Urban Decay - Bruise

I picked this polish up a few years back in Superdrug, it was in a little jar of odds and ends and I thought it looked like quite an interesting colour, a sort of wine shade with a duochrome blue green flash through it.  I also loved the name, the colours do sort of resemble the shades a bad bruise goes through. :)

 

After a bit of research online it turns out that Bruise is actually quite sought after having been discontinued in the US quite a few years ago, there was little mention of it ever having been released in the UK so how it ended up in my Superdrug I'll never know! 

 

 

On to the polish:

 

In bright light the green blue flash really shows through and you can see why this polish is one that people try and hunt down.

 

The downside is that it's pretty sheer, initially I wore two coats but it wasn't at all opaque and really didn't look great in outdoor lighting (as you can see below):

 

 

However, a third coat and some bright fluorescent lighting and it's hard to knock this polish, it's deep wine coloured base is jam packed with thousands of tiny glitter particles which really make it glow.

 

If you happen to see a bottle anywhere I would recommending grabbing it!

 

US Yankee Tarts

I was very lucky that my lovely boyfriend's equally lovely parents sent me a little package of US goodies over as a treat for Christmas, included in the package were some US Yankee Tarts, all fragrances which aren't available in the UK.  I am so excited to try them out!

 

 

So far I've burned Fireside which is a lovely woody, herby scent with hints of firewood and smoke about it - nice smoke though, not just regular smoke!  It's quite a masculine fragrance but it was perfect for a cosy evening in.  I'm hesitant to use them too quickly though as I know I can't get anymore easily, silly I know but I don't want to waste their deliciousness!

 

Apparently there are some places which sell the US only scents in the UK but I am yet to track any of them down, so if you know of anywhere that sells the harder to find, US released scents please comment below, otherwise I'll have to start pestering my almost MIL to go shopping for me again!

Color Club @ TK Maxx

I've seen a few mentions on various blogs recently that TK Maxx has had some pretty decent nail polish stock in of late, so I decided to go and check it out.  Low and behold the rumours were true, there was a load of polish; Essie, Models Own, Color Club, Bella Pierre, Nails Inc and several other brands which I'd never heard of, all at pretty good prices. 

 

Nothing really grabbed me except this one set from Color Club, I remember when it was released lamenting the fact we couldn't easily get it in the UK so I was pretty chuffed when I got my eye on it today.  Here is a promo shot I found online, Alter Ego - Keep it under cover:

 

Notice a slight difference with the one I picked up today (£7.99, bargain!), no V!vid topcoat in my set instead there was a random green metallic...

 

 

The list on the back suggests I should have had a V!vid topcoat so I'm not sure what happened, one of the joys of a store like TK Maxx, I guess.

 

 

So, here are the polishes that are part of the Alter Ego, Keep it under cover set:

 

 

I took an individual bottle shot of each to try and show off the colour a little better.

 

914 - Masquerading

 

 

 912 - Alias

 

 

 913 - Ulterior Motive

 

 

 911 - Total Mystery

 

 

 910 - Secret Agent

 

 

 909 - Alter Ego

 

 

And my bonus / odd addition which after a little research seems to be Perfect Mol-Ten from the Foiled Collection, out around the same time.

 

 

I'd like to have tried the V!vid topcoat but I'm not too disappointed as it seems like Perfect Mol-ten might stamp quite well so that would be a nice little perk as I don't have a green stamping polish.

 

I'm looking forward to trying these out, some of them seem a little sheer so I think they might work better as topcoats and layering polishes but all in all for under £8 I'm a pretty happy bunny as there are some really lovely, shimmery shades to try out.

 

Have you had any TK Maxx bargains or good finds recently?

Sally Hansen - Garnet Lapis

I love this polish!  It's so hard to photograph well though.  Garnet Lapis is an amazing duochrome that shifts through purple, lilac, royal blue, aqua and turquoise; this is two coats over two coats of black.

Here are a few pictures which while not doing it justice give an idea of the colour shift.

I am going to use this as a base for my new OPI Black Spotted.  Apparently the Black Spotted works better over properly dry polish so I decided to wait 25 hours before applying it, which means I also get the chnace to wear this gorgeous polish out on its own for a day.

Kiko 339 & Sally Hansen Fire Opal

This is one of my favourite Kiko polishes (although I probably have about 20 'favourites'), number 339 Cornflower Blue.  It really is the perfect cornflower blue, although my pictures don't really show it as such.

This is a bit closer to the actual shade but an awfully dark photo.

Although I love this shade on it's own I put it on to try out a new polish I have recently acquired, Sally Hansen Nail Prism in Fire Opal, although the polish is a pinky colour in the bottle it's shot through with turquoise / baby blue duochrome that I thought would look amazing over 339.

So I added one coat over the top, turning the cornflower cream finish into a lilac tinged blue / pink duochrome.  I love it!  It's another that is nearly impossible to photograph so there are loads of pictures here to try and catch the beautiful colour and the shifting shades of the duochrome.

This shot shows how much space I leave at the edges of my nails when I paint them, it's not so obvious in person, I promise!!

I adore this polish and can't wait to try it out over some other colours, weirdly I am thinking a dull army green might look amazing with the blue / pink duochrome over it so I think that will be the next experiment.  I am so pleased I managed to find this hard to find polish, it's definitely a winner!



Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal

I've known about and lusted after this polish for years after seeing pictures of it online so I couldn't beleive my luck when I found a bottle of it while wasting time in a random Glasgow shop recently!  Accidental dusty hunting in the extreme!

Here's the bottle, pretty but nothing compared to what this polish looks like on the nail.

And now for 432 (not quite) pictures to try and capture all the different colour shifts in this gorgeous polish, this is one coat of Turquoise Opal over black polish.

Sally Hansen Mandarin Garnet

Today's nails are Sally Hansen Mandarin Garnet, a polish which I found lurking with a few other Nail Prisms in the back of a shop.  In regular light it's a pretty, slightly shimmery colour.

But in the 5 minutes of sunshine Glasgow saw today you can see why it's still a much desired polish despite being from a collection released 10 years ago, it's holographic!

This is a really pretty polish and a good dupe for the, also very hard to find, China Glaze OMG collection, I just wish people would bring out more polishes like these now instead of them only being available through hunting high and low or paying loads on eBay.