I Wanna Make You Holo - Nails Of The Day

I love holographic nail polishes so I was really excited to see the launch a few months ago of Boots 17 Holo Nail Polish.

The polish was a little bit thick and like the majority of holographic polishes the wear wasn't that great , but the effect is so pretty that I can live with that.

This is a great polish for the festive season, and since it's one of the cheapest holo polishes on the market at only £3.99 it's definitely worth picking one up either for yourself or for a stocking filler. What do you think of holographic nail polishes? let me know in the comments xx

A Winter Saviour From L'Occitane - Almond Shower Oil

I have to say I'm a huge fan of French brand L'Occitane. I usually have about 3 of their Shea butter hand creams in fragrances on the go at once, and I love their body lotions and shower gels. I purchase the majority of my L'Occitane products from QVC but if you ever get the chance you must go into a L'Occitane stand alone store. I have a couple near me now and I love going in to have a sniff and a play with the products, the staff are normally super dooper helpful, and the way they wrap your purchases almost makes you feel like your getting a present :)

One of L'Occitane best sellers in the UK is their Almond Shower Oil. For quite a few years I ignored this product, despite all the fabulous reviews and good things that I'd heard about it, I just wouldn't try it. The reason being? I thought it would smell like marzipan which I can't stand, how wrong was I?

It's a common misconception I guess that all products containing almond smell and taste like marzipan.The marzipan taste comes from the bitter almond, so I'm fine with ground almonds, and I'm fine with this product, which has a fresh almost fruity smell that thankfully smells nothing like marzipan.

The idea of a shower oil I must admit seems wrong but believe me this product is oh so right. This product as you would expect has the texture of an oil, all be it quite a dense one. Simply massage this fabulous product over damp and what you get is not an oil slick but a smooth milky cream, that gently foams up to leave your skin super soft and lightly scented.

Not only can you use this in the shower but you can also pop under warm running water into the bath, where it produces a lovely milky foam.

This product is great for this time of year  when your skin is feeling a little bit dry and tight. It really does leave your skin feeling much softer and smoother, I'm so glad that I took the plunge and bought it, I can this being a staple in my bathroom cabinet for many years to come. It isn't cheap by any means, it normally retails at around £16.50 for 250ml from L'Occitane's own website, stores and concessions but it's worth keeping an eye out on QVC for special offers and kits as you can often get it for a better price -  I paid around £28 for two bottles. Have you ever used this product? let me know what you think and I'd love to know what product you put off buying for ages only to fall in love with it when you eventually bought it, leave me a comment and let me know x

Foodie Friday - Crispy Fried Tofu - A Vegetarian Recipe

Hi Guys - I'm sorry I didn't manage to get a Foodie Friday post up last week but I promise I'm going to make it up to you with a easy vegetarian recipe today and next week I'm going to post Mummy Lou's gluten free interpretation of one of Delia Smith's classic Christmas cakes - yummy!

As you probably know I'm a vegetarian, I've been a vegetarian for nearly 16 years now and I have to be honest and say I've never looked back. Things have improved a lot for veggies in that time you can now get vegetarian food everywhere, one of my biggest bug bears though is when a restaurants vegetarian choice includes FISH. I guess they aren't blame entirely an awful lot of people claim to be vegetarians when in fact they eat fish - if you eat fish then you aren't vegetarian you are a Pescetarian!!! I have to admit though fish and seafood are the one things that I do miss, but to be honest you can get fishless fishcakes, fishless fingers and even fish free prawns now so I can stick to my self imposed diet fairly easily. A few years ago though I was looking for gluten free, vegetarian recipes and I found something that was described as a perfect fish replacement. Whilst the taste isn't the same by a long way, I can see where the recipe was coming from, maybe down to the inclusion of the vinegar which automatically makes you think of fish and chips!

Tofu or soy bean curd as it's often called  looks like a cross between feta cheese and a soggy sponge. It's good for you but the plain and simple fact is it's completely tasteless, hence you can use it in it's various forms in both sweet and savoury dishes. The first time I had tofu I have to admit I wasn't impressed in the slightest, but over the years I've learnt to cook it differently so it actually has some taste. They key is it needs to be cooked with something quite strongly flavoured, one of my favourite ways of using tofu is in the Indonesian Rice With Tofu recipe that I showed you here,  but when I don't make that I make this dish Crispy Fried Tofu. Apologies that I can't credit the source but I've had the recipe for so long now that I can't remember where I got it from, especially now that I cook it from memory. 

                            Cripsy Fried Tofu                                       

1/2 Packet Firm Tofu

Balsamic Vinegar

Plain Flour (Gluten Free In My Case)

Chilli Flakes

Vegetable or Corn Oil

1. Drain the tofu as best you can you don't want it to be too wet 

2. Slice the tofu length ways into about 4 slices, don't worry if it starts to crumble it is quite fragile

3. Pop the tofu into a bowl then cover with a small amount of balsamic vinegar.

4. Leave for 15 minutes then turn over and leave for another 15 minutes - the tofu will absorb the vinegar and change colour

5. In the meantime add a small amount of oil to a frying pan and heat gently - if you can use a non stick pan. Then into another bowl pour in some flour, add a shaking of chilli flakes then mix together 

6. Remove your tofu from the balsamic vinegar, and coat it in the flour and chilli mix

7. Pop the tofu slices into your hot pan and fry turning occasionally till they are golden brown and crisp on the outside.

8. Drain on kitchen paper and then serve

Hints and Tips

* You can serve these with anything you fancy chips and baked beans works well as does rice or pasta and a sweet n sour sauce. I'm having rice with a Chinese style chilli, stir fry sauce here x

* I haven't been that precise with measurements are you can judge it by eye how much balsamic and flour you need - this recipe here feed two but obviously you could use the whole pack of tofu to feed more 

*The original recipe did include chilli flakes, but how many you use is up to you. I sometimes add a bit of garlic powder to my flour mix, it's up to you really or  you could leave the chilli out completely if you wanted to and just add salt n pepper to the flour mix

*The flour mix is also flexible, you can use what ever flour you like, I've tried this with polenta / corn meal and rice flour and it tuned out fine.

*If you don't have balsamic then ordinary malt vinegar would probably work but I think the sweetness of the balsamic makes a difference - I sometimes add a little bit of soy sauce too x

I really enjoy this recipe - it's really versatile and works well with any accompaniment, you can see how crispy the flour and vinegar combination makes the tofu, it's almost like it forms it's own batter. Mummy Lou will happily eat this and enjoy which is pretty impressive because she's isn't a vegetarian.

 I've heard loads of people say they don't like tofu but I really think it's about how you cook it and how you flavour it. If you want to extend your tofu journey I would definitely recommend Leah Leneman's The Tofu Cookbook, it features everything from dips to main courses to desserts all made from tofu. What do you think of tofu? Have I inspired you to give it a go? let me know in the comments xx

Eye Want Candy - Beautiful Nail Polishes Courtesy Of Eye Candy

Eye Candy London are probably better known as the name would suggest for their eye products and in particular for their budget friendly range of false eyelashes but did you know that they've branched out into nail care? They already did a range of false nails but in April of this year they introduced their own nail polish line.

The bang on trend line features all the major trends that you would expect from a fashion lead brand from crackle polishes, to magnetic polishes, to colour flip polishes and even nail care essentials such as top and base coats.

My nails may not be the longest but I love my nail polishes and I was thrilled to be sent 3 polishes from their extensive range to try out :)

The polishes I was sent are from left to right - Juicyilicious and Early Night from the core range, and Sexy And You Know It from their Colour Flip range.

All the colour come carded and in blister packed. The polishes come in 12ml bottles and are square in shape, I have to say the packaging reminds me a lot of Chanel's nail polishes, and I can reveal that this is not the last Chanel comparison that you will read in the post ;)

Eye Candy London Nail Lacquer - Juicyilicious 

Yowzers, this colour is not for the faint hearted, I'm going to apologise in advance for the pictures of this one, the weather was dull and dingy, and I couldn't get the colour to show up properly, the swatch on the nail wheel above is probably a bit more accurate but let me assure you this shade is bright!!

It's officially described as a bright yellow but I have to disagree, this is very much a true neon orange in real life, think an orange highlighter pen and your nearly there. 

The thing you need to know about true neon polishes is that they almost always dry matte or with a slightly satin finish, and that's exactly what this one does which shows the quality and the amount of pigment that's used in the polish. As you would expect with a matte polish this dried really quickly, coat one was a bit streaky but two was enough to give a smooth satin finish.

Out of all the polishes I tried this one lasted the longest on my nails, if you don't like the matte / satin finish just pop a bit of top coat for shiny bright neon nails - again the pics aren't great but hopefully you can get an idea what it looks like with top coat in the pictures below. This isn't really a colour for the winter but with a tan I think this shade could look amazing which I hope you can see despite my rubbishy pics.

Eye Candy London Nail Lacquer - Early Night

The second polish I was sent from Eye Candy was also from the core range. Early Night is described as a lilac pink, but I would describe it as a dirty lilac greige, which reminds me a lot of Chanel's Paradoxal.

This looked pretty good with one coat but again this is two.

This is a great polish for that designer look on a budget. This is a really wearable, smart colour whether your nails are long or short.

Eye Candy London Colour Flip Nail Lacquer - Sexy And You Know It

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, this is yet another Chanel dupe. Eye Candy aren't alone in this one, every brand pretty much now has a Chanel - Peridot alike in their collection, and yes as you well know I own more than one of them.

There is something about these fabulous duo chrome polishes that change colour when you move your fingers and this one is no exception. It changes from green, to gold, to bronze with a little bit of pink thrown in depending on the light and how you move you fingers - just to give you an idea the pictures above were taken with the flash and the ones below are taken without so you can see a bit of the colour variation.

Despite having a lot of similar shades I love this polish - the colour is gorgeous and the application again was fine, and it took just two coats for full coverage. 

I have too say that I was so impressed with the Eye Candy shades that I received that I immediately formulated a wishlist which included the other 3 shades in the Colour Flip range,  and this beauty that I managed to pick up from a local store

Eye Candy London Graphite - What A Steal

Whilst I don't own Chanel's famous Graphite I can imagine that this will be pretty similar. This limited edition shade contains a mixture of four different mica particles to create a gorgeous silvery grey polish which is packed full of iridescent sparkle.

I love this polish which a passion, it looks amazing on the nails and I couldn't stop staring at my fingers when I was wearing, just wondering what colours the sparkles would pick up next.

Application was OK but like the rest of the Eye Candy polishes, the brush is quite wide so if your nails are quite slim like some of mine are you need to be a bit careful with your application. I think I noticed it more with this shade because of the darker colour but it's not a real problem just take your time and have something to remove the excess ready just in case. With this colour though I can forgive and deal with anything I love it and I loved looking at it 

I have to say I've really enjoyed being introduced to a new nail polish brand - the polishes in the line officially  range from £6-£10, with core shades and treatments being the cheapest and the magnetic polishes unsurprisingly being the dearest. The polishes are available in selected branches of Sainsburys but if your interested in this brand shop around though , Amazon sells a wide range of the these polishes for less than retail and if your a northerner like me check out your local Boyes store - I picked up the Graphite polish for just £4.99, when the RRP is £8.00. They had a few of the Core and Magnetic Wave shades in last time I was there, so I intend to work my way through my local ones to see what other shades I can find - Colour Flips come to momma :) If you have any questions please let me know and if you've seen any of these polishes on your shopping trips I'd love to know where xx

(All The Polishes In This Post Bar Graphite - What A Steal Were Provided For Review Purposes)

Bat Those Lashes With Liz Earle Colour Lash Definition Smudgeproof Mascara

I have to be honest and say that I'm finding Project 10 Pan much harder this time round,whilst I'm managing to use products up fairly easily, I'm still having the overwhelming urge to buy new make up. I've added so many things to my wishlist over that last few months and I just can't wait to start filling my basket with lots of pretty make up. Admittedly I think I'll be more selective with my purchases than I have been in the past, but there have so many new launches and new innovations over the past few months, that I would be betraying my beauty junkie self if I didn't indulge just a little bit.

One of the launches that I was most excited about was the full launch of Liz Earle Colour. As you know I am a huge fan of the full Liz Earle range so when the rumours started that a make up line was on the cards I was super excited. Last year the brand launched their Sheer Skin Tint (read my review here) which was just a taste of what was to come. A few months ago and slap bang in the middle of my Project 10 Pan experience the full Colour range was launched. The range contains everything from base products such as foundations, and face powders, to cheek products such as bronzers and blushers, to lip colours, eye shadows and mascaras, and even make up brushes. Whilst prices start from just £5 I would say that this isn't the cheapest range out there , but what you are getting is a range that holds true to the philosophy of Liz Earle. Developed over a 3 year period with leading make up artists Jane Bradley, the Colour range like the skincare line is designed to be used by people of all skin types, all skin tones and of all ages. All the products contain specially selected natural and botanical ingredients to create a range of make up that is flattering, long lasting and good for your skin.

I've seen a lot of blog posts and pictures online, and I've seen a few QVC presentations and I have to say I'm impressed - the colours and textures look amazing, and when applied all the products look natural and flattering. I've already made a bit of a wishlist which includes some of the powder and cream blushers, some of the eyeshadows, and of course the foundation which I've heard so many good things about :) When I've finished Project 10 Pan I fully intended to pop into my nearest John Lewis to check out the range in the flesh, to decided which colours and so on would be best for me but I was kindly sent a Liz Earle Make Up Shade Selector with an order.

The fantastic people at Liz Earle have recognised that it can sometimes be difficult to choose make up shades online, so they've produced a a Make Up Shade Selector booklet, which allows you to compare the colours of your current make up items to shades in the Liz Earle Colour line, I've already had a play with my cream blushers and whilst colours vary due to printing and so on I think that this is a great idea especially when your limited to ordering online and via mail order.

I was all prepared to stick it out and wait till I'd finished Project 10 Pan but the lovely people at Liz Earle very kindly sent me one of the new Colour product to try out. 

The line of eye products contains eyeshadows, eye pencils, eyebrow pencils, eye brushes, a mascara base and the Lash Definition Smudgeproof Mascara.

It's unusual for a brand to just produce one mascara, but this is Liz Earle so we shouldn't be surprised, why produce three products when you can produce just one amazing product.

It comes boxed, and packaged in a very dark navy blue tube which seems to have tiny sparkles running through it. This mascara contains Vitamin E and is designed to be water resistant, flake free and long lasting 

The brush doesn't look too exciting, it's just a slightly tapered bristle brush which is designed to produce long defined lashes. I liked this brush a lot it wasn't too big which meant it was quite easy to use it one the lower lashes whilst at the same time it was big enough to easily cover my top lashes.

It comes in two shades 01 Black and 02 Brown. I was sent 01 Black which is a classic everyday, black shade. The formulation isn't too wet and it's isn't too dry, making it easy to apply without smudging or dripping.

The only way to show how good a mascara is though is by doing some before and after shots, so here you go my scary bare lashes, and no your eyes aren't deceiving you I do indeed have some white eyelashes - sob!

Before

One Coat 

Two Coats

Before 

One Coat 

Two Coats

Before 

One Coat 

Two Coats

As you can see this mascara does exactly what it promises, my lashes are darker, they look longer, and they look more defined and dare I say it obvious. The mascara lasted really well without any major smudging, in fact the longest I wore it for was for over 12 hours, which included spending time outside in the mist and rain, sweating and so on, and it still looked fine with only a tiny bit of under eye smudging when I can to remove it. This isn't the most dramatic of mascaras but I have to say I really like it, it gives my lashes a really nice full and defined finish, and it doesn't leave them feeling dry or hard. If your after a more dramatic lash look through Liz Earle also produce a Lash Care Intensifying Mascara Base which aims to make the lashes look longer and thicker, which can be used alongside this mascara for a more dramatic look, but personally this mascara makes enough of a difference for me :) Liz Earle Colour Lash Definition Smudgeproof Mascara 8ml comes in two shades and retails at £14.50. To purchase, to find stockist information or to find out more about the Liz Earle Colour range please check out their website :) Have you tried anything from Liz Earle Colour? let me know in the comments and don't forget to let me know if you have any questions xx

(Liz Earle Colour Lash Definition Smudgeproof Mascara 8ml In 01 Black Was Provided For Review Purposes)