Tag Archives: Cruelty-Free

My new favourite brand. This polish, particularly, is one of my new favourite polishes of all time – alongside colour and quality, this is largely due to the cruelty-free nature of the product. It’s BUAV Approved so I know it’s cruelty-free. I’m sure you all know now how I feel about cosmetic animal testing, so this brand is welcomed by me with arms wide open. Add in to the mix the fact that the polish is toluene, phthalate and formaldehyde free and has a fabulous formula and you have me right there.

This polish was kindly given to me by my mum for Christmas… what can I say, she chose well! I was a little underwhelmed when I first saw the bottle, but when I applied it to my nails, well, I’ll leave you to see for yourselves!

How stunning is this polish?! I was pretty much sold on Barry M Lilac Foil Effects but Heather Mist wins hands down. In comparison, Heather Mist is a lot lighter, more pink-toned and more shimmer-pearl in finish, while Lilac Foil is darker, much more blue toned and has a much more chromey-pearl finish. Heather Mist is so much more airy, delicate and feminine, I’m thinking unicorns, while Lilac Foil by comparison is heavy and solid, and puts me in mind of heavy machinery. I find Heather Mist to be far more flattering to my skintone. (Though of course I still love Lilac Foil!)

Perfect name for it too, Heather Mist is very delightfully misty and whimsical. I love it!

Application:

Heather Mist dries super fast and is opaque in two coats. What more could be better? Due to the shimmery nature of the polish, brush-strokes are avoidable. You need to be careful to paint straight from edge to edge, and if you do end up with brush-strokes don’t be tempted to go over it again… leave it for the second or third coat when the previous coat is dry.

My only flaw with this polish is availability. I really don’t know anywhere that stocks it, other than Boswells in Oxford. However, they do sell at the online BWC Shop, which I haven’t yet used myself. You can also read a bit about the company’s history and policies on animal testing and ingredients on the website. The polishes retail at £7.99 but let me tell you, this one is SO worth it.

What do you guys think? I am so in love with this polish it’s unreal. It’s overwhelmingly pretty and dainty and goes with my chameleon skin-tone whatever the weather decides to do! Even lobster hands can get away with this one. Can it get better? 😛

x

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.

Hello all 🙂 I have a lovely autumnal purple for you all today:

So, it’s been a while… I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get round to posting because I love my blog and I’ve had my nails painted with new polishes practically every day since I last posted, but for some reason I just haven’t had the motivation to blog. Anywho, I’ve missed you all 🙂 and I have a lovely polish in store for this post!

Look what M&S has sneakily produced, all ready for the party season!

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had Marks & Spencer pegged as a conservative brand for a more dignified lady. But I have been surprised by their increasingly adventurous polish colours!

This polish doesn’t have a name so I’m going to name it “Cherry Rainbow” 🙂 if you look closely, it’s a pinky-red shimmer, filled evenly with holographic silver glitter. But what’s unusual about this polish (and seemingly impossible) is that the base colour is almost jelly-ish. A shimmer jelly glitter?! It makes it very easy to apply though 🙂 No dragging streaky mess here!

This is 2 coats of the polish, and totally opaque. I really can’t fault the application, the shimmer base made the formula nice and workable, and I barely had to cleanup, apart from where I accidentally slipped and painted my cuticles (user error!)

It dried super-fast, which I guess can be attributed to the glitter in the polish. The polish dried slightly rough and gritty due to the glitter particles but had a wonderful glow due to the shimmer in the base, so you can really wear it with or without top coat. 1 coat of top coat pretty much evens out the nail.

This polish is perfect for Christmas parties! It’s so pretty, the holo reflects in the glitter are even more apparent in person. In the bottle, it doesn’t look like the colour will work with it, but it totally does 😀

And you can probably guess that I didn’t buy this for the lipgloss, but I did a quick swatch for you just in case you’re interested 🙂

The lipgloss is a kind of deep mulberry shimmer which is gorgeous on darker skin tones. It has a doe-foot applicator, but I personally found the lipgloss to be quick tricky to work with – I couldn’t get a nice line around my lips and if I rubbed my lips together I lost the pigmentation in areas and gathered it in others, so I’d recommend that if you’re thinking of buying this set just for the lipgloss, don’t, it definitely isn’t worth it! I suppose the problems could be alleviated with the use of a lip pencil or base lipstick but is it really worth it?

The nail polish on the other hand is definitely worth the whole £6 😉 it isn’t available in their permanent line, so get it while it’s still around! You can get it in several different gift sets, the one I’ve shown you is here (along with another colour choice of gold, which is available as a single polish in some stores) , and there’s a nail gift set of three here, and there’s a nail, lip and lashes gift set here (the lashes aren’t permanent either).

Oh and any Hello Kitty lovers? Check out the M&S (Cruelty-Free!) Hello Kitty range here 🙂

This is a really unique polish, I kind of feel like it’s the cherry pink cousin of GOSH Green Hawaii 😛

What do you guys think? Super duper long post I know, but that’s just me I suppose. How are you all? Everything’s going really well for me at the moment, I’m now fully into my course at Uni and loving every minute of it. I am so so so tired at the moment though due to the very early morning buses I have to catch! I feel in a really good place at the moment though. Hope you are all just as well as me 🙂

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.

Just got my A level results this morning – eek – I got B in Biology, B in Maths, and C in Chemistry! Exactly what I needed to get into Oxford Brookes to do Occupational Therapy so I am VERY relieved and excited! A little bit scared too but more excited! New start and all that, I am glad to be leaving Sixth Form behind with no bitter regrets (well, other than the mere existence of Chemistry in my list of qualifications…) My hands were shaking as I opened the envelope this morning haha. Starting on 19th September so I have a whole month to go! If anyone is looking into Occupational Therapy or other Allied Health professions, feel free to get in contact as I have a brain full of tips and advice 🙂

Back to the real subject of my blog post – this lovely sheer pink, perfect for work or weddings or even school if your teachers need glasses 😛

The pictures above all show 2 coats, although you can wear 1 for a more sheer look or you can build it up to get rid of the nail line. Personally I think it looks beautiful and rather dainty with a little nail-white showing through. This type of shade used to be one of my favourites before I became a nail polish addict.

It dried very quickly, the colour spreads evenly across the nail and with no streaks.

And of course the usual reason for this being a fab polish is because it’s BUAV Approved – Cruelty Free. Retails at £3 from Marks and Spencer – you really can’t go wrong.

Hope you are all well and good, and particularly anyone who received their results today – I hope it was good news! Feel free to drop me a line (or a Tweet or email) if you fancy a chat about going to Uni!
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.

First of all I would like to wholeheartedly recommend this colour for unique summer nails 🙂




This is a beautiful salmony pink colour, perfect for the summer. It surprisingly goes with a lot of colours clothes-wise, so is quite versatile. It also brightens up a neutral outfit with an interesting look, not the classic red or pink.

In terms of application, this took 3 coats, but that was due to the hideous staining on my nails, it just shows through anything >:( so I reckon if you have perfect nails or a French mani or just short nails, this will take 2 coats. The polish glided on my nails smoothly and it was very pigmented, not streaky like a lot of the summery brights. Dried in no time at all, with a lovely glossy finish, and it levelled itself out. The brush is pretty average.

This will cost you £5 from the M&S; range, and is it worth it? YES! I’ve never seen a ‘drugstore’ brand come out with this colour, I’m sure that China Glaze or OPI have done one similar but this is readily available if you, like me, hate the wait for internet shopped goods! Also it’s a lot cheaper than most of the eBayed or Amazoned nail polishes.

Hope you’re all well, I’m preparing to go on holiday on Friday morning – to North Uist! This will be for 2 weeks so if you don’t hear from me in that time, that’s why 🙁 I’m sad to be leaving my blog, please bear with me and don’t leave me haha!

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.