GOT THOSE JANUARY BLUES

The early, still-winter months are the perfect time for wearing blue nails. Dark blue is perfect if you want to fit with the whole dark and cold atmosphere of the season, but light blue can also work very well giving the image of frost.

For ages I had been looking for the perfect navy blue, then I found my saviour in the form of Essie. Essie's After School Boy Blazer (one of my favourite things about Essie is the amazing names she comes up with for all her nail varnishes) is my first Essie shade after spending hours agonising over the perfect colour to start my collection with. Much to my dismay neither of my local Boots or Superdrug had After School Boy Blazer in stock so I ended up having to order it online and now my mother thinks I am a crazy person for being that desperate.

The one thing I was not expecting when I opened this nail varnish was the size and shape of the brush. The brush is wide and flat and gives really good coverage of your nails in about three strokes- I really hate the fact that Barry M's brushes are really small and thin and make your nails look all streaky which Essie doesn't at all (Topshop nail varnishes also have really lovely and thick brushes). The size of the brush also means that it picks up a lot of nail varnish at once and you can easily paint three nails before having to stick it back in the bottle.

The colour came out really dark and thick after just one coat so I actually didn't bother with two coats like I normally would because there was simply no need to (though it would probably last longer with two). The thing I really love about After School Boy Blazer is that it's a really, really dark navy that looks black in some lights and I have been looking for a super dark navy for so long- it's the perfect colour and actually looks the same shade as it does in the bottle which nail varnishes never normally do. I have already fallen in love with this colour after only wearing it for about 10 minutes.

My nails dried super quickly and I have high hopes that it will not chip as it just looks like a high quality polish when wearing it.
Essie is quite pricey at £7.99 but this shade is beautiful and I will definitely be buying more soon (dying for the Mint Candy Apple one); good purchase I must say.

THE BEAUTY OF THE HEBRIDES

Last, last Christmas (which is 2012, last Christmas was actually 2013 now- woah) I was given a natural soap and lip balm by my father's friend who lives on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland (for those of you who have never heard of Lewis which I'm not surprised about, it is a very small island about an hour's plane ride from the top of Scotland where it is permanently cold and rainy and the only people who live their our my father's friend and his family and my best friend's family). Now that our geography lesson is over, I can continue with my point.

An example of the soap and packaging- smells divine

The Hebridean Soap Company (so named for being in the Outer Hebrides) is a lovely little company that makes mainly all-natural and handmade soaps and some other similar products like lip balm. Some of the wonderful and natural ingredients that go into these homemade products are: (in the lip balm) olive oil, castor oil, beeswax, coconut oil, blackseed oil and then whichever oil they chose for the flavouring. The soaps, which they are most known for, also have natural, local ingredients.

Mine currently looks a bit lumpy and gross- you can only see that I own a bit pink camera

It took me a while to get into these products as I was originally put off the hardness of the lip balm; I was also not that great a fan of the scent which is mocha (they do not make mocha anymore). I don't know if this is an age thing because I remember it always being a very hard product but had to break away the hard top layer before I could use it properly. Once I had though the product underneath was lovely and creamy.

This has got to be the best lip balm I have ever used, it is creamy and moisturising and leaves my lips looking and feel soft and amazing. I would actually say it is better than Burt's Bees and we all know how much I love my Burt. This is a product that is definitely worthy of much more recognition and high street-ness and I cannot stress how well it has worked.

The one thing you cannot deny about these products is how fantastically priced they are (£3.00 for the lip balm). The quality and price of these make fantastic and unusual presents for people as it is an excellent but very unknown brand (truthfully I wouldn't have known about them if it wasn't for friends living there and, unless you live there or know people who do, no one will have heard of them either).

Reads' Mocha, Natural lipbalm'- this one is no longer available but they do sell peppermint, strawberry, tiramisu, marshmallow and coconut

I love these products, they have the whole essence and beauty of the Isle of Lewis summarised into one product (if you ever get the chance to go then you should, there is nothing to do but it's absolutely beautiful), the ingredients are exceptional and I will not hesitate to buy from them soon.

LOSING MY VIRGINITY

Despite the slightly awkward title, this is not going to be some deep and intimate post about that sort of thing but instead is how I lost my Lush Snow Fairy virginity. I don't know how it's possible that I haven't used Snow Fairy before now as everyone raves about it so much but there is was under my tree on Christmas morning (I will be doing quite a few reviews on products I got for Christmas) and now I can go out with confidence and say that I have tried Snow Fairy instead of keeping quite that I hadn't...

Snow Fairy Shower Gel (100g bottle):
I was very excited to try this as everyone loves it so much and the colour and packaging makes for a very pretty product. My first impression was that it smelt very, very sugary and sickly and I was not sure how I felt about that as it's not the nicest smell in the world. After writing that sentence I checked the bottle and it claims to smell like candy floss and pear drops which would explain the sickly smell but my love of pear drops has got me wishing that Lush had made a separate product that smelt just like pear on its own.
On the actual product itself, it's just a nice shower gel really, and I smell nice throughout the day which is always good (I can confirm that the scent has currently lasted throughout a 10 hour day); the one thing I must say is that it works as an excellent bubble bath if you like lots of bubbles (who doesn't).
I would say this is more of a summer scent as it is sweet and fresh and I associate winter with more dark and heavier scents.

Snow Fairy Sparkle Massage Bar:
I actually couldn't remember how to use these as its been so long and they are slightly different from bath bombs which I normally use so I have to go to Youtube and watch other people describe how to use them. The great thing about this is that is a quite big and you can use it more than once (something you can't do with a big bath bomb).
The smell is exactly the same as the shower gel (obviously) but a bit subdued which I think makes for a better product. The bar itself starts to melt the minute you pick it up yet it also feels quite waxy.
I hate to say it but I actually really don't like this product, it leaves this weird neon pink residue all over you (luckily I only tried it out on my legs first) but due to the waxy consistency it is really hard to get off (I've actually stained a white flannel neon pink trying to do so). It also made my legs feel very waxy afterwards- luckily I had a moisturiser to hand. I am disappointed as I was looking forward to trying this and it had the potential to be really great. Plus now that I've used it and got it wet I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with it as it is melting everywhere.

My overall view of Snow Fairy is that it is highly overrated. It is a nice shower gel but I just don't think it is worthy of the mass hype it gets (saying this I will probably buy it again next Christmas). I think the scent is a little too artificial and overpowering and they could do with toning down the sickly-sweetness of it slightly. I will also definitely NOT be ever buying a massage bar again as I really do not like the waxy texture or the weird residue it leaves.
Much to my immense disappointment the Christmas sale must have ended around new years day but as I didn't get back from various visiting trips until January 2nd I missed out on getting the So White and Golden Wonder bath bombs which I was dying to try but will now have to wait for next Christmas to do so. Boo.

DUSTING OFF YOUR SAVIOUR

I have an open love-hate relationship with the Body Shop Born Lippy pots as they are my favourite lip balms and they smell amazing but I find them very drying to the lips and too sticky on your fingers, the pigment is also not that great. I'd known for a while that Body Shop did a stick version of the Born Lippys but I had always ignored them as I assumed the flavours would be the same and there would be no point in my having a look. Oh how wrong I was.

When on Christmas day I opened a stick version of Born Lippy in purple my initial thought was 'oh look passionberry, yes, okay, I like this one' but it was actually a plum flavour that I can only describe as smelling like heaven (I cannot stress how amazing this smells I want to eat it or be it or smother it all over my body in a fit of madness). In reality the Born Lippy sticks are actually all completely different flavours to the pots (with the exception of strawberry which has got to be the Born Lippy's finest flavour- except maybe guava, I'm going off on  tangent here).

The formula for the sticks is much creamier and more of a balm than the pots, there is also much more of a pigment (I have only tried out the plum flavour which is purple in the tube but comes out as more of a sheer purple-pink), however I am assuming that the others will also be quite pigmented. The lip balm feels amazing on your lips, it makes them so smooth and lovely and it doesn't leave a weird white rabies-thing around your lips like a lot of other balms (and the Born Lippy tubs) do.

This lip balm is my saviour- it moisturises my lips to smooth perfection while adding the perfect daily purple tint (and we all know how much I love my purple lips more than anything) and in a super short time it has become one of my most favourite lip products in the world ever.

Wow indeedy; pretty accurate representation of the colour though comes out more sheer- you can slightly see the darker colour of the tube here.

I am absolutely so much in love with the Born Lippy sticks and will 1001% be buying more I cannot recommend them enough.
(My friend actually bought one on my recommendation when we were in Body Shop the other day, going mad and spending fortunes, she got the pomegranate one which is bright red in the tube and comes out a red-orange colour on the lips).

Born Lippy Pot Flavours:
Raspberry
Satsuma Shimmer (has a shimmer if the name was not clear)
Strawberry
Watermelon
Passionberry
Guava (unknown if this is still available- I believe not)

Born Lippy Stick Flavours:
Lychee (has a slight glittery shimmer to it)
Plum
Pomegranate
Strawberry
Toffee
Pink Berry

Everything is so much less stressful now that I don't have to blog every day anymore, it's quite nice.

I WILL COMPLETE MY RESOLUTION

So here's something I've never thought of doing before...

One of my news years resolutions was to read more as I used to be really into reading and I would read all the time but for the past couple of years I've barely read at all. Recently I've found that I'm starting to fall back in love with it and my aim this year is to push myself and read instead of putting it off and playing Mario Kart instead.

I am hoping to try and do a new thing on here (starting in February) where I talk about books I've read in the past month or books that I've read  previously and loved. Though I am certain my reading will start to slack again come April-June as that is AS level exams time I am determined that this year I will complete at least one of my news years resolutions (especially since this year I have bothered to actually make some)!