After reading Leanne's post on the Body shop Monoi Miracle Body Oil I decided I needed to make a detour to check it out, in spite of seriously limited funds at the moment! The oil is lovely but I have a feeling that the one they had on display had been sat open for some time as it had a slightly unpleasant petrolly whiff to it which rather masked the "holiday" smell that Leanne was getting from hers. Did pick up a travel mini of the Aloe calming cleanser - my £10 bottle has run out and like I send being careful with the pennies so a travel size bottle for £3 was perfect not least because I am away for work next week.
Whilst I was in the The Body Shop I spotted a fantastic nail gizmo - am probably years behind everyone on this and you have all been using them for ages, but in case not this is a heads up! In their Almond hand care range they have a fab Almond nail and cuticle oil, it comes in a pen with a brush and you turn the base to load the brush and then run it round your cuticles and nails. Mum bought me something similar ages ago which I kept on my desk and used religiously, as she said something about using the brush to apply and then massage in the oil seemed to really help and of course its quick and non-messy. So all great so far but nothing outrageously fab, where this item got kudos from me is that instead of just having a cap on the brush it is fitted with a good sturdy plastic hoof, like those flimsy ones you get on the old traditional hoof stick which frankly never seemed to achieve much in my opinion, although to my shame I have been known to use some pretty dreadful things in an attempt to shift my cuticles including an old false nail and the edge of the nail cleaner on a pair of metal nail clippers, isn't that awful? I always use an orange stick because they work I have always felt the proper hoof stick rubber tip didn't quite do the trick but as I say the one on the Body Shop nail oil looks much sturdier. This costs £7 which seems like a bargain to me - she says moving her half litre of olive oil that cost £1.50 to one side!
I do have to confess to a couple of purchases today - a Rimmel nail varnish in a light teal/turquoise called Sky High, a real splurge on Paul Mitchell Relaxing hair balm my excuse being that I have bendy hair that drives me insane and only good styling products will do the trick!! and some Sally Hansen Acetone free nail polish remover, used up the last of the Co-Op cheapo stuff last week and am paying the price; the skin is quite literally peeling off of my hands, ouch.
This is Sky High - taken with flash because it's beyond dreary outside!
I tried to tweak the colour to show you that its much more of green turquoise than a blue one.
And just to prove that even though I have the Barry M turquoise, it leans blue and this leans green so I did NEED it!!
Although that photo would suggest otherwise!
And a quick update on Barry M blues - just for comparisons sake:
L-R: Pale Blue, Cyan Blue, Turquoise
A post without photo's is like, well loads of stuff really; toast without butter, Coke without ice, Bank holiday without sunshine, you know what I mean - I have worked all day, one of the joys of being freelance is that I can work today and then take a day off later in the week when the sun is shining.
So here it is, Barry M Cyan Blue, it's another keeper, although if I am honest it is giving me the boiled beef fingers of terror. But right now I love it enough that I am prepared to over look that! It is a really bright blue and the finish on this is one of the best I have had with a Barry M - opaque in 2 coats and very smooth. I did a 3rd hasty coat for the photos and the brush marks you can see are from rushing, no top coat.
As you can see I have had a bit of a "self destruct" moment - when I have more than 2 glasses of wine for some reason I go into self destruct mode and decide that biting my nails isn't a vile habit that makes me cry but actually a lovely way to spend an evening. Luckily I caught myself just in time and dashed off to grab my glass file and sort them out before I could make it any worse. Still woke up in a cold sweat the next morning to check the damage in the cold light of day. I am convinced that there are no ex-nail biters, we just aren't biting them at the moment.
Isn't it lovely - this is taken outside on the greyest of bank holidays.
My mum sent me a pressie this weekend, she and my sister have been using Sally Hanson natural shine which is chock full of vitamins and minerals. Mum has very similar nails to me, or actually I have very similar nails to her - its genetic and she had them first! They flake and peel and we both suffer from a complete inability to not make a flake worse, even though we know how awful we are going to feel when we have done it. She is taking Perfectil and reckons they have really helped her nails but also thinks using Natural Shine has done its bit in terms of keeping the nail itself nourished and thought I might like to try it, hugs mum! I put 2 coats of this on, under my base coat and as I said this is the best Barry M application I have had so maybe it helped? You are supposed to use the nail shine on clean nails without polish but I just cant do the no polish thing so hoping that sealing all those nourishing things on my nail with nail varnish will make it work even better!
I am still massaging in lashings of olive oil too to see if that helps, it seems to be helping my cuticles so lets hope that in 3 months I will have nice strong nails - what seems even more unfair is that I don't even want long nails, just nice non-flaking, all the same length short healthy nails - not too much to ask is it?
Idea for a future post from Fran, cheers hen!, what would be your "Desert Island essential". If you were going to be ship wrecked which one beauty product would you be glad you had stashed in your bikini? Email me your absolute, can't live without, must have essential!
