Product review: Russell Organics Argan Oil

My hair (and skin, for that matter) really suffers on the run up to the winter. Something in this transitional period really upsets my hair – it gets drier at the tips, lifeless and a bit dull, so anything that can do any good is very welcome, especially at this time.

I received the Russell Organics argan oil and on the same day started to use it. I’ve been using it for three weeks now on my hair. The bottle has 2 fl. oz, and a pipette, which I love! I applied a few drops on my hand and rubbed it to warm, applying then to the ends of my towel dried hair.

My first impression was that the hair naturally dried softer, heavier but not greasy, with less fly-aways. As the days progressed and I kept using it, I feel my hair has a little bit more weight to it and is less straw-y.

Something I like liked about this product is that it has no fragrance, no smell at all. Also, it can be used all over the body, as a moisturiser, on your nails and of course, hair and a few drop go a long way!

This product is 100% pure argan oil, carefully sourced from Morocco, and eco-certified. It is toxin and cruelty free, as well as vegan.

Their whole range uses pure natural ingredients. Packaging is fuss free, to minimise environmental impact, but very functional. Russell Organics, which carries the slogan “naturally luxurious”, is a carbon free organisation and also certified cruelty free and vegan – so goodness all around!

They also have a long toxin list on their site, to raise awareness about the ingredients we should avoid putting on and in our bodies! Nice!

They are a US company, available online and in various shops but will ship internationally, with reasonable rates, according to their site.

This product was sent to me by the company to try, and I became their media partner, meaning I will receive a product once in a while. This review is, however, based on my own true experience with the products and reflects my honest opinion on it.

Nails of the week: purple gradient

purple nail gradient Since I tried my first gradient a few weeks back, I’ve been dying to try another one, but this time with three colours.

I picked purples. I love purple on my nails! I chose a lilac from Nails Inc, Cambridge, a light purple from H&M, Pale Violet and a dark purple, also from Nails Inc, Belgrave Place.

First I painted my nails white using Natural Collection’s nail tip whitener. I then got my sponge and painted three lines on it, from lighter to darker and stamped the nails. I described the technique in more details on my previous post on gradient.

This took four rounds of stamping, more than my first one, to look good! But I am very pleased with the results. Again, after applying the topcoat there was a bit of shrinking, so I can see a tiny bit of the white, that bothers me a little bit!!!

Overall, loving it – caught the eyes of lots of people, even on the train, where I then explained the technique! Nice!

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Nails of the week – silver glitter, black and nail sticker

silver nails with black tips and nail tattoos

click to enlarge

I am in love with this week’s manicure! Glitter is one of my guilty pleasures – I love sparkly things, especially on my nails, even though it is a major pain to get it off.

This week, I am wearing Barry M in Silver multi-glitter, a fine, silver based glitter with lots of other colours – red, blue, pink, a bit of gold. Really really pretty. Actually, Barry M’s glitter polishes are really amazing, at a great value! This particular one is very saturated, two coats were enough to achieve a good coverage. I ended up using three, but could’ve done with only two.

With Barry M in plain black, a staple in my mani box, I created the diagonal tip, using normal sticky tape.

To finish it off and give it that extra cuteness, I added a SkinArt UK’s bow nail tattoo on each of my ring finger nails to create an accent nail. The tattoos come in a pack of 60 individual stickers with varied designs – bows, stars, hearts, birds, crosses, anchors – all very pretty and you shall be seeing more of it very soon! I found application easy enough; it is quite delicate, as it is a small sticker, but I applied quickly without a problem, with the aid of tweezers. A good topcoat (I use Seche Vite) is a must after you apply the sticker, and also to smooth the diagonal french tip.

Durability was great, full week with no chips, sticker in place! But above all, how pretty is that?

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Nails of the week – silver holographic nail foils

To make up for the short life of my bead manicure, I had to choose another half-life, or occasion manicure: nail foils.

I love nail foils. They deliver an amazing effect. Truly stunning. But they do last three days. As a busy person, I think a good manicure is made to last at least seven days in a good state. On occasions, I do compromise this conviction for prettiness. Yes. Guilty as charged.

So, after I lost my beads, I decided to fill up the week with these amazing foils from Minx. They have the most amazing selection of designs. I bought I couple over Olympia Beauty a couple months ago.

They were quite easy to apply – just heat with hair dryer, peel and apply on nail, smoothing it, cutting the excess at top and filing to finish. They are extremely thin and sticky, a great sign. But if you make a mistake, like a crease, and have to peel it back to re-apply, you can see the texture of the foils changes, so ideally, do it once. I didn’t manage to do it in one go on all nails, so there were a couple imperfections, but nothing too blatant.

The effect was absolutely stunning. I mean, breath-taking. The rainbow colour shift this silver foil gives is something I never ever saw before.

And it lasted three days, bang on my expectations. So yes, would do again, it would be great it lasted as much people say they could (a week? hahahaha), but truth is, after three days it looks a bit manky, with jagged edges…. a shame, but well worth it!

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Nails of the week – red with multicoloured beads

Even with all the talks about “caviar” nails a while back, I always thought they would be a nuisance; I never thought it would be possible for it to last more than 2 hours – unless you don’t use your hands – and by that I mean walking around with them up in the air, not even pulling your pants up, honestly!

But I went to Superdrug and spotted the pretty Nail Constellation bead pots from MUA, at an affordable £3! And of course, I could not resist.

So I decided to give it a go. I bought Scorpio, a mix of gold, green, red and fuchsia tiny beads. Knowing it would bug the life out of me, I decided to apply only to an accent nail – my ring finger.

Application was alright. But the bounce, so I had my bed covered in them. I applied a red nail varnish that matched the red beads to all nails – Colorama’s Pecado, an old favourite of mine – and immediately after the second coat, dropped the beads on the chosen nail. The funnel really helps the application, as well as gathering the fall offs back in the pot. I had to re-apply some base coat over to fill the gaps, but overall, it as pretty easy.

It looked alright, and even thought it caught lots of people’s eyes, I wasn’t overly impressed with it. It looks alright, but nothing exceptional.

And then it annoyed me, a good 12 hours after applying. They catch on stuff, they fall, found some on my desk at work…. and so on… by the end of the day, there were lots of gaps, especially on my right hand, which I use the most. So they came off, only 28 hours after application. At least, that box is ticked and I shall not be trying again.

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Nails of the week – black with glitter flakes

I am a sucker for glitter flakes… I just love them, especially when they colour-shift a lot!

As part of my huge haul from Brazil (back in September), I received this lovely black jelly base glitter flake polish, called Tango, from Speciallitá Hits, which is from their “World of Dances” collection.

Their polishes are really good quality – good coverage, usually alright with two coats and great durability. The finish was really glossy! However, I think the flakes weren’t big enough, so the effect was not as stunning as I was expecting. I also noticed there were not many flakes per brush dip, so two coats didn’t deliver as many flakes as I would expect.

I used one coat of Barry M Black as base and two of the Hits one.

The flakes shift from golden to green, and there are some red flecks too, which shift a little bit, but some are just red glitter. Although I was slightly disappointed, the effect was very pretty, I liked it very much!

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Nails of the week – warm colour dots

Well, I went dot crazy. Truly crazy. It started as a desire to create a fish scales effect, but it just looked wrong as I was using warm shades (in my crazy head). So I went out of order and out of control, and created something I am not sure I like or not.

Still, I stuck with it for the week and was even asked if I was wearing foils! Kinda got used to it.

Anyway… I used Barry M foil effects in gold and the dots are Leighton Denny’s orange Hanky Panky, a shimmery yellow from H&M and Colorama’s red 40 graus.

I applied the gold as base and used three different sizes dots from my dotting tool set in the other colours… I finished with a topcoat.

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Nails of the week – blue and green gradient

My experimental mood is not over yet, and more than ever, I want to stay away from things I have done before…

So this week I decided to, for the first time, to try a gradient manicure. I went for blue and green – from Kiko in Electric blue and from ColorClub’s Blossoming collection, respectively.

I started by painting all my nails white, as a base, I used Natural Collection’s Nail tip whitener.

After it was dry, I cut a make up sponge and wet it a bit, to make absorb less of the polish. So I applied the green and the blue on the sponge and applied to my nails, as if stamping it, from tone side to the other. I then repeated the process, this time “stamping” more than once, and slightly changing the position of the sponge colours dividing line each time, to make the blending better.

Then I applied a glittery Specialittá Hits Blue Jazz at the tip and a topcoat to finish it off.

It looks great, but not perfect, which bugs me a little bit. I know it is only the first time… but… I’d like it to be flawless. The problems I found were that it was hard to fill the edges. There also was a bit of shrinking and in a couple nails I can see some of the white near my cuticles. The blue “leaked” over my nail so I had to remove it from the inside… a bit of a pain!

Apart from that, I love it. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and I got better effect better than I thought I would for the first time. So I will definitely be trying again!!!

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If it was perfect, in terms of finish, it would be a 5-star mani. Next time….

Nail of the week – gold with black chevrons

Experimenting. This has been my mood. When I bought the gorgeous OPI GoldenEye, part of their James Bond Skyfall collection, I was quite happy to wear it on its own, as it is show-stopping enough.

However, I don’t seem able to sick to plain coloured nails anymore; one colour won’t do. It is almost a disease.

So, I decided to try something new. I had wanted to play with tape for a while, but I can get quite lazy. This time I decided to go for it and create a chevron style.

I painted all nails using GoldenEye. Coverage is quite sheer at one coat, but it is good at two. I used three. The wide brush is always a winner here. The gold is amazing, deep, glittery, sparkly and with a coppery reflex to it. I painted in the morning and left it until the afternoon to do phase two.

I used normal household clear sticky tape, just cut a little strip and placed it from the upper corners of the nail towards the centre, forming a “V”. I then applied Barry M in Black to fill all “V’s” and removed them all carefully. I finished it off with a topcoat.

As a first attempt, I thought it turned out very well. A few of the lines were a little jagged, but not enough to look bad. One of the chevrons was slightly off centre (and that was on my right thumb nail, which has been recovering from an awful breakage and is much shorter than the others). Other than that, the chevron came out very good!

I will definitely try taping again, I loved the chevron look. The manicure was elegant, and duration was top – seven days, not a chip in sight; quite impressive for a black tip!

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Nails of the week – red and dotty

I needed a red manicure to go with a fancy dress costume – which is no effort, as it is my favourite nail colour – but it had to be plain, which is a problem, as I get bored very quickly…

So I used the lovely OPI The spy who loved me, which I was really looking forward to trying, and after I attended the party, I decided to give it dots in two colours: Colorama Ameixa and Ana Hickmann Jurerê. It looks very berry!

The OPI application was good, their wide brush really makes life easier; the polish is a bit sheer, but two coats are enough. Durability is great!

The dots were applied with dotting tools in 3 different sizes; as it is only the second time I do them, I think they came out pretty well – still have to nail the dots distribution though.

Both polishes used for dotting were up to the task; the colours were solid enough. I wish I had used a lighter plum colour for the darker dots, as most of the time they seem black!

The only problem is that I added the dots four days after I did the manicure, so the cuticles in the pictures, which were taken six days after I did the basic red mani, are not looking perfect, there is a little bit of growth going on, unfortunately.

Still, I am pleased with this mani, and I shall be sporting more spotty nails in the future!