Second Thoughts

When these new additions from Barry M arrived on our shelves at some point last year it was chaos - the hype for these little bottles at the time was something else! Now I'm not someone that'll go out and buy something just because everyone else has it and if I'm honest I think the hype put me off. I did however a few months later pick up one summery shade just to make my own mind up about the range and have only got round to giving it another go again, now.

The Gelly hi shine nail paint is supposed to be long lasting and shiny; giving the illusion of wearing gel nails however none of this actually seemed the case. In fact the first time I wore this I had high hopes and applied two coats (as usual) and was left greatly disappointed! They just appeared the same as any other nail polish in my collection and the gel effect just didn't seem to happen. On top of that within 2 days a couple of my nails had chipped - now I know I like to re-paint my nails alot, but I don't like to that quickly. The sad part was I wasn't even doing anything that would necessarily chip them so I said my goodbyes and stored it way way down at the bottom of my collection.

And that is where it stayed until the other day, I was looking for a nice summery shade and thought it was time to give it another whirl - even if I'm not too keen on a product I'll always try and use it up (I hate wasting things and most of the time the product just needs a little getting used to). I've now been wearing this particular colour on my nails for four or five days and they look as if they've only painted, a bit of a turn around from before! #success I've also had numerous compliments on the coral shade and although it still doesn't look as if I'm wearing false nails as such, the formula is super glossy and gives more of a finished look to the nails. Now that I've passed my hate phase (well dislike) in the love/hate relationship I'm really loving the gelly nail polishes and I'm determined to pick up a few more summer shades to keep me going. Leave me a comment below if you can think of some nice summer shades....

Thanks for reading, Jenny xo
P.s have you tried any colours from the Barry M Gelly range? what do you think? 

Tag // I heart drugstore makeup

I think I may have mentioned in a post before how often I'm drawn to tag videos on YouTube and the same goes for blog posts, I see the word tag and I'm a goner. This being said, I shock horror, haven't wrote any tag posts of my own in the whole 4 odd months of blogging which is crazy. Since it's so overdue and I'm midst revision stress I thought it seemed fitting. The one for today as you may have guessed from the title is the 'I heart makeup' tag.
  

1. What is your favourite high street brand over all? 
This is a tough one, my favourite brands usually depend on who has the best releases and how much I've fallen in love with their new products which ranges from practically anyone but overall I'd have to say Rimmel, everything I own of theirs is wonderful.

2. What are your favourite face, cheeky and lip products? 

My go to foundations would surprise surprise be either the Rimmel Match Perfection or the Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation, just depending on what type of coverage I'm in the mood for or more importantly how generous my skin is being that day. Any drugstore makeup for your face wouldn't be complete without the use of the famous Collection concealer as well.

For cheeks I'm not really the biggest fan, I could easily go out with just foundation or concealer on but lately I've been making a conscious effort to try and my blush collection has seriously expanded! The MUA mosaic blush on one end of the drugstore scale is lovely and poses as a shimmery highlight too.

As for lips, I'm soo torn between the Rimmel Kate Moss lipsticks both matte and normal and the new Revlon Matte colourburst balms, can you tell I like matte? and crayons? Both are unbelievable and if I had to narrow it down even further the Revlon crayon Sultry is my absolute favourite.

3. What is your least favourite high street product? 

In general lipglosses, I'm just not a lipgloss kind of girl, I have a couple that I've purchased from different brands but again none of them have seemed to change my opinion.

4. What is your favourite makeup bargain?

Although I rarely venture into Superdrug anymore, curse my lack of free time MUA is still the cheapest and has the most surprising quality products. Overall my favourite would be the mua eyeshadow palettes or my trusty eyebrow pencil which is only £1, crazy I know! Also it'd be silly of me not to mention my baby lips in cherry me, I feel lost if I leave the house without it.

5. What is your favourite underdog product? something you love that often gets overlooked

I know that they were released absolute years ago but the Collection cream puff is a firm favourite of mine in the shade Fairy Cake, its matte and a little drying but if you prep your lips with some vaseline just before its not a problem. Its the absolute perfect colour and rarely needs a top up, even after eating.

6. What product do you find overpriced? 

Mascaras! In the drugstore you're lucky if you find one under £7 that actually does what its meant to do, its frustrating really because I don't have dark lashes and can't get away without wearing it. That and I haven't found my perfect mascara yet so please feel free to leave recommendations.

7. Your best bargain dupe? 
Either the MUA eyeshadow palette in heaven and earth for the naked palette or else the Rimmel Kate Moss Matte lipstick in 107 for Macs Rebel. Both amazing dupes!

8. What high street beauty product do you think isn't worth the hype? 

This is probably going to be an unpopular one but the Barry M Gelly nail polishes did absolutely nothing for me at all, there was so much hype that I left it a while and when Boots had a cheeky 3 for 2 on I picked one up. I thought they would be amazing but it was probably one of the worst polishes for staying on my nails, I think it chipped within 2 days and it had like 3 coats or something. Dissappointing because I'd tried their normal range of polishes and loved them, weird!

Thanks for reading, Jenny xo
p.s feel free to do this tag yourselves or let me know what your drugstore favourites are! 

April Favourites

At first I didn't think I'd had that many favourites this month and that I would be able to combine my beauty and non beauty faves instead of doing two separate posts as usual. Therefore this is going to be a pretty long one, I'm sorry, you might want to pop the kettle on and have a cuppa at the ready before you start. 

As you know if you read my other posts I went on a University fieldtrip to 

Cyprus two weeks ago and so I had to pack some beauty essentials, read: half my case full. Whenever I'm on holiday I barely wear any makeup but since I was going with my friends it was a bit different, I found myself reaching for my Maybelline BB Cream all the time as it gave me just the right amount of coverage, was surprisingly a really good colour match for me and the best part it had an SPF of 15. Therefore hand in hand with this was my 17 concealer with was perfect for covering the odd blemish or two and those dark circles after a late night. 

The entirety of the trip I had my nails painted in the new Barry M Aquarium polish in Mediterranean and considering the work we were doing I was surprised that they didn't even chip once - thats a first and in fact when I came home if I hadn't of taken the nail polish off myself goodness knows how long it would have lasted. Talking about space earlier I decided to cut down a little and brought my sleek face form with me instead of individual bronzers, blushes and highlighter - this little trio is definitely a life saver and I was constantly reaching for it, more so than normal.

As for my lip product of choice I wanted a pop of colour as my base makeup and usually eyes were kept quite neutral and so my trusted and favourite Revlon lip crayon in Unapologetic was constantly in my bag. The last beauty related product that I've been loving is the L'oreal Tangle Teaser for kids, this may be a bit of an odd choice but when I go on holiday the heat destroys my hair and especially after a day in the pool its all ratty and horrible which I hate so I bought this to save my hair and it did just that making my life a heck of a lot easier.   

For non beauty favourites for the month of April I had to include Malteaser bunnies, their my all time favourite Easter treat and I don't even want to think about how many I've consumed this past month, I have a weakness for chocolate and they taste superb. The last favourite is the Amazing Spiderman 2 Movie, I couldn't wait for this to come out as I've always been a Spiderman fan from way back when Toby M'Guire had the role but I love Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone just as much therefore I was an emotional wreck. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it but the ending killed me, bring tissues with you, just saying. Anyways its super :) 

I hope you enjoyed my monthly faves for April, thanks for reading, Jenny xo