Nail of the Day ~ Utopian Ocean.

 Used:

Models Own ~ Utopia

Models Own ~ Indian Ocean

Utopia is a nail varnish I had seen around the blogosphere and during Models Own 50% sale last month I bought it, along with Indian Ocean, which is part of their Bettlejuice line - a collection of gorgeous duochrome polishes. Indian Ocean is a shimmering ice blue varnish with a clear base, it shifts to rose gold with hints of violet. With most of my duochromes (example here) I usually layer them on top of black, because this lets the shifting effect really pop, but this time I decided to go for a more subtle effect, so I layered Indian Ocean on Utopia which is a really pretty, dusty nude pink. I love both colours so I couldn't bring myself to cover all of Utopia. Although I did find Utopia was a bit watering and needed 3 layers.

What's your favourite, nude colours or duochromes?

Purple Lipsticks ~ Part 1: lilac & lavendar

I have been searching high and low online for as many different purple lipsticks as I could find and my goodness, did I find a lot, so I've got a small collection to share with you and it's going to take up three posts. In this first one I'm going to show you the light colours and give you a mini review of each of them, much in the style of my previous black lipstick reviews. However, this time it's more difficult to say which is best since I'll be looking at a variety of different shades and finishes. Product links in the names.

Stargazer ~ Glitter Violet *

An opaque lilac with silver glitter 

Price: £3.50
Initially I was a bit wary of this lipstick since I thought the glitter would look childish and cheap but I actually found that with initial application the glitter wasn't that obvious and so sparse the look was pretty subtle (as far as glitter goes). I really like the colour, just shy of a true pastel but still light and bright. Duration wasn't amazing but the colour fades nicely. The does glitter linger though. Definitely not an every day colour, but cute for the Christmas season where glitter is almost obligatory.

Lime Crime ~ Chinchilla

An opaque matte grey lilac 

Price: £10.09 ($15.99)
What I love about this lipstick is how unique the colour is. I have yet to find anything similar and I love it. It also smells amazing and is lovely and creamy, however it is the most expensive of all the lipsticks I'm reviewing. It lasts pretty well too.

Portland Black Lipstick Company ~ The Purple Cloud

An opaque matte lilac

Price: £5.68 ($9.00)
I actually borrowed this off a friend who had bought it, so I asked her for a mini review because we all know how much I love PBLC. So here it is: " I really like it. It's a very moisturising lipstick in general, the colour lasts pretty well and the colour itself is amazing." I think that's a pretty succinct and accurate description. It also smells of mint, which I like.

CeeYourself Cosmetics ~ Unicorn *

A sheer, subtle duochrome purple

Price: £3.24 ($5.00)
The sheerest off all the lipsticks I'm looking at, the base is more pink, but it shifts to purple and blue. It's really subtle but pretty nonetheless. I found it was actually much easier to apply using a finger as opposed to a lip brush, like a balm. It feels like vaseline really, and like that duration isn't much of a problem since reapplication is just a case of dipping a finger into the jar. Duration is pretty good at around 2 hours.

(L-R): Unicorn, Chinchilla, The Purple Cloud, Glitter Violet

So that's it for this post, in the next one I'll be looking at darker shades, including Rimmel, Stargazer, CeeYourself Cosmetics and Revlon! Do you have any favourite pastel purple lipsticks?

Disclaimer: products marked with * were given to me as PR samples, but this does not affect my opinion.  

Outfit of the Day ~ flowers and thorns.

 Cross top ~ Topshop

Floral midi skirt ~ thrifted

Spiked wedges ~ New Look

Floral headband ~ craft show

Cross bracelet ~ ASOS
Chunky cardigan ~ New Look

Lipstick ~ Lime Crime in Chinchilla 

How long has it been since I did an OOTD? It feels like ages, university is consuming my life. Firstly, can we talk about those shoes (even though there isn't a close up)? Spiked, suede wedges? Yes please. They were available in an amazing pillarbox red as well but my size was sold out, but I am more than happy to settle with the black. I think this is as far as I'd go with spikes on shoes though, sometimes I see the Jeffery Campbell spiked Litas and I feel like I would definitely injure myself and those around me. Apart from that I'm glad it was sunny, because that's when my hair looks it's best. There isn't much else to say about the outfit really.
I'm pretty excited for this weekend since this Friday is Black Friday and that means sales. The one I'm most looking forward to is the Lime Crime one, which is 30% off with the code SPARKLE2012. You're welcome. Christmas has definitely begun as well, I've begun my Christmas shopping and this weekend is going to be dedicated to making Christmas cards (and maybe decorating).
Ohyeah! And if you want to see how I'd look if I were an airbrushed elf then head to my Instragram page (L_Figment), I think it looks amazing, Bekki did an amazing job (check out her blog for awesome, creepy makeup).
That's all for now, my purple lipstick posts are nearly ready! Finally!

Nail of the Day ~ Leopard Moth

Leopard Moth is a white based polish with chunky, matte, black glitter from Accessorize's Speckle collection. For a while I couldn't understand why I liked this nail varnish but eventually I figured it out. It's because it's not obviously pretty. It's weird and interesting and definitely not feminine and that's what's cool about it. Even the glitter isn't actually glittery, it looks like granite. I love that it's named after such a gorgeous and appropriate animal: the leopard moth. In fact all of the varnishes from this "speckle" series which all involve mainly matte glitter are inspired by insects with amazing markings, I've got my eye on "Ladybird" which is a red base with black glitter and "Firefly" which is a black base with gold glitter.
So, what do you think? Is this interesting shade a hit or a miss for you?

Source. Isn't it beautiful?

Galaxy Cascade ~ freshly dyed hair.

Dyes used: La Riche Directions -Midnight Blue

La Riche Directions - Plum
Renbow Color Crazy - Fire
Renbow Color Crazy - Cyclamen

Finally! I've finally re-dyed my hair! I am so happy.
Thanks to a two day stay in with BBF1 & BBF2. The plan was to do a dip dye gradient from dark blue to purple to lilac and maybe do the same with my fringe but that plan changed slightly.
It actually took much longer than expected - this was the first time we had bleached over black box dyed hair and it turns out it's a lot harder than just bleaching natural hair. On the first day we bleached it and the next day we went out and bought some colour stripper, then used that and did two more bleaches and it still wasn't light enough for going blue (because blue + orange = brown). On the last day BBF1 spent literally 12 hours working on my hair further, including colour striping and bleaching it again. We then decided to do some strand tests because I had thought if it wasn't light enough for blue and purple then I'd just dye it pink and red since I had some of that lying around (the pros of always dying hair various colours - there's always something kicking about). The result of the strand test just made me want both, so that's kind of what we did: mainly a blue to indigo to purple gradient, which also turned out the have some turquoise as well, and then a strand of red to pink! It's like a dysfunctional rainbow!
BFF1 said it looked like galaxy hair and that pretty much made my life - as did she, by the end of it we were both worn down and delirious but it was totally worth! A lot more subtle that my usual choices but I think it looks amazing. (Excuse my pretty gormless face in these photos, it was just one of those days)
If you want to see previous colours (including purple and turquoise) go heeerree.

So, what do you think? Anyone else dyed their hair recently? Let me know!

Nail of the Day ~ Pearl Effect

Look Beauty ~ Nail Pop Sequin Effect top coat

Claire's Accessories ~ Black

I got the top coat from Superdrug whilst they were two for £6, which is great since I had been tempted by it before. I really wanted it because before I was aware of this one I had been looking to buy one of Nfu Oh's amazing flakies nail varnishes (for an example of just how gorgeous they are look here and here). I would say that Look Beauty's Pearl Effect is a pretty good dupe to Nfu Oh's #50 although the shifts in colour are a lot less obvious. The actual polish is a clear base with flecks of irresdent flakes that shift from a dark cobalt blue to navy to purple and then a bit turquoise as well, the changes in colour were really hard to capture on camera and in real life are only noticeable in really bright sunlight. I layered it over a plain black polish but it looks really pretty and subtle on top of a nude as well. I want to try it on white as well, I think it'll make a really lovely icy Christmas look.

So what do you think? Have you tried their other shifting top coat Sequin yet?

Trending ~ Devoré Velvet

Velvet has been slowly creeping onto the cat walk and high streets for a while now, but this season's opulent goth has taken over and velvet is everywhere. The newest way to wear it is devore, other wise known burn out velvet or flocked velvet (which is slightly different but pretty much gives the same effect). One of my favourite items of clothing ever is this gorgeous gradient vintage devore shirt and I've seen about a million beautiful kimonos in that style as well, so I thought I'd scan the internet and find the best of this amazing trend.

Top row (L-R): River Island Floral Print Devore Cape - £45, Boohoo Floral Flocked Leggings - £12, Dorothy Perkins Flocked Peplum Top - £28, Miss Selfridge Devore Velvet Maxi Skirt - £35, River Island Devore Cape - £35
Bottom row: Ebay Silk Devore Shawl - £6.99, Miss Selfridge Floral Devore Skater Dress - £35, Topshop Devore Mesh Corset - £25, River Island Floral Devore Longline Cape - £55,  Warehouse Devore Burn Out Tshirt - £35

So what do you think of the devore velvet trend?