L'Oreal La Palette Nude, Beige

I was on the hunt for an eyeshadow palette with a nice selection of matte neutral brown shades. When it comes to eyeshadows, I tend to prefer neutral browns because I feel that they're perfect for a simple everyday look but then you can also smoke it up for that mysterious smokey eye look. This is where L'Oreal's La Palette Nude in 'Beige' comes in. 

It has a mixture of ten shimmery and matte shades. The shades are not named but you've got some light ones that work nice as a base and some darker ones for the crease. What I love about this palette is that five of the shades are matte which is great compared to a number of palettes out there that contain a lot of shimmers.

The mattes are smooth and highly pigmented with no fall out. They're easy to blend and work nicely together as transition colours. The shimmers especially the cream and yellow ones however are a let down to this palette, as you can see from the swatches, they are not as pigmented as the mattes. To make the shimmers more visible, you will have to layer it on or pop it on top of a matte shade. I would have to say I definitely prefer the second half of the palette compared to the first. 

The packaging feels nice and sleek. It feels sturdy and is small enough to just throw into your make up bag. The mirror is a nice size and it comes with a double ended brush, with a sponge applicator on one end and a fluffy brush on the other. I also noticed that the European packaging is different compared to the US version. I thought that was interesting so I just threw that in there. 

I have been using this palette quite often and really like it. I think it's more suitable for everyday make up looks rather than anything dramatic for special occasions.

Red Nails, Matte vs Glossy

As some of you may know it was Chinese new year on Monday the 8th of February and we welcomed the year of the monkey. During the celebrations you will often see a lot of red; red decorations, red clothing and red envelopes. This is because the colour red symbolises luck. As cheesy as it may sound, I decided to pop some red onto my nails.

However, I wasn't sure on whether to go for classic glossy red nails or matte nails. I recently found a new love for matte nails so I thought I'd test it out to see which looked better. I decided to go for a nice deep red berry shade by Barry M called Raspberry. As always I applied a base coat and then just one coat of the red shade. It looked amazingly glossy with one coat which I found to be pretty impressive!

I then finished with Barry M's matte top coat which left it with a nice satin like feel. I still haven't quite decided whether I prefer matte red nails or not, although I was highly drawn to how lovely they looked when they were super glossy. 

Whether matte red nails are for you really depends on what look you're going for, how long your nails are and what shade of red you like. It may look nice on a darker red but not so much on a lighter red. Or maybe red is just better off glossy? What do you think?

Tea Bag Trick for Broken Nails

No matter what nail strengthener you use or how careful you are, one day one of your nails will break, it's inevitable. One of my nails started to tear on the side so I looked for a way to mend it. I did a bit of research and discovered the tea bag trick and believe me this trick has helped me a lot. 

Here's what you'll need: 

* Clear nail polish/ nail strengthener

* A tea bag

* Tweezers

* Scissors

Here's what you do:

* Empty out the tea bag

* Cut out a small piece of the tea bag making sure it's big enough to cover the whole breakage and the area around it

* Apply some clear nail polish onto your whole nail and whilst the nail polish is still wet, stick the piece of tea bag onto the broken area

* Wait for it to dry

* Apply some clear nail polish onto the broken area to lock everything in

* Wait for it to dry and then apply your chosen nail colour

*Keep the tea bag for future breakages, not that we want anymore to happen.

That's it!

What's great about this trick is that you can barely see it on your nail! Whoever came up with this brilliant idea, you are a genius!