Elf Mint Cream

Next up another ELF polish, this time ELF Mint Cream. So, I really am not feeling this polish, I love the idea of mint green nail varnish, but it gives me lobster hands! Although I do like this version better than the Essie alternative Mint Candy Apple, comparison pictures below.

Ok so now for some pictures of the lobster hands, I’m not sure what to be more apologetic over the lobster hands or the terrible application that I wasn’t aware of until I saw the photos. You’ve been warned!

The application was actually better than some pastel colours, which tend to be streaky. The first coat was horribly streaky, but it evened out on the second and third coats. The only complaint would be the couple of stray long hairs on the brush of the polish which contributed to the horrible application.

I wore Mint Cream for 3 days before I took it off, there were no chips and no obvious tip wear. Mint Cream was £1.50 from the Elf website.

I then did a comparison between Mint Cream and Essie Mint Candy Apple, the application of both was very similar. The first coat of both was a streak-fest and I felt that the ELF polish actually applied slightly better.

From L-R, Essie MCA, Mint Cream, MCA, Mint Cream.

I so smudged my baby finger, for some reason my pinkie always squishes into the finger beside it! Personally, I prefer the ELF polish to the Essie, what do you think?

Cult Nails Cruisin Nude

Today's NOTD is Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude. When I first applied Cruising Nude, I loved it, a nude creme with pink shimmer what's not to love. The colour kinds of reminds me of rosegold. The pink shimmer is pretty noticeable, if not obvious and makes this polish stand out from all the other nude polishes out there. 

Click to see the shimmer! 

 The application was really good, the polish maybe a little too thin but no issues with it. The pictures show three coats and I really think it need the third coat to eliminate visible nail line, but you could get away with two.   In the cold light of day, however, the colour just does not love my skin tone, I think it needs to be a smidgen lighter or darker. It seems in artifical light, it looks better on me but unfortunately in sunlight I mean daylight (there is no sunshine here!)  it kind of gives me dead hands. So I think this one to put away until summer, if that ever happens,when maybe my hands will be a little more tanned. But if you are darker or paler than me, it should work for you.    



Do you have any polishes which you love  but they just don't love you back?


Cult Nails polishes contain 15ml, cost $10 and are available from the Cult Nails website, www.cultnails.com.

Angelica Sapphire

Angelica is a relatively new to me brand of polish I first started hearing of it last summer and my little sister bought me some for my birthday in August, so they've definitely been around that long. I only remember seeing mentions to this brand on Irish blogs and a quick google shows the same, although they have a co.uk website with a UK address but sem to only reference stockists in Ireland.  So it looks like if you live outside Ireland you're not going to be able to get you hands on this brand.  In Ireland, this was first stocked in Penneys (the Irish version of Primark) but I've recently started to see it pop up in chemists too.  


The bottles are very like the old H&M bottles except the cap is white not black and contains 10 ml. They retail for €2.75 and there's a pretty wide range for a new brand, there are crackles, glitters, glitters which glow under UV light and I think they are called Jewel polishes, like today's polish.  Angelica are not 3 free, the first ingredient on the list is Toulene and Formaldehyde shows up on the list too, as does camphor, it's not as smelly as I thought it might be though.

Sapphire is dark royal blue polish with silver micro glitter ( only visible in the bottle not on the nail)  and  there seems to be a purple shimmer in the bottle.   The purple shimmer reminds me of OPI Russian Navy, in that it's visible in the bottle but not when applied, and this polish is like a not so dark and more royal blue version of Russian Navy.  On the nail, it has that lovely lit from within look to  it. 

Photo with flash. 

Natural light - No bottle because my mother took one look at it on my nails and demanded to borrow it -  she hasn't returned it yet!

In application, I found the polish a bit gloopy it could probably could have done with a couple of drops of thinner. The brush wasn't as stiff as I would of liked and  it didn't fan on the nail, but application was pretty easy. The wear was quite good on this, I took it off after about 5 days due to tipwear.


Have you tried Angelica polishes or is the fact they are not 3-Free off putting to you?

Catrice Run Forest Run - St Patrick's Day Mani

Having to find a chemist over Christmas to get a prescription filled for the Granny, led me to a chemist I don't normally go to (and totally out of my way) and when in there I spied a Catrice stand, finally! I was in a hurry that day and kind of forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago, when I was walking by with little bro and little sis on the way back from the bro's birthday brunch - Ok, I totally engineered the walk by with the sister when the brother was in the loo.  He wasn't best pleased when he realised what we did and wanted out pretty pronto, but we got a bit of look and when I saw this one, I knew  I had to have it for the name alone, even better it was half price and better again I had no cash on me, so little sis bought it for me!(Thank you lovely!)  

After that long spiel, today's NOTD is Catrice Run Forest Run, and this ended up being my St Patrick's day mani.  I shall spare you my thoughts on Forest Gump, which is one of my faves - but I totally love the name of this polish! Unsuprisingly, Run Forest Run, is a forest green creme polish. 

Natural Light ( That's not a chip on my pointer, it's light reflecting. )

Flash Picture 

The first coat of this was patchy and uneven, but the second coat evened everything out. I used Cult Nails base and top coat with this (more on this at a later date - also when the bottles were sitting on the table I noticed the bottles are the same).  So far we have an amazing names, great colour and ok application, unfortunately wear wasn't great.  On the second day of wearing, I spent more time than usual in the kitchen and got major chippage on my right hand and shortly after the polish on one nail popped off.  I'm not sure if this is to do with the polish or maybe Catrice doesn't want to play nice with Cult Nails - even though they are bottle twins. I've heard of polish popping off but it has never happened to me before, which is why I'm wondering if it's a topcoat/basecoat not playing well with the polish issue. 

Essence Applause Applause - The glitter

We saw the creme side of Applause Applause yesterday, so now for the  second side of Applause Applause which is a red glitter in a clear base.  Now I imagine you are all yawning in the background, because there's loads of red glitters out there but this one is pretty unique, it's got your regular red glitter and also red square glitter. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another polish like it, there probably is one, though!

Picture with flash.

Natural light

Nail wheel shows from L-R, two coats of the creme, two coats of creme with one of glittter, one coat of glitter, two coats of glitter and 3 coats of glitter. (Click on the picture to make it bigger and see the two different types of glitter )

Again no issues with application or wear, other than the fact I couldn't open the other side of the polish with wet nails.  I'm dying to try the glitter side over black I think it will be gorgeous.   I paid €3.99 for this which is a pretty good bargain for 2 polishes! This came in two other colour combos,  pink glitter/ pink creme and gold glitter/ black creme, but I didn't feel the need to buy either of those.




Have you tried any of the Circus Circus polishes, should I have picked up one of the other 2? Are we liking the whole 2-1 design?

Essence Applause Applause - The creme

Today's NOTD is Essence Applause Applause, this is from the Circus Circus collection. It's two-sided polish with a red creme on one side and a red glitter in the other. I bought this polish before Christmas, but Circus Circus is still the collection on both my local Essence stands, one in Penneys and one in a local Chemist (which usually updates first).

 I'm going to talk about the glitter tomorrow because I couldn't open that side, when my nails were wet!  Essence call this a colour ³ polish ( 3 colour I can understand but I could rant about this but I won't)  and suggest that you can either wear each polish alone or combine them to create a unique polish. 

The polish is beautifully pigmented and was fully opaque in one coat but the pictures show two coats. I thought the application might be a bit difficult with the double ended bottle but once you got a good hold on the bottle it was fine. I wore this for two days before adding the glitter side and the wear was fine (I realise that it looks like there is tipwear in the photo but I think I had some shrinkage from my topcoat).  All in all, a very nice, highly pigmented, red creme with no application issues.  

Revlon Rock

For Christmas, I got 2 lovely Revlon polishes from little sis and bro, called Rock and Star.   Rock is a purple cream and Star is a topcoat with silver and blue micro glitter and holographic hex glitter.  They picked these up in TK Maxx and I hadn't heard of them before, so a little google showed them up on some blogs in Summer 2010, possibly a US only release?.


Today I'll talk about Rock and update on Star tomorrow.  Rock is perfection in a polish, it applies very easily. The pictures show two coats. My camera didn't want to pick up the purple goodness of this polish but these pictures are pretty colour accurate. The bottom picture is maybe a bit dark but it shows the dustiness in the colour of the polish.

Application was fine, the polish was very pigmented and the pictures show 2 coats with a coat of seche vite on top. Also the wear was good on this. I'm really starting to like Revlon polishes and they weren't really on my radar before Facets of Fuchsia.  

Have you tried this polish? Are there any other Revlon polishes I need to check out?

H&M Miss Stone Heart

Today I have for you a H&M polish called Miss Stone Heart, I totes love this name and it's a medium grey kinda stoney coloured creme polish with a hint of lavender. It's a little more grey and dark than China Glaze Agent Lavender, and a little bit darker and more lavender than Orly Mirror Mirror.  

Application is good on this, if a little streaky and it dries a bit matte so you definitely need a top coat with this.  I don't love this new H&M bottle (I'm sure I've said this before!), the large cap is awkward to hold when painting the nails and it never closes flush with the bottle (just like the ELF bottles, which drives me a little bit crazy!)  At time of writing, I've been wearing this polish for 4 days and wear is fine, I'm starting to get a little tip wear but that's about it. 

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

Today's NOTD is Revlon Facets of Fuchsia, a dark purple glitter polish with microglitter and larger hexagonal glitter in an almost black jelly base.  I have to say I picked this up about 4 different times before I bought it, I'd seen the pictures everywhere, I knew that it was dupish to Deborah Lippman Bad Romance (There's a comparison here on Bright Lights Big Color, the base colour of Bad Romance is slightly darker) and everyone loved it but I wasn't sure I even liked it.  Finally, it ended up following me home from Boots one day and I thought I better try it, well consider me surprised, I loved it.  In fact it reminded me of one of my favourite polishes of the last year, China Glaze Mummy May I, except this contains additional hexagonal glitter.

The glitter gives the polish a lit from within type of finish and mean it catches the light all the time but it's still subtle enough for work. The pictures show 2 coats with a coat of seche vite on top, the seche vite more or less removed the glitter bumpiness from the finish but you might need two coats if you wished to eliminate it completely. After the first day of wear I had two tiny chips on the tip of my baby finger and index fingers but the never got any worse and weren't joined my any friends in the five days I wore this polish. 


When I bough this it was on special offer it Boots for €6 but I think the usual price is nearer €8, but this gets a giant thumbs up from me, go get it! 


Edited to add: Dollyrouge's comment below reminded me, I forgot to mention removal. It was a giant PITA! It seriously was the hardest polish I've ever found to remove, I have a small bit of L'onglex with acetone remover left (which I can't find anywhere to buy a replacement) and I save it for hard jobs like this and normally it removes glitter polish with ease. Not this one, it was glued on!  


Have you tried this? What do you think?

Essence Choose Me

Today's NOTD is Essence Choose Me. This is a beautiful Blue-y green duochrome glitter polish that reminds me of the sea. It flashes from blue as shown in the below photo, to a sea green (which I couldn't capture at all!) . It's very much in the same vein as Zoya Charla, OPI Catch Me in Your Net and Orly Hayley's Comet, while I don't have those other polishes I believe this a dupe for them.  

And really close up

Application of this was perfect, although I always this the brush is a little stubby on the these colour and go polishes, but it's perfectly fine to work with and it's just me nitpicking, for less than €2  I can live with it!  The pictures show 2 coats topped with a coat of seche vite. Wear was good I got  about 5 days out of this before minor chippage started appearing. 


I have to say this was a grower on me, I loved it in the bottle and was slightly dissapointed when I first put this on first but the more I wore it, the more I loved it particularly the duochromeness of it! 


Have you tried this or one of it's many dupes? What did you think? 

H&M Moody Model

Today's NOTD is H&M Moody Model, a lovely deep teal cream.  I picked this up in Spain for €3.99 and if memory serves me right they are €4.50 here in Ireland. ( I live nowhere near a H&M). I picked another H&M polish and a few more things, in Spain, which I'll show you in the next couple of days.

This has amazing application,  the polish applies really well it's not too thin or too thick and it's very pigmented, pictures show two coats with seche vite on top, if I did the coats a little thicker it might have been a one coater. This is one of the new bottles and the new cap isn't great, because it's so big but I found holding it sideways made it easier to apply the polish, and as soon as you have worked out a way to hold it, it becomes less of an issue.

17 Lemon Soda

Today's NOTD is 17 Lemon Soda, a yellow pastel cream from Boots cheap, cheerful and on trend brand 17. I picked this up ages ago but it was still on their website when I checked, so I think it's still available.  The picture below was taken with the flash but it is pretty colour accurate (I did take pictures in natural light but my cuticles were so horrible I couldn't possibly bring myself to show you!!!) 

Application wise - This wasn't great but it also was not as bad it as I thought it was going to be. Pastels are historically tricky to apply, as are yellows, so let's face it, it was never going to be easy! The pictures show 3 coats and most of the issues were evened out by then, the coat of Seche Vite on top didn't hurt matters either!  This wore well and I think I got about 5 days wear out of it before there was chippage (Surely this is a word?! If not it should be!). 


I know yellows are a bit of a marmite issue with people so what do you think?  I think this was one of the nicer yellows out there. Are there any other yellows you'd suggest?

17 Catwalk Couture

Today's NOTD is 17 Catwalk Couture, a turquoise polish with a hidden shimmer. Well, the shimmer was visible on the outside of the bottle but  I couldn't spy it in the polish when applying nor when I was wearing it, so I guess imperceptible shimmer is the right description here. I picked this up as one of polishes I bought when I got the 17 Nail Bar in a Bag  The bottle contains 15? ml and despite it saying on the shelf €4.59 it scanned through at €3.99 (as did the other polish I bought). Let's see what it looks like,  shall we?

I took pictures of this in all types of light - all combinations of  natural, artificial, flash and  no flash and this was the most colour accurate, but it's still a bit paler than it was in real life.
Application of this was perfect - no issues at all. Everytime I use a 17 polish, I think I don't like the brush but actually I think its the stubbyness of the handle I don't like, the brush it quite large and fans well so can paint a nail with one stroke. The wear wasn't great on this, on the second day I got chips on 2 fingers. I happened to be wearing  H&M Turquise Kitty on my toes at the same time and the colour is very similar but the shimmer is more evident, looking back at that post, I found that, that polish chipped quickly too! 

Barry M Dusty Mauve

Today's post is Barry M's Dusty Mauve, which is one of the many dupe for Chanel Paradoxal. The polish is a smokey purple colour with purple shimmer running through it, as seen in this close up of the bottle. 

I expected to love this as I loved it in the bottle, I loved swatches I saw on other blogs  and the base colour of the polish is very similar to Models Own Purple Grey, which I loved, but actually I wasn't a fan, the only reason I can come up with is that I felt that it pulled quite brown on me a lot of the time - I guess this is something to do with my skin tone.  The application was great. The wear was really disappointing on this I had a chip on one nail the first day, quickly followed by a lot of tipwear and a lot more chips.   So, for once with a Barry M polish,  colour me not impressed!

China Glaze Broken Hearted

I couldn't bear to take of the Accessorize polish in the last post, but I still fancied a change, so I went pursuing through my stash to find something to put over it. I toyed with matte topcoat or flakies a la Rainbow/2010/Hidden Treasure, before settling on crackle, pink crackle.

I thought I was over crackle but hadn't used this yet so thought it was due a use before I completely made up my mind. I really wasn't feeling this at first but so many people complimented me on my nails and were asking how I did it, that I started to think I'm not bored of crackles but I am jaded of the fact that every company either has them out or is about to release them, so I keep seeing press releases, etc. 


I actually found the application of this far from perfect, the formula was weird a bit thin and thick all at the same time, but it cracked well, so it's not too bad. I'm wearing if for just over 24 hours as I type and there is a slight bit of tipwear but I have been wearing the base polish for 3 days so it might be due to that.


What do you think are you over crackles or just fed up of every company jumping on the band wagon?

Accessorize Electric Blue

Now, don't pass out from shock but I've a nail post for you and hopefully many more to follow! I've finally got lots of the major work stuff out of the way so can go back to working normal hours, so should be able to post more often (in fact you may soon be wondering " Does that one ever shut up!" ) Today, I have an Accessorize polish from Superdrug called Electric Blue. I picked this up in England when I was there for work about 6 weeks ago, to the very best of my knowledge, Superdrug in Ireland does not stock this brand. The polish is a royal blue jelly base with blue and purple glitter. First up some bottle pictures, in real life it's definitely easier to see the purple in the bottle than on the nails. But I can not get the purple to show in it's own right in the pictures, it is showing in the fact the blue colour is much richer, if that makes sense.

And now on the nails, 

Application-wise, the first coat was a little sheer and I thought it was going to need a lot of coats, but a 2nd coat did it. The pictures show 3 coats, the minute I saw the pictures I knew it would need a third coat but the naked eye two is probably sufficient. For a glitter it has a very smooth finish, however I still popped a coat of seche vite on top. The bottle holds 10ml and the lid is very big, which makes the brush a little short, it's a little difficult to manover the brush and control the polish but it's not too bad.  I think I paid £4 for this. 


Have you tried any Accessorize polishes? What did you think?  I picked up a few of these so expect them to show up soon!  I'm going to try and get some more photos of this to see if I can capture the purple glitter any better, I'll add them in the next couple of days if I can. 


Just before posting, I checked the Accessorize website and it seems you can order the polishes and all the makeup online, the delivery cost is £7.95, to Ireland (and most of Europe)

Color Club Revvvolution

Today's post is Color Club Revvvolution, a charcoal grey holographic polish. This one is totally, totally, love! The holo is amazing and the for the very odd lightening situation that the holo doesn't show up the base colour is still nice. I've included a good few photos to show the varying degrees of holo goodness, you see when wearing this. (I have no idea what is on the side of my pointer finger, either remnants of the last polish I was wearing or pen, that I didn't wash totally off  - I manage to come home from work with pen or whiteboard marker over my hands most day - and the lovely macro setting that makes polish look nice also picks up things that aren't visible to the naked eye, so apologies!) 

The pictures show two coats and the application was perfect. The wear on this was good too, I think I got about 5 days out of it. I have nothing bad to say about this one, but a little bit of a caveat. I bought this on Transdesign before Christmas, but I have also heard of a not so holo version going around, I'm pretty sure this is the good version. So buy online with caution. I believe Color Club were aware of the dud version and were looking into the problem.


Have you tried Revvvolution? Any other suggestions like it?


What do 

Essence Black Out

A couple of weeks ago, I realised I that in my collection of around 170 polishes, I didn't own a black polish, a shocking omission really (like, how was I ever going to let my inner rock chic out?!). I was in boots and bought what the nice lady assured me was a black no 7 polish (it was sitting on the counter beside the till and I had a voucher for no 7)  but, alas,  when I got it home realised it was just a really dark purple polish but more on that another time. So the search continued, I wandered in to a local pharmacy and found an Essence limited collection called Black and White, and perhaps unsurprisingly there was a black polish in the collection, so I promptly purchased. Black Out is a black polish with what essence call a "soft touch finish", the finish looks kind of  like plastic as seen in the photos below,

The application is ok, you have to be a bit careful to make it even, as it doesn't have great self-levelling properties and the polish is a bit thick. The soft-effect finish means it isn't as harsh as just black polish. The more you wear the polish, the shinier it becomes from hand washing and hand cream applying. While the finish changes over time, the polish does have good wear, I've no worn it twice and got 4 days before it chipped and in fact the polish chipped before I got tipwear.


I think that this a good dupe for Illamasqua Scorn, which matches their nail quills. (more info from Scrangie here), but I haven't seen Scorn in real life, so I'm just going by photos.


What do you think of this finish, it's not quite matt and not quite cream?

Cult Nails Iconic with China Glaze Cracked Concrete

Happy easter lovelies hope you are all having a lovely chocolate filled day! 


I loved Cult Nails Iconic I had to wear it again, but I decided to go for a little twist. I had also ordered some of the China Glaze Crackle polishes (except for the black, since I already had the Barry M black, and White because it reminded me a bit of tippex!). So I put the grey China Glaze, called Cracked Concrete over Iconic.  I think this is a fab combo, so on to the pictures and you can see what you think! 

Like always, you can click the pictures to see them bigger. The lovely glow in Iconic peeps out through the crackle and it is really lovely. The wear of this combo was really good, I think that I wore it for nearly a week with only the minimum of tipwear. 


When I went to order the China Glaze crackles, they were sold out on Transdesign where I normally order my polishes from, so I ordered them from Head 2 Toe Beauty instead. The arrived very quickly and I had no issues with the order. 

Cult Nails Iconic

Before we get to the lovely polish, I just wanted to apologise for being a bit random with my posting at moment, work is taking up the majority of my time at the moment, I'm quite behind with that too and things are getting done by deadline rather than importance, which I hate!  Things will hopefully calm down for me in early to mid April, hopefully, you can stick with my sporadic posting schedule until then! 

Today's NOTD is Cult Nails Iconic, when I saw the original pictures I thought this was the Cult Nails Polish I'd like the least, but in fact it's my favourite.  This  a raspberry polish (jelly I think - I should have written that down sorry) with flakies á la Gosh Rainbow/Nubar 2010/ Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure etc etc. 


Pictures below taken, in sunlight, or what passes for sunlight around here!

I think that these pictures are pretty colour accurate, but I'll caveat that with, when this arrived it looked nothing like I expected it to based on the pictures I had seen. I'm not sure it's loveliness transfers into the photos I've seen. The wear was good on this too, I wore this for 5 days before I started seeing a little amount of tipwear. The application was perfect too, as they say, it went on like butter.  I think this is my favourite of the 4 Cult Nails Colours, at the moment anyway! 

What do think, have you tried this or any other of the Cult Nails polishes?