Cocoa brown: Dark 1 Hour Tan

Well I caved I ended up buying the Dark Cocoa Brown. I have said previously that the Original 1 hour tan was dark enough for me so that's why I wasn't going to buy it, but with the sunny days after appearing I felt like having that little extra darkness. 

I'm currently a Cocoa Brown junkie and love everything Cocoa Brown. When I’m prepping for my tan I always use the Tough Stuff exfoliator (I use it nearly every time I’m in the shower which stops any dramas if I ever have to do a last minute tan). I love this exfoliator, it’s so easy just to grab it in the shower because it’s in a tube, but you can use any exfoliator that you want, I love the Soap and Glory ones too. It’s also important to use any exfoliant when you shower after you have applied your tan to create an even tan and avoid patches; it’s also great to get rid of any mistakes you might have made during tanning application.

Left: Before application, Right: After application

So normally I would use one of my Soap and Glory moisturisers but when I’m tanning I always use the Cocoa Brown Chocolate Whip. It looks like chocolate pudding and smells like it too but when you rub it in it goes white and dries in really quickly. A word of warning though, a little goes a long way with this stuff; it’s as if the amount doubles when you start rubbing it in so go easy and add more if you need to. I use the Chocolate Whip before application and I use it for the full week that I have my tan on. As far as I’m aware using any oil free lotions will prevent any of the dreaded streaking.

When it comes to the actual Darker 1 Hour Tan it is so much darker, if you’re really pasty I wouldn’t recommend it, it might look a bit cray otherwise.

I always put a bit of Vaseline around my elbows, in between my fingers and around my wrists or anywhere that the skin is a bit drier.

On application you can see the tan come up instantly, I’d try and buff it in as much as possible and as quickly as possible. I’ve noticed that if you leave it for any longer than a few seconds it will dry in so buff, buff, buff!!

I noticed that when I put it on it did take a bit longer than usual to dry, and it was still slightly tacky after a while, but that didn’t have any effect on how it turned out.

You could leave it on for an hour but I always leave it on for a full night before washing it off, the longer the better with this stuff.

Left: after application, Right: A day after application 

Overall the result was really good and any streaking was up to my bad application (for some reason I completely missed my fingers). It was a lot darker than the other tan, it still looked natural though which can be hard when you have a darker tan, luckily you do look brown and not orange which is always a bonus! 

If you like your tans dark and are fed up like me having to layer it on the get the New Dark 1 Hour Tan! You can get your tanning mitts on all Cocoa Brown products in all good chemists and Pennys/Primark.

Love Sarah xoxo

Rita Ora Nail Collection for Rimmel

I'm a big fan of Rimmel, I have been since I was a young girl, not so much of Rita Ora especially since she's been cast as Mia in 50 Shades (still won't stop me seeing the movie though), so when I heard they were bringing out a nail collection together I was interested to see what they would come up with. Rita has collaborated with many great artists since she came on the scene but I think creating a nail collection with Rimmel is the best collaboration yet.

In this collection there are 12 Shades altogether (€4.99 each)

 Lose your lingerie - a pastel pink

Raw as night - a hot pink

Don't be shy - Barbie pink

Let's get nude - a lovely little nude

Midnight rendezvous - a dark purple

Hot White Love - plain and simple white but so on trend

Blindfold me blue - a sea blue

Pillow talk - a pastel blue

Do not disturb - a sea green

Breakfast in bed - a pastel green

Rita rouge - Pillar box red

Orgasm - (the rudeness) an orange

She also has 10 shades of Colour Rush lipsticks but I have enough lipsticks so I decided not to get the lippy, although I have enough nail varnishes too but they really excited me!! 

I bought mine in Boots; they had a 3 for 2 offer so I got six of the following:

Midnight Rendezvous

Rita Rouge

Raw As Night

Hot White Love

Do Not Disturb

All of the above where given a single coat and they dried really fast. My favourite of the ones I bought where:

Rita Rouge - After trying it out it's a gorgeous burgundy red, I love colours like that on my nails and lips

Hot White Love - It's a brilliant white, but you will need to give a perfect application on the nails to get the perfect manicure. This one will be great with a tan.

Raw As Night - This is a really light bright red, when I applied it to my first few nails I didn't think I was going to like it but it definitely grew on me, I usually love dark reds so this one surprised me.

I love all the colours and I can't wait to get the rest in the range. They are so affordable and I love how they actually dry quickly, I hate when some polishes claim to dry quickly and really don't. I've only ever bought one or two of the Rimmel polishes years ago so I couldn't remember if they where good or not, but I'm pleased to say that they are amazing and I will be buying them in the future!

If you don't believe me you will need to try it for yourself!

Love Sarah xoxo

Models Own Hypergel review

Hello Hello!!

Nails! Apart from lip products anything to do with nails is definitely my second love.

Last year I went month's getting gel nails but I could tell that they were starting to ruin my real nails underneath so I had to take them off. The result was hideous paper thin nails, fortunately after a lot of hand cream, cuticle oils and some repairing nail varnishes they are finally starting to get back to normal. 

Now I've never had Shellac nails but my friend raves about them so when I saw that Models Own had brought out a nail varnish that gave the same type of effect for only €7.65 I was intrigued. I had seen some reviews from other bloggers about the varnish that spoke well about it and figured I'll have to try them. Boots where doing a 3 for 2 offer at the time so I bought Coral Glaze - a lovely peachy coral, Cerise Shine - a hot Barbie pink and Cornflower Gleam - a baby sky blue.

They have 10 shades altogether containing lotus flower oil and the result should be a high shine gel finish.

The first time I put the Cornflower gleam on my fingers and I immediately noticed that the colour is so pigmented and really only a single coat was needed without seeing any of the original nail. Now I did this while sitting in my room about a half an hour before I was going to get into bed, thinking it would be enough time to let them dry. Well was I mistaken, usually I'll give nails a good ten minutes before I start doing anything so after a half an hour of me bouncing around my room to Beyonce I figured they would be bone dry, but they started to come off when they got hit, they smudged and basically it was a hot mess.

I tried it again for a second time the next day, leaving it a little longer but the same result happened but to a lesser extent, as you can see in the picture below.

So for the 3rd time I tried the Cerise Shine on my left hand and the Cornflower Gleam on my right (I left the Coral Glaze in work so haven't tested that one yet). I took my time on this occasion, knowing that they take forever to dry I sat down and made sure I had no distractions. Initially I was happy with the result, it's a high shine and they did look like they had gel on them. 

    

 

After nearly an hour and a half of doing my nails and letting them dry I noticed that the smooth sheen was gone and replaced by bubbles, the only time I had seen this happen was when I got cheap gel nails done! I Googled it thinking maybe it was something I had done wrong but I couldn't pin point anything. 

After an hour I decided it should be OK to move around again but as soon as the nails touched off anything they did get dented. I'm not usually one to moan too much about a product but after 3 times of putting the varnish on this really has to be one of the worst varnishes I've bought for my nails. It could be that it's thicker and it is only a new product so maybe they just need to do a few more tweaks, but I like to be able to put on my varnish and go. After an hour I really should not be worrying about my nails not being fully dry.

The only positive I can come to are that the pigments are amazing, the colours do really pop and will compliment your spring wardrobe and if i'm honest that's the only plus I can think of :(

Love Sarah xoxo