Since January is such a long month in financial terms (who decided to place 6 weeks between paydays?!) I haven’t bought any new sparkly products. Sob. So instead I thought I’d try out Manuka Doctor’s Apinourish Rejuvinating Facemask. With purified bee venom. Bzzz.

Now, bee venom has been used in face creams and facials for quite a while. Caroline Flack reportedly uses a bee venom face cream; while Kate Middleton apparently splashed out on a bee venom facial (After Camila Parkour-Bowles recommended it) before the royal wedding. And who wouldn’t want a complexion like hers?

Bee venom works as it tricks the skin into thinking that it’s been stung by a bee. So far so obvious. When the skin believes that it has been stung, blood rushes to the area whilst the production of collagen and elastin is also stimulated. All of this plumps the skin and makes it more taunt. In 2013, 1 ounce of bee venom cost £30, 000. Just a wild guess, but I’m presuming there isn’t actually much bee venom in this. I’m not sure what other ingredients are in it – mainly because I haven’t looked into it- but they seem to work.

I got this little tube of miracles as part of my Tesco Beauty Advent Calendar over Christmas (you can read about it here) however I was yet to use it. I applied a very, very thin layer of this as I tend to be a bit wary about new creams as I have sensitive skin. I left it on for 30 minutes; however you can leave it on for as little as 15 minutes and still get some very good results.

I thought this would tingle slightly, but there was no such feeling. It went on a dream and seemed to sink into the skin quite quickly. The results were amazing! It left my skin feeling super smooth and kept it that way. Which is saying something, when you consider I’ve previously suffered from eczema and dry skin.

Being the lazy thing that I am, I didn’t use any face creams for about 3 days this week. In the last few years, this is something that I’ve never done. Once you’ve got into a routine and have moisturised your skin into behaving, it becomes something of an addiction. This time, however I felt like I could let it slide for a few days. Mainly because my skin was in such a good condition I thought I could get away with it. My skin stayed soft, and even my normal make up seemed look better once applied.

So there you have it, I’m a bee venom convert. Although face creams and masks containing bee venom can be on the pricey side, I’ll definitely be investing.

I may be being a bit over optimistic here, but I’m hoping some of you are coming back enough to notice that I haven’t posted a new post in a while. Sorry, my bad! However I will be making it up to you guys by posing as many Halloween nail art tutorials as I can get through before the big night itself arrives.

Now that’s cleared up, let’s move on to the subject of this post without further ado…

October is here, which means the hunt for the perfect autumnal nail polish is in full swing. As such, I recently invested in Barry M’s Gelly nail polish in Chilli.

Under the store lights, and in fact most artificial lights, it isn’t really a chilli colour in my mind. It’s somewhere between a dark red and a burnt orange… Actually I’ve just had a thought; maybe he was thinking more chilli con carne than the spicy little fruit. In which case, I suppose it does look a bit like Colman’s Chilli Con Carne mix.

Anyway, dragging our minds away from the kitchen (easier said than done) although I’m not a qualified nail technician, I do like to think that I know my round a nail polish brush.

I didn’t know my way around this one.

Be warned, unless you are concentrating on having the right amount of polish on the brush for each nail, effects may vary. I had the burnt orange-red colour through to dark red on some fingers… Almost like a colour chart. However I take responsibility for this, I probably should have concentrated more on it after I noticed the first two nails were of varying shades.

I have got to hand it to old Bazza; it did have a lovely high shine to it. One that keeps you glancing back down at your nails as they catch the light. Unfortunately though his Gelly polish lasted about the same amount of time as jelly at a kids party. That’s not long, in case you’re wondering.

I took this photo the next day at work – hence the ruler, and you can see that it already has some noticeable (read: gigantic) chips. Sob.

So to sum it up, if it’s for one night/day then this is a great polish with unbeatable shine. Just be prepared to re-apply if you want longer lasting colour.