SPOTLIGHT SWATCH: Kure Bazaar // Hope

Spring is finally upon us! That's why I chose this beautiful teal green shade to go in my Latest In Beauty Style Awards box. There were quite a few other nail polish options to choose from but they were either red or coral red so I went for this (y'all know how I feel about red polish).

The Style Awards box is now one of my favourite times of year. It started last year and it's a special one-off curation of crazy insane products. You can pick 6 for £30 this year and all the products are items nominated in the The Sunday Times Style Awards. Most of my items were full size including an SPF face cream that retails at £92...yep. I love this box.

As this is a swatch post though, I'll chat about this polish first before a quick note about the other products.

Kure Bazaar // Hope

This lovely palm leaf shade is perfect for upcoming palm leaf mani's (shocker). I don't have a green shade quite like this and I'm always looking to expand on my green collection. This shade is very runny and I was a bit shocked as I'm used to just loading up the brush. Don't do that with this one or it'll flood. Clean up was simple enough but it does stain the cuticle area and my brushes are now bright green. Not even my pure acetone got rid of the stains on my brush. So make sure you wear this with a peel off basecoat or a really good base as it will stain the nail really bad after a days wear.

Even though it's quite a thin consistancy it stamps really well. Just load up the plate and perfect palm leaves. It isn't all that great on dark polishes but it works really well on top of white. I was very surprised.

I had never heard of this brand before but they are a french brand that aim to make sure their polishes are made up of 85% natural resources. Their website just says that all their polishes are "non-toxic" but no specific term such as 3-Free. I'm assuming they are at least 3-Free though as I can't smell any of that pesky Formaldehyde (John & Ginger state that they are 10-Free though). They have some beautiful colours though; especially in the pink/orange range, it's a shame they're £15 each though (that's more than my fav Nailberry!). They're also not stocked on any 'mainstream' websites but Lovelula, John & Ginger and Naturismo stock them in the UK.

//Other Products

As for the other products, here was my 'haul'

- Isle of Paradise Medium Self-Tanning Water (200ml Full Size - £18.95)

- Lumene Invisible Illumination Watercolour Blush in Coral Bloom (15ml Full Size - £22.50)

- CND SolarOil Nail & Cuticle Care Pen (2.5ml Full Size - £9.99, a review is coming soon!)

- NaturaBissé Diamond White Oil Free Brilliant Sun Protection (30ml Full Size - £92...I know right?)

- Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution Lipstick in Pillow Talk (1g Sample Size - £6.85 based on full size)

So including the polish I got a £165 box for £30. Not to shabby. LIB is a great subscription though in general as their contents are full size more often than not.

Latest In Beauty Style Awards Box

STAMPING PLATES: MoYou London // Botanical 3 & 4

So, I'm gonna change things up a bit and start doing some plate reviews because I have like almost a hundred and I need to start using them....also, these just came out (29th March). MoYou had been teasing on their insta that they would have some new plates coming out soon to replace Flower Power 23, which has been out of stock for ages. I don't think they're going to remake it. In fact nearly all of their Flower Power plates are sold out. 

So in this new Botanical range there are four plates:

With their new £6.99 price tag. Personally, I think they should've kept them at £5.99 as the size of the plates hasn't increased. Also, their shipping is ridiculous at a standard £3.99 for any order (that doesn't contain nail polish, then you have to £5.80...). So one plate comes to a total of £10.98. That's extortionate; and I'm part of the problem because I paid it. I bought 3 & 4 on the launch day because I've noticed new collections are selling out very fast and MoYou said they are not restocking plates anymore. I didn't buy them on a whim, I really had to think about it and look to see if I could get similar elsewhere and I think B4 is quite unique though and worth buying.

I didn't get plates 1 & 2 because there are so many plates just like them. The Mother Nature, Kitty and Doodles collections are virtually the same as Botanical 1 and I have 3 Harunouta Plates (that sell for around £1.50) exactly like Botanical 2. I love overprint plates so B3 I had to purchase as it has some lovely and unique succulent prints on it with all the lovely shading and the insect prints on B4 had me hooked straight away. I have some curtains that I bought from Ikea years ago with these exact designs and every time I look at it I want to do my nails like that; and now I can! I can already see the design in black on top of an A-England polish.

I really loved this design that MoYou did to promote the plate and I decided to do something similar;

The designs are all from Botanical 3. I'm yet to do a design using B4 (but it's coming, that plate has become one of my favourites). The Zig Zag stripes are from one of their Tropical Plates...I have far too many of them.

Botanical Collection

MATCH THAT MANI // Kitsch Blush-Mauve Hair Ties

So, because I love stealing designs from life, I'm starting a new section called "match that mani" to well, match that mani to life and eventually I'm hoping to start doing videos as well (if I ever finish this degree lol). First up we have these hair ties from Kitsch because god damn if they don't look cute and who doesn't love a simple ombre mani?

The colour match isn't great...clearly a sign I need to buy more polish. I wanted to do a little more than just a simple ombre...who knows I may end up stamping on top...I can never resist.

I almost don't even want to use these they're so cute. I chose them in my Latest In Beauty box for March and they had a set of black/grey as well but I loved these ones the most. I was hoping they wouldn't sell out by my next order date so I could get both but they did.

I kind of like the simplicity of the look though. I normally don't wear just polish on its own on my 'main' hand. The colours remind me of Neapolitan ice cream. Oh I should put ice cream stamps on it....don't ruin it girl...

Ok it didn't ruin it and it looks hella cute.

Bless, this stamping plate was also the first one I ever bought. I stuck a matte top coat on as well and the colour match is much better now as well. I also didn't use a white stamping polish...oh no I used OPI Alpine Snow which, as I discovered in this post, is one of the greatest white stamping polishes ever! It's weak as hell painted on but stamping is perfect. I also love how it doesn't smudge under a matte top coat.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Ciaté // Prima Ballerina (grey/mauve)

- Cuccio Colour// I Wonder Where (light grey)

- MoYou London Polish // Teenage Blush (dark pink)
- MoYou London Polish // One and Only (light pink)
- Jessica // Tease (pale pink)
- OPI // Alpine Snow (white)
- Barry M // Matte Top Coat
- Born Pretty Plate // BP-L076

Spotlights // Look Fantastic March 2019 Nails

Aaannnndd I finally got round to doing this months Look Fantastic nails. I really thought I was going to miss it this month due to Uni deadlines but I got them done. Hopefully I'll be a little more organised next month. I was also trying to figure out how I could do this design without going to abstract. 

I'm pretty pleased with the outcome; it's not exactly like the box but without a printer I don't think I would've got exactly there. I'm also very happy with this months contents as well! Apart from the Morphe (which I gave away immediately; I can't stand that brand) every other product was pretty good. I haven't tried The Ordinary serum, Madara Face mask or Omorovicza Cleanser yet but I love EOS balms (they're my favourite) and the Rituals hand balm is actually very nice. At £13, I couldn't have bought them any cheaper.

On to the nails though. I started out with a white base coat then sponged on a few layers of Fresh Blue, Bohemian Rhapsody, Orchid Chic and Jam Sesh in a diagonal pattern. After a layer of top coat, I then layered on the white stripe using Blanc, followed with a matte top coat.

It actually took me a while to find a white polish that was sheer enough to create that layered looking effect. I thought Alpine Snow by OPI would be perfect as it's milky AF and needs around 7 coats to become opaque; but no, it turned out to be one of the best white stamping polishes I've used...who'd have thought? I've finally found a use for it.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- NYC Expert Last // Fresh Blue (primary blue)

- Jessica // Bohemian Rhapsody (dark denim blue)

- MoYou London Polish // Orchid Chic (purple)
- Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear // Jam Sesh (lavender)
- Essie // Blanc (white)
- Barry M // Matte Top Coat
- Born Pretty Plate // Geometry L001

SWATCHES: Jessica // Tease, Confident Coral & Cherrywood

So I received these three beauties in this months Latest in Beauty box. I don't normally talk about this box here because they rarely feature polishes (the last time was these three Morgan Taylor polishes; incidentally my introduction to that brand) but I was happy to see these in the line up this month and dutifully waited until they were added. 

Basically LIB works like this; you can pay £9, £15 or £18 a month and that will enable you to choose either 3, 6 or 9 products from their line up of around 150 products. They add something new everyday (sometimes more than one product if it's the same brand). I've been subbed on and off for around 2 years now and have recently gone back up to the 9 product sub as I like ordering things I'm about to run out of like face masks and hand creams. They also have some ridiculously priced items up for grabs and every box I make is at least worth triple the price.

I only have two Jessica shades right now and love both of them so I snapped these up straight away.

Tease // Pale Dusty Pink Creme

Oh man this is a beautiful shade. This is one of those perfect nudes that will literally suit any skintone. Also, thanks to it's glossy almost gel-like shine, it's perfect in just one coat. If you prefer a little more colour you can add a second coat (I'm wearing two in the swatch) but one is just as good. I feel this would be a perfect wedding shade as well and I can imagine some light lace stamped on top in an off white.

Confident Coral // Bright Orange Red Creme

This is an amazing bright shade that's slightly sheer but in a good way. Unfortunately I don't feel it quite suits my skintone as I prefer cooler toned shades but I don't hate it because of that. I'll definitely be able to use this in Halloween mani's. I think this would work for some great bright summer looks; miami vice style. 

Cherrywood // Deep Blood Red Creme

Now this is my kinda red. This is practically identical to Dangerous Affair by Ciaté but a lot shinier. It needs at least two coats but every layer just adds more depth. I kinda love how all these shades are slightly sheer. It makes me want to try them out over a black base coat with a white design stamped on top to see if it produces that sheer colour look like some Jelly polishes do.

// Verdict

Such a great selection although I'm not sure if I should be calling them cremes due to the sheer factor. It does make me desperately want their new Tea Party collection though but they're £9 each on NPD *ugh*. 

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