Nailish ramblings

Sunday, March 27, 2011

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?

Monday, March 7, 2011

China Glaze Hey Doll

Today's NOTD is China Glaze's Hey Doll, from their autumn collection called Vintage. This definitely one I wouldn't pick for myself, so unsurprisingly this is one that I recieved from my sister for Christmas. The colour of this one is quite hard to describe, but it's a coppery colour with a bit of pink in it, like if you could get rose copper, in the same way you get rose gold. (This was the most descriptive way I could come up, I'm sure there's a much better way to describe this colour!) The polish is a foil finish. On to the pictures which can describe the colour much better than I.

The application of this was perfect, and none of those brush marks which are synomous with this type of finish. I ended up wearing this for nearly a week and the wear was perfect.

All in all, this one impressed me, when I first saw it I wasn't sure I'd like it, but it won me over in the end. The colour is quite work appriopriate and the application and wear are both good!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Essence Back to Paradise

Today's NOTD is Essence Back to Paradise, from their autumn collection return to paradise. I've had this one since August and can't believe I didn't get around to trying it before now. It's an amazing dark green jelly.

The application on this could of been better, the first coat was extremely sheer but by the time I got to the third coat, the colour was fine, if you weren't taking pictures of it, you might get away with two coats. The sheerness is mostly down to the jelly-esque nature of this polish, but my main issue was that the polish was thin so slightly hard to manage, after the first coat it was a little easier to manage. That said, I love this polish and slight application issue aside, it's a thumbs up from me! (Although, it bugs me a bit that the barcode is on the front of the cap! - that may be my slightly OCD tendencies coming to the fore!)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid

Today's NOTD is from a new nail polish brand called Cult Nails. Cult Nails is run by blogger Maria, who runs a blog called R3 daily, on her blog and twitter she talks about some the process of creating your own nail varnish brand like dealing with the lab. My Kind of Cool Aid is the first polish that she has released, she had 2 more planned (Iconic and Living Water) but actually ended up with an extra polish called Quench.

First before we even talk about the colour, let's talk about the packaging, Maria packs her polish with cotton wool balls instead of packing peanuts, as seen below.

Cotton wool balls are infinitely more usual for a nail varnish lover, than packing peanuts. Although, confession time - I can not stand the feel of cotton wool, it's my "nails on a blackboard". It sends a shiver down my spine, there aren't enough words to describe my dislike of cotton wool and I had to touch it to take the picture (see the things I do for a picture!!!) All that said, I still think the cotton wool balls are a great idea, and I will pass them to a good home with my sister or mother and make sure they are used.

My kind of Cool Aid is a gravender (grey-lavender) polish, it's a creme with a really hard to detect shimmer in it, but the shimmer is what gives it, it's unique qualities. The shimmer is easiest to see with the polish wet but I did my best to capture it below. So on to the pictures,

I had taken the bottle picture to show the shimmer but thought it was more noticeable on my thumb nail, so I left my thumb in the picture, click to make to larger as always.

Firstly, I love, love the colour and the way the hidden shimmer gives it an extra depth. Application was perfect the pictures show two coats and a coat of seche vite. ( I should add that the polish was really shiny and only needed the seche for it's drying abilities and not it's shiny ones) I unintentionally ended up wearing this for 6 days and the wear was just starting to show on the 6th day, so wear was really good too.

The polish retails for $10 on Cult Nails' website and I paid $8 postage for three polishes. The bottle looks roughly the same size as a models own bottle but holds 18 ml compared to models own 15ml. When I ordered My Kind of Cool Aid, there was an offer running if you pre-ordered the other two polishes you got Quench free. So I have the rest of the Cult Nails polishes on the way and will show them to you as soon as I get them.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Catrice Let's Talk about Barrie!

Today's NOTD is Catrice Let's Talk about Barrie! This is a raspberry jelly, the polish is very pigmented but has the squishy look of a jelly and after 3 coats there was still evidence of visible nail line (VNL)

On to the pictures

Like I said, this polish was very pigmented but needed 3 coats, the pictures show that maybe 4 coats would have been better. The formula was very runny, and I found it difficult to control and got cuticle flooding on my index and middle finger (which I now see is very evident in pictures, major apologies!) . The brush didn't seem as unwieldy as the one in catrice en vogue, it was much easier to control.

The colour and the jellyness of this polish definitely make up for the application issues I had, in my opinion. Although, one burning question still remains, who barrie is and why do we need to talk about him/her? On that note, if you haven't seen the Stupid Nail Polish Names blog, I send you off there post haste! Happy reading!

Friday, February 11, 2011

OPI Teasy Does It

Today's NOTD is OPI Teasy Does It, from the Burlesque collection. I picked this one up when the Burlesque collection first came out and I'm extremely sorry, I left it so long to try it out! There's nothing bad to say about this one! Application is perfect, the colour and finish are amazing and the wear is good too.

Right, some pictures of this beauty, mmm purpley goodness......
Up close (and personal)

and now on the nails.

I was stuck in an incredibly boring meeting, the morning after I applied this and I happily passed some of the time checking this out. (God, that makes me sound so vacuous! But sometimes having nice nail varnish to look down at, in boring meetings makes the time go a little bit quicker! )

Have you tried this one? What do think?

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Wheely number 5

Welcome to Wheely Wednesday! *sings tunelessly* It's just another wheely Wednesday.... Ooops sorry about that I've had Manic Monday stuck in my head since Monday (appropriately enough). On to the wheel, there's a couple of my favourites on this one, but I think I say that about them all!