Saturday, January 29, 2011

Nails Inc Jermyn Street

Before Christmas, I went away with work. Being very organised, I had packed a little bag of polishes to try when I was away, some work appropriate and a few to try when the work was over. In the airport, on the way, I pick up Glamour magazine and they had a free Nails Inc polish, after spending about 20 minutes choosing which one I should get (there were 4) I picked this one.  It turned out this was quite lucky because I had Lubu Heels on and it had chipped and I had left the polishes I thought I had packed at home (I now know, I left them on the bed!).  All I had was my Cnd Stickey base coat and my Seche Vite topcoat with me.  I wore this one for a long time and the colour seemed to change depending on  the lighting, sometimes it looked very chocolatey brown and sometimes almost mauve, but most of the time it was a mixture of the two, like shown in the photos. 






This applied like a dream, I was really surprised because I haven't always been that enamored with Nails Inc! As this was the only polish I had with me, I was very glad it wore really really well. Even withstanding a trip to the beach!   


Since I got this at the start of December, there's been at least one  new edition of Glamour out, so this offer is over, but this is a core colour according to their website, so you can get your hands on it. 


 Did you get any of the Nails Inc polishes with Glamour? How did you find them? Do you have any suggestions of must try Nails Inc colours for me?



Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wheely number 4

Welcome to Wednesday number 4!
Wheel 4


  1. Elf Purple Pleaser
  2. 17 Amaretto
  3. H&M Check Me Out
  4. H&M Bella’s Choice
  5. H&M Pink Kitty
  6. Viva La Diva 17 
  7. Color Club Who are you wearing?
  8. Elf White
  9. Elf Mint
  10. Elf Innocent
  11. Elf Desert Haze
  12. Elf Smokey Brown
  13. Elf Lilac
  14. Orly Mirror Mirror
  15. Barry M Vivid Purple
  16. Essence Underwater
  17. Essence Rock n Roll
  18. Essence Rose
Hmmm... I think I see my next mani in this lot! As always, if there's any of these you'd like to see in more detail, please just holler!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Models Own Champagne


Today’s NOTD is Models Own Champagne, a gold foil. Now I don’t normally wear gold, I don’t think it goes with my skin tone, so it will be no surprise that this one was a present from my sister. But I popped this one for New Year’s eve mani and I was so surprised that it was lovely. Now, I’m probably wrong about this, but I think this is a cool based gold, whereas most golds are warm which is why I don’t like them on me. ( I’m never sure, if I get the cool/warm thing right, so please ignore the previous sentence if I’m talking twaddle! Up shot is that this is different to your usual gold!)
Let’s have some pictures, shall we. 
Up close and personal


and on the nail




and a little out of focus to see the shimmer,









The application on this was lovely, none of those usual brush strokes, you see in foils. The pictures show two coats. The wear one this was good for 4 days  and on the fifth day, 2 of my nails popped off (the polish that is and not my actual nails!) but it did withstand a whole day of cooking and all the hand washing and abuse that, that entails!

This isn't the only polish I got from my sister for Christmas, I got all of these!  She definitely knows what I like! 





Expect to see more of these in the coming weeks. My friend called over to my house on the day after Christmas looked at all of these sitting on the table and "oh, is this all your nail polish, no wonder your nails are a different colour every time I see you!", I sheepishly had to tell her these were only the Christmas new additions! 

Any of these you'd like to see?  Let me know and I'll add it to the list! 

  

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Wheely number 3

Welcome to another wheely Wednesday, after a weeks hiatus because I *may* have lost track of the days of the week last week! It was a bit hectic. Here goes enjoy!


  1. Viva La Diva 13
  2. Viva La Diva 14
  3. Viva La Diva 18
  4. Claire’s unknown
  5. Collection 2000 Wham
  6. China Glaze Dorothy Who
  7. China Glaze Emerald Sparkle
  8. Essence Go Wild
  9. Essence VIP Appeal
  10. Essence Ready for Action
  11. 17 Ruby Dazzle
  12. 17 Miami
  13. Elf Pearl Pink
  14. Elf Mango Madness
  15. Elf Rosy Raisin
  16. Ruby & Millie Yellow (?! This must be labelled wrong, surely!)
  17. Essence Jungle Drum
  18. Essence Back To Paradise
As always, if you'd like to see any of these in more detail, just holler! 




Monday, January 17, 2011

A round up of (some of) the Spring Collections

The Spring collections are on their way big stylee (did I really just say stylee?!) so I thought rather than post them as most people have already seen a lot of them already, I'd link to blogs which have posted them, with swatches rather than press releases, where possible.


China Glaze
 Have their nautical themed collection Anchors Away. My favourite swatches of this are here. This is availiable to order from the states already.


 Tronica, a collection of holographic polishes. This is a Sallys exclusive, due out in March/April, whether  it will be available in Sallys in Ireland, I'm not sure. China Glaze said on twitter it would be available in UK Sallys.  Swatches here


Also have a collection of crackle polishes coming out,  promo pics here. ( to the very best of my knowledge there are no swatches of this around yet!)


OPI


Have two collections starting to emerge at the moment, one with Katy Perry and one with Serena Williams. Both contain a black shatter (crackle ) polish. Swatches of these here.


Also have a Texas collection due out soon, swatches here.




Essie 
Their spring collection is called French Affair, info here.


Orly
Their spring collection is called Precious, info here.


I've only covered the main brands, there are obviously way more releases, but I had to stop somewhere. I tried to link to a variety of blogs, that I read often. Which ones do you love, hate and feel meh about? Is there any really obvious ones I've left out? Get thee to the comments and let me know!





Sunday, January 16, 2011

Model's Own Juicy Jules

In my last post, I mentioned that my little bro bought me Juicy Jules and Purple Mystique  for Christmas. He bought them with intention of me wearing them together, so I duly complied! 
First a close up in focus on top and out of focus on the bottom,




A holo glitter the boy done good! 


Now on the nails,


In focus first,






Lastly out of focus to show the holo-y goodness! 




The application of this was a little of a pain, it was a bit thick and if you went over the same bit of nail twice, you were likely to leave a bald patch, maybe a bit of thinner would help, but this is a common issue with glitters.  Since I wore this, I've swatched it on a nail wheel and *think* it might be wearable on it's own with two or three coats, as soon as I get a chance I'll try it.  


Have you tried this one with it's holo-y goodness? What do you think?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Models Own Purple Mystique

Today's NOTD is Models Own Purple Mystique. My baby brother bought me this one for Christmas along with another models own polish, Juicy Jules ( more about this tomorrow) and the best foot cream known to man (in my opinion!). I have the world most horrible feet, unfortunately inherited from my mother and Burt's Bees Peppermint foot lotion is the only thing that makes it possible for me to wear open toed shoes in Summer and not have people run away in fright!   My baby bro is only 13 and picked all these out himself, so I was well impressed!




The colour of Purple Mystique reminds me of the colour of the box of Cadbury's Milk Tray, a really lovely rich,  deep, purple.


Close up to see the shimmer 




And on the nails








The application of this was lovely, however the wear wasn't great I had the start of chips when I took these photos about 4 hours of I painted my nails. I don't remember doing anything detremential to my mani but I *guess* I could have done a lot of cleaning (although I  highly doubt it!) 

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Wheely number 2

In the second of the Wheely Wednesday series (well I posted the first one on a Thursday but think Wheely Wednesday sounds much better!) , here's what we have today! (Sorry about the massive time delay from first to second wheely post, you can find the first here if you are interested)



  1. Bourjois 9
  2. Essence Groovy
  3. Maybelline Red Comete
  4. Asos by Ciate Blake
  5. Nubar Violet Sparkle
  6. China Glaze Lubu Heels
  7. Orly Snowcone
  8. Model’s own Bubblegum
  9. Ruby & Millie Pink
  10. Barry M Raspberry
  11. 17 Smoke Signal
  12. 17 Sherbet Lemon
  13. Viva La Diva 15
  14. Rimmel Corralicious
  15. China Glaze Aqua Baby
  16. Models Own Purple Grey
  17. No7 Rose Truffle
  18. Elf Pink Passion
If there are any of these you'd like to see in more detail, just holler and I'll add them to the list! 

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

OPI Sparkle-icious

I hope you are all having a lovely start to the new year, and had a lovely polish filled Christmas! For the first post of the new year year I'll be extremely tardy and show you my Christmas mani, please excuse my tardiness my life just got completely on top of me (I won't bore ye with details!) and I couldn't find the time or enthusiasm to post, but I have been taking photos, so I have a whole load of posts upcoming.

Right on to the polish, today's polish is OPI Sparkle-isicous, which I thought was just the glitterbomb for Christmas. 


First up a close up shot, 



You can see that Sparkle-icous contains many different colours of glitter that maybe aren't so obvious on the nail picture.



Despite this being (the best) one of about 100 photos I took of this, I don't think this picture is doing this polish justice, this is a fab colour. 
Application was ok on this, I found it hard to stop bald spots appearing, as like many glitters it didn't like being painted over. The wear on this was good too, I wore it for a few days with no issues.




Sparkle-icious is part of OPI's Burlesque collection and I guess it should be in shops in Ireland around now (I'll try to get in to a OPI selling shop tomorrow to see) , I picked this up on the internet a few months ago.