Yearly Archives: 2011

My Perfume Collection

February 25, 2011 1 Comment

This seems a little unoriginal now as there are so many perfume collection posts/videos floating around, but here are my top 5 perfumes (thus far in my lifetime!)

Left to right: Lancôme ‘Magnifique’, Lancôme ‘Hypnôse’, GAP ‘So Pink’, GAP ‘So Pink’ (same fragrance in slightly different bottles), Beyoncé ‘Heat’, and Cacharel ‘Loulou’.
Since I am quite frankly awful at detecting the notes in scents I am forced to backtrack to the website descriptions. I will link each perfume to the website. Remember you can buy many of these at discount sites such as Feel Unique, Cheap Smells and Fragrance Direct.
Lancôme Magnifique:
“For the first time, Lancôme is interpreting the colour red, from bottle to fragrance. This intense and deep colour is a symbol of passion and expresses an audacious woman. Its absolutely contemporary bottle is facetted like a diamond and lights up with a captivating sparkle.
The fragrance is a perfect illustration of this ultra-femininity: rose is set alight by saffron and nagarmotâ.”
(Taken directly from the website.)

To me, Magnifique is a very sweet, beautiful, slightly sophisticated perfume. It’s very light and playful but could be worn at night. This is my second bottle (the first was Eau de Toilette, this is Eau de Parfum and has lasted me much longer!). My Auntie gave me her sample bottle of this, not only was the bottle very beautiful but I fell in love with the fragrance and begged my Mum to buy it for my birthday. This is pretty much my ‘signature scent’, the amount I’ve worn it over the last 2 years.

Lancôme Hypnôse:
“The bewitching fragrance of a woman who knows how to use her charm to fascinate the man she loves. A woody oriental fragrance that acts like a sensual love potion with a magical trail: Passion flower combined with Vanilla and a woody base note with Vetiver. A luxurious bottle whose curves and facets dance with the light, a feminine and modern reinterpretation of the bottle of the Magie fragrance created by Lancôme in 1950.”
(Taken directly from the website.)

The bottle I own is an Eau de Toilette but the description is for the Eau de Parfum, simply because I think it better describes the Eau de Toilette than its own description. I would completely agree with the vanilla and woody tones, it is definitely very um, woody. *Lack of alternative word*. This again I first used as a tiny sample bottle from my Auntie. It’s definitely a scent you have to get used to and that grows on you. It’s quite sweet, I’m guessing that’s the vanilla. Because of the ‘Hypnôse Senses’ perfume I assumed this was discontinued until I spotted it on the Lancôme Boots counter and was desperate to have it – my Mum kindly bought this for Christmas for me! 🙂

GAP So Pink:
“A blend of citrus and flowers. It’s so fresh, so bright, so pink. Top notes: sparkling pink grapefruit, juicy orange, and a watery accord. Middle notes: muguet, fresh lily, sweet pea, sunny flower. Bottom notes: fresh jasmine, soft musk.” 
(Taken directly from website in link.)


So I can’t find GAP So Pink anywhere on the GAP website so I will have to rely on this description…
Another Auntie sent me a fragrance bottle many many years back and as a little girl I loved this fragrance. It’s very sugary sweet, definitely a daytime summery perfume. I do still like this a lot but I don’t wear it every day, purely because it’s lovely to smell after not having smelled it for a while 🙂


Beyoncé Heat:
Top Note: Red Vanilla Orchid, Neroli Orpur, Magnolia Delavayi and Blush Peach.
Heart Note: Honeysuckle Nectar, Almond Macaroon and Crème de Musk.
Base Note: Giant Sequoia Milkwood, Tonka Bean and Modern Amber.
(All sourced from website.)


Now, I’m afraid I have no idea what most of the things mentioned above are, but I can tell you that to me this perfume is a very sweet, peachy scent with a very woody musky undertone. I wear it day and night as it’s very versatile due to this unusual combination of sweet with woody scents. 
My Andy bought me the Eau de Parfum for Christmas


Cacharel Loulou:

  • Top Note: Jasmine, Mimosa, Orange and Tiare Lily.
  • Middle Note: Iris.
  • Base Note: Sandalwood, Vanilla and Incense.
  • (Sourced from Base Notes)
  • This perfume was sent to me kindly by my Auntie as a Christmas present. I think I’d owned a sample previously without realising, but she said this was her favourite perfume when she was my age. I do really like this. It’s very floral and summery, with a hint of sophistication. It makes me feel very classy! Haha. This apparently highlights the Tiare Lily though never having seen/heard of it I can’t confirm this. I do feel that this one won’t be to everybody’s taste, so it’s worth sampling it before you buy it! I think it’s available in Boots.

  • I absolutely absolutely LOVE the sample of Thierry Mugler ‘Womanity’ (free in the March edition of Glamour Magazine) and desperately want it! I have some Thierry Mugler ‘Alien’ shower gel and body lotion which is very very strong, and definitely an acquired scent. I go through phases of liking it and hating it.
  • Perfume is one of those things that I never really think of as one of my staples but I do wear perfume every day. It’s always been important to me to smell nice, and more importantly, I love being able to smell the fragrances on me throughout the day! It really is always a compliment when people comment on your ‘aroma’ though.

I hope this is useful to someone, I always kind of feel these perfume posts are a little pointless as obviously the reader can’t smell the product being described and all you can see is the bottle! Well hopefully it inspires you a little maybe just to go out and sample the perfumes.

I honestly love all of the perfumes I have mentioned but those of you who are familiar with these fragrances will notice that I am definitely not consistent in my fragrance affections! I suppose that follows for all things that I really like. 

Hope your respective Thursdays went well and all the best for Friday, I’m feeling a bit eek as I still haven’t acheived much in the way of schoolwork and Term 4 is fast approaching…

Emma xxx  

Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives, with the exception of the free sample of Thierry Mugler ‘Womanity’ from Glamour Magazine. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Accessorize Illusions – Pink Spice

February 24, 2011 1 Comment

Last Saturday Andy and I took a little time out to wander up town and have a tea/milkshake and some cake in our favourite tearoom. He kindly agreed to buying me two Accessorize Illusion polishes and a Boots 17 polish. I’ll reveal the other Accessorize and Boots 17 polishes at a later date but for now here is the much coveted Accessorize ‘Pink Spice’.

I have heard many a muttering on the blogosphere that Pink Spice is nearly an exact duplicate of MAC’s ‘Bad Fairy’, which I am so so happy about because Bad Fairy is beautiful but much more expensive! CALI369 from Polishtopia did a colour comparison post here and a wear comparison post here.
Now for the piccies:
In the flashhhh
It looks darker here than it really was…
And here is the stunning orangey duochrome!
I wore this to a party and could not stop looking at the colour. In most lights it was a gorgeous foily pink, really really pretty, but occasionally when the right light hit it it became a stunning rusty, orangey colour. So in love with this. The pictures don’t really do this polish justice – it’s much more shimmery and much much more pink! The idea behind the Illusions range is that it allows you to “Create the Illusion of multiple colours and tones in one shade!”. I certainly did see more than one colour in this one!
I am so pleased with the Accessorize polishes, I now have 5, and am currently coveting about 10! All of mine dry quickly, which occasionally can be a little bit of a pain as the brush is fairly thin but really doesn’t pose much of a problem. It is more handy if I just can’t be bothered to wait around for my nails to dry (e.g. first thing in the morning or last thing at night) and you can get away with two quick coats. The cap is similar to that of Nails Inc., in fact it is identical in shape and size to the cap on the Diet Coke promo polishes, if a little less slippery.
Overall totally totally happy with this polish, it’s one of those ones that you will never stop looking at no matter how much you’ve ogled it. At £4 each for 10ml you just can’t complain! At least compared with Bad Fairy’s price, especially now if you check it out on eBay!
Now, my Andy was in a bit of a sleepy state when I persuaded him to let me paint his nails. In fact he fell asleep while I was doing it and I had to keep waking him to move his hand! So here are his pretty hands (he made me take it straight off after – can’t blame him really, as you can see I did quite a shoddy job!)
The blues were at his request. Hehe!
Hope you are all having a good week,
Emma 🙂 xxx
Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

BeautyUK – My New Found Fave :)

February 23, 2011 3 Comments

Andy and I nipped into town on Monday with nothing but a few pennies, just to visit the bank. But of course the temptation of nail polish overwhelmed us (me) and we simply had to visit Superdrug in search of such wondrous gains. We counted said pennies and had £5 between us although at the time we thought it was £4 (A-level Maths, me – really?) so split it half and half; Andy bought a muffin and 2 drinks – 1 each, and I spent my £2 on nail polish. And the exciting extra £1 on Liquorice Allsorts, which neither of us like. So it was all very fair. Ahem.

Having followed BeautyUK for a little while on Twitter I was familiar with the brand and keen to try their products. And of course nail polish it should be. So, while Andy was tapping his feet impatiently, I pondered along the BeautyUK shelf in Superdrug, and landed my eye on this little beauty:

Here she is! So it’s a little bit paler than this, and more fluffy and lovely. Okay maybe not fluffy but I know what I mean.
I can’t seem to get a photo of just how beautiful this colour is but here it is against my fairly neutral outfit… my hands are a different colour to my head. Ugh.
So this is Smokey Lilac No. 51, 3 coats, no topcoat, and at £1.99 it is a dream come true. The application and formula were both lovely, it levels itself out when disaster-cases such as moi come along and take too long applying it, resulting in  dragging that I don’t think would otherwise be present. (I was watching Being Human ‘behind the scenes’ clips. How could I not be distracted?) The dry-time was excellent too. Not too fast, not too slow.
I did have a mini panic when I got home and remembered about Nails Inc./Diet Coke Heather Grey, as from memory they are very similar. Next to each other, the Heather Grey is a lot more pink-toned, while the Smokey Lilac is well… just beautiful… Sorry Heather Grey but you lost on this one. If you look at my previous pictures of Heather Grey you’ll notice it’s a fair bit darker. I can’t think how to describe Smokey Lilac other than I LOVE IT. It it just a little more appealing to the eye. I don’t know, it’s just a skin-tone-flattering, girly, pretty shade.
Anyway, enough gushing.
Oh go on then… maybe a little more.
The main reason why I am in LOVE with BeautyUK is because of their Animal Testing Policy. While I am guilty of buying products that are not cruelty free, I am not comfortable, at ALL, with cosmetic animal-testing. I think my problem is I just get too over-excited about things and only remember about the animal-testing issue after I’ve bought the offending item. Also, in part, I can’t always afford the cruelty-free brands and so this is one of the reasons why BeautyUK are so fab. Like Barry M and Boots 17, they are seriously affordable, good quality and beautiful nail polishes. Unfortunately I can’t vouch for their other products but I will certainly be trying out their eye makeup and probably lip products in the near future, but I am just too excited about the nail polishes for words! If it weren’t for Andy’s upcoming birthday I’d have already bought up all of the stock. My only mini-complaint is that the label wasn’t stuck down properly but really that’s me just looking for a flaw.
They aren’t listed on the BUAV Go Cruelty Free website but neither is Barry M so I choose to believe them and hope I am not wrong! 🙂

Go and visit their website – they often do deals, ‘get the look’ blogposts and competitions etc.

Overall I am one super happy bunny. And more than anything very happy to support this very under-rated brand!

Hope everyone reading is having a lovely week, I have half term and so there will probably be an influx of blogposts as I have many pending photos for you all, just as soon as I catch up on some sleep…
Love, Emma xxx

P.S. Just noticed that this post is significantly more waffley than my other posts. Which are also waffley. Must work on non-waffling. Sorry everyone! xx

Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

No.7 + GOSH

February 22, 2011 5 Comments

I have no idea what compelled me to put the two together but here you go:

It looks okay in this picture but irl it looked rly bad. Well I think it was just the contrast of the red against the very very pale holographic that made it look even more pale. My mum thought it was a fungal infection from a distance.
Anywho, I liked it at the time so there we go 🙂 I used No.7 in Salsa 93 for the red (I’ve heard from Lina-Elvira’s blogpost that it is a dupe of Nails Inc. Aspen) and GOSH Holographic for the holographic ring finger (yes I caved… they were selling for half price in Superdrug! I think they still are…).
No.7 Salsa was mostly easily to apply although I found that if I was a little too slothful – can you believe that’s a word?! – in my application then it begun to drag a little, but otherwise it was good. First coat dried fast, this was two coats. However, the staying power was far from heavenly. To be fair, I do put it through a fair bit of stress during my paper round and I didn’t use a topcoat due to lack of funds, but this tipwear was after less than one day of wear. Hmm. Still at £2 (with another £5 off voucher I had) I can’t complain, and it really is a very sexy nail colour 🙂
GOSH’s Holographic polish was just awful. I confess I didn’t find the application as bad as everybody seems to say, but it took 4 coats to get to this opaque state as it was very uneven. If I so much as touched it it decided to come off on my finger, reminding me of the powder on butterfly wings. Don’t touch butterfly wings, this results in their starvation and death. Also, it chips like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Not even with the Poundland ChitChat polishes (remarkably good for the price, but anyway…) did I experience such a horror. I’m just happy I didn’t pay £16 for it on eBay because, looking online, there are many much better holo’s out there with better properties full stop. However, this was pretty for the day 🙂
That’s all from me since I’m getting sleepy. I wasn’t going to do this ’til tomorrow but I’m waiting for my nails to dry. This one’s exciting 😉
Goodnight all 🙂
Emma xxx
Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

The Versatile Blogger Award!

February 22, 2011 6 Comments

Hello! Today I got a lovely surprise… Lisa from “Makeup With Lisa” awarded me this:



This for me was a lovely surprise as my blog has barely taken off and it’s so nice to have some feedback. Thank you Lisa!!! 🙂

So here are the guidelines:

With acceptance of this award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.
2. Tell us 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered new bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and let them know they’ve received the award(s)


Here are 7 things about me!
1. I share my life with the funniest, kindest, most loving man possible. Our age gap is 4 years and 4 months and I could not be happier. Everything about him feels right, he’s everything I could ever have wished for in a man, he’s not only my lover but my best friend and soulmate, I am one lucky girl. <3

2. I didn’t begin my nail polish obsession until early December 2010. How crazy is that? But once I get an obsession it’s stuck for good! 

3. I love colourful things, colour makes me happy. I suspect I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as I tend to get heavily depressed when the weather gets gloomy and that only really picks up when it’s sunny and warm. I love the colours of spring, summer and autumn, and I love the minimalism of the colours of winter. Such a pretty contrast between all of them.

4. I don’t tend to conform to fashion or fashionability, partly because I don’t like wearing or buying garments that I don’t like, and partly because I can’t really afford to anyway. It’s always nice when things I like come into fashion but my wardrobe doesn’t change according to trend or season, purely because I just like to wear things that I like, things I feel comfortable in, and things which make me feel good.

5. I love music. I mean, I LOVE it. I love nearly all genres out there. I don’t have a favourite band/singer/genre because I don’t like to limit myself. I listen to different music in accordance with my mood at the time 🙂 I play the piano, cello, electric bass and acoustic guitar. 

6. I don’t have favourites in general. I think my poor Andy struggles to know what to buy me present-wise because I am just not consistent in my likes and dislikes. The truth is is I like many many things at one point or another, and my fluctuations in likes and dislikes seem to bear no real linkage to any changes in my life. I just can’t explain myself. Lol. 

7. I am a real dreamer. Seriously, I dream about 99% of the time, about the future, about what I want to get when we next go to Tesco, about how much I would like this or that food. It does get irritating, an hour into a Chemistry lesson, when I realise everyone else understands and I haven’t heard anything from the moment the teacher started talking. Oops 🙂

And here are a few bloggers I would choose to mention, because I just haven’t seen that many ‘new’ blogs about, all seem well established! These blogs are the ones that I look to for advice and unbiased honesty about products, and the bloggers whose opinions I trust!

1. Nikki from Nikki’s Nails
2. Leanne from Do Not Refreeze
3. Gem from Gem Fatale’s Style Blog
4. Louise from Affordable Treats
5. Charlotte from Charlotte’s Obsessions
6. Lina-Elvira from Pretty Perfect Beauty
7. Sabrina from A Little Obsessed

I’m fairly sure all of these bloggers will have received this already but it’s more as a token of appreciation than anything!

Emma xxx