NAIL ROCK designer nail wraps.

NAIL ROCK are the second brand of nail stickers I have tried. The first was a Sally Hansen design, and while they were good, I didn't find them worth their €10.85 price tag. There's also a pretty limited choice of designs.

That's were NAIL ROCK shines, they have a fantastic range of designs! Although, some are quite hard to come across. They are also almost €4 cheaper at just €6.99.

I followed the instructions to a T. Filed and buffed my nails, then wiped with an acetone based remover. Applying the wraps is very easy. You just chose the size closest to your nail size, place it on your nail and apply pressure to stick it. Then remove the excess using a file.

These look adorable, and I love the design. But sadly, I'm not too impressed with the quality! They were on for about an hour when I started to notice little bits peeling away, despite being put on perfectly! About 3 hours later...they're pretty much ready to fall off!! I can't see a top coat saving them and reckon they'll be all gone by morning :( Not worth the hassle in my opinion!

Essence Gel eyeliner

This is a little gem of a find! This was the first gel eyeliner I ever tried and I was very impressed! It goes on smooth, think, and jet black. And stays put ALL day!

This comes in at around the €2, but it's worth so much more! Essence also sell an application bush for the eyeliner for a similar price. It comes in a few colours to- Black, brown, purple and a dark green.

I'd definitely recommend this for anyone trying gel liner for the first time and wants to experiment. I can't find any faults with it, and can safely say it beats some of t's more expensive competitors hands down!

Barry M Dazzle Dust #98 Petrol Black

What would life be like without Dazzle Dust?.....It doesn't bare thinking about :(

I love dark eyeshadows, especially black, and ESPECIALLY when it has a little sparkle to it. This shadow is a very. very deep navy blue. It essentially black with a deep blue shimmer and a greenish glitter....and it's stunning!! I adore it!

As with all loose powder shadows, there was a little bit of spillage, but a lot less tan I expected!! This definitely gets my seal of approval!

Edit: After about 2 hours this shadow began to clump pretty badly in the crease of my eye, looked really unsightly :( Such a pity!

17 solo eyeshadow 'Funfair'

I'm a bit like a magpie, if it sparkle's I have to have it!! 17 are one of my favourite brands for affordable, super sparkly eyeshoadow's. The newest addition to my collection is 'Funfair'. It's a beautiful pinky- peachy shade with  a gold shimmer.

It comes out a lot paler on your eye than it appears in the tub, and in my opinion is much nicer! It gives a very subtle shimmer to your lid.

If you want a deeper shade, you can just apply another coat!

This shadow gives great coverage, and last's all day!! So, if you're like me and can't be bothered with hourly touch up's- this is a must have! At  €4.75 it's a bargain!!

Dying extensions with Schwarzkopf Live Colour XXL 00B Max Blonde

Time for an experiment! Not so long ago I dyed my hair from pillar box red to chocolate brown, but it turns out that I'll always be a red head at heart! So after about 2 months of brown hair, I gave in and bleached he bejayziz out of my poor hair and am now a red head again! Yaay!! But unfortunately, during my adventures as a brunette, I spent about €70 on hair extensions (1 pack of 16", 1 pack of 22"). So now I'm stuck with 2 bags of brown hair extensions, that I love, and a head full of red hair!

I used Schwarzkopf Live Colour XXL 00B to bleach my own hair, and it worked! So I figured, if it worked for me, it might just work for my chocolate brown extensions! Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

There's normally a pretty immediate change in colour when you apply the dye, it's small but noticeable! But there was nothing shifting in the extensions. Seeing as it wasn't 'living' hair, I decided to leave the dye on longer than the recommended 40 minutes. I left the dye to do it's job and checked on them 60 minutes later.

And, what did I find.....Not a lot to be brutally honest. To my eye they looked basically the same!

Then I looked very, very.....very closely. There is a slight change in some strands, but nothing light enough to take red dye :(

I reckon if I went at them with about 4 more boxes of dye it might eventually lighten them enough to dye them a similar red to my own hair, but that's a lot of time and money! 

Mission status: Failed!

Anyone wanna buy some....slightly used hair extensions?.....No?...Didn't think so!

Barry M Lip paint, shade #146 Dolly pink

Another Barry M favourite! I adore pink lipstick, but most brands primarily do very tonal, natural looking pinks. No dice!! If i'm going o the bother of buying and wearing lipstick, everyone's gonna know I'm wearing lipstick!

After much deliberation, I opted for shade #146 'Dolly pink'. It looks a lot darker in he tube than it is on your lips, which was a tad disappointing. That said, it could never be described as a natural colour!

With flash:

Without flash:

As with shade #55, I found that after a few minutes  got clumping in he corner of my lips, but blotting sorted that out too!  The lipstick has a lovely gloss to it and felt nice and natural on my lips, nothing worse than sticky lippie! Next venture- Shocking Pink!!

Essence Colour &Go #55Let's get Lost

Now , I know I said I love a bargain, so when I saw Essence had a range of polish's for €1.49 in a pretty damn good variety of colours, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. Essence has matured from a brand that started of pretty much aimed at preteen's to a brand that I'd buy, and women even older than myself would dabble in. I thought this would reflect in the quality of their products, and it a lot of cases it does (particularly the mascara's) but unfortunately with the Colour and Go range you get exactly what you pay for. Which, at €1.49, is not a lot.

I picked up shade #55 'Let's get Lost' and really liked the shade.It goes on thick so you only really need 1 coat, 2 max.

But that's it's only redeeming factor. It's barely dry and it's already chipping off. Even with a top coat it has little to no staying power. I applied it late at night, and woke up in the morning to 2 chipped nails, so unless I'm doing some strenuous exercise in my sleep, that's just not good enough.

By evening time pretty much every nail had chipped, so I admitted defeat and took it off. And what did I find? It had stained my nails a rather disgusting shade of blue. Beautiful!! For a polish that managed to stay on for well under 24 hours, this is actually kinda impressive!!

There's a reason these polish's are €1.49....and it's because that's all they are worth!

Eyelure Individual lash extensions.

I love the look of long, natural separated lashes, something that's very time consuming to achieve with just mascara. But who wants the weight of full strip lashes on their eyes all day, every day? I certainly don't! Strip lashes are for giving a night out that extra bit of glamour.

I bought Eyelure Individual lash extensions from boots, costing in or around €10. I bought these under the pretenses that they were semi permanent and I'd get at least a few days from each application.

How wrong was I!! I applied these lashes early in the morning, wore no mascara as i chose the longest length available, just some liquid eyeliner on my upper lid. They lasted the pace of the day without any difficulty, and in fairness looked fantastic!

But it all fell apart when it came time for bed! I took off my make up, not being overly aggressive around my eye's, in fact, I barely touched them at all. I lost about 4 while taking off my make up, but put that down to maybe just putting too many on!

When I woke up in the morning I was awash in a sea of tiny eyelashes. They were everywhere, except on my eyes. I'd say I had about 5 left on each eye. Not very semi permanent at all!!

Over all, I would never recommend this product to a friend, unless they were looking for temporary individual lashes. After the initial excitement of how good they looked, having them all fall off in less than 24 hours was very disappointing!

Barry M Lip paint, shade #151

Barry M have been one of my favorite brands for lippie and eye shadows for as long I can remember. In my opinion they can't be beaten when it comes to their range of colours. Quality?....well, that's a different story!

I don't wear lipstick an awful lot, as I just find it too fussy. On a night out I'd rather be socialisng with friends that running in and out of the loo making sure my lipstick still looks good. With that said, I will openly admit that nothing can make you feel sexier that the right shade of lipstick!

Being a fan of more unusual colours, Barry M lipsticks have always appealed to me. The latest addition to my collection is shade #151. It's a beautiful orangey- coral colour that I fell in love with.

Being very, very pale I sometimes find it hard to get a lipstick shade that really suits me, but this one does. Barry M lipsticks have a tendency to be very chalky, particularly with the lighter shades, but this one was very moisturising and had a lovely shine to it.

I've worn this lippie numerous times already, and still haven't gotten tired of it! I did find that my first application tended to clump in the corners of my lips, but I fixed this by simply blotting, then applying a second coat. For just over €6 I'll be a Barry M lippie devotee for a long time to come.

USA Nails

So, I have never had the patience to grow my nails. I'm not a biter but I'm clumsy as hell so as soon as they got to a certain length I'd manage to break them. Also, glue on nails just don't do it for me. Undoubtedly there are some stunning designs out there, but carrying around a bottle of nail glue in my make up bag just in case didn't suit my generally laid back attitude to cosmetics.

I'd been throwing it around in my head to just bite the bullet and opt for a full set of gel nails. Having never had them before, I didn't know how much they'd cost, how they were applied, or how long they'd last.I stumbled across USA Nails, a new business just opened in Tallaght Village (just opposite AIB bank) who had some very good opening offers. I paid €35 for a full set of french tip gel nails, with airbrush designs on 2 nails. Not a bad deal at all!!

I made my appointment for 6 in the evening and made my merry way up. I arrived on time, and walked into a very busy salon. There were 4 girls catering to about 7 clients, not including myself and the 2 people I was with. We settled ourselves in for a lengthy wait, and rightly so. My nails were started at about 7pm, my friends were about 15 minutes behind me. But despite the wait, once we had their attention, they were very efficient. From start to finish, including my airbrush designs, my nails took about 45 minutes.

All in all I would recommend USA Nails, but I'd only make an appointment on an evening I had no other commitments, you could be there longer than anticipated.

I got my nails done about 3 weeks before Christmas, by the time Christmas rolled around there was some noticeable regrowth but not an awful lot. Now however, the regrowth is very obvious so I've decided not to get them filled. I just miss painting my nails too much.