Leighton Denny Shipwrecked and Drama on the Dancefloor

The base colour here is Leighton Denny Shipwrecked - a beautiful pistachio green creme finish from Leighton's S/S 2012 Castaway collection. It is a lovely colour with the same fantastic formula as the rest of Leighton's nail colours. Over the top I added Leighton Denny Drama on the Dancefloor (QVC exclusive) which is a chunky gold hex glitter with gold micro glitter thrown in. I used one easy coat and as you can see, it is easy to get even glitter distribution.

Please excuse the state of my nails in these photos, they were taken a few weeks ago when my nails were very dry. I also managed to knock my middle finger while the polish was drying so it has a mark near the free edge.

Jennifer xx

My current go-to neutral makeup

I am a creature of habit... and laziness. I really can't be bothered to search out different products every morning before work so I tend to use the same things for a few days and leave them in my makeup bag. Then I switch them out and try other products. This is probably because I have so much makeup and it is poorly organised to grab it as needed.

I've been wearing this makeup a lot lately and I often wear something similar to this. Gold is my favourite eyeshadow colour, I find it really flattering and brightens and opens up my eyes which is so needed when I'm tired. It also works well on most people. If you are curious, my favourite gold eyeshadow is Urban Decay Baked. It is a beautifully soft and pigmented gold which isn't too yellow or brassy, just perfect.

For this makeup, I wanted to make use of my pigments which don't often get much attention from me - they are harder to use than pressed eyeshadow and make a mess. I loved how it turned out and I need to use pigments more often.

What I used:
Urban Decay Primer Potion
MAC Water Based Mixing Medium
Illamasqua Marvel Pure Pigment
MAC Cocomotion Pigment
Shiro Cosmetics Master Sword
MAC Twilight Falls Mineralize Eyeshadow
a highlight shade (can't remember what I had in my makeup bag now)
MAC Superslick Liquid Liner in On The Hunt (black)
No7 Fanomonal Mascara
Illamasqua Thunder Brow Cake (eyebrows)

Jennifer xx

MAC Hey Sailor! - Powerpoint Eye Pencil Review and Swatches

MAC's Powerpoint Eye Pencils are very soft and creamy, the apply without dragging and last all day. I really like them. They don't smudge all over the place so I would hope that they would be good for the Summer months, especially with them being released with a Summer collection. They provide intense, opaque colour with one swipe and can be smudged before it sets. They aren't fully setting pencils, if you touch them, they will transfer but they stay well if left alone. They have such a pretty finish, there are pearlised particles in there giving a lovely sheen.  You might find that the gold is dupeable but the green is quite unique as most green eye liners seem to lean more blue or are darker. Bare in mind that these are not waterline safe although I've used the gold one on mine before I found this out and it was fine. If you have sensitive eyes, please don't use them inside your eyes. It is your choice whether to ignore MAC's warning though but it is probably a good idea to take notice of it.

Jennifer xx

MAC Hey Sailor - To Catch A Sailor Lipstick Swatches

Sail La Vie is a golden tan lipstick with a frost finish. It is not a colour I would normally go for but there is something about it that drew me in. I'm still not entirely sure about it, I might just use it for layering over corals and orangey lipsticks for a different look. I think it might look better on me if I have a tan or with some bronzer although it could be that I just need to get used to wearing such a different colour. I've seen it on fair skinned girls and it looks lovely and I bet it would be amazing on dark skintones too. You could also layer it over nude shades.

So what do you think of this colour? Is it something that you would wear? What do you think I should wear it with?

Jennifer xx

Another Franken

Hi! I have another franken polish that I made a couple of weeks ago. This one is mostly purple but has some gold and lilac hexagonal glitter thrown in and teeny specks of pale purple glitter which flash blue in certain lighting. The purple glitter bled and tinted the clear base but it still worked okay. These pictures make it look a lot more blue than it is, just due to the camera. In real life, it doesn't show much blue at all, only when the light hits it in certain ways.

The base colour I used under this was Deborah Lippmann Call Me Irresponsible which is a purplely jelly.

I love the purple shade, it reminds me of Cadbury chocolate wrappers - if only I'd been able to take accurate photos of it (the bottle shot is better than the nails though). Those of you who don't get Cadburys chocolate where you are, it is in my opinion, the best chocolate.

Source

Speaking of Cadbury, I'm off on a canal holiday next month for a week with my boyfriend's family and we will be going past Cadbury World. I hope we get the chance to stop to visit.

What does this franken remind you of? Again, I'm looking for a name for it if any of you have a good one. I might just call it Chocolate Wrappers but I'm open to better suggestions.

Jennifer xx

MAC Naturally Swatches & Review

MAC's latest collection to hit UK and European shores is Naturally. It consists of well... natural shades really. Nude lipsticks, golden and beige tones with some browns and pinks thrown in. It is a lovely collection and is great to pick up some basic tones but still be interesting for makeup fanatics as they are all still interesting.

I'll start with the mineralize eye shadows that I got:

L-R: Summer Haze, In The Sun, Twilight Falls

Summer Haze L-R: dry, over UDPP, wet, over Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy

Summer Haze is a gorgeous light gold and I can also get a peachy beige out of my pan too. It is super smooth and gorgeously pigmented. It makes a lovely lid brightening shade and the lighter shade in the pan is good for a highlight. It looks really metallic when used wet or patted over Pixie Epoxy which is very good for helping it stick all day long.

In The Sun L-R: dry, over UDPP, wet, over Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy

In the Sun is a hot burnt copper. The veining in my pan isn't as nice as other pans I have seen where there is more fuchsia to pick from. If you pick a pan with more fuchsia, the colour variant would be a bit different as mine mainly has deep gold in it. There is some shimmer in this shade which can fall out so a sticky base such as Pixie Epoxy is best, plus it helps to give it even more intense colour payoff. The sparkle looks really pretty on the lid when the light catches it and the particles aren't too chunky.

Twilight Falls L-R: dry, over UDPP, wet, over Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy

Twilight Falls is a beautiful shade of mauvey brown. I really love this one. It works fantastically with the other two shades I got and is a very good yet interesting every day brown. You may see in the image there is a blueish sheen, this makes it more than the average brown eye shadow. It is so smooth and buttery. The pigmentation even when dry is very good and would be great as a quick wash or to smudge along the lash lines for a smokey look. I wear browns and golds a lot so this is going to get a good amount of love from me.


There were three shades of mineralize blush in this collection but only this one stood out to me. It is Subtle Breeze. I also wanted to stay on the safer side because I'd never tried the mineralize blushes before so didn't entirely know what to expect and wanted something more wearable to me.

Subtle Breeze mineralize blush

Subtle Breeze is amazing, it really is. It is soooo pigmented, I swirled my brush into it as normal and ended up with way too much product on my face. A couple of taps into the pan is all that is needed to a lovely pink flush. The finish is beautiful, it has a slight sheen so isn't completely matte but has no shimmer in it either. I really like it, it gives such a pretty glow. I find that it lasts really nicely on me too although I do have dry skin so not sure how oily skin would fare but it is worth a try.

There are two mineralize skinfinishes in this collections, these are some of my favourite products from MAC so I was pleased to see these. They are both repromotes from the  Blonde, Brunette, Redhead collection.

L-R: Redhead, Blonde

Redhead Mineralize Skinfinish - first four as the different shades,
last two are mixed, swatched heavily and then blended.

Redhead is the warmer shade of the two. It is more golden toned. It is very smooth, so much smoother than I expected it to be and than of any other of my MSFs. I think it would be flattering on a wide variety of skin tones. It gives a lovely golden sheen to the skin but like all MSFs it is quite shimmery so may emphasise pores. 

Blonde Mineralize Skinfinish - first four as the different shades,
last two are mixed, swatched heavily and then blended.

Blonde is a cooler shade, more pink based. It is still a flattering shade and works nicely over the top of Subtle Breeze blush. This is just as smooth as Redhead and also shimmery.

Perfect Day lipstick

Perfect Day lipstick



This is the only lipstick which appealed to me, it is a lovely pinky nude which I find far more wearable than most nudes. It doesn't look stark against my skin tone and would work on a lot of different skin tones. It is an amplified finish so applies a good amount of colour in one swipe. It lasts pretty nicely for a nude shade, probably due to the finish which seems to stick to lips better than a lustre or cremesheen lipstick does. I haven't got a lip swatch because my lips are far too dry for photographing at the moment... I hate what this cold weather does to my skin!

So that is what I picked up from Naturally, all very nice wearable colours which can be paired with lots of different shades to make really nice looks from neutrals to brighter. Anyone else pick anything up? What did you think of the collection?

Jennifer x