Barry M - Lilac Foil and Lavender Hexograms

It seems like ages since I've had some Barry M on my nails, so I went through my stash to see what I'd got.

I came up with two polishes to try out, Lilac Foil as I love my Sally Hansen and Revlon chrome polishes so I wanted to see how this compared, and Lavender Hexograms which I've been trying to think of a polish this would go well with.

I've had Lavander Hexograms for a while now, I think I got it last christmas, and I got Lilac Foil not that long after, it was a free gift when you bought three barry M polishes from Superdrug, they've both been calling to me, but I never realised they were meant to be together.

First I'll show you Lilac Foil on it's own. First off, the colour on the nail is the same as in the bottle (I find it annoying when bottle colour doesn't match what it's like on your nail) so I'm happy about that. I did two coats, the formula was okay, thicker than a Sally Hansen or Revlon Chrome, but it went on okay. It shows your brush stokes which is a pain, but over all it's a pretty polish so I think I can forgive a brush stroke or two.

Pop Rocks - Groupie

After all the Olympic posts I promised you some nail polish and here it is. :-)

I wasn't sure which polish to show today, I'm always drawn to my old Revlons and Sally Hansens, but I wanted to show a brand I haven't used before, so I've got a polish made by Blue Cross under the name Pop Rocks, the polish is called Groupie.

 
When I got this polish from ebay I was dissapointed as I thought it was going to be a black base with glitter, obviously the seller's photo wasn't the best, but luckily I love this polish more than I would've if it was a black base.

London 2012 Olympics Part 5 - Night time at the Olympic Park

This is the last of my Olympic posts, you'll probably be glad to hear that, we can get back to nail polish after this. :-)

My last post was about the synchronised swimming which was great to watch, and after that I spent the rest of my day in the Olympic Park, this post is about my evening in the park.

Anish Kapoor's Orbit Tower

I had gone to London on my own, no-one I knew was interested in going when I ordered my tickets, but I was quite happy to be alone, it let me have the choice to go wherever I wanted whenever I felt like it. After the swimming I went to the huge McDonalds and got some food, I never buy McDonalds so in a way it was a treat and another experience to add to the day.

After lunch I took a walk around the park, it was a perfect summers day for a walk and I had wonderful surrounding. There were plenty of trees and flower beds (I actually took some flowers and dried them when I got home) so I walked by them instead of being in the middle of the crowds.

London 2012 Olympics Part 4 - Synchronised Swimming Finals

The other day, I wrote about going to the Olympic Park, today I'm going to tell you about what I went there to see.
My choosen sport was Synchronised Swimming, it was the first Olympic sport I ever saw on the TV when I was a kid and I've loved watching it ever since, so there was no way I was going to miss out on seeing it live. I went to London on 10th August and after some sight seeing at the Park it was time to go and find my seat in the Aquatics Centre.

Olympic Rings by the entrance to the Aquatics Centre.

The Aquatics Cenre, I love the graphics they used on the outside of the building.

The Aquatics Centre is huge, it was interesting to see the parts of the building that aren't on the TV, the building is concrete and steel, and very utilitarian, I quite liked it as I have a passion for interesting architecture. To get into the viewing area I had to climb alot of stairs, and then inside the viewing area to get to my seat I had to climb even steeper stairs until I was right at the top as that's where my seat was. Even though I was up high I could still still everything that was going on so it was well designed.As I was early I got to see the teams practicing in the pool so I got an extra treat, it was funny to see them all in the pool together and I did wonder how they managed to avoid each other. I took this time to take some photos nearer to the pool, some of my photos are below.

London 2012 Olympics Part 3 - Day time at the Olympic Park

The other week I told you about going to see an Olympic football match in my home city, well, today I'm going to share my Olympic Park adventure. I'm going to have three parts to this, one about the day time at the Olympic Park, one about the event I went to see, and another about the Park at night.

Having watched the Olympics everyday and all day since it started I couldn't wait to go to the Olympic Park myself.
When the tickets went on sale, I managed to get a ticket to one of my favorite Olympic Sports which is Synchronised Swimming on the 10th August. Being skint I wasn't sure if I could afford the travel, but luckily I managed to get super cheap coach tickets just 5 days before, and it really helped that a London tube ticket for the day was included with the ticket, so my day out didn't cost me much at all.

The day before I painted my nails, after learning how to paint Union Jacks for the football match I decided all my nails would be turned into little flags, it wasn't perfect, but I was really pleased with how it turned out.

My event wasn't until 3pm but I made sure I got there nice and early so I could take in the sights at the Olympic Park. My trip down was nice and easy, the weather was lovely although it was probably a little too hot for me.

I couldn't help but take plenty of photos during the day, and I thought it would be nice to share them rather than waffle on about how hot it was! :-) So here's some photos I took of the Olympic Park throughout the day, I hope you enjoy them.

London 2012 Olympics Part 2 - Watching the Football in Coventry

Last week I went to see an olympic football match in my home city Coventry. I'm very proud of my home city, it has such a rich and interesting history (might have to do a post or two about it if anyones interested) and hosting part of the London 2012 Olympics just adds to that.

I hadn't intended on going to the football, when tickets first went on sale I only requested them for two events, and both were at the Olympic park, I just never thought about the football. Olympic banners started appearing in Coventry and I started to get really excited about it all, and then we even got a huge set of Olympic rings, the final straw was when I heard that the British team were going to be playing a match at the City of Coventry Stadium, I just had to experience it so I went and got a ticket for me and my Dad. :-)

Compared to getting tickets for the venues in London, getting tickets for Coventry's stadium was a breeze, I just turned up outside and queued for 20 minutes and then got them, nice and easy.

Two days later and it was match day, I was so excited, I painted my nails especially, red and blue spots over white, with union jacks hand painted on my thumb nails, very patriotic, I thought I'd get into the spirit of it all and it was an excues to paint my nails and try some nail art. :-)

London 2012 Olympics Part 1 - Rings Inspired Manicure

I love the Olympics, I watch both the summer and winter Olympics, there's something about the whole thing that's just so inspiring. I hate the fact that as humans we destroy one another just because we are different from each other (or for greed) so when I see people from all around the world standing side by side, united for the same event it fills me will joy.

As well as seeing atheletes from the four corners of the world, I adore the opening ceremony, the first one I ever saw was the Los Angeles 1986 games, I was 10 and I remember being spellbound by the part when the audience used the cards they were given to create a giant moving mosaic, and I will never forget the guy with the rocket jet pack who flew into the stadium. From that year on I was hooked and I always look forward to the unique show each host country creates.

This year my home country is hosting it, I can't tell you how incredibly proud I am that we get to welcome the world to our shores, I hope everyone has a wonderful time while they're here. Anyway, I was of course really looking forward to it, and it didn't disappoint, as well as the lighting of the cauldron which was so beautiful, this part has to be one of my favorite parts of the show.

Vintage polish from my past - Part 2

I hope you're ready for some more old polish, as it's time for the second part of polish from my past.

I really have loved going through my old polish, it's funny that I went through a very short period of about a year painting my nails, and then stopped. I don't think I painted my nails until nearly seven years later and again it was only briefly, so it's nice to have kept the polish I had, some of them I really love and a couple are really quite cool as you're about to see.

L-R Tuesdays Girl, Star Gazer- Neon Green, 17- Unknown Purple, 17 - Green Genie, 17 - Light Reactive, Miss Selfridge - Purple Glitter

All of these are unusable at the moment, they've all thickened up, but then they are over 10 years old. I'm going to get some thinner so I can do swatches, although these aren't the most unique colours, apart from the last two, which are just too far gone, and that's my fault for trying to thin them with polish remover thinking that would do the trick, boy was I wrong!

Vintage polish from my past - Part 1

I've seen a few bloggers talk about their old makeup and I really enjoy those types of posts so I thought I might do a couple of my own, I hope you don't mind looking at manky old make up though!

What I love about posts that talk about vintage makeup is getting to look at how the packaging has changed, and what colours were being made. I also think it's a kind of snapshot of who a person was, I'm going to show you my oldest nail polish that I got when I was around 18 or so in the late 90's and you can tell I liked my bright colours! I hung around with Goths, but I was a cross between an Indie kid and Pop kid, which was a weird mix, so I always stuck out like a sore thumb, but I loved my bright colours, they reflected who I was and how I saw the world.

Anyway, I bet you want to see the old polish right? Let's get to it....

90's Rimmel - Banana Scented, Strawberry Scented, Mania & Zeitgeist

Max Factor Fantasy Fire vs Urban Decay Burnout

Hi guys, today I've got a comparision post for you. I've seen so many people blog about Fantasy Fire by Max Factor, so I held off posting about it for a while. I actually saw Fantasy Fire in Boots on the day of release, and I didn't have any spare cash to buy it that day, needless to say I was kicking myself for weeks as after that day I didn't see another bottle on the shelves for three weeks, so when I did see it I jumped on it, and took advantage of a three for two offer and got three bottles!

Anyway, I've seen comparisons with Clarins 230, aswell as Urban Decay's Toxic, I don't have either even I'd love to have them so I had a look in my stash to see if I could find anything like it. What I found was Urban Decay's Burnout

Here are the bottles of polish I've used for this post.

L-R Revlon - Rock, Max Factor - Fantasy Fire & Urban Decay - Burnout

Here's some close ups of that lovely colour changing shimmer.