This Blog Has Moved!!!

This blog has moved to >>> http://www.jadewithenvy.blogspot.co.uk. 

Hey Guys,

In case you didn't know already I merged both of my blogs and now I have a bigger and better blog where I'll be posting every day. I decided rather than have little blogs all over the place it was better to just have one blog where I post more often and about everything from fashion to travel to food and more! So I won't be posting on here any more but you can find me at the new blog which is called Jade With Envy and it's at http://www.jadewithenvy.blogspot.co.uk. Come and say Hiiiii!!

x Jade x

Makeup makeup never ever breakup...

I know I've talked about the staying power of Estee Lauder Double Wear before but this stuff is insane! I hadn't planned to do another post on this (hence the uber messy background in this impromptu shot) but I was in such awe of how this foundation stayed on all day I just had to take a picture to show you. This is what my foundation looked like at the end of the day with no touch ups, it lasted through a full gym session which included cardio and even through a body shower! Insane! 

You may be thinking 'yeah right, I bet your skin just looks like that anyway' but I can assure you that is certainly does not. And if you still want to proof check out this foundation review video I did a few weeks ago comparing Estee Lauder Double Wear and Revlon Photo Ready showing you no makeup vs. makeup shots.

ಠ_ಠ Guess who! ಠ_ಠ

Helloooo, so this is my attempt at a celebrity Halloween costume lol. I don't know why I don't really  get excited about Halloween costumes but it's just not my favourite part of the whole thing. Perhaps because I don't go to parties so much anymore.... I dunno but this year I just wanted to go for something simple so I decided to do a comedy costume inspired by a certain celebrity!

If you wanna find out who I am you can watch this tutorial/explanation/justification video here! Next year I think I'll try to go the opposite and do something super duper arty and ambitious. I'm quite excited thinking about it actually!

ಠ_ಠ Spooktacular Cupcakes! ಠ_ಠ

In the spirit of Halloween I've been doing lots of themed videos lately including one showing you how to make these spooky (but delicious) halloween cupcakes! The were kind of an experiment and I was super duper pleased with how they turned out :). The were actually really really easy to do considering I've never made cupcakes by myself before! 

If you'd like to have a go check out my tutorial video here! I've already done a fun halloween haul video here and will be doing more halloween food tutorials as well as a celebrity halloween costume and cool creepy decor tutorial so watch this space!

♥ Ghetto 'Cousin' does my haul + Giveaway!! ♥

Hi guys! Just in case you missed it I did a jokey collective haul video on YouTube channel and at the end there's a giveaway where you could win this bag! Click here and watch to enter!

♥ September Food Favourites ♥

Here are some of my favourite meals that I had during the month of September...

From top left corner to bottom right... Poached egg on wholemeal toast. Chiquito's Churros and fudge sauce. Nutella on wholemeal toast. Homemade beetroot and apple smoothie. Homemade carrot and apple smoothie. Grilled salmon, new potatoes and greens. Krispy Kremes (yum!). Homemade bbq bacon burger, fries and onion rings. Dad's oxtail, rice n peas and avocado egg salad ♥. Chiquito's Pulled Pork Quesadilla and fries.

♥ SFYS: Foundation Review: Revlon PhotoReady vs. Estee Lauder Double Wear ♥

Hellooo! So if you may have seen my YouTube review of these foundations. I like to do informative, in-depth reviews therefore that video was quite long so I promised that I'd do a brief review on here as well. If you want to see the more comprehensive (right word?) video review then click just here!

The two foundations I've been wearing the last few months are Estee Lauder's Double Wear and Revlon PhotoReady so I decided to do a SFYS (See For Yourself) review where I show you the product in action so that you can decide for yourself if you'd like to buy it. I've rated each foundation on the different aspects below and at the end of the post there are comparison photos so you can draw your own conclusions. If you really are in a hurry scroll to the last paragraph for my conclusions!

Barely Black Nails

Following my recent vow to start painting my nails more often I had a good rummage through my nail polish collection recently and found this gem. The colour is Chinatown by NYC and it's actually a really great dupe for OPI's I Brake For Manicures. I looooove any almost-but-not-quite-black colour and this one hits the nail on the head so it's definitely going to feature a lot in my autumn nail polish rotation. It also applied really nicely, really even and not drying too quickly so I had time to smooth out each layer.

Indoors with flash.

(it was raining all day or else I'd have shown it in natural daylight but this is pretty close)

Indoors, without flash.

It's an inky blue black and has a super subtle sparkle to it which is cool. I think it's a really pretty and interesting colour overall and perfect for autumn. The colour on my ring finger is Model's Own Ibiza Mix which I did a more in-depth post on here!

Candy Nails!

I just loooove these creamy candy colours! <3. After two failed attempts at more ambitious designs I finally settled on cute polka dots using these old colours that haven't received much love recently and I adore how they go together! I contemplated throwing a yellow and lime green in there too going for a brighter theme but I decided against it as these colours complement each other so well on their own. I got a lot of complements on them at work today so they seem to be a hit all around! I don't know why but these colours just remind me of candies and sweetness and everything girly and good in the world!

Pink OPI Shorts Story, Turquoise OPI No Room For The Blues, Purple OPI Grape Fit

The phone cover is from my accessory line Made by Jade. I sell personalised and custom made phone covers like this one all hand made by me! You can get one or just browse the pretty pictures here! http://www.facebook.com/madebyjadeaccessories

Flower Power

How beautiful are these lilies! They were a lovely gift from my boyfriend's mum and sister when they came to visit - so sweet! I'd forgotten how much of a difference flowers can make to decor. They really brighten up our little living room. They're almost too pretty to be true! I think I'll definitely be adding flowers to the weekly shopping list from now on! 

Also do you remember my neighbour I posted about recently? Well the card above is from her and below is an adorable potted plant that she gave us along with it as a thank you for the cakes. Such a thoughtful little gift and I really love the design on it, it's so cute, clean and modern we love it!

50 Shades of Grey

Hiiiii so I'm about to upload this video to my youtube channel. It's my 50 shades of grey inspired eye makeup tutorial. Hope you enjoy! Please subscribe to my channel and keep an eye out for my 50 shades of grey nail tutorial coming soon! 

P.S. my camera was coming off a weird colour so I took these shots on my phone hence the dodgy quality, sorry!

Sushi Tiiiiiiime!

I've been trying to think of some fun and healthy dinners to make recently so I decided to try my hand at sushi. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! We used brown rice to make it extra healthy and just cooked it longer so it had a stickier consistency. With the sushi rice seasoning on it you can't tell the difference. These had a selection of things inside the rolls like cucumber, smoked salmon, and sweet peppers. We sliced them thin since I prefer it that way. 

Yum!

Models Own Party Nails

My lovely sister bought me a couple of Models Own nail polishes for my birthday back in Easter. I've never tried them before but have always been intrigued by them. Has anyone seen the nail polish bottle-shaped stall in Westfield London? So cute! Anyway I went by it the other day and ended buying another polish for myself. I'm rubbish at remembering to paint my nails but it's something I'm determined to get into the habit of. So I've finally got around to using them and got so excited I went mad and used all three at once! Not sure what my work are gonna say when I turn up with these tomorrow! 

Fluro' Orange (orange), Disco Heaven (gold glitter) and Ibiza Mix (chunky glitter) 

Ibiza Mix - The ones my sister bought me came in a cute little box with pink ribbon in it. I'm obsessed with the colour of Ibiza Mix, the chunky glitter, which has such lovely hues in it, mostly blues, greens, golds and copper. I'm actually eagerly anticipating Christmas time when I'll really get to show this off although I think it works great for summer too.

Disco Heaven - I didn't realise it until I just checked out the website but Disco Heaven, the gold glitter, actually has teeny tiny flecks of bluey-greeney-purple in it. For a second I was really confused and thought perhaps I'd just picked up an incorrectly labelled bottle of their plain gold glitter (Gold Finger) but I looked really hard at my nail and there they are, teensy weensy blue-green flecks. This would be really cool if I could tell at all which I can't unless I hold my finger reeeeaally close to my eye. Shame really as it's a nice idea and looks cute in the bottle. 


Fluro' Orange - The orange colour is super vibrant and perfect for summer but the formulation was really matte which was a bit odd but nothing that a top coat can't fix I suppose. The orange was also rather sheer which was a bit irritating- I have about four coats on in this snap. FYI I've also really layered up the glitters too for the sake of getting a super-sparkly effect so if you want this look you'll need to do about four coats of each. You can see on my little finger what  one coat of Ibiza Mix looks like. 


Overall I think they're really pretty shades. The website is also super cool as when you hover over each colour it shows you the actual bottle rather than one of those rubbish computer generated colour swatches (why do cosmetics companies do that, they are NEVER realistic!?). All in all I'm happy with them and at the reasonable price of £5 each I think Models Own polishes have a permanent place in my collection.

Cheer Up Cakes!

So last night the most heart-breaking thing happened. George and I were just watching TV when someone knocked on the door. We were quite surprised as we've just moved and don't really know anyone around here. When we answered it was this sweet girl who said she lived across the hall in the next apartment. She looked really sad and timid and she kept trying to ask us something but then she started crying and couldn't get the words out. Turned out she just wanted to borrow our internet connection for a few days as hers was down and she was homesick and wanted to Skype her parents back in Spain. She said she'd come here alone and was having a hard time coping :(. She even tried to give us some money towards it, bless her. George and I felt so bad for her we decided we'd do something to cheer her up so this afternoon we went around there with this pretty plate of cupcakes and told her she could always knock on our door if she was feeling down. I couldn't possibly imagine moving to another country without knowing anybody and worse not being able to speak to my parents when I felt down so I hope knowing that there's some friendly people across the hall helps her feel a little bit better. 

The white ones are coconut bombs and the others are french fancies and then we added some pink sprinkles to make them extra cheery! Who could stay sad with all this yumminess! :D

Wetter is Better!

Hi guys! So I was sifting through my makeup collection recently and I remembered how a year or so ago I learned about the magic of wet eyeshadow application so I thought I'd share the love in a youtube video tutorial! Here you can see what a difference wet applications makes. The shadows on the left have been applied wet, and on the right, the same shadow applied dry.

MAC Amber Lights (gold), Bourjois Little Round Pot Verde (green), Bourjois Little Round Pot Turquise (blue), Barry M Fluorescent Pink

As you can see the ones on the left are so much more vibrant! Don't forget to check out the video on my channel xglitter3ugx!

Going Bananas!

Hi Guys! Sooo I'm not sure if I'm gonna make this blog strictly beauty related or more sort of anything-I'm-into-atm (I'm thinking the latter personally) but while I decide I shall allow a cooking post because I loooove food!! Recently I've been getting really into healthy cooking using natural ingredients and this recipe is a perfect example of a good, natural recipe. I'm not much of a baker but I have been inspired by the many adorable rustic style food posts I've been seeing lately on various blogs and so I thought I'd try my hand at banana bread. 


Please note: this had absolutely everything nothing to do with my late night sweet treat cravings and lack of normal ingredients! Either way I was pretty pleased with the end results! If you've ever tasted malt bread this has the same constancy but with a banana-ey flavour rather than malt. The best thing was because of the sweetness of the bananas I didn't need to add a single ounce of sugar making it super healthy and super yummy! 

Mmmm!

Grrrrrr!

After a few months hiatus from painting my nails regularly I've finally been back into doing them and it feels great! I'm not sure what it is about a fresh manicure that can take a girl from being 'blah' to 'ooh-la-la' but painting my nails is my secret feel-good weapon when I feel like I need a boost. I have A LOT of nail polishes (as has been pointed out to me by my friends who seem to wear them more than me!) and I've been 'shopping my stash' in the last couple of weeks to make the most of my collection. If I'm totally honest I don't think I've ever actually used this brown colour in all the years I've had it but I decided to give it a go and I think it makes for a really cute funky leopard print. 

This was super easy and quick to do and dried in record time thanks to my lovely new Seche Vite top coat which seems to be a universal hit on YouTube despite the slightly disconcerting health warning rumours... Either way I love this look as it's a bit of silly fun and a bit different from the norm. I'd be happy to do a YouTube tutorial on this so if anybody wants one just leave a comment saying so! I'll probably be posting a lot more photos of my attempts at nail art over the next few weeks so if anyone has any suggestions let me know!

My 21st Birthday Goodies!

I'm not usually afraid of doing haul videos however since my birthday in Easter I had been back and forth with the idea of doing a birthday haul video. I got some pretty generous gifts this year and was slightly concerned that some might take offence to such a video. Thus I settled on a more discreet blog post. Enjoy!

Macbook Pro 13" (courtesy of my darling maj and paj), Louis Vuitton card holder (from my lovely lovely boyfriend) and a Michael Kors Gold Chronograph Watch (a collaborative effort from all of my gorgeous girlfriends)

I'm hoping that the big 2-1 will signify a huge turn in my life and I've got lots of big plans for this year, many of them fashion related, so it's lovely to have some some uber-glam fashion accessories to kick off this new start! And my shiny new Macbook Pro will come in super handy for all of this.
       I shan't lie, I may (definitely did) have had a say in the selection of these gifts! I knew everyone's budgets and thought I'd get in there and ask for things I've been really wanting for ages rather than let people stress over choosing something and I'm so glad I did. I absolutely love them!!!