Bourjois Magic Nail Polish Remover

Well the name's truly in the title folks, this stuff is magic!

As anyone who knows me will testify, I hate removing nail polish. It's such a messy process, it leaves a nasty smell and taste on your fingers and it's a surprisingly time consuming process. At least it was for me, so when I saw this new Bourjois product pop up on the Bloggersphere imagine my relief! This stuff promised to remove the nail polish in one second without the need for messiness or any pesky cottom buds/pads. I went to Boots really hoping to see it on the shelves but alas it had not yet been stocked. I went back about 2 weeks later and spied it on the shelves. There was just one left (obviously a popular product) and I immediately snapped it up. It retails at £4.99 which I would say was about mid-range price for nail polish removers. I can now say with confidence that it was worth every penny.

The way it works is that you twist open the lid to see a huge black sponge with a little hole in the middle. You dip your finger in, twist, pull it back out and voila! Clean Nails! I must admit, when I tried it for the first time I was a little sceptical but it really does work. I'd say the 1 second is a tad ambitious, I find that I have to do a good few twists before all the polish comes off, but it isn't that far off. Overall I'd say the whole process takes 2-3 minutes tops.

Now then, because the entire sponge is doused in the magic nail polish removery stuffy, the tops of my fingers did come out damp. "Great" I thought, "I knew that there had to be a catch," low and behold however, they dried instantly and my faith was restored. Also (I'm assumming this is because of the almond oil in the product) both my hands and nails felt really nourished and smooth. So you're not just removing your nail polish, you're also giving your nails and fingers a little pampering! Plus the smell left behind by the product is lush, the bottle says the product contains "Red fruit & vanilla fragrance". To me it's quite a sweet smell, so much nicer than the usual paint-stripper smell most removers have, the vanilla notes really come through and oh *squeal* it's just lovely!

I honestly cannot rave about this product enough! It makes the nail polish removing process so much easier and convienent. Also if you run out of time to change your nail polish before you go out (as I frequently do) it makes the process of removal and re-painting them so much easier. The only downsides to this product is that it can't really be used to make little corrections and if you have any broken skin on around your nails it can sting a little . Plus it can't really be used on toe nails. Don't let this put you off though as I can't imagine ever having to go back to the soaked cotton pad method of removal ever again. This product gets a huuuuuuge thumbs up from me!

You can buy this product from Boots

Latest In Beauty CEW Awards 2012 Beauty Box

Since Glossybox launched their Beauty Box around a year ago, the idea of signing up for random samples each month has really taken off. Glossybox remains the dominant force pulling out collabarations with the likes of Harrods. Feel Unique and Carmen came and left over the year and Boudoir Prive relaunched itself as JolieBox. In amongst all of these brands, Latest In Beauty came along and offered a refrshing twist on the concept. For just £1.50 you can recieve 3 unique samples chosen by you. There's no subscription service and you're under no obligation to order a box per month. They also do bigger themed boxes every now and then (roughly every month). The main difference with these is that is a one off charge and you can already see the products that will be featured before ordering. I appreciate this as you can make a fair assesment before parting with money rather than recieving a box via a subscription and recieving a bunch of stuff you don't really want.  I also find that you get more samples and they're usually a lot bigger than the ones some boxes fob you off with.

The box that I ordered above was based on the CEW Beauty Awards 2012 (full list of winners here) and provided samples of winners or finalists. As soon as I saw this box I knew I had to have it and I think you'll understand why once I go through the products! Altogether this box cost me £11.90 (£8.95 + £2.95 P&P) and it's valued at over £50 so I can't complain about that. Now on with the products:

(Products from L-R)

Elemis Pro-Collagen Body Cream (Finalist in "Best New Bath and Body Product")

To be honest this is the product that I was least fussed about. I'm not huge on body creams and being only 18 I'm not sure I'm ready for pro-collagen stuff yet! However I will give it a shot, it was a decently sized sample I recieved at 50ml and checking Feel Unique, they are selling 200ml for £49 so I've already made back my money.

L'Occitane Brightening Hand Care (Finalist in "Best New Hand, Foot and Nail Care Product")

Another anti-aging product however this time in Hand Cream product. I won't be complaining about this however as my hands have been feeling quite dry recently so a hand cream is definately welcomed. Again this was another decent sized sample at 15ml, I couldn't find an RRP for this but on average L-Occitane products tend to range from mid to high end prices so once again I'm getting my monies worth. I'm really excited to try this out!

Mont Blanc Legend Eau de Toilette (Finalist in "Best New Men's Fragrance")

This is a 1.2ml sample of Aftershave. It struck me as a slightly odd addition to the box but hey I sprayed it and it does smell quite lush.

Elie Saab Le Parfum (Finalist in "Best New Woman's Scent")

Another wee 1ml sample of Perfume, this time for girls. It's hard to review perfume so I'll just say it's quite a floral scent, not really to my liking but I can appreciate why it would be liked.

Percy & Reed No-fuss Dry Conditioner (Finalist in "Best New Haircare/Styling Product)

This 50ml sample has a typical salon smell to it (which I personally love). I'm also really looking forward to trying this one out as my hair's getting really long now and could do with as much conditioning as it can get.

Nails Inc Porchestor Square Nail Polish (Nails Inc was a Finalist in "Best British Brand")

A full sized nail polish! Yippee! I cannot wait to paint my nails with this colour. It's a sort of mushroom shade and doesn't appear to have any shimmer to it so it definately looks wearable for the daytime plus I can spruce it up if I need to be sophisticated for nighttime. 

Benefit The POREfessional (Finalist in "Best New Makeup")

Now I already know what the primer is like as my Mum bought it not too long ago and I have used it a couple of times (not always with her permission) and I am so glad to have my own! It's only 7.5ml but with this primer a little goes a long way. It creates a very smooth base and it really does reduce the size of pores and gives that nice airbrushing effect before applying foundation. So pleased with this!

Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare Cleanse & Polish (Winner of "Most Revolutionary Beauty Product in the Past 20 Years)

As I follow a number of Beauty Bloggers I know that this is the Holy Grail of skincare and I am so stoked to recieve it! It's a decent sized sample at 30ml plus it comes with the muslin cloth and a set of instructions. I simply cannot say how excited I am to use this for the first time though I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to fit it in with my skincare routine as of yet... 

And as an extra: I literally only just noticed that the Liz Earle also came with a mysterious envelope so I had to have a quick look and inside were 3 sachets (I think that's how you spell it!) of the Liz Earle Sheer Skin Tint! Each sachet (sp?) is a different shade so that you can colour match yourself however I am under no illusion that I will be shade no 1 for Fair Skin Tones. What a lovely surprise though!

I hope to do a second post on this box in about a week once I've had a chance to try the products out and do some reviews on them. Sorry for the long post but really wanted to squeal about how awesome this box is. Sadly they're sold out now but I believe that there is still a reservation list so it might be worth checking that out. Also keep an eye on the website here and their Twitter feed here for the announcements for their future themed boxes because honestly I can't rave about how great they are!

OPI Mini Stash (Including Nicki Minaj)

I'm going to talk about my nails again. Although I haven't bitten them in ageeees, sadly the damage from all the years has seriously taken its toll and they keep breaking and peeling. I'm gonna give OPI's nail envy a whirl as everyone raves about as a fix everything solution. Before the breaking started though, I made a few sneaky purchases and bought a few more OPI minis. This time in the shades "Russian Navy", "Big Apple Red" and Nicki Minaj's "Fly". I cannot gush enough about these shades, especially one of them! As I said in my Dutch Collection review, I really like the OPI minis and find the brush easy to work with and perfect for my little hands. Now on with the individual shades:

First up Russian Navy, this is exactly what it says on the bottle, a very rich navy with a shimmering finish. Out of them all this was probably the one I was least fond of. The colour is gorgeous however I found it to take a few coats to really bring it out as it's quite sheer. The other problem I found is that it was quite streaky so I had to be quite careful when applying it.

Next up Big Apple Red, now this is a proper red shade. There's no pinky/corally/orangey undertones, it's red through and through. I love this colour! It has a matte finish and applies like a dream. One coat and you're pretty much good to go and unlike the previous shade there was no streakiness at all. This is honestly the perfect red shade for me and I'm so glad I found it as I am a big fan of red. Along with "Russian Navy" this shade is part of the "OPI Best of the Best" collection (which was sadly limited edition and doesn't appear to be retailing anymore however some are still kicking round eBay).

And last but certainly not least is the shade "Fly" which is part of the collaboration with Nicki Minaj. Now then Nicki Minaj has definately done some questionable stuff over the past few months (from her performance at the Grammies to deleting her Twitter) however all is truly forgiven. The pictures seriously do not do this shade justice. With two coats I got the most gorgeous colour ever though it's definately got a more green tint to it than the picture above suggests. I'd say it falls somewhere between a teal and turqouise. I honestly cannot rave enough about how pretty this colour is and have actually recieved a few compliments on it. It's the perfect summer colour.

Anyway that's all for now, sorry for another nails post but I'm hoping to get some more posts, with a bit more variety, done over the next few days. This depends if my camera decides to play ball however!