Birchbox March 2014 Review

So, welcome to March's Birchbox! This month was a collaboration edition with Lulu Guinness, so she had chosen two picks in the box so I'll you see those later on! I have to say, I was a little disappointed at the box design itself. I was kind of expecting a stripey box that would stand out from the normal birchboxes. But it was simply the usual box with a sleeve around it. I wanted a funky box I guess. But hey ho, time to look at the products inside!

Dr Brandt Pores No More Refiner - Full Size £39

So this product is meant to minimise pores and absorb excess oil. You pop it on before makeup and it should help makeup apply smoother as well basically. It is quite smoothing I found, but for the price there are plenty more primers out there that do a similar job.

Aroma Works Nurture Body Oil - Full Size £32.50

This oil is applied just after you come out the bath or shower and is meant to nourish your skin and leave you smelling nice. I felt it smelled mostly of verbena and lemon which was quite pleasant. I did use all the product up and it was nice to treat my skin to oil on occasion, but I definitely don't like oil enough to invest in the full price of this one!

Cellu-Cup - £16

First thought when I saw this item was pretty much 'what the frack?!', it's rather odd. It's designed to help fight cellulite basically, and is used on soapy wet skin or after applying oil. You basically slide it back and forth over the area you are wanting to treat. Now, in all honesty, I have not yet tried this product. It seems so random. But, having booked a holiday this week, I guess trying anything to fight cellulite is worth at least a few tries. My other half has already raised his eyebrow at this tho! I'll be keeping it in the handy wee bag anyway, it's just so odd looking! But hopefully it might help!

Candy Rock

This was one of Lulu's picks. Her newest collection apparently took inspiration from this kind of design in rock. Fair enough, not that exciting, but I'll certainly get it eaten. No bother.

English Laundry No.7 for Her - Full Size £47

Now, if you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you'll know I detest perfume samples or sachets of things. If I can ask for one for no cost in a department store or Boots, then I don't feel it's a good item to get in a beauty box I pay for. Basically. Every time I review my box on the birchbox site I comment on this as well, but still, here's another one. This one is very vanilla scented, not really my kind of fragrance I have to say. Far too sweet. It's nice to try new scents I agree, but if I really wanted to do that, I'd go and hit Boots.

Benefit Stay Don't Stray - Full Size £20.50

Finally, onto the other of Lulu's picks in this box. This is Benefit eye primer called Stay Don't Stray. It can be put on your eyelid as well as under the eye to help any concealer stay in place. I've been using this since I got it and it's been pretty decent so far. I normally use Urban Decays Primer Potion and this is certainly close to as good as that. It is helpful it comes with an applicator so you can limit how much product you use, and I guess you might get more out of the bottle than you could with the potion. It certainly does it's job, but if my primer potion is still cheaper than this, I won't be swapping over as yet.

So there you have it. March's collab box. I have to say, out of the items in this one, I will use everything, but I really only like 2 products (candy doesn't count!). Above you can see everything else that came with the box, a voucher to try Benefit's 'gimme brow' at a benefit counter, the usual insert card, the box covering and a booklet of 'Life Lessons as told by Lulu Guinness'. I have to say I didn't really learn anything by reading it other than things about her new collection and that she likes red lipstick. Fair enough, onto April!

Tara's Talons Luxury Cruise Nail Polish Review

Well today, we have more polish! Yey I hear me say! This is another lovely creation from Tara over at The Tara Emporium. This polish is a lovely silver with a blue tinge. I thought it also had a very subtle holo effect, which I just loved, it looked fabby under lights and in the sun! It was hard to capture on camera annoyingly though, but keep an eye out!

This is two coats of Luxury Cruise with an accent nail of Mentality Scalawag. I thought these went well together due to the tinge of blue, and again another subtle holo effect.

Then, not being one to leave a good mani alone, I hit it up with some different stamping effects. I decided to tone this together with a sea or water theme. I used the moyou london sailor plate for these images. I wore this for 4 days without any chipping, really great long lasting polish!

I like the subtle sea effect here and I felt that it really tied the two colours together well. Luxury Cruise is a great colour and very different from other silvers I have in my collection! Please feel free to head over to check out all the lovely Tarastalons polishes and the other amazing treats Tara is creating! She's also on Instagram (@thetaraemporium) and Facebook and always posting new polishes I want to buy! Next one I'm after has to be her gorgeous holo top coat! I can't resist me a good holo in general! Hope you guys have a good week! See you soon!

*this polish was sent to me for my honest review

Blog Sale Update!

Right guys! I've cleared out yet more polish! I need to try and clear as much of this as possible so please head on over to the blog sales page and see if anything takes your fancy!

http://boredatthenailbar.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-sales.html

Tara's Talons - Scrumping Nail Polish Review

 

Finally, we're back to the things I love! Oh yup, it's nail polish! This little cutie is called 'Scrumping' and it's made by the lovely Tara from Tara's Talons and The Tara Emporium. Tara's Talons is the longest running UK indie nail polish brand and I just love all her creations! There's such a selection to look through and I like the fact you can get them in bigger or smaller bottle sized options as well, means I can buy more I guess? hehe. Anyway! onto this little polish first of all!

I decided for this mani to use another polish underneath Scrumping, just to help really bring out the glitter as well as saving polish I guess! The picture at the top of the post (nail wheel) shows 2 coats of Scrumping on it's own, and this one is one coat of NYC Foil polish in Magic Earth, topped with 1 coat of Scrumping. I thought this colour really complimented Scrumping, and it really brought out the glitter. Scrumping is a light green polish with glitter fragments in red, light green, dark green and tiny gold glitter as well. it really reminded me of leaves for some reason, so I decided to stamp some on it too!

I used the Moyou London Mother Nature plate to do the leaves and I love how subtle they came out, just felt it added something different too! 

I really like how this mani turned out, what do you guys think? I've posted very little about nails so far because I'm so nervous around my pictures! I need to work on getting them perfect still, but I hope they let you see how lovely this polish is! I've got another review of another Tara's talons polish coming up this week as well, so hopefully I'll see you again for that! Please head on over to visit Tara's store online as well and check out her awesome selection of polish! She does custom polish as well, so there's so many options! And recently she's started selling cute midi rings and lovely soap and hand care products as well, so there's a lot to see! I certainly love the polish, so I'm sure anything else will be funky as well! Tara's always popping up pics of her lovely creations on instagram (@thetaraemporium) and Facebook as well, so head over for nosy if you fancy! See you guys later on!

*this polish was sent to me for my honest review

February Degusta Box Review

 

A different kind of review, but such a yummy one it's all good. At the start of February I spotted an ad for this box on facebook. At the time they were offering one month for £5, I thought I had nothing to lose really! It's normally £12.99 a month for the Degustabox and even then I think you get more for your money in that case. But for a fiver I couldn't pass it up. I forgot I ordered it as well, so I was really happy when it showed up and I couldn't believe how much stuff was in it! So here's a look at the contents!

 

 



 

You get a handy card with all the descriptions of the products and their prices on one side, and the other side has recipe ideas for some of the products as well. The two products focused on here were the Redcurrant Sauce (£1.80) and the Peppadew Peppers (£3) so that's really helpful!

 

 

Some old school Soren snacks, some original malt loaf (£1.39) and a pack of banana lunch box loaves (£1.35). The banana ones are yummy and make a decent on the run breakfast! Suits me then!

 

 

Some new style Ryvita treats in the shape of these Thins in the sweet chilli and Cheddar and black pepper flavours (£1.89 each) and nice and low in calories and pretty tasty as well so that helps!

 

 

And some different types of crisps. Tyrrell's Apple Crips in Cinnamon and Original (£1.15 each) These are interesting, and a nice snack if you're after a bit of a change!

 

 

These are energy drinks by Scheckler's (£1.35 each) and they are very berry flavoured. One was lower in calories but otherwise they are exactly the same. I am addicted to energy drinks since I don't drink coffee and these were really nice for a change from red bull.

 

 

Finally, the good stuff. Chocolate. These are from Bahlsen the Pickup bars (£1.60) are basically a slice of chocolate between two rich tea types biscuits. Nom. The Waffeletten (£1.65) are wafers with chocolate. Nom all round.

 

 

Now, that's quite a lot of food for a fiver. Even for the regular £12.99 you'd be saving money. You can choose what kind of products you'd like when you sign up as well, so hopefully you won't get much you won't like. The only thing I didn't think in this was the chutney, all good otherwise! Total box value was £22.37 - so that's a decent saving anyway! I'm gonna keep it going for another month anyway and see what treats I get in March!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February Shopping Haul

Starting to think this might become a regular monthly feature at the rate I'm going! normally I don't have very many shopping trips and I do far less random trips to the shops now I've changed jobs and I no longer work near shops so that's been helping and I'm spending less! Win Win! But in February one of my oldest friends was having a birthday party, so a small shopping trip was called for. Mostly in search of a dress or outfit to wear. But of course, I never managed to get an outfit. Instead I came back with other stuff. We hit Glasgow to get some bigger, better shops than usual, but still no success! But here's what I managed to sneak away with!

 

Philosophy - Pumpkin Pie and Apple Pie Shower Gels

 

 

First stop naturally was Boots. Where we all discovered these awesome bargains. I love Philosophy proudcts but very rarely will pay the high price that goes alongside them. However, Philosophy products on sale? I'm all over that. These were apparently from the Christmas range, and they were wait for it....£3.50 each. Holy Moly. And literally the apple pie one makes me hungry. Can't wait to get using these anyway! Yummy and a bargain, amazing.

 

Loreal Studio Line - Texturisng Spray and Heat Activated Wave Spray

 

I'd heard great reviews on this texturizing spray and thought I would have to try it on my curly hair days so I snapped it up. It was also buy 2 products for £4.50, so I found another one that took my fancy. Again, it's one to help with my curls, but I was curious and it states that drying my hair will still help keep waves and hopefully curls, so I need to get trying these both this weekend!

 

Forever 21 - Monochrome Scarf and Black Cardigan

 

 

Fairly standard for me. I needed another boring cardigan for work and I'm addicted to scarves. Pretty straight forward really. Plus the scarf is so soft it's loverly.

 

 

I also snapped up these accessories in Forever 21. Two funky hair bows and a chevron bracelet. I have a slgith thing for chevrons and I occasionally fancy bows in my hair at random times.  Not had a chance to use the bows as yet, annoyingly my job involves wearing a headset most of the time, so I'd probably end up knocking them around in my hair and looking silly. Save them for days off perhaps. I've worn the bracelet lots though so far, love it a lot. As far as I can remember the bracelet was £6.99 and the bows were around £4.

 

MAC - Black Grape Pressed Pigment and Amber Lights Eyeshadow

 

 

It's not a proper shopping trip to Glasgow without going into MAC really. I was only aiming to buy one more eyeshadow for my palette and somehow this pigment caught my eye. It's so shimmery. It spoke to me. Love them both. I have a feeling my MAC collection will just keep growing. Ahh well. What can you do?

 

Lush - Popcorn Lip Scrub and Celestial Moisturiser

 

 

In my aim for this year to wear lipstick more often, I thought I better start taking better care of my lips, so I headed right towards the lip scrubs when we hit Lush. And this one smells amazing, good thing you can eat it. I decided to go back to an 'old faithful' moisturiser I used to use a while ago that my skin seems to love. More than I would normally spend on a moisturiser, but my skin has been crying out for something decent, I thought it was worth a try going back to something I used to really like.

 

Shopping trip over. No outfit bought. I hit the internet shopping when I got home and found a dress though, so hooray!! but hey, it was a good day and I got some things I'm looking forward to using!