Beauty - Food - Life

Monday 15 December 2014

Blogmas!!! Day 15 Quick Santa Hat Nails

Welcome back to An Appetite for makeup,

Well as you may have noticed Blogmas day 13 & 14 are missing, I had a lot on this weekend, basically they were a total hungover right off, but it's Christmas !! And it's allowed haaa.

Anyway, I'm back today with a really quick Santa hat nail art design, perfect for a Christmas party with extra sparkle.

                       

So what you will need:

* A red polish
* A silver polish
* A white polish
* A clear top coat

I choose to give this nail art look a bit of sparkle and decided to use a silver sparkly nail polish as my base, but you could use any colour as long as it's not red, because then the Santa hats won't stand out.

So first I painted all my nails with a silver polish.

                    

Next using the red polish, I made a triangle shape trying to use the side of the brush to get a nice point on top of my hat, this might be a little tricky, I used this polish from my Ciate calender and because it was a sample size the brush was smaller and this helped with the control of the design. You could always just a red striper or a nail art brush or use sellotape tape out the triangle shape.

                   

Next I used a French manicure style bottle of white polish, because it's for a French manicure the brush it much thinner so it make it easier to get detail with,
With this polish, I dragged it down in the edge of my nail, to create the trim on the hat, instead of gliding it along the nail from left to right, I pulled it down to a add a fluffy effect.

                    

I repeated little strokes all along the tip of the nail, I then just dabbed the brush on the point of the hat to make a ruff bobble. And added a top coat.

                      

I think its really fun and simple for Christmas, it takes a couple of minutes so it's perfect for when your in a rush as we all are over this festive period.

I hope you enjoyed this quick post, I hope not to miss anymore!

Please let me know if you try this and please tell me what colour you would use instead of the silver.

Thank you for reading.

Love you all 

Love Nicola x 






   

Friday 12 December 2014

Blogmas Day 12!!! December Glossybox

Welcome back to An appetite for makeup,

So for today's blogmas post I thought I would tell you all about my December glossy box, I am subscribed to both Glossybox and Birchbox, and to tell you the truth I have been really unhappy with them both for months, and we going to cancel them both but this month my Glossybox came and I was really happy! So I have decided to show you all.
Actually my Birchbox came and I was over the moon with that one too, so I will tell you about that in another post.

                      

First of all the box was lovely, a simple star design and a red ribbon, I thought it looked very classy, when I opened it I was pleased, I like to see a mix of beauty, skincare , nail care and hair care and I instantly saw all these sections. 

So what did I get.........

                        


                        



First, there was this Essence Colour & Go Nail Polish, I received it in this really nice red colour, I have lots of red polishes but this colour is a perfect Christmas red, very nice one to add to my already vast  collection of nail varnishes. The nail varnish dried really nicely and didn't chip at all.

                       


This product had me really confused at first, but then I realised it was a spot treatment, it's the Anatomicals Zap! Zap! Zap! Gets that chap. Day and night spot stick, first of all what a name lol, however it's really nice, very potent in tea tree oil, which I love, I really like that scent, I feel it's doing its job on my spots, I have only had this since Tuesday and I already see a difference on my complexion.
Will defiantly be using this and seeing it's progress.

                    




             
                    

I have a lot of these cheek and lip stains however I don't have a coral one so I will be using this a lot.
I love to use them on days when I can't be bothered using lots of different products and brushes, with these products you can just apply quickly with your fingers before work or school and it just adds a nice blush of colour.
 
                       




So I was really excited with this product, I really like TRESemme and I have been looking for some new hair treatment products as I have been feeling my hair was in need of a renewal for a while now, so when this TRESemme Renewal Hair And Scalp Treatment Shots came, I was excited to try them. 
I used one the other night and my hair felt really nice and smooth so I'm excited to use all Four samples of this product.

                     


I had no idea what this product was when I first saw it, however can I just tell you it was a right treat, I have tried under eye gel mask and I have loved them but this product was for the whole of your face, I love it and will have to repurchase some, perfect for any pamper night ! 
So this SkinPep, Collagen hydro - Gel Face Mask is a must try product for people with dry skin, it's like a shot of moisture, you have to wear it for30 minutes, I actually fell asleep in mine, it was so relaxing. 

Are you ready for a picture of me in this mask.............

                     

It felt really lovely, I hadn't felt well all day, so this little product definitely cheered me up so much.

I hope you enjoyed this post, please comment down below what subscription boxes you are signed up too? And what did you get in them this month?

Thank you for reading 

Love you all 

Love Nicola  x x 







Thursday 11 December 2014

Blogmas day 11!!! Party lip, Heroine & Magenta Lip Liner.

Welcome back to An appetite for makeup,

The other day, I went Christmas shopping and bought everyone's Christmas presents, and I was so chuffed that i got it all sorted, I thought I should treat my self, so I obviously bought another MAC lipstick because you can't never have too many.

The lipstick I choose was Heroine, it is a beautiful bright purple, I thought it would be perfect to brighten up the festive period but still be in keeping with the purple lip trend.

                   
The lipstick goes on quite purple with a blue undertone, however I thought I would brighten it up and put Magenta lip liner underneath, also by MAC.
I lined my lips with the Magenta and completely coloured in my lips with it, this makes your lip colour last for ages!!!
I then put the Heroine lipstick over the top, I think it looks beautiful and make it pop even more and I will defiantly be adorning this lip combo a lot over the Christmas party season.

                     

                     

As this is a very new purchase, I havnt had to time to have a play around with different combinations, I would love to see how using a really dark lipstick would look on the corners of this look, will defiantly try it and will let you know how it looks.

Hopefully I am now back on schedule for my daily posts.

Please comment below, what do you think on this combination and what lip liner do you wear with Heroine? 
Have you treated yourself this Christmas ?

Thank you for reading
Love you all 
Love Nicoa xxxxx 


   

Blogmas day 10 ( sorry I missed yesterday) Younique 3D Fiber LashMascara Review

Welcome back to An appetite for makeup,

So sorry I missed yesterday, I was so busy and it got past 12 and I relised I hadn't blogged, life is crazy and now the Christmas period is making it even busier, sorry and I will try to not let it happen again.

Back to the blogging .......

So I'm sure you have all seen this infamous mascara take the Internet by storm, it's the Younique 3D Fiber lash Mascara. I have seen some amazing reviews and some absolutely shocking ones but I thought I would try it out for myself.
I have had a few emails about this product, asking if I would review this mascara, all after I had orderd one for myself though, Sod's law! Ha
This review will be completely honest, I will let you make your own mind up!!
I personally love it! 

                     
  
First, can we just take note of the effort gone in to packaging my order, the representative has definitely gone the extra mile and printed my name by hand and wrapped it so lovely.
The lovely girl who I orderd mine off was a university friend of my best friend, Natalie Bains and will put all her links at end, so if you wanted to order one you could.


                   

After I got through all Natalie's personally touches with the packaging, the product itself it very nicely packaged, and comes in a plastic case which it nice and different. It comes as two products, a transplanting gel and the fibers, I received a dry mascara wand to separate my lashes which defiantly came in useful, but again I think that was Natalie's touch.

So the first step is to put your favourite mascara on, exactly how you do it normally and let it dry.
I have really straight eyelashes so I curled mine too.

Then using the transplanting gel, apply that, one eye at a time and quickly add the fibers and then seal in with the transplanting gel again, you can build it up by doing this a few times however it may clump, so using the dry mascara wand keep separating your eye lashes.

And it's as simple as that, I really love the effect and feel, I thought it was going to be really heavy and gloopy on my eye lashes but it feels really natural, I am a girl who would wear false eyelashes on a night out and with this product there is really no need for falsies at all.

Here are some before and after photographs, so you can see for yourself!

                     

This is with my favourite mascara applied, just one coat and left to dry............

                    

And here is my eyelashes with the 3D Fiber lash Mascara applied, I think it's brilliant, really makes my natual eyelashes look thick and long.

I thought the removal would be a massive problem, but it just came off with my normal eye makeup remover and a cotton pad.
I use this, Sensitive 3 in 1 miscellaneous cleansing water by Nivea.
        
                   

what do you think?
Please comment down below, if you think my eyelashes look better?
Have you tried it?

Natalie's Information

Email - natalieyounique@gmail.com
Instagram - @lashesbynatalie 

Thankyou for reading 
Love you all
Love 
Nicola x x 







Tuesday 9 December 2014

Blogmas Day 9!!!! Ciate Advent Calendar Bargain

Welcome back to An appetite for makeup, 

I am feeling loads better today, and my day got even better when I relised I hadn't opened about 5 days of my Ciate nail varnish advent calender.
So I thought I would share my favourite one with you all for today's post.

                          

So my nail varnish calender is last years, however it was £20 from TKMax as apposed to £50 for this years version, I personally spend way too much money on Makeup, nails varnishes, clothes and hair products but I love a bargain and for £20 I get 24 nails varnishes so I snapped it up.

I have loved all the nail varnishes I have opened so far, and have used a couple in previous Blogmas posts, however today's was by far my favourite, I like it so much probably because I have got a nail varnish already in my collection even close to it.
It's called Pillow Fight, which is really funny, because at uni my friend did an advertisement campaign for her coursework, and we all had a massive pillow fight in pjs in the middle of Huddersfield, it was so much fun and something I won't forget.
But back to the colour, for the pillow fight we wore very similar coloured Pj's to this nail varnish. 

I love this purple hued grey colour, and I think it's perfect for this time of year, it's kind of like a brighter version of some of the darker colours I like to wear on my nails around Christmas.

                      

Can't wait to open up tomorrow's nail varnish, please comment down below if you like this nail colour and please tell me what you got in your advent calendars today?

Please call back to my blog tomorrow as I have a review of a very infamous mascara to share with you all.

Love you already!

  Love Nicola x x x 


    

Monday 8 December 2014

Blogmas day 8!! Sick day

Welcome back to a very poorly post, from An appetite for makeup.

I am really not well today and had to call in sick at work, which is one thing that really gets to me, I hate letting people down and having people struggle on because I'm not well, but let's face it we all get sick from time to time, so we just have to get on with it.

I havnt done a thing half interesting to tell you about, I literally had a bath and slept a lot and watched some really good films of sky on demand, I watched The Book Theif and I cried a lot.

I had already taken some photos of a little tip that I was going to share with you, so I will talk about that as I have no energy to take new photos.
Hope you enjoy and I will be back with something half decent tomorrow.

                        

To start off the day, I went to work and got sent home, so as soon as I got in, a ran myself a bath to try and make myself feel a little bit better, I used my favourite lush bath bomb, Pheonix Rising, this bath bomb is supposed to be revitalising and this morning I definitely needed that!!! 

                      

                      

And if a purple bath can't bring you around nothing can!!! Lol 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I went to a Christmas fayre at Durham Catherdral and bought some wax melts and a oil burner, from one of the stall holders, ScentedMelts.
They really are lovely, and smell lush and I thought of a really good way to store them whilst your waiting to use them, as they burn in the oil burner for quite a while and still smell great.

So if you are anything like me, I have a back log of Birchbox fabric pouches lying around my room, I use them to put makeup in to pop in my hand bag, I put toiletries in to take in my over night bag and on holiday, I use them for all sorts.
Using Birchbox pouches to store these melts in is a really nice idea and just pop them in your knicker drawer or pj drawer, they leave your drawer smell amazing!!!!!!
I do the same with all my lush bombs and bars too, the smell lingers on your clothes for ages, if you don't have the pouches from Birchbox don't worry, I'm sure you will have something that comes in a fabric pouch lying around the house.


                         

So I hope you enjoyed this post, sorry it's been a bit boring these past two days, I feel a load better now, so I will have something exciting for tomorrow's post.

Please comment down below, what you do with your Birchbox pouches?

Love you all x x 

Love Nicola x 
     

Sunday 7 December 2014

Blogmas Day 7!!! Lazy Christmassy Sunday

Welcome back to An appetite for makeup,

So today I havnt been well and I have spent most of it in bed, but when I eventually got up I just had a very lazy Sunday, filled with Christmas films, Christmas crafts and a lot of soothing Christmas scents filling the air.

                      

So as I said I have had a very chilled day and I have watched, three Christmas films, 
Arthur Christmas, Home alone 1 and Home alone 2, I love watching Christmas films, wrapped up with a massive supply of tea and cake. 
A few candles filling the air just finishes it off too and I have just got some really exciting new things to tell you about.

Yesterday I went to a Christmas fayre at Durham Catherdral, it was such a lovely event and I am really glad I went, I finished off a few Christmas presents and I bought these beauties.

                                



I bought my friend an oil burner for her birthday last her but I had never personally tried one, so when I saw this little stall I was over the moon.
The company is called Scented Melts and their selection was amazing and they smelt gorgeous, if you spent £10 you got a free oil burner. So win win!
I picked a lot of Christmas themed wax melts to get me in the mood and I can honestly say I am in love !!!!! 
                                    




I have a really nice idea of where to keep all your wax melts when your waiting to use them but I think I will save it for another post.

This owl shaped one, is amazing!! It smells like cinnamon and is very warming, gonna have to track this women down and buy these little owls in bulk, they have a website so check them out you won't regret it. Here 

                                 

I Have been promising my too besties a Raggy wreaths for a month now and just havnt got round to it, so today when I wasn't feeling too well I thought I would get them done, I am a very crafty person (hence my job) so doing crafts makes me feel better and today I really needed it.

                    

One friends christmas tree theme is purple so I made her a purple Raggy wreath and offsetted it with gold, I used this purple velvet and I really liked how it turned out.

                       

My other friend was after a more traditional Raggy wreath, so I used green tartan, purple tartan, red and cream to create this, I loved how they both turned out and both my friends were over the moon.

                                          

So other than that, I didn't really do much but I didn't want to miss out on Blogmas and spoil my series.

I hope you enjoyed this chatty post, love you all 

Love Nicola x x 

Please comment down below how you have spent your Sunday?

Have you have a lazy on too?







   
   
   
   
  


Saturday 6 December 2014

Blogmas day 6!!!!!! Snowflake Gradient Nails

Welcome back to An appetite for makeup,

Hello, I painted my friends nails the other day so I thought I would take some photos and blog about that tonight.


                        
     

What you will need : 

* A make up sponge, ( I didn't have any so I just cut a little bit of a bath sponge)

* A dark blue nail polish

* A light blue nail polish

* A white nail polish

* A white striper

* A clear polish ( I forgot to take a photo of this) 

                      

 First, you need to paint all the nails with the dark blue polish, ( I used this denim effect dark blue nail varnish, it worked really well because it was matt)

                      

Next, blob a bit of the light blue nail varnish on to a surface you don't mind getting dirty, ( I just a little bit of folded tin foil) and dab the end of your make up sponge in to the light blue polish.
Use this to sponge on the light blue polish over 3/4's of your nail.

                      

Next use the same technique with the White nail polish, however only dabbing this on to the end of your nail.

                          

Use a clear polish to blend the gradient in and now you can add your design.
On my friends nails, I added snowflakes, I did this with the White striper.
Firstly I made a cross and then another cross offsetting the first to make a snowflake shape (as shown).
You could add dots on to the end of each line but I just kept it simple.

                           

However I used the same gradient process on my own nails, but I added a layer of snow with the White polish using the end of a White striper pen and dotted the White along the tip.
I finished the design if with a few dots on the nail to look like snow.

                           

I really want to try this same technique but on one nail put a tree or a snowman?? But you could really do what ever you want.

Hope you had a brilliant Saturday, I had a lovely day I went to a Christmas fayre at Durham Catherdral and it was sooo festive and I am now rediculasly in a Christmassy mood.

Are you in a festive mood yet?
Tell me in the comments below.

Love you all 

Love Nicola xxxx 
   


     
     

Friday 5 December 2014

Blogmas Day 5!!!! Paper Book Christmas

And Welcome back to An appetite for makeup,

So for Blogmas Day 5, I thought I would do another crafty one from work, we have had a brilliant day today making these wonderful paper book Christmas trees so I thought I would share it with you all. We have some lovely volunteers at the centre and this was one of the Brilliant Susan's ideas.
I have seen these in the Internet to though but this is my take on it.


 
 
So what you will need:
 
* An old book, its best if you use a paper back book, just so the binding isn't to hard.
You need to remove the cover and half the book so you have about 150 pages.
 
* Anything you want to decorate with, its up to up; here I have used a jingle bell, some twine and some sequence stars, but you can cover it in glitter if you wish. just be creative and have fun.

* glue 
 
First, take your book and make the first fold, moving the top right hand corner down to the middle of the book at the binding, bringing it down to the left. ( I hope the pictures will help you more than my descriptions)
 
 

So next, you fold the fold you just did, again, 


Using the edge of the book, run your finger along to create a fold line and just simply took it back under the whole fold.


And then, you fold and fold and fold and fold lol.


Until you get this...........


You don't even have to glue it round, the folding techniques just makes it create this shape,
 it's magical!!
And the next step is up to you, I used a jingle bell as the star and I glued some twine around as tinsel and then stuck little stars on as baubles.
I stuck it all on with a hot glue gun but tacky glue would work just as good.

Here is my finished tree, I love it, I quite like it how it's really simply decorated but you could go mad and just cover yours with anything your heart desires.
Be creative and have fun.


Sorry, this post was a quick one, I went to the metro centre after work and I was there about 6 hours, but on the plus side I have all my Christmas shopping done.
Yey!!!!!!

Please comment, and tel, me how your Christmas shopping is going?

I hope you have enjoyed this, and I will see you tomorrow.

Love Nicola x x