Nails Inc recently ran their annual lucky dip on their website – where this year for just £18, you received a randomly selected 7 full size nail polishes. As they usually retail for around £11 each, I jumped at this offer!

Unfortunately this limited time offer has now expired, but as they have many promotions throughout the year, it’s worth signing up to their emails from their website to be kept informed! I was quite pleased with at least half of my randomly selected lucky dip selection so I thought I’d share some of the fab Nails Inc shades with you.

First up is a lovely matte shade – Nails Inc Gatwick. This is a bright red shade, that just requires 2 coats for great coverage and dries with a great chalky matte finish.

Nails Inc matte Gatwick nail polish

Secondly I’ve got Nails Inc Richmond Terrace – a deliciously dark plum shade, from the recent Autumn/Winter collection.

Nails Inc Richmond Terrace nail polish

Finally I’ve got Chester Street – a grey nude shade with a pearly finish…

Nails Inc Chester Street nail polish

Nails Inc polishes can be bought online.

Recently I tried out all 8 of the L’Oreal Shine Caresse lip gloss collection, beautiful highly pigmented, long-lasting, super-shiny glosses and here are all the pics!

L’Oreal Shine Caresse Lip gloss

You can layer these glosses really well to get an amazing depth of colour. Just check out Juliet and Milady – fabulous!

1. 501 Bonnie lip gloss
2. 200 Princess lip gloss
3. 300 Juliet lip gloss
4. 402 Milady lip gloss

L’Oreal Shine Caresse Lip gloss

The next set of four Shine Caresse glosses are the more neutral colours in the range.

L’Oreal Shine Caresse Lip gloss

1. 101 Lolita lip gloss
2. 102 Romy lip gloss
3. 400 Eve lip gloss
4. 103 Marilyn lip gloss

L’Oreal Shine Caresse Lip gloss

102 Romy is the perfect nude gloss for me – just the right amount of pink to not wash me out and 103 Marilyn is fast becoming a favourite as well!

I’m really impressed with these glosses. The colours are gorgeous and deep and I’ve never used a gloss where the shine was so long lasting!

OPI recently announced their upcoming autumn/winter 2013 collection – OPI San Francisco.

The range brings chic street style with West Coast flair – with a palette ranging from moody greys and blues to ruby jewel tones all inspired by the city’s most iconic elements. There’s 12 fab looking new shades, plus 3 Liquid Sand colours. I’ve got my eye on a few, can’t wait for these to be launched!

OPI San Francisco Collection

The first 6 shades (L-R) are:

• A-piers to be Tan
• Dining al Friso
• Haven’t the Foggiest
• Peace & Love & OPI
• Keeping Suzi at Bay
• Incognito in Sausalito

OPI San Francisco Collection

The other 6 shades (L-R) are:

• First date at the Golden Gate
• I knead Sour Dough
• Muir Muir on the Wall
• In the Cable Car Pool
• Embarca-Dare Ya!
• Lost on Lombard

OPI San Francisco Collection Liquid Sand

This collection also has 3 Liquid Sand colours in this range are (L-R):

• It’s all San Andrea’s Fault
• Wharf! Wharf! Wharf!
• Alcatraz…Rocks

The OPI San Francisco range is coming soon – and will be available in the UK at Lena White.

A wee while ago I posted about the new OPI Bond Girls nail polish collection and today I have two from the collection to show you. All of the nail polishes in the Bond Girls collection have the OPI Liquid Sand finish – a matte glitter.

First up are OPI Honey Ryder nail polish swatches:

OPI Honey Ryder nail polish from the OPI Bond Girls nail polish collection

OPI Honey Ryder nail polish is a pretty antique gold colour with quite a bit of sparkle in for a matte finish.

OPI Honey Ryder nail polish from the OPI Bond Girls nail polish collection

You really do need just one or two coats of these Liquid Sand finish polishes to get a great level of coverage and depth of colour.

Next is OPI Jinx nail polish from the Bond Girls collection – this is such a gorgeous nail polish…

OPI Jinx nail polish from the OPI Bond Girls nail polish collection

Jinx is  a bright peachy orange nail polish with gold glitter accents – so swoon-worthy! I’ll be perfectly honest with you – until I tried Jinx nail polish I was really unsure about this Liquid Sand finish, so if you want to try one out, make it Jinx!

OPI Jinx nail polish from the OPI Bond Girls nail polish collection

I’m also really keen to try out the OPI Vesper nail polish from the collection – it’s a beautiful dark berry colour.

You can buy the OPI Bond Girls nail polish collection online from OPI UK

I don’t know about you, but my ghd hair straighters are a core part of my ‘take to a desert island’ list. My hair naturally has quite a wave and without a proper blowdry it goes quite frizzy. For me, ghd’s were a game changer! For many years now, my hair has been sleek and manageable without any of those bad hair freak out nightmares!

In more recent years, I’ve used my ghd styler to create not just sleek straight looks but also other styles – from curls to up do’s. Rather fittingly, ghd have recently launched a new section of their website to give inspiration for hairstyles. They’ve put together a fab collection with lots of different styles, with images and videos of different on-trend styles, special occasion looks and various celeb styles.

I’ve been tasked by ghd to create a hair how-to on one of these styles, using their ghd IV styler from their new limited edition candy collection. The candy styler comes in 3 fab bright shades – violet, lemon and mint.

ghd candy styler in violet

I’ve used my lovely cousin Leigh as a hair model as she’s got nice long locks – and mine has recently been bobbed! From ghd’s hair inspiration page, I’ve recreated this plaited up-do as seen on the gorgeous Charlize Theron.

And here’s the simple steps I used to recreate the up-do…

1. To maintain some of the volume at the roots, roughly blow dry the hair.

2. Run the hair straighter over the top layer of hair to ensure it is sleek when put up

3. Separate the hair into 3 equal sections at the back – any shorter layers at the front can be left out if they aren’t long enough to pull back

4. Plait each hair section and secure with a thin hair band, ideally the same colour as the hair

5. Decide which side of the head you will create the up-do on, then pull the furthest plait across the others and wrap underneath the other two. You can secure underneath with a hair pin or kirby grip. Wrap each of the other two plaits around the others – doesn’t have to be really neat, just so the 3 plaits are secure across each other with hair pins around the outside

6. Then hide the ends with the hair band underneath with hair pins.

7. With any shorter layers or side fringe at the front, run the straighters over to ensure they are sleek and secure these back with pins, giving the style a bit more texture.

8. Add some hairspray to keep it secure and you’re done!

I’ve kept the style quite loose to be a more relaxed up do, but you could easily make it slightly tighter or higher up like Charlize at her red carpet event!

To get your own hair inspiration from ghd, take a look at their hair inspirations section of the website.

GHD Candy styler gifted by GHD.

Today’s spring inspired nail art is a little spotty number!

I’ve used Rimmel Tangy Tangerine for the base, which is a lovely light orange shade. To make the spots stand out more, I’ve then used Rimmel’s Matte Finish top coat to give the polish a muted matte coat. Then I’ve used a shiny white nail art pen in white from Rio.

Rimmel Tangy Tangerine spotty manicure

Rimmel nail polish can be bought in store or online at Boots.

Today I’ve got a lovely coral shade from Maybelline’s new Color Show collection – Coral Craze.

This is a great spring shade and goes on well with just 2 coats for good coverage. I love a coral shade, and would be fab for a pedicure if the weather ever gets warm enough for flip flops!

Maybelline Coral Craze

Maybelline nail polish can be bought in store or online at Boots.

My recent obsession with coloured french manicures continues – today I have a sparkly silver and black manicure to show you.

I’ve used Model’s Own Sterling Silver for the base and Model’s Own Matt Black for the tips. The matt of the black is a nice textural difference to the sheen and sparkle of the silver. A good one for a party!

Silver & black manicure – Models Own Sterling Silver and Models Own Matt Black

I didn’t add a top coat to this as I wanted to keep the matt texture, but to further protect the thicker polish on the tips, you could add a clear top coat also.

Silver & black manicure – Models Own Sterling Silver and Models Own Matt Black

Model’s Own polishes can be bought in store or online at Boots.

After doing a wee bit of window-shopping to find a perfect leather jacket, I found myself browsing leather dresses on ShopBop.com – now I know a leather dress isn’t the most practical piece of clothing, but take a peek at these beauties I found!

Oh yeah… the title says five, but I couldn’t choose so there’s six leather dresses in this wee collection!

Leather dresses

1. alice + olivia – Leather Stripe A Line Dress – £675.50
2. Rebecca Minkoff – Leather Shift Dress – £540.67
3. RED Valentino – Embroidered Leather Dress – £877.41

Leather dresses

1. alice + olivia – Leather A Line Dress – £539.32
2. PJK Patterson J. Kincaid – Clara Leather Shift Dress – £121.14
3. Rebecca Minkoff – Luis Leather Dress – £540.67

As you can see, none of these dresses are particularly affordable, so at the moment they’re staying on a wishlist! I have bought myself a lotto ticket this week tho .

My manicure today is a coloured french manicure using 2 complementing shades – OPI for Sephora Break a Leg Warmer and OPI Suzi’s Hungary Again.

I’ve used the OPI for Sephora dark grey shade for the base and then the fabulous pink for the recent OPI Euro Centrale collection for the tips. Definitely brightens up a grey shade!

Grey & pink manicure – OPI Break a Leg Warmer and OPI Suzi’s Hungary Again

OPI polishes can be bought online at Lena White.