My Favourite Winter Nail Varnishes

Hello there.

I guess the title of this post sort of sums up what this is going to be about! Basically, I love nail varnish but especially in winter because the colours are darker. I do have quite a collection of dark polishes but for the sake of the internet, and my fingers, I have narrowed it down to just 5.

Before I start this, I just wanted to say that in winter (and all year round really) I love black nail polish, however I'm not going to include it in this top 5. This is just because I have others that I can replace it with and I do wear it all the time. So, for me, its not specifically a winter polish.

OKAY that's done so I'm going to actually get started now...

Lady Muck by butter London

This colour is a blue-grey, shimmery polish. I really like it on it's own but this with a layer of a silver glitter polish, looks amazing.

Racing Green by Barry M

I absolutely love this dark, metallic green because I think it is the perfect colour for Christmas! Perfect on it's own.

Hidden Treasure by Topshop

 The Topshop nail polishes are so great as they go on so smoothly, and this is no exception. This colour is amazing because it goes on gold but changes to blue and green in different lights.

Plum by Barry M

I was looking for a deep purple this year, and this one is just what I wanted! It's a deep purple but unlike other similar products, its not metallic or shimmery which, for this colour, I really like.

Sole Mate by essie

 I would have to say, this colour is my no.1 for winter. It applies a little darker than what you see in the bottle but it has a little bit of shimmer, and it is just my favourite for the Christmas/winter season!


There we have it, my top 5 winter nail colours. I wouldn't say they were in any particular order but, of course, the last one is my favourite. There are many more colours that I love wearing in winter too but these are the best of my collection, I'd say.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I quite liked doing a 'top 5' of products, I may do some more in the future!

Have a good day.
Iona xo

London Trip

Hello there!

Firstly and most importantly, IT'S DECEMBER! Which means it is socially acceptable to listen to Christmas songs and wear Christmas jumpers and burn Christmas candles, and just be festive. So, that's very exciting for me. I love Christmas time.

Anyway, back on topic. This weekend just passed, I was in London with my family, partially for a little get away and partially to do some Christmas shopping (I think I did end up spending more on myself, though). However, I took that as a perfect opportunity to make a blog post!

 I didn't post anything last week, and although I am not on a strict schedule, for my own peace of mind, this post will be a little longer. It may consist of quite a few photos, but that hopefully won't be too much of a problem.

In this post, I am aiming to show you a few things, which are as follows: my nails, what I used and how I created them; my 2 favourite outfits that I wore; my 2 favourite purchases, and finally, just some snaps of London looking all Christmassy and such. So, let's get started!

NAILS

My nails actually didn't take too long to create, despite multiple layers of nail polish. I started with a base coat then two layers of Sole Mate by essie (the same colour I used for my Halloween nails in my previous post). Once this was dry, I took Champagne by models own and applied that on the lower half of my nail, near the cuticle, ombre-ing it slightly and sweeping a fine glitter over the top. Then for the jewels! I tend to attach any type of gem or bow etc. with a top coat instead of a glue because I just find it easier to use. The small gold stars I purchased from SparklyNails, and the bows and gems I found on Amazon. After these had been added, I applied one Sally Hansen top coat to stop the jewels moving and the polish from chipping, and then another Sally Hansen top coat to make it dry quickly!

I hope that you like them.

OUTFITS

RIGHT: This was the outfit that I wore on Saturday during the day when we went shopping, and this was also our one full day in London. Despite my skirt being extremely short, I did have on tan tights and my thick (and very cosy) ZARA jacket, so I wasn't particularly cold. I wore my hair down as it didn't have a super interesting neckline and my make up was natural. The jumper is from H&M, the skirt from Topshop and my little white boots I found on eBay.

LEFT: Here is what I wore out for dinner on the Saturday night. I feel it looks a little more autumnal than my day outfit, which I like! The dress and boots were actually new purchases from a successful day of shopping. As you can see, I paired it with woolly tights and a chunky gold necklace. I styled my hair into a plait, which started round on the opposite side to which it ended, with a French braid round the back of my head and into a simple side braid. My make up was a little darker on the eyes than during the day, but still not too much and I wore my matte, dark, berry red lipstick by Kate Moss (Rimmel) with it. My necklace is from H&M, my dress is from Brandy Melville (my new favourite shop!), I believe my tights and socks are also H&M and my boots are Weekend by John Lewis.

(Also, in case you were wondering where my phone case is from, I found it on Amazon. It's for the iPhone 5).

PURCHASES

The left is not just meant to be photos of my face but actually the beanie hat that I am wearing (sorry, any excuse for a selfie). I purchased this hat from American Apparel and I adore it! Although it may be a little pricey for a hat (£17, I believe...), I  couldn't resist. I had been looking for a hat like this for a while, so I had to get it! I really like it in this sort of mottled grey but they had a great selection of other colours too. For some reason, I don't think this will be the last AA beanie you will see me in... 

On the right we have my new favourite water bottle. And yes, I do have a favourite. I found this when I was wandering around Victoria's Secret (amazing shop, by the way), in the PINK section downstairs. In the summer, I had been over in America and visited a couple of PINK stores whilst I was there, so seeing this reminded me of that! I think what makes it so great is the fact that it is huge and can hold a lot of water, or anything else for that matter. Perfect for the gym.

RANDOM SNAPS...

The lights down Oxford Street

Me under the huge Christmas tree in Covent Garden

Covent Garden and Regent Street

The outside of Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park 

Hyde Park

The Cartier shop near Sloane Square and King's Road

Done!

 I hope you have enjoyed this slightly longer blog post and my London adventure. I will try to do shorter posts from now on, unless it's something particularly important or exciting. Well, I hope you all had a lovely weekend too. Maybe doing something Christmas related?

Have a good day.

Iona xo

Halloween Make up + Nails (late)

Hello people!

So, it's almost the end of November now and only about 5 weeks until Christmas?! That's scary. Anyway, even though it's a little bit late, I thought that I would show you some of the make up and nail things I did for Halloween. 

Cut throat make up school (left) and night (right)

Different angles of my skull make up

Blood dripping nails 

We had a Halloween event at our school which I was taking part in (doing face painting, funnily enough..) so I went a little bit more 'all out' for that. Then, at night, me and some of my friends went into town to a gig so I thought I would do similar make up but I little more toned down. For this one, I mostly used make up that I already had (lip liners, lipsticks, eye liners etc.) but  also made myself some fake blood and bought black, white and grey face paints.

 The skull look wasn't really for anything, I guess that shows how much free time I have, but for it I followed a video tutorial on YouTube from Promise Phan (dope2111) but then edited some parts to make it my own. It took me about 2 hours to do the whole thing, as it was my first time trying it out. I used the same black, grey and white face paints, but mixed the white with my cream foundation so that I could get better coverage. I also shaded with black and grey eye shadows.

And finally, my nails! I started with a base coat, of course, then painted my nails a very nude shade (Carrie'd Away by NYC) and covered that with a matte top coat (Westminster Bridge by nails inc.). After that had dried, I took my largest size of dotting tool and put various sizes of dots on each nail, different distances down with a deep red (Sole Mate by essie) then joined them up with a small brush. To finish it off, and to make the 'blood' stand out, I carefully covered only the red with a high shine top coat (I used the Salon Manicure top coat by Sally Hansen). These nails lasted me really well because the red wasn't too thick and didn't immediately chip.

Okay, so that's all of my Halloween creations from this year, I hope you enjoyed reading this. I now have Winter Wonderland, Christmas shopping, gingerbread lattes and everyone playing Christmas songs to look forward too! I am far too excited for the Christmas season.

Have a good day.

Iona xo

Hello and welcome!

First of all, hello there! 

Here's me, hi

Blogging feels extremely odd and I'm not quite used to it yet, but hopefully I will get the hang of it if I start to post regularly. I guess I decided to start this blog because I enjoy reading other peoples blogs (for example, Zoella, TanyaBurr, SprinkleofGlitter etc.) and I thought that I would give it a go myself!

This will mainly be used for posting about beauty and fashion, but I may also sneak in a few posts about my life and things of that nature. I am currently in my final year of high school and next year I hope to go off and do a beauty course. And after that, well, who knows. Maybe uni. Maybe not.

 Of course, I am not a professional or anything like that so any posts of make up I have done will be far from perfect. Also, any 'tips' etc. that I post about, will just be my opinion so obviously, don't need to be taken on board if you feel they are wrong. 

Okay, so that little bit of technical talk is out the way now. So, I guess this is my first ever post to my blog. That's quite exciting!

If you have read this, thank you. I know it's a little boring but hopefully it will get better haha!

Welcome to my blog, enjoy. Have a good day.

Iona xo


(Also, if you have any questions/ideas for posts, let me know in the comments!)