Disclaimer

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days, I was very ill over the weekend and didn't really feel up to blogging or doing any work of any sort for some time now.

I was recently thinking of how people have to put disclaimers on their blogs or feel obliged to, I don't want to feel that way, because to my knowledge I'm not obliged to do so.

To date, I have received one set of nail polishes free of charge for this blog, and I managed to give an honest mini-review of them, you can read it here. It wasn't very detailed, but my point is that I personally am capable of writing honest reviews. This post is going to be my own disclaimer and I'll try and link it on the pages above, (I'm having trouble decoding the html!).

I appreciate that some companies/PRs that make the effort to send you things to review or as gifts may expect good reviews, because they feel that they've done you a favour by sending you a bottle of miracle serum worth £500 to review, however I actually don't think that's the case unless the blogger is the companies' personal "puppet" if you will - constantly advertising the one or two brands, that miraculously give you a 20 yr old's skin overnight...It is also their decision to send you the product to review.

I feel that myself, along with many other bloggers are capable and confident enough to review items sent for free honestly. I don't expect any rudeness, impolite words towards the brand in the review; but implying the product is absolutely useless though I think, is fine. After all it is a review. I also feel that constructive criticism is a must in the case of a product being a bit useless for the purpose for which it is designed. Another thing to remember though, is that everyone is different, and often products need to be trialled for a lengthy period of time for a decent review. I wouldn't take a review of an anti-aging serum seriously if it had only been used for 1 day, a nail polish maybe, but certainly not the serum.

A well written, honest review is what you shall be given on my blog, whether I mention if I personally purchased the product or not. It is very likely that in the text you will be able to pick up whether it was given to me or if I bought it myself, but just in case there isn't a hint, I'd like to reassure everyone that my reviews will be honest.

This is the only post I will be putting up, because it annoys me to feel as though I have to constantly make sure that somewhere I have write whether I bought the product by myself or not. I don't want to have to say my aunt's friend's sister's mother-in-law gave it to me. I'd like my readers to feel that however I got hold of the item, the way in which I review it will be my truthful opinion.

Thank you very much for reading :)

Nav

50 Follower Giveaway - CLOSED

Hi!

As I'm sure the title has already told you, I'm having a giveaway to celebrate 50 followers! Yay!

I have bought everything myself, everything is brand new. There are 10 items of which a few were a gift with purchase so I technically have not bought those! All items have been placed into a Laura Mercier makeup bag (which I recieved as part of a set but is brand new!) I'd roughly value everything excluding the bag at around £35-40 at full price.

Brands included are:

- BeautyUK
- Witch
- No7
- Laura Mercier (bag)
- Sleek Makeup
- 17
- Lancome

Please don't expect anything too expensive, I am only a student (excuses excuses I know!), but I'll do my best to make it worthwhile!

Thank you so much to everyone that has followed me and especially for all the nice comments on my blog, I'm now at 54 followers as of now so yippee! :)

Here's all you'll need:

Rules:
1. You must be a public follower of my blog via Google Friend Connect
2. You must be 18+ or have your parent's permission if you are younger

How to Enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post saying which posts you would like to see more of on this blog and why
2. Follow me on twitter, I am @nav_t and leave a comment saying you're following me.
3. Tweet this message to your followers, "Follow @nav_t and RT this to enter the 50 Follower Giveaway! Details here: http://tinyurl.com/5vn8tje"

Each is worth 1 entry (total of 3+ entries), but you can tweet as many times as you like! :)

This giveaway is open internationally and will end on Monday 4th July at 22:00 BST. Good luck! :)

Disclaimer: Prizes have been paid for by myself excluding the GWP items.

Thank you for reading and good luck! :)

7 Days Of...

Hello and welcome to a new series of posts coming soon to Navilicious Beauty!

It's going to be named, 7 Days Of... After the "Of" will be a brand name, a type of product, a lone product and you get the idea! This idea came to me a while back when I was thinking about how I could review more efficiently, and I think this will help me to review and talk about products that tie in together more easily, and possibly result in more useful posts. This will be a series throughout this Summer through to the end of October, and other posts will continue alongside. I'm aiming to get around 3-4 posts up everyday to help vary content and keep up with my schedule. It may even allow my lovely readers more variety. I don't want the quality of my posts to decrease at all, so I won't start posting 3-4 each day just yet, and will build up to it once I'm able to cope!

7 Days Of... Will start from Monday 11th July 2011 and at least one post of this series will be up everyday. Each brand/product will be on Navilicious Beauty as part of this series for 7 days, after that it will be mixed in with other posts. So the brand/product is in the spotlight for a whole week! I don't think I'm explaining this very well, but once it starts I'm sure you'll understand very quickly what I mean. A quick example - 7 Days Of Sleek Makeup, this would be reviews/favourites/comparisons, etc of Sleek Makeup and their products only. Other posts would also run alongside this series everyday.

I think I've confused everyone and myself enough for now, but I hope you will tune in for this series!

Thank you for reading! :)

If you have any suggestions please leave a comment and let me know!

Sleek Makeup LE Caribbean Collection - Summer 2011

Here is the second collection of Sleek's Summer 2011 releases. Aptly named Caribbean Collection, the packaging suits the name perfectly, the colours coincide with the Summer feeling and look very pretty.

Like the Mediterranean Collection and most of Sleek's Collections there are 3 items in it;

- Curacao Eyeshadow Palette (£6.70)

- Aruba Blush (Bright Orange - £4.29)

- Bonaire Pout Polish (Bright Orange - £4.29)

This is a Limited Edition Collection and will be available in Superdrug from Wednesday 6th July 2011. I'll try to post reviews/swatches before the date so you have an idea of the items before making the decision to buy or not!

I was lucky (because I spend most of my time in Superdrug...) that my local Superdrug had these on the shelves and I picked them up! Reviews coming soon!

Thank you for reading :)

What do you think of this collection? Worth it? Better than the Mediterranean Collection? Or you want both?

Sleek Makeup LE Mediterranean Collection - Summer 2011

Woo! That's a mouthful of a title I hear you say! - I agree whole-heartedly and please accept my apologies for it. However...this is a very interesting post as you will come to discover once you read through it! (OK, maybe not that amazing but I love the collection!)

Here is Sleek's Limited Edition Mediterranean Collection for Summer 2011, but that's not it, there's another collection too! (More on that one later). This was released at the beginning of June and has pretty much disappeared from the shelves in Superdrug, I had a very hard time finding the blush because it was out of stock everywhere I went. I started to get funny looks from the sales assistants there too...but you should still be able to find most of it - hopefully.

In this collection there are 3 items:

- Monaco Eyeshadow Palette (£6.70)

- Santorini Blush (Slightly deep shade of bright pink - £4.29)

- Monte Carlo Pout Polish (Bright Pink - £4.29)

Sleek palettes now include names of each eyeshadow in the palette, unfortunately my transparent plastic sheet was slightly crumpled up, but I'll let you in on the names in the review posts. My first impressions of this collection are WOW! I think it looks beautiful, and so perfect for the summer months.

Keep an eye out for future reviews of these items which will include swatches and a much more in depth analysis of each item.

Thank you for reading! :)

Have you got your perfectly manicured hands on this yet? Or is it just another collection by Sleek for you?

Glamour Magazine and Benefit Freebies!

I know this post is definitely past it's sell by date but I still wanted to write it, just in case anyone has missed out and assuming that a miracle has taken place, and there are still Glamour magazines out on the magazine racks!

So, as we've all read a £2 Glamour magazine with Adele on the cover (aka July 2011 copy), is going to give you one of 3 of Benefit's awesome products. On offer are:

- High Beam (4ml)
- Benetint (4ml)
- Posietint (4ml)

Altogether the sample sizes are worth £28 and you can get them for £6. I bought 3 of each, because I'm a piglet, yes. Also because I will use them all! Even though one should last a reasonably long time...it's hard to convince myself of my crazy makeup splurges anymore...*sigh*

So there we have it! It's all that you need to know really, so if you haven't already picked at least one of these up, you are now armed with the information to go get you some Benefit!

Thank you for reading! :)

17 Nail Bar in a Bag

Hello!

Here's the post about 17's offer/GWP. Purchase any 2 17 items and receive this for free! It includes 2 nail polishes, 1 nail file and nail art stickers. I got mine when I bought the Miami Pop Collection and I picked up some more nail polishes too! (I love 17 and nail polish...can you tell?)

Here's an image of what's included in your lovely gift:

The 2 nail polishes included are Pink Grapefruit and Knockout Red. Then there's the nail file and nail art stickers. I've been messing around with the file and stickers and they both seem of great quality, the nail art stickers I didn't think I'd like at all because of the animal print (I hate animal print), but they look surprisingly good on nails!

I've yet to use the nail polishes, but as soon as I have a few times I'll definitely stick a review up on here! Not to worry ;)

Overall I think this is a great deal, I bought 2 nail polishes and got this set, making the deal essentially BOGOF plus extra bits! I generally find that 17 products are of a high quality too and have yet to experience any problems with them so I was very happy with this! I would have preferred it if there were different shades of nail polish available, maybe 3 different sets and you could go on a collecting mission...but I'm very happy with my purchases and my free gift(s).

Thank you for reading! :)

What do you think of this set? Have you picked yours up yet?

17 Summer 2011 Limited Edition Miami Pop Collection

Hi!

I thought I'd write a blogpost on 17's Miami Pop Collection for this summer as I haven't seen that many posts on it so far, and as you know I'm a fan of 17 so I thought I should!

This collection is out now and available in Boots stores across the nation, starting from as little as £2.99 to a slightly higher price of £4.99. As you can imagine, in my excited state I bought the lot! The items themselves are of a decent size and the packaging is very clean and funky with flamingos patterned on top.

There are 4 items in this collection, very bright, colourful and on trend with pinks and oranges. These are as follows:

• Bronzer - £4.99
• Lipgloss - £3.99
• Nail Polish in Palm Beach and Down Town - £2.99 each

This is the first bronzer I've ever purchased so I'm hoping it doesn't make me look terribly orange, like all other bronzers and their respective artists have piled onto my face resulting in a walking-talking orange...me. *shudders at the memories*

So anyway, there will be separate reviews as soon as I've tried the collection for a period of time I consider to be adequate for review. At the moment there is also an offer on 17, so when you buy any 2 17 products you receive a Nail Bar in a Bag. This consists of 2 polishes, nail art stickers and a nail file - brilliant! I'll put that up in another post for you too.

Thank you for reading! :)

What do you think of this collection? Will you be buying?

Navilicious Beauty is now on Bloglovin!

Hi!

Just a quick post to let you know Navilicious Beauty is now on bloglovin! :) There's an icon on the right side of my blog that you can click on to follow!

Thanks for reading! :)

How I spent my No7 vouchers

Hi!

I thought I'd talk about how I spent my No7 vouchers, they ran out the Sunday just gone by and before that I managed to collect 6 vouchers and used them all on the following. I got 3 Poppy King lipsticks and 1 lipgloss and 2 eye brushes, all with £5 off of each item!

Starting with the brushes:

- Eye Colour Brush (£6.64)
I would think this is very similar to Mac's 239 brush in terms of a brush to apply colour to the eyes. I like that it's a bit shorter than most brushes in length because I tend to bash my brush ends against the bathroom mirror when trying to get so close!

- Precision Eyeliner Brush (£6.75)
This brush reminds me of the brush you get with Maybelline's new gel eyeliner, it looks very precise too.

Onto the Poppy King lip products:

- Confidence Lipgloss (Deep brown - £11.00)
- History Lipstick (Neutral red - £12.00)
- Power Lipstick (Pink-red - £12.00)
- Seduction Lipstick (Deep plum - £12.00)

All of these look gorgeous and I can't wait to try them, I actually wish I had more No7 vouchers because I'm in a collect 'em all! Mood with these, especially the lipsticks if not the lipglosses. In this The Magic of Lipstick range there are 7 different lipsticks and corresponding lipglosses for every occasion for every woman. I think this is a permanent line with more products to be launched in future, I can't wait for the No7 vouchers to start again because I plan on collecting all these lipsticks and then onto No7's bodycare, which I've never tried before.

That's all folks! (Oh how I miss Tom and Jerry and all cartoons!) Thank you for reading! :)

How did you spend your vouchers? Do you even use them or throw them away? What are your opinions on No7?

Nails Inc. and Fabulous Offer Alert!

I blog to alert you of an amazing offer Fabulous Magazine (found in News of the World) have on starting from today! Sunday 19th June 2011, to land yourself these 2 beautiful nail polishes by Nails inc. worth £22 for free all you have to do is collect 3 tokens from the News of the World! In addition, you will receive a code for 20% off products at http://www.nailsinc.com/ and you can treat yourself to a half price manicure for £14, usually £28 at participating Nails Inc. salons. (T&Cs apply.)

These two fabulous (pun intended!) colours have been created exclusively for the magazine and are aptly named Atomic and OMP! (Oh My Pink!) - the perfect shades for summer!

How to get your beauty mitts on these:

 - Cut out and collect 3 differently numbered tokens being printed over the next 4 weeks (starting today!)

- Take them along to any participating Tesco Extra or Tesco supermarket between July 3rd-11th to pick up your free Nails inc. polishes!

It's so easy! I was kindly sent both shades as a sneak preview of the kit, I put OMP! on my left hand and Atomic on my right hand, one coat each first, then 2 coats afterwards. This is the first time I have tried the brand and I've only used these for one day, just to let you know! Here are my thoughts:

- Very thick, vibrant, glossy nail polishes, Atomic is slightly streakier than OMP! when used alone
- Application is quite easy, one coat is enough but I personally prefer two
- 2 coats tends to last longer, I experienced chipping after washing lots of dishes with Atomic (one coat)
- Both colours dry very fast, something I LOVE
- Will look gorgeous on all skintones

I didn't put any swatches up because my hands have tanned very deeply (even more so than usual!) in comparison to my natural skintone and I don't like tanning...I'm weird I know...sorry about that! Colours are exactly the same on the nail as shown in the nail polish bottle though, what you see is exactly that you will get!

Disclaimer: I was kindly sent this pack by News of the World PR

So what do you think? Yay or nay? Will you be rushing out to get yourselves these gorgeous nail polishes?

Navilicious Beauty is Away

I'm actually not going to be on the blogosphere at all for the next 2 weeks, I'll occasionally be on twitter but I'm going to stick to body basics and studying.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused, normal posting will resume from Friday 24th June.

Few posts to look forward to:

- My first ever Blogsale!
- Sigma Giveaway and Review
- Many more reviews
- The Blog's 1st Birthday Giveaway
- Sleek Collections

Thank you for reading and following :) x

Review: ELF Luscious Liquid Lipstick in Bark

Hi! :)


Image courtesy of theztyle.com



Apologies for not using my own image, my one is very nearly finished and completely battered and messy!This is available from ELF's website for £1.50, and the name of liquid lipstick is completely misleading, this is not a lipstick in any way, shape or form. This is a 0.001% thicker than your average lipgloss, lipgloss. Now a few points to note:

1) The consistency - it is not very thick, as one would expect from a liquid lipstick, emphasis on the lipstick.
2) The pigmentation - is great for a lipgloss, but gives nowhere near enough coverage as a lipstick would.
3) The applicator - this point is actually why this could be called a liquid lipstick, because of the slanted sponge applicator.

So yes, in my opinion this is much more similar to a lipgloss, this is my only concern/dislike of this product, because of the claim it makes to be a liquid lipstick.

Back to the actual item...this shade is a neutral pink/brown nude, focusing on the brown much more so than the pink (at least on my one!). It glides on beautifully, once you twist the click-pen up, like a Stila lip glaze. The option of choosing how much of the "lipstick" you want on is there too, so heavy or light, I prefer just a light coat because it tends to feel a little sticky to me if I load it on. It's easy to use, very affordable and travel-friendly. The wear is only about 2-3hours on me, without eating/drinking, with it is about 1-2hours.

Overall, I really like it, it's a lovely nude shade, I tend to use it alone and over actual lipsticks and it adds a nice glossy sheen to your lips. The issue is with the naming, and that it can get slightly messy to use after a while, so I like to wipe it clean. Although I suppose that can be said of all makeup products! I give it an 8/10, if it was called a lipgloss or lip - something else, I would have given it a higher mark, possibly 9/10, because in terms of all the claims made, it would have done exactly that! (Aside from the slightly messy part!)

Thank you for reading! :)

Review: 17 Solo Eyeshadow in Statuesque

This is one of 17's gorgeous single eyeshadows in a very pretty pink shade. I've shown various angles in the picture and the swatch is one swipe of the shadow without any primer. (I love the way my skin looks in the picture so wrote all over it...yes I am weird...) These retail at £3.89 each but are usually on offer at 3 for 2. As I'm sure you can tell I love 17, as a brand and all of their products that I have tried to date. I haven't found any problems with anything although I haven't tried everything!

I wore this today, alone without any primer or anything else and it wore really well. Application is easy, no mess, no fallout, no issues there. The colour itself shows up really well on my eyes and goes on smoothly. It lasted without any problems, no creasing or fading for at least 8 hours, after that I got bored and took it off because I wanted to wash my face! I expect it would have stayed on just as well for longer. I've used it before with similar shades from Sleek's Storm Palette and it fairs well with other eyeshadows too, with primer the colour is instantly intensified and brighter so I would recommend using a primer for your eyes before putting on any eyeshadow really. I've noticed that primers work wonders. I have normal eyelids, for reference, so it may crease/fade for those with very oily eyelids.

I think this level of quality for only £3.89 is a bargain, especially with the constant offers on 17, I give this eyeshadow 9/10.

Thank you for reading :)

Review: Clinique Chubby Stick in Whole Lotta Honey

I spoke about these chubby sticks quite some time ago now and then forgot to review them! This is the one that I have used the most so far because of it having a very nude everyday colour. The shade is Whole Lotta Honey and it's a very wearable everyday nude shade. These are like tinted lip balms but in a pen form almost, it's very easy to use and apply, not messy, adds a good amount of colour onto the lips without being very bright or too outstanding on the lips.

It's easy to use and carry around with you in your makeup bag and I think perfect for summer because everyone wants to lessen the amount of makeup they wear in the heat. The thing I like most about this lip balm/tint is that it's also moisturising, it doesn't make much of a difference if you have very dry, cracked lips, (just adds colour to make them look really bad), but if they're just on the dry side and in need of a little moisture this does the job perfectly and adds a little colour too!

They are available at all Clinique stockists, Boots, HoF, Debenhams and retail at £14.00. I do think this is expensive and somehow I managed to get mine for around £11 before their national release, maybe slightly cheaper would be better because there are a lot of lip balms with colour now, just maybe not in this form.

I give these an 8/10, thank you for reading! :)

Review: Pretty Quik Instant Nail Polish Remover

This is an amazing find by me from Boots! I was looking for a quick nail polish remover, because I've really gotten into doing my nails every few days and it just seems a hassle everytime and I wanted something to speed up the process. This one isn't suitable for artificial nails though, there is one available for artificial nails in white packaging, but I thought I'd get this one because I didn't need the extra safety of that remover.

This was quite cheap, I think £2.38 maybe? All you do is stick each digit into the tiny space inbetween the sponge and move your finger about and when you take your nail out it's clean of all nail polish! Close to magic I tell you! I was so impressed because the polish from the sides of the nail comes off really well too and it's such a quick process.

The main issue I have with this is that it really dries the nail out and after about 7-8 uses the colour from the various nail polishes clouds the sponge and it doesn't rub on the nail as well so it takes longer for the polish to come off. So it's a great polish remover but it does have its drawbacks when it's been used a few times.

As I was so impressed with this I'm going to give it a 7/10. Thank you for reading :)

Edit 09/06/2011: It has a lot of negatives that I didn't realise before, it leaves desiccated nails and cuticles, doesn't last very long and makes nails feel horrible. This has only lasted a couple of weeks and the sponge is a fail at the minute, worth the £2.38? Nope. New rating of 4/10, very practical yes, but not great. Would be better to buy full bottle of nail polish remover and cotton pads!

Look What I Found! NEW 17 Adapt-itude...

Last week I picked this lovely item up for £4.99 at Boots, it will retail for £6.19 but this is an introductory price. I believe it is a brand new foundation from 17, it doesn't have too many claims as a foundation, I'm not sure if it's minimal/medium/high coverage but when I was testing shades in the shop it did blend really well with my fingers and covered up many blemishes. I'm not going to review it yet because I've hardly worn it, but will test it out for at least 2-3 weeks and write a review on it!

The shades that I saw were as follows: fair, medium, medium-dark, dark. My shade is medium, I'll include more pictures in the review post!