17 Nail Bar in a Bag (GWP)

I was in Boots over the weekend when I noticed this gift with purchase (GWP) and thought I'd do a quick post about it in case those of you near a Boots hadn't seen it. The gift is called Nail Bar in a bag and is free with 2 17 purchases. (I bought two nail varnishes which cost €3.99 each - although the shelf said they cost €4.59 each)

Once you open the very cute bag and open the pink tissue paper, you get  a pink leopard print nail file, some heart shaped nail stickers, Knockout Red (left) and Pink Grapefruit (right). 

So, if you have a boots near by rush out and get one before they're all gone! I'll probably try out the polishes in the next few days along with the other 2 I bought (Woo Me and Catwalk Couture) if there's one you'd like to see in particular, let me know and I can do that first! 

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)

The one in which I apologise and make a confession …..

Ok, so I know I've been more than a little MIA lately, and for that I’d like to apologise, every time I think I have the back of my work broken I seem to get more to add to the pile. I keep saying to everyone, family friends, people who want me to do work for them, “Another couple of weeks and I’ll have a life, I just need to get X, Y &Z out the way and then it will quiet down”. The reality is that hasn't happen but is going to have to, because I can’t keep working this much or I’ll collapse. I’m not leaving work till 9 pm most days and then trying to do more work at home and I can’t remember the last time I had a day off.  

So apology out of the way it’s confession time, and the two are related (and this is where I should have but in an uber cute picture to distract you but I didn't!).  I have painted my nails once in the last month (so that explains the lack of posts then!! ) I’m just so shattered by the time I get a chance to paint them that I can’t bring myself to do it!  Although I have still been buying polish, so once I get back to being able to muster some energy to paint my nails, I have loads to show you.  In the meantime, I’m having a stern word with myself and teaching myself how to say no! 


In the meantime if there is anything you'd like to see drop me a comment and I'll add it to the list! 

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?