Christmas Nails

Inspired by a search on Google I fancied this design for Christmas. I know candy canes are more an American thing but I bought some striping varnishes and I hadn't tried them out yet.

So for this manicure I used Sally Hansons Complete Salon Manicure in 'Gilded Lily' which is the Gold topped with extra Sparkle using Claire's 'Oscar Winning' glitter polish.

The red is deborah lippmann in 'Run, Run Rudolph' and the stripes were LM's No.58 Nail Art Pen and Brush. The green in Color Club's '899 Untamed Luxury'. I mixed this manicure up on the other hand and put the glitter over the green and red.

Deborah Lippmann - is she a real person?

Bloggers talk about Deborah Lippmann polishes and again I've been watching these on eBay with eagle eyes. I started to notice more turning up on eBay and just as I considered buying one, low and behold I stumbled across some in TK Maxx.

This is probably why they are turning up on eBay at a lower than normal price! I picked up six, yes six polishes for the princely sum of £20. Not bad when you consider these usually retail at about £15 each!

So a little bit about these polishes, yes Deborah Lippmann IS a real person, unlike Sally Hansen. She names her polishes after popular songs and has had a few albums out herself. The polish above is called 'Glitter in the Air' which I think is a Pink song, correct me if I'm wrong! I'd been wearing her 'Wicked Game' polish earlier in the week...

So far I've been disappointed with both polishes, they are both very sheer. I've since learnt with above polish you need to layer it over another polish for the best effect. The above is four coats and you can still see my nail line. I'll have another attempt at this and report back. P.S I still have Essie's Stoke of Brilliance on my left hand thumb, I'm too much of a wuss to attempt removal, might have to be the whole thumb!

OPI Ink and Essie Stroke of Brilliance

In my OPI deal from Nail Polish Direct I picked up OPI's Ink a polish that's been on my want list for a wee while now. But seriously how many purple polishes does one person need?

Anyway, this isn't just any purple as it appears blue in bright light, I'm leaning more towards polishes that are Holographic or change colour at the moment. I don't think I blogged about it, but my latest favourite is OPI's Peace and Love and OPI, an amazing polish that looks so many different colours in different lights.

Anyway back to this manicure, I've added some sparkle using Essie's 'Stroke Of Brilliance' from their Luxeffect collection. It's a Blue Glitter and my thumb here shows three coats (God Only knows how I'm going to get this off). I took the more sensible method and layered it over OPI's Ink on on the ring finger on my right hand.

The Essie varnish is there to stay, and you'll need to be quick and put your quick drying top coat of choice over as soon as you can when the last layer is painted or this polish isn't going to dry anytime soon. The OPI Ink chipped quite quickly though, don't know if that was due to the dark colour and it was more noticeable, or if it was because I'd done too much cleaning this week. 

Anyway love them both!

Liquid Sand

I've been hankering after a textured polish for a while and I've heard that OPI's Liquid Sand is the best around. Having watched several bottles of not exactly the right colour or price on eBay, Nail Polish Direct had an offer on. Buy four OPI polishes and get one free, and at £6.95 to start with that makes each polish £5.95. 

So I had to partake and include a Liquid Sand in with the deal, this one is 'Get Your Number' possibly from the Mariah Carey collection. A lovely blue colour with multi coloured glitter. The above pic is two coats and wasn't sure if I'd need a Top Coat or whether it would ruin the effect, so left it as it was.

Pretty good wear, a few chips which I covered up on day two. Overall very happy with it, especially as it had glitter, I don't think I'd be as happy with it if it didn't have sparkle.

If you're a nail polish addict like me, you need to check out Nail Polish Direct, their OPI polishes are seriously hard to beat on price and I've had some very good customer service. They have a great line in China Glaze and Essie too although their Orly line is somewhat lacking and Zoya still seems expensive. They do have the latest collections however and often do deals which you can find out about on the Nail Polish Direct FaceBook Page, so a serious site to favourite!

Children In Need Nails

On Friday there was lots of activities going on at work to raise money for Children In Need. Some of these included wearing spots, guessing the bears name and bringing in your own bear.

This was my contribution to Show your spots and let's raise lots. I thought trying to paint Pudsey was going to be too difficult so this is my attempt. Inspired by this post on Pinterest by Lick My Lacquer. 

I was going to take my paints and polish in to work and offer to do peoples nails for donations, however this manicure took ages. The Barry M polish in Yellow took three coats to get it to this consistency and application was awful.

However worth the time and lots of people complimented me on my nails, will do charity ones in future and look for quick drying quick application polishes.

My first Orly

Went to visit friends down South last weekend and had to go and visit a store called Bond Link. My friend had been telling me about this place for a while, that it was like Sally's and sold OPI and other nail varnish, along with all sorts of other beauty gubbins.

So I asked if we could go and visit and aswell as OPI they had a rack full of Orly. I don't own any Orly polishes but many Bloggers rave about the make and aside the price of OPI it's much cheaper at £6.95. There were a couple of colours I fancied but I opted for this one, it's called 'Oui' and I think it's holographic.

In some lights it looks a lovely purple and as you can see in this picture it has a lovely gold dimension to it. In other lights it looks brown or burgandy. Formula is great, went on lovely and opaque in two coats. I've been wearing for three days now with no chips and only minimal tip wear. I'm going to seek out more of this brand, very, very happy with my new polish and perfect for Christmas.

Halloween Shatter

Most pound shops are selling OPI Shatter Nail Varnishes at a fantastic 99p at the moment, and I'm taking full advantage of this. Especially as it creates such a creepy affect for Halloween.

This Black Shatter is layered over Color Club's 'Orange Attack' and topped off with Seche Vite. I have yet to try the rest for the Shatter's I purchased but you need to go and grab yourself some as most as a lot of people are selling them on eBay at the moment.

Colours you can pick up are Black, Shatter the Scales (A deep green shimmer), Super Bass (Purple), Navy, Silver, Gold, Pink and Red. I have seen some people selling a light blue shimmer shatter too, but I've not seen it in the shops. Last week I went to the Potteries shopping center in Hanley and the Pound Store there, also had a few Sinful Colors and Maybelline polishes too, so keep your eye out. 

Shatter the Scales

Another purchase from Poundland, this time a green glittery Shatter polish by OPI in the colour 'Shatter the Scales'. 

I noticed that eBay now has a flood of these Shatter Glitters from OPI being sold, so it looks like stocks may be low in any stores now.

Any-hoo I layered this lovely Green Shatter over Sally Hansens complete manicure polish called 'Dorien Grey' and overall very happy with the results. Think for Christmas this would be very festive layered over a red polish.

OPI Shatter Polishes at £1

So then, good news my nail polish lovers! I heard on the inter-tubes a rumour that PoundLand shops were selling OPI polishes. Note to self don't ask the shop assistant how much anything is...

Anyway, I checked out my local Poundland, or maybe it was PoundStretcher and no joy, but yesterday when shopping for halloween type cake decoration in the next town I popped in to the Poundland there and I FOUND some. I picked up a Black Shatter (pictured above) and a Green glitter shatter called "Shatter the Scales". They had a silver, gold and a brown/purple one too. But as I'm supposed to be on a 'NO BUY' I contented myself with just the two and picked up a couple more for chrimbo presents. But if you want to try a Shatter and you love OPI get yourself down Poundland, just don't ask how much!

OPI Berlin There Done That

So since picking up my first OPI at Duty Free on the way back from Budapest, I always make sure I have a peak in duty free when ever coming back from hol's. My recent travels have taken me to Berlin where I went to run the marathon, and on the way back I was sure to take a look at the OPI stand.

There are three or four OPI polishes I'd really like to pick up and they had a few of these at the Berlin Airport, OPI 'Ink', 'My Private Jet' and most of the new San Francisco range. However I resisted the temptation, not only as they were $12 each but I'd ordered a few more OPI polishes from the Euro Central range before I went away.

But one remaining polish I was after is 'You don't know Jacques'. So whilst looking around the Internet to pick it up at a good price, I came across OPI's Germany collection. Amongst this collection stood out the above polish called 'Berlin There Done That' which I thought very similar in shade and colour (On reflection You don't know Jacques is much darker). So I had to grab it at a very reasonable price of £7.95 with free P&P from diamondskh on eBay. 

Great polish as always from OPI and a great colour for autumn and for work. I finished the manicure off with GOSH's 'Galaxy' polish on the accent nail for a bit of sparkle. 

China Glaze Fairy Dust

After covering myself with China Glaze's 'Howl you doin' the other week I fancied a bit of sparkle. So I thought I'd try out my newly purchased 'Fairy Dust' by China Glaze. 

I thought this was a discontinued polish, but I think it is still available in the brands main range. It's a great micro-glitter polish that can add a dash of sparkle to any manicure.

Here I've used it as a topcoat over Sally Hansen's 'Thinking of Blue'. I really like the complete salon range from Sally Hansen and have bought 7 of these polishes now from eBay. Along with the above I've also bought 'Midnight an NY' which is a gorgeous black creme with tiny micro multicolored sparkles. I've not tried this polish on yet and not sure of the sparkle is going to translate on the nail, but we'll see.

The 'Fairy Dust' however does deliver! You can layer this up for more sparkle, but I think one coat is enough especially as you want to see the base colour show through. Looks great and the sparkles catch the light whether inside or out, almost giving a galaxy effect. Perfect to brighten up any manicure.

GOSH

In pursuit to find the perfect nail varnish brand my latest trial and testing has led me to this brand called GOSH. I watched a great Nail Polish Swap video on YouTube from one of my favourite Vloggers Lindsey does nails and she received one of these polishes in the colour 'Galaxy'. I managed to pick this up in my local Superdrug for £3.99 and they were selling these polishes 'buy one, get one half price'. So I bought this colour too called 'Mysterious Mauve' I love the bottle top and also this is a Special Edition polish too.

I don't know anything about this make-up brand or purchased any of their products before. The polish is great, especially for the price, and this manicure has lasted me about a week. Again you can see some tip wear here, but I think this may have been related to shrinkage using Seche Vite top coat.

I used the 99p Clare's polish I picked up the other week on my ring finger, I think it's called 'Gun Metal'. I'd recommend GOSH polish, especially if bought on the Superdrug deal. They don't seem to have a wide range of colours in any of the shops I've seen it stocked in, however there are more colours to choose from online at Superdrug. 

One bottle too many...

I've been a bit greedy this month and ordered a fair amount of polish. Including most bottles from China Glaze's 2013 Halloween collection, Monster Ball. I had to order from eBay and Nail Polish Direct to get the polishes that I wanted and the above happened in the first parcel that arrived.

This is what was left of the 'Howl you Doin' polish which seems to have snapped at the neck although well packaged. I don't know how this has happened and I could smell the polish even before I opened the parcel. That's not the half of it either, I got it all over my hands, it was all over the other bottles and all over my current manicure. Having said that and my nails were a bit of a mess, including swatches of cotton, the polish is gorgeous and probably my favourite out of the ones that arrived.

I seriously think I have a problem because this parcel arrived this morning and I had to open it before going to work. This made me late due to the mess and clean up operation that needed to be completed before I could go anywhere.

To note, along with order I also acquired China Glaze's 'Fairy Dust' which bloggers refer to quite a bit. I'm not sure if it is discontinued but I got it at a great price on eBay and will post soon when tried out.

Leather Look Varnish

I have a thing for this colour at the moment and was keen to try a leather look varnish to see what it looked like.

Excuse the chips, I have been wearing this colour since Sunday last week and it's lasted incredibly well considering I used no top coat.

This Burgundy varnish is from Claire's and has a textured finish and not quite what I was expecting from a Leather look varnish. It's quite shiny and not matt as I'd thought, I did experiment with a matt top coat but it really looked better without.

This little badger cost me £4.50, and they have this varnish in various other colours. They also had a load of 9ml bottles at the counter for 99p, so I had a rummage. More about that later...

technic amethyst maincure

As I mentioned in my last post I've bought some relative cheap nail varnish made by a brand called 'technic'. I bought some originally from eBay for 99p a bottle due to the colour and unusual glitter combinations and this led me to buy more from Love Thy Make Up for £1.25.

I've used the Glitter varnishes before but today, picked out by my other half, I used the full colour varnish. This one is called 'amethyst' and is a lovely two tone purple that catches the light and can shift to blue and green.

I applied two coats but could probably have done three to make completely opaque. On my ring finger I added a pink/purple glitter that I bought in a Groupon offer of 24 London Girl nail polish.

I've been cleaning and washing up today and some of the polish has worn away at the tip but I think this may have been started by shrinkage when using a Seche Vite top coat. In some lights I like the colour but in bright day light I think it looks cheap.

The glitters I bought however are great, and the 'Money Bags' polish would almost be a duplicate for OPI's 'Living Daylights'. I have another colour to try from this brand, in a dark purple so before I discount 'technic' I'll try it and report back.

Sally Hanson Complete Salon Manicure

Since watching so many American Blogs I'm keen to try out different makes of Nail Varnish to see which I like. The latest is the Complete Salon Manicure range from Sally Hanson.

These retail in the shops at about £7.99 but I've been buying these on eBay from various sellers between £1.99 and £2.99. I only bought a couple at first because of the colours but have liked the application and finish so much I've ordered three more.

I think they sell on eBay cheaper because they are no longer colours they stock in the shops.

A few things to mention, the brush in these nail varnish bottles are much wider than other brands but personally I find the application using this brush works well for me and I tend not to over run at the sides of my nail.

The first colour I bought and tried 'Blue Rose' needed only one coat to leave an opaque finish, the one above 'Gray by Gray' I used two coats and finished with a Seche Vite Top Coat. The Glitter I used here was another purchase from Ebay from a range called Technic and the colour is 'Black Mirror' more about this brand soon. Only 99p a bottle and some very interesting glitter colours and combinations.

Lightening Bolt Nails

Having been bitten by the Nail Art Bug, and watched so many videos on YouTube of tutorials and Hauls (mainly in America) I decided to start my own Blog here in the UK. I was disappointed that many of the makes of salon varnish blogger/vloggers talk such as OPI and China Glaze which I'd never heard of I thought I couldn't buy on the UK High Street.

But on the way home from Budapest, there in the AirPort was a OPI Stand! It would be rude not to. So I purchased my first OPI nail varnish. Not one, or two, but a four pack set, OPI's EuroCentral collection. Great value as this was about £32 when single bottles were for sale at £9 each. I was not disappointed, the colours are very vibrant including a deep blue and purple, along with a gorgeous glitter. The cream varnishes are opaque enough to just use one layer and a pretty good finish even before using a Top Coat.

Here's my first attempt at Lightening Bolt Nails, using the set. I've used OPI 'Don't forget your CzechBook' and 'You're Such a BudaPest'. The silver is Rimmel's 'Your Majesty'.

Oh and I have since found out that you can buy OPI in the UK at Sallys. I have bought some China Glaze from Sallys but no further OPI varnishes, also Ebay is great for getting both these makes of varnishes at low prices. 

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