Sally Hansen - Nail Prisms - Lapis Amethyst?

I think this is Lapis Amethyst, some of my Nail Prism bottles aren't very well labelled but as far as I can tell by Googling swatches this is what it comes closest to, so for the purpose of the post let's say this IS Lapis Amethyst.

 

These pictures are two coats over Barry M Gelly Hi Shine in Blueberry, which is a pale blue shade, I think next time I'll try it over a darker base. From the swatches I have seen it seems to bring out the duochrome more when you use it over a dark base.

 

 

The polish is a pale shimmery blue colour with a lilac pink duochrome effect.

 

 

From some angles the polish is very blue while from others you can really see the lilac and pink shades.

 

 

This polish reminds me of Models Own Indian Ocean, of the two Indian Ocean has better sparkle and wow factor although Lapis Amethyst is a little more duochrome in the traditional sense.

Sally Hansen - Nail Prisms - Amber Ruby

Somehow I have managed to get a totally different look to the last time I wore and posted about this polish.  I shan't complain though, this time it shows off it's duochrome gorgeousness much better.

Although still not as well as it does in real life, the colours shift from a deep wine red through bronze and gold and finish up with a green tint.  These pictures are 3 coats with no base colour, the polish is quite thin but worth layering up for the effect you're left with.

Under bright lights there's an almost chocolate sort colour and the glittery sparkle is shown off beautifully too.

This is the best gold green photo I could get, it's obvious in person but so hard to photograph.

I love this polish, it's such a shame that the Prisms are so hard to find and that Sally Hansen doesn't have anything similar in the current collections they do.

Sally Hansen - Nail Prisms - Turquoise Opal

I'm on a bit of a duochrome kick at the moment so I decided to dig out my much loved Turquoise Opal and wear it again, I've posted about it before but I'm hoping my pictures have improved quite a bit since then so I thought it was worth showing again.

SO PRETTY!  The colour range shifts through a deep grape purple colour all the way lavender, sky blue and turquoise teal; there are so many different shades on show depending on the light.

These pictures are two coats over a dark purple base colour.

In bright indoor lighting you can really see the glittery aspect of this polish which isn't so evident in more natural lighting.

I adore this polish, it is so pretty.

Sally Hansen Nail Prism Mystery Polish

My reason for wearing this polish was that I'd seen swatches of Rimmel Metal Rush in Pearly Queen over on the lovely Claire's blog, nuthin but a nail thing, and really loved it.  In a vain attempt to stop me going right out and buying more polish I decided to hunt through my collection for something similar and this polish sprung to mind.

 

Unfortunately, the bottle isn't labelled so I have no idea what shade it is, I thought it might be Lavender Pearl but on further Googling it doesn't seem so.    It doesn't really matter anyway as this polish is probably not available to buy anymore, certainly not in the UK, and it's easily dupe-able should you wish to track down a similar colour.

 

In real life it's actually a lot more like Not Like the Movies from the Katy Perry collection by OPI than the Rimmel I was hoping to copy.

 

 

It's a sort of lavender green duochrome which changes shades depending on the light.

 

As you can see from certain angles the green really pops.

 

And with a flash you can see the slight shimmer in the polish too.

 

Here's a quick, rubbish, bottle shot on the off chance anyone can identify this mystery polish, it's pictures beside Barry M grey which is what I wore it over, on it's own it's very sheer.

 

Overall I am not blown away with this polish, it's a less exciting version of Not Like the Movies to me so I think in future I might stick with wearing that one to get this particular look and obviously I am now going to have to go to Boots and pick up that Rimmel polish that started this whole post off.

 

If you have any idea what this polish might be then please leave me a comment, I hate having an unidentified bottle in my collection!

New Polish Haul

These are a few bits that I bought a while back but haven't had chance to write about before now, I placed an order on Cosmetics Fairy on a Thursday, my parcel arrived on Monday morning, it was sent second class so I think that was a pretty good delivery time.   It arrived well packaged and all the polishes were as I expected.

 

The first part of my delivery were 3 Sally Hansen Insta Dri polishes, Chartreuse Chase, Jade Jump & Blue-Away, I chose them as the Insta Dri polishes are meant to be great for stamping with and these pastel shades are different to anything else I have.  I'll report back once I've tried them out.

 

 

Next up, a brand I had never heard of - Hedy's ma.nish.ma. - it turns out these are US releases which could explain why I have never heard of them before, again there are 3.  Way Out Fuchsia, Beyond Opal & Blaster.  All three are labelled 'holographic' but they aren't, they are in fact duochromes.

 

 

Blaster seems to be a close dupe for Sally Hansen DVD and Way Out Fuchsia is very similar to Sally Hansen Bite.  I think Beyond Opal is similar to a Kiko polish I have but I'll need to dig it out to check which number.

 

 

I think these polishes will look best over other colours, they are not very opaque on their own and I think they'd all need at least 4 coats to avoid a visible nail line but they look like they have the potential to be gorgeous over other cream polishes.

 

 

Finally I also got Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Lavender Envy, this is another sheer duochrome polish which I think will be gorgeous over creams.

 

The prices on these polishes were excellent, over all the order came to under £10 which for 7 polishes is a pretty good deal!  Hopefully I'll get a chance to try them all out soon and post some NOTD photos including them.  Which is your favourite?

Starry Night Stamping

After yesterdays manicure with Glitz Gal I wanted to do a little bit of stamping, I still have Dashica plates to try out and one of the designs on the plate seemed ideal against the evening sky like background of Glitz Gal. The plate I used was XL SdP 69, I chose the scene with the trees and the moon for accents and the shooting stars / star bursts for the other fingers.

I was hoping that against the Glitz Gal background it would look like a little nighttime woodland scene.  Unfortunately I still have a duff finger and these photos haven't turned out really well but I wanted to share them anyway, in person the 'sky' effect is much prettier and sparklier.
 

I'm quite happy with how it turned out but I think I might need to put this manicure in the 'ones that looked better in my head' category.
 

As for the Dashica plates, I remain undecided, when my order initially arrive 2 of the plates didn't stamp well at all, I sent them back and a replacement pair were sent to me, when they arrived they didn't stamp properly either.  By this point Shirley who runs the website has notified people online to a problem with a whole batch of plates which seemed to have affected the ones I bought too so she agreed to send me another replacement set, unfortunately in the end I didn't get my full order until the 16th of October, well over 3 months after I ordered and paid (I ordered near the beginning of July).

In her defence, Shirley was fabulous to deal with; helpful, friendly and very keen to sort out the issues I was having, I was definitely impressed with her customer service and that wouldn't put me off using Dashica again in any way.  However the quality of the plates might.

After all that time the plates would really have had to be stand out to impress me and so far I haven't found that to be the case, they are ok, most images stamp pretty well but some are a bit tricky.  I'm hoping it's just a matter of practice because I love the designs and would like to get lots of use out of them.  I have tried them with a couple of different polishes and stampers and the results have been a little varied, I'll stick at it but they aren't like other brands of plate I own which have stamped wonderfully right away. 

I've seen plenty of example of maniucres done using these plates online and they all look great, so I am hoping with more practice I'll be able to get similar effects from my plates.

Sally Hansen - Gem Crush - Glitz Gal

How excited was I when I found this display in Superdrug recently?!  Sally Hansen polishes in the UK and not only that but the gorgeous Gem Crush Collection.

The one downside?  The price!  £6.99 per bottle!  It really annoys me when I know fine well I could buy it in America for 1/4 of that price!  I was going to be good and not buy anything but I simply couldn't pass up on this little beauty, Glitz Gal (08):

It's a beautiful charcoal grey shade of glitter rammed full of little holographic sequins.  On first look I thought this was a grey based polish but it's actually a clear base with loads and loads of really fine charcoal glitter. It's so pretty under bright lights which is part of the reason I couldn't get out of the very brightly lit Superdrug without it!

 Here are a couple of bottle shots to get you in the mood.

I applied it over a dark grey Kiko base (381) to make sure it was fully opaque:

On the nail it doesn't disappoint, this polish is like a galaxy on your nails, I love it.  Two coats of base and two of Glitz Gal achieved the look below, apologies for the pre clean-up picture but it's the one which really shows off the polish in the most true to life way, as with all holographic glitters it's very hard to capture how lovely it is on camera.

Yet again, I am having cuticle issues so excuse the lack of pinkie in some shots, it's currently rocking a style all of it's own.

Have you tried any of the Gem Crush polishes?  What others would you recommend?

Models Own Nude Beige & Stamping

This manicure really didn't turn out how I wanted it to, originally I was trying for a nice subtle floral effect for a night out but after I'd finished my nails reminded me more of an episode of Dexter or a murder scene.

The light flowery stamp really didn't take well to being stamped over the nude base and ended up looking more like blood spatter than the delicate ladylike manicure I had imagined!

My stamping technique was also clearly a little off that day too as the only finger which has worked well in my index finger, the rest are not stamped clearly at all which I think adds even more to the murder scene look.

I definitely want to give this stamp another go so hopefully I'll be back soon with a slightly more impressive attempt.  I used a red Sally Hansen Insta Dri to stamp which worked pretty well so if I take nothing else from this manicure at least I now know I have a decent opaque red to stamp with! ;)

Models Own - Hayley's Comet over Black

My first instinct when I saw Hayley's Comet, the newest addition to Models Own Beetlejuice Collection, was that it would look great over a darker base colour so rather than try it alone I decided to put it over black and see how that looked, first here's a couple of bottle shots for those who may not have seen it in person yet.

 

 

And a little swatch of the polish on it's own, as you can see it's a pinky sort of base chock full of turquoise blue shimmer particles which make it pretty duochrome in the bottle.  The formula is thin, this is not an opaque polish at all, I would guess you'd need a minimum of 3 coats to get good coverage on bare nails.  Unfortunately for me my nails are still so stained that 3 coats probably wouldn't have done it so I decided to go with the black base.

 

 

And here are the results (excuse the messy cuticles and splodges on my fingers I wanted to get pictures before the light went completely):

 

 

Over a dark base the turquoise and blue tones really show through, this is what you see on your nails the majority of the times.

 

 

However at certain angles you can really see the purple colours coming through too.

 

 

At other angles it's almost teal.

 

 

 

This polish reminds me quite a bit of Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal the colour shifts are not quite so varied or strong but there are definite similarities and since Turquoise Opal is so hard to track down it's definitely worth picking Hayley's Comet up if you like the look.

 

I have a feeling this could be a very versatile polish, the look you get over dark colours is totally different to wearing it alone and I already have ideas for other base shades to try it over, over black you lose all the pinky bronze tones so I'd like to try something that picks up on them a bit more too.  Overall another winner from Models Own, I think!