Nail artist I am not. When Katy’s Cosmetics sent us bloggers our latest package and told us they wanted us to create some nail art designs, I knew immediately that I’d struggle! To make my task harder, I received three glitter shades. I LOVE glitter and am such a girly girl at heart but I really wasn’t sure how I’d fare with it when trying to be intricate.
The three shades I received are Purple Dazzle, Blue Dazzle and Green Dazzle. They are three really striking and gorgeous and as a full nail of glitter look really amazing. However, I bit the bullet and tried to create a few ‘designs’, inspired in part by mine and Katy’s Pinterest nail boards. I apologise in advance, they really do look like a child has done them. The results are awful, but they by no means reflect the quality of the nail varnishes themselves.
W7 Blue Dazzle with Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream
W7 Green Dazzle over Barry M Gold Foil Nail Effect
W7 Purple Dazzle with Barry M Berry Ice Cream
I did warn you – but at least I gave it a try, right? I actually had a few single nail shots where I’d tried out even more designs but whilst putting this post together I deemed them too hideous to include.
However, moving on and nail designs aside, I think these nail varnishes are brilliant. They’re quite easy to build up a really dense colour compared to other brands (although I do recommend at least 2 coats), they dry relatively quickly and the best thing about them is that when they set, they don’t feel rough, they actually feel quite smooth like normal nail varnish. A few glitter varnishes I’ve bought from other brands have felt quite ‘bobbly’ and even got fibres from clothes caught on the surface of them, but these W7 glitters are great.
I think glitter nail varnishes aren’t really a day to day thing and are more of a novelty so at £1.99 a pot, I think this is brilliant value and you can really stock up on all the lovely colours for special events and parties. The rest of the w7 range looks fantastic too – I think I may give their fluorescent shades a go too!
So in conclusion, I think we’ve established I should stay away from sticking bits of sellotape on my nails and trying to create designs and should stick to admiring other people’s nail talents on Pinterest instead. However, I absolutely love these products, especially the Green Dazzle, and will definitely be wearing them on their own for maximum sparkle!
Think back to Good Friday and I was having a literal make-up related nightmare. I was going out that night and had occupied myself so much with fake tanning in the afternoon that I forgot the shops closed at 4pm and I’d run out of mascara. In a fit of panic, I decided the only thing I could do was go to Tesco and see what they had in their make-up aisle. Now, I don’t know about your Tesco, but my local think stocking a slim selection of Rimmel and Maybelline is perfectly acceptable. I was after Bourjois mascara and L’Oreal’s Touche Éclat dupe so I was nahhhht a happy bunny.
Knowing my time was running out, I settled, rather begrudgingly for a Maybelline mascara (which is okay but nothing special) and a horrible concealer which I’ll review in later posts. On my way to the checkout, I caught a glimpse of a small, unoticable stand of make-up products from a brand I’d never heard of before – Vivo – and without thinking grabbed a £5-odd primer to make up the 3 for 2 offer they had on.
The main purpose of this post is to tell you, to my surprise, that the primer actually isn’t that bad at all. I have to admit, sometimes I’m a little bit snobby with make-up and don’t have high expectations with brands that are cheap and obscure. However, this primer is silky soft and glides onto your skin perfectly. I don’t have a particularly greasy face at all but sometimes my nose gets a bit of a shine and I even felt like this worked wonders here too. The packaging isn’t the greatest and if I’m being really picky a little bit more in the tube wouldn’t go amiss either but for £5 I couldn’t really care less. I honestly think it’s a great little product and I’m obsessed with the velvety feel it leaves. Even the smell is lovely – it’s not that strong or overpowering at all, instead just really pleasant.
So the moral of this story? Don’t judge a book by the fact you’ve never heard of the author – you might just be missing out on a silky smooth face 
Most of you will already have seen me wearing the triple heart bracelet in my St Moriz post but I literally can’t stop wearing the Girl Talk collection from Jacy & Jools and needed to do a post of its own on it.
Made of sterling silver beads and featuring speech bubble charms the collection is super stylish and reminds me of something from Clueless or Gossip Girl (you know you love me, xoxo…). I think the ‘bff‘ one is so cute and would make such a lovely present for your best friend! They are all the perfect bracelet for night and day and look amazing stacked up with the rest of my arm candy.
At just £25 they are such good value there’s no excuse not to invest in them all!
I arrived home this evening to find a package waiting for me and inside was this cute friendship bracelet from Bekl Bracelets. After a day at work and an evening teaching it was the perfect little present to cheer me up and went straight on my wrist.
Bekl Bracelets is a relatively new jewellery company that’s achieved amazing success in a short space of time. Featured in Vogue and Glamour, their surf bracelets are super cute and have already attracted celebrity fans.
This particular bracelet is the ‘White ‘Peace Starts With A Smile’ Friendship Bracelet’ and is available on their website for £9.99. It features a silver plated eternity charm set against white silk cord and it’s perfect to wear alone or with other bracelets for anything from festivals to nights out.
Bekl are on Twitter and Instagram (@beklbracelets) so give them a follow!
I’m honestly thinking about having a quiet word with Katy’s Cosmetics. Quite honestly, I don’t know what they’re trying to say about my natural skin colour but I find it quite insulting that they keep sending me fake tan products and it has to stop. Joking, of course. In fact, I’m thinking about suggesting to Katy that my title should be change from ‘Guest Blogger’ to ‘Katy’s Cosmetics’ Fake Tan Expert and Bronzed Goddess Extraordinaire‘. Anyway, I digress.
Needless to say, I was over the mood once again when I received such a delight in the shape of St Moriz’s Instant Self Tanning Mist Tan. Being, as I mentioned, a tan expert (in my own opinion), I can honestly say that St Moriz is not only my favourite tan brand but it is also probably the BEST TAN EVER. Quite a statement to make, I know, but it’s honestly true. Gone are the days of paying £20+ for a bottle of fake tan – this brand is just as good if not better and rarely costs over £3 (if you buy from Katy’s that is!).
Surprisingly maybe to many of you, I hadn’t actually tried the mist version of this super duper product. I have long been a massive fan of the mousse and as a creature of habit hadn’t see a reason to deviate from that. Never again will I be so ignorant. The mist is amazing and maaaybe even slightly darker than the mousse. A really even, beautiful colour that’s a far cry away from my pasty roots. May I also just mention that although the name suggests a wash-off tan a la Rimmel’s Instant Sun Shimmer – it’s definitely a ‘proper’ developing self tan.
In the past I’ve tended to avoid mist/spray tans because of the mess of applying them and the likelihood of streaks. Here’s the truth. It is still a bit of a messy process and I did end up with brown soles of my feet where the mist had fallen onto my bathroom tiles and I hadn’t noticed and stood in it. Yesterday my mum walked out of the bathroom and said, “Well, the scales have turned an unusual colour – no doubt that’s down to you” – OOPS – yet another area I’d missed that had been targeted by the luscious deep brown mist. Having said all this though, I AM a messy pup and knowing it’s wide range I’ll be sure to wipe everywhere properly next time. Plus the benefits of using this mist product faaar outweigh the messy cons. In terms of it being streaky, I need not have worried! Unlike other spray tans where you literally spray a colourless liquid and then wait, this one comes out with a guide colour, sprays evenly and THEN tells you to use a mitt to blend it – genius! The result? ABSOLUTELY NO STREAKS! Like every other tan my hands did turn out darker than everywhere else even after mixing it with some cream but that is honestly down to my old woman, chipolata-finger-esque weirdo hands and definitely not the tan. Bad times for me.
All in all, I cannot praise this tan highly enough. I LOVE IT. It’s long-lasting, it’s cheap, it’s easy and it makes me brown – what’s not to love?! Of course, Katy’s done us all proud and is selling this little beauty for a mere £2.99 – excellent work.
Above are a few little snapshots I’ve taken from my week wearing it – note, I’ve included a picture of my dark knuckled hands to show you that’s the worst it could look…and I’ve been walking round with my hands on show all week so I don’t think it’s thaaat bad!!
Let me know what you think…have any of you readers used it? Do you love it as much as me? What are your tips for avoiding dark patches?
PS: as usual, beautiful jewellery from Jacy & Jools - give us a follow on Twitter please! @jacyandjools
With winter showing no signs of leaving us and the cold snaps getting colder, it’s no wonder that I’m beginning to look forward to Spring. Looking in the Internet, I can already see little bursts of colour starting to an appearance and this little beauty caught my eye!
Mulberry’s could never really be described as anything less than investment pieces – and to be honest, if I’d saved all my pennies for one handbag then I’m not sure this is the most sensible colour – but I just love this gorgeous bubblegum pink Bayswater! If I was a rich lady and could afford the £995 price tag then this beautiful baby would definitely be mine!
I’m so excited to have been chosen as the Bloggers.com Featured Blogger of the day on Thursday! Thank you to everyone who has followed on Twitter and Instagram and left lovely comments on here and my Bloggers.com profile page.
A few of you have mentioned you can’t follow my actual blog. I’m currently using WordPress but thinking of swapping back to Blogspot. I really like using WordPress but I really miss the Google Friend Connect feature. If anyone knows a way I can have it on here then I would appreciate you letting me know!
I’ve been a little late jumping on the bandwagon with the latest addition to the Vaseline family, Pink Bubbly. I don’t know what took me so long but boy was it worth the wait.
In case you don’t know by now, I’m a huge Vaseline fan and this is possibly the best flavour/smell/edition to date. The tin is so pretty with it’s pretty pink colour, gold writing and crown, the Vaseline itself has a gorgeous ‘rosé hue’ and it really does smell like pink champagne as it has real champagne grape extract. Just like their Rosy Lips pot, it adds a delicate pink tint and looks lovely on bare lips or on top of lipstick for a shimmer finish. On top of that, it does everything you’d expect from a pot of Vaseline – namely giving you super soft lips.
It’s a limited edition and perfect for any self-proclaimed princess who loves a bit pink – and at a Boots price of £2.49, who can say no?!
Katy knows me well. Too well. Being a fake tan and bronzer enthusiast I was so excited when this little beauty arrived through my letterbox just in time for the party season. Anything with the word ‘bronze’ in it immediately captures my attention and this L’Oréal Glam Bronze Minéral powder was no exception.
Now I’m going to be honest, mineral products are something I’ve dabbled in in the past and not had an awful lot of success with but, trusting Katy and co, I decided to forget all that and use this product with an open mind.
Aesthetically, this little pot is more than pleasing. It’s a chunky but little pot that won’t take up too much space in your make up bag but that has a lot of product in it for the size of it. The clear cap comes off and then the brush screws off to reveal where you can swirl it round to get the product on it. I was a bit dubious about the brush as I never really use ones that come with products as I find them too hard, but yet again L’Oréal comes up trumps and provides you with a compact brush that it so soft.
The problem I’ve had with mineral foundations and bronzers in the past is that they seem to be too clumpy, don’t have enough coverage in them and are really greasy. I can honestly say this bronzer is the complete opposite. As it was just that, bronzer, and not foundation, I used it on top of my current foundation after applying a translucent powder to keep it matt. As I’ve mentioned before in previous blog posts, I have a bad habit of applying my bronzer all over my face instead of just where the sun would catch it, but I decided to try a new approach. I swirled my brush in a small amount of the mineral powder (you don’t need too much) and swept it over my cheekbones, forehead, nose for a healthy glow (…and then okay, I admit it, dabbled a tiny bit over the other areas – I couldn’t help it!). The powder is so light and provides such a velvety, flawless finish – I honestly really like it. I do think that all mineral products are slightly greasier than normal ones, and in all honesty this one is too but to a much lesser extent. A good little trick I did discover though if you are starting to see the shine is just to sweep the brush over you face without any powder on – it instantly mattifes your face and the remnants of the product left on the brush is enough to top up with.
All in all, I am really surprised with this product and genuinely really like it. If you don’t quite fancy mineral foundation but want a fresher, less heavy feeling bronzer that looks just as good as a normal one then this is definitely the product for you. I felt like I had a healthy glow and that I was wearing less makeup even though the finish was just as good as any other bronzer and looked just as glamourous. It also looked amazing with no foundation on a make up free day if you just wanted a bit of extra colour!
Best thing about it? It’s only £7.99 on Katy’s Cosmetics!!
About Me
Hello! I'm a 23 year old music graduate and postgrad events management student who loves beauty, music, fashion and all things social media! Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest 'jacintadawn' 
For general/PR enquiries, please contact blog@jacintadawn.co.uk Products marked with an asterisk (*) have been sent to me to review 
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