Review | Essie's Grow Richer Base Coat

My nails have had it. Winter is over and spring is here. I really hope this means my nails are going to grow longer and stronger, and not have to face the coldness of winter again...

That said, I bought this Essie Grow Richer base coat a long time ago, and never really used it. I would stick to OPI's Nail Envy or Nicole by OPI Nail Strengthener, and though they work fine, it was time to try out other nourishing base coats that I had lurking around.

The polish is clear, has a thin consistency, and doesn't make my nails feel thick with polish. It said in five days I'd have 30% more flexible nails! However, it doesn't make my nails grow any faster, which is a shame, but I have noticed my nails are stronger and aren't breaking or chipping at the sides.

Now the minus-something-stupid-temperatures have gone, I hope my nails continue to grow stronger with the help of this base coat.

Have you got any polishes that you've forgotten about?

Jenny xo - Follow me on: Twitter / Instagram / Bloglovin

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Special Delivery #21 | Our Own Candle Company...

Our Own Candle Company are an American company who use a special soy and paraffin wax. I have never purchased Yankee candles as I think they're quite expensive, costing up to £8 for a small jar with up to 40 hours burn time, where as Our Own Candle Company's (OOCC) mini mason jars cost £4 for up to 30 hours burn time. I own a few of these candles in other scents already, and they have a long lasting scent that can smelt throughout the house.

As I'm on a spending ban with make-up, I thought I'd treat myself to some candles instead. The current scents I own from OOCC are more for winter months, so I thought I'd buy some spring and summer scents.

I bought these candles from eBay as they were cheaper there than on the website.

Tropical Paradise
This candle supposedly has scents of coconut, pineapple, passion fruit and banana, but I can only smell flowery scents. I hope the fruity smells come out once lit, otherwise I'll be really disappointed.

Coconut Lime
On the OOCC website, they describe it as a party candle, and it's easy to smell why. It smells a lot like pina colada. The coconut scent overpowers the lime, but maybe this will change once I've lit it. I was hoping that it'd smell like key lime pie, but I guess my quest for that scent will continue.

Banana Nut Bread
This candle smells like ripe bananas, cinnamon and nuts. It's very sweet and will probably make me want to bake a banana cake. This is definitely not a summer scent but hey who can resist the smell of banana cake?

Fresh Linen 
This smells like freshly washed sheets. You know that smell, where you can't stop sniffing fresh sheets?! That's the smell. I can't wait to try this one, I bet my room would smell like I've washed it out with fabric conditioner!

Are you loyal to a candle company? Or do you just buy whatever smells nice?

Jenny xo - Follow me on: Twitter / Instagram / Bloglovin

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Nail Art #24 | Cinderella Nails!

Even miracles take a little time. These nails took quite some time to do as I was a bit busy the past few days, but I am so happy with how they turned out. These are my Cinderella nails in celebration of the new live-action Cinderella film set to be released in the UK on the 27th March. 

I hardly do characters on nails as it seems to take me awhile to do it, but I think with more practice I get faster & confident doing them. The hardest nail to do was Cinderella's carriage door. I am not great with tiny details, so the door was pretty tricky to do. If I was to do these nails again I'd make sure I made the door bigger so I could fit the black outline in. 

I loved painting the shoe. I wasn't sure how I could make it look like glass, so I decided adding a glittery top coat might help. I added a hex glitter onto the toe area of the shoe to mimic the sparkles as seen in the Disney film. 

Colours used: Maybelline's Color Show in Electric Yellow; Essie's Pink About It; Model's Own Blooboo, Sophie's Pink & Jack Frost; Model's Own x WAH Nail Art Pen in Blue & WAH London's Nail Art Pen in White. Colours used and not shown (because I put them away and forgot...): Model's Own Slate Green & Peach Sherbert.

Will you be watching Cinderella when it's released? 

Jenny xo - Follow me on: Twitter / Instagram / Bloglovin

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Dissertation Tips & Tricks

It's that time again! You're doing your first draft of your dissertation, and you've ran out of steam (or you haven't really wrote much). I was at the same point last year, and I was also living away from university so getting books from the uni library was a bit of an issue. I didn't think my dissertation would get me an amazing grade, but low and behold I graduated with a 2:1! Here are some tips on how I wrote my dissertation:

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Special Delivery #20 | Nanshy's Marvel 4-in-1 Sponge

My Beauty Blender is mouldy and I didn't want to fork out £16 for a new one, so when I saw bloggers posting about this Nanshy 4-in-1 sponge a few months ago, I was intrigued. It wasn't available until sometime in February, but because there was no release date I forgot all about. Last week I remembered that it should have been released and low and behold it was available to put into my basket.

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Nail Art #23 | Marble Nails 2.0

I cannot get over how cute the marble effect is on my nails! I did this look in another post but with pale blue polish instead, and it just never stood out the way I imagined. I've seen this look done before; adding the gold polish made the white stand out a bit more and I'm so glad I tried it out.

Winter has wrecked my nails so much. As I sit here typing away, my pointer finger nail has just ripped at the side. Working in retail also means my weak nails get damaged faster too, just picking up a heavy box is just a nail accident waiting to happen. Seriously, winter needs to go away now.

I used Model's Own Utopia, a very light lilac, and Gold Digger, a shimmery gold, as well as WAH London's nail art pen, to create this design. I love this colour combination, it's so perfect for spring.

Do you hate winter like me (but only sometimes like it because it's snuggle season) or do you embrace it with open arms and snow boots?

Jenny xo - Follow me on: Twitter / Instagram / Bloglovin

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LiLash & LiBrow 3rd and final update!

When I first heard about lash growing serums I always thought that they were just a fad, they never worked or at least they'd never be able to make my short lashes grow. I was wrong. After being sent a LiLash and LiBrow sample in November, and after using it for three months, I'm amazed at how well it's worked for me.

In the first month, my outer lashes were lifting and curling, but there wasn't much yet. I'd always apply it at night time but I think this is where I may have gone wrong. My eyes water a lot when I'm lying down in bed which may be the reason I started getting some hair around my eye area, which I didn't notice much until the second month.

In the second month, I noticed much more of a difference. Some of my lashes were growing longer than others and I had hair around my eyes. The hair growth was caused by my watery eyes spreading the serum around. So I started to apply the serum in the morning to prevent this. Random lashes were growing longer than others, and it was a sign that the serum was working.

In the third month, the lashes were becoming fuller and longer, and the outer lashes were curling upwards. This is the final month of using LiLash everyday before moving onto using it every other day, and it's worked amazingly. If you've got naturally long lashes then you'll obviously see much more of a difference, but as I have short lashes, I've got the long lashes my friends have always had.

After applying mascara, the lashes are much more noticeable. You can really see how much longer my lashes are after mascara, And yes, I do just sit and stare at how long my lashes are in the mirror before and after applying mascara.

As for my brows, I have noticed that the brow hairs have grown longer, making my brows look more fuller. The sparse areas are a little darker, but still natural looking. When I had a slightly wonky eyebrow from getting them threaded, I used the brow serum over the area where I needed it to regrow, and the brow hairs started sprouting up quite fast in that area. This product is great if you've always had thin eyebrows from over plucking, or your eyebrow lady went a bit too happy with the thread or wax.

Thanks LiLash for sending me these amazing products! I am so pleased with the results!

Jenny xo - Follow me on: Twitter / Instagram / Bloglovin

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