NOTD- GOSH Special Edition Polish in Lavender Love

Wellllll you've all seen this before! My HG polish, on both hands this time :)

My one one tiny thing I don't like about this- it does make my hands look a little bit red, but that's just my little paranoia!

This was Limited Edition, I'm going to be so sad when it eventually runs out!

Love B xxx

NOTD: Gosh's Polish in Lavender Love and Rimmel's Polish in Rose Libertine

Although I'm not very technically accomplished with nail varnish painting, I do love to mix it up and try and make plain colours more interesting! One (slightly odd) thing I love to do is rock different polishes. I know that alternating fingers in different colours is a common idea, but what about... one polish on one hand and a different one on the other? (I apologise that there aren't any photos with my hands together... but unless I grow another hand I can't use the camera!)

This idea came from Rihanna's music video 'What's My Name?'. On one hand she has baby blue nails, the other peach and I thought 'That looks so cute! And not at all mental!'. The trick is you have to find polishes that compliment each other (you might struggle with lime green and black say, unless you are very brave!). Then again, colour clashing is in this season... Essentially pick two polishes that compliment each other (or don't) and you get to look interesting and wear two at once!

I went for cool toned purples and pinks, namely Gosh's Limited Edition Nail Polish in Lavender Love, and Rimmel's 60 Second Polish in Rose Libertine.

So on my left hand, the Gosh:

I LOVE this polish. I can't oversell my complete adoration for this polish. It's a thing of beauty. This colour, a blue toned lavender, is becoming one of the 'in' colours of the season, but I think this was one of the earliest versions. It was limited edition, so you might be in for an eBay session if you want it, or check out Rimmel who I think have a similar version now. It's a kind of cornflower blue, but can look quite bright in sunlight. This is not only an amazing pop of colour, it's feminine but not girly (I like sweet and pretty but not anything brightly garishly 'girly') and it is the smoothest thing to apply. This is two coats, although one would have done fine.

BEST. POLISH. EVER.

On my right hand is Rimmel's 60 Second Polish in Rose Libertine.

I've been looking for a nice pink, I wanted a good colour but nothing too hot pink or Barbie. This isn't perfect, but is the best one so far. It's a fairly cool pink, although in some lights it looks quite neon for some odd reason! This is 3 coats, the formula is the usual from Rimmel for me- it's ok, but not anything to write home about, and you do need a few coats to get a bright colour (although one thin coat might give a nice sheer look). The tip wear is pretty bad, but I don't wear a top coat so I'm ok with topping up tip wear/ chips for most polishes I wear.

The two look really cute side by side, and are a fun summery look. I've also tried this with peach and jade colours, which I loved. Go rock it! :-)

Love L xx

Beauty LAT 104: Gosh X-Ceptional Wear Foundation says 'Stop Ignoring Me!'

GOSH X-Ceptional Wear foundation is something else I came across in my ‘must get pale foundation’ spree, and I’ve kind of ignored it for a while. See… I’m a bit scared of it. It’s one of those foundations where, if you get it right, it looks SO good. As in airbrushed perfection. But it’s quite easy to get wrong, and so out of about the first 5 times I tried it, I loved it once, which makes it difficult to choose as a good everyday foundation.

The issues I had were these: this is a very high coverage foundation. Which I like actually (I’m going somewhere with this I promise). But if you put too much on you will look like you are wearing make-up (although that can work in a vintage 40s pin-up way). The other big issue is that it clings to dry patches pretty badly and cakes on them. When I first got this I didn’t have a primer to smooth those bits over, so that issue pretty much killed this foundation at first.

But then I got a primer. And I gave this foundation a proper test. I wore with it, with a primer on my dry patches, on a tough day. It was hot, I went on a long walk uphill with my dog, I took the train from home to uni home (a 4-5 hour trip) carrying heavy suitcases and with a train change in London and in Kent to deal with. Long hot day, lots of exertion, about 12 hours worth of time to last me. So let’s face it, a day that would kill most foundations stone dead. This one… lasted. And lasted well. My major check-up was in London at 10pm, so about 10 hours after application. Admittedly my nose coverage (the oiliest part of my face) had mostly gone, but I expected that, and a quick powder sorted it out. My cheeks and chin and forehead coverage were flawless, and I was so pleased! By 1am when I got home it was suffering more, but after 12-13 hours that’s pretty good going.

So really this ought to be my perfect foundation. My shade Porcelain, no.11, is super pale, it’s high coverage, lasts really well and it’s reasonably priced and accessible (I believe most Superdrug stores carry the line, their website says £7.99 although I’m sure I remember it being more than that, but hey it’s even cheaper now anyway!). And yet… I almost never pick it up to wear it. Recently I was reminded of how stupid this was. I did a mini makeover trying products the other day and used the GOSH with my Sigma Flat Top Kabuki Brush. This is the photo on my Twitter from that mini experiment:

And another:

Look how perfect my cheeks look! No cakiness even with no primer (better brush, more moisturiser). I’m not trying to show off, just trying to point out how stupid I am to not use it if it works. Anyway, I’d forgotten about these photos, and then yesterday looked at my Twitter photo and went ‘I look really good in that. The colour and the coverage is really good!’. I then had a brain fail. I couldn’t remember what base I was wearing! Anyway 10 minutes later I pulled my rubbish brain together and scolded myself. Ok this isn’t the easiest base. But it looks so good when done right, and for that I can make the effort more often. So I’m going to make an effort to not forget this and actually use it.

Honestly though, if you want all the things I mentioned for a base and you don’t want to spend a lot, give this a go. Be careful with dry patches but I think it’s worth trying.

Rating: 8.5/10