50% Off ELF Haul

I picked up a lot in one of ELF's frequent 50% off sales and I thought I'd share what I got, I'll slowly be using and reviewing everything too. All prices given are full prices.

The box filled with ELF products

Face Products (All Studio Line) - Mineral Infused Face Primer £6, Tinted Moisturiser SPF15 Beige £3.50,  Blushes - £3.50 each, Candid Coral, Tickled Pink, Fuschia Fusion, High Definition Powder £6, Flawless Finish Foundation £6.50.

I have no idea whether the foundation will be the correct shade for my skintone, I ordered Caramel but on the bottom there is a little sticker saying Buff...and I found it very difficult choosing a shade in the first place from the website...

Another HD Powder £6, 3pc Eyelid Primer Set £3.50, 3pk Shine Eraser Set £3.50.

I have yet to use the Eyelid Primers, although already use ELF's Mineral Eyelid Primer and love it, the HD Powders are repurchases, and I've tried the Blotting Sheets and find that they're too small and I use about 10 of them after a few hours of moisturiser in a busy day.

Mineral Lipglosses, Night Owl, Sorority Girl, Daring £3 each (not in order), Studio Conditioning Lip Balms SPF15,  Mellow Melon, Romantic Rouge, Blissful Berry, £3.50 each, Mineral Lipstick, Barely Bitten £3.50.

I haven't tried any of the lip products yet, the shades of the lipglosses look very similar although I'll see if that's true when on the lips.

My beloved Nourishing Cuticle Pens, £1.50 each, Angled Contour Brush, Angled Foundation Brush, Angled Eyeliner Brush, £3.50 each.

I love the Nourishing Cuticle Pen, read about it here. The brushes I have yet to use!

Powder Brush, Fan Brush, £3.50 each.

Again I haven't used much of my order to be able to give you first impressions or full reviews on them, when I have done I will be putting up reviews!

I hope this maybe gives you some ideas of what to try when ordering from ELF as I think they have yet another 50% off sale on at the moment!

Review: ELF Nourishing Cuticle Pen

This is one of many ELF products I hauled on one of their 50% off sales, it costs £1.50 for 3.2g from their website, but I picked up two for 75p each! At the time I didn't know how brilliant this little pen was, so I'm very lucky that it is so useful otherwise my purchases would have been pointless.

It is a cuticle pen so you put it onto the cuticle area of your nails (near the base) and it helps to nourish and moisturise the cuticles and nails for healthier nails, this is very true. Before I stopped painting my nails regularly they were peeling, weak, stained, horrible nails, so came the nail painting ban. Everyday for about a month now I have been using this pen on my entire nails and they seem stronger, the peeling is no more and they look healthier too. Before I used it on painted nails and I don't think it could penetrate through the nail polish to the actual nail but helped the appearance of cuticles only.

I would recommend using this pen over the entire bare nail, this pen has made such a difference to my nails, I love it! Key ingredients included are almond oils, avocado oil and vitamins A, C, E and provitamin B5. The packaging and the nib are also very fresh and clean, the nib doesn't need cleaning which is a huge plus. I thought the pen would dry out after about a week, but no! I don't know how it works, I'm assuming there is liquid in the actual plastic packaging which then spills into the nib, as opposed to just having a wet nib.

Application is a breeze, just glide the tip over your nails and cuticles, it is also fantastic value for money, especially at only 75p! I will definitely be repurchasing when both run out! The only slight improvement I would suggest is to make the tip a brush instead, sometimes the sponge tip can feel a little harsh, but it's not a huge problem.

Product: 18/20

Effectiveness: 9/10

Value: 10/10

Packaging: 4/5
Application: 4/5
Repurchase: Yes

Overall: 9/10

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?

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?

Review: No7 Stay Perfect Nail Top Coat

Just ergh. The most horrible disgusting useless top coat I've ever tried, and it's from such a reputable brand. it costs £7 and is available at Boots if you want to give it a go.

Now I'll explain why it's the worst top coat I've ever come across.

- It's gloopy - on the brush it's gloopy and gunky, the consistency isn't nice enough for you to want to polish your fine manicure with.

- It's bubbly - it creates bubbles, micro, tiny, yucky bubbles on my nails which completely ruins them.

- Drying time is FOREVER - it takes forever to dry, even after about 2 hours, you may think that your nails are ready to touch and you can continue your daily chores but NO! If you touch a nail you will have a splodge or a nasty fingerprint left on whichever pretty colour you've chosen to paint your nails with.

- It's Sticky - this isn't really to do with the nails exactly, but if you accidentally do manage to place it somewhere else, it sticks and is very hard to get off or even smooth down to a level of near invisibility.

- It leaves strings - this is a really unattractive, it leaves strings while transporting it onto the nail from the bottle, like honey leaves trails on a spoon!

Basically this top coat sucks, in every way possible. It gives nothing required of a top coat apart from the shine if you manage to get 1 little nail done properly with this.

This really baffles me because I adore No7 Stay Perfect Nail Colours, and they're of a good consistency and wear pretty well. It's just this top coat that ruins my nails completely and does nothing useful. Sorry, it does do one useful thing, once on and if you've managed to dry it well it does keep the colour of your nails going strong, but you may not want colour locked onto your nails with bubbles on top! Most of us don't!

I wouldn't pay £7 for this or even £2 with the £5 off vouchers, I remember it being £6.25...just in awe at the increase in prices now!

But this is a definite no no on my part, have you ever tried this? What did you think? Am I the only one?!

Thank you so much for reading! :)