Models Own Hayley's Comet

I've posted about this polish before when I wore it over black polish but I wanted to try and get it to look more like it does in the bottle with a sort of browny tone to it, so this time I decided to apply it over Beanie by No7 which is a sort of browny taupe colour.

 

Initially, it looked great and definitely gave me the look I wanted however I painted my nails before going out to the cinema and didn't leave enough time for them to dry (mostly due to the fact Beanie has gone all vile and took 3 coats to become even so I was sporting 5 coats of polish in the end) and they got totally massacred. :(

 

I've decided to stick a quick picture up anyway to give you an idea of the colour but excuse the state of the chips and dents, I was tempted to re-do the manicure the next night but I didn't love it enough to do the exact same things again.

 

 

It's a lovely browny wine polish with turquoise shimmer through it, in a lot of lights it looks very blue toned but I've managed to get a couple of (chipped) pictures of the duochrome effect which give you an idea of how it looks on.

 

 

It reminds me a little of Urban Decay Bruise which is handy since it's discontinued and no longer available.  I'll definitely be using this polish again some time soon but I'll make sure I have a better base colour or longer to let it dry before I do!

 

Money Saver! Iseree Cotton Wool Pads at LIDL

I go through LOADS of cotton wool pads, what with taking of my nail polish so often and using them to cleanse and tone my face I feel like I am forever having to stock up.  Usually I use Superdrug's own version which are the best reasonably priced ones I have found.  They're generally on offer at 2 for £2.50 making them £1.25 for a pack of 100.

The other day however I noticed LIDL's own brand and picked up a packet to try them out, they retail at just 55p for 120, making them less than 0.5p each compared to 1.25p for Superdrug's.

I've taken a comparison photo and posted it below, the Superdrug pads feel slightly thicker and more sturdy but overall there is not a huge difference, they both have two different textures; one side fairly smooth and the other slightly more textured and they both have sewn up edges.

 

They are a very similar product, with not so similar prices.

 

 

The Superdrug pads feel a little bit nicer to use for facial stuff, they're a bit more solid and thicker feeling where as the LIDL pads can become a little thin when saturated with cleanser or toner and lose any sort of texture when they're covered in anything oily, for nails stuff they are totally fine though, thick enough to hold together and not too fluffy so they leave your fingers covered in fibres.

 

This isn't the first nail or beauty bargain I've picked up in LIDL, I've previously posted about the nail polish remover I got from there so if you have one nearby it's definitely worth popping in and having a look.  Rumour has it that they will soon be launching a proper make up line so I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that, in the meantime I know where to go when I need to stock up on cotton pads, if you use as many as I do then it might be worth a visit for you too.

 

 

MUA One Coat Fairy Dust Nails

 

I saw this little beauty on offer in Superdrug the other day and couldn't resist trying it out for just £1.50, the range is normally £3 each.  Unfortunately it couldn't do a worse job of living up to it's 'one coat' name!

 

 

Fairy Dust is a shimmery, silvery pink shade which is almost foil in appearance, it's pretty but the photos below show 3 coats, so not only is it not a one coat polish it takes an additional third coat on top of what most of my preferred polishes require!

 

Excuse the messy picture, we've had a leak in the flat and I have been quickly trying to grab a few photos right after painting my nails before I go and chip them and cause horrendous tip wear mopping up the kitchen which means that my clean up of the top coat has not been good, normal service will be resumed shortly, I hope!

 

In conclusion, this polish is pretty but definitely not a one coater, no way.  The bottle is fairly small and for £1.50 it is definitely not a bargain when you need to use so much each application.  I'm most disappointed becasue I was hoping to stamp with it and as you'll see in the next post it is most definitely NOT a polish for stamping with.

Unseasonal Stamping

Here is one of the least seasonal posts you'll see on here this month, I've had it saved in my drafts for ages and while I'm scheduling some posts over the Christmas holidays I thought I'd squeeze it in.

For this manicure I used Kiko 355 as a base with Jade Jump & Blue-Away by Sally Hansen for the stamping.  355 is a bold yellow shade, perfect for summer, why I decided I had to wear in in the middle of November I'm not sure, the stamping was also in two pale summery shades, a minty green and a sky blue.  I chose these two as I wanted to see how well they stamped.

I used this chevron style image from Cheeky plate CH8 with Jade Jump on one side and Blue-Away on the other.

This stamping didn't quite turn out how I wanted, I was hoping the colours would look a bit more different to each other than they did in the end.  I also managed to bash a couple of nails before they were fully dry so they look a little beat up.

Overall I am not really too happy with how this manicure turned out, I do love the shape of the stamp though and both Sally Hansen polishes stamped really well so it wasn't a total waste of time, I'll be quite happy to take it off though!

Essence Peel Off Base Coat

When I saw this mentioned online recently I knew I had to try it.  No matter how well the tinfoil trick works it's still a total pain to remove glitter polish, especially if you have a few layers on.  So the promise of a base coat which allows you to just peel it off when you want rid of it sounded almost too good to be true.

 

 

Unfortunately, Essence isn't available in the UK so I had to get this via a lovely friend in Europe who saw it, thought of me and then posted it over to the UK for me, bless her.

 

 

The base coat looks, and smells, a little bit like PVA glue which didn't come as a great surprise as I've read on a number of blogs online suggesting that using PVA in place of this base coat would do a similar job.

 

The idea behind the base coat is that you apply it to your nails before glitter polish meaning that you can then just peel the whole lot off in a oner when you are bored, saving you the hassle of scrubbing off the glitter like you'd normally have to. 

 

Here's what the packet has to say:

 

 

I decided to try it out under Models Own Emerald City, a gorgeous green glitter which I love but is a pain to remove.  I applied a thick coat of the base coat and then waited for it to dry.  It took a good 10 minutes for it to go fully translucent on my nail.  Once it had dried I applied my usual two coats of polish and a top coat and carried on as usual.

The polish wore well, there was no major lifting or chipping.  I did notice a fair bit of tip wear on the polish after a day or so but that can happen with any base coat and polish combination so I don't think it's specific to the Essence.  I had expected the polish to be ready to peel off very soon but actually it lasted pretty well, after a hot shower I could feel a slight amount of lift around the edge of a few nails but nothing major and no popping off.

When it came time to remove the polish I was fairly hesitant, everything you read tells you NOT to pick nail polish off as it damages your nails - a lesson I have learnt through personal experience more than once - but the Essence base coat requires you to do just that.

It was harder to remove than I expected, I assumed each nail would pop off with no bother at all but some of them did take a bit of picking to get the polish to fully lift so I imagine I could easily have got another couple of days out of the polish if I'd wanted.

Underneath my nails were not damaged at all, the base coat did - at times with a little bit of effort - simple peel off and leave clean un-damaged nails underneath.

I was really impressed with it overall, it's definitely something I will be reaching for again if I want to use thick and hard to remove glitter as it cut the removal time down significantly without cutting down the wear time on the polish similarly.

Part of me does wonder if PVA glue would do exactly the same thing but I am quite happy with my neat little bottle and brush combo from Essence.

Have you tried peel off base coat?  How did you find it?

Nailmares!

I'm rather short on time for posting this weekend so instead of more manicures or reviews I thought I'd do a little light-hearted post which I think might strike a chord with my fellow Nail Polish addicts. ;)

 

Nailmares or, nightmare (ok, nightmare might be a little strong, but you know what I mean!) situations relating to nails and the painting there of, here's my top 5:

1. Finding it impossible to choose what colour to paint your nails.
2. Not having enough time to do all the themed manicures you want and have planned in your head (this weekend being a prime example - 4 separate events I would love to do themes for and no time to paint my nails in between, all those wasted ideas!).
3. Not having enough hands to try out all the new polishes or nail art supplies you've bought.
4. Having a great idea for a manicure, trying it, it looks RUBBISH.
5. New and fabulous collections always being released just as you promise to go on a no-buy for the rest of the month.

 

 

 Tell me I'm not the only one? The pictures alone tell me I can't be alone! What are your own personal nailmares?

Barry M - Gelly Hi-Shine

I have no real clue what these are but I already I am pretty sure I want them, ALL OF THEM.  Barry M have just released this picture on their Facebook and Twitter sites: 

 

 

The real question is, what are they?  They seem to be being pitched as a Shellac or Gelish type alternative but I can't see how any polish can compete with a UV cured product for wear and chip resistance?  Although there have been a few similar sounding releases recently, I'm pretty sure Revlon or L'Oreal have some coming out soon, or possibly they are out already. 

 

 

Barry M also say 'one coat' which means they could be good for stamping?  But then again they say Gelly on the bottle so are they a jelly or sorbet like finish?

 

Who knows, not me, I just thought I would share the news, picture and speculation.  Fingers crossed Barry M give us more information soon!

Apparently these will be avaliable in Superdrug on September 26th & then in Boots on October 3rd.

 

What do you think they might be?

Unsuccesful laser manicure

I was hoping this would turn out like so many of the excellent laser manicures I've seen online, sadly it didn't.  I am pleased with the pinky though so I'm definitely going to have another go soon and see if I can sort out the rest of the fingers.

You can probably tell that this is just my Olympic manicure from the other day with a bit of striping tape loads of black polish over the top.

Nails Inc - Special Effects - Sprinkles

Ever since I first started seeing blog posts about Nails Inc's new Sprinkle collection I knew I would have to order at least one of them (Sweets Way caught my eye immediately) but when I saw an offer on QVC for 3 of them for under £20 I couldn't resist.  They arrived today, so here are some quick bottle shots to be going on with until I have used them for a full manicure.

These two pictures also show W7's Mosaic which I think is a pretty good dupe for the 4th Nails Inc Sprinkle polish, Pudding Lane.  More on that W7 polish here.

I can't wait to try these polishes out the colours are even more lovely in person than they seem from the online swatches I've looked at, expect full manicures with them all very soon.

Topping Lane and Sweets Way can be seen in more detail by clicking. 

W7 Mosaic - Nails Inc Pudding Lane Dupe

As promised, here is the first of my full manicures using the W7 polish from my recent nail mail.  I decided to use Mosaic first which seems to be a pretty close dupe of Nails Inc Pudding Lane.

After reading several blogs which mentioned these W7 polishes and how they seemed to be similar to Nails Inc Sprinkles I decided to test them out, they're available here on Nail Polish Direct (who I can't recommend enough for fast delivery, great packaging and excellent prices) for £1.99 each, quite a bit less than their Nails Inc counterparts! 

Mosaic applied beautifully, these pictures show 3 coats but you could get away with two if you were careful.  On the second and third coats I moved the polish around my nails a little to make sure the glitter was evenly spread but on the whole this probably isn't necessary and you can just paint as you normally would.

The polish is definitely well named as the effect on the nail is like looking into a swimming pool with a coloured mosaic at the bottom, absolutely gorgeous.  I'm so pleased with this polish and can't wait to try out the other two in the range.

As you can see, it's definitely a similar finish to the Nails Inc Sprinkle collection, but at a fraction of the cost!  Hats off to W7 for creating such an excellent polish. 

One word of warning though, removal is messy, the glitter gets EVERYWHERE!!

Stamped Hearts.

Barry M Denim with Barry M Silver Foil Effects stamped over it, Bundle Monster 317 for the hearts image.

No7 Dollar & Max Factor Fantasy Fire

No7 Dollar with Max Factor's Fantasy Fire on top, this is so gorgeous and glowy in person but impossible to photograph.

I've previously worn this over a blue or purple base but last night I decided to try and bring out the green shimmer in the colour shift by applying it over a green polish, i don't think it really worked but I do still love the result, despite it being impossible to catch on camera! 

So, instead of one or two good photographs of it you can all have loads of not very good ones instead. ;)