latest products reviewed.

last week i popped up town and got a few bits (click here for that post) and among my items were 5 nail polishes. if you saw my last NOTD (click here  for that post) you'd see 3 of the colours and also know this post was on its way! :)
to re-cap, these are the 5 polishes..

so as i mentioned in my NOTD post, 3 out of 5 of the nail polishes disappointed me.. here goes!

from thumb to little finger is the same order as the first pic and the reviews will be in the same order, to keep things simple! :)

17 (lasting fix range) - royal rose.
this is my favourite out of all 5 which was such an easy choice. as i said before, this colour makes me think 'grown up' and i like that about it :) it went on lovely, no streaks or anything and the formula was just right too - not too thin and not gloopy and i only needed 2 coats to look good. i will deffo re-purchase this once i've used it all!

17 (fast finish range) - catwalk couture.
its crazy how 2 nail polishes from the same brand can be so different.. this is the one i disliked the most out of all 5 polishes. i really love the colour, it screams 'sunny summer colour!' but it went on horribly.. it almost seemed like it had glue mixed in, it was slightly gloopy and didnt want to glide down my nail at all. it was also very streaky so application was, quite franky, a nightmare! oh and in the bottle it looks shimmery but on my nails it looks pastel.. i only needed 2 coats and i deffo wouldnt re-purchase but i would look for a dupe from another brand.

rimmel (lasting finish range) - strawberry fizz.
i love the colour of this - obviously because i love pink! the formula seemed fine - same as the other rimmel colours i have but it was really streaky and looks patchy on my nail if you look closely (you cant really see in the pics but i kid you not!) which my other rimmel colours are not. one thing i do like about it is that it smells of strawberry! even after a bath, it still smells and it hasnt flaked off like some do after a bath, so thats good! this one needed 3 coats and still didnt look brilliant but i didnt bother with a 4th. i wouldnt re-purchase this one but there are plenty of dupes about for this colour so its not a problem.

rimmel (lasting finish range) - marshmallow heaven.
i really like the colour of this one too and the formula was absolutely fine, again like my others. it wasnt streaky like the pink one, it went on nicely and i only needed 2 coats. this one didnt smell but i dont walk around with my fingers up my snozz so its really not a problem! lol.. after a bath its still very much on my nails (unlike NYC polishes) so im very impressed with this one. i would re-purchase this one.

maxfactor (max effect) - fantasy fire.
this is the polish im most disappointed about. the bottle is tiny for the price and in the bottle the colour and the tints are so gorgeous but what a let down upon application :( its so see-through hopefully you can see in the pics how see-through it looks and thats with 4 coats! goodness knows how many you'd need to make it look as it does in the bottle and you certainly would be lucky to get 3 uses out of the bottle after all those applications. it applied fine and the formula seemes fine it just wasnt dense enough at all. i deffo would never repurchase this and its put me off trying any of the other colours in the range.


do you have any of these colours? - what do you think of them? xxx

NOTD

if you read my new look/boots haul (click here if you havent) you'll know i bought 5 new nail polishes.. todays nail of the day is 3 of those :)

purple: rimmel (lasting finish range) - marshmallow heaven.

blue: 17 (fast finish range) - catwalk couture.

pink: rimmel (lasting finish range) - strawberry fizz.

i will be reviewing these (plus the other 2) in the next couple of days so please look out for that :)

as a clue/taster: 3 out of 5 of them disappointed me. xxx



new look/boots haul

firstly... where has summer disappeared to, eh?! i had to pop into town today for a new look order i had delivered to the store... and had to dress in my winter clothes... seriously! merrrrr.
i dont like it too hot cause i get all hot n bothered... but i dont like it all dull and dreary like this either cause it just makes me feel rubbishy!
anyway, as i said, i had a new look order to pick up so i thought id pop (by pop i mean over half an hour.. oops!) into boots while i was in town and spend my advantage card points.. i had £17 worth, yay! - this doesnt mean im a shopperholic though cause id been saving them since i went to college 7 years ago! lol :)
so this is what i got..

multi-coloured maxi dress, blue top and a bag from new look.
face masks x2, nail polish x 5 and a free mag thingy bob from boots.

ill start off by telling you i wont be writing about the dress in detail because im sending it back. unfortunately its really ill-fitting.. such a shame cause i really love it but i dont wanna look a numpty!

for £7.99 i couldnt resist this blue top, i really like the colour and its such a great every day top without being too plain. its from the inspire range. at the moment im lucky that i can shop in the normal section and the inspire section for tops and dresses.. but only the normal range for bottoms as im an 18 on top and a 16 on the bottom. me and aaron are on diets though so hoping to lose some weight and get back in my size 14 clothes.. i dont want to be skinny or anything, just a nice comfortable size 14 :)

i larrrve this bag!! - i love quilted things. and a girl can never have too many bags, right?! i dont actually have that many though.. only 6 or 7 (my pink pauls boutique one is the most used!) also, i really dont go for certain brands with things.. if i like it, i like it - its that simple.
this bag is £9 in the sale.. they do have it in a light pink but i dont like the shade so got this one instead.. its reduced from £18 so a proper bargain :)

when i walked into new look today the first thing i noticed was that literally half of the downstairs part of the store was all sale rails! i did have a quick look but its such a jumble sale i just cant be bothered sometimes.. and after walking in the rain i just wasnt in the mood!
so if you're after a bargain, head to new look!

i havent tried the peel off ones from montagne jeunesse before, ive always used the clay ones or self heating (feel so strange!) so i had to give these a go! i loove peel off masks, they remind me of when i was at school and used to smear PVA glue all over my hands just so i could peel it off! (did anyone else do this?!) i love how bright and fun the packaging is on their face masks too. as you can see the first one is pomegranate and the 2nd one is cucumber and they were 100 pennies each :)

i have just under 100 nail polishes. i've also stopped calling it nail varnish now lol..

me and aaron worked out i have over £300 worth of the stuff.. woah!

i love doing my nails and having a wide choice to choose from and its very rare you'd see me with the same look on my nails.. i like to mix it up :)

these 2 polishes are 17 by boots and cost £2.99 each.

the dusty pinky colour to me is a very grown up, cute but subtle colour! i think ill use it for meals out and family get-togethers more :) it has a slight shimmer to it but not in an oldy woldy way - i think its gorgeous and i just know ill feel all grown up wearing it! (weird?! lol) its called royal rose and is from the lasting fix range.

the blue one is so summery and nice! it has subtle silver shimmery bits in it, making it extra lovely. once the warmer weather gets here i know it will get lots of wear. its called catwalk couture and is from the fast finish range.

these 2 polishes are by rimmel and both are from the lasting finish range. they were 2 for £4.

i was drawn to the rimmel polishes cause they were on offer.. i kept looking and didnt see any i liked... then i saw another bit with a few more colours on and found these 2 beauties! wahey!

im really liking purple at the moment and i have a really dark and a medium shade so thought id give a lighter shade a go! i dont think ill wear it on its own but ill deffo be wearing it with pink or pink and blue. its #702 and called marshmallow heaven.

i love pink. love it. i have so many different shades of pink but im pretty sure none of my others are the same as this.. i really like it against the purple. i really like it on its own too! i just really like it haha :D (not that you can tell, right?! lol) its #025 and called strawberry fizz.

this polish is max effect by maxfactor, its #45 and called fantasy fire.

this really caught my eye as i was walking past. its such a tiny little bottle (about 4 or 5ml?) so the £3.99 price tag was a bit annoying as ill probably only get a few uses out of it but i really couldnt not get it cause it looks gorgeous! i have seen a few bad reviews on this but not everything is to everybodys liking so im hoping it doesnt disappoint me. i havent used it yet but ill deffo be reporting back once i have.  its a deep purpley colour mostly but its got shimmery blues, pinks, orange, green.. everything lol.. is it called multi-tonal? something like that! i hope it looks like it does in the bottle when its on my nails.

have you bought anything in the new look sale?

have you got any of the nail polishes i bought? - what do you think of them? xxx

NOTD :)

im still loving my sally hansen - hidden treasure so today i decided to try it on top of rimmel - blue my mind (which to me is more of a purple than blue?!)
when i tried hidden treasure on top of black, it showed brown and green colours when the light caught it.. on top of purple it shows mostly a pinky/bronze colour and sometimes a greeny/yellow colour in darker light.
i cant wait to try it out on other colours! :)

app used: photo shake

have you tried sally hansen - hidden treasure? - what colour do you prefer it with? xxx

gok wan: gok cooks chinese

so if you read my previous post you'll know that me and aaron done some cooking saturday night.
when i first got with aaron i never cooked a thing! but when we got our own place i had to learn to cook and i really started to enjoy it. now i cook everything and let aaron do the washing up ;) lol.

we got gok wans book - gok cooks chinese and after sitting and looking through it together we couldnt wait to try out some of the dishes!



at the front of the book, gok shares which 7 sauces/oils to use and explains what they do and why he uses them.. i like that he explains what it brings to the dish so you know why and when to use it so you could experiment with it and not always have to refer to the book.
he then tells you over a few pages about some of the main ingredients he uses and lets you know what you can use as a substitute if you cant get hold of it - which i thought was great as some of the ingredients you may not find in normal supermarkets.

next he tells you about the 5 pieces of essential equipment to use. i have a wok, ladle and wooden chopping board but i dont have a cleaver or bamboo steamers. to me, the last 2 arent essential like the first 3 - a wok is just brilliant to cook with and you wouldnt be able to do certain dishes without one. a ladle is very handy for dishes like soup and a wooden chopping board is definately essential for your knives. if you use a glass chopping board or hard plastic you'll blunt your knives quickly.
i decided against getting a cleaver because i have a good set of knives. gok uses a cleaver for everything so if you dont mind switching between a couple of knives then you deffo dont need to go out and spend more money. i also decided against a bamboo steamer for now.. i just use tin foil (shiny side down!) or a saucepan lid and it does the same job and saves a few pennies :)

anyway!
we were so hungry so we decided to do chicken and sweetcorn soup first, eat it and then do the rest!
the recipe was for crab and sweetcorn but we prefer chicken so just swapped it for that.
it turned out looking like this..

it was absolutely delish! the light floaty bits are egg. it was so tasty and easy to do so we'll deffo be having it again!

after that we done egg fried rice (cooked the rice before the soup so it had a chance to cool down which you're meant to do) garlic chicken and soy-glazed chicken. mmmm mmmm mmmmmm!

the garlic chicken was my favourite! but also the least healthy as its shallow fried in groundnut oil. but the taste was out of this world. it was seriously so, so tasty and had so much flavour. i mostly done the garlic chicken and egg fried rice and mostly aaron done the soy glazed chicken although we did help each other out too :) the soy-glazed chicken was really tender and also very tasty and full of flavour.

everything we cooked tasted like a chinese person had cooked it. thats how tasty it was! the only difference is that gok has made the dishes as healthy as possible whilst still keeping all the flavours in. so its not gloopy and full of fat and you can see yourself whats going into it.

we made sure we got all the sauces/oils and used every single ingredient that he said to use (except when we swapped crab for chicken for the soup)

we found everything in asda apart from shaoxing rice wine which we nipped to waitrose for.

i 100% recommend this book to anyone that loves chinese food and want to enjoy it guilt free!

if you follow the recipes 100% i promise you will not be disappointed :)

so what do you think? - will you be going out to get it or have you had a go already? xxx