Pink October NOTD #1: OPI "A-rose at dawn, broke by noon"

I have decided to only wear pink nail polish in October, to raise awareness about breast cancer. According to Breakthrough Breast Cancer Care, every day, 130 UK women are diagnosed with breast cancer. That means more than 4,000 mums, daughters, sisters and friends will hear the dreadful news during Breast Cancer Awareness month of October alone. I feel strongly about raising awareness about checking your breasts. Cancer is unfortunately in my family and I have therefore been checking my breasts since I was in my early 20s. As most of us carry a smartphone nowadays, I have given a link below for a new app from Breakthrough Breast Cancer that helps you check your breasts.

OPI "A-rose at dawn, broke by noon" is one of my all time favourite pinks, albeit a bit brush-stroke-y! :) This is 2 coats with Megashine top coat. It has a lovely pink metallic glow that looks amazing in bright sunshine. I love the colour of this, but it looks a bit too peachy in my photo - I will try and get a daylight photo tomorrow for you!


TODAY's TIPS:
Early detection improves your chances - I encourage all my friends to get the ibreastcheck app for their phone and if you think something is wrong, go and see your doctor straight away! 

Micro blogging...

In the cinema after getting my new Samsung galaxy S3 upgrade, with icecream and waiting to see "The Campaign" :)

NOTD: OPI "Baby it's coal outside"

I really wanted to put on a nail polish for tomorrow when I go for a special little shopping trip to upgrade my mobile phone, so I dug around in my Helmer. I didn't know what I fancied... Then I came across this polish. This was part of OPI's 'Holiday in Toyland' Holiday 2008 collection, one of the very first polishes from seasonal collections I bought when I started this blog!

This is a sparkly charcoal black, as close as you can get to a black glitter polish, I suppose! This is 2 coats with a coat of Megashine top coat. I really love this polish, and a funny fact is that I got this polish exactly  4yrs and 1 day ago :) I don't like the application of this though, it's quite thick and unwieldy. But the end result is worth it!

I am off to read up on the new Samsung Galaxy S III which will hopefully be mine tomorrow! :)

REVIEW: Garnier Olia hair colour "7.13 Dark Beige Blonde"

Due to my stained nails from the window paint I'm giving them a bit of rehab with no polish, just oil. So I coloured my hair again instead! I got some of the newly released Garnier Olia hair colour. It is supposed to use oils to deliver the pigment to the hair so that it's coloured in a more gentle way! I chose this colour which is a shade darker than my usual hair colour. I apologise for the incredibly broken hair, I really need a visit to the hairdresser but it takes me months to build up to a hair appointment as I've got a fear of getting my hair cut... I haven't used any products here like I normally do so I can show you the hair as it was from using this hairdye. I normally put on some Redken hair oil on the ends which smooths away these pesky flyaways...

Anyway back to the review. The applicator bottle is a drop design, fairly snazzy looking but I have tiny hands so I found it a bit 'slippy' in my grip. The gloves are the usual shitty plastic things with fingers so long the gloves would easy fit E.T the extra-terrestrial... I ditched them and use the pink vinyl gloves I use for my nail technology work instead. The mixing of the product and application is straight-forward.

The best thing about this product was the smell, or lack of it! My asthma is still bad, but this hair colour doesn't contain ammonia and has a very mild, non-fume-y smell. It was actually quite pleasant, for hair colour. It has to be on for 30mins so you need a good magazine while it develops...

I like the colour but it's a bit dark - a bit darker than it seems here. I will try to get another photo tomorrow in daylight. But it's a nice natural colour with soft hair and a lot of shine! I like this product so I think I will try the "8.0 Blonde" next time instead!

To carry on the oil theme - I got this new body treatment from Garnier as well - "Ultimate Beauty Oil":

I've worn it for night time for a while, and it's lovely! It smells of holidays in the sun and makes skin silky and smooth overnight :) It contains no silicones. But as it's a spray-on oil, you should probably apply this on a washable bathmat, not in your bedroom carpet and definitely not on vinyl or laminate flooring!!

NOTD: Zoya "Posh"

I still have red cuticles and nails from the paint spill so I chose another red polish. As I was going through the drawers I picked this old gem out. I remember I love the mattes :) I have a problem with dry cuticles still, and they keep snagging on my clothes, so again I have a very sore and weepy bit on a finger, I do apologize...

This is a bit thick and unwieldy to apply but this is just 1 coat with no top coat. I like to put on 2 coats of base coats for mattes, as they are so pigment rich they usually stain your nails. Since I've got paint stained nails already I wasn't too fussed about that today.

This dries fairly swiftly to the touch but remains soft and dentable for about an hour, so it's definitely a 'apply then watch a movie without popcorn' polish...

NOTD: Sinful "Mint Apple"

I felt like something special today, something that is VHTF and just is that polish you would never want to run out of.

Bring on "Mint Apple". It was a nail polish addict lemming like no other when it came out. And I managed to swap for one with a nice lady in America back in the day!

This is 2 coats with MegaShine top coat (still no sign of the Lumos bottle...). It has a gold shimmer to it that makes it soooo unique :) I really love this polish!

I know I've got some reviews to post but I've been so busy I've seriously fallen behind. I will try and do a few this weekend so they are ready to post when I do my NOTDs :)

NOTD: Rimmel 60sec "Rapid Ruby"

Had a bit of a disaster yesterday with a tin of red outside window paint vs. my beige carpet :( Ugh, and it's only just 2yrs old.... Looks like we're going to have to pay for a whole new hall carpet (no accidental damage cover on the home insurance, let that be a lesson to you...) After soaking up most of the paint inside the cupboard with kitchen towel and sanitary towels (yes they do work miracles on viscous liquids!) we covered the stains on the carpet with a seed tray so the cat won't get to it. What a smell! It stained my hands red and it has given me endless asthma symptoms :S

Anyway I painted my badly stained nails with a similar colour to cover it over... It's a really old polish so application leaves, well, most things, to be desired... My fingers are also really really dry and I have several bad sore bits on the cuticles :( Just really not having a good beauty time just now. This is 2 coats of "Rapid Ruby" with a slick of Megashine top coat (couldn't find my bottle of Lumos again...)

Now I am off to open all the windows to air out the paint fumes before bedtime!

NOTD: Chanel "Particuliere"

For the second episode of the new "Dallas" I decided to put on something expensive and exclusive, so I chose Chanel's "Particuliere" that sparked the whole 'greige' nail polish trend a couple of years ago. Many has tried to copy it. But there is nothing like the satisfaction of owning the actual polish itself! And with the formula, you can't help but love this polish. This is 2 coats of "Particuliere" and a coat of top coat, and it's perfection! :) I apologies again however for the torn hang-nail on my ring finger... It just keeps happening :( I am hoping it won't happen again, I will need to protect it somehow.

NOTD: Boots 17 "Navy Glint"

I saw this in Boots when I went for lunch the other day, it's one of their new ones for autumn. I don't have a navy shimmer since I swapped away Rimmel "Electric" some years ago so decided I wanted this one :)

The photos are all very dull, not at all like the polish I see on my fingers. It's like the camera is only seeing the navy base colour and somehow the glinting bits of blue glitter is making the whole thing look dull and sort of grey?.. I am going to try and get some photos in bright daylight of this and compare.This is 2 coats with Lumos top coat. The formula is pretty awful; it's fully opaque in 2 coats but it's thick and goopy. Makes a lot of mess! Takes some time to dry too - maybe the top coat doesn't play well with this polish?... But I like the colour so it can stay! :) I might try and see if some Seche Restore might improve the formula.

'Dallas' NOTD: Collection 2000 Hot Looks "Big Hair" with bling

I am SOOOO excited about the premiere of the new 'Dallas' on Channel 5 tonight so I've got my 80's nails on :D

This is one of my favourite reds, it's sort of cheap 80's orange-red. This is 2 coats of polish and then I attached some rhinestones into the wet polish. I let it dry and then I slapped on A LOT of top coat, and once that's fully dry I will put on another thick coat, to make sure the rhinestones stay on for more than a day!

It will need to be accessorized with some rhinestone earrings and some sexy 80s secretary wear for tomorrow :)

NOTD: Isadora "Bardot Pink"

I've had this for some time (a year, two?) and never worn it. But since I didn't have a specific colour/polish in mind, I decided to pick something out of the drawers and then just go for it whether I liked it or not. Out came this and I went 'ugh'... It's not really my colour, but on it went. It's a very pale pink-lilac. I am not sure how many days it will stay on until I need to re-paint. But I will try and wear it til Wednesday unless it chips :P

This is 2 coats with a coat of Lumos (I found the bottle behind my Yogalates kit - the cat had knocked it off the desk...). The formula was surprisingly good and opaque to apply for such a light-coloured polish :) Just makes me remember why I love Isadora!