Colour Pop at Style Club North Earl Street

This week found me in the Style Club salon on North Earl Street, one of my recent discoveries in the hair world!  I'm a northsider and am always wandering past the brightly coloured salon.  So late last year, I went in for a wash a blow dry, to test the waters so to speak.  I'm very careful who I let near my locks with a scissors, but my stylist Lindsay did a fantastic job with the blow dry and I was a happy chappy.  Then in March, I was heading to an event and needed a quick snip and blow dry.  Once again, Lindsay worked her magic and my hair was fabulous!  I left there a happy customer again.

I was invited to try one of the treatments available in Style Club called Colour Pop, but was a bit hesitant as I'm currently rocking hombre/gradient/balayage/roots and didn't know if it would work for me or not.  But I went along to learn about the treatment in any case.

How cute is the inside of the salon!

The Colour Pop treatment is essentially a conditioning treatment for your locks, but with a twist.  It's tinted and lasts for eight washes.  There are 22 shades altogether and a clear one that just provides the treatment and shine without colour.  That was exactly what I wanted, so Lindsay got busy on my hair!

After washing my tresses, the Colour Pop treatment was applied and left on for 15 minutes while I relaxed the kax and enjoyed my massaging chair, careful not to nod off.  After Lindsay chopped off the dead ends and tidied up my layers, she gave me a gorgeous curly blow dry.  There's nothing better than leaving a salon like a bridie from a hair ad, flicking and swishing your hair because you know it looks fabulous!  My hair was soft, shiny and super swishy and I've washed it twice since then and it's still shining bright like a diamond.

If you're going to a party or a night out on the town, or even want to give yourself a little treat before heading away on holidays, then the Colour Pop treatment is definitely worth a shot and it's on special at the moment at €16 with a cut.  And I'd totally recommend Lindsay for styling and chats, so tell her I sent you!

You can contact Style Club North Earl Street here and book yourself in for a Color Pop treatment.  I'm deciding what I want to do with my hair in terms of colour at the moment, but I know if I decide on a specific colour, I'll have to try out the corresponding Color Pop for the craic!

Maybelline Color Sensational Cream Gloss - Coral Blush, photos and review

As if by magic, we're starting to see a tiny bit more sun these days.  I'm afraid to say anything else in case I jinx it and ruin summer for us completely.  But that yellow ball in the sky does something to me in terms of make up and makes me want to channel my inner J Lo.  I'm talking glowy skin, bronzed cheekbones and glossy lips.  So when on a recent expedition to Boots where I bought these babies and there was a 3 for 2 offer going on, I decided to try one of the Maybelline Color Sensational Cream Glosses.  It was love at first sight and when I saw the name, Coral Blush, the love was intensified.  Even though it's not coral.

Anyway, here's the packaging.  It's sleek and pretty and I can see how much gloss I have left in the tube at all times.

My first thought when I clapped eyes on the gloss was Oooh if Nars Orgasm had a lipgloss it would be this.  Turns out Nars does have an Orgasm lipgloss and isn't as pigmented as this.  And to me, Coral Blush looks so much more like Nars Orgasm blush than the matching lipgloss.  So if you're looking for an affordable close dupe to that, then look no further than Color Blush.

This peachy gloss is packed full of gold shimmer and is going to look even more gorgeous with a tan.  It's really creamy, feels moisturising on the lips and isn't sticky.

Coral Blush has fast become one of my favourite everyday lip products to use.  It's really flattering on my skin tone, looks more beautiful when the sun decides to shine on it and is a shade I can apply without having to use a mirror.  It lasts a couple of hours and the cream base fades away before the shimmer does.

I'm loving my first foray into the Color Sensational Cream Glosses and will definitely be trying more in the future!  I'll update the post once I get confirmation of the price, but it's in the €7-€10 range, ish.  Note to self, keep receipts!

Have you tried any of these yet?  What shade do I need to try next?

NYC Big Bold Curl mascara review - before and after photos

A mascara that costs the same price as a cup of cawfee and won't give you the jitters?  Sign me up!  Budget friendly brand NYC's latest offering in the mascara department promises 12 times more volume and up to 99% more lift.  This arrived at Girlie Towers a while back and was rediscovered when I was organising my stash last month.  Let's take a closer look at it shall we?

Now, let's talk wands.  You know I like a grand big wand but this is by far the biggest wand I've ever had this close to my eyeball.  And I was nervous for the first time ever using a mascara!  Do you know how weird it is to be bringing something close to your own eyeball and leaning your head back at the same time?  It's massive but once you get to grips with it, it's plain sailing as the bristles comb through the lashes effortlessly, separating and lifting them.

As a mascara fiend, fiend I tell you, I have different mascaras for different needs.  The Big Bold Curl mascara promises both volume and curl and it certainly delivers on both of those.  It gives volume without plonking a load of product on the lashes and gives an almost wispy, feathery look making it a perfect day time mascara for me.

In terms of curl, it holds my lashes up effortlessly all day.  I'm a huge advocate of applying lots of mascara to the outer lashes to elongate my eyes and to give them a little lift.  I need all the help I can in that department!  I want to look wide eyed and bushy tailed and this definitely gives me the wide eyed effect.

It definitely gives length to my little non existent lashes and you can see from the photo above that there's no clumping at all at all.

For €3.49, you can't go wrong.  This is a fantastic every day mascara and well worth giving a shot.  Did I mention it was €3.49?  You probably have that much in coppers in your purse.  No excuse!

L'Oreal Skin Perfection 15 Second Miracle Cleansing Oil, Radiance Revealing Gentle Exfoliator, 3 in 1 Purifying Micellar Solution

As you know, I've been tormenting you with the concept of ditching the make up wipes and starting a proper skincare routine.  You might not believe me but I guarantee your skin will thank you!  I'm really lucky that I'm sent products to review for the blog, some expensive and some affordable.  My number one comment when it comes to skincare is the cost.  And I do appreciate that everyone is on a budget these days.  Thankfully, L'Oreal have released some new skincare goodies that are purse friendly and pretty fantastic.

The Skin Perfection Cleansers is a collection of nine products that cater for everyone's skin, be it combination, normal, dull, sensitive or dry and yes, wipes are one of the products, but I won't hold that against them!

You have to know at this point in our relationship as blogger/reader that I am obsessed with cleansing oils.  They're just amazing and a lot of people with oily/combination skin are afraid to use them in case they make the skin even oilier.  Here's all you need to know: in a nutshell, they balance the oil production of your skin.

The Skin Perfection 15 Second Miracle Cleansing Oil is a really lightweight oil that is a joy to use.  I apply about three to four pumps into the palms of my hands and rub my hands together to distribute it evenly before massaging it into my skin.  There's nothing nicer than working the product into the skin and watching it break down my make up, mascara and all.  You know I've sensitive eyes and it doesn't irritate my peepers at all.  After you've worked the oil into your skin, you can either add water to it and watch it emulsify before rinsing it off, or use a damp muslin cloth or face cloth to remove it, leaving you with clean, soft skin.

Next on our list is the Skin Perfection 3 in 1 Purifying Micellar Solution.  Micellar cleansers are all the rage at the moment and whereas I don't use them to cleanse my skin, I use them all the time to remove my make up, eye make up and all, before cleansing again.  If I'm going out from work and don't want to pile more make up on top of old make up, then I use micellars and this one from L'Oreal is gorgeous.

Micellar cleansers work by attracting the oils and impurities away from your skin like magic.  You don't have to rub, scrub or use any elbow grease at all.  This one cleanses, tones and hydrates the skin and doesn't strip any oils from the skin or dry it out.  They're one of those products that are handy to bring travelling as you don't need separate eye make up remover and at €7.69, is worth every penny.  And a little tip is to keep this close by with a Q tip to correct any eyeshadow mistakes one might make if one is in a rush and trying to complete one's look before legging it out the door.

Now, who doesn't love a bit of exfoliation? I go through phases of having dull skin and there's nothing that perks it up like a good scrub.  How amazing is it to put your moisturiser on over perfectly smooth skin?  Things like that just make up happy.  The Skin Perfection Radiance Revealing Gentle Exfoliator pretty much does what it says on the tin.

This wonderfully citrusy smelling exfoliator has lots of microbeads suspended in a clear gel and it refines the skin's texture, leaving me with smooth soft skin.  It's soap free so doesn't dry out the aul visage which is always good and I love using this in the morning to wake me up.  It's a mere €6.99 and if you're looking for something gentle and effective, then look no further.

The moral of the story when it comes to skincare is that you don't have to break the bank to get products that work.  If you commit to a routine, your skin will thank you for it and you won't want to go back to make up wipes!

Have you tried any of the Skin Perfection range yet?

BaByliss Perfect Curl review - and our first YouTube video!

It was immediate intrigue when we saw the promo video for the BaByliss Perfect Curl a couple of months ago.  A styler that sucked up your hair somehow and then released it into a perfect curl?  We had to have it and after weeks of Joanne tormenting every hair stockist in Dublin, she finally found it in Sally's in town.  And this is what the object of our obsession looks like.

This is something quite revolutionary and they needed something big to follow up the BaByliss Big Hair!  Lads, this is a game changer.  Let's take a closer look shall we?

In a nutshell, you hold a section of hair across the barrel in the circular part of the styler and clamp it shut.  The hair is sucked up into the little chamber and held there for either 8, 10 or 12 seconds, depending on what time you've chosen.  Your hair is heated from all sides and released in a lovely curl altogether.  

The smaller the section of hair you use, the more defined the curl and increasing the time and temperature allows for a tighter curl.  There are three settings on the side that allow you to decide what kind of curl you want.  

RLA means all the curls will go to the right (R), left (L) or alternate (A).  There's a timing setting that holds the hair in place for 12, 10 or 8 seconds.  The lower the length of time, the looser the curl.  Finally, there's a heat setting that has three different temperatures.

Joanne is new to the world of curling one's hair and while most of us might use hair ties or clips to section off our hair, she uses something slightly different!  In the photo below, I've got all my curls going to the right and Joanne used the alternate setting meaning some go to the left and some to the right.  Having all the curls going in one direction gives a really soft, wavy, bouncy curl and having the curls going in different directions gives a full, sexy hairdo!

Now, one of the main concerns that we had and so does everyone else it seems, is will it get caught and tangled in my hair?  And the answer is that it's possible your hair might get caught but it has a security feature that stops the hair from being sucked up any more and releases it, so no worries at all.  You'll see in the video what happens when Joanne gets her hair caught.  The trick is to not put too much hair in.  I did mine over the weekend and it didn't get caught once, so take your time and all should be ok.

Are these not Perfect Curls?!

Pros:

• Really easy to use.
• No need for a glove as you've no direct contact with the heat.
• No risk of burning your face or arm with it as the heated element is protected.
• You can do different types of curls with it depending on what direction, length of time and heat you decide to use.
• You don't need to worry about whether you've been holding your hair against the heat for long enough or for too long as it times it for you and beeps when it's finished.

Cons:

• The price.  Our one was €189.99 and I've seen it as high as €220 online.  But have a think about this. How many curling wands, tongs, heated rollers and the likes do you have at home.  Do you use them all?  Or are they gathering dust?  You'll definitely use this more than those!

And now for the embarrassing bit, our video!  You can either click here to go to our YouTube channel to watch the video and subscribe to our channel or watch it here.  You should totally subscribe to us because we've got lots of ideas for videos and you wouldn't want to miss out on them now would you?!

Will you be trying the Perfect Curl or should I set up a business on the side to have people come visit me and I can curl their hair?

It gets the ultimate two thumbs up from Lovely Girlie Bits and now I have to start saving for my own one!

The pit of my week and the peak of my week - week 19

How gorgeous is it out today folks!  Well, in Dublin anyway, and we know what that means?  Yes, tomorrow will see buses and trains full of sunburned people.  Watch and see!

Anyways, another week over and what a week it was...

The pit of my week is work related again.  It was even busier this week than last week but thankfully my boss is back tomorrow, so I'll only have to contend with my own work again.  I have a massive pile of post its and notes to get through but that's next week's work!  So because of the craziness of work this week, I spent each evening like a zombie and waited to go to bed each night.  However, despite that, I couldn't sleep for two nights and spent hours awake with my mind racing, which didn't help matters the following day!  But it's over now and I'll be playing catch up next week, so that'll keep me busy.

The peak of my week was finally figuring out how to edit our first YouTube video which will be up tomorrow (hopefully)!  My camera recorded it in .mov format which made each clip huge and wouldn't play properly on my ancient laptop.  So I transferred everything over to my iPad which has iMovie on it.  I spent Friday night editing it and after being really happy with it, realised it wouldn't let me save the end product because there wasn't enough space on the iPad.  So annoyingggggg!  So I ended up transferring each clip over and editing them separately before joining them together.  And I'm pretty happy with the results.  I'm nervous putting it up tomorrow but sure it's only a bit of craic and I realised that I loved editing everything.  So if we keep doing videos, then next on my wishlist is a Macbook so I can edit properly and quickly.

How was your week?  Right, time for me to get out in that sun!

International giveaway! Ciate sequins manicure kit!

I love keeping track of numbers in terms of the blog, be it unique views a month, blog followers, those subscribed by email and page views.  Each time I hit a benchmark, I'm a happy blogger.  On January 1st this year, we hit a million views and four and a half months later, we hit another half a million.  We're bloody delighted and proud of ourselves and thankful for every reader, follower and commenter that we have.

So as a little token of our appreciation, we have a Ciate Sequined Manicure set up for grabs!  So if you want to have glittery, sequined nails, then enter the giveaway quick smart.

The giveaway is open internationally and closes on June 3rd at the end of our bank holiday weekend.  Enter your details in the widget below and good luck!  The only stipulation is that you're a GFC follower of the blog so if you're not, get over to the Follower section on the right of the blog and sign up!

Thank you for your continued support!

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