Review: Jason long & strong shampoo and conditioner

Whilst shopping in my local health food store I spotted a buy one get one free promotion across the Jason haircare range and decided to take the plunge and purchase a shampoo and conditioner. I went for the long and strong range as  it seemed the best suit for my long super fine and damaged hair.

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Jason long and strong shampoo and conditioner on offer for £5.95 and is currently in the buy one get one free deal on *this* website

Both bottle contain a generous 480ml.

This is what Jason have to say about the long and strong range:

'Formulated with Vegetable Proteins and Panthenol strengthens hair while adding a deep, moisturizing boost and a natural, healthy shine. Helps correct itchy scalp and excessively dry hair from heat styling, perming and too much sun. Plant derived Panthenols penetrate the hair shaft delivering long lasting moisture, reducing the formation of split ends and increasing volume and manageability, leaving healthier, shinier hair.

• Enriched with natural jojoba, grapefruit, wheat protein & vitamin B5
• No Parabens, SLS or Phthalates'

And of course Jason products are not tested on animals.

What I think: I have been using both products for around a month now which I think is long enough to be able to give a proper review. If like me you have tried many natural SLS free shampoo's you will know they do not lather amazingly well. This one lathers better than most...in fact it lathers better than any I have ever tried. After using this shampoo my hair feels super clean and lightly moisturised. The conditioner is just as lovely. I only needed a small amount to leave my hair feeling incredibly soft and shiny. My dry hair just drank it up and left my hair smelling fabulous. I rate both of these products 9/10. They are perfect for daily use if your hair is a bit dry. If it is very dry the Aloe Vera range me be better. I may get the Aloe conditioner and use it every second wash or when my hair is feeling extra dry.

Are any of you fans of natural haircare?

Marina

xo

This Is Halloween

Sorry for the total lack of Halloween NOTD's this year :/ My excuse is my acrylic nails are off at the moment and my own nails are too horrible to photograph :P

 Here is one from last year:

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Hope you all have a great Halloween weekend whatever you decide to do :)

Marina

xo

Oh no not more aztec nails! :P

First it was leopard print now it seems I am addicted to doing aztec style nails! Shortly after I did these manicure I trimmed my acrylic nails down quite a bit as I felt they were just too long and the length doesn't look nice (on me)

What I used:

Models Own 'Lilac Dream' (2 coats) 

Silver, bright pink and black acrylic paint

Small dotting tool

Seche vite topcoat

Marina
xo

Crappy Halloween NOTD

I decided to crack open my dusty bag of fake nails for this NOTD as my own nails are horribly short at the moment as I am going au naturale for a while :)

The black is Nubar 'Black Chrome' the neon orange is acrylic paint, the orange on the accent nail is Models Own 'Fuzzy Peach' and im afraid I can't remember what plate I used for the little pumpkins.

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Marina

xo

Wizard of Oz nails

My first attempt at Wizard of Oz themed nails that I made for a friend on Facebook :) She hasn't seen them yet so I am nervous that she will hate them ***worry worry worry*** !!!

I am *sort of* happy with how the poppies and the yellow brick road turned out! :P

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'And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think.... Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeeeep. Now they'll sleeeeep!'

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'Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true'

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'I'm presumin' that I could be kind-a-human, If I only had heart'

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'Come out, come out, wherever you are. And meet the young lady who fell from a star'

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'Follow-follow-follow-follow, follow the Yellow Brick Road!'

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'When I gain those ruby slippers, my power will be the greatest in Oz'

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Hope you all had a great weekend :)

Marina

xo

'The brain which was stolen from my laboratory... was a *criminal* brain'

The lovely Georgie who won one of the sets of Halloween nails I gave away last week just did a post on her blog about my nails :)

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Click the above picture to see more on Georgie's wonderful blog which I recommend you all follow :)

Marina

xo

Another DIY Bling I phone case

This little project had been a long time coming as my old iphone case I made ages ago had been dropped so much and was falling apart! I wanted to do something cute and bright this time so I used my 'Bubble and Sweet' stickers I got from paperchase, a ton of multi coloured small faux pearls, some white iridescent rhinestones and some larger blue faux pearls. After I had glued all the little stones I glazed it using a bottle of topcoat I no longer use. Im sure they are other, better ways to do this but this is all I had to hand :P If anyone wants to know the ebay sellers I got the stuff from leave a comment and ill look it up.

And here it is:

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I do like it but think I could have done it better!I think it would have looked better if there were some bigger rhinestones and maybe some cute cabochons :)

My best friend has asked me to make her one for her Ipod so I can't wait to get started  on it. If you want to see some of the other ones I have made click ***here*** and scroll down.

So what do you think? Yay or nay? be honest...ill try not to cry :P

Marina

xo

The skull stamping plate from my last post :)

Hi :) I managed to find the link to the eBay listing where I got it from. It is from a seller in Austria (Nailart & Mehr) but was delivered in around a week. I 100% recommend this seller. There are some really amazing items in their eBay store so be prepared to be broke :P

Click the above image of **here** to be taken to the ebay listing where it is sold :)

 In case the link doesn't work the eBay item number is 380287855109

Marina

xo

Barry M Foil Effects nail polish review *Warning picture heavy!*

Hi, as soon as the lovely Sammy (the nailasaurus) posted her lovely NOTD using the new Barry M foil effects nail polish in gold as a stamping polish I knew it had to be mine as I am always on the search for new stamping polishes.

So I hopped along to my local Superdrug and picked up both the silver and gold which where the last ones left in the stand :) They cost £3.99 each and are designed to give a 'foil effect' well as close to this as you can get using a nail polish! I am not a huge fan of Barry M as some of you might know I despise having to apply 3+ coats to achieve an opaque finish. This being said I was so happy to discover both of these polishes were almost completely opaque in 1 coat but needed 2 coats for a truly opaque finish.

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First up here are what two coats of the gold looks like:

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A quick NOTD using the gold:

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And the silver (also two coats):

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I think the polishes are both lovely shades but they are far from being 'foil effects' but to be honest I wasn't really surprised with this as I don't think a polish could ever give that mirror effect you get with nail foils. I was in need of a new silver and gold polish and both of these great shades in my opinion so they are welcome in my collection.

And now, here is the gold used as a stamping polish:

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The purple is Accessorize 'Electric Purple'

And here is the silver used as a stamping polish:

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The blue is Accessorize 'Indigo'

How amazing are these?! As nail polishes they are a 7/10 but as stamping polishes they are a definite 10/10! They are totally opaque and just as good as Konad's special stamping polishes :) 

Oh and if you fancy getting them get yourself to Boots where they are buy two Barry M polishes get £1.00 off. I really can't recommend them enough. That's not something I ever thought I would say about a Barry M polish! 

I have to give a special mention to the new stamping plate I used for the all over skull design:

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I got it from ebay a while back. Isn't it amazing? Yes I did only buy it for the all over skull design as you may know by now I am skull crazy :P 

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The all over design doesn't quite cover my thumb nail as it is rather long so I had to use tape but it would cover most people's nails :) 

I cant wait to try the other designs too though. I think this plate has reawakened my love of doing nail art stamping :)

Have any of you also tried these polishes? What did you think of them?

Marina

xo

And the winners are......

Georgie (sequinsandbeads) and Sarah (thenailpolishaholic)

If you could both drop an email to me at marina@forevertheuglyduckling.com with your full name and address I will get your nails posted out as soon as I can.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered and stay tuned for more nail giveaways soon :)

Marina

xo

Getting Crafty :)

My creativity has been reawakened and I have started working on a new Iphone case as my last one had been dropped so much it was falling apart!

I got some cute stickers from Paperchase and decided to go for a colourful theme :)

This is what I have done so far:

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I cant't wait to finish it this weekend and will share some pictures of it when its done.

Are any of you working on any craft projects at the moment? :)

Oh and don't forget to enter my giveaway which ends this evening at 10pm (GMT) I will announce the two winners on Monday.

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Can you spot Chub-Chub?! :P

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Marina

xo

Hair: Finally in the pink

Hello lovelies. I finally took the plunge a few weeks ago at the hairdressers and got pink hair! I initially got pink lowlights done but added more myself at home giving it an unintentional ombre look. I used Crazy Colours hair dye in Pinkissimo which is an ultra vibrant magenta pink :)

Whilst I like it I do feel strange not being so blonde so im not sure if I will keep my hair like this. I would love pale blue hair but my hair probably wouldn't love all the bleaching involved!

Anyway enough babble here it is:

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It looks so different in every light! In this one you can see its not an all over pink:

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Do any of you have pastel hair lust?

Marina

xo

'Wherever you go, go with all your heart'

Another quick and simple NOTD 

Freehand hearts are definitely not my strong point! :P

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Please excuse the shinyness.....I just applied CND solar oil 

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What I used:

Models Own 'Red alert' (2 coats....needed 3+!!)

Gosh 'holographic' 
Small dotting tool 
Seche vite topcoat

Marina

xo

NOTD: Día de los Muertos

I stumbled across this cute tutorial on youtube by Pixie Polish and had to give it a try as its just so cute! I chose to do just one skull as an accent nail :)

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What I used:

Nubar 'Barricade (2 coats) 

Black, silvery white, pink, green, blue and red acrylic paint

Small dotting tool

Seche vite topcoat

Marina
xo

Halloween nails giveaway ''You have created a monster, and it will destroy you!'

Hi :) One of my favourite manicures I have ever done was last years Frankenstein nails so I thought I would do them again and do two sets to give away :)

This is the design on my acrylic nails:

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The two giveaway sets:

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Both sets of nails are described as 'short' but in my opinion are anything but! Click *here* to see a picture of one of the nails on top of my acrylic nails I have on which most people would consider a medium length.

These nails can be cut or filed if you do not like the shape or find them to be too wide. There are 12 nails in each set so you will have two spare ones.

I will be taking the nails of their spine and packaging them safely in a little box you can reuse :)

I will not be sending glue as I figured most nail bloggers will have some in their stash and if not you can easily get some from the pound store :)

If you are totally new to fake nails, click *here* for an article on how to apply them.

The giveaway will end on Friday the 14th of October at 10pm (GMT), the two winners will be picked at random and announced here on Monday 17th October.

The rules are:

*You must be a follower of my blog (Doesn't matter if you're not already a follower, you can start now!)

*You must leave a comment on this post stating you wish to enter the giveaway

Thats it!

Anyone anywhere in the world can enter!

Marina

xo

And the winners are......

Hello :) Thank you to all who entered my little giveaway!

I have picked the two winners who are:

Kaitlyn @ Clueless Dreams and

Emma @ mmmmakeup 

So girls, please drop me an email to marina@forevertheuglyduckling.com with your full name and address so I can post your nails.

Don't worry if you didn't win as I have more giveaways planned really soon :)

Marina

xo