Neon Nails!

This week's nails see me take on a completely new trend for my own personal tastes - neon! I am usually more of an airy fair pastel and glitter kind of girl, but I couldn't help but truly fall in love with the Hedkandi and Models Own collaboration (I think I'll be buying all of the shades!) and 'Beach Party' is a fabulous bright neon orange that fits right in with the current fashion trends. I also couldn't really pass up the offer of owning Ibiza Mix too, could I?! The multicoloured flecks of glitter sit perfectly on the nail, and although I have only used a bit of Ibiza Mix for an accent nail I already love it!

Boots are also offering a buy one get one half price on Models Own polishes, so I got these two for £7.50 instead of the usual £10. Spend over £5 and receive a No7 voucher and a 30p off of a meal deal  voucher too - coupons galore!

Thoughts about neon nails? Are you a lover or a hater?

Insta-Week #2

Who needs removals boxes when work supplies the cardboard?!/To do before I move out/Reading before sleep/
MAC FOTD/Face hearts/Lovely butterflies/Jack Wills bikini love/Boots haul.

Started my MAC palette!/Love the MAC shopping bags/My Siri's got some serious attitude/Had a lazy day wasting hours on the laptop!

Pan Palette Preferences

The other day I popped to the Metrocentre in Gateshead, near Newcastle on the premise of purchasing an iPad. Well said iPad didn't happen, but a Mac Pro Pan Palette (£11.50 from MAC counters) did instead, oops! I have been eyeing up starting my own palette for ages, and while the more affordable Fashionista and Front Cover (and I am sure many more brands too) all offer their own 'DIY' palettes, there's something more exciting to me about having 15 whole pan spaces to fill up with my own pic 'n' mix. And, of course, it's MAC - only the best, eh?

How lost do my two teeny tiny pans look! At £10 a pop, this whole palette will have cost me £161.50 by the time I manage to fill up all of the spaces, but I plan on placing a few hints for colours onto my Christmas list this year, and being extra good and pointing the bf in the right direction in House of Fraser towards the MAC counter! So, as you can see, I currently have 'Patina' in the top left hand corner, and 'Nylon' situated right next to it. I am also liking the look of these four colours:

L-R: Satin Taupe, Tilt, Aquadesiac, Sweet Lust (Images taken from here.)

I love the fact that each pan is magnetised so there's no danger of the colours falling out if their spaces, and each simple slots into the space comfortably. There's also a little groove under each space to let you remove the pan and pop in another one should you want to. An all round perfect customisable palette in my opinion!

So what are your favourite MAC eyeshadow colours? Which ones can you recommend to me for my palette? (I am a blue eyed girl by the way!) Let me know your thoughts below.

(I apologise for the blurriness of the photos. I really want my Nikon back!)

Insta-Week #1

Kindle loving/Olympic Torch relay outside my house/Setting alarms to get to work on time/M&Ms
Quesadilla for lunch/Phone Case love/Big eyes make-up/FOTD

Best Coke ever/Top knot day/Bloggy make-over/True dat
Halloumi :P/Nachos/New Ink/WIMH 'Try'

Come and follow me on Instagram: louisekwilliams

eBay

Just a quick plug to say please take a wander to my eBay page for a range of beauty and clothing items...I am simply having a clear out and raising extra cash for my forthcoming holidays!

Brands for sale include Davines, Lancome, DuWop, Nails Inc, Apple, Barry M, Tigi, Miss Selfridge, Jack Wills, Benefit, Orly etc etc...

Click here to view items!

Wednesday Wishlist

This week's wish list comes with added topknot. I am having a ridiculously lazy day, by this I mean I am hardly leaving my bedroom except to perform the necessary ablutions, and eat! Yeahh, student life. So, on to the good stuff (all pictures taken from the companies' respective websites):

Clockwise L-R:

1) This dress is in the beach section on River Island's website which makes me want to believe that it's just a pretty cover up, however there's something else about it that makes me want to wear it out on a lovely evening dinner in a sunny climate. I love the pastels, and of course who doesn't love a winged horse! So girly, love it. £22.00 and it's yours. 

2) I first read about Le Bunny Bleu on Michelle's (Daisybutter) blog. Her gorgeous bunny face flats are just the sort of shoe I need to feed my love of rabbits! I then discovered their website and came across these amazing Ugg style boots for £59.00. A snip of the price of the particular Ugg style that I want and with a cute little bunny design on the back.

3) Such a random wish list item but I was browsing the Momiji website and thought that the Princess doll looks just like me (haha, I jest). Isn't she pretty? Each doll has a space to hide a message from the gift giver, now I just have to hint loudly, £12.95.

4) Every man and his wife if blogging/raving about the Caudalie Beauty Elixir at the moment and naturally I want to jump onto the hype and try it out for myself. I have heard mixed reviews about the smell of the product, and since I am a girl who believes the scent of the lotion or potion gives a lot away about the quality/nature or the product itself I think it would be interesting to try this out. 100ml on the Caudalie website will cost you pricy £32 while the 30ml is £11 but I know certain other sites offer cheaper prices.

5) This gorgeous piece of bedding is a Cath Kidston Provence Rose reversible duvet set. I love Cath Kidston prints so much and although I love my Tesco Cath Kidston dupe it's got nothing on this pretty design. It's £55 for a double duvet cover although I don't know if that includes pillow cases or not (for the sake of my bank balance let's hope it does!). I love love love the fact that it's reversible, pink and white polka dots and a beautiful floral print look almost makes it seem like you're getting two duvets for the price of one! 

Have you found any exciting wants for your wish list that I should know about? 

OOTD June 12th 2012

Cardigan: New Look
Dress: New Look
Necklace: Disney Couture
Leggings: Primark

First of all I must apologise for the amount of creases in this dress, who knew it would be so bad after just sitting down in Costa and on the bus for all of five minutes?! I love the clothes in New Look at the moment (bar the football t-shirts) and when I saw this dress on the hanger for £16.99 I had to snap it up. So cute to wear with or without leggings, with a stretchy waist for added comfort. Throw in the gorgeous floral print and I am a happy girlie!

How pretty is this floral print!

I bought this in a size 14 and was so happy to see that it fit and looks half decent. I am currently reversing almost 2 years of bad eating habits and over 100lbs weight gain and any amount of inches melting off my middle brings me so much happiness!

My love for Disney extends not only to my constant rewatching of my favourite films, but also to my jewellery. This is my third piece of Disney Couture, isn't it beautiful?!

*Also must apologise for the blurry quality of these photos, MacBook Photo Booth has nothing on my Canon camera that I miss dearly!

What's in My Handbag 'Try'

Good morning! Well it's nearly afternoon here in the UK but since I have found a rare day off nestled into this week's busy work schedule I have only just got out of bed - whoopsie!

It's so damp and miserable today, the rain's lashing at my window and one of my housemates has just returned having neglected to wear a waterproof, damp fellow poor thing. Despite the monsoon however I really must commend my postman, (or was it the post lady today? I never got to see) because they brought me a little black box of excitement to start off the day...

Have you have ever heard of 'What's In My Handbag'? If not, check out their website here and then come back to reading this post...done it? Now you'll know why this concept excites me so much! I am a self confessed bag lady, I'm not going to lie. I love nothing more than the purchase of a new handbag, be it fresh smelling leather from Radley or Mulberry, or even a simple perspex shopper from Accessorize (it's going to look marvellous as a beach carry on bag on my hols in 3 months!) and any excuse to follow the posts on Tumblr or Blogger or YouTube where people spill out the contents of their handbags for all to see satisfies both my aptitude for nosiness and my love of handbags. WIMH combines both of these with a fabulous beauty twist - what more could a girl want?

Their emphasis is on 'discover the beauty products that everyone else loves', allowing readers to dive headfirst into an array of bags that other readers post on the site (currently in the process of photographing and uploading mine) and find new and exciting products that one might have overlooked in the past, or been sceptical to try out, not wanting to buy a full sized version. The concept allows you to 'uncover the beauty secrets of fashion, beauty and creative insiders by peeking into their handbags and beauty cabinets'   and this is something that excites me very much! As an avid sample fan I have received my fair share of Glossyboxes, Boudoir Prive and the late, great, FeelUnique however the idea of opting in to try a product is refreshing to see because the monthly beauty boxes choose your items for you. If you're extremely lucky to be selected like I was for my first 'try' then the control of the sample is passed over to you as are able to choose whether or not you actually want to try the product, thereby receiving the sample that you actually want. What's more, WIMH choose recipients for each 'try' based on their beauty profile (a concept that Glossybox has yet to implement) so I was very excited to be able to try the 'balance Me daily essentials moisture-rich face cream' because I am always on the look out for face creams that will inject moisture into my incredibly dry skin. 

The cream itself feels luxurious, definitely refreshing and moisturising. I have only used it once so far so I cannot speak for any long term benefits but is did make my skin feel less tight and smoother. The only thing that put me off a little was the smell, I'm a girl who likes to have nice smelling beauty products! But other than that I have not a bad word to say about this sample. The size is quite generous, 10ml in a little squeeze tube with the full size product at 50ml and retailing for £24. I love the fact that the ingredients are 99% of natural origin as is custom to the balance Me range, their website states that their products are free from paragons, sulphates, mineral oils, silicones etc etc, i.e all the bad stuff that's not good for your face! I have yet to discover whether or not this brand tests on animals, I would like to hope that with an emphasis on natural ingredients and no harsh chemicals that they would not as this is an issue that I am becoming more and more aware of as I try out new products and brands. 


So WIMH have definitely impressed me so far, how cute is the little pouch that the same came in in the box? Perfect to putting items of jewellery in to keep them safe in my luggage on the way to the USA. I'm excited to upload my bag contents, and definitely for any future 'trys' that they include on their website (the one for this week is a Jurlique rose hand cream). So go on and sign up, read their blog and catch up on the latest uploaded bags, I'm sure you'll discover new products you'll love, I know I have! 

I'm Back :D

I return after a month long blog hiatus. This was, unfortunately, purely unintentional, I have just let life and university work get in the way of things I would much rather be doing...like blogging, painting my nails or reading my kindle. But, I am back, albeit I wish I could say 'refreshed', and do have so many ideas in the bloggy pipeline. Whoop.

But first, my Seven Successful things series continues with May:

1. I managed to get through my exams, sitting every one and answering everything to the best of my ability.
2. I started the Celebrity Slim Weight Loss plan with a vengeance. I am currently 5 weeks in and celebrating a -21lbs loss thus far :-) The initial programme lasts for 8 weeks, so I have a few more to go yet, but I am starting to feel like my goal is firmly in sight!
3. I paid my last rent instalment for this student house. This is successful because it means a fresh start just down the road come July 1st.
4. I changed my first lot of £100 savings into US$ ready for the holiday Joseph and I are going on, he paid off the remainder today...3 months and 7 days to go! I can't believe we booked it just under a year ago, scary stuff!
5. I've truly managed to get the hang of eBay and always have things up for sale, successful because every little helps towards the holiday spending fun, right? Victoria's Secret won't shop itself!
6. Officially managed to fit into and wear my other skirt for work, 2 sizes smaller!
7. I joined instagram properly, name: louisekwilliams and I absolutely love looking at all the creative and exciting pictures that people post...the world is such a blur of fabulous imagination! 

Again, I apologise for my slight disappearance...!