Ciate & Other Cosmetics

I've got myself some bargain bits on ebay in the last week. I have seen Ciate on ASOS.com and was tempted to buy some but put off by the nine pound price tag. It looks very pretty but its hard to justify that much just because there is a bow on the bottle! I bought the above polish for half the retail price, including postage, from an ebay seller. The colour is called Plastic Fantastic, not one of their latest colours but one I know I will wear. I used to have a hot pink Barry M nail varnish that I have just used up.

The Plastic Fantastic is less of a bright pink than I thought it would be - more of a deep magenta. I wasn't disappointed by it though, I would wear any berry shade and my other polishes are dark purple, red or black. The bottle is a large size, which I suppose justifies the price - although I'm still glad I didnt pay it all of course - the only thing is that the size of the brush didn't match up. I have been wearing exclusively Rimmel Lycra Pro polishes for the past few months because of the mistake - free application brush and the Ciate brush was disappointingly small. However I have been wearing the nail varnish for four days and it is only just starting to get the odd tiny chip so all in all i would definitely purchase again.

I also got a set of Body Shop eyeshadow cubes and an applicator brush, again for half the shop price. This set has a creamy shade, a charcoal grey, a silvery blue and a sparkly navy blue. All the cubes are in individual pots and there is a lot in each one. The brush bristles are vey soft and don't seem like they would fall out at all.

This is my attempt at a smoky eye - my favourite look. I used the grey as a base, the cream on the eye socket and the two blues as accents around the lashes. it looks quite sparkly on but not overpoweringly so. i think the colours might have been a bit stronger though, its nice and i will use it but its not quite as good as my benefit palette.

Finally, i also purchased Barry M lipgloss in bubble gum, as recommended by the Beauty Spark. It's good because it isnt too sticky like a lot of glosses, the shade it nice but subtle enough for everyday. The next item on my shopping list is an Urban Decay palette, I have seen the Ammo palette on several blogs and can't wait to try it out :)