My Top 5 Polishes

This post was inspired by Samantha Rogers over at The Nail and Beauty Files who did a post on her Top 5 polishes. Go check her blog out, she has some great post on not just nail related stuff but also make up reviews. 

So it got me thinking on what mine may be, a few sprung to mind straight away, and then when delving into my stash, it became very difficult to whittle them down to five. Here's what I came up with:

My choices are from top middle, and clockwise order:

Deborah Lippmann - Video Killed The Radio Star

Barry M - Persian

Color Show - Rose Chic

OPI - Love, Peace and OPI

Orly - Oui

Let's start in no particular order with 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. This stunning blue polish is from Deborah Lippmann's Summer 2014 80's Rewind collection. It's the brightest pure blue polish that I own and formula is spot on.

WARNING this polish stains like a bitch if you're a doofus like me and apply it without a base coat, but hey I was out and about and had to try it. I've topped it here with 'Floral Street Muse' from Nails Inc. If you're a fan of blue polish, like me, you need this in your collection. The shade is like no other blue polish I own.

Next up is a Barry M polish from their Aquarium collection called 'Persian'. It's a Duo-chrome that shift from purple, to gold to burgundy. I do have a soft spot of Duo-Chrome polishes and this one really delivers on the colour shift. 

It's one of those polishes that when you put on you can't stop looking at. Barry M just keeping coming out with these gorgeous effect polishes and glitters at the moment and they are so well priced.

Up next is a colour that I don't normally wear, it's a pink, well rose gold polish if you want to split hairs, from Color Show. I'm not sure what made me buy it, think it was when Superdrug were doing one of their buy one and get on half price offers. However I'm a sucker for a textured glitter polish and this is exactly what this is. 'Rose Chic' is one of four textured polishes from the Crystallize collection. Just a mini rant here, Maybelline released four Crystallize polishes over here in the UK, and in the US they released six, this seems to be a common theme. 

Next is a polish I love but haven't warn in ages and decided to pop it on my nubbins tonight as I didn't have a swatch to show. Possibly my favourite polish brand when I first started collecting these little bottles, OPI was something that I thought was unobtainable, at first...

This is OPI's 'Peace, Love and OPI' and is another colour shifting polish. As per, the picture does this polish NO justice, as it shifts from a gun metal grey to burgundy/brown which you can see here and green. Blummin gorgeous and formula amazing, I wish I hadn't left it so long to wear again.

Last but not least is Orly's 'Oui' which is everything I hoped that this polish would be. Again this was a brand that I can't buy anywhere near me and on a trip down South I was taken to a shop called Bond Link and I bought this polish and I think I may have even bought 'Love, Peace and OPI' at the same time too. 

Now I have several polishes that look to be the same type of colour and effect in the bottle but this is the only one that really transitions the shimmer on to the nail.

It shifts between a purple and burgundy, again like some of my other polish picks, but this also has a gorgeous gold shimmer running though it. I think I may need to pop this on my nails next.

Hope you liked this post and that the polishes I picked weren't too similar. I made a conscious effort to pick polishes from different brands but not colours or effects. I love Duo-Chromes and purple, burgundy and blue polishes so this is where my favourites lie. So I think I'll blog soon about my fav. purple polishes, as I have A LOT.

 I'd be interested in hearing what your Top 5 polish picks are, let me know in the comments below.

31 Day Challenge Completed!!!

Only 12 days behind, but I've done it! The last days theme was 'Your Signature Style' and to tell you the truth I don't think I have one. However what I do really like is doing is Saran Wraps and Water Colour techniques. 

I thought I'd do a Saran Wrap effect as I did on the last day for my last challenge. This time I didn't merge the colours all together and dabbed them on individually over a base of 'Boho Bonnet' by Orly. Too much going on here I think, and again colours I chose were not contrasting enough. I chose Cirque 'Epoc' and pictured here one of the lovely Urban Decay polishes I have yet to try called 'Addiction'.

Here's some of my favourite manicures from the challenge. I have now used 69 'dude' of my untried polishes and tried many nail art techniques which I hadn't before. Looking out for another challenge in a couple of months maybe whist I catch up with every day life!

Days 29 and 30 of 31 Day Challenge - Blue Base and something you haven't tried before

Ug this picture is awful, but all the ones I took were and the manicure is GONE now darling, GONE! Still digging through my unused polishes and picked out all the blue ones I had yet to use. This is 'Blue Sparrow' by China Glaze. It says it's a neon on the base and it is pretty bright (not that you can tell from this pic). I thought I'd pop a flakey glitter over the top which is Barry M 'Atlantis' and because the colour combination of the glitter had some green I alternated the base colour on my fingers.

This Glitter is gorgeous and Barry M along with Rimmel was one of the first brands I started to collect. Their collections are just getting better and better and at £3.99 for a polish, with constant offers at both Boots and Superdrug, you can't go wrong. I still have bottles that I bought over 5 years ago that are still good to use. Today they also released their new speedy nail paint collection!

So on to something I've never tried before... double stamping! I bagged a few of the new Models Own Chrome polishes which I heard were good for stamping with and used the Indigo and Mauve to double stamp this image on a base of 'Tempest' by China Glaze.

Still need a bit of practise at this stamping business but quite happy with this attempt, one word of warning though, you have to be quick with these Chrome polishes if stamping with them.

They dry quite quickly and if you're too slow the image won't transfer to your nail and stay stuck on the stamper.

Days 27 and 28 of Challenge - Recreating one of your own manicures and non glitter topper

Closing in on that 31st day now, and a chance to recreate one of my previous manicures. I chose the Lightening Bolt manicure that I did in my very first post on this blog and using the very first OPI polishes that I ever bought!

I love the colour combinations, these OPI's are from their EURO Central Collection and are 'I can't find my Czechbook' and 'OPI... Eurso Euro' and for the silver I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Coat of Arms' a lovely £1 purchase from Pound World.

Takes a wee while to do this manicure as you need to wait for each layer of polish to dry before taping and painting the lightening bolt. I followed this tutorial from elleandish/ Janelle.

Very happy with the way this came out and I think it's neater than my first attempt.

Next was a question of topping a manicure with something other than glitter? Bit stumped on this one, considered a crackle topper or matt coat. But decided to go with this topper from W.I.P nail polish called 'All-Sorts' that I bought from Urban Outfitters.

Technically I guess it's a matt glitter, and it's much brighter than this picture shows. I tried to create a heart with this topper on my ring finger and thumb, you can kinda see it, but as I had to fish a bit for the glitter there was quite a build up of the clear base in making these shapes. I also tried to create a heart stencil with some scotch tape and that didn't quite work either and because the tape was clear it was hard to see the shape, what do you guys use?

The base for this manicure is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Pat on the Black' which is a really, really dark purple polish. GORGEOUS!

Also my Model Own's sale polishes arrived, I can't WAIT to try them, think they may be appearing in this challenge before it ends!

Day 25 & 26 of Challenge - Complement and Contrast and Fishtail Braid

I've wanted to do this combination for a while and saw this manicure on Pinterest AGES ago using Sally Hansen lustre shine polishes in Azure and Scarab. This was months and months before these polishes started appearing in Pound World, and I never thought I'd get my sticky little mitts on them.

Not contrasting so much this manicure but these polishes go VERY well together. So well in fact that I didn't in the end use the sponging technique to create the gradient, as the polish wasn't quite dry and was creating bald patches when dabbing it on.

I ended up just painting the dark blue polish on the ends of my nails and blending it in to the base colour, worked pretty well and gorgeous colours!

Next day's theme is Fish Tail Braid, not something I have ever done on my nails or on my hair before. I watched a few tutorials on YouTube which make it look easy, it was however NOT!

Apologies for appalling picture, and messy manicure. Think this would have been better if the two purples I used were much different shades, they are too similar and merge into each other. I took this off the next morning before going to work as I thought it was a bit garish.

I will attempt this again I think, and pick my colours more carefully... 5 days to go and 5 days behind!

Days 24 & 25 of Challenge, White Base and Decals

I've done plenty of manicures during this nail art challenge that start off with a white base, and now I'm understanding just how important a good white polish is. I have three that I've been using, 'Cotton Buds' by Butter London, 'Snow Me White' by Sinful Colours and a white PS polish from Primark which I bought for 80p and this is what I used for my white base here.

Aswell as white other light colours have become essentials when doing nail art, OPI's 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' is a favourite of mine and of many bloggers as it's an off white. This has led me to start hunting down other off white colours that have a hint of something else in them.

Anyway I digress, this design I found on Pinterest and is by SparrowNails and is her Triangle Gradient Nail design.

I used 'Purple Glare' and 'Blue Glint' both Models Own Hyper Gel polishes and this gorgeous Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polish in 'Aria Ready'. I used some scotch tape to mask off my nails and used the sponging technique to apply the three colours as a gradient. Very happy with the way the gradient triangles came out. Will be trying this again and the colours worked really well together.

Speaking of Models Own they have an amazing SALE on at the moment where if you buy more that four polishes they are half price!

It ends midnight on February the 4th, so if you've been after some Models Own polishes and fancy picking up some of their gorgeous new Colour Chrome polishes get yourself over to their online store or bottle shop. I had a bit of an accident on their on line store myself today! 

Day 24's theme is Decals and a chance to use some of the lovely stuff I bought from She Sells Seashells a UK shop that sells all kind of nail accessaries. I was after some chevron nail stickers and saw these flower decals for £1.75.

I was still in the mood for gradients so complete the look with a few gradient nails, using varying shades of dusty pink/red.

As last time, I'm a week behind with the challenge, but will be finishing!