NAILS | BOOTS PERFECT FINISH CLEAR NAILS

BOOTS PERFECT FINISH CLEAR NAILS, £8.50 (x)

I have stated previously that I am not a nail person, meaning that nail care is definitely not my strong point. I have never used a base coat in my life, my nails are thin and break easily, and because of that I do often rely on false nails to make my fingers look a little bit more lady like. As a false nail fiend, I've tried many brands and sets, from Broadway to Kiss to Nailene, but I always skimmed over Boots' own brand. 

A set of nails now days, which has maybe two sets in if you're lucky and can fit two nail sizes on one finger, costs around £8, nearly £9. Using a box every few weeks was becoming very very pricey and it wasn't until my Mum spotted these that I realised I could be saving a lot of money! At only £8.50 for 200 nails, with a variety of sizes, you can get a fair few go's out of these before you start scrabbling for the scissors to cut thumb nails into pinky nails (don't act like it's never happened to you!) 

The nails themselves are firm and a semi-opaque white which I've found look actually quite nice on without polish, and the glue that comes with them is very impressive, even with working in a very hands on enviroment I've only lost one nail so far! I've also had a lot of compliments from people asking if they're my real nails, where I get them done etc. Just goes to show expensive doesn't always equal best!

If you're a false nail junkie like me and are sick of paying extortionate prices, these are definitely worth a look at. 

SKINCARE | DR. NICK LOWE ANTI BLEMISH

Oil Control Day Cream, £15.49 (x) | Sebum Control Cleanser, £10.49 (x)

As with my other skincare post, my acne-prone skin needs to be kept at bay! After indulging in the Una Brennan range, and needing to repurchase, I toddled down the skincare isle to it's normal resting place and saw this lot sitting next to it! Anti-Blemish you say Dr. Nick Lowe? Well how can I resist that.

I'm still loving my cleansing wash by Una Brennan, but I felt like I needed a little bit more. I've always loved these cleansing liquids, and this almost feels like a light toner on my skin and gets off any of the makeup that's worked itself into my pores. It promises to control sebum production, and in my case it definitely has! Suffering with terribly oily skin means that at work if I forget to powder I look like a greasy mess, but this paired with the day cream has sorted it out!

The Oil Control Day Cream itself is a light feeling moisturiser which I use all over the face. I've seen a dramatic difference in the longevity of my makeup after using this for a few days and I don't need to cake my face in powder to make it stay, who can complain about that?

The Nick Lowe and Una Brennan products have worked perfecting in conjuction together for my skin and I'm definitely sticking to them to keep them evil spots at bay!

SKINCARE | UNA BRENNAN

UNA BRENNAN TEA FLOWER RANGE (x)

PURIFYING CLEANSING WASH, £7.99 | PURIFYING CLAY MASK, £8.99 | PURIFY & REFRESH SCRUB, £8.99

Through my teens I suffered with terrible acne and relied on the likes of Freederm and Clean & Clear to help my hormonal skin, but as I've got older I can happily say my skin isn't that much of a worry. Despite it now being a whole lot calmer than it was when I was younger, acne in my past and the curse of having an oily skin type has left me a little bit paranoid about it reverting to it's old terrible ways, and so this range came in handy just in time and my skin is brighter, clearer and feels softer than it ever has before!

I had been relying on my mothers Simple skincare for months and then me working the night shift most nights led me to start using the dreaded facewipe at the end of a night to wipe off all my makeup. No cleansing, no moisurising, no nothing. Until that fateful day I woke up with - you guessed it - a break out!

My finally clear skin had rebelled! Simple wasn't cutting it anymore, and the facewipes definitely were doing more harm than good. I went to Boots in search of a new skincare range, and whilst traipsing around looking at Neutrogena (another teen favourite) I took a turn down the what I guess you could call the 'high end' skincare and spotted these babies hidden amongst La Roche-Posay and Vichy. 

The whole range contains Salicylic Acid, which we all know is good for banishing acne-prone skin, as well as some other ingredients such as Menthol and Elderflower which helps calm irritation, and I can safely say after a fair few months of use and various repurchases, it does just that! My skin is clear and calm and if I ever feel that it's becoming slightly aggravated I pop on the clay mask for a few minutes, paint my nails and when I take it off my skin is smooth and soft again!

The exfoliator is very fine and I think is gentle enough to be used a couple of times a week if it's needed, although I try to limit myself to once, and the cleansing wash foams up lovely to remove all traces of makeup. I have used this on a full face of makeup to remove water-proof mascara as well and it does the job!

I think this range is absolutely brilliant, and if you have slightly acne-prone skin is definitely a good investment. 

Have you tried the range, or any other Una Brennan ranges? If so what did you think?

NAILS | ESSIE, MASTER PLAN

MASTERPLAN BY ESSIE, £7.99 (x)

I've never been one for nailpolishes, but lately with the new Essie stand in my local boots I've been finding myself eying up these little beauties! Master Plan is a colour that I wasn't quite sure of when I first saw it, having pale skin I was worried it would make my hands look, for lack of a better word, dead. It's a lilacy-grey, and just misses the mark of hands-from-the-crypt syndrome in my opinion, although in some lights it can be questionable on my skintone as I predicted.

 

 ONE COAT OF MASTER PLAN

Formula-wise, this polish along with my other Essie polishes does not dissapoint: Creamy, opaque in one coat on my nails and settles well. It also dries remarkably fast! Even with it's quite expensive price tag, I think it's definitely worth it for the quality. All in all I think I'll be purchasing a lot more Essie polishes in the future... Move over Barry M!