Elf Smokey Brown V OPI IDKJ

Today a comparison between ELF Smokey Brown and  OPI You don’t know Jacques (YDKJ).  When I saw Smokey Brown it reminded me of YDKJ, so I pulled out the bottles and what do you know, there were very similar so first up a picture of the two bottles.

Looking at the bottle, you can see the ELF polish is a little lighter than YDKJ. Next up, on the nails. From L-R YDKJ, Smokey Brown, YDKJ and Smokey Brown.

Flash Picture

No Flash

Again Smokey Brown looks lighter on the nail, the ELF polish need three coats but the OPI was fine with two. For the sake of comparison I did three coats of each. There’s no top coat on these swatches. I don't own Particulare to compare the ELF polish too, but I do know that it is also lighter than YDKJ, so this might be a good bet to replace that, although I think that Particulare has been re-released. 

Elf Smokey Brown

Today’s NOTD is ELF Smokey Brown. Smokey Brown is one those browny-greyish taupes, that  are quite popular at the moment, like OPI You don’t know Jacques, Essie Mink Muffs and Chanel Particulière.

The first coat of this was quite sheer but by 3 coats if had built up to a good colour.  All of these pictures are one coat of CND Stickey, 3 coats of polish and one coat of Seche Vite.

First up a picture in artificial light, I always paint my nails at night time and take pictures there and then. I then try to get some daylight pictures, if I manage to get home in time from work and the day isn’t too overcast. I actually got some daylight photos of this one so these follow.  While I’m having a ramble, I should apologise for my cuticles, I recently switched to acetone based remover and think that this is the cause, so doing my best to make them better. 

So now for a flash picture,

And finally a picture with no flash. 

I really liked this polish, although it needed 3 coats. I can’t comment too much on the wear because I only wore it for a little over a day after I ruined it doing a pedi. The pedi (in Rimmel Coralicious, in case you were wondering!) was then ruined because I went to bed before my right big toe was dry! So all in all a waste of a ruined mani. 

China Glaze Grape Pop

I thought it was time to take a break from the ELF polishes, let me introduce China Glaze Grape Pop. ( I actually have already had a break and wore Orly Snowcone, but I must of deleted the photos because I can't find them anywhere. It's a lovely colour and I'll do a post on it soon!)  I think this polish is amazing, I’ve included a couple of photos for this one because it was hard to capture the beautiful colour.  This polish is from the China Glaze Up, Up and Away collection. 

This polish is extremely well pigmented, this is two coats over a coat of CND Stickey with a finishing  coat of Seche Vite. I think it may not have played all that well with the Seche though, I woke up with what looks like tipwear this morning, but I think is probably the infamous shrinkage, which you can see in the photos on my pointer and middle fingers. 

The last picture is the most colour accurate on my screen but like most purples its showing up a little blue. For some reason I like to wear purples it's a pity they are a pain to picture. I wore this for quite a while maybe 5 or 6 days and it got chippy in the end but it wore well.

Elf Lilac V OPI Parlez-Vous OPI

Wow, I have followers, welcome to my rambling world!  Today I have a comparison because the whole time I was wearing the ELF lilac polish I kept thinking it reminded me of another polish and all I could come up with was OPI Parlez-Vous OPI. I think it was the dustyness in the colour, but I was very wrong, but since I took the pictures I thought I'd show them anyway.

First up the two bottles

Now on the nails, from L-R Parlez- Vous OPI, Lilac, Parlez- Vous OPI, Lilac.

This picture is very colour accurate, given the purples are so hard to photograph, I only wish my hands weren't so lobster-ish! The formula on both of these is good, but the ELF brush is no where near as nice as the OPI pro-wide brush, which is one of my favs. That said the ELF brush isn't that bad at all.

ELF Lilac

First of the recent ELF haul is ELF Lilac. As the name says a lilac colour, I thought the colour was a little dusty. The colour was very light but the polish was quite pigmented after two coats there was very little VNL (visible nail line) but I went for 3 coats over one of CND Stickey and a coat of Seche Vite to finish it off. I took about  a hundred photos of this polish, to try my best to capture this.  So I'm going to show you two pictures and the true colour is probably in between.

The first photo show the lovely  lilac colour with a ( I think anyway) slight grey tinge.


The second picture gives lovely lobster hands but shows the nice jelly, squishy finish to the polish.

I didn’t love this colour, when I had it on but I think that was nothing to do with the polish itself, particularly since looking at the photos I'm dying to try it out again.  I wore this for about 4 days and there were no chips and minimal wear when I took it off, so no problems with wear.   I should probably point out here that I sit at a computer all day and try my best to avoid housework, so my polish tends to last week.   

Again this polish was 1.50 stg from the ELF website. Comments as always welcome. 

Elf Haul

Recently ELF (eyelipsface.co.uk) had a promo code, spend £10 get free delivery and 3 lipglosses. They’d recently had new nail colours released on the UK site, I don't believe they were new to the US site. So I put an order in, for five polishes and a brush.

First up the five polishes from L-R, Innocent, Desert Haze, Smokey Brown, Lilac and Mint cream.

As soon as I saw the polishes in real life, a couple looked familiar, so swatches and comparisons to follow!

Also I got the one of the studio brushes the powder brush. Although it’s called the powder brush I had read that its great for liquid foundation. I’ve only used it once and didn’t fare that well with it, but I’ll try it again. Also in the picture are the 3 glosses I received free. The two coloured ones are very similar and had no names when they arrived and a clear one, I haven’t used any of them yet. So, no comment on those.

The ELF polishes are £1.50 each, as are most items on there website. The studio range mostly is £3.50, as are items from the mineral range. (If you are in the states things are a little cheaper) Check out their facebook fan page they often have promotions.

Bottle pics of each of the polishes.

First up Innocent.

Desert Haze

Smokey Brown

Lilac



and finally Mint Cream

Have you tried any ELF polishes? How did you find them? As always I'd love to hear any comments!

NOTD Essence Rock n Roll

Another NOTD post, today is Essence Rock n Roll. I guess this is a silver foil but I'm open to correction on this. This was two coats I was really surprised at the lack of brush strokes on this one as I have a couple of polishes like this and they are very brush-strokey. (I'm not sure that's a word! )

Again the weather here is really bad so an indoor picture with a flash. Just looking at the picture it looks like I have a visible nail line on the middle finger but I didn't I think the picture must have been reflecting something.

This was two coats with a coat of Seche vite on top.

The second picture is a close up to show the sparkle in this.   I really really liked this polish and it was two euros so very good value.

My Stash

Today, I thought I'd post a few pictures of my small stash, so to start off here's a picture of most of my polish stash. I found a few more lying around the place after I took the pictures and I know my Mum and sister have a few too. I must make a spreadsheet because I have no idea how many polishes I have, I guess around 60.

Next up, The OPIs

The China Glazes.

The Orlys and Ruby&Millie.

Elf and No7

Essence

17

Collection 2000, Rimmel, Maybelline and H&M

Essie, Claires and mini OPIs from the Spanish collection

That's it for now. Have a great weekend!

Welcome to my blog and NOTD Collection 2000 BMX Bandit

Welcome to my first post!

I decided to start a blog after reading all the amazing nail blogs out there. My blog will be mostly nail polish related, hence the nailish and I ramble a lot, so I came up with the name nailish ramblings!

I'm currently studying for a PhD so spend a lot of my time writing at the computer and thought this might be a welcome distraction. I also hoped that putting NOTD pictures out here may improve my application! As I'm based in Ireland, I'll also post about some UK/European brands that I don't see swatched a lot online, which nicely brings me to my NOTD.

This is a collection 2000 polish called BMX bandit. It's a blurple cream polish. First up a picture with Flash (we haven't had sun in days so has to be indoor pictures I'm afraid)

Now, with no flash.

The no flash picture is a little more colour accurate, but in real life the colour is a little more purple but not much more. The application of this wasn't great, although when I got finished I realised I should have thinned it and maybe that would of helped. There's one coat of CND Stickey, two coats polish and one coat Seche vite. The polish was very pigmented and might have been a one coater if I had thought to thin it before hand. The wear on this polish was very good, in fact the pictures were taken on the fifth day because I'd lost the charger for my camera, and there is minimal tipwear and obvious regrowth at the cuticle.

All in all, a great little polish for around 3 euro.

I'd love to hear any comments, if anyone has any!