Beauty Box Review // Birchbox July 2019

Deary deary me. What a sad sorry box we have this month. If I was less than impressed last month, July's box did nothing to help alleviate those sentiments. It's a shame as there were some good products that you could've received but I feel as though I got the duds. I would've loved the glamglow cream, the percy and reed fragrance and lumene skin tint but no. I got an 11ml sample of body lotion and a pillow spray that smells like paxo stuffing.

The box as always is cute though and I got some good nails out of it, but I'm seriously having to evaluate if I should be spending £12.95 a month to get nail art inspiration.

Floss Beauty // My Everyday Eyeshadow in Tokyo

Full Size - RRP £12.50

I actually forgot to choose what shade I wanted but I wasn't bothered either way as they were extremely similar with being a champagne nude and the other a soft coral. I ended up with Tokyo which is a pink champagne shade. It's shimmer to the extreme and I've also been using it as a highlighter. It is genuinely a lovely shade with great pigmentation. I tend to just apply it with my fingers and then use some orange shades from the ABH Soft Glam palette with it. I'm very surprised as this is my favourite item in the box, but that's not saying much as the other items aren't exactly great. This is also another item that is exclusive to Birchbox...most of their fullsize items for the past few months now have been exclusives from brands I've never heard of. 

Marcelle // Xtension Plus Curl Mascara

4.5ml  Sample Size - RRP £7.67 (based on £14.50 for 8.5ml)

I had high hopes for this as I'm completely in love with the Marcelle BB cream (it's my holy grail BB cream) but it falls short. I do like that it has a small curved wand making it easier to get into the corners but the formula itself does almost nothing. I can see some slight lengthening but for the most part two coats doesn't really do much. It's no Ciaté Wonderwand or Too Faced Better Than Sex. There isn't any clumping though so it's got that going for it.

This Works // Deep Sleep Pillow Spray

5ml Travel Size - RRP £6

I think I've recived this about 10 times now and I'm sick of it. I've had it in Glossybox, Look Fantastic, Pink Parcel, Powder Box, Latest In Beauty...every beauty box subscription I've had, this has been in it at some point. I'm dreading the moment we get a full size version in FabFitFun...I know it will happen. Anyway, I hate this stuff. It's not relaxing; it smells like cooked chicken. It just makes me hungry and then I get annoyed because it's bedtime and I can't eat anything. I'm just sick of seeing it in boxes and I want them to give it a rest.

Palmer's // Coconut Oil Body Lotion

11ml Sample - RRP £0.15 (based on £5.49 for 400ml)

I actually can't believe this is in here. This should have been an extra item not an item in the box. It even says on the back of the sample "compliments of palmer's" meaning that it's a free sample. If this had been a 50 or 100ml sample I wouldn't have been as angry but 11ml? This didn't even cover my entire body. I have nothing against Palmer's because I love their products; they're great quality for a fantastic price and this moisturiser is no exception but I'm extremely disappointed in Birchbox for sending this as an item. On their insta they're defending it by saying they "love sending out trial sizes for discovery" but literally everyone in the UK knows what Palmer's is. If you've ever been in a Superdrug or Boots, you know Palmer's. Their cocoa butter moisturiser is one of the best smelling moisturisers in the world. This sample size was pretty pathetic though; especially given that the full size of 400ml is only £5.49.

Percy & Reed // Oh So Smooth Frizz Fixer

50ml Travel Size - RRP £7.00

Eh, this is ok. I generally like Percy & Reed hair care products and this smells nice. It's also nice to have an actually decent sized sample as well. I used this on my graduation to try and keep my hair in check as it was a particularly humid day and it went well. I didn't notice my hair getting any bigger and it kept it smelling nice. The only problem is that your supposed to brush this through dry hair and well I have semi-afro hair; once it's dry you don't brush it or it turns into a complete birds nest so I'll never really be able to tell if it works properly or not. 

// Box Contents

// 1 Full Size, 2 Travel Sizes, 2 Samples

// £33.32 Estimated Box Worth

This box was not the best and it hasn't helped in my wavering decision to cancel this subscription. I think I'm going to leave it one more month but if it doesn't improve it's going to go; even if I love the boxes because it's £12.95 that I could be spending on nail polish. I get that it's supposed to be a sample box but if the Feel Unique Pick 'n' Mix can offer better stuff for £3.95 and Look Fantastic can offer infinitely better items than I don't know why this one can't do better. The samples have just been too tiny and I'm sick of all the 'exclusive' brands.

Birchbox

P&P £2.95

Monthly - £10

6 Months - £60

12 Months - £110

pssst...the sneak peak for next month is the balanceme Hyaluronic Plumping Mist Spray that will be in every box. I got a 10ml sample from LIB once and the photo is showing an even smaller sample; why am I not surprised?

Born Unicorn // Birchbox July 2019 Nails

Whew man, this month is just flying by. It doesn't help that my new 9 to 5 day job is well a 9-5 day job. I don't know what it is but I just have zero time to do anything. My alarm goes off at 7, I get home at 6 and then I'm in bed by 10. At my old job I used to work 10pm-6am and I had so much time. I would go to bed at 7am, get up at 2 and then have the entire day. This is only the second time I've managed to do my nails all month :( I was really hoping to complete the Clairestelle8 challenge this month as well but hopefully I'll get into a rhythm soon.

Anyway, onto this months Birchbox nails with photos using my shiny new graduation lens:

ooooo ahhhhhhh, look at the shiny holo detail! I'm so happy that I can finally take beautiful close-up shots of my nails. The lighting may be a little yellow for these and I tried my best to correct it but holo is best under small LED lighting and my lamp is not daylight toned like my light boxes are.

I really want to do this again but with a multi-pastel ombre underneath instead like on the leaflet that comes with the box. I also really love how the accent nail turned out with the negative space/holo ombre and stars. I want to do that again on all my nails.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- A-England // King's Road (soft lilac/grey holo)
- OPI // Tinker?Thinker?Winker? (silver holo)
- OPI // Alpine Snow (white)

- MoYou London // Olive Tree
- MoYou London Plates // Scandi 10, Princess 11

STAMPING PLATES: Nicole Diary 090 Plate

Oh this is such a pretty plate; perfect for space and ethereal looking designs. I especially loved the looks they created themselves with the space pattern in the background and the white images stamped on top:

Clearly that was photoshopped but I'm wondering how I could recreate it. I think an ombre background with some reverse stamping going on. Or even creating some custom decals to stick on. Instead I was itching to use the watercolour polishes in some sort of design. I especially love the moonflower design on the top right followed closely by the geometric mountains and trees on the bottom right.

For this look I used just the standard black Born Pretty stamping polish and for the most part all the designs lifted well which is a first for a Nicole Diary plate. They're cheap for a reason but damn those designs are cute. It's currently on offer at £1.20 and well worth it. I've just bought most of the most new Nicole Diary stuff as it's hella cute. They've just released these new large rectangular ones with marble and palm trees on them and another with dragons, mountains and desert scenes. I seriously have a problem with stamping plates; I just can't stop buying them.

I will say I need to start applying polish closer to the base of the nail. I also have a little to much fun doing clean up and most of the time it looks like the design has grown out.

Nicole Diary 090

NAIL FAILS #3 // 2Smooshed4U

My god man, June was not a good month for nail art. I see the art I want to do in my head and then what comes out on my nails just isn't it. For example, the above look was supposed to be sort of a lieve91 style look (her nail art is just #goals for me) and it just looks awful. I loved the dark green leaf nails and I painted over the other nails for this post earlier in June. I also hand painted those leaves and well I'm no van gogh. I have bought some new brushes specifically for nail art though at £7 a brush so hopefully my skills will start to improve.

This look I did trying to practice drag marble and applying custom decals. I really don't know what they do to get the lines so neat when cutting off the excess. This photo is deceiving because it looked awful irl. There were also spots where it wouldn't lie flat and on the pinkie the polish separated and urgh. 

OK, so there is nothing inherently wrong with this look but it just doesn't feel worthy of it's own post or an insta slot. I do love that A-England polish though. It's Maxim from the recent 'Return to Manderley' collection. 

And that's it for this month, there were a few others but I didn't even take photos of them. The acetone was just whipped out straight away instead. 

Blog Update // Moving Time!

No, I'm not dead, I was just moving to middle of fricking nowhere, seriously:

I was born and raised (and lived most of my life) in a small town called Blackpool, which is on the north west coast of England. Because it's a seaside town and has a few historical landmarks we're quite the tourist destination with lots of things crammed into one tiny space. I could walk to the beach, drive ten minutes to the centre of town and everything was pretty handy but it still felt spacious with the sea on one side and then countryside on the other....now I'm just surrounded by all countryside and it's good thing I can drive because I ain't going nowhere without a car (the beach is three hours away). I guess I had to do the adult thing of moving for a job at some point though and it is my dream job so I will just have to deal with all the spiders. I swear they're grouping up to kill me in the night or something.

I also graduate next week and my dad got me a new lens for my camera so I can finally do beautiful macro shots of nail art like so:

I'm still trying to figure out the lighting (especially for holo) and it's even harder now as I've moved into a flatshare so I only have my bedroom to store everything. Before I had a dedicated room for photography with all my lightboxes set up and the desk ready to be dressed up for photoshoots. Now I feel like I'm living the true student life that I never actually lived because I didn't move away for uni. But hopefully it's only for a year whilst I save up for a house deposit. 

It's very strange to be here though. I dropped out of school when I was 18 so I never finished my A-Levels and as such, I've been working minimum wage jobs for the past 10 years. There was nothing particularly wrong with them but I couldn't go anywhere, or move up. Everyone wants you to have a degree or some kind of qualification. I got very comfortable in my old job as well (I was there for 9 years in total) and now I'm a software engineer at Microsoft. I feel like someone made a mistake when they hired me lol. For anyone who is reading this though, it's never too late to change your life and get a fresh start. I can't believe how fast 3 years have gone and I finally have qualifications and a job I could only dream about having as a kid. I thought to be a software engineer you had to be some sort of hacker like in the movies and programming since you were born; but I had never programmed anything before my course and now it's my job.

This blog will not be forgotten though. If anything I'm just becoming more obsessed with nail art and after I'm settled I'm seriously thinking of getting a license to be a nail technician so I can have clients on the weekends. 

But anyway, I'll get some posts scheduled from art I did before the move and then new nail art is on the horizon!