Keep me away, eBay.

I had a small shopping shaped incident the other day after looking around on eBay. I've been after the China Glaze Kaleidoscope collection for a while and one of my regular sellers had several available at very good prices, so it seemed rude not to:



The I also couldn't resist a few of the new Crackles from China Glaze either, these were cheaper than they would be from my local Sally's and I won't have to kill any incompetent shop staff to get my hands on them:



Next week I am off to Spain so hopefully I will also have a delightful Kiko shaped bundle to show off on my return! Here's my wish list at the moment, we shall see how I do with it:

Pasedena Purple

Another gorgeous Nubar varnish, I get most of my Nubar polishes from Nubar Nailz who have a decent selection at pretty good prices, their customer service and super fast delivery are great.

UD 24/7 Glide-On Shadow Pencil

The new 24/7 Glide-On Shadow Pencil from Urban Decay is essentially an eyeshadow version of their 24/7 liners (which I love). Such is my love for the liners I decided that I had to try out these new pencils too. I chose Rehab and delinquent, a neutral taupe and a gorgeous purple with a slight shimmer.

I haven't had much of a chance to play with these yet and have only used each once for a speedy look for work. So far I love them though, they apply really easily and truly do glide on, then they stay put for the whole day.



My one issue with them is that they dry VERY fast so if you want to blend them you need to do it right away, it's possible though and what they lack in blend-ability after the first few minutes they really make up for in staying power and colour payoff.

i can definitely see me ending up with more of these in the future.

Frostbitten Flakies

Considering how much I love Frostbite by China Glaze and how much I love Nfu Oh flakies, I was a bit disappointed with this:

Nubbins!

I had a small incident while attempting to rescue a bottle of whisky from the top shelf of my larder the other day, so now I have tiny stumpy nubbins:



They're wearing the Sky Sparkle they had on when they broke and a layer of Barry M Effects.

Sky Sparkles

Another gorgeous colour with lots of glittery sparkle, unfortunately this one doesn't go on quite so easily. The photos here are after 7 coats in two separate sittings:



The glitter is very sparse and sheer and to get a decent coverage it takes A LOT of coats. In future I think I'd use a turquoise base colour to save time and polish.

Crack

Everyone seems to be bringing out crackle polishes at the moment so I thought I better give my Barry M Nail Effects an outing:

Nubar Reclaim

I've had this one on my wish list for a while now and I am very excited to finally have it. It's a gorgeous green holo. What I love about it is that even in regular lighting it's a really nice colour and finish:



A lot of holo polishes can be a bit grubby and dull looking in regular light and really need strong artificial light or direct sunlight to bring them out, Reclaim holds it's own ever without but it is super gorgeous when there is some.

This being Scotland these photos are in bright indoor lighting as we don't get sun here at this time of year:

Nubar Sparkles Collection.

I recently ordered 4 more Nubar Sparkle Collection polishes. I already have Hyacinth Sparkle at home which I love so I decided to try some of the other ones as they looked like pretty colours and I adore glitter polish.

I ordered Night, Sky, Petunia and Violet Sparkles and I wasn't disappointed. I was however stuck for which one to try first, so I put them all on:







I love this collection, the glitter is really fine and goes on beautifully. Night Sparkle is slightly disappointing as it is more of a navy polish with blue glitter through it than an actual navy glitter but it is still really pretty on. Sky is going to take 4 or so coats to become opaque but I think that's worth it for the colour.

So far I've tried out full manicures with two of the polishes.

Here are about a billion (well, 6) photos of the Petunia Sparkles on, I adore it, it's almost impossible to show in photos how gorgeous and sparkly and foil like it is on the nail in person.








Here's the Violet on my whole hand, another gorgeous glittery colour:







I think the Sparkles Collection by Nubar has to be one of my favourites, they are such pretty polishes.

Last Friday Night

I much prefer this layered than on it's own, as it's shown here. The formula in my bottle seems a bit off too, time to get the thinner out, I think!

Naked Nails

Well, not quite. But very sheer, nude nails, showing up the terrible staining and the uneven length of my nail beds. It's probably a bonus I don't really favour the natural look just now, considering the state of them...








Maybe it's time to try out those denture tablets on them to see if they whiten them back up at all!

Valentine's Fails

I completely forgot it was Valentine's day on Monday so I had painted my nails green on Sunday night which didn't seem very nicely themed. During the day on Monday I tried to make my nails a bit more on topic but sadly this resulted in a sloppy attempt with hearts and then another rather poor effort with some tiny pearls.

Pearls:




Hearts:



Maybe next time I will be better prepared and not make quite such a mess!! On the plus side, I love the base colour No7 Salsa.

Layered Green

Here is Sally Hansen Resolution over Barry M's mint. I am not as big a fan of Resolution as I'd thought I'd be but putting it over the lighter green seemed to change it slightly and I quite liked the effect.



The colour is more true in the blurred shot:

CND Sapphire Effects

I forget how much I love the CND Effects polishes, they turn any colour into a shimmery, glittery, duochrome delight in just one coat. here's CND Effects in Sapphire Sparkle over Barry M Indigo:

Max Factor Lipfinity Lasting Lip Tint

I'd seen these on a couple of blogs and advertised in a magazine and since I love my MAC ones I had to give them a go.



The added bonus was that Superdrug have them on 3 for 2 at the moment (£7.99 each), so it seemed a good time to try out a few of the colours.

I went for 03 Pink Princess, 05 Marshmallow and 08 Nice n Nude.



So far I've only tried Nice n Nude but I am impressed with the applicator which is firm but not sharp and lets lots of colour flood your lips. The colour is a warm browny orange shade, nowhere near nude on me but very wearable. I'm looking forward to trying out the two pinker colours as they are closer to the shades I normally wear.

Application was good, probably better than the MAC ones I have, the colour seemed to flow better and there was more of it, meaning no scrubbing and going over to try and get a decent coverage.



The only downside with these tints is that you have to be sure where you want to apply them, one slip and you've painted yourself a nice, and lasting, moustache. They also work best on smooth, soft lips, dry skin tends to pool the colour and leave an uneven finish.

Space Nails

In the right light this manicure looks like something from outer space, I love it, even on my newly chopped nubbins. Unfortunately, no light seems to be the right light for taking photos of it. Here are several shots, with flash, without and a couple before clean up:










I used a navy No7 polish with light blue glitter sparkles under a coat of Maybelline Colorama Ice Princess top coat, which I think might be my very favourite top coat EVER.

Urban Decay 15th Anniversary 24/7 Eyeliner Set

I have been waiting for this set for a while. I love Urban Decay 24/7 liners and this set has previously unreleased colours and is a really good bargain for eyeliner addicts like me:



The set includes full sized pencils in:

Stray Dog - shimmering brown taupe (new shade)
Corrupt - dark metallic brown with silver glitter (new shade, previously in a mini set)
Bourbon - medium brown with gold sparkle
Midnight Cowboy - beige with gold sparkle (new shade)
Baked - bold bronze
Stash - dark olive with gold sparkle
Mildew - deep mossy green
Perversion - blackest carbon black (new shade)
Electric - bright aquamarine blue
Binge - deep metallic navy blue
Ransom - bright iridescent purple
Asphyxia - pinky iridescent purple (new shade)
Rockstar - darkest eggplant
Zero - zealous black
Uzi - gunmetal grey with sparkle (new shade)
An Urban Decay pencil sharpener.

These pencils are normally £11 each, so that's £165 worth of liner alone in this set, before you add in the sharpener, which are usually about £8. It retails for £60 (although I found a discount code when I ordered online so it came to even less) which in my mind is a pretty good deal. There are several pencils which I am running low on and this set tops them up and adds several new shades to my collection.



I'm really pleased with the set and can't wait to try it out. It's a great starter collection for people who are into their coloured liners or a really good top up if you, like me, love to have lots of eye liner colour options.