Yes Love - Coloured Speckled

These polishes are the slightly more jazzy version of the Yes Love Speckled polishes I posted about a few times after picking them up in Spain in the summer.  They have the same sort of cream base but this time with multicoloured glitter spread through them rather than just black. 

 

As far as I can tell there are 6 in the collection and I am lucky enough to have 3 of them to show you, sent to me by my very lovely friend D.

 

 

1 - A mint green coloured base polish with large blue hex, medium pink, purple and black hex and small black hex glitter scattered through it.

 

2 - A soft creamy peach coloured base polish filled with large red hex, medium red, lilac and black hex and small black hex glitter

 

3 - My favourite of the three, a baby blue base coloured polish with medium pink, yellow gold and black hex and small black hex glitter through it.

 

From my hunting online there are also lilac, pink and yellow base polishes but I think I've definitely got three of the best here!  I can't wait to try them out, I hope they apply half as well as the regular Speckled line from Yes Love as they are firm favourites of mine.

 

Neon Nubbins

You may remember this gorgeous neon orange polish from my last holiday to Spain.  I was sorting through all my polishes the other night and came across this little beauty so I decided to try it out on short nails to see if I like it as much as I did when I wore it on longer nails.

 

 

The short answer is yes. :)  This is just two coats of polish with no base colour or white layer underneath and it's a proper vivid neon.  It's such a bright colour and really pops.

 

The polish dries to a slightly matte rubbery kind of effect but I like to stick some top coat over mine to leave them looking super shiny and a little squishy.

 

Despite being totally opaque this polish manges to have a sort of jelly like appearance to it which I love, it's definitely still a winner, even on short nails, especially since it cost me less than 1 euro!

Yes Love Blue Speckled

Another from my recent holiday haul today, this time the blue Yes Love Speckled polish, you can see the Lilac version HERE.  I like the blue just as much as I did the Lilac.

 

 

Again it applied really nicely, especially for a cheap polish with limited fishing for glitter and a nice smooth application.  These pictures are 3 coats, it was pretty much opaque in to but my fussiness of glitter spacing led to me adding a third.

 

 

I really like the base colour, it's a bright, vivid blue but at the same time quite a soft shade and it highlights the large and small black hex glitter beautifully.

 

 

Here's a sneaky bottle shot so you know what to look for if you're ever near a Chinese Bazaar. ;)

 

Yes Love Lilac Speckled

Another polish from my holiday haul today, this time one of the Yes Love speckled polishes which to me look very like Illamasqua's I'mPerfect collection nail polishes. 
 

I've been lusting after the Illamasqua versions for a while now but I could never quite justify the £14.50 price tag, so imagine my delight when I found something very similar for just 80cents each in the China Bazaar in Spain.

First off I decided to try out the lovely lilac shade on the left in the photo above.

These pictures are 3 coats, 2 would suffice to get the polish opaque but I put the 3rd on so that I could get the exact spread of glitter I wanted. 

For a cheap nail varnish it applied pretty well, a decent amount of glitter came out on each dip and it spread around the nail with relative ease.

Drying time was fairly quick and wear time was excellent, I ended up having this polish on for a good few days and it lasted really well.

Overall I am really pleased I picked these up, they're the prefect cure to my Illamasqua lusting on a much smaller budget.  I'm just annoyed I couldn't find anymore to bring back and spread the love.

Holiday Nails

I was quite short of time before I flew out to Spain so I didn't get the chance to do anything fancy and holiday themed with my nails, like I did last time, instead I just decided to go with something bright and summery that seemed holiday-ish to me, my choice was a very bright neon yellow polish I bought on a previous trip to Spain.

 

 

I started off with two coats of Sinful Snow White as a base and then added the yellow over the top, these pictures are 2 coats of yellow.

 

It's a cheapy brand (bottle picture and details HERE) that I got in one of the China Bazaar shops in Spain so I'm pretty impressed with how bright it turned out and how well it applied.  In fact it was what made me pick up some more neons when I was out there this time, you can see them HERE.

 

It looks very messy around my cuticles in the macro shots here but I don't think it looked quite so messy in person, in fact it got me quite a few compliments, and got me spotted by a blog reader in the airport too which is definitely a first. :))

 

I really liked how this bright neon looked in the sunshine and it started a bit of a trend off for the week I was away, stay tuned to see more neon holiday polishes coming up soon.

Holiday Haul!

This post should really have appeared yesterday but nevermind... I'm back and as usual I didn't return empty handed. :)  I was very good this time though and only bought a few choice bits.

First up a trip to Kiko, no Spain visit is complete without one.  I picked up 5 polishes from the regular collection (on the right here), none of them are new shades I am just filling gaps in my collection now. :)  I'm hoping the french manicure polish, second from the right, might be the perfect cream I have been hunting for. *fingers crossed*

Kiko also have a new range of quick drying nail polish so obviously I had to pick up a couple of them to try out, here is a close up of the ones I chose.

Then, because they were on offer, I picked up another couple of base coats

Next up my polish from various China Bazaar shops, there seem to be hundreds of them in the area my parents live and they stock all manner of things including cheap nail polish.  These bottles were all under a euro each.

They can be a bit hit and miss quality wise but I always like to grab a few and see what they are like, I've had some really good polishes from the various ones I've visited and at such a tiny outlay it seems rude not to.

These were a particularly cool find, they remind me so much of the nail polishes from Illamasqua's recent I'mPerfect range but at a teensy 5% of the cost.

Stay tuned to see which ones I tested out first and for pictures of all my holiday nails (which are shamefully few and far between as I was VERY lazy and hardly changed my polish at all).

Holiday Time - Again!

I'm off out to Spain again, to stay with my parents, a final quick dose of sunshine before the summer finishes up.  I have posts scheduled to keep you all occupied but since I won't have the time to be posting every day replies to comments might become a bit more sporadic over the next week or so. 

 

 

However, I'll be back soon with holiday nails and any interesting beauty bargains I come across while I'm away, I have a little Kiko trip planned so I am sure there will be something to show off from that.

 

See you soon! xx

Kiko Sugar Mat - 637

Another Kiko Sugar Mat to show today, this time 637 which is a bright turquoise sort of shade.

 

 

I love the matte, textured finish of this polish, it gives the colour a totally different look to a regular shiny cream finish.

 

I was worried this might be a bit of a stainer but luckily my nails came away unscathed, which might have something to do with the new base coat I have been using.  Full details on that soon.

 

Kiko Sugar Mat - 634 & 635

As you may have seen from my Spanish haul post the other day, I gave in and bought ALL of the Kiko Sugar Mats, today's post features two of the non shimmery side of the range, 634 and 635.

 

 

634 is a soft pinky lilac shade whereas 635 (which I used as an accent) is a light cornflower blue sort of colour, both feature the textured finish of the Sugar Mat collection.

 

I hadn't been expecting to like the non shimmery Sugar Mats as much as I loved the ones with shimmer but I was wrong!  These polishes are lovely soft colours with the added interest of the texture finish.  As with all the others I have tried from the collection they applied beautifully, this pictures are two coats, and dried super fast.

 

Having tried a couple of the non shimmer side of the Sugar Mat collection I'm definitely glad I took the chance to grab them all while I was away and they were on offer.

 

Kiko Sun Pearl Nail Lacquer - 427 Amable Chartreuse

You may notice a slight change in lighting conditions (and nail length) in the next few posts as they were taken while on holiday which means for once my photos are actually taken in bright sunshine rather than indoor lighting or dull Scottish 'sunlight'.

 

First up from my recent haul, a polish from the new Sun Pearl Limited Edition range, number 427, Amable (is that even a word?) Chartreuse which is a rather odd greeny, yellowy shade shot through with golden glitter shimmer.  I must admit I was mostly attracted to this one as it's a bit of a vile colour and I have a soft spot for shades which really don't look like they should be worn on your nails.

 

 

Once it was on I really liked it, and surprisingly it seemed to go rather well with a lot of the bright colours I was wearing while in the sun.

 

It's definitely not for everyone but I loved it's bright acid shade.

 

It's quite similar to Illamasqua Radium and Models Own Aciiid, both of which I own, so I am clearly drawn to this odd sort of green shade. :)



Holiday Manicure - Swimsuits!

A bit of a belated posting (I was planning on posting rather more than I did while away but the sunshine and lounging opportunities got the better of me) but this is the manicure I wore for going on holiday last week, I decided to use the same rainbow stamping technique as I had for this manicure but this time give the stamped images a bit of a holiday feel.  Here's how they turned out.

 

I used plates from the Cheeky Summer collection and chose a swimsuit and bikini design.

The stamping is done with the same selection of Barry M Gellys as before.  I don't think the rainbow effect showed up quite as well as the previous attempt as the pattern on this stamping image was a bit more spaced out which meant you didn't see the colour merges quite as well.

 

I also decided to add some sun glasses as an accent on one hand.

 

Not too bad for a heading off on holiday manicure, I thought!

Kiko Haul!

Every time I come out to visit my parents in Spain we make a little trip to the nearest Kiko store.  Initially it involved an hours drive to get to the nearest one, then one opened about 20 minutes away.  At the end of last year a big new shopping centre opened a 5 minute drive away and in it a Kiko! So now with it just on the doorstep it's dead easy to get to. Naturally I had to pay a visit, especially since all of their nail Polish is currently only €2,50 each.  Here's my little haul...

First up a few colours from the regular range, including a backup of my favourite Kiko nude, 372.

Two gel look top coats (which are great value at €2,50) and a bar cost to try and dirt out my peely, yellow nails.

One of the new Sun Pearl collection.

The remainder of the shimmer Sugar Mats.

Three more of the Mirrors for stamping with.

And all of the rest of the regular, non shimmery, Sugar Mats.

So that little lot should keep me occupied while I'm away and mean that I have plenty to post about when I get back.

Kiko - Sugar Mat - 639

I have Kiko 639 to show you today, one of the recent Sugar Mat collection.  I really love these polishes, more than I thought I would. 

 

639 is a peach shade with gold shimmer through it.

 

The Sugar Mats apply beautifully and dry really fast which makes them firm favourites in my book.

 

 I posted about the Sugar Mat polishes I already have here, and in various NOTD posts, but I've decided on this trip to Spain to pick up the rest of the shimmer Sugar Mats (which are pictured below) and maybe even a couple of the others too.

 

 

 

Holiday!

I fly out to Spain today to visit my parents for 10 days which means that I might not be able to blog every day as I have been doing.  I have a few posts scheduled and might even post while I am away if I have the time but there won't be a post every day as there has been.  I'd like to have had the time to schedule posts but unfortunately life got in the way a bit!

 

Hopefully while I am away I will pick up a few bits and peices to blog about, there will definitely be a wee trip to Kiko to complete my Sugar Mat collection and to check out the newest releases, like the Sun Pearl Nail Lacquer.

 

 

So look out for some quick updates while I am away and then some new goodies when I get back, hopefully the weather in the UK will be kind to you all while I'm off sunning myself. :)

 

New Kiko Collections & Haul

Kiko is by far one of my very favourite brands of nail polish so I am always excited when I see they have a new collection out.  This time around there are 3 collections all launching at at similar time.

 

Sugar Mat - Kiko's answer to the textured trend in matte and shimmer shades!

 

 

 

 

Mirror Nail Lacquer - highly polished, mirror effect shades which I am hoping will be great for stamping.

 

 

 

 

Colours in the World, Celebration Nail Lacquer

 

 

There's a whole Colours in the World collection but I am specifically interested in the 10 shades of Celebration Nail Lacquer:

 

 

 

 

I was tempted to order some online but since my parents are coming back to the UK from Spain next month for a visit I decided to take advantage of their personal shopping skills and get them to pick me some up at a discounted rate (the polishes cost the same in Euros as they do in pounds so buying in Spain saves about 10% at the moment).

 

I sent my folks this list:

 

 

This voucher

 

 

and here are the results!

 

 

 

Now I just have to wait for almost a month for them all to arrive in the UK.

 

All three collections are available to buy online now and if you use the code online or the voucher I posted above instore you get 20% off until the 3rd of March, so hurry if you want to grab a few new collection bargain before the offer ends.