HOLY GRAIL: EYE BRUSHES

Here we have round two of my holy grail brushes and this time I'm talking specifically about eye brushes. If you want to know my holy grail complexion brushes you can read my post 'here.' 
I don't use every brush mentioned, every single time that I do my make up, so they are not all essentials, but if I were to choose my favourites and most used it would be all of these. 

Brushes for packing on colour to the lid
The Urban Decay shadow brush is flat enough to pack colour onto the lid , with as little fall down as possible. The Bare minerals flat shadow end of the precision brush is also good to apply colour to the lid, it's a little thicker than the Urban Decay one, so it also blends shadow out a little more. 

Brushes for crease/blending
First, I use the Sigma E40 to apply colour to the crease. It's so big and fluffy that it makes it so quick and easy to apply colour and it blends all eye shadow so flawlessly. I then use the Sigma E25 for more precise crease blending and to add maybe a darker colour and blend it into the transition shade applied with the E40. If I want something even more precise I'll use the Real Techniques domed Shadow brush as it has a tapered end and is thinner than the E25. 

Brushes for the lower lash line
I like to use either the Models Own Blending brush to apply colour to the lower lash line as it's small enough and blends easily. I also like to use the smaller pencil brush side of the Bare Minerals double ended precision brush as it's really soft so doesn't irritate the eye. If I want to smoke the shadow out even more I'll use a fluffier brush like the Sigma E25. For definition under the eye, I use the Real Techniques accent brush as it's very dense, making it perfect for applying colour closely to the lash line. 

Brushes for the brows
I always use the Sigma E75 for my brows as it's small and dense enough to give great definition to the brows, while making it easy to control the amount of product you apply. 

Brushes for gel liner 
I received the Sigma E05 brush as a free gift with my Sigma order and it fast became my go to gel liner brush. I find it easier to use than angled brushes as it gives more precision.  

So, that is all of my favourite brushes to use for eye make up. Let me know if you have any amazing holy grail eye brushes that I need to try! 

KATE MIDDLETON INSPIRED NAILS

I love my nails being painted; I can't stand having them naked, so, the only time I'm not wearing any nail varnish is when I'm taking the old colour off, to put on the new colour. However, I do hate choosing what colour to paint them or what nail art to try, as I'm sure like us, you've all got so many that you're literally choosing from every colour possible.

While I was sitting pondering over which colour to choose, Kate and Will came on the television, showing off their new royal baby. The polka dot blue and white print of Kate's dress was so cute, especially since she had a boy, so I wanted to follow the theme and copy take inspiration with my nails. I'm definitely a fan of the whole, 'wear the gender colour of your baby', so pink for girls and blue for boys, as long as it remains classy like Kate's and not over the top. 

The blue base colour is from Nails inc. If you've read our previous posts on Nails inc polishes, you'll know that we haven't ever paid full price for any of the quite a few that we now own and instead have either bought them with a magazine or when they've been on offer. They're nice, but they're not £11 nice. This colour came with Instyle magazine and ours either never had a name or it's just come off. 

I used two of the NAIL ART pens, one bright pink for the petals and a white to do the dots. I'll forgive you if you didn't guess that the design on the ring finger is supposed to be roses! At least I tried! I used Revlon's Nude pink for the inside of the roses and also added the Barry M confetti in Marshmallow to try to add texture to the roses, however, you can't really see this in the photo. The green leaves are Models Own Green Tea. 

I loved having my nails like this as it made a change from just one plain colour and I got so many compliments! Even people that I wouldn't expect to even notice my nails were commenting on how good they looked, which was nice. 

I'd love to know what your favourite, easy nail art designs are? 

SUMMER DAISY NAILS

As the weather has decided to be a bit more like summer as of late, I decided that I wanted to do something with my nails to make them look all nice and summery too! While rummaging through our nail varnish collection, I found this little daisy stickers. I bought these a last year, I think, If not longer ago. There were from Claire's Accessories and cost around £3. All you do is peel them off ans stick them on, as easy as that! As you can see from the photos, some of the stickers don't lay very flat, where the nail curves, however, this doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. They may work better if you cut the daisies off indivually, instead of being lazy and just cutting bigger sections off like I did. 

I decided to use the blue nail varnishes underneath as I think the daises look good against both of the different shades. I used the Barry M Gelly High Shine nail paint in Guava, which is from the newest summer collection and as you can see is a gorgeous bright blue.  It's also super shiny and applies so well. 

 The lighter blue is by Models Own and is the shade Aqua Pro 051. We have a couple of other colours in the same pro range, which are also apparently limited edition. I wasn't at all impressed with the other shades, as the price of these nail varnishes was £8 and for that price I expected them to be better than my normal Barry M favourites, which are under half the price. I found that they chipped really easily and didn't last at all well on the nails. The Models Own Pro range polishes, do look really great at first and apply nicely, just the longevity is terrible, especially considering the price. I only bought this shade as I really liked the colour and it was on offer for £3, which I then didn't mind too much if it chipped fairly easily. 

What are your favourite summer nail art ideas?

OOTD & FOTD - SMOKEY PURPLE EYE

 For today's outfit I've ventured a little out of my usual comfort zone; I've got leopards or some other wild cat on my leggings! 

I've been seeing a lot of patterned leggings around lately and thought they would be nice for just chilling around the house, when you want to look better than just slouching around in sweat pants. The leggings are much more flattering and trendy! 

I know many, many people wear leggings like these out, I'm not sure I'm brave enough for that yet, so right now, they're staying in doors for me. 

I paired them with a plain black v neck top as its a casual look and the leggings are the main part of the outfit. For photo's sake I added the purple/maroon heels, which sadly have never been outside either, so this is so far their only opportunity to be seen by anyone but me and my wardrobe.

Top: H&M
Leggings: H&M
Shoes: New look
Necklace: Forever 21 

Forever 21

For my make up, I decided to try a purple smokey eye look, which looks really good with green eyes especially, but also hazel and brown too.

This is quite a heavy eye look, so I tried to keep the rest of the face looking fresh so that the focus immediately goes to the eyes.

Products  used: 

- Sleek Ultra Mattes Pallette 
- Models Own Mascara - Grow fast mascara
-  Collection Extreme 24hr Felt Tip Liner - Purple  (WARNING THIS STUFF DOES NOT COME OFF DURING THE DAY OR WHEN TRYING TO FIGHT IT WITH EYE MAKE UP REMOVER)!! 
- Lashes by Ardell
- Eyeliner, black MUA 

All make up, apart from the Mascara can be purchased from Superdrug and the mascara can be bought from Boots. Currently all make up is 3 for 2 at Superdrug, which is just an offer I cannot resist!