Friday 23 May 2014

Coral Nail Obsession

Hello Everyone!
Summer is fast approaching (I can't believe next month is June!) and with that comes bright colours! Let's just say I'm a little more adventurous with colour on my nails rather than in clothes but I have began adding some colourful pieces of clothing to my wardrobe for summer! One colour I'm really loving at the moment is coral/orange and have acquired quite a few items of clothes (including my new jacket which I love!) and nail polish. Prior to March I didn't own any coral would you believe, and now I have four! They're not all exactly coral, but they are all in the orange colour family so I went with coral for the ease of the post title haha.
Here are the current four I own! 
L-R - Cute as a button, Bouquet, Terracotta, Sunday Funday
L-R: Cute as a button, Bouquet, Terracotta, Sunday Funday
Essie 'Cute as a button' - This one is the perfect mix of pink and orange, resulting in this bright-yet-not-neon shade. If there's one out of this lot you need, it's this one! I've already talked about this in my top products for March so you can read that *here* if you'd like to know more
Dior 'Bouquet' - I really don't own anything like this, it's a beautiful light peachy orange shade which, once again, I've talked about in it's own review which you can read *here*
Orly 'Terracotta' - This is a newbie. I ordered this along with another shade (NOTD coming soon with it!) from Fragrance Direct for the bargain price of £2.99! Considering this is a brand you'll often seen among the likes of OPI, I was very happy to say the least!  This is definitely not terracotta, it's a bright orange which has some strong red undertones. Perfect if you want a super bright shade.
Essie 'Sunday Funday' - I'd describe this as a pretty much straight up orange with has some peachy tones going on to keep it from looking 'neon'. This one contains very subtle silver shimmer which is perfect for the summer as it looks lovely and shimmery in the sun! When I got this along with Cute as a button, I thought they were really similar but that's couldn't be further from the truth!

I really wish my camera would pick up them up true to colour, it's always a problem when photographing nail polish I find, very annoying, so I definitely recommend you check them out in person to see exactly what they look like!
Have you been loving any particular colours recently?
Jessica
xox

Monday 12 May 2014

Nails: Dior 'Bouquet'

Hi Everyone! ♥
I had never been to into Dior previously, I didn't look into their collections or anything like that until one day a few months ago I saw the images for their Spring collection. Now, if you've been reading my blog for a while you know I have a bit huge thing for all things nails, so naturally my eye was drawn to them first. I loved all the colours knew I had to get one as experience has taught me to never leave something you love if it's limited edition! Despite this, I didn't buy any straight away as obviously they are expensive so I wanted to make sure I got the right colour. Fast forward a month or two (yes, very indecisive!) I decided to purchase the shade 'Bouquet' one I fell in love with instantly and settled on because I have nothing like it. Rambling into aside, here's the low down on this gorgeous shade...
Sorry for my ravaged cuticles - they are in dire need of some TLC!
The bottle has a silver mirrored, removable cap with 'CD' embossed on the top. Underneath, it reveals a much smaller black lid which you actually use to paint your nails with - the silver lid makes a satisfying 'click' upon closing which, I suppose I'm strange, I really like haha. The brush is quite short wide with a  rounded tip, this makes it really easy to paint your nails. As the brush is quite dense, it picks up quite a lot of polish which is good if you have long nails, but I prefer to wipe the majority off so it isn't as messy for me! The above picture is with two coats I believe (was a few weeks ago) but I wore it the other day and I did put two coats on.
The only disappointment was it wasn't as long lasting as other Dior polish reviews claimed, however that's not to say it chips quickly, this worked out pretty average for me, 4-ish days chip free. Then again, maybe it's just my nails as everyone claims Chanel chips horrendously, but it lasts amazingly on me! The colour is such a gorgeous peachy orange which leans very slightly pink, the picture really doesn't capture the colour perfectly unfortunately. I seem to be loving peach/coral/orange nails at the moment!
I'm kind of tempted to pick up another shade, but one looks to be quite dupable and the other is baby blue which is gorgeous but I'm not sure how much I would wear it. I love the matte frost effect top coat too, but again I'm not sure how much I'd wear it but we'll see!
What do you think of this colour? It just screams Spring to me!
Jessica
xox

Friday 9 May 2014

Astral All Over Moisturiser

Hi Everyone! I have been super MIA over on here and all my social media and unfortunately that won't change for a while as I am currently doing my GCSE exams! I've had four already and since I had a morning one today I thought I would type up this post and schedule a few more while I have a little more time than usual!
A few weeks ago I was asked to try out Astral cream, which surprisingly I had never even heard of before. The benefits all sounded really great so I was eager to try this out! I've been using this for the past few weeks and I'm now ready to report back what I thought of it!

Upon first hearing about Astral, I thought it would be just like any other cream on the market but after trying it out I've been pleasantly surprised. First off, the consistency is really lovely, hopefully you can see in the second picture how it has a sort of whipped mousse look to it and it feels really thick and creamy. I mainly used this as an all over body moisturiser as although it can be used on the face, I just know it would be much to heavy for my skin type. If you do have dry or dehydrated skin though, this would work great. I focused using this everyday on drier areas such as my knees and elbows and by the end of the week they were extremely soft. Due to the thick consistency it penetrated through the skin leaving them really smooth in the morning.
It can actually be used as a lip balm too, which I tried out and it wasn't as bad as I expected. It did feel quite weird but it was pretty moisturising but I think I will just stick to this for the body haha! Astral is available in a variety of sizes and I have the 50ml tub which I keep in my desk draw. It's the perfect small size to keep in your bag or at work so you can use it on the go. There's also a 200ml and 500ml so you can keep stocked up at home.
This has become one of my go to moisturisers the past month, the only downside for me is the smell which isn't necessarily off putting but it's quite strong so bare that in mind if you don't like strongly scented things (especially if you wanted to use it on your face!) However, Astral must be doing something right as the formula hasn't changed from when it was first created in the 1950's!
Have you tried Astral before?
Jessica
xox

Post contains a PR sample, however all opinions are honest and my own! Read more in my disclaimer