Empties #11

Here we are again with another set of 5 items I've used up recently.  It feels so strange not to be going back to some sort of education this year... Not sure how I feel about it!  I've given up looking for a graduate job in the meantime, trying to find one when you don't have first class honours just feels like a waste of time...

Neal's Yard Remedies Wild Rose Beauty Balm

Thoughts: I really liked this cleanser!  I mentioned it in more depth in this post about my night time skincare routine.  Basically it just feels amazing and I would buy it again!  It's £37 though so I am going to try a different one now, I'm thinking the Antipodes Grapeseed Butter one!  £37/50g here.

Cruelty-free?: Yes.

Repurchase?: Yes.

Herve Leger Femme Perfume

Thoughts: I got this from Avon years ago.  It does smell really nice but obviously Avon are not cruelty free, I'm sure it was limited edition anyway.  I've also got the summer version which I am using at the moment.

Cruelty-free?: No.

Repurchase?: No.

Liz Earle Brow Pencil in Dark

Thoughts: You can read my full review here but in short I really like this and it's now my go-to brow product.  £11 here.

Cruelty-free?: Yes.

Repurchase?: Yes, already have!

The Body Shop Mango Shower Gel

Thoughts: I took this travelling with me as it was a good size for hand luggage.  It smelled good, I would buy the bigger version.  £2/60ml here.

Cruelty-free?: Yes.

Repurchase?: Yes.

O.P.I Nail Lacquer in Fiercely Fiona 

Thoughts: I got this in the Shrek Forever After collection.  I liked the colour, it's a nice semi-pastel yellow which you can see swatched here.  It ended up getting really gloopy and the brush wasn't long enough so in the end I had to pour it onto a piece of card so I could paint my nails with it!

Cruelty-free?: No.

Repurchase?: No.

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NOTD: The One That Got Away

Today I'm wearing The One That Got Away from the O.P.I. Katy Perry Collection (not CF).  It's a deep pink with similar coloured shimmer in it.  I probably wouldn't have picked out this one if it hadn't been in the mini set I got as it is quite generic pinky colour which I'd usually avoid.  However I do quite like it for a change, it's nice and shiny with a subtle shimmer!

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NOTD: Shrek!

My nails are starting to look a wee bit better I think, yayy!!  Anyway, last night when I was meant to be studying I decided to paint my nails.  For some reason I have very few green nail varnishes, and this is one of them: Who The Shrek Are You? from the O.P.I (not cruelty free - see here) Shrek Forever After Collection.

It has definitely showed up slightly more yellow in my photos, but I have included a photo at the bottom from my phone (hence why it's teeny) to show it in direct sunlight.  This polish went on really streaky in the first coat but by the second it had leveled out nicely.  Although on my right hand it is still a bit streaky because I'm right handed and the mini O.P.I. brushes are quite tricky to work with!

I quite like this colour although I can see how it's not to everyone's taste, it does look rather bogey-ish...

I've got lots of posts lined up to do after my exams, but until then the most you'll get from me is very basic nail ones I'm afraid haha!  Roll on 16th August!

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Not Like The Movies Vs. Silvery Lilac

Forgive me if I seem rather obsessed with this sort of colour!  Here is another comparison of O.P.I.'s  Not Like The Movies (not CF, from the Katy Perry Collection), this time with Barry M's Silvery Lilac which is one of their recent releases.  Previously I compared it to Knackered which you can see here.  However Silverly Lilac is much more of a dupe which is very exciting!

In the bottle they look very similar and fortunately this follows through when you apply it to the nail - or nail wheel in this case! 

It is Barry M on the left and O.P.I. on the right, this took a lot of concentration to make sure I didn't forget which was which between coats haha!  I used 3 coats of each to make sure they were opaque.  From the photos you can see that there is a slight difference but it's not all that noticeable!  SL looks a bit more green and NLTM looks a bit more silver.  They both have the subtle glitter through them but in NLTM it just looks like dots rather than glitter, you can really see the sparkle from SL in the out of focus middle photo.

I think that I actually prefer Silvery Lilac which is only £2.99 and cruelty free!  However I haven't actually tried it on my nails yet so when I do I'll show another quite comparison between them.  I am really pleased to have found this, especially as the O.P.I. is just a mini one so won't last for very long!

L-R: Barry M, O.P.I.

L-R: Barry M, O.P.I.

L-R: Barry M, O.P.I.

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Oh O.P.I.!

I don't actually own a lot of O.P.I. nail varnishes - my whole collection can be seen below! - but I constantly look at swatches and lust over them...  However, I found out a few months ago that they are owned by Coty and realised I would have to stop buying from them!  I emailed O.P.I. a couple weeks ago in the hope that maybe they were independent from Coty and that I could continue to buy from them.  I sent them a variation of my template email, saying that I knew Coty were not a cruelty free company but were O.P.I. independent, and this is the reply I got:

Our products are not tested on animals at all, you can also view our MSDS sheets on our website, this will give you a breakdown of the ingredients we have in our products.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.

I contacted them again to ask about suppliers/ingredients (even though this is covered in the first email I sent) and got no reply...  So I will take this as a 'no, they are not cruelty free' and will stop purchasing from them.  This makes me rather sad :( If anyone else has had anymore luck with them then please let me know!

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NOTD: Sunshine, Daisies, Butter Mellow...

...Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow! :D Love Harry Potter!

Anyway... that little rhyme came into my head as I was painting my nails Fiercely Fiona (not CF) from the Shrek O.P.I. collection.  My nails have been peeling so badly recently I thought I would try using Sally Hansen's Miracle Cure (also not CF, gahhh) again.  It certainly hasn't been a miracle cure for me in the past!  It says that you can apply it underneath nail varnish but this has always ended up with my nails chipping even sooner than it usually does! 

So I am doing an experiment of sorts... I have applied the Miracle Cure to both hands, then I applied my Nails Inc. Caviar base coat on the left hand only, then 3 coats of Fiercely Fiona and of course a good big thick coat of Seche Vite.  We shall see what happens!  My bottle of Fiercely Fiona has gone rather gloopy sadly, I think 'cos it's just a wee one it happens quicker than if it was normal sized - application was interesting, hence why I used 3 coats.

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NOTD: A Night's Sky

This is not 'springy' at all but I love it!  I first tried this combination on my nail wheel here, and couldn't wait to have it on my nails.

It is 2 coats of O.P.I. Russian Navy (not CF) and then one layer of Last Friday Night over the top.

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Playing with my nail wheel...

Seriously such a fun purchase!  I am completely abusing them, layer over layer of nail varnish!  But hey, that's what they're for isn't it?!  Be warned: this is going to be very photo heavy...

It all began after wearing Not Like The Movies, I wondered what it would look like over black.  I will just say this now, please excuse the macro cat hairs in some of these photos, it's so gross!!! But that's what happens when you have cats - hairs everywhere!

This is one coat of Not Like The Movies over one coat of black:

I think it's rather nice!  It gives it a totally different look, much more edgy.

Then, I was wearing Luxe Lavender (Avon - not CF), and wondered what it would look like with Last Friday Night over the top, but I didn't want to put it over my newly done nails in case it was ugly!  I added LL to my nail wheel and applied Last Friday Night on top.  It was beside two other blue colours so I decided to give them a wee go too!  Here are how they turned out:

On the left is O.P.I. Russian Navy - I love this combination! - then the middle one is Barry M Navy (they may look familiar from my 8 favourite nail varnish swatches post!).

Also I wondered what Last Friday Night would look like by itself - meh!  It doesn't actually look too bad there, I think that is 3 coats, but I don't think it would look good on a bare nail.

While I was at it, I put one coat of Teenage Dream over Barry M Raspberry, it's quite pretty! Again using the colours from the previous post!

I am so proud of this one!  How lovely does it look!?  I used the majority of my cream finishes, by various different companies, and made a little colour chart thing!  If you want to know the names of any of these ones just let me know and I can find out for you.

There are a few other colour combinations I want to try out, especially after my wee haul, but I will leave it here for now and do another one later on!  Hope you've enjoyed looking at the pretty pictures/HD cat hairs...

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Knackered Vs. Not Like The Movies

I said in a recent NOTD that I thought that Not Like The Movies seems quite similar to Butter London's Knackered, which I don't own.  My friend Gillian owns it and she kindly took a photo of it on her nails for me!  It is quite hard to tell as they are both under different conditions but I would say that they have a similar tone - the green/purple duochrome - although Gillian's photo shows it distinctly more purple!  Also the glitter in Knackered is much more visible and very sparkly, it's very subtle in the O.P.I. one.  They are definitely not interchangeable but do have similarities.  I kind of want it now... oops!  Maybe Gillian will let me paint my nails with it, hint hint!!

Butter London Knackered

O.P.I. Not Like The Movies

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NOTD: Getting Into Pastels!

I thought I should try out some pastel colours as we're getting into Spring now!  This is two coats of Avon's Luxe Lavender (no longer CF...) which is almost an exact dupe for O.P.I. Rumple's Wiggan from the Shrek collection (also not CF), I don't have a CF alternative but I would assume that good ol' Barry M will have a pastel lilac!

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NOTD: Not Like The Movies

This is 3 coats of Not Like The Movies from the Katy Perry collection, a silvery colour with a green and purple duochrome and small silver glitter.  I did start off with 2 coats but when I photographed it, look how it shows up:

It looks so sheer!  It really doesn't look as bad as this in 'real life' I think it was just the flash that affected it!

I noticed that this seems to look quite similar to Knackered by Butter London, I don't own this but my friend does and I am hoping she will paint her nails and take a photo for me so I can compare them!

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8 Favourite Nail Varnishes: Swatches

So this is a sort of follow-up post from my Day 8 of The 10 Day Makeup Challenge. I showed my 8 favourite nail varnishes (very difficult decision) but only in the bottles, and I definitely prefer seeing swatches of colours cos you can't really tell when they are just in the bottle! I got my nail wheels the other so I thought that this would be a good use of my first wheel!

Barry M - Navy
O.P.I. - Russian Navy
Nubar - Prize
Barry M - Raspberry

Nails Inc. - Victoria & Albert
O.P.I. - Up Front & Personal
O.P.I. - Designer... de Better! from The Muppets Collection (swatches here)
Models Own - Juicy Jules

The photo definitely does not do Prize any justice, it's a beautiful bright pink holographic polish but it doesn't show up well with my camera.  This is a really good toenail colour!  It's my only Nubar polish but I love it and can't wait to get some more.

I also wanted to show a combination of two of these which I love.  It is Designer... de Better with Juicy Jules over the top, it's sooo sparkly and gorgeous!  I did a NOTD on my tumblr using this a couple of months ago, click here to see it.

While I was there I also decided to demonstrate just how much glitter is in Nails Inc's Shelton Street!  It's crazy!  Shown below is one coat, compared to two coats of Juicy Jules in 2nd photo down.  I kind of wish it wasn't so opaque to be honest, glitter is one of those things you should be able to build it up you so wish.  Never mind, it's impressive alone anyway!

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NOTD: Slightly Hunger Games Inspired!

With flash

Without flash

I used the Nails Inc Cavier base coat, then two coats of Sally Hansen's Black out (not CF),  and then one coat of O.P.I.'s Warm & Fozzie (not CF) from The Muppets Collection.  I also applied one coat of Shelton Street by Nails Inc onto my ring fingers then covered them all with Seche Vite top coat.

Going to see it in a few hours, ahhh so excited :D

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