Estee Lauder Blue Dahlia

Impetuous, spontaneous, foolhardy.  Mrs Instant Gratification, that's me.  Decide at 7pm on a Wednesday evening that I am a Bright Spring who should only ever wear teal and by lunch time on Thursday I have spent £35 on blue eye shadow and had my hair colour darkened as I have decided, based on nothing at all, that it will look much better with my new colourful wardrobe.  For once my leaping in seems not to have back fired.  

Having decided that I needed colour I spent a considerable time online googling the various options, no point wanting anything from Guerlain or Laura Mercier as neither of those are available in Huddersfield.  Clarins is nice but safe, maybe? Lancome was a possibility but knowing that I love Estee Lauder DWL and having seen that the eye palettes were both beautiful and, comparatively, affordable I created a bit of a yearning for an Estee Lauder palette and given my new found love of colour the only one that was ever going to tick all the boxes was Blue Dahlia.

It wasn't until I got to Huddersfield I thought to consider that perhaps it was no longer available, given that it first appeared ages ago as part of a limited edition.  Luckily I needn't have worried, apparently it was limited ed but proved so popular its now part of the main collection.  Wanna see some pics?!

 

The familiar iconic EL gold case which feels nicely weighty.

I am sure everyone has seen this a million times so these photos are completely self-indulgent.  I fell in love with the teal and the shimmering navy but it's the taupe that pulls everything together and makes it all so wearable if you are a bit colour shy.

 The white isn't white, it is an opalescent shimmer, no frost, no whiteness, just the most beautiful opal glitter.  Not immensely wearable admittedly but to add a little something to an evening eye it's perfect.

The photo above best shows the glitter, especially if you click on it to see the larger photo. 

As you would imagine the colours are a dream to apply.  I very unusually have a morning where I haven't had to get up to do breakfast for guests so I had the chance to play.  Ordinarily for the day I suspect I'd go taupe all over the lid and then use either the teal or the navy on my upper lash line and I would always intend to go all out and use the colour properly on a night out and then would chicken out and never do it.  This morning I decided that if I was going to spend £35 on coloured eye shadow I wasn't going to shy away from using it.

A bit much for Co-op in Elland on a Saturday morning I'll grant you, but I do love it!  I had read that the Estee Lauder way to wear was the teal all over the mobile lid, taupe in the crease and the navy on the outer corner and top and bottom lash line, or something along those lines so that's what I did.  I still have slightly puffy eye lids as a result of a run in with corneal erosion on Thursday night, once they deflate fully things will look a lot better.  I really like how the taupe took away the scaryness of all that colour and of course once I put my glasses on it takes things down a notch as well.  For a night out I would definitely just put a little of the opal glitter in the inner corner just to lift that area and I might be tempted to pull more of the navy up into the outer V, I played it safe this morning so as not to frighten myself! I am surprised at how comfortable I feel in this much colour, I think the darker hair helps a lot and having agreed with Helen that scarves do me no favours I felt the need to wear this one just to pull things together until I stop spending money on teal eye shadow and start spending it on teal clothes!  Just in case anyone is wondering I am wearing ELDWL, Clinique colour correcting powder, Laura Mercier Second Skin Blush in Rose Petal, Dior Addict Extreme lipstick in Paparazzi, Benefit they're real mascara and Benefit Browzings in light on my brows, which are also much better with my darker hair.

And whilst I need no encouragement if anyone has any other eye shadows that they think I might love please let me know.  I did find the most gorgeous teal sweater in Monsoon that is now on my wish list, along with fuschia leather gloves from M&S, also on the list!  As a result of all of this I felt it only right that my much beloved UD Naked palette wasn't left to languish lonely and unloved so I have given it to Emily, needless to say I am currently her favourite mummy!
    

NOTD - L'Oreal Color Riche Rebel Blue

I LOVE when this happens, when a nail varnish that looked a bit meh in the bottle looks fantastic on the nail!  I mentioned before that I had expected this to be more of a cobalt blue when Em brought it home on Wednesday and was disappointed with it, especially with the shimmer.  Which is why I waited until today, Sunday, to try it.  

It looks so much darker and brighter on the nail than in the bottle, much nearer the cobalt shade I had in mind, I am really pleased.  I am not sure if its because of the shimmer but this one seems less glossy than the creams, not massively but just a tad.  I also am less impressed with the brush on this one, it is a bit fatter than the others and I struggled to apply the polish neatly; all my notd pics are without clean up - I have very sensitive skin so avoid using nail varnish remover unless its to actually remove an entire manicure, which is why I need polishes with great brushes.  Any polish with a huge brush that spits polish into my cuticles soon falls out of favour and into the bin.  Onto the pics:

Still not the dupe for Nails Inc Belgrave Place that I am searching for - I know I could just buy Belgrave Place but I am not really a fan of Nails Inc polish, I have had some very dodgy brushes, which whilst irritating in a £4.99 polish is appalling in something that costs £11.50 or thereabouts, I have a feeling though that I am going to have to cave at some point and buy this one.  Hope everyone is having a fab weekend.

More L'Oreal Color Riche Nail Varnish - Blue Reef, Rebel Blue & Beige Countess

I am obsessed!! sent Emily back to Boots in her lunch break on Wednesday to pick up Rebel Blue and Blue Reef for me.  Have taken pics of both and added the  Beige Countess that Em bought on Tuesday and has worn since, its a lovely "work appropriate" nude!  So enough waffle, on with the pics!

Rebel Blue, Blue Reef, Beige Countess - again all very colour accurate

Numbers and names in same order as above

Rebel Blue has some shimmer to it, which was a disappointment - when I saw it on Tuesday I was convinced it was a cobalt cream but when Em brought it home on Weds it was less cobalt and had this annoying shimmer into the bargain - L'Oreal please please please a bright, gorgeous Cobalt cream the colour of the Hermes Birkin bag would be perfect, thank you!

The shimmer isn't really visible here

The lone bottle pic for this one came out too dark, this is colour accurate.

If you click on this one to enlarge you can see shimmer running up the middle

I wore Rue Monmartre for 3 days with only a very small amount of tip wear, no base, no top coat.  I only took it off because I was sooo desperate to try Blue Reef.  Which looks like this:

Oops nearly forgot - I got a better pic of the brush which is flat and with a curved end and makes application a breeze.



 So gorgeous it hurts!  So hope this inspires some weekend nail splurging, please please let me know which you bought and what you thought!  And if anyone knows of a the perfect, super glossy cobalt cream pleas let me know - I had the Barry M one, but its not glossy enough and Barry M polish doesn't light my fire, sorry!!

M&S Autograph Nail Varnishes

I first saw these nail varnishes on A Vain Woman and instantly fell in love with the colours.  Then my mum came to visit and raved about her bright red M&S nail varnish and how fab it was and I decided that I really needed to investigate.

Having had a good look at the stand in M&S I decided that I really did need the yellow, soft orange and duck egg blue that Cecilia had posted.

As soon as I got home I had a play and was instantly really impressed; even the lemon yellow wasn't too streaky and was nice and opaque.

Aren't they lovely?  I really love the soft orange, Em has worn the yellow to great effect with her black maxi and whilst I think the blue is very pretty its a bit "frosty" to be an absolute fave. The brush, formula and wear on all 3 are brilliant although having done a pedi on Em with the soft orange that was deemed as looking like "nicotine toes" would suggest keeping that one for your finger nails!

I am having some real issues with Revlon nail varnish at the moment.  I bought Blue Lagoon which was streaky and wouldn't dry and then I bought Mad About Mango, the colour is lovely but again the formula and brush leave a lot to be desired.  To me it feels a bit like Revlon are jumping on the "trendy" bandwagon at the cost of the quality for which they were renowned, style over substance sums it up for me, a real shame.  And they ought to look to their laurels, when M&S are bringing out £3 polishes with better application and wear something is not right.  Strongly recommend a quick browse round the M&S nail polish stand next time you have 5 mins spare.

NOTD - GOSH Lavender Love

Had real issues trying to capture the actual colour of this, the bottle in the pic below is closest.  It is a truly gorgeous perriwinkle blue and I love it.  

Last year had my heart set on Essie Lapis of Luxury but couldnt find it anywhere, the minute I spotted this was pretty sure it was dupe'ish (if anyone has both would love to see how close these two are?!)

Have had GOSH polishes in the past and not been particularly overwhelmed but the application of this was lovely nice and opaque in two coats and wear is tolerable, am off base coat and top coat at the mo, none of my nail varnish applies well over a base coat for some reason?

I also nearly quite literally peed my pants in Boots when I spied this

Charlotte at Lipglossiping had been tempting us with the new Butter London collection, Lady Muck was calling my name and then to make matters worse she did a blue comparison post and Essie Sag Harbour was yelling it.
The minute I spotted this Revlon Blue Lagoon I nabbed it, its pale blue, which I love and it has glitter, which I don't normally but needed it to satisfy this particular craving!

Tell me that's not beautiful? Applies like a total biatch though, streakfest from hell.  Took 4 coats and then 6 hrs after application I picked its still tacky self off my nails.  Will be trying this one again without base coat just to see if its the Rimmel 3 in 1 base top and strengthen that's causing me issues.  The glitter in this is sort of flat, not sparkly so it gives the nail varnish a texture rather than a sparkle, it is quite beautiful and might be best spotted by clicking on the photo above to make it a bit bigger. 

Sorting out the links I am delighted to notice that Revlon Blue Lagoon isn't the same shade as Essie Sag Harbour at all so thats fab, means there is no excuse not to have both!

FOTD - when bad eye shadow happens to good people

After yesterdays rather dull neutral FOTD I decided today I wanted to incorporate the blue in a more wearable, day friendly eye.

Please bear in mind that I get up at 5.50am. I have to be ready to run Em down the hill at 6.50am and in that time I have to shower, beat my hair into submission and do my "face". Mistakes are not an option. So this morning I slapped on my UDPP and grabbed the blue matte Revlon shadow and whacked it all over the mobile lid. So far so blah. So thought I'd try blending. Now have an eyelid with nasty patchy stains and blue eye shadow all over one hand.  At this point my options were a) do breakfast for guests with one blue eye or b) slap some blue onto 2nd eye and hope applying foundation would balance things out.  Once I had smeared blue eye shadow over 2nd eye decided only way out was to then apply the same blue to the crease.  At this point I looked like the "before" from "Ten Years Younger" as in "Debbie is aware that she has been stuck in an eye shadow rut for 20 yrs and is still wearing the same blue eye shadow she wore in 1986".  In an absolute panic I wiped a smear of Buck from the Naked palette into the crease and attempted some kind of blending action.

see what I mean? Not exactly fab is it but not a bad recovery if you had seen the dire big blue mess I was before adding the brown!
 
Emily came in and took one look at my blue stained hands and masses of tissues all covered in blue matte eye shadow (bloody stuff wont blend but it does get everywhere!) and said I looked like a kid who had nicked her mums make up kit. And she still expected a lift down the hill.

I had a go at mixing some of the GOSH Cappuccino and the Revlon Matte in Mink to make a slightly darker nude lippy.  Off for a facial this pm and need to buy a nude lip pencil, as my Bobbi Brown Cocoa one leans too orange to work with this colour.  Also need to invest in some kind of lip buff and lip primer I think.
Onwards and upwards folks, not a triumphant fotd but I think its good to share the lash ups too! 

Over the Taupe

See what I did there?  Decided to have a play with my recent purchases so inevitably ended up with a blue eye and nude lips. What do you think? It IS over the top for day wear but when I do EOTN its dark and I cant take proper pics so decided to do it in the middle of the day so I could share.


Excuse the hair, it's having a moment all of its own today.
 

Decided to have a go at "contouring" as well. Nicked Em's bronzer and had a swipe about although frankly would putting a brown stripe down the side of a football contour it? I think not but at least the bronzer is better than blush would have been *hello clown face*.


Used Revlon shadow in Peacock Lustre over mobile lid. Revlon Matte in Riviera blue into crease and underneath.  Tightlined with No 7 Gel liner in blue top and bottom. Virgin from Naked brow bone and inner corner.  MUA in bright green inside of mobile lid and the usual L'Oreal mascara and Clinique brow pencil.

Lips are a combination of GOSH Cappuccino and Revlon Matte in Mink - just a hint of this to give it a bit of colour.  Was sure I couldn't do nude lips, am LOVING this! So be kind if you think it looks vile, but for godsake tell me!
 

Took pics with grown up camera with $$ wide angle lens, hope I don't look too melty faced as a result!

Oh and finally quick point and shoot snap of eye in close up.

 As this is a total deviation from the norm for me would really appreciate your feedback!
Post edit: am now worrying about that rather vast ski-slope forehead (savage receeding hair line or wot?!)

W7 - Sheer Blue

It's not Models Own Beths Blue, which my heart desires, but is is a very light baby blue so there was no way on this earth I was going to walk past it! For £1.99 I felt even the frugalist blogger could afford to add to her stash as well! Whilst it is a streak fest of super runny pale blue polish it evens out in, oh around 4 coats and you need to make sure you use it in a well ventilated area, a 10 acre field in a nor'westerly gale should cover it! Apart from all that I right proper love the colour.



Did a rapid style swatch as was DESPERATE to try this!

See what I mean about streaky, just be glad you cant smell it.


Just the perfect shade of baby blue.

Have had this on a couple of days so was going to change it this eve, but before I did decided to have some fun and did tips in Models Own Lilac dream, not my best work admittedly but I like how these 2 look together, had meant to do black tips on Lilac Dream before I took that off at the weekend and forgot so will try and remember next time I wear it.