Bellapierre Mineral Make-Up

Mineral make-up has become more and more successful over the past few years and Bellapierre is one of the fastest growing mineral make-up companies in the world. It boasts 100% natural mineral cosmetics across the range and is suitable for any skin-type, even the most sensitive. Bellapierre does the make-up for Legally Blonde: the musical in the West End and also many fashion shows, including London Fashion Week, fast becoming a favourite with celebs worldwide.

The really special thing about the Bellapierre range is that you can use clear mascara, lipgloss, lip balm, nail paint etc. from their range and combine it with any of the powder colours to create any colour mascara, lipgloss, lipstick, nail varnish etc. COLOUR COORDINATION HEAVEN for freaks like me :) but the downside is the price, they're rather expensive..


What you're paying for is the mineral without fillers or any bismuth oxychloride which other mineral make-up brands use (often irritating for sensitive skin). Most make-up brands contain fillers in foundations (particularly liquid foundation) which reduce the price for the manufacturer, whether or not that price drop is carried on to the consumer. The Bellapierre foundation contains zinc oxide (renowned as a great ingredient to reduce spots) and has decent coverage, but does tend to go a little orange after a few hours.. It also has quite a hefty price tag of £34.99.


The glitter powder is sooooo sparkly but the particles are quite large for cosmetic glitter and I was slightly worried about my eyes when taking it off. When on it appeared as if a starry sky was under my lashes and a glitterball effect played around the edge of my eyes. It was nice for a change, but I will be sticking to Chanel's Illusion D'Ombre Long Wear Luminous eyeshadows as they are absolutely fantastic! (more on that later) 


The best product in the entire range, in my opinion, is the foundation primer. It is what I'd call a miracle product. Immediately softening and smoothing, this primer can be used as a moisturiser and a base for foundation as it treats dryness, fine lines, excess oil and enlarged pores, making skin feel so soft. Only a teeny tiny bit is needed for full-face application after which a full make-up routine can ensue or, for those lucky people with no blemishes, a light dusting of powder will suffice. This is almost extortionate at £45 per pot, but it is fantastic and lasts around 10 months at a time. 


That's all from me on this brand, if you're looking for slightly less expensive alternatives try: Lily Lolo, Purely Mineral or Earthnicity. (hope everyone likes my little fishpond on the right)
JB

Valentine's Nails

This is the nail art I did for Valentine's Day this year. I chose 17 Lasting Fix in "Sweet Kisses" for the background and after two coats painted on some v shapes in 17 "Royal Indigo", "Woo Me", "Forever", "Fairy Cake", "Revenge" and MaxFactor's "Boji" (easier to do with my right hand on left) followed by outlining each of the shapes with little hearts in the Andrea Fullerton Dot&Flick pen in black (very difficult to draw small heart shapes with left hand!) and added a few extra heart shapes to fill the gaps. 

voilà!

Chanel Camellias

Coco Chanel's love for Camellia blooms is shown through a lot of her collections for both fashion and beauty. We might all with we could pin a Chanel branded camellia on an outfit now and then to smarten up, but at £300 each I for one am going to have to find a cheaper alternative. At my local bead/craft shop I found felt camellias for under £2 each and I could also buy some badge backs at the same time. Going home I stuck the badge backs to the flower backs and voila! Chanel-esque camellia broaches :)

M&S are doing Chanel-esque little heeled sandals at the moment too, complete with leather camellia. At £25 a pair these are good quality shoes with designer lineage for a fraction of the price! Complete the look with a nicely manicured toenail peeping through the front (a Chanel colour will go just great!) These shoes are available in complete purple and black/beige combinations. Nice and comfy too :D

Sleeping Bunny Rabbits

I challenge anyone not to find these pictures cute:

 The brown one is my boy, Monte, he's about 2 years old now and a dutch/rex cross. Such a sweet boy, great temperament.

The fluffy white one is Bella, the little princess. Stubborn and moody but very pretty, she's still less than a year old.

They are utterly in love.

Nail Art (Post Three)

This purple leopard print was chosen by my brother's girlfriend, Hattie, for me to do on her nails. They worked out really nicely with the polishes looking glossy and professional.

I used a basecoat of 17 Lasting Fix in 'Woo Me', using the three-stroke technique, and then put a few spots of Barry M 'Mushroom' and 'Bright Purple' on each nail and waited for them all to dry. Then using my favourite Andrea Fulerton Nail Art Black Pen, I surrounded each spot with a broken ring and then added a few random swirls to fill the gaps. (Remember to never use a topcoat as it smudges the pens!)

The busy design has worked really well on Hattie's shorter nails here and the colours go surprisingly well together and with many different outfits. Nice work :)

 I got really bored over the weekend and decided to use my Andrea Fulerton Gemstone Overcoat (I know a post solely on this is long overdue). I used Barry M 'Matt White' and painted over the whole of each nail with 2 coats. Then I did a half/half design on each nail using Collection 2000 Lasting Colour in 'Liquorice' which I reflected on the other hand (colours and patterns here were 60's inspired). Was tempted to leave them as they were but to jazz it up a little bit, I covered each nail with some of the Gemstone Overcoat. This makes white nail polish resemble Opal with tiny little flakes of glitter suspended in clear polish. Although it is a dense varnish, it dries quite quickly and reasonably smoothly and, bucking the trend of most glitter polishes, is quite easy to remove. As you can see, on the dark colour, the glitter flakes reflect red and green tones, completely in contrast to the blue and purple colours that show on the white. I prefer the subtlety of the pale colour and will be using this more, but the colours on the black make it really striking. Definitely a good investment at under £5 per bottle from Superdrug!

        

Vintage Nails

Ok, I know this has become more of a nail blog than anything else, but I do get comments on these most of all and they allow me to waste time (and put off homework) without feeling too guilty. Using the Frontcover Nail Polishes I received for Christmas (thanks AJ :D) I decided to create a kinda vintage design for my nails. A square shaped nail suits me a lot better than the typical curved end (not going full-out vintage and going to oval ends) so I chose to do a design which had a bold, dark coloured tip and pale base. I settled on purples for no reason in particular and went for it:

The base colour "Moonrock" is pale purple with gold glitter particles which give it a gorgeous sheen and pearlescent finish. The tip colour "Palevioletred" is a richer purple but with a shimmery finish too. Both are Frontcover nail varnishes and apply brilliantly without streaking and dry quickly. It's all down to personal taste, but I quite like this one :)

Thank You

Thank you to everyone who helped me to get 510 views last month! I am so grateful to everyone who visited the page, hope you enjoyed reading (or just looking at the pictures), THANKS AGAIN!!

JB