Saturday 28 April 2012

Bourjois Magic Nail Polish Remover Review

I was so excited when I saw the first reviews for the Bourjois Magic Nail Polish Remover, Red Fruit and Vanilla fragrance. It is a nail polish remover in a plastic bottle with a sponge inside. It promises to remove your nail polish in 1 second per nail without cotton wool. It also says that it's nourishing because it contains sweet almond oil. I expected all that to mean that it would smell different to regular nail polish remover. It smells pretty much the same. There's a different scent to it but I think that's pretty much the same if you're switching to a new brand of remover.


The first thing I noticed was the size. It's a lot smaller than I was expecting it to be. It's 125ml. That's 4.2 fluid ounces. That's so tiny. Look at that picture. The ingredients are: ethyl acetate, isopropyl, myristate, parfum (frangrance), panthenol, tocopheryl, acetate, prunus amygdalus dulcis (sweet almond) oil, hexyl cinnamal. It is acetone free and paraben free. It also says on the side of the bottle: Its Magic Power? All you need to do is dip each finger into the sponge, twist and remove. Nail polish is instantly removed without the need for cotton wool.

Here are some videos of the remover in action:

Removing with Deborah Lippman Superstar over Illamasqua Scorn.
Base coat and top coat as well.

Removing 1 coat of Illamasqua Muse.
No base or top coats.
Sorry about the poor quality of these.
It was dark and this is the only good light I have :)



As you can see, it doesn't really work as well as it claims to. It took me well over a minute to remove the polish on just one finger. I realize now that I didn't necessarily follow the directions completely (I missed out the part where I'm suppose to twist your finger instead of just dip it) but I'm not too sure it would have made that much of a difference, especially with the glitter. It could almost do with a soft scouring pad inside so the glitter can come off more easily. It was easier to remove the creme polish. But I did not apply a base or a top coat as I was just taking them right off.

Another issue I had was that I believe the glitter broke the sponge up a bit so that there were bits of black on my finger. In the video I said it was the nail polish but I did think afterwards it was probably the sponge. Which probably means everytime I use it from now on, I'll probably have bits of sponge on my fingers. Not too happy about that.

Now, back to the size of the bottle. I did think at first that it was really small. Then, as I was using it, I thought it was too big. Once it came to getting my pinky in there, it was really uncomfortable and awkward because of how tall it is and because of the fact that there's a neck on the bottle where there is no sponge. I remember when I was little, my aunts used to have similar nail polish removers. Except that they were in fat little jars about the size and shape of a ramekin. Because this is so tall, it's awkward to get your fingers into and therefore harder to move your finger around to get the polish off. Especially the glitter.

I do like the smell of it, as far as you can like the smell of any nail polish remover. I do like the fact that it has oils in it to moisturize your skin as you use it but I did feel like I had to wash my hands almost as soon as I was done because I didn't really like the feel of the oils on my finger tips.

Would I buy this again? It's hard to tell. I'll have to see how I feel after I've used it for a while. But the fact is that it's a small bottle of 125 ml/4.2 ounces and it costs £4.99/$7.50 a bottle. I had to order this from the Boots website because I couldn't find it in the store despite blogs saying it was going to be released at the start of April.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Models Own Indian Ocean

Models Own Indian Ocean  is part of the new summer Beetlejuice collection. It's a very sheer blue base with pink and gold duochrome (multichrome?) effect. I put it over Illamasqua Wink, which is a pretty purple pastel. It's look equally good over a blue pastel base. Possibly even a pink pastel base but I don't have a pink pastel.

2 coats of Models Own Indian Ocean over 2 coats of Illamasqua Wink
Avon Peeling and Brittleness Solver as base
Essie Good to Go as top coat


Models Own Indian Ocean over Illamasqua Wink

Models Own Indian Ocean over Illamasqua Wink


The pink flash is a lot more evident in person than it is in these pictures. Might have come out better if I had a higher quality camera.

Models Own can be purchased in store at Boots in the UK. It can also be purchased from the Models Own website and from ASOS. This usually costs £5 but there have been lots of offers going on lately so you might be able to get it for less. Thanks for looking!

Saturday 21 April 2012

Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream

When I first saw the swatches for Mermaid's Dream, I wasn't completely sold on it. I thought it looked really gritty, even with a top coat, and I couldn't decide if I wanted it. Then I saw it at House of Fraser in Sheffield and I knew it had to be mine. It has small blue glitter and fine gold glitter in a sea foam green almost metallic base. It's gorgeous. I think the best way to wear this is definately to layer it otherwise you end up with the really gritty texture. I layered Mermaid's Dream over Illamasqua Strike, which is a metallic turquoise and it's perfect with Mermaid's Dream. The earrings I purchased at Kohls while I was in NY in December. I purchased Mermaid's Dream at House of Fraser for some ridiculous price but I think it would have cost about the same to have it sent from someone in the states once you add in the cost of shipping internationally.


Indirect Sun
Mermaid's Dream over Illamasqua Strike
Avon Peeling and Brittleness Solver as base
Essie Good to Go as top coat

Direct Sun
Mermaid's Dream over Illamasqua Strike

As I mentioned, Deborah Lippmann can be purchased at House of Fraser in the UK. I believe it's the only place that stocks it in store. There are a few other sites that you can purchase it from as well. Beauty Bay offers free worldwide delivery so if you're in Europe, it might be helpful to ship from there if there aren't any sites that sell DL in your country. I know it is hard to get some places. You can also get it from Amazon.co.uk. Illamasqua can be purchased from their main site or from Asos.com (free worldwide delivery as well, although they won't ship nail polish outside of Europe) and at one of their counters in a few select Debenhams and Selfridges and also from those 2 store's websites. Check the Illamasqua site for locations.

Thursday 19 April 2012

Koh Black Stars!

The One. The Only. Koh Black Stars! And yes, that exclamation mark is on the label.

Black Stars was my biggest lemming. Probably for 2 years now. I finally started having a serious look around for in a couple of months ago. And after a horrible experience with Zalando.co.uk, I ended up buying it directly for the Koh website. Koh is a pretty expensive Dutch brand and you can purchase directly from them here: Koh Cosmetics Their website is in Dutch, so it's kind of hard to navigate through, but here's a good blog that helps explain some Dutch words and navigate through the site: Witoxicity - Where to buy Koh

Anyway, now on to the pictures! Black Stars is a beautiful polish with micro holographic glitter, flakies and a gold shimmer all in a black polish base. All of the Koh polishes come in a cute little box that reminds me of lipstick boxes that my grandmother used to have when  I was little.


These two pictures aren't very good since the sun has
disappeared and I haven't taken any good pictures before today.




Used:
1 coat of Koh Black Stars! over 2 coats Illamasqua Scorn.
Avon Peeling and Brittleness Solver as base
Essie Good to Go as topcoat

Direct sunlight

Indirect sunlight