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!