NOTD: Cosmopolitan Freebies Missguided Misstify & Misslead

(L-R) Misstify and Misslead

Misstify and Misslead are the two of three nail varnishes that Cosmopolitan are offering as freebies on this months issue, I bought these colours as I really wanted some neon nail varnish. Missguided have partnered with Cosmo before and I have always been impressed with the colours however they do tend to stain your nails, but I am really underwhelmed by these colours.
When I applied the 'neon' pink nail varnish (Misstify) I was disappointed by the darker pink finish, I definitely wouldn't call this a neon pink which it appears to be in the bottle, the finished colour isn't one that I would reach for, so I can see this lying at the bottom of my nail varnish collection or I will give it away.
When I got the yellow nail varnish (Misslead) home I was unimpressed to find that it actually had a shimmer to it... which wasn't isn't for me personally and it definitely didn't look too good when I had applied it, I felt it looked quite cheap and Rachel agreed, it was removed straight away. The application was tricky too as it was quite streaky, this took 4 coats to get the coverage shown in the picture!

I was disappointed with these nail varnishes, but I have learnt a lesson to look at the colour of freebie nail varnishes a bit more closely!

Did you get this months Cosmo's freebies? What did you think?

Elaine

August Magazine Freebies! Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Red, Elle & Glamour

Magazines really seem to be spoiling us with freebies these past few months, and this month is no exception! This month there are some great freebie bargains available on great magazines, all of the August issues are out NOW!

Cosmopolitan

Cosmo have continued their partnership with Missguided.co.uk for some nail polishes freebies, which is great as I have loved the missguided nail polishes in the past. The are 3 polishes available Missmatch (Orange), Misslead (Yellow) and Misstify (Pink), there is also a 10% discount code for Missguided.co.uk on the back of the nail polish, which is an extra bonus! The nail polishes are normally worth £5 each.

I have the yellow and pink nail polishes so I will do NOTD's soon! I have just finished putting on the pink polish and I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed it's not more of a neon colour.

Marie Claire

I am really excited about this freebie, I have been dying to try an Avon mascara for ages as I always hear great things but don't know an Avon lady and really hate paying delivery for small items! Marie Claire are offering 3 Avon mascara's to choose from, Super Extend Extreme for lengthening, Super Curlacious for curling and Super Shock Max for volumising. The mascara's are normally worth up to £10, you can see the mascara's on AVON's website here.

I have bought the magazine with the Super Shock Max mascara as I have heard great things about this mascara from the Pixiwoo sisters, so I get a review up as quickly as I can.

Glamour 

Glamour are offering a range of Balance Me products, there are 4 available  Balancing Face Moisturiser, Wonder Eye Cream, Pure Skin Face Wash and Rose Otto Intensive Lip Balm, they are normally worth around £11 each, you can see the products on Balance Me's website here. 

Elle

Elle are offering St Tropez Self Tan in 2 shades, I think it's great that they are offering more than  one shade, so I would get this freebie early if you want to get the shade most suitable for you.
 I am very tempted by this, as I'm not going on holiday this year and I don't know what has happened to our British summer so I might need a bit of self tan before I can show my legs!

Red

Red are offering a REN skin care set normally worth £16, which contains Vetiver v7 Hand and Body Cream 15ml, Hydra-Calm Global Protection Day Cream 15ml and Active 7 Radiant Eye Gel 3ml. I think this is such a great freebie and I could be tempted to get this too, I normally don't rush to buy magazines with skin care freebies, but I know Rachel is pretty excited about Glamour and Red's freebies so I will get her to update the post if she gets them.

Are you tempted by any of this month's freebies?

Elaine

NOTD: The ELLE Grey by Mavala

I got this nail varnish a couple of years ago as a freebie from Elle and I love the colour soo much, I think as the grey is quite light it's an all year round colour! The nail varnish had actually turned quite sticky which I was surpised about, I would have thought that a brand like Mavala would have a bit more longevity in the nail varnishes! I still love it even if it does show all the ridges in my nails... Has any one tried Essie's base coat that fills nail ridges? Is it any good?

And I think my cat Smudge loved it as much as me, I couldn't take a photo without her trying to get in the picture too!

Elaine

Essie Trio Nail Polish Giveaway!!

If you have seen our earlier post about the amazing nail bargains at TK Maxx you will know that we couldn't resist getting an Essie nail varnish set for our first ever giveaway. 

We had been planning on doing a giveaway when we hit 50 followers but we couldn't resist when we saw the cute Essie set and we wanted to say thank you to all our followers and readers, we have both really enjoyed the past 5 months of writing this blog and we still get soo excited when we see that people are reading our posts from all over the world.

So if you would like to enter the giveaway all you need to do is use the Rafflecopter widget below and follow us via Google Friend Connect or Hello Cotton and leave a comment below with your email address. (You can also get extra entries by tweeting about this giveaway or writting a blog post about it) The giveaway is open worldwide, and will close midnight on the 17th June and a winner will be chosen at random using Rafflecopter. Good Luck!

(Sorry we don't know how to see who is following us through Bloglovin', we will try and fix this for future giveaways).

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TK Maxx Nail Extravagansa

If you haven't already heard TK Maxx are really upping their game when it comes to beauty products we were just in there this morning and we found amazing cosmetic bargains from Stila, Pixi, Elizabeth Arden, Bourjois and more, there were also bargains from Garnier and Bedhead. Although I think bargain hunters had got there before us as there wasn't much left!

But what excited us most was their stand of Nails Inc, Essie, Andrea Fullerton and Leighton Denny nail varnishes!!!

They had a whole section of Nails Inc gift sets ranging from £9.99 to £24.99, with a mix of old season colours such as glitter, darks and summer brights. 

The above set caught our eye the most it would be a great present for any nail varnish addict, unfortunately we are both skint so couldn't justify buying the set when we have hundreds of nail varnishes already.

They also had ESSIE nail varnishes in sets of three for a bargain price of £9.99... we absolutely squealed with delight as we had been dying to try them out, they were all classic pink/red/manicure colours. This is the set that Rachel bought.

We also sneakily hand picked the nicest spring colours to make a set for a giveaway!

We definitely will be making more trips to TK Maxx for bargains!

Elaine & Rachel

Magazine Freebies! Glamour, Instyle, Marie Claire & Red...

July must be the month for amazing freebies on magazines! All magazines are out NOW so hurry if you want your freebies... especially Glamour (that sells out quick!).

Glamour

Eva Longoria and Fearne Cotton are also on this month's Glamour covers.

Glamour are giving away sample/travel sizes of Benefit favourites Porefessional, That Gal and Bad Gal mascara, I have already been out and bought a few glamour magazines to get the Porefessional and That Gal (the shop assistant did look at me like I was crazy but I don't mind). Glamour is only £2 so it's well worth stocking up!

Instyle

 Instyle have free full sized mascara and black or navy eyeliner from the Body Shop, I was tempted to get the mascara but I have tried body shop mascara before and wasn't impressed, and I have enough eyeliner to last me a lifetime!

Marie Claire

Marie Claire are offering free Ciate nail polish in three shades, I have only seen two so far a lilac and nice beige shade, both colours I have loads of so decided to give this a miss too.

Red

Red are offering free full sized Jemma Kidd Makeup School volumising mascara or eyeliner, I was really looking forward to this offer, so I got the mascara, I tried it out last night and it was actually quite good but with too many coats it can get a bit clumpy but well worth it at only 

£3.90. Red have been brilliant with their giveaways the past couple of months!

This is a great month for freebies! I love this time of year!!

Elaine

NOTD Nails Inc Instyle Power Pink Free Nail Polish & a dupe

This is my favourite free Nails Inc polish from June's Instye magazine, I am slightly obsessed with purple nail polish! This colour is actually more pinky than this picture shows.

If you haven't been able to find this colour with Instyle, I had to go to quite a few shops to find it, I have a slight dupe for you to try! 

17 Parma Violet

It's actually a slighter paler version but pretty similar! My thumb nail is the Instyle polish so you can see it's not that much of a different colour. 

I'm really pleased that I got the Instyle polish though because I'm not sure if you can tell but my bottle of parma violet has got a bit clumpy but I have had it for a couple of years and I love the colour.

Do you think this is a good dupe? Do you know any better ones?

Elaine

Deals of the Week - Superdrug 3 for 2, Boots £5 No7 & Fragrance Voucher, Clinique Mascara Swap

Here's a few of my favorite deal this week - 

This for me is the most exciting  - Superdrug have 3 for 2 on all cosmetics until the 6th of June (perfect if you pay day is at the end of the month like me) I've got a huge list of highstreet/drugstore products I can't wait to try. However I must say recently when I've been into my local Superdrug the make-up section has been a complete mess and everything I want is either sold out or the samples have been stolen so you can't try them! extremely annoying, sort it out Superdrug!

Boots £5 No7 and Fragrance Voucher - 

Yey its back just in time as I need a new BB cream. I still love that Boots do this and I plan to get as many as possible, I always buy the foundation, nail polishes, brushes and wipes from No7 when these vouchers are out. I'm also glad to see a fragrance voucher this time instead of the eye test!   All you have to do is spend £5 in store to get a free voucher and what I usually do as I'm a cheapskate is spend my voucher and buy something else ( lunch) to tip me over £5 to get another voucher. The voucher is valid until the 26th of June.

Clinique Mascara Swap at Debenhams

As many of you will know Debenhams are running the Clinique Mascara swap, simply take your old, tired mascara (any brand) and swap it for a deluxe sample of their High Impact Mascara or High Lengths Mascara. I've already done this and I swapped the Soap and Glory mascara I got free from a magazine (I was really disappointed with this) for the High Impact Mascara. I've tried the High Impact mascara before as it was another freebie in a magazine and I LOVED it almost as much as the Shocking Yves Saint Laurent mascara. The swap is on now and ends on Sunday the 20th, so HURRY!

Rachel