Robin Sparkles

DIY Tutorial: How to blonde ombre hair at home

Hi blogsters

Monday night I went a bit awol and decided I wanted a hair change.  I am trying to reign in a lot of luxuries at the moment as we have a lot to spend out on doing up our house so thought I would have a go at DIY ombre hair myself.  I thought, "whats the worst that can happen?! If it goes wrong ill just have the ends cut off!"

So armed with 2 boxes of Jerome Russell Bblonde medium life blonding kit I baracaded myself into our old bathroom and set to work!

WARNING! The smell of this stuff is....well...*singed nostrel hairs*

 

If you are going to blonde ombre your hair make sure you use a product with peroxide / bleach otherwise it will just not work effectively.  My hair is a blonde colour anyway, so I left the product on as long as possible so that I would notice extreme light blonde on the ends.

 

You need to really freestyle it and scrunch it into your hair, you dont want it to look too precise or uniformed or it will not achieve the optimum ombre look.

 

Mix up your mixture, I used one box for the first round and another box for the second round.

 

 

Round 1

 

Separate your hair in half and clip the top half up out the way for now. 

 

Taking small sections at a time get a clump of hair dye in your hair and start scrunching it in the bottom of your hair.  For round 1, only put the hair dye half way up the desired length of the ombre you eventually want to achieve.  Not sure that makes sense...erm...say you want to dye 20cm of your hair length ombre, on round 1 only cover the bottom 10cm of hair with the hair dye.  If you are like me and have insanely thick hair, this will take pretty much the whole first box of hair dye.

 

 

Let down the top half of your hair and make your way round that also.  If you have feathering at the front of your hair, I liked nipping the ends of the layers with some dye to add definition.

 

Wait for half an hour.............

 

Round 2

 

Mix up the second box of hair dye and work your way back round your small sections adding the dye higher up your hair. (E.g. for the full 20cm rather than the original 10cm). Leave this for a further 20 minutes or so.

 

Why do you do it like this?  Because......the original layer you put on first has longer developing time and will go lighter than the second round of dye.  This should make the ombre blend and look a lot less aggressive.

 

Tips

 

Obviously the length of time you leave the dye to develop on your hair is up to you, what worked for me will not work on someone elses hair depending on whether you have light or dark hair etc.

 

Don't try to make each little section of hair reach the same length when applying the dye.  Mix it up and make it more random...remember the point of ombre is NOT uniformed!

 

Voila

 

Annoyingly this is still very subtle, in fact too subtle for my liking but I guess that is what happens when you try for an ombre look on already blonde hair! Still, I know it is there and that makes me happy!

 

I hope this tutorial was helpful, if you have any questions or comments feel free to comment below.

 

***I am not a hair dresser or hair person so I am only speaking from my own personal experience***

 

Have you tried to ombre your hair? How did it go?

 

Laters blogsters

 

Robin Sparkles

 

 

 

 

 

 



DIY: How to bleached jeans stage 1 - Carrie Bradshaw aka Sarah Jessica Parker Sex and the City inspired

Hey guys

Over the weekend I decided I wanted to do something a bit different.  I last used this technique when I was in secondary school around 15 years old so some time has passed but as I was looking through pictures of my most favourite programme EVER (SEX AND THE CITY) I noticed Carrie Bradshaw aka Sarah Jessica Parker wears some similar jeans to what I used to create and that they look great on her.

I am very much a wear things I like kinda gal, even if they arent "current" in the shops at the moment, I would rather look original than walk past 10 girls in the high street wearing the same outfit as me! Anywho, I digress...

I took an old pair of jeans (just incase something went wrong although the whole process is pretty fool proof) and laid them out in my parents garage on top of some unwanted polythene bags. 

 

I took a basic bottle of bleach (think mine is Tesco's own!) and just started spatting random dots of bleach about the place. Dont squeeze the bottle too hard, in fact bearly at all as you do not want massive splodges, just dots and lines if you get my drift.

 

Leave the bleach to soak in for a while then turn the jeans over and do the other side in the same way.

 

Once the bleach has finished setting in, I would say leave them around 1 hour, put your jeans in the washing machine and put them on a cycle with WATER ONLY.  No detergent or fabric softner.  As you will see from the pic below, they bubble up quite nicely on their own!

 

You will find when the waashing machine is finished that your bleached jeans still smell terribly of bleach, then put them on a wash using washing tablets/liquid and fabric softner now that the worst of the bleach is out.

 

You might find that they still have a slight "tang" to them but this will go over time the more times you wash them.

 

And here is the final product, stage 1 complete!

 

The next stage is to add studs and crystals and distress them like Carrie Bradshaw's, you can find the link to Stage 2 blog post by clicking here. (To be added once written).

 

Let me know what you think and whether you have ever tried bleaching your jeans before? Do you like the look on Sarah Jessica Parker aka Carrie Bradshaw? Do you like SATC for that matter?!

 

Until next time...

 

Robin Sparkles



GUEST POST REQUEST: NAIL STAMPING / ART DESIGN or DIY TUTORIAL POSTS

Me again!

Just a quick request, if anyone would like to be featured on my blog with a guest post please comment below and let me know.  You can email me your blog message and photos and I shall upload it and reference to your blog and let it be known that it is a "Guest Post".

I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Robin Sparkles

Ps. If you have a post you would like to make that isnt regarding nail art designs or a DIY tutorial, just let me know and I am sure I can feature it! :0)

Jigsaw nail stamping & decal stamping design - Bundle Monster BM-319

Hello blogettes

Today I just wanted to post a manicure that I worked hard on last night, it includes normal stamping as well as my first decal stamping!

I used two designs off of the Bundle Monster plate BM-319.  My decal design isnt the neatest because I knocked it after I put my final top coat on (dammit!) so I apologise for that but they did look good at first, honest.

Let me know what you think and whether you have attempted decal stamping before.  I am going to leave you with a cute pic of my cat trying to get some fuss while I was taking my nail pics just because I think it is sweet!

 

Robin Sparkles

DIY: Vans 'Off the Wall' crystal rhinestone checkerboard pink and black Vans trainers

Hey guys

I recently discovered my checkerboard blinged up Vans I blogged about about 6 months ago in their box and decided to post some better pics as they have come out clearer on my new camera to the original post (click here).  I used the same size crystals and glue that I used in my DIY Converse crystal rhinestone blog (click here to view the original Converse crystallisation blog post).

I hope you likey, let me know what you think!

 

Robin Sparkles

Vintage rose and waterfall nail art design – freehand

Hey guys

Just a quick one from me today. When I got home from work yesterday I was feeling heavily influenced by Sam at The Nailasaurus and decided to combine two of my favourites of her designs into one manicure for me.

Here is what I used:

Be sure to let me know what you think of this design, the waterfalls didn’t quite go to plan but I am fairly happy with the vintage roses.

Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Robin Sparkles

Pink crystal rhinestone nail design

Hey blogettes

At the weekend I attempted a crystal rhinestone nail design but couldn’t decide what layout I wanted to commit to so I tried 3 of my favourites!

I started off with applying OPI’s nail strengthener, then 3 coats of Barry M’s textured nail polish in colour Kingsland Road.  I then applied clear nail polish to the area of the nail I wished to place the crystals and with a dab of clear polish on the tip of a toothpick I picked up the crystals and placed them on the wet clear polish and left to dry.

On my thumb I opted to attempt a kind of gradient of crystals flowing up my nail.  On my middle finger I tried for a moon shape of crystals. On my little finger I just did a semi-circle lining my cuticle.

Let me know what you think and whether you have attempted any crystal rhinestone nail designs before.  Feel free to post a link below to your crystal rhinestone nail design blog post if you have one as I would love to read it.

Thanks for reading and I shall be back soon!

Robin Sparkles

 

 

Makeup and brush storage – clear acrylic drawers and pencil pot holder (muji alternative)

Hey blogettes

This post is to show off my new fabulous clear acrylic makeup and brush storage system I have purchased and am absolutely delighted with!  I got this to match my recent purchase the nail polish clear acrylic stand, a link to this blog post can be found by clicking here.

 

I got the Osco 3 drawers from the Ryman stationery store on eBay for £9.99, the link can be found by clicking here.

I got the pen pot stand for my brushes and taller makeup from my local Tesco store in the stationery section for £3.50.

The drawers are a lot smaller than the wide drawers people get from muji but they suit me just fine for now (who am I trying to kid?!).  If I were to get some more drawers in the event that my makeup collection expands I would probably go for the muji wide drawers (which are about £5 more than what I paid including postage so in hindsight should have got!!) and put them underneath the small set I have and pad out the gaps with some muji pots. The brush pot spins a full 360 degrees allowing easy access to any of the compartments and I am really happy with that. 

I am in total awe of Trying To Be Beautiful’s amazing muji acrylicmakeup and brush storage system and wish mine looked half as good as hers.  Still, I guess I shall have to build it up bit by bit!

Let me know what you think and whether you have any clear acrylic makeup / nail polish storage.

Robin Sparkles