Black à Lèvres & Gradient Nails

Tell me, does the pink satin make this product look even more fabulous?

This is GOSH Lip Gloss in 81 Black.

I bought this little tube of wonder to use as a blender lip gloss for dark vampy lips (specifically for my Black Swan look). Black lip gloss is something that has intrigued me since I first laid my eyes on it and I'm finally able to say I own some!

This is the only black gloss I've ever swatched, but as you can see, it is VERY sheer. In the tube, there are very subtle green and red sparkles in the gloss but you can't see this in the swatch and only subtly adds to the effect on the lips.

The doe foot applicator is generic and much cheaper to produce than a brush, but that's okay. It stays put and it's much easier to control where the gloss goes. Doe foot applicators are also good for the blending on the lips, but don't quite dispense enough product all the time so I find I have to dip back into the tube more than I like.

However, this is with use on my lips and I have to say, I think it does quite a nice job there :)

The gloss itself has no scent, but when you place the doe foot under your nose, you can whiff out a slight chemically smell. Not enough to bother me though!

So, thanks to Vicky's post about her 'Enchanting Mess', I came across this blog post by Makeup Savvy about stippled glitter nails. So I thought I'd give it a go myself!

I've never tried doing any sort of gradient nails myself, so this was very experimental for me... you can decide if it looks good or not (I don't think it turned out that well, but it's staying on for the weekend!)

Products I used:

* OPI Original Nail Envy (not pictured)

* Impala Nail Polish in Le Rose

* OPI Nail Lacquer in Flashbulb Fuchsia

* OPI Nail Lacquer in Catch Me In Your Net

* 17 Double Gloss Top Coat

* Compact Powder Puff (pictured below)

Unfortunately, the use of this powder compact puff was not a creative decision...

I just didn't have a sponge I could use so I tried the next best thing I could think of! This is probably my first downfall... oops!

Step 1: Paint your nails with a nude colour until opaque.

2nd downfall - I did not pick a nude shade. I don't have any nude shades here :( so I used a very pale lilac shade...

Step 2: Paint the sponge (or in my case, the puff) with a little nail polish and stipple onto the dry nails.

Downfall number 3 - the puff actually worked quite nicely for the stippling effect, but it can leave some fine hairs from the puff attached to the nails as you may observe in the photo above.

With the messy nail design I played, I forgot to picture the other steps...

Step 3: Paint the end of the nail with a thin layer of the stippled polish.

There is a downfall at every step, this is the fourth - I picked a polish that was too pigmented to blend with the stippled polish so after painting a thin layer at the edge of my nails, I tried to stipple it out to make it less pigmented but that didn't work out so well...

Step 4: Paint over the nail with a glitter polish and thicken up the opacity at the tip of the nail with a second layer.

My fifth downfall here was that I picked a glitter nail polish with a good opacity with just one thin layer, so to thin it out, I used another section of the puff and stippled the polish over my nails...

...which looked horrible so I stippled over the whole nail, which seemed to make it a bit better!

Step 5: Gloss over the nails with a top coat and clean up the mess around the nails.

I didn't really have a downfall here... but I suppose the end result is one! Haha :P

What do you think??

WHITE CHOCOLATE OREOS!!!!

Just thought I'd share :)

Love love and vampymessylove!!

Toffee xXxXx

The evil side to Swan Lake

To start on a lighter note, this song played on an advert and I really like it :)

(also heard in Legally Blonde!)

And to carry on with a darker topic...

Black Swan.

This is such a major film! And great for me as it combines the beautiful art of ballet and also one of my favourite works, Swan Lake. Let me tell you, it was dark and twisted but amazing.

I was totally inspired by the makeup...

(source: google images)

The makeup look for the Black Swan is so haunting, I had to recreate it as a tutorial! So here it is below, if you haven't seen it yet :)

To see some close ups and the full effect, I've taken some pictures!

So here is my swatch picture of Nails Inc Denim. It's a bad swatch picture as I made a bit of a mess over my nails! Sorry... but you can see the colour :)

Then I took a picture of Nails Inc Denim next to O.P.I. Ski Teal We Drop since I knew they were similar. Hopefully you can see that they're not quite the same colour, Ski Teal We Drop is ever so slightly darker, but I don't think you could tell if you saw someone wearing either.

I'm played with a bright red lippy yesterday!

This is my new Twitter picture :)

So, have you seen Black Swan yet?

Let me know your thoughts!!

Love love and darklove!!

Toffee xXxXx

(S)Pink Sparkles! (NOTD & Giveaway!)

Hello all!

So following my post about Nails Inc Park Lane, which is a gorgeous purple glitter, I decided I would try out the pink glitter polish that came in the same set.

So this isn't a great image showing off the polish, but I hope this gives you a little idea :)

I only did two coats here, without any top or base coats and there are a few little chips but considering all these factors, it's really good coverage!

Standard blurry shot of glitter nail polish!

Well, this image is definitely not my best! I had to use my right hand in the photo as my left hand had already got two other colours on it :P

So I noticed a dupe of this from Eyeko! This is called Chi Chi Polish - how cute is that?

I think the little illustrations on each bottle are adorable and at the price of £4.

There's the slight difference of the polish being a milky pink, not clear but on the nails they are VERY similar. I have one of these to giveaway which you can enter below, but if you would like to purchase your own, then don't forget to enter my Ambassador code (E2034) at the checkout which gives you a free gift when you spend over £15/18Euros/$20!

Nails Inc and Diet Coke at Boots have once again teamed up to bring us four new shades in their promotion. Buy two bottles of Diet Coke and get one Nails Inc polish free!

My friend Nulifar (who also blogs) managed to grab me this gorgeous blue polish with this promo.

It's named Denim, which is very fitting but looks rather similar to O.P.I. Ski Teal We Drop. I shall have to do a comparison sometime!

This swatch is awful!! I just painted one nail over the pink glitter :P

So for the giveaway to win Eyeko Chi Chi Polish (unfortunately I only have the one to giveaway at this time) simply leave me a comment on this post telling me what your favourite Eyeko Polish is! Don't forget to leave your email address so I can contact you if you win!

This is open internationally, and will end in one week (11.59pm UK Time, 31st Jan 2011)! Anyone can enter as long as it's okay for you to give out your address!

Good luck and let me know what you think of the polishes!!

Love love and naillove!!

Toffee xXxXx

You make me smile :)

Wow, so I was looking through my draft posts a while ago and I found an award I was nominated for but never claimed!!

It's over a year old, and was given to me by the lovely Shirley (award post) and I decided I should do it now! If you have some time, maybe check out her blog and have a little snoop!

This has to be one of the cutest blog awards I've ever seen and I can't believe I haven't done anything about it until now! Crazy...

What needs to be done:

* You have to put a song that makes you happy :)

* You can tag as many people as you want, there is no limit :)

* Say at least one thing about each blog you tag, that will make them smile, something nice about their blog that makes you smile when you read it! :)

So, I have very many songs that make me happy, but I think this video is very fitting.

Also, this song just makes me so happy everytime I listen to it, I am instantly in a good mood and smiling all the way through!

People I want to award this to:

Milly (Pearls and Poodles)

Her style of writing is so great! Cutesy and informal, you can really feel her fondness coming across from her posts! She has great style shown in her outfit posts which help me a lot and we have grown to be pretty good friendlies which is an added plus!

(Oh, and she makes these amazing cupcakes that are sooo pretty!!!)

Kelly (Pinksealight)

After taking a short hiatus, Kelly has returned to the blog world! YAY

Her boyf used to do a blog post every week but I don't know if that's still happening at the moment. That was a fun thing for me to read, just about life and not just beauty. Kinda hope she sees this and shows him (please do it again!!!) haha. Kelly's posts are great too and very insightful. I love the hat pics on her latest post!

Vicky (Vanity-Fashionista)

Vicky's blog is great because she has a shopping addiction and she's always got hauls going on around her blog! If you're lucky you might catch her when she's having a blog sale with some great products for reduced prices! She's one to read as if you don't have a lot of money to spend, you can live vicariously through her! And she has pretty awesome nails all the time!!!

Yep, so please check them out if you have some time and I hope they will make you smile, like they do for me!

Thanks to Shirley for awarding me :D

Love love and awardlove!!

Toffee xXxXx

Purple Panache! (NOTD)

And yet again, I bring you glittery nails.

When I first saw this little trio on the ASOS.com website I was excited! I mean, check out the sparkliness! However, when I received my order, it didn't seem as amazing...

I was reluctant to try these Nails Inc beauties on my nails as I hate removing glitter polish. I finally took the plunge and how happy am I? Super happy!!

I've only used this lovely lilac glitter shade, named Park Lane, so far, but I am very excited to try the pretty pink (Chelsea Square) and sultry silver (Electric Avenue) too!

The first layer gives quite good coverage, but the two coats is all you need for opacity and three coats just gives the complete full cover.

It does feel a bit bumpy on the nails but two coats of my trusted 17 Double Gloss Top Coat and I am better equipped to deal with a slight roughness.

I wonder what it would look like on longer square nails! I have to say, I don't mind having short rounded nails if they are covered in glitter! Haha - I had to cut them for cheerleading this weekend as we must try to avoid any injuries and scratching people is a big deal when you're being thrown around in the air!

Here are some blurred shots :)

I don't know if I've already showed you this, but Viv's reaction is just so hilarious!!

Love love and lilacglitterlove!!

Toffee xXxXx

life ahead... #

No, this is not my arm, but I do love this!

Well, hello there.

First of all, here are the swatches of O.P.I. Bring on the Bling Nail Lacquer.

This is four coats, over two coats of O.P.I. Original Nail Envy and covered with two coats of 17 Double Gloss Top Coat.

My gosh, look how sparkly!!

Blurry glitter shot!

Now I have a few new things for show-and-tell, and I'm going to proceed in the order of purchase. So let's start with this:

I got this little Disney Couture beauty from ASOS.com

I love that it sparkles :)

'Dreamer' - because that's what I am...

Purchizzled from Accessorize and worn on New Year's Eve 2010 (and a few times since then :P )

The band is made from black ribbon so it becomes pretty hidden in my hair, especially when its freshly washing and super shiny :)

Picked up these too, as they were only £1.50 and are great for everyday wear.

How are you liking my trying-to-be-artistic shots there?

And here's another trying-to-be-artistic shot showing off another set of new earrings that my gorgeous friend got me for Christmas! They just sparkle!

(can you tell I'm really liking the sparkliness at the moment??)

So said friend came down from Notts and we went out together and I wore this!

(Viv's room, not mine... I don't have the full length mirror!)

Both these piccies were taking in Wahoo and I love them both as they show off my glittery nails AND my Dreamer necklace! YAY

If you're wondering about the eye look, I snapped some shots before I went out to show ya!

It was a brown look and then a smudge purple in the crease and on the lower lash line aswell. Then, I added some turquoise pencil eyeliner on my waterline and lathered my lashes in mascara. I tried to take the shot without flash, but just in lamp light and it made me super yellow...

Hmmm...

Also, I got my hair cut. It looks the same as before but healthier and a few inches shorter :)

And with my nights, I've been stretching my body with my housemates in preparation for this cheer competition I might be competing in, in April!

YEAH!!!

Love love and newthingslove!!

Toffee xXxXx