One of the things I’ve been struggling with in the cold weather is hand care. I’m the worst at remembering to carry handcream, and when I do remember I forget to actually take it out of my hand-bag and apply it.

Over the colder months this results in very dry sore and unattractive looking hands, meaning that by the time I do decide to stop moaning about it and actually do something about it, I need to call in the big guns.

The range I turn to time and time again, and which never lets me down in the winter is the Body Shop’s Hemp hand-care range. I’ve always been a fan of  their hand protector for its rich moisturising qualities, which seems to replenish and plump up skin, without leaving hands feeling overly greasy. The effect also lasts past the first hand-wash for me too, so I only need to try to apply this about 3 times during the day and then generously at night to get a noticeable improvement in the state of my hands over a few days.

I was super pleased when I went to stock up on the hand-protector recently as The Body Shop had a lovely half price offer on it – so the 100 ml tube above which normally costs £10, was a mere £5, and the handbag sized 25ml ones were a bargain at £2.50. I stocked up with two big tubes and a handbag sized baby.

I also picked up their hand oil, which is a new product to me – a 15ml dropper bottle retails at £7. When I remember to use this, I’m very impressed with it – Only a few drops are needed, and it sinks in really quickly, leaving hands feeling revived. Although this is a very light oul and doesn’t leave my hands feeling overly greasy, I prefer to use liberally and leave it on overnight to get the most benefit. I’m sure if you wore some cotton gloves overnight too, this would boost it even further. However, I am, as mentioned, not the best with hand-stuff.

The only downside to the hemp hand care range is the scent – some people find it a little masculine. Personally I don’t really care about the smell because it works so well for me, but if you’re not a fan, then you might want to check out their rose or almond hand-care ranges…

What do you swear by for winter hands?

x

The disclaimer – bought these products myself…

I’m a latecomer to the wonder of nail art and nail wraps in general – I did go through a (now not really spoken of) phase of having acrylics which I used to occasionally have art done “to me” on. But I never had a steady enough hand to make them look, well, not like a five year old with an alcohol problem had done them basically.

So the recent advent of nail wraps is a fun one to me. Nail art, like most things in life, if done well, can at best be great, and at worst, fun. I do however have that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me “oh well they might look easy, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to cock up the application….” So when Rebel Nails offered me a chance to try their wares, I (cautiously) got a little bit excited about trying them…

Each set comes with 16 nail wraps – 2 of each in 8 different sizes… The instructions seem fairly straightforward too –  Basically you clean the nails, select the correct sized wrap, and peel it off from the backing, holding the straight edge. You then heat the wrap with hairdryer and smooth it over the nail, and file off any excess. To remove you lift the nail wrap from the sides of the nail and peel back… There is a video on the Rebel Nails site which shows exactly how to do it HERE.

I was sent four sets to try and for my first attempt I chose the most work appropriate black with a pink tip…

So, I went ahead and gave them a go, hairdryer at the ready!

They were fairly easy to apply and did look pretty good for a first attempt. The design I picked probably wasn’t the best for my nails, because I have very small little fingernails, so the pink didn’t show up on my little fingers. I have pretty curved nails naturally too, and I think these might be a smidge easier to use if you have fairly flat nails, as I did get a couple of creases at the tips. Creases at the edges of the nails were easily dealt with though – just reheat with the hairdryer, and smooth out with a cuticle tool. As with all things likt this though I think practice will definitely make perfect.

I noticed that they were easier and applied better if they were really heated up well – don’t be tempted to slap em on straight from the packet…

Rebel nails are also launching a couple of great halloween designs, including the funky moonscape ones shown above, which are far nicer than the usual pumpkin designs you see… a little more subtle, and all the better for it. And if you spend a minimum of £10 on the site between now and 31st Oct, you’ll get one of their two Halloween designs absolutely free

The designs show are all available, along with many other designs on the Rebel Nails site - http://www.rebelnails.co.uk/ and I have a special discount code for use to get 15% off if you fancy trying them out – Simply enter the code MIZZWORTHY15 at the checkout between 20th Oct and 1st Nov 2011, and you’ll get 15% off your wraps (P&P will remain same though), with no minimum order. 

Have You tried Rebel Nails? What are your thoughts?

Disclaimer – this is a sponsored post, however contains only honest opinions based on my own experiences with the products shown.

My return to blogging after somewhat of an extended break, has to start with a bit of an apology… I admit I’ve been a bit of a rubbish blogger of late, but life sometimes gets in the way, and it’s easy to get out of the “blogging habit”. Balance is obviously the key, so I’m going to try to blog more regularly, but not to put pressure on myself to do it every day – as I always tell everyone else, blogging is a hobby, not a job!

So, thanks for sticking around if you did!

First post, I need to announce a few giveaway winners…

First of all, the winners for the Garnier Ultralift Creams!

The winners of the full sized creams are – Lori, Shinypigeon, Sarah, Fum, Carole and Danni – I’ll be emailing you all for your details and I’m planning on getting them in the post on Tuesday. Just a reminder that this is a UK ONLY giveaway!

All other entrants (Leah, Nicola B and Shifa) Will all receive trial packs…

EDIT – several entrants to this are unfortunately untraceable – if you entered please email me and I’ll try to ensure the prizes go out to those who are eligible ie in the UK!

Secondly, the winner of the Nails Inc set from Fabulous Magazine…

The winner is Louise. I’ll be emailing you for your details Louise!

Secondly, I also wanted to give a shout out to Ondolady’s blog which you can find HERE – She recently surprised me by asking me if she could interview me for her blog, so I’d love it if you could take a look! You can read my interview HERE…

Yep, this is another one of those products, or even in this case ranges, which seem mandatory to blog about. Apparently the FTC will be all over my ass if I don’t. Or something.

Anyway, I’m twaddling on about the MUA professional range of course, and more specifically the Heaven and Earth palette, which costs the princely sum of £4 in Superdrug – I was lucky enough to actually find one of these in my nearest Superdrug, as I understand they are proving more difficult to find that rocking horse shizzle… I’ve actually been sent some of the palettes too by the lovely MUA PR, so I’ll be posting further reviews on the range. This one however I bought with my own cash…

As you’re probably aware this palette is being given a lot of favourable comparisons to the Urban Decay Naked palette, which I don’t own so I’m unable to comment on. What I can say though is that these are buttery smooth, easily blendable, and well pigmented.

The other great thing about these shadows is that they don’t crease on me for hours and hours without a primer, but last forever with a primer. This palette in particular is so easy to use in terms of easy colour combinations, and like I say, they blend like a dream. The only criticism I can come up with for this palette is that there aren’t any matte shades – they are all shimmery and some contain small amounts of glitter, which for me this deems this not suitable for work…

Lovely palette, and worth every single penny. If you see it, grab it!

I have to say one of the great things about cheaper ranges of makeup (which I’m discovering are often as good/if not better than a lot of my heartbreakingly pricy “I’ll be eating baked beans on toast for the next three weeks” makeup purchases), is that it encourages me to play a bit more with my makeup. Whipping out a Sleek or MUA palette and experimenting doesn’t seem so “formal” or wasteful as playing with my YSL stuff for some reason. Do you know what I mean?

Anyway, apparently my playing with makeup has also extended to my nails – remember when the Barry M shatter top-coat came out and promptly sold out? By the time I got my hands on it, the rest of the blogosphere had pretty much pronounced themselves as “over” it. But I never played with shatter coats at the time, so I’ve pretty much unashamedly got back into them, especially coloured ones. I picked up the purple MUA shatter coat (or Nail Quake in the shade “Broken Arrow” as its formally known), and had a bit of fun…

Here it is applied over Orly’s “Lollipop”, a pastelly peachy shade…

For what it’s worth (ie for those who aren’t “over it” – this is not a bad shatter coat. I like the fact that it’s metallic and shiny rather than matte, which a lot of shatter coats seem to be. As is normal with shatters, a thin layer will give a finer shatter, whereas a thicker layer will give a more defined big ole crevice looking shatter… I can’t comment on the wear as I’ll probably only keep this on til I think of another shade to put it over.

Yes. I am 32.

Nails Inc have been doing a lot of little promo’s lately, which is fab, as they are a popular brand and offer some lovely colours.

One of the most recent ones was in conjunction with “Fabulous” magazine. The PR responsible contacted me to tell me that they had sent me some samples of the colours, but sadly they went to my old address. She very kindly sent me a new set to my new gaff, however they arrived after the promo had finished.

Now I don’t know about you, but I though it might be a bit mean to show you these lovely summery shades once you can’t get your mits on them anymore, in a “come and have a look at what you could have won” style, so I thought I’d do a little giveaway, so someone could have the chance to enjoy these who missed out on the promotion…

The set contains two shades – Atomic, which is a lovely hot orange shade, and OMP! which was apparently created especially for the Fabulous magazine.

Obviously the winner will recieve this unused, but if you fancy seeing some swatches, I’d recommend hot-footing it over to THIS post by Vex In The City, and THIS one from Bubblegarm.

If you’d like to win the set, then please make sure you are a subscriber to the blog, and also leave a comment below saying you want it, and with your email address. (One comment only please, duplicates will be disqualified, just to make sure everyone has a fair chance). I’ll choose a winner on Friday 8th July 2011 will post the winners name on Sunday. Winner be randomly selected, and contacted by email!

Hope you all have a lovely week!

xxx

Disclaimer – the product for this giveaway was provided by a PR, with many thanks to her for enabling someone to enjoy this lovely set!

I am still as in love as ever with the formula and finish of these polishes which are now available in Boots for £6.99, but I have to say I picked another shade up called “Angel Wings”, a pearly white with shimmer, and although it looked fab in the bottle it looked a bit “frosty old lady” on my hands. Twitter agreed , and I took it off to replace it with this shade. So unless you like frosty polishes, I’d say stick with the cream shades even in this range…

Anyway, this is shade 560 “Kook-A-Mango”. I love this for summer, and feel it would work equally well on toes or fingers…

This is a lovely bright coral-orange shade which stays away from being too neon or outrageous, but it’s still bright enough to make a statement. Love it! As always it’s just a shame I’m not slightly better at applying it and keeping application to the nails, and not slopping it all over my fingers and cuticles as well… oh well!

This shade gave decent coverage in 2-3 coats, and I’ve topped it off with Illamasqua’s top coat, which is great for adding a shine to the top of polishes.

From experience, I know these polishes last about three days before chipping on me, but I’m one of those careless types who can’t be bothered to put rubber gloves on to do the washing up and opens can’s with my nails etc. And I wonder why they break so often…

Have you tried any shades from this range? Are you loving them as much as me?

After seeing lots of vids on YouTube and blog posts about these (always littered with the information “sadly these are not available in the UK yet”), I was surprised and more than a little bit chuffed to finally see these in my nearest large branch of Boots.

My first impression of the range was that there are some lovely looking shades, however as with all new ranges, its all a bit of an unknown quantity isn’t it? And to be fair, nail polish sometimes feels a bit “unexciting” if you know what I mean? Anyway, I decided to try a couple anyway, so I picked out a couple of shades that are very “me” just to try the formula etc. I picked a Nude/Greige shade called “Commander in Chic”, and a Taupe/Gray shade called “Gray by Gray”

The brush on these polishes is one of those wide, flat doo-dads. Now sometimes these are great, but other times not so much, especially if they are very square at the tip, which often means that the polish slops over cuticles and looks rubbish no matter how much time and effort you put into applying. In this case however, the brush is a winner in my opinion, as the edges are tapered, so you can create a nice edge without too much effort.

Formula wise, I was impressed – You could probably easily get away with one coat of these on short nails, but on longer nails, you’d probably need two coats to avoid any shade transluscency at the tip. I applied two coats, purely out of habit, even though I have short nails right now, and I experienced no dragging or pulling on the (still damp  – I lack patience when applying nail polish) first coat. Drying time was also reasonable – touch dry in about ten minutes and completely dry in about half an hour.

Shade 350 "Gray by Gray"

Shade 370 "Commander in Chic"

So far I am unashamedly a fan of these polishes – the only thing left to consider is the amount of wear they give. I’m expecting good results so, as half an hour after applying these, I scrubbed out the cats food bowl, and emptied the bin – not a chip, smudge or ripple in sight.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure is available in Boots for £6.99 per 14.7ml bottle.

Have you tried these? What did you think? Shade recommendations?

Expect to see more of these polishes around here!

Disclaimer – I purchased these products myself.

I picked both of these products up from Boots recently, where they have finally arrived, after waiting for months. I actually wanted the Lanolips 101 ointment, as a mutipurpose lip and cuticle treatment, and I’m still on a mission to get that too, but I’m still loving the two products I have so far from the range.

Lanolips is a brand based around one key ingredient – lanolin! (Major surprise hey – bet you never expected that given the name!). Lanolin is a by-product of the wool industry, and is basically a fatty substance extracted from fleeces. On the face of it that may sound a little bit ew, however lanolin is similar to substances produced in our own skin, however its just more easily available from wool… And the magic of lanolin is that its a great effective moisturiser, as it can hold up to 200% of its own weight in water. The lanolips range is cruelty free – no sheep are harmed in the process, although vegans and vegetarians may want to avoid the range of course.

Picture sourced HERE.

The lanolips tinted lip moisturisers come in a range of five shades – I picked up Rose, which is a pale pink. They all contain 60% medical grade lanolin, and spf15, so are great for summer. They retail at £8.16 for 12.5g of product. They are packaged in a squeeze tube, which doesn’t come with a slanted applicator – the product iss too thick to squeeze out and apply using a slanted type applicator, and you would probably end up using far more than you needed and wasting product. I squeeze a little out and use my finger to apply.

This is the richest and most deeply moisturising lip balm I have ever used – all the raves I have read on other blogs about the range are all well justified. You only need a tiny amount of this product, so each tube will last for ages. The product moisturises so deeply and richly that a lot of repeat applications are not necessary, and it adds a slight pretty tint to the lips. Its also very thick, and so adheres well to the lips. A great everyday product, and this is definitely set to be a staple for me.

After picking this up I was so impressed I went back for another look at the range, and saw that there are also two handcreams Rosebalm Everyday (£10.20 for 120mls) and Rosebalm intense for very dry hands and nails (£9.18 for 15mls). I picked up the everyday version.

This is a light pink lotion, with a light baby-powder/rose scent, which I find really pleasant, and contains medical grade lanolin as well as rose oil and keratin. I was expecting this to be really really rich, given how rich the lip ointment is, however this is an ideal everyday handcream, which sinks in really quickly, and doen’t leave any trace of a greasy feel on the skin. It leaves hands actually feeling really refreshed and clean, yet also very hydrated – its unlike any handcream I’ve tried before really in the way it sinks in so well. Its quite hard to describe but it almost leaves your hands feeling a little powdery, but not in a dry way (amazing descriptive skills hey?) I’m not going to labour the point, but I’d definitely recommend using the tester to see how it feels on your hands, as I find this really unique.  I also love the effect this has had on my nails – I often dot a little extra handcream onto the nailbeds and do a cuticle massage, and this leaves my nails really shiny, and my cuticles really moisturised – I’ve seen a definite improvement in them since I started to use this lotion a couple of weeks ago. I’m actually considering picking up the intense version to use in my manicure kit for this very reason.

Would I repurchase? Definitely. I already know I’ll be picking up the 101 ointment if it ever comes back into stock at my local Boots branches, and I also want to try the lemonaid lip aid, as well as the intense version of the Rosebalm. Definite thumbs up from me for the range!

Disclaimer – I purchased these products with my very own hard earned cash. As with all reviews on the site, this is honest and based on my own experiences with the products. Always read as many reviews as you can find before purchasing!