Wedding inspiration

Hello everyone :-)

Today I am going to do a quick lifestyle/style post as I have been quite focused on the beauty side of things lately. Well, my partner and I recently set a date for our wedding (July 19th 2014) which is of course very exciting! The first things which crossed my mind were, the venue, the theme and of course the dress! We have decided on our venue, a gorgeous farmhouse locally, so that was one thing sorted. Then I have been looking online for inspiration for themes and we have decided on lilac and cream. Here are some of the pictures which are helping me to design our venue dress:





What do you guys think? 

I personally love these colours together, I think they are really classic looking and chic. 

I am still looking for wedding dresses, so I will post when I have found some styles that I really like. But I am hoping for a tight bodice with sparkles and a big princess skirt :-). 

Is anybody else getting married soon? If so, what theme have you chosen?

Thanks for reading,

Saffron xoxo

OPI Nail Envy 'Perfect Couple'

Hello :-)

For today's blog post I am going to focus on my nails. Recently I purchased a new set from OPI named the Perfect Couple, containing Nail Envy and also the Avoplex cuticle oil.

This set cost me £18.95 from a local beauty store but I have seen it being priced from £18.00 right up to £32.50 online!! So make sure you shop around a bit to get a good price. I have used OPI Nail Envy before after seeing it on QVC and I have always been very pleased with it and see what a difference it makes to my nails almost straight away. I have tried the original version (pictured above) and also the matte version and I definitely prefer the original as I found the matte goes a bit cloggy and sticky after a while. So i definitely would recommend buying the original over the matte version, buying the original also makes a great top coat as it leaves a really shiny finish which is what I prefer on my nails. However, both do give the desired result of growth and strength in the nail so I guess it all depends on which kind of finish you prefer.
The  cuticle oil is also great and helps encourage the nails to grow and keep the nail bed looking healthy. Whenever I go and have a manicure at a beauty salon, the beautician always comments on how healthy my cuticles look! Although it is oil, it doesn't feel greasy for ages and ages so you can quickly get on with things. I usually apply the oil at night just before I go to bed around my cuticles so I can leave it to soak in. But if you do use it during the day, you can massage it into the cuticles to get it to soak in quicker. I think this oil smells so lovely too! It makes you feel very pampered.

So I thought I would post a few pictures on how I would usually use the above products:

Firstly I apply one coat of the original Nail Envy onto my nails. It says on the bottle to apply two coats, but when I am using a colour I do one coat as a base, then the colour, then use the second coat of my Nail Envy as a top coat. If I wasn't going to use colour, I would just apply two coats of the Nail Envy.

This is what it looks like after the first coat- nice and shiny. My nails are quite short at the moment because I (regrettably) haven't used this product for a while. But I know that it will quickly show results.

I let this base coat dry, then I apply my chosen colour. Today I have chosen 'Dutch Tulips' as it is for once sunny in the UK and this colour is lovely and vibrant.

So I again apply one coat of this, leaving this result:

I love how shiny it is and OPI polish is so easy to apply as most of them have the wide brushes which means that usually you only need one stroke on each nail! This is the result after one coat, sometimes I would do two coats of colour depending on the shade.

I then do my second coat of OPI Nail Envy over the top as my top coat. Nail Envy recommends you to do a new coat every other day, then after 7 days, remove and start again.

After this, I apply the Avoplex cuticle oil around the nail bed and massage it to soak it in.

I put this on daily!
I then put on my Burt's Bees hand balm :-)

That's it!!
Thanks for reading,
Saffron xoxo

Luxy hair extensions review

Hello :-)

My hair is extremely fine, so 2 years ago I was looking into buying some clip in hair extensions. I had bought some cheap sets from local stores but I found they never gave a natural look and soon lost their quality and started looking scraggy. So I decided to look online for some higher quality extensions as they were something that I was wearing regularly.

I discovered 'Luxy' hair extensions (http://www.luxyhair.com) when browsing on google and I noticed that the owners of the brand also did youtube videos on the shades, styling and style of their extensions. I found the videos to be super helpful and they also gave a good impression of what the extensions would actually look like in person. I always think it is difficult to tell from pictures. One reason I was reluctant to buy extensions online was because of finding the correct shade, but Luxy made this very easy with their shade guide on their website and also their youtube tutorial on how to find your shade (http://youtu.be/R3HPbwNnhFs). Another reason was how I was unsure how to clip the extensions in the most effectively to get a thicker effect, but Luxy had also created a tutorial for this (http://youtu.be/voAnuW1AllA). I felt very confident in the brand so I decided to buy them! Although it is an American brand, they offer free shipping to any country and they are currently priced at £98 altogether. I know this seems quite expensive, but the quality of them really is amazing, they look and feel so natural (lots of people commented that they thought it was my real hair) and still after 2 years of regular wear, they still look fantastic.

I bought the 'Super Luxy 160g set' in colour #2. This shade matches my natural hair shade perfectly, it even has extra tones in it to make it look even more natural. They come in a packet like this (unless the packaging has changed since! I got mine 2 years ago):

And they are lovely and thick and long. The last time I wore them I curled the ends which is why they are still a little bit flicky, but they are easily straightened!:

They come in varying wefts (1 x 8” weft | 1 x 7" weft | 2 x 6” weft | 2 x 4”wefts | 4 x 1” wefts ) of 10 pieces:

I put one of the 3 clip wefts at the bottom of the back of my head, then above that one I put one of the 4 clip wefts, above that the smaller 4 clip weft and above that another 3 clip weft almost at the crown of my head. I then put one 2 clip weft on both sides of my head about level with my eyes, followed by two of the 1 clip wefts to fill in any spaces. Some people may not need to use all of the wefts but I have a rather large head so they all fit on mine!!

This is my hair before the extensions:

And this is my hair after. Like I say, ignore any little flicks as they are due a wash!:

The care of the extensions is also very easy. Luxy's advice is to wash with shampoo and conditioner every 10-20 wears depending on the amount of products or styling you do on the hair and to allow to air dry. It is also necessary to brush after every wear using a soft bristle brush, I also brush carefully (by holding the tops of the wefts so you don't pull them out!) when I put the extensions in so that they blend together nicely to give a more natural finish. Luxy's website states that extensions should last from 3 months up to a year depending on how well you look after them but mine are still going strong after 2 years! When I first got the extensions they were very soft and just like natural hair, the only difference I am noticing now is that they are a lot more dry and a bit more difficult to style, but they are definitely still wearable.

I would recommend these extensions to everyone :-). Make sure you check out their website and youtube site (links listed above) for all the rest of the information. Oh and even if you are not looking to buy extensions, their youtube channel is extremely useful for natural hair as it shows you lots of different styles and how to achieve them.

Thanks for reading,
Saffron xoxox