Five minutes of my life I won’t get back!

I like to jazz up my bottle blonde hair with a temporary colour, usually pink. I bought a set of cheap chalks with applicators which are quite waxy so stay on the strands; but I can’t get the colour to transfer from a more expensive kit. A spray I tried just poofed off.

Newest buy is Candy Pink Toner from Superdrug Pick&Mix Colour, a ‘non-permanent’ cream for blonde or pre-lightened hair, supposedly to last up to eight washes, £4.99.

Instructions say shampoo hair, towel dry then saturate hair with product. Leave five minutes and rinse. Result – no change whatsover. Hopeless! Five minutes of my life I won’t get back…

If I can find the receipt, I’m returning it.

Frizz killer

I have layered, naturally curly hair which I usually blow dry but my enemies are rain, damp or when the temperature rises: my hair either curls or goes wispy.  In summer, I often leave it to dry naturally because it’s not worth fighting the curls.

Enter Elvive ‘Dream Lengths’ Frizz Killer Serum (along with mousse) which has resisted the effects of winter damp and added lasting bounce to my blow dry.  I apply two squirts on rough dried hair, followed by a handful of mousse.  I divide my hair into about six sections (fringe, sides, top, crown, neck) and use a big round brush to get body and smoothness.  It takes no longer than five minutes.

Elvive ‘Dream Lengths’ Frizz Killer Serum, @£5, loads of places

Indola 4+4 Mousse, Sally Beauty, £8.99 

Blow dry or curly?

 

 

A gel answer for fragile nails

Some gel users have strong nails which hold polish for two-three weeks with no chipping and also don’t mind using acetone to remove them.

For my fragile nails which layer and split, I prefer peel off products as I think they are less harsh.  Alessandro Striplac is a great system but it’s pricey so I’m always on the lookout for less expensive alternatives.  Plus the shades on the bottles often aren’t true to the contents – I can’t count how failed many attempts I’ve had trying for a really dark burgundy..

I’m hugely impressed with three new buys, all rolling in around the £6.50 mark:

* Vena Lisa Peel Off base coat

* Blue Sky Hard Gel

* Vena Lisa Long Wear, no wipe top coat.

 

I did base, hard gel, two colour coats then the top coat for a durable shiny finish which lasted a whole ten days before I tired of the regrowth.  Often I was doing daily repairs.

When I eased the old gel off, my nails were more intact than I’ve known for years; there was growth and only about half of the tips had chips out.  A quick buff and I was ready for another gel manicure.  The blue I took off is an in-bottle mix of various blues (yes, you can!) whereas today’s colour is my new Urban Denim from Alessandro Striplac.  It’s a dense dark navy, black from a distance but, up close…ah, midnight.

Removal; trimmed nails; base and hard gel; finished manicure.

 

 

 

Peel off base coats

Experimenting with a brace of fresh peel off bases for UV gel nails, prompted by difficulty in removing gel from my dry nail surface.

These are both cheapies – around £2-3 – from ebay and claim to work under any UV/LED gel.  So far I’ve only used them under peel off colour and while I’m getting decent wearing time, my nails don’t feel as strong as with my regular Blue Sky Peel Off Base and Top Coat.

What does more strength is a coat off one of them PLUS a coat of Blue Sky.  This double layer gave me hardness – but the polish still peeled off easily.  I’ve yet to try under soak off gel.

SUGAR comes in a tube so you need to be careful not to squeeze too much out otherwise it runs.  VENA LISA is in a normal bottle.

Of the two, I’d say the SUGAR has more strength but you must, must, must put the cap on while you do the colour layers.  Just a few minutes and the brush had hardened in ordinary daylight.  I dipped it in Alessandro Peel Off Activator and it came back to life.

VERDICT – worth a try.

 

 

Cheat residue remover

Away from home without non-acetone nail polish remover to cleanse and get rid of the residue after a gel nail repair, I reached for the nearest product containing alcohol.  No – not G&T and certainly not my Chanel No5 (in the glorious red bottle…)!  Gel hand sanitiser works beautifully, with a bonus of no rinsing.  Pocket sizes are cheap and much safer to carry than removers.

Boots under-eye corrector

Boots’ new No7 Laboratories Dark Circle Corrector claims to reduce the appearance of under-eye dark circles in four weeks – but does it live up to the hype?

Now I’ve had dark under-eye circles forever so I was very interested in this startling claim.  And I can tell you …it works for me.

There are only two shades – light/medium or medium/dark – so I chose the lighter and applied it religiously twice daily, morning and before bed.  After two weeks or so I could definitely see a lightening of the shadows.

I applied it over serum and spread my tinted moisturiser lightly into the edges of the corrector.

However, my review comes with caveats:

* the product, a runny cream, is difficult to apply; you waste a lot before you get the hang of the tube applicator (TIP: open, squeeze out a small amount but close it before putting it onto your face)

* it is not a good concealer in early days of usage because it is too thin

* apply too much and it sets into a rubbery finish which peels when dry.

It’s pricey at £28 but often available within the Boots three for two offers.

A foot cream which really works

I’d never been convinced by specialist foot creams until I tried Clarins Foot Beauty Treatment Cream which came in a twin pack, at a bargain price, with my favourite hand product – their Hand and Nail Treatment Cream.

WOW!  I do take care of my feet, regularly getting rid of hard skin with the best scrubber I have found – *Boots Hard Skin Remover (only £3.99) – and daubing with body lotion.  But the Clarins cream, which I’ve only been using for three weeks, is wondrous at stopping hard skin even forming.  A small blob massaged into heels and the edges of my feet leaves them feeling smooth, even through several showers.  It’s not sticky at all once dry.

The 125ml tube, which seems expensive at £25, is going to last ages.  When it runs out, I will definitely buy again.

 

*https://www.boots.com/health-pharmacy/medicines-treatments/footcare/hard-skin-removal/boots-pharmaceuticals-hard-skin-remover-1-remover-10115038

Peel off tip

Although I’ve been using peel off gels for about five years now, I’ve only now discovered that removal is easier if nails are soaked for a couple of minutes in warm water.  The brainwave came when I did my nails just after a long soak and hair wash.  The gel peeled off so easily compared with a cold start.

Maybe you haven’t ever experience reluctant gel, but sometimes I find a few nails won’t fully budge and get very annoyed.

Another tip is to use manicure orange sticks to lift the edge of the gels rather than a thumb nail, especially if your nails are fragile.

 

In the navy…

At last a true navy blue…

 

I’ve been searching around for more strip-off gel colours – no luck – but found a review where someone used Vishine gels successfully in between peel off base and top coats.  These gels are available in great deals from Amazon.uk   I paid £15.99 for ten… yes, TEN, 8ml bottles (other options available from different sellers) which arrived in seven days.  The hardest aspect was choosing ten from the dozens of shades, then deciding which to apply first!

I plumped for No 271, a true navy with a subtle pearlised finish, a shade I’ve been unable to find until now.  The gel was easy to apply, did not shrink from the edges and gave complete opacity with two coats.  It takes 30 seconds to cure with an LED lamp and there was no colour transference when I wiped off the sticky final residue.  My nails feel strong.  I’ll update on removal.

* Update.  No issues with removal and the application lasted me through a week away with some minor touch ups.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ECAHZVA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And, of course, a song...

Fuschia experiment

The sun is finally emerging in the UK so flower shades are in order. I still can’t think of hot pinks but this fuschia is helping me bridge the seasons.

This is a real cheapie peel off – MRO, shade 25 – which I found on ebay.  It’s supposedly a 3-in-1 product, no need for base or top coat;£3.55 apiece, including postage.

BUT I didn’t feel it worked well on its own.  For a start there were no instructions and those sent by the seller, after I’d asked, referred to soak off rather than peel off.

I gathered that 60 seconds was the curing time and realised that there was no sticky residue to wipe off after application.

The two coats I applied left my weak nails feeling fragile; the shine was gone after 24 hours and the tips began to chip. Because the gel was so thin – just two coats instead of four – it wouldn’t peel off an entire nail and I was forced to chip, peel, chip till it was gone.  However, there was no staining on the nails.

The photo shows my second application where I used a dual base and top coat from Bluesky in conjunction with MRO.  The nails feel much stronger but some tips have chipped already.

UPDATE 5/6/2017

This sandwich application was also difficult to remove.  I then tried base coat, layer of Bluesky, layer of MRO, top coat.  Watch this space…

CONCLUSION

I opened this colour again after a few weeks and found that the gel had developed a thick film round the top of the bottle – clearly setting even in a closed container.  It went in the bin.  Don’t waste money on this brand.