Hey guys

Iv'e been playing around with the Vice 2 palette for a week now so that I could do a review as well as swatches. This is the first Urban Decay palette I have purchased and did a lot of research (watching youtube videos) and shopping around before I finally went ahead and committed to buying it. I wanted to get this pallet as the colours are perfect for this season but most shades I would wear all year round. I was really impressed with the palette overall. But was disappointed that it only came with a brush (which is ok for blending but not for actually putting makeup on) and not with a primer potion or a eyeliner as most other urban decay palettes do.

On with the pictures...

 All the shades are incredibly beautiful with the majority being shimmers instead of mattes. I would expect more mattes if this wasn't a christmas palette but as it is I like that there are only two true matte shades.

The amount of different blacks in this palette was slightly annoying as I would have preferred any other shade as I don't feel urban decay does black shades that well. I liked smokeout the best of all the blacks as it has a red glitter (this is the first colour on the left in the pic above) Lovesick is an average black glitter shade that is more gray then black when swatched. Next in the picture is Shellshock which is the most amazing silver shadow I have ever owned. I've been using this on the inner corner of my eyes a lot since I got this, I love this shade. Then comes the light pinks, coax and x-rated, that are ok yet I don't tend to use pink shadows so these I will probably use the least. 

The next row down in the palette has these colours. Starting with prank, which I'm so glad looks good in the swatch, is a dark blue with teal glitter which is so beautiful but most swatches I saw of this just looked like another black shade. Next comes madness a shimmery blue I like this colour but it comes out a lot lighter than it looks in the pan but is a lovely shade none the less. Next is strike an amazing gold shadow, its not as pigmented as shellshock but I love it all the same and have been wearing a lot of gold eye looks recently. Stash comes next which is a darker golden/ olive colour which is one of my favourite shades in the palette. Poison is another black/ charcoal shade which is nice for creating a smokey look.

The first shade here is the golden brown radar which I teamed with stash the other day which looked so pretty. Next is Damaged a metallic deep green which is my favourite as it is so buttery and easy to blend without losing its pigmentation. Then comes the two purples Voodoo the darker next to betrayal. The last shade in the row is Derailed which I have on while writing this.

In the last row Is Dope a shimmery nude pink which is nice as a brow bone highlight (wearing this today also) Next is Toxic a rose gold colour that I think is perfect for christmas and I will probably be wearing this on christmas day (which is also my birthday). After this comes Habit which I have used as a base shadow colour each time I use this palette I put this colour all over my lid, as its a matte shade, before I start adding the other colours. Next comes Ambush a golden brown shade perfect for adding drama to a more natural look. Then last comes Rewind a matte brown shade that I've been using to slightly define my brows. 

Overall I am really impressed with this palette. I feel it is definitely worth the price as I picked this up on beautybay.com for £36 instead of the normal £42 (its currently 15% of on debenhams website I think)  but even at full price if you do the math it works out as £2.10 for each individual shade which is a lot less than you would pay for some drug store shadows. I really recommend getting this sooner rather than later if you intend to buy this as it is limited edition. 

Hope you enjoyed

What is your favourite shade or name of shade?

Lauren :P

Hey guys,

As I said in one of my latest posts I've been on a real palette buying kick recently. I picked up this palette and a couple other products to get the 3 for 2 offer that superdrug, and boots, are doing at the moment. I really wanted to try an MUA palette as I have a few of the singles (I will go into these in a separate post) and wanted to see if the palettes were as good. I'm not a big fan of neutral makeup and like to experiment with makeup, so I wasn't that excited about this. I however have been loving gold and copper shadows so was looking forward to trying out those shades.  

I was glad that the majority of these weren't matte finishes as I do prefer shimmery shadows. I loved the golds and coppers and was surprised to fall for the pink rose gold shade which is the bottom shade in the picture above.

The pigmentation of the shimmers was really great yet the mattes let this palette down as they lack pigmentation. 

The packaging isn't the best and the brushes that come with these sort of palettes I always just throw away. It is nice that you can see the colours through the clear top of the palette. Overall it feels a bit cheap but for only £4 this is a steal and I would definitely recommend to any neutral shimmery eyeshadow lover. I think the single shadows(£1) are of a much better quality but the palettes do work out cheaper as each shadow in them works out to  34p each.

Hope you enjoyed
Lauren :P

Hey guys,

I said I would post swatches of the new barry M polishes that I bought and I finally swatched the last polishes. In the matte swatches I've done more of a simple nail design by doing half one colour then matte black on the other half. I thought that would be slightly more interesting than just plain old swatches!

Onto the swatches...

Barry M vanilla with black over the top.

Barry M crush with matte black. (sorry about my cuticles I always forget to clean them :P)

Barry M lady. Was actually nicer irl, it looks really gloopy and horrible in this picture I think as I smudged it a bit. 

Barry M majesty. A lovely textured gold polish perfect for christmas/ the winter. The textured polishes were so hard to remove and it didn't help that I ran out of remover half way through so then had to pick bits of it off. (My hands look sore in this photo but I think thats as I had just removed Barry M berry cosmo which made my cuticles look a bit pink)

To be honest I still am not really a fan of the textured polish. Also I like these better than other ones I've seen I don't like the feel of the polish and it uses too much top coat to get a smooth surface (they just feel like grit stuck to the nail all be it shiny pretty grit, they may grow on me though). Also they are such a pain to remove. I much prefer the matte polishes, I love crush and the black but vanilla didn't really suit my skin tone.

Overall I have mixed feelings on these new polishes and would have preferred a few new gelly polish launches. 

Hope you enjoyed.

Please leave a comment and If any of you have a blog you would like me to follow and you follow me back just ask :P

xoxo  

Hey guys, I finally went and picked up a couple of the new barry M mattes and textured polishes. As I only just moved to uni it has taken me a while to find the superdrug as these polishes are only available there until they come to boots in the first week of october.

 I got three mattes and three textured as some of the colours I did not really fancy and I didn't want to spend that much money. I got the matte ones in vanilla, a pale nude/ pink, espresso the black and crush the red/dark red depending on how many coats you apply. I haven't swatched theses yet but I will show swatches as and when I wear the polishes. I may combine them into outfit of the day posts so keep a look out :P.

 The textured polishes I got where Lady, the white snow queen polish, Countess a browny purple colour with pink and gold glitter (which I have swatched) and Majesty the gold. I much prefer these textured polishes to the other ones barry m created. Although, I do not own any of the old ones I disliked the way they looked in swatches I had seen. I fell in love with the gold polish but haven't worn it yet as I mainly wear silver jewellery and do not feel the two would go well.

 I love the golds that barry M make and this one is  the textured dupe of the gold foil polish which is one of my fave of all time polishes. I am currently wearing Countess and you can definitely feel the texture of the polish (almost sandpaper like) I tried to add a top coat but you need to apply a few coats to take away the texture.

I am really impressed with the textured polishes and the matte seem nice. I will review them all soon but I could not be bothered to go through taking of all the textured polishes today lol

Hope you enjoy,

Lauren :P

Hey guys,

I've got some nail art for you today. I decided to do this sort of creepy design as I am obsessed with eyes and wanted to create a comic style design. First pics then a tutorial.

To create this design I started by painting a base colour of china glaze stone cold (part of last years hunger games collection) I like this polish as it dries matte and so creates a great contrasting finish. I next used a dotting tool to add white dots and then outlined this using a tooth pick dipped in black Barry M and then created a dot in the middle of the white and then in between the eyes.

I like this design but don't think it's one of my best

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think and please like and subscribe.

I'm on tumblr, twitter, pintrest,facebook, instagram and google+

Hi, I've decided to use a simple technique that is very effective, sponging. There are lots of tutorials on youtube on how to do this but I like to keep my nail designs quite simple and some of the gradients were very bright! So I chose to do the sponging as detail over matte nails to create the effect of fluffy white clouds. This would also look great in a bubblegum pink to look like candy floss. Pictures first then the how to.

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Hi, I've got another simple design for you today. I thought as my blog is named after a form of stripe I better post a stripe'y design. Pictures first than the how to.

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Hi again just a quick post on how I do matte black nails.

To start I painted my nails in Barry M black, this needed two coats. After this was dry I painted them with Rimmel's Matte finish top coat. I bought this as it was cheap (£4.69) in comparison to some matte top coats. It does the job but does not show up well when photographs so I may have to invest in something more expensive. After this was dry I tried to do tips the way I normally would by putting circular stickers on the nail. This due to the amount of coats or because I did not let it dry enough kept smudging so I had to start over again :( I found it easier in the end due to just freehand the high shine coat(Sally Hansen insta-dri) onto the tips.

Hope you enjoyed.