February Favourites ’18

It’s now March and we are well and truly having a second winter instead of starting spring! We had snow only a couple of days ago, which pissed me off something rotten. I want longer days now to involve some nicer weather NOT SNOW AND ICE!

Hopefully with March here we will start to have some spring days on their way too now. I’m excited for going on long walks in the evenings after work with Dane, as well as on the weekends.

For now however, it is time for February’s favourites!

• Lush Supertramp Bubble Bar.

Sadly I don’t have this to show you anymore as it’s alllllllll gone! I love Supertramp bubble bar from Lush, it’s definitely one of my favourite products. I’m not a massive fan of earthy or grassy scents but I adore this! Whenever I use it it really does lift any sort of head cold I may be suffering from. It’s definitely a great bubble bar to use in the colder months and with all the bloody snow we’ve had, this has been such a lovely pampering one to use in the evenings after work. This is an Oxford Street exclusive but you can pick it up on the website which is awesome! I usually buy loads of these whenever I go down to London, but thankfully I won’t have to do this anymore.

• Romantic Bear WOW Long Lasting Lip Color in Watermelon.

I have been meaning to reviewing these for the longest time, but as of yet I haven’t gotten around to it. I haven’t used any of my lip peeled stains for a while but recently I just fancied giving them a go. I’ve been using various colours, but the shade Watermelon is the one I go to the most. It’s a light blush pink shade which I love wearing for work. I apply lip balm over the top and my lips stay lovely and soft all day! These are really great products for the price too, I can’t wait to finally review them this month!

• Barry M Under The Sea Nail Paint in Butterflyfish and Jellyfish (review here).

I couldn’t decide between the two but if there’s a nail polish I’ve been wearing loads this past month, it’s these two beauties by Barry M! They’re from the new Under The Sea collection, which I reviewed recently and linked above. They’re gorgeous nail polish shades to bring us into spring… When it FINALLY gets here! I couldn’t decide between the two shades, although I’ve always loved Jellyfish more.

• Elemis Collagen Cleansing Balm.

This is an old favourite that I come back to time and time again! My mom bought me a new tub for my birthday, which I was really grateful for. I’ve been using it a couple of times a week when I feel like my skin really needs it. My skin has been really bad this past month, which in itself sucks as I constantly look like a spotty teenager! This balm has really helped with soothing my skin when it feels dry, but I definitely don’t feel the need to use it daily. This balm is amazing for removing make up too, apparently. As regular readers will know, I don’t wear a full face of make up so I wouldn’t know. My mom is the one who has told me it’s great at removing make up. 😛

• Nivea Cashmere Indulgent Moisture Caring Hand Wash.

We use these hand washes at work and when picking up some new hand wash last month I decided to grab one of the ones we use at work, as well as a couple more of the Nivea hand washes. This is one of the ones I’m using at the moment and it’s amazing! It’s a lovely thick hand wash, well more like a cream really and smells delightful! Usually my hands will flare up with eczema with hand washes towards the end of the packaging, but this one I’ve not had ANY issues with! Savers sell these for a £1 each so I definitely recommend them if you fancy giving something new a go.

So now my beauty favourites are done, time to talk about the miscellaneous favourites of the month!

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite TV Show – KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World!

This is an anime that Dane has loved since it first came out and I never understood his love for it until recently! He got me to start watching it with him and it’s a mixture of funny and random as hell! I bought him two of the girls (Megumin who is the red witch character in the gif and Darkness who is wearing yellow in the gif) Nendoroid characters, which he loved! So with finally having most of the characters it was time to watch the anime he loves. It’s just so random and hilarious! Although I’m happy Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid won the anime comedy award at The Anime Awards recently. I do feel like KonoSuba deserved it more.

Image taken from GIPHY

Favourite Film – A Silent Voice.

I know this isn’t exactly a new film and I know I’ve mentioned it before but I gave this another watch in February and I forgot just how much I loved it. This time I watched it in dubbed and although I prefer the subbed version, it was still lovely to watch. I just forgot how much I loved the story, as well as the manga which fast became one of my favourite manga series to date! If you haven’t watched this and you want to, DO IT! You won’t regret it! Word of warning, it’s not the most delightful and merry of anime in the world and it can be incredibly depressing. It made me cry at the end when I watched it recently… Oh what a weed I am. 😛

Image taken from Wordery

Favourite Book – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Kanna’s Daily Life Vol. 1

I picked up a couple of new manga books in February but only read them as the end of the month was drawing to a close! If there is a manga series (and anime) that I have fallen in love with since 2017 it’s Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid! It’s so adorable, funny and kind of cringey all at the same time, but that’s why I love it so much. This new spin off series about Kanna, the youngest dragon is ADORABLE and if I do say so myself, drawn so much better than the original! I already can’t wait for volume 2 to come out in June, which I already know will be here before I know it.

Favourite Song/Album – Keane Hopes and Fears and The Killers Hot Fuss.

These are two albums I listened to quite a bit throughout February and I think it’s mostly due to the fact I fancied a blast from the past. These were two bands I listened to growing up and these two albums were my life at one point. They both came out in 2004 which less than a month apart from one another and I remember buying them with my pocket money from Sainsbury’s after school. I mostly listened to these on my drive to and from work and there would be tracks coming on that I found myself saying, “Holy shit! I forgot this song even existed!” but finding myself remembering the lyrics as I sang along. Let me also add that I had the BIGGEST crush on Brandon Flowers growing up and it was thanks to Smile Like Your Mean It where my crush on him began, as well as for guyliner. OH and of course it was the song that introduced me to the band. 😛

Favourite Game – Erm…

So I haven’t really been playing any games recently. Not for any reason in particular either other than I can’t be arsed… I’ve probably played the odd game with Dane or a couple of mobile games but nothing to write home about, sadly. I know we both want to get a couple of new games this month so I’m pretty sure my March favourites will have a game in there! 😛

So those were my favourites from February! I can’t believe we’re already into March and here’s fingers crossed for no more snow and more sunshine.

What were your favourites from last month? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a lovely week.

Barry M Under The Sea Nail Paint in Butterflyfish and Jellyfish – Review

Urgh just a couple of days ago I had written half this blog post and popped out to see some people. Then come this afternoon I have come to continue with said post and it’s gone. It didn’t save and I have done everything I could possibly do to get it back, with zero luck. URRRRGH! So I am having to start again. Yuck.

As many of you may have seen on my February wish list that I’ve been eyeing up the new Barry M nail paints for quite some time now, in fact every since they announced their new Under The Sea range back a month ago via a live Instagram video. I watched a couple of times in awe of the new nail paints and knew I needed them  in my life.

When they finally came out a couple of weeks ago at the end of January/start of February I picked up two shades that I had been lusting after.

I’ve been using this on and off since then and it’s definitely something I will wear loads when the spring and summer months hit us! Of course I had to share my love of these through a review.

I picked these up on an offer in Superdrug. If you spent £7 you would get a free Strobe Cream. WOOHOO! Even though I don’t wear highlighter I’ll definitely use this over liquid lipsticks to give them a pop! Otherwise these cost me £3.99 each, which for a nail paint is a really good price in my mind.

Under The Sea nail paint is a duo chrome nail polish that shifts in colour in the light. There are currently four shades to choose from, I picked up two of them.

Butterflyfish on the left and Jellyfish on the right.

Butterflyfish

Butterflyfish not in direct light

Butterflyfish in direct light

Jellyfish

Jellyfish not in direct light

Jellyfish in direct light

There’s Angelfish (a pearly pink shade which shifts to silver), Pinktail (a pink shade which shifts to orange), Butterflyfish (a blue shade which shifts to pink) and Jellyfish (a purple shade which shifts to green). The latter two are the shades I picked up.

Before I talk about the shades themselves and how the formula works, I want to quickly touch on the design of the bottle lids. Barry M aren’t really OTT when it comes to their packaging designs for their nail paints and that isn’t exactly a bad thing. Good looking products are always a must, especially if you keep them in your handbag and show them off when out and about. But who takes nail paints out with them? 😛

These however are aesthetically pleasing to look at when they’re in your nail polish collections! They have a white lid with metallic blue sea designs on them, which includes seaweed, starfish, seahorses and fish. Very cute! It also makes them easy to find when looking in your collection for these to dig out and use!

Now that I’ve briefly spoken about the design of the nail paints themselves, I’ll go into the formula and look of the polishes when worn!

One thing I love about the Molten Metals collection is how thick the brushes are for them all and this is the same when it comes to the Under The Sea nail paints too! It means you don’t need to keep applying loads of little coats with a thinner brush. Instead you only need one or two strokes of colour applied, which is great! I have small nails so this means I only need two or three max.

The pigmentation of this isn’t anything “amazing” but it definitely does the job of being a lovely iridescent polish, no matter how sheer! The colour shift still works with one and two coats as well, although I do prefer three coats to give it a stronger pigmentation to the colour.

Butterflyfish – one coat

Jellyfish – one coat

I find with this polish that you can get away with one dip into the bottle to get a good finish all over, but due to how sheer it is on the first coat I found I dipped into the bottle a couple of times, just to ensure I had enough on the brush to give an even coat all over the nail. I found throughout all coats of polish that I had to keep dipping into the bottle to make sure I had enough on the brush to get enough on the nail. This was a tad disappointing, but so worth it!

Butterflyfish – two coats

Jellyfish – two coats

With a second coat you really start to get a good colour payoff and pigmentation! As I said before however, I do prefer three coats of polish when it comes to these polishes. I just love a strong look to the nail, especially now I can wear nail polish alllllll the time. 😛

Butteflyfish – three coats

Butterflyfish – three coats

Butterflyfish – showing the pink duo chrome effect

Jellyfish – three coats

Jellyfish – three coats

Jellyfish – showing the green duo chrome

I’ve seen people posting on Instagram of them using these polishes over different coloured polishes including black, white and shades with the same base shade(s) as the polish in use. For example people used a light blue cream shade with Butterflyfish over the top. It looked gorgeous! I’ll definitely be giving this a go myself with a black polish underneath!

NOW with the chip test! I never use a base or a top coat and this is for a few reasons… 1. I don’t own one right now and 2. Every time I ever do or have my polish never dries and doesn’t look good after a while.

I wore both of these shades to work and after four days they started to chip. This wasn’t a bad amount of days really considering I type loads at work, write a lot and do bits and pieces around the office. I also found that cleaning the bathroom after applying these polishes lasted REALLY WELL! I was pleasantly surprised!

Overall what do I think of these nail paints then? Well, they’re bloody stunning and I love them so much! They’re definitely going to do well throughout spring and summer this year and this type of finish with nail paints and polishes is on the rise!

Jellyfish on the left, Butterflyfish on the right.

I can’t decide which of the two shades I love the most though to be honest! Out of the two I love the look of Jellyfish the most, but when wearing them I feel like I look at Butterflyfish more! I couldn’t tell you really to be honest. I think they’re both gorgeous in different ways! Butterflyfish seems more shimmery to me, whilst Jellyfish is more metallic looking. Either way, they’re both gorgeous! Fuck it, I can’t pick one!

If you do want to pick one up for yourself, you can find them on Barry M Cosmetics official website!

What do you think? Have you given the Under The Sea nail paints a go, or do you want to? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time take care all and I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend!