Cracked It (Again)

After receiving a fair few comments about my red/black cracked nails (see previous blog post), I decided to give it another go, with a different base colour. This time, I decided to use a base colour made by the same brand to see if it gave any benefit to mixing the two.


I used the "Barry M Black Instant Nail Effect" again, but whereas before I used a Red Chanel base, this time I used Barry M's "Shocking Pink 272".

Although this is an effective colour, which works with the black in standing out, I did find that on one or two of the nails, it stripped the base pink as it was cracking. Now this happened on the hand, that I didn't double-coat, so perhaps for this to work effectively, you need to have at least 2 coats of the base colour.


I did this time, use a lot more paint on the brush when putting the black on, and funnily enough, this has allowed the paint to "crack" even more.


Therefore, I would reccommend doing at least, 2 coats for the base colour, and then putting the black on (once the base is fully dry), in a thick, 3 swipe motion. 






272 Shocking Pink Barry M Nail Paint -
http://www.barrym.com/nail-paints


311 Black Magic Barry M Instant Nail Effect - http://www.barrym.com/products/product.asp?id=155

10 Minute Solution: Blast Off Belly Fat

Considering I have spent the last 3 years, not waking up until 10am, and then divulging in to a nap late afternoon every day, I wouldn't have said I was the most energetic of people. Pah! I was a student (that's what they all say). I have always known this to be my lifestyle, and yet I still find myself moaning that I do not have the beach perfect, rhianna style stomach, and I did try to go to the gym in my last year at university, and despite it being a mere 5 minute walk away, I always found something to distract me. 

Well I have now finished university, and although I do enjoy my frequent naps (which have now moved to early evening), the looks of a full-time job are unlikely at the moment. So I decided, that in my spare time between my part-time job, and my napping, I might try a cheap, do it in the privacy of your home style of getting fit. Enter, the workout DVD.

I purchased the "10 Minute Solution: Blast Off Belly Fat" off Amazon.co.uk, at a small price of £4.99 or whatever it was (a lot cheaper than the gym I tell you that), and waited for its arrival. Upon it's arrival, I opened, got excited that it was finally here, and then put it aside in the kitchen, as of course, it was time for Neighbours. It proceeded to sit there for a further 7 days, until I remembered that it had arrived, and I should probably put it in the player. 

To anyone that is thinking of purchasing this DVD, I would highly recommend. It has 5 x 10 minute workouts, which are obviously, all aimed at toning the stomach area, and they are all fairly easy to follow...

- Flat Belly Fast

- Pilates Perfect Abs

- Belly Fat Blaster

- Ab Ripper

- Six Pack Abs

I did 3 of the workout's in a row the other day, thinking, well this is a bit too easy, how on earth will this actually help me tone up. OH.. MY.. GOD. The next day, I have never ached so much in my life. I had to lift a bag of potatoes and my arms just wouldn't allow me too. I probably didn't stretch enough before or after, because lets face it, nobody actually does, unless perhaps your in the Olympics and even then, I doubt it. But the evidence was all there, I definitely must have been working something, though I feel less working, more waking my body up to the fact I do have some muscles somewhere.

I'm going to do at least 2 of the workouts each day (she says), and hopefully, it will show some sign of improvement. I shall keep you informed of my progress, and whether I stick to my 20minute workout-a-day plan... 

Cracked It

I have always loved painting my nails, decorating them, trying different patterns/ techniques, but the recent release of the 'cracked' nail varnishes by Barry M, which have since been released by other companies, just did not work on my nails. I don't know whether I have been using too much in thickness, or my nails just dislike the paint, but I bought the Black Barry M Cracked Paint today, and put it over my Red 377 Chanel nail varnish, and I have to say, it looks pretty good! Definitely going to purchase more colours and experiment more.


I didn't wipe much paint off the brush, and just did the classic, 3 swipe motion and although I had to go over the tops and corners a teenie bit afterwards, it seemed to work perfect!


Yay to pretty nails.

http://www.barrym.com/products/product.asp?id=155 -
Barry M Black Instant Nail Effect £3.99

http://www.chanel.com/en_US/fragrance-beauty/Makeup-Nails-89313 -
Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour 377

Avon French Manicure Set

I have always loved having a French manicure on my nails, especially when I have grown them to a good healthy length (I have only had fake nails once and found them more hassle than its worth). My mum bought the 'Avon Nail Expert - French Manicure Set' which contained a white nail varnish for the tip, a nude nail varnish for the coat, and also contained 30 tip guideline stickers.

I already have lots of guidelines which I had bought of Ebay a few months ago which worked perfectly, so I decided to give the Avon ones a go when painting my mums nails last night. The Avon stickers were a lot wider than the ones I had used before which I saw as a benefit originally but when I started to use them I realised that they were useless. They didn't stick down which meant that when the white varnish was painted on, it smudged underneath where the sticker was raised and when it was pushed down it 'blodged' making it look messy. I also noticed that when waiting for the white to dry before pealing off the guidelines, because of there lack of stickiness, they were pealing off by themselves also smudging the tip further. As well as this, they aren't very long in length across the nail meaning that if you having a wider nail, it only just reached across, also making it difficult to make the perfect tip. Despite this i tried to cover the smudges up with the nude colour, but as it is very peachy, the smudged white could be seen through when close up. I had to take off all the nail varnish and redo both hands with my own guidelines later on. 

Priced at £6.50 for the kit, you are essentially just paying for the 2 nail varnishes which you could get at any beauty store for possibly a cheaper price. Though having said that, both the nail varnishes are of good quality and have got good brushes meaning they are at the higher end of the scale, so I would recommend the kit, just note that it would probably be better to do the tip freehand with out the guidelines (or purchase some elsewhere). 

If you like a more subtle French manicure (I like a white tip), then this nude is perfect as when you put it over the white, it darkens slightly giving it a more subtle edge, however if like me, you like the white tip, you can just put a thin layer on, or like I do, just put a clear nail varnish coat on instead. 

Buy it here:- 
http://avonshop.co.uk/product/make-up/nails/nail-colour/nail-experts-french-manicure-kit.html?newdept=&s=bvSearch&c=Bazaar&otc=NailExpertsFrenchManicureKit&bnd=&

Sweet Lemon Lip Butter

I have never been a big fan of the Body Shop, and to be honest, I'm still not. The way they hound you the second you step foot in the door is so annoying, if I want your help, I will ask for it. I also strongly dislike the smell of the store, I'm not a fan of scented things, such as candles, and that's what their stores smell like. Makes me feel slightly queasy. HOWEVER.

My housemate had the Sweet Lemon Lip Butter, and I used it one time, and since then I've been craving it. I get fairly dry lips and especially whilst at work with the air conditioning, they get all chapped and sore, but this lip butter sorted it right out. Not only does it taste amazing (as somebody said on the website - Mr Kipling French Fancie!) but it softens your lips for hours and repairs them back to brand new. It's probably the best thing i've seen to come out of the store.

I would definitely recommend this, as I have been using the Rose and Aloe Vera Vaseline for a while and they just haven't been doing the job as of late. It's a little pricey for my liking, but then again, it is the body shop and they overprice everything just because it is 'organic' or whatnot. 

I feel like i am going to have to purchase my own, however i cannot brave myself to go in to the store - which is why i love the internet..

http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/_en/_gb/catalog/product.aspx?ParentCatCode=C_SkinCare&CatCode=C_SkinCare_LipCare&prdcode=82885m

The Great White

The Great White is a truly beautiful creature, it's just misunderstood - fault mainly lying in Steven Spielberg's wallet. 

I think ever since the age of about 12/13, I have been fascinated by sharks, mainly the Great White. It would be a dream if I had the opportunity to swim with one, and I do plan on making that happen before I die, i'd love to join a team that catches and tags Great Whites, studying their entire lives. I probably should have done a degree to do with marine biology, however science wasn't my strong point, in fact, I don't think I have a strong point (!)

Whenever I go home, and after I've caught up on the daily programmes, it's straight to the documentary channel for a shark related programme, recently discovered is a programme called Shark Men California, which is on every day at 2pm on the National Geographic Channel. I did series link it, but knowing my family, they have probably deleted it.. :| 

It's a programme about tagging sharks, and when watching it with my mother last week, she called the men mental as there were two camera men who got in the water with the shark filming what happened underneath the water. Luckily for her, I didn't mention that, that is actually something that I can only dream of, however, I think that is one ambition, I probably will never be able to follow through...  

Jel.

Something to think about........... Would people be terrified of Goldfish if SS had based his 1975 film on them rather than Sharks.... 

Webcam

My parents have decided, that after having the same laptop for a good 4 years, and the fact that I could try get a turtle to load an internet page faster then it, to get a new computer. Boy, did they get a brand new one!! I don't even know what size screen it is, I've never been one to care for dimensions and all that jazz, all I know is that it is pretty, has a bigger memory space for pictures and music, and runs a whole lot faster, meaning I can finally try and beat my little brother's top score on Bubble spinner.

Built in to this screen, for the first time in our home family life, it has a web cam. I've never been one for using a web cam for making videos or using it for Skype or anything like that, to be honest, when we used to have one that plugged in, I had to turn it around because i thought people could see me. However. I recently found a button on Facebook when in the library trying to avoid doing my dissertation which showed me that the computer I was on had a web cam, and that if I wanted to take a picture, I could also change the picture. It had the usual, black and white, faded etc, But for the first time ever, it had a 'pinch' button, and a 'fisheye' button which obviously, pinched your face in making your head look small, or fisheye making your head look big. I had great fun in the library doing this and then completely forgot about this function.


I have arrived home for a few days, and when my brother was reminding me that it had a camera, it all came back to me, and I had to show him how much fun it was. I've literally, not laughed so hard since forever. Who'd have thought, changing the size of your head could be so funny. Plus, I always like it when something makes my brother and I giggle, we have a pretty similar sense of humour when it comes to immature things such as this. Here's a few photo's to hopefully get across the amusement we found.

Something to think about... Whoever was the first person to discover such functions must have literally pissed their pants.

Dark Cherry

I like to dye my hair different colors, and I wish I had the balls to go one crazy color such as beach blond - I'd love to go blond, but lets be honest, I doubt it would suit me. I compromised and for a while I had blocks of blond at the back of my hair on one side, and then at the front I had another blond bit, I loved them, and it was a good compromise, but the front blond was beginning to grow out, and as it was at the front, it was noticeable whenever I wanted to put my hair up in a ponytail on a lazy day. So I decided to go back to the reddy/purpley colors that I used to try out back when I was 17/18. I have always used the L'oreal Casting Creme Gloss as it makes my hair silky smooth, smells pretty fit and I trust the colour. I used to get the 550 Mahogany color as it had a subtle reddish tint, but as I am no longer at secondary school, I can go for a more in your face color. I was standing in boots trying to decide what color would suit me best, or better still, would I cope with if it turned out horrible! After picking up at least 5 different colors, looking at one, then putting it down, picking up another, then putting it down over and over again, I swear if I wasn't down the hairdye aisle I definitely would have looked shifty, but somehow I think it would be quite obvious if I had a suspicious box bulge in my pocket. After a good 15 minutes down the same aisle, I decided on the 360 Black Cherry. It was a lot darker/redder than the Mahogany, but I went for it, until I got out of Boots and then had a slight panic-attack because I thought it would be too red. But as I was dying it back home with my housemate watching, and with her saying it was picking up the color well, and where i used to have the blond blocks, they had picked up the color in a pinkish way would looked cool, but as I have the world's longest hair, the ends didn't really pick up a lot of color, and it was came out very dark purple, and once i had my face done, I decided that yes, I can pull off the Dark Cherry.

I had received a fair amount of compliments on this hair color choice, and normally nobody ever used to notice whether i had dyed my hair or not, so obviously this boost my confidence, and confirmed even more-so that I liked the color and would stick with it for the rest of the summer but i decided that next time, as it is only a 28wash, I would buy two boxes so that all of my hair could get the full extent of the color, and my ends wouldn't feel like I was favouritsing my roots. Luckily Sainsburys is currently doing 2 for £10 on the Creme Gloss range at the moment, so bonus for me, as well as getting those precious nectar points. So today, rather than going to the library as planned, I dyed my hair with the two boxes worth of color, and I swear, I have never made such a mess when dying hair than I did today! It looked like I had murdered a blackcurrant in the bath - as well as one of my turbie towels now being a shade of purple, as well as my Ibiza top, that I don't know where it came from. With all this, I was hoping that the colour would come out decent, and that the mess as worth it, and the mess was definitely worth it.

It has come out a lot redder than before where it was more purpley. I'd like to think my Nan had influence over this as she had red hair, and I definitely have a natural slight red tinge to it. The color spread right through to the ends, and when in the sun, the color stands out at its best. I'm hoping that next time I do it, it comes out even redder and i can gradually get to the perfect deep red that I want. All I need to do now is get me a slight tan, and bobs you're uncle, I've got my summer head sorted!

There was one downside to todays hair dying situation today, the dye, dyed the bath a little so i used bleach to get rid, however i forget that if you get bleach on your clothes, it doesn't come out. So now on my favorite jeggings, I have 4 bleach splodges on one leg. Time to go shopping, my poor purse. Oh well, at least I have good hair.

Something to think about.... Why is that when you get bleach on your clothes, It never goes white like when you buy bleached jeans....

Rubbish Neighbours

Is it unfair to ask your neighbour to make sure the binmen take their rubbish bags? I mean, it's just commonsense right? I was walking to my boyfriends earlier with a pile of his washing (his machine is broken so i offered to do some loads), and another neighbour who clearly wasn't a student stopped me and asked if it was my house who owned said rubbish bags, before I had a chance to say it wasn't, she started talking about rats that had been spotted in the area and that it was beginning to get a bit smelly. When i agreed that it was getting smelly, she clocked on to it not being our rubbish. But anyway, I humored her and carried on about it being unpleasant, and then somehow got roped in to offering to knock on their door and tell them to sort their lives out - obviously not in those words. 


So I did, I knocked on the door and patiently waited, and the girl that answered, I had clearly just woken her up and when I explained that the neighbours had asked me to sort it, and that if my landlord comes over and see's the rubbish bags, they may assume it is ours and charge us. I was polite, and didn't say 'sort your life out', I reminded her that it was rubbish collection tomorrow and that could she just make sure she takes the bags down with her bin. I have never seen somebody give me such a dirty look at such a close distance. She told me that she has been away for a couple weeks, like that is an excuse considering half of the bags have been there since February, and even so, It's not my rubbish, and I've had neighbours speak to me! If anything, I should have been giving her the dirty look for being so clueless with the rubbish. If she doesn't move them down tonight, or tomorrow morning, I'm going to be forced to go back and tell her she move them, or maybe I'll just write an irritated note;


'Dear no 6.
I asked you politely if you could move your smelly rubbish bags from the front of our houses, I didn't tell you what to do, I just suggested, and the fact that I had to come and ask you, you should have just done it and if you didn't like it, just bitch about me to your house-mates, not be even more oblivious to life then you were in the first place! You've now missed the collection for another week, so if they are not gone by tonight, I will train that fat cat that lives in the area to sit outside you're house and wait for you to leave and follow you down the hill with those guilt-provoking eyes that make you feel like you have just rejected him from life. If that fails, i'll tell my mum.
Happy Easter.'




That'll do it.
I'll show them. If not, I'm moving to Australia where everyone has good neighbours, who are there for everyone!






Something to think about... Do fish have ears...

First word to the blogging world

It's quite an odd sensation thinking of what to write in my first ever blogpost - I already feel like I have to write something that'll impress, I'm 100% positive though that that sensation will swiftly move on.

I decided to take a Creative Writing module in my last year at Uni, mainly because I thought it would be a bit of a doss, but as I found out, I quite enjoy writing. I'm not very good at it, which is why my tutor told me start a blog. S that's what I'm doing, at the end of the academic year, starting a blog. Better late than never? That's why I'm here now anyway, listening to my tutor, just 7 months late. 

What's that? Why decide to do one now? Well my life at university, and in Canterbury is soon coming to an end, and I'm going to have to enter the big bad world and get a full-time job, which means I may not be able to stay in bed until neighbours comes on at 1.45pm. So having somewhere to post how I'm surviving the wakeupcall that is life, that isn't constant twitter updates, or the world's longest facebook status, could be quite relaxing.

A few pointless things about me?

My name is Harriet, and I live in London, apart from when I'm at university in Canterbury - Though on the 13th May I finish for good, no more assignments, no more lectures, no more exams. Scary. 

I have two fish named Choug and Darlie - My best mate bought Darlie, i bought Choug, and at the time of purchase our boyfriends (Doug and Charlie) said, don't you dare name you're fish after us, so we didn't. It took me 2 months to actually get my fishtank up and running with fish inside, and everybody told me that they would die within a week - 1 year, and 5 months later, they are still as alive and as stupid as ever. Choug regularly tries to escape, and Darlie just eats and spits out stones.

I also have a dog called Poppy at home in London, I am slightly obsessed, and cannot wait to move back home and have her to talk too everyday, I swear she understands what we say to her. You may hear a lot about her as time goes on.

Talking of obsessions, I'm also slightly obsessed with Cath Kidston - when I have my own house when I'm older, I'm going to have to restrain myself otherwise everything is going to be covered in flowers. Awkward. 

Something to think about - Does the Queen's bedroom have spiders lurking in the corners... Answers on a postcard.