New Video!

Hey guys!

I have a new video up on my Youtube channel, please check it out! Please subscribe, share etc.!

Enjoy!
-M

Dublin Meet-Up!

Hey everyone!

This post is a week late, but better late than never! Last Saturday I was at my second ever blogger meet up, organised by the lovely Sam of All The Buzz. It was a great day, enjoyed by all.

The first 20 bloggers to arrive where presented with not one, not two but THREE goody bags full of amazing products. Paul from The Cosmetic Outlet kindly donated 20 bags, which contained 5 full sized products. The brands in each bag varied, and I got some lovely products from GOSH.

The second bag was one from Healthpoint Ltd and was filled with some lovely skincare products, lip balm and mascara, all from Derma V10. The body butter I got in this bag is one of the most incredible things I have ever smelled and it left my skin feeling incredibly soft!

The third bag was filled with a lot of different things given by a few different companies. Inside there was a Keratase product, donated by Peter Mark, a make up bag of skincare products from Nimue Skincare, a full sized bottle of self tan from Baby B Browne, samples from Neals Yard Remedies, two full sized beauty bars from Dove, a face mask from Anatomicals, Oriflame Oxygen Boost Day Shield and Matrarrana samples from Wapo.

There were also cupcakes from Monaco Cupcakes and I have to say, they were absolutely amazing. I had one of the chocolate ones and it was one of the best cupcakes I have ever had. Definitely need to go find the shop and get some more of them!

After about an hour or so of mingling with the other bloggers, we were treated to a make-up demonstration from Niamh Martin of Nima Brush, who was also gave a demonstration at the last blogger meet up I was at. After she finished with her demo, she gave us all a kabuki brush from one of her collections, the Elite collection and she also sent me one of her Nima Mitts, which was what she had given everyone at the last meet-up. I had missed out on the mitt since I had left early that day and upon mentioning this to Niamh, she kindly offered to send one out to me, which arrived on Tuesday morning! Thank you Niamh!

After Niamh's demonstration, Michelle McMahon from her.ie came to chat with us for a while. She told us about how she landed the position of editor of her.ie, and she gave us loads of tips on how to make our blogs more successful and how to utilise social media. She was also happy to answer any questions we had about these topics.

Last of all came the raffle, which was in aid of Reach Out Ireland. There were some amazing prizes up for grabs, including an amazing Urban Decay hamper donated by The Cosmetic Outlet (I think it's safe to say we all had our eyes on this one!), a €100 Dundrum voucher, a Neals Yard Remedies hamper and a few others. I wasn't lucky enough to win anything, but congrats to all the ladies that did win!

I had a really great time at the meet-up, it was lovely to meet some more bloggers and to chat with some that I had met at the last meet-up. I can't wait for the next one! (Yes, I am going to say this after every single one :P)

Thanks again to Samantha for organising the whole thing! Check out her blog if you want to know even more about the event, including the list of all the other bloggers who attended!

Well, that's it for now. I hope you all enjoy the long weekend!
-M

P.S. In case you didn't hear, we're now on Facebook! Click here to check out the new page!

Halloween Nail Art!

Hey everyone,

Halloween is coming up so I created a video with a few different Halloween inspired designs for you! You can mix them up or wear one design, it's up to you! 

Make sure to watch the video in HD! And please subscribe, comment and like :)

Hope you all like it!

-M

Professional Beauty + SBBC Wrap-Up Party

Hey guys!

As some of you may know, the Professional Beauty show was in Dublin on Sunday/Monday. Myself and two of my friends headed down on Sunday, hoping to snap up a good deal or two. I was determined to grab some cheap American brand nail polishes!

There were so many different stands, crammed with make-up, make-up brushes, nail polishes, nail art tools etc. One particular stand that caught my eye was one that was selling China Glaze polishes for €4.75, and also sets of 3 CG polishes for €9.50. Unfortunately, they didn't have any of the colours I wanted (I'd made a list and was sticking to it!) and I also found the brushes to be way too thin. I have two CGs at home and they have much thicker brushes than these ones did.

The next stand we stopped at was the O.P.I. stand. They were selling for €6 a bottle and had such a huge range! There was also such a rush at the stand because of this, but I managed to squeeze in and get a good look at the different colours. God only knows how long I was there for, but I eventually picked two polishes and dragged myself away. I got 'Alpine Snow', which is basic white polish, and 'Do You Lilac It?', which is, as the name suggests, lilac.

After browsing the other stands for another hour or so, we headed into town for a quick lunch and then I headed off to the blogger meet-up that Aisling of Total Make Up Addict had organised. It was so nice to go and meet some other Irish beauty bloggers, and the party itself was so much fun and so well organised. We all got goodie bags, filled with products such as Ziaja creams, Surya Brasil products, Oriflame lipgloss and loads more. We were also given some information on the Surya Brasil products and Niamh Martin gave us a make-up demonstration using her brush line, Nima Brush. There was also a charity raffle with some amazing prizes, which I unfortunately missed as I had to leave early. I'm sure everyone really enjoyed it though!

All in all, it was a great day and I'm so looking forward to future beauty shows and blogger meet ups!
-M

Rose Nail Art!

Hey guys!

I know I say this all the time, I'm sorry for not posting much. I've been really busy lately with college stuff and haven't really had the time to post.

I had yesterday off and I really wanted to make a new video. I was going to make a Halloween inspired mani but I didn't have some of the stuff I needed for it. Hopefully I'll get what I need when I go to Dundrum either today or tomorrow!

I decided to make a tutorial for rose nail art instead. This design is actually pretty easy to create and it's so pretty too! I seriously can't stop staring at my nails!

Video:

I hope you enjoy! Please like, comment and subscribe!
-M

Etude House Polishes!

Hey guys!

So today I have swatches of two new polishes I got last week. Both are from Korean beauty brand Etude House and both are simply gorgeous!

This first one is PWH901. I applied this over 1 coat of peel off base coat + 1 coat of black polish. Someone asked me how I got the glitter to spread so well and honestly, I have no idea. I just applied this as you would a regular polish and thankfully the glitter distributed quite well! It might have something to do with the wide brush.

 The next one is PWH902. I applied this over 1 coat of black polish and applied a top coat over to give it extra shine, since it dulled down pretty quickly after I applied it. I had a really hard time capturing the full beauty of this polish on camera.Which is such a shame, since this polish looks stunning on!

I got both of these beauties on eBay. PWH901 cost $4.80 (which is about €3.55) and P&P was free (yay!). PWH902 cost $4 and there was an additional shipping fee of $2.30. Both came pretty quickly (within 5 days of ordering), which was quite surprising since they were sent all the way from Korea! I am no so tempted to buy some more of these!

That's it for today!

-M

Mickey Mouse Nail Art!

Hey everyone!

Despite loooong first week back at college, I found the time to create a cute new nail art video for you guys. I filmed the video clips on Thursday night but unfortunately, the quality of those clips were quite poor because of the night-time filming. So I re-filmed the video this morning, and quickly edited it (it's quite a short video so it didn't take too long!).

First Time

Second Time

Please subscribe, like and share!

Love you guys

-M

Back to School Nail Art!

Hey everyone!

Ok, so this video was meant to be done earlier. A lot earlier. But since I had family over last week, I couldn't do it then. They left on Monday, but I had a concert to go to that day. Then it was my friend's birthday on Tuesday and she had a small party which I went to. Then Wednesday rolled around and I began Peer Mentoring at college. Same with Thursday. Before I knew it, it was Friday. Which is when I finally started the video.

I filmed the video quite early in the day, hoping to have it up by at least 3pm. I finished filming, and got cracking on the editing. Everything was going perfectly, and I finished quite quickly.

This is when the trouble began.

I had edited the entire video to perfection when Windows Movie Maker decided it didn't want to save or publish my video. After trying to fix the problem for about an hour or so, I decided to just delete the video and start again. And then just as I finished, the same thing happened again. It was so incredibly frustrating.

After that I just decided to make the video on the Mac. I had tried iMovie for another one of my videos but didn't really like it, but this was really the only option left. And it went surprisingly well. I can't describe how I felt when the video saved and published, it was amazing!

I still needed to add the captions, because iMovie doesn't have that feature, so I converted the video into mp4 and added them in on my laptop, and thankfully it worked. And so, after much stress and delay, here is my video on chalkboard nail art:

I hope you guys enjoy watching it a lot more than I enjoyed making it!
-M

New Nail Art Tutorial!

Hey guys!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, to make it up to you, I have a new video for you guys!

Please like, subscribe and share!

Love you guys!
- M

Tutorial Number 2!

Hey guys!

My second tutorial is up on YouTube now, please make sure you check it out!

Please like, share and subscribe!

-M

OohLaLa Magazine Launch Party!

Hey guys!

So last night I went to the OohLaLa Magazine launch party/blog awards and let me just start off by saying it was an amazing night! They had someone over from Tropical Popical to do our nails, some make up artists from the LA Creative Acadamy, an incredible DJ and a showcase of Penney's Autumn/Winter Collection.

I, of course, legged it to the Tropical Popical stand first, where I got my nails done by the lovely Clodagh. I chose to get my nails painted a neon yellow and asked Clodagh to do a bit of nail art and she didn't disappoint! Thanks Clodagh!

I took my sister along and she went to get her make up done. The lovely ladies from LA Creative not only did her make-up for her, but also taught her how to create a smoky eye look as she requested. Unfortunetly I don't have a picture of the finished look.

As the whole event was sponsered by Penneys, we were also treated with a runway show featuring the gorgeous Penney's AW 2013 collection. Since the place was so crowded though, most people couldn't see that well, and those of us that could still weren't all able to take great pictures.

I also got the chance to meet some great people and other fashion/beauty bloggers, including the gorgeous Olayemi Alaba who was so incredibly nice and has such an incredible blog!

We were also given some cool goodie bags upon arrival, which contained stuff like perfume samples, nail polish, a copy of the magazine, a Penney's gift card and loads of other stuff, all courtesy of Cara Pharmacy. Thank you Cara Pharmacy!

All in all, it was a great event and I'm so glad I went. I made some great new friends and just had a lot of fun there! A big thanks to Penney's, Cara Pharmacy and of course, everyone at OohLaLa!

- M

P.S Make sure to click the follow button on underneath my name in the 'About Me' section, I've finally made it work (at least I think so)!

Polish Collection Part 1

Hey everyone!

Today I want to share my polish collection with all of you. Between my sisters and I, we have a LOT of nail polish in our house. This post will focus on my own personal collection, including where I got each polish, the price (where I can remember) and if it's still available.

Brand: Mixed

From left to right: Essie's 'Matte About You', GOSH 'Holographic Hero' and 17 'Magnatized Nail Polish'. I got all three of these from England, but they're all available here too. The Essie polish is available in McCabes Pharmacy for €10.99, whereas I got it for £8.99 in England (which is €10.40, not a huge price difference). The GOSH polish is also available in McCabes, but I don't know how much it costs. The 17 polish is available in Boots for roughly €9.

Brand: Collection

From Left to Right: Hoola Hoop, Retro! and Fruit Salad.

All available in Boots for somewhere between €3 and €4

Brand: Inglot

From Left to Right: O₂M Polishes in 663, 664 and 672.

€13 each in Inglot (Dundrum and Jervis Centre). The 3for2 deal is still on so if you're thinking of getting some of these, now is the time!

Brand: Essence

From Left to Right: Nail Art Peel Off Base Coat, Stampy (Black) and Stampy (White).

These are available in most Pennys stores. The base coat is €2.89 and I'm sorry but I can't remember how much the stamping polishes were. I'm pretty sure they were cheaper than the base coat, around €1.79 maybe? I'm not sure.

Brand: LA Colors

Left to Right: Blood Orange, White, Hot Pink, Aqua, Black, Vibrant and Silver Glitter

All available in McCabes for €1.99 each.

Brand: New York Color

Left to Right: Taxi Yellow Creme, Starry Silver Glitter, Demon Glow Top Coat, Gramercy Glitz, Classy Glassy, City Blackout, Pinstripe White and High Line Green.

The yellow and silver glitter polish I got from America, but I think they are available here too. I know for a fact that the silver glitter is. High Line Green cost me €1.29 and the others were €1.99 each.

Brand: Barry M

From Left to Right: Instant Nail Effects Foil - Gold, Chameleon Colour Change Nail Polish - Blue, Hi-Shine Gel Effect Nail Polish - Greenberry,  Chameleon Colour Change Nail Polish - Pink and Instant Nail Effects Foil - Silver.

Available in Boots for €5.99 each. The chameleon polishes aren't great, so if this is an effect you want to try, I'd advise you to try a cheaper brand.

From Left to Right: Black Multi-Glitter, Gold Glitter, Teal, Magenta Glitter and Aqua Glitter.

Available in Boots for €4.59 each. (Please excuse the mess that is the black, one of my polishes leaked all over it)

From Left to Right: Acid Yellow, Cyan, Superdrug Limited Edition Pink, Yellow, Pink Flamingo.

The Cyan, Yellow and Pink Flamingo are available in Boots for €4.59, the Acid Yellow was bought in Topshop Oxford Street in London for £1.49 so I'm not sure if it's available here (not a huge loss honestly). The LE Pink is a Superdrug exclusive, but the colour is quite similar to the Pink Flamingo.

From Left to Right: Retro Blue, Retro Pink and Retro Red, with the Silver Nail Art Pen lying in front.

I don't think the Retro Collection is available anymore. I got the blue last summer, it was a free gift with the purchase of a certain number of Barry M polishes. The other two I got in Topshop Oxford Street this year for £1 each. The nail art pen is available in Boots for €7.49 (I got mine in London for £4.99, which is about €5.76)

Brand: O.P.I

From Left to Right: Mariah Carey Liquid Sand Mini Collection (The Impossible, Stay the Night, Get Your Number, Can't Let Go), Green-Wich Village, Outrageous Neons Minis Collection (Riotously Pink, Formidably Orange, Top Coat, Base Coat, Seriously Purple, Ridiculously Yellow).

The Mariah collection was €12.99 in TK Maxx. Green-Wich Village was a gift from my aunt in America, and I got the neon collection for £9.99

Brand: Ciate

Mini Caviar Set. This was a magazine freebie.

Brand: Revlon

From Left to Right: Silver Screen, Steel-her Heart, Frankly Scarlet and Pineapple Fizz.

These were all gifts from America.

Brand: China Glaze

From Left to Right: Ruby Pumps and Lemon Fizz.

Both gifts from America. If you ever come across the Ruby Pumps, buy it! It's one of my favourite polishes of all time.

Brand: Color Club

From Left to Right: Sky Blue, Pastel Pink and Mint

All gifts from America!

Well that's my collection done. It's still small, but it's growing really rapidly. This time last year, I think I had about 10-12 bottles of nail polish!

Stay tuned for part 2!

-M

First Nail Art Tutorial!

Hey everyone!

I would like to officially present:

MY FIRST NAIL ART TUTORIAL!!

This nail art design is a recreation of Dara's nail art in the 'Falling in Love' Music Video. My eyes were instantly drawn to Dara's nails when I first saw the music video and I have to admit, I kept going back and pausing the video whenever they showed a close up of her nails. So I decided that for my first tutorial I absolutely had to recreate the design.

Please subscribe to my Youtube channel, I'll be uploading more tutorials soon.

Thanks guys,
M

I'm Back in Ireland!

Hey everyone!

I'm so sorry for the lack of posts recently. As you know, I was in London for a course the last few weeks and so I just didn't have the time to post anything new. Between classes, travelling and sight-seeing, I was always so exhausted by the time I came home. But I'm back now and I should be updating regularly again (that's Mondays and Thursdays guys, so keep checking back on those days).

I didn't do much shopping in London to be honest, but what I did buy was mostly nail stuff. I have this habit of checking the beauty section of any TK Maxx I spot, and the ones in London where no exception. They had Nails Inc. sets, O.P.I. mini sets, Essie sets, everything. My cousin had to practically drag me away from the nail polish section at one point.

I did manage to restrain myself and only bought one O.P.I. set, the Outrageous Neons minis. This pack came with a white base coat, four neon colours (three really, purple is not a neon) and a top coat.

The only one I actually used when I was in the UK was the yellow, so lets start with that. The shade is called Ridiculously Yellow and is my second favourite of the four. I first applied the base coat they gave me, which didn't actually end well. It wouldn't apply properly, the formula was just terrible. So I took that off and used my white NYC polish instead. I'm pretty sure I used 2 coats of that, but I'm not 100% sure. After the white dried, I applied two coats of the yellow, as was instructed on the back of the box. Then I applied one coat of the top coat, which is really necessary as the colours turn kind of matte after they dry. It was the most neon-ish polish of the four (it's actually brighter, the camera doesn't quite capture it):

I would have to say my favourite was the pink. I absolutely loved the colour (again, it's brighter than the picture shows). The purple one was nice enough but it wasn't neon. It also reminded me of my purple Collection polish (I think the shade is called Retro). The orange was nice enough too (I'm sorry, my nails are a state in that pic)

The set cost £9.99 and I'd say it would cost about €12.99 here.

Just a little something random, here's a pic of the ice cream nails I did for my cousin. While we were looking at one of the stalls of the monthly market in her area, the stall owner suddenly went 'Oh my God, your nails!' to which my cousin hastily replied 'She did them! She has a blog!', pointing at me.Oh, Annaya, you're such a cutie!

That's all folks! Check back on Thursday, I'll either have a post about nail art up or a post showing my nail polish collection. If you have any preference for Thursdays post, leave a comment below!

Until then, 

M

Barry M Swatches + Essie 'Matte About You'

Hey guys!

Sorry for the late post, it's been a pretty crazy week. I started my summer course on Monday and have had a bunch of stuff to do, so I didn't really get time to post. I had done all the swatches on Sunday night but I was way to tired to put a post together by the time I had finished.

Well without further ado, here are the swatches:

First of all, Barry M's Acid Yellow. Now, to be completely honest, I think this colour is quite hideous. All I could think while I was putting this on was 'I can see why this was only £1.49'. It's so ugly! It also took 3 coats to get kinda opaque. Still, it may come in handy for nail art someday.

The next one I tried was the gold foil polish. I really really loved this one. It only needed one coat and it dried so fast! Application was also really easy. I'd really recommend this polish if you don't already have it!

The same applied to the silver: 1 coat, fast drying, easy application. I simply adore these polishes!

This was the polish I got free with my purchase of all the other ones. I used 2 coats but I think this really needed a third coat to get it really opaque. In terms of colour, it's very similar to Barry M's Flamingo.

This was my favourite polish of the bunch. The colour was just so gorgeous, I absolutely loved it. It's a bit more green than the picture shows, but only a little bit more. I used two coats. I kept this one and only just took it off a few minutes ago.

 I popped into Superdrug again this week and spotted Essie's Matte About You. I had heard that this is one of the best matte top coats available and thought I'd pick up a bottle and give it a run. It cost £8.99 but it was worth every penny: I absolutely loved the end result. I put it on over the teal polish, above, and was so impressed by the result. In the picture it looks really blue, but it's actually very green.

Well that's it for now guys. Enjoy your weekend!

-M

Polish Haul from London + GOSH Holographic Hero Swatch

Hey guys,

Sorry for not posting on Monday (had too much packing to do) or Thursday (was out all day). I'm currently in London, and will be starting a summer course on Monday (exciting!) so I might not update as much as usual, but I will try to.

The first thing I did when I got to London was hit up the nearest Superdrug. I had made a little list of polishes I wanted to get in London, since the Barry M polishes are a good bit cheaper in the UK than they are in Ireland. I also really wanted to try out the GOSH Holographic polish, which I think is only available in Superdrug. I also picked up some nail art supplies from Topshop because they're cheaper here too.

 Barry M Foil Effects in Gold and Silver, £3.99 each, which is €4.66. In Ireland these cost €5.99 which I personally think is WAY too much.

Barry M in Teal, £2.99, which is €3.50 but in Ireland these actually cost €4.99

Barry M Nail Art Pen in Silver, £4.99

This one was free since I spent over a certain amount on Barry M stuff.

GOSH Holographic Hero, £4.99

I got these from Topshop for £3.50

And these for £7, also in Topshop

Barry M in Acid Yellow only £1.49 in Topshop! They also had their normal yellow polish for £1.49 but since I already have that one I decided not to get it.

The GOSH polish is called Holographic Hero. It's silver but when the light hits it you can see a load of other colours, which give it the holographic effect. On the cap of the bottle it basically says it'll only last one night, and I've heard that it starts chipping a few hours after you apply it. But it's almost been a full 24 hours and mine is still perfect (bottom pic).

 

Well that's it for now! I'll start putting up swatches of the other polishes in the next few posts, so stay tuned!

-M