Pier House, Westward Ho! North Devon

Next up in my supper tours is the Pier House in Westward Ho! Yes, the town does have an exclamation mark on the end.

This is what we had:

To start we both had king prawns in filo pastry with a chilli dip, I had steak with all the trimmings, he had the pie and veg, I had creme brulee and he had the shortbread and fruit salad with clotted cream. He regretted not having the creme brulee for pudding.  We only drank water so the total cost of this meal was £49. I paid for the whole meal because my friend is a gardener and he comes round to the house and mows the lawn and sorts the weeds out in the drive way, so this supper was my thankyou to him as he won't accept payment for the work he does.

CND Shellac - Two Weeks Later

You may remember my first post about my CND Shellac manicure, (click here to see the original post) I took pictures the day I had them done and thought I would do a two weeks later post to see how they held up.

Here are the pictures the day I got them done:

Two weeks later:

As you can see the middle finger has chipped ever so slightly but the main obvious difference is that the polish has started to grow out. You can see very clearly on all my nails at the cuticle. I expected this to happen, there is also the smallest amount of tip wear as well but for two weeks I thought this was pretty good going.

I paid £15 for this manicure which is one of the cheapest  prices I have seen for it. I wouldn't get it done all the time because I have to admit after a week I was craving a different colour! However, I would get this done if I was going away for a break or holiday. Like I already mentioned I have booked another appointment with a freelancer for another gel manicure. I don't think she used Shellac so it will be good to see how she compares.

Marshmallow Blends - Like a kid in a sweet shop!

Some of you may remember my earlier post of the caramel cupcake body scrub which I was send from Marshmallow Blends a few months ago.

Nicoletta is a fellow blogger who I have been following for months, infact she was one of the first people I followed when I started blogging back in January 2011. Her blog is here. She set up a home business called Marshmallow Blends which sells bath and beauty products inspired by bakery, cakes and sweets.

If you have a sweet tooth like me, these products are right up your street. The caramel cupcake scrub had me hooked right away.

I wanted to share what I bought:

I am so excited she has started selling soaps!

The top one is called Pink Sugar Lips soap, just look at that black, pink and white marble pattern. On the top is a pink soap lip with glitter, it has notes of cotton candy, vanilla, lemon and caramel. The smell is divine, just gorgeous and sweet without being sickly.

The second soap is called Cream Caramel soap slice, this looks just like a piece of cake with the fudge pieces poking from the top. All I can say is that this soap smells like Worthers Original sweets. Those from the UK will know what this means, anyone who doesn't know about Worthers Original - they are hard caramal butter sweets. Smooth and creamy and just amazing.

Both of these soaps cost £3.50 which I think is a fair price for a hand made soap and they are big. I will end up cutting these in half. All the soaps are SLS free which is a bonus.

Next up we have some bath melts - these are Bakewell Tart melts, £2.99 for a pack of 3. These smell amazing but are very fragile and have crumbled a little bit, so please excuse the pictures but you get the idea. I love the extra details, the little heart on the top for a cherry and the zebra and pink cupcake cases.

Finally I got a Chocolate Orange soft hearted lotion bar - £3.50 - this smells just like Terry's Chocolate Orange. The chocolate and orange don't fight to overpower each other, the balance of the two scents work in harmony together, complimenting each other well.

Nicoletta was kind enough to pop in 2 samples of products for me to try as well: Lime and Coconut Body butter and Carrot Cake body scrub.

I placed my order on Sunday and the package was with me on Tuesday, very fast postage which is impressive! I recommend checking out the products on the Marshmallow Blends website http://marshmallowblends.co.uk/home.html reasonable prices for the most amazing smelling hand made bath and body products.

My first Shellac manicure

I haven't ever had a professional manicure. I just never saw the point in paying the money for a manicure when I know the polish will chip quickly and I do my nails myself so often. I then found out somewhere near me did Shellac.

I had these done for £15 which is the cheapest I have found, although I have booked another appointment with a freelancer for mid May, she charges £20 and I believe she uses a different gel system, so I shall see which I prefer.

I walked into the salon and asked if they could fit me in right there, which they could. I was a bit surprised that no prep work on my cuticles was done, I always thought that sort of work was a given? As I said, this was my first visit to get my nails done, so I have no idea what to expect.

My nails were shaped and then the wiped with a cloth before the UV base coat was applied. After this first coat was applied I put my hands into the UV lamp box for 10 seconds. Then the first coat of colour went on, I chose this gorgeous vibrant teal. This coat was cured, a second was applied and cured for a couple of mins. Finally a UV top coat was applied and cured under the UV lamp. To finish, my nails were given a quick wipe over to remove any residue and a cuticle oil was applied.

This was the end result:

At this point I have actually had this manicure on for well over a week but I have only just got round to posting. I wanted to take some pictures the day I got the manicure done and then I will do a post soon showing what it looks like after a week, a week and a half etc until I remove it.

Has anyone else tried Shellac?

Meteor Match with Leopard Print

I hadn't used any of my Leighton Denny polishes in months so I pulled out Meteor Match and stamped with Konad special polish in black using plate M57.

Meteor Match by Leighton Denny (Atmospheric Collection) was a polish sent to me for review last year and I have used it in a post before. It is a very sheer blue-ish silvered polish with micro silver glittery particles. I took three coats to get a solid base. It is a pretty colour but it does take a little time and effort to get it to build up.

Stamping really jazzes up any polish!

Prezzo in North Devon

It has been a while since I wrote about a supper date! I went to the local Prezzo with one of my oldest friends recently. Prezzo is an Italian restaurant, basically pasta, pizza and they have some amazing chicken dishes too. I never pay full price when I eat at Prezzo, there are so many vouchers floating around for buy one get one free main meals or two main meals for £12 etc.

Here is what we ate:

Deep fried mozzarella and tomato relish (we both had this starter) my friend had the pizza and side salad, I had pasta carbonara. For pudding she had the cheesecake and I had the chocolate fudge cake.

I can't remember exactly the full price of our meal, but we ended up splitting it in half, so it wasn't too expensive. When it comes to eating at chains I am a bit boring and eat pretty much the same food every time I go.

Cyan Blue with Block Orange

Using two Barry M polishes, Cyan Blue and Block Orange, I created this manicure along with some Konad stamping.

Up until now I hadn't tried this stamp design on my Konad plate M63 so thought I would give it a go. I have to say this isn't one of my favs, on some nails I didn't stamp quite straight, therefore I find this pattern unforgiving for flaws. For some reason on top of the orange the pattern seems distorted.

The two polishes before the stamping:

These photos were taken with two coats of each polish, that is one of the qualities I love about Barry M polishes, the are so cheap (£2.99) but the colour pay off is intense.

Nail polish and make up displays

I have seen a few bloggers post about the different beauty and nail polish displays they have in shops at home. I was in Boots recently and happened to have my camera in my bag. I started snapping away and got some strange looks from other shoppers, but nobody questioned me.

Displays are Rimmel, Bourjois, Maybelline and Models Own and I was surprised at how stocked they were. I spend too long looking at nail polish and swatching lipsticks and shadows. It takes me far too long to decide what to buy but when there is a 3 for 2 offer it helps out! The Boots near me is quite small so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw they carried Models Own Hed Kandi's new polishes.

Revlon Lip Butter - Strawberry Shortcake.

I know you have prob seem a million and one posts on Revlon's Lip Butters but I never normally get sucked into lip product hype, however, I really wanted to try this new product out.

(Sorry the last picture is on its side, I rotated it on my dashboard but when I load them on here they are sideways!)

I was in Boots and saw they had a full stand of Revlon Lip Butters, there were lots of colours and I began swatching them all on my arm. After a while I decided on Strawberry Shortcake, a light pink, more juicy in colour (if that makes sense) than a cotton candy pink.

I loved the way this applied, so smooth and creamy, the only thing I would say is make sure your lips are smooth first. The product isn't forgiving if you have cracked/chapped lips as it shows everything. All my imperfections seemed magnified somehow.

Full price for all the lip butters is £7.99 which I feel is quite expensive for a lip butter, but the colour pay off is great and a good idea if during the summer you want a splash of colour without wearing a lipstick.

What do you think? Have you been sucked into the hype? I love Strawberry Shortcake but I won't be buying them in all the shades they have.

Ibiza Mix - Glittery Goodness

I got my hands on Ibiza Mix from Models Own from Boots, I will let the pictures do the talking right now.

From the promo pictures I thought the base would be black but it isn't, it's a clear base with a ton of different sized multi coloured glitter particles. I decided to layer it over two Barry M polishes, Mint Green and Berry Ice Cream.

I adore this glitter polish, these pictures were taken with just one coat! I don't think any of my other glitter polishes have such good coverage in one coat.