Tag Archives: OPI

Beauty reimagined: Fabled by Marie Claire

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fabled-by-marie-claire-review-1Imagine a gorgeous place where your favourite beauty brands come together. That would be enough, right?

Add some beauty experts edits and opinions, from a leading magazine, to make your life easier when choosing the best products for you.

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-2Then, top it off with a real shop full of friendly and approachable professionals in the counters.

Enough? Thought so, but there’s more: online shop with the superb Ocado delivery service, within a chosen 1 hour time slot.

Too good to be true? Maybe, but it’s real. All this is Fabled by Marie Claire.

And you can experience it right now as I have an exclusive 15% discount code for you, lovely readers, to start shopping online right now: VOU039323938, valid until the 26th October 2016. 

To me, the concept is genius: an online shop tons of amazing beauty brands covering makeup, skincare, hair and fragrance, supported by the magazine expert edits, reviews and trend watching.

Beauty lovers that might be short for time, or are not sure about what red lipstick to go for, now have a haven to make their lives easier and help them nail they beauty needs.

And The Fabled Shop in London’s Tottenham Court Road? Dreamy!

fabled-marie-claireI was about to place my order at fabled.com and decided I needed a new foundation. Took the opportunity to try the new Urban Decay All Nighter foundation.

So I went to the shop for a colour match, as I work nearby. Even though I told the lovely makeup artist on the UD counter I was not buying, she was lovely, helpful and super friendly.

I also wanted to get myself a new eyeliner – I went for Estée Lauder Little Black Liner. Obviously both will be reviewed soon!

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-3Now to the order. The site is clean, well categorised, so it is easy to use and find what you’re looking for. You can also look for specific brands, skin concerns, the Marie Claire edit and specific filtering within categories.

They have an online chat to help you in those decisive hours and placing the order is very quick and painless, with Ocado delivery (free over £15, £3.90 otherwise) slots from 5:30 am to 11:3pm.

And you can attach it to your grocery shopping. Now, that’s as exciting as it is dangerous!

Remember, you can get 15% off right now with my code VOU039323938, valid until the 26th October.

fabled-by-marie-claire-review-4At fabled.com and at their fabulous The Fabled Shop at 21 Tottenham Court Road, London, you can find Aveda, Aromatherapy Associates, Balance Me, Bobbi Brown, Benefit, bkr, Burberry, Clinique, Caudalie, Crabtree & Evelyn, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Essie, Eyeko, Estée Lauder, Eylure, ghd, Giorgio Armani, Gucci,  Hugo Boss, He-Shi, Lancôme, Lipstick Queen, L’Oréal Paris, Marc Jacobs, Maybelline, Nails Inc, NARS, OPI, REN, Rimmel, Seche, St. Tropez, Skin & Tonic, T3, This Works, The Balm, Tom For, Urban Decay, Zelens (breathe) and much more.

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You know the drill, but I’ll say anyway: this post contains PR samples. This review, however, is based on my experience with the product and reflects my honest opinion on them.

Sex up you nails with 50 shades of …(OPI) grey

Posted in Beauty by

opi_50shadesYes! OPI is indeed launching a 50 Shades of Grey line ahead of the movie launch on Valentine’s Day 2015.

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Nails of the week: silver with colourful leopard print

Posted in Beauty, nails by

silver nails with colourful leopard print - somanylovelythings

You know when I say I obsess with things? Together with gradients, leopard print is a great nail obsession of mine.

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Nails of the week, Christmas edition: red, gold and… Rudolph!

red, gold and reindeer nails - somanylovelythings

Yes, I am floating around in Christmas spirit (better late than never, no?).

I am not usually a fan of little animals, flowers and drawings in general on my nails but what the hell? It is Christmas after all. So here they are – my super festive Christmas nails!

It has red, gold and a reindeer! Yes, Rudolph is my special guest!

For the red and gold gradient I used the sponging technique with the beautiful The Spy who Loved Me and Golden Eye, both from OPI’s James Bond collection. It was quite a hard gradient to put together, as the gold is not quite glitter – it is like a foiled effect, so a few layers were needed!

red, gold and reindeer nails - somanylovelythings

I drew the reindeer’s head with the polish brush. I used a deep metallic brown which is the darkest colour from Andrea Fulerton’s duo polish Petrol in Water. Then added the eyes using a dotting tool and Collection Nail Tip Whitener white polish. Used The Spy Who Loved Me red for the nose  (with a larger dotting tool) and Barry M’s nail art pen in black for the antlers and black dot in the eye.

I then finished them all with a top coat!

Must admit I like it more than I thought I’d ever like a drawing on my nails – very happy with the result!

How festive!

Happy Christmas to all! Happy holidays from So Many Lovely Things

Rating:

5_star

Beautiful christmas: my selection of beauty gifts

Ho ho ho. It is December and I feel I am officially allowed to say the C word without attracting some dirty looks (and the “already?!” expression n their faces). Obviously, I am talking about CHRISTMAS, silly.

Most people know someone who is a beauty fanatic and if you are not one yourself, choosing the right thing can be quite difficult. But fear not, So Many Lovely Things will give you an easy solution that is certain to cause a good impression.

I went through my favourite places for beauty buys and here are my picks:

Up to £25

studio_smokey_eyesA good all rounder for a great price. Studio products are great value for money. This Smokey eye kit, for £6, is certain to please. New Years eve eyes, sorted!

eyeko_liner

I love the Eyeko Skinny liner – it is my favourite and I use everyday. This double pack from QVC is excellent value for £14 and after trying you will certainly need a second (and a third – you won’t live without it, ever!)

nivea_kitClassic skin care brand Nivea pulled together a lovely pampering selection with Honey Face Masks, Body lotion, Pearly Shine Lip, Cleansing Wipes, Moisturising Day Cream, amongst others. For £15, this gift goes a long way. Available at Boots.

loreal_sos

Post Chirstmas excesses will show on your face. Pull yourself together with this L’Oréal Port-Party Beauty SOS and be ready for the next one in no time! £10 from Boots.

rodial_bauble

A pretty bauble from Rodial, with its lovely Glam Balm inside. A tiny bit of luxury to plump those lips for that all important unde the mistletoe action! £14 from Harrods.

rae_morris

I love this book. Rae Morris’ classic Makeup: The Ultimate Guide will help you get the grips with makeup and look even more fabulous! Only £12.50 from Amazon.

sanctuary

The Sanctuary’s Best Sellers Collection is a great body indulgence kit with their classic scent. £15 from Debenhams.

clinique_candy

Clinique’s Chubby stick Whole Lotta Candy collection means you will have three beautiful shades to choose from for the New Year’s party! £20 from House of Fraser.

babydoll

Pretty doll eyes with YSL Baby Doll Mascara Set – to put it on and remove later! Find it at Boots for £24.50.

nailsinc_minis

Must Have minis from Nails Inc – lots of shades to start well the year – fro nudes to neons – this will keep your talons colour going for a while! Great value of £23.52 from QVC!

clinique_party_tips

Festive talons courtesy of Clinique’s Party Tips nail polish set.. Three pretty shades for sensitive skin for £20 from House of Fraser.

elemis

Discover Elemis’ great Tri-enzime kit with this 4 piece set, for only £24.12 from QVC.


opi_fullytied

OPI’s Fit to be Tied #2 has two beautiful nail shades and delivers glitter in the right amount. £18.55 from QVC.

clinique_3step

Clinique’s classic 3 step kit is one of my favourites cleanse, tone and moisturise sets. Have a go with this intro collection and see for yourself. £20 from Debenhams.

liz_earle

The Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser is a classic – and is has a special edition for Christmas – £26.25 for 200ml cleaner and 2 muslim cloths!

Over £26

naked3

I couldn’t leave out the Naked 3 palette from Urban Decay, coming out on the 12 December for £37. Hurry!!!

mac_stoke_midnight

Beautifully packaged MAC’s Stroke of Midnight eye kit in Smoky got me hooked. Smokey eyes paradise with Chillproof, Retrospeck, Gaelic Gold, Well Put Together and Carbon (my fave matte black eyeshadow). At £32, exceptional value for money.

 

benefit

Benefit’s Groovy Kinda Love gift set has their best sellers to keep you pretty – and all for £29.50 from Boots.

ud_glitter

Sparkle! The Urban Decay Starlight Glitter set can help with that! £30 from House of Fraser.

Damsel-in-De-stress

Guinot has brought some lovely gift boxes this year, each one looking to fix a “problem” in a girl’s life.

Ready Set Glow will deliver complexion brightening tools; Damsel in De-Stress will pamper and help relief stress; Supercharged Youth Boost delivers a boost for ageing skin. They also have a male grooming gift set called Tied up, with a face wash, after shave and shaving brush! They are priced between £46 and £64 and can be found at your nearest salon using Guinot products or at the Salon Skincare website, amongst others. website

ysl_youthliberator

Reveal a younger you with YSL Forever Youth Liberator Serum set, £64 from Boots.

lancome_visionnaire

Lancôme’s Visionnaire is of my favourite serums – and this set has lots of amazing goodies to accompany it! It costs £82 from Boots.

mac_brushes

This classic selection of half size MAC brushes is amazing – and a fantastic value too at £42.

lancome_alber

And finally, a girl can dream…. fro £300 you can get the WHOLE Alber Elbaz collection for Lancôme at Harrods. Sigh…

Nails of the week: purple and blue

This week I went back to a design I really loved: the vintage inspired heart tip. But with with the twist of less vintage-y colours.

purple and blue nails -somanylovelythings

I selected the stunning OPI Purple-iscious, which is a special edition polish to celebrate the 20th birthday of QVC – purple is the brand colour!

OPI Purple-iscious for QVC 20th birthday

OPI Purple-iscious for QVC 20th birthday

This is a metallic purple, shimmery with extremely fine glitter. It has a very subtle orangey-reddish pearlescence; it doesn’t colour-shift but gives this polish an amazing dimension. However, in essence, Purple-iscious is a fabulous (and delicious) purple. Application was great, as with any OPI polish and durability was also ace. Happy birthday QVC and thank you for bringing this gem of a polish out!

The blue at the tip is L’Oréal’s colour riche in Rebel Blue, an amazing royal blue with a fantastic sheen to it.

I followed the same process as on the nude and red manicure I did before and achieved the same results.

purple and blue nails - somanylovelythings

I really like it, although I don’t think it beats the nude and red one… As for the purple, I will definitely use it alone! It is gorgeous!

You can get the amazing Purple-iscious celebrating QVC’s 20th birthday at the QVC website; it comes in a special kit with the amazing Nail Envy base coat and it costs  £20.16 plus P&P.

Rating:

4_star

This post contains PR samples. This review, however, is based on my own true experience with the products and reflects my honest opinion on them.

Nails of the week: colourful leopard print

colourful leopard print nails - somanylovelythings

You probably know by now I obsess about things. After loving last week’s leopard print soooooo much, I decided to do another one, of course. I went for a lovely white/gold base and my leopard spots were very colourful!

First, I am going to say how much I love the OPI Ski Slope Sweetie, which I picked up at Olympia Beauty. It is part of OPI’s winter collection and the colour is just amazing – a metallic white base with some colour shifting from a shimmery gold with a tiny little spark of green and red sometimes to a colder white, almost silver. Stunning. Seriously, rarely do I fall in love with a light coloured polish, but this got me. I sense it being used more – it is and amazing base for art: non intrusive but so not boring! It applies alright, there were no bush marks – the OPI brush is great, but this polish is a bit on the thick side.

20131005-211114.jpg

After applying two coats of SSS and letting it dry for about 15 minutes, I drew the spots with a fine nail brush and normal nail polish – I first did all blue (Kiko 385) spots, then purple (L’Oréal Flashing Lilac), green (L’Oréal Wasabi Hint), yellow (L’Oréal Banana Pop) and pink (L’Oréal Acid Watermelon),  making sure they were well distributed and no nail had the exactly same pattern!

20131005-211041.jpgAfter that, I used Barry M’s Nail art pen (seriously, how did I have this at home for soooo long and never used? Love this thing!) to add the irregular black outlines and random flecks to the spots.

I finished it off with a topcoat (Seche Vite) and I am absolutely in love with it. Sooo pretty!!!

colourful leopard print nails - somanylovelythings

Rating:

5_star

Olympia Beauty 2013

olympia beauty 2013 - somanylovelythings

This was my second time at Olympia Beauty. Just the idea of  over 520 beauty exhibitors under one roof is enough to make me forget how much I have walking around in crowds!

The show is free for professionals and I registered as press. On the day tickets for the general public can be bought on the day for £15.

This year the show didn’t disappoint. I was particularly impressed with their Press and Social Media Hubs – much bigger and better than last year’s, with more brands showcasing products – OPI, Dermalogica, Elemis, Lash Perfect/Hi Brow, Sienna X amongst others and a spacious area with refreshments (including cute Marc Jacobs Diet Coke bottles!)

The stands were fantastic! This year, a lot of gel manicures again, but also for domestic use and teeth whitening I think were the bigger presence for consumer products. Lashes and brows were also quite predominant!

Overview
The view from the mezzanine
So many things to see!
More stands!
Elemis launchs
Elemis launchs
Elemis launchs
Elemis best sellers
Lovely wax
Dermalogica new range
Dermalogica new range
Sothys
Sothys
Sothys
Nail, nails!
Hi Brow
OPI’s Xmas collection!
OPI’s Xmas collection!
Marc Jacobs Diet COke
Inglot
Teeth whitening on the spot!
The Pro Makeup shop amazing hygiene products!
Pros showing how it’s done!!!
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Amazing jewelled make-up
Nailympics
Nailympics
Nailympics
Jazz nail polish
Jazz nail polish
Jazz nail polish
Massager! Great product!
Amy Childs
Amy Childs

Exhibitors were great – from huge brands for consumer (OPI, Elemis, Dermalogica, Ardell, Color Club, Essie, Fake Bake, Minx nail foils, NYX and many others!) offering discounted products to salon equipment and therapies machines to the professionals, and lots of and sample therapies going on.

I was very happy to se a bit more make up – Inglot and Illamasqua making an appearance. Although I was disappointed with Illamasqua – they were not selling products!

As usual, they held competitions – Nailympics – the international nail competition, The Art of Make-up and The Art of Body Painting.

The educational part of the show was even bigger too and was divided in “Business of Beauty”, “The Creativity of Nails”, “The Art of Make-up”, Make-up Artist Guest Stage” and “Aesthetic Beauty”, covering an amazing amount of topics around beauty and therapies.

As a blogger, it is great to get direct contact with brands. As a consumer, it is fantastic to pick up lots of great products at a very good price. As a beauty lover, and amazing opportunity to see what is going on in the market. It’s an overall win!

Needless to say, I came home with  bunch of products that will soon be gracing the blog – fun times!!!Always a pleasure to go, and I will for sure be there in 2014!

Nails of the week: blue matte glitter

nails_opi_liquid_sand2You probably guessed, I am talking about OPI’s liquid sand. I got myself a set of minis to try them all!

The first one was the lovely blue “Get your number”. It is a lovely indigo blue glitter with some holographic glitter in it, so really laden with sparkle.

It applied ok, I missed the wide brush from the full size version… the little one is mega fiddle and the opening of the bottle tiny!!! It really needed three coats and I am not sure if this is because of the matte formula, but it took a long time to dry and it was a bit gloopy. It also took a while to go matte, which is not a problem – it kinda developed in my hands!

Durability was ok, as it is quite rough and it won’t take a topcoat, towards the 6th day it started to chip at the edge, more like glitter flakes coming off and leaving gaps.

Now… I quite like it. It is different. The texture gets to me a little bit. It is rough. Also, it is such a sparkling polish, amazing colours, holographic bits, but it all gets a muted somehow when it goes matte. I say glitter should ALWAYS sparkle, and although there was plenty of pretty shiny flecks,  that was lacking a little bit.

nails with opi liquid sand - somanylovelythings

Apologies for the rubbish pics, it was another week I was too busy and took just a few quick snaps!

Rating:

3_star

Nails of the week: red and black

Red and black nailsIt is no secret that I LOVE red and black, so I decided to, yet again, use that on my nails.

I used two coats of the red OPI The spy who loved me, reviewed here in the past, and two coats of Brazilian brand Risqué’s Viúva Negra (black widow), a lovely black jelly base with fine red glitter and went for a chevron design, alternating the colour on my ring finger to create an accent nail.

Application was great for the OPI and ok for the Risqué one – it is quite sheer, so it was hard to make the chevrons in one coat, had to use two, which made them a little blobby. I used normal sticky tape for the chevrons, like last time, with black and gold. Durability was good, 6 days, and then a chip.

Overall, I was pleased with the mani; it was slightly untidy, the chevrons could’ve been sharper – and so could my pictures – apologies, as the last month was crazy and I forgot to photograph properly!

Rating:

4_star