Neon, Neon, Neons Part II

My Neon order has arrived and I've been trying out some bright nails. I ordered these little bottles of happiness from The Nail and Beauty Link who have the best prices I've seen for Orly polishes. All prices as shown on the website are without VAT, so these came to £6 each. From left to right these are:

Glow Stick

Risky Behaviour

Be Daring

Fireball

Strictly again you could say some of these aren't true neons, GlowStick definitely is and is described as a true highlighter yellow. I've not gotten round to wearing all of these lovely polishes yet, however as purple is my favourite colour, I chose 'Be Daring' to wear first!

Gorgeous, gorgeous bright purple, and considering that I have many, many purple polishes and is probably the colour I have most of, I don't already have this shade. As will most Orly polishes the formula and brush were up to the job and this was opaque in two coats.

I think I'll try a gradient with the other colours and maybe a go at water marbling like this amazing manicure from My Simple Little Pleasures.

Wish me luck, not had much luck with water marbling, but hopefully using just two polishes I may get away with! 

Here's my other polish purchases I made last week in Manchester from Urban Outfitters, I love their W.I.P polishes and the neon yellow was only £3 in their sale, the shade is very similar to Orly's Glow Stick but this one has a shimmer running through it too.

The other two I picked up where Glitter polishes and these are 'Bits N Bobs' which is a lovely mix of all types of glitter in neon yellow, white and green. The polish at the front on the right is called 'Mardis Gras' and you can see that it's an explosion of all different colours and sizes of Hex glitter. Can't wait to try these, not sure what I'm going to do with them yet!

31 Day Challenge - Glitter and Half Moons

Glitter was the order for Day 17, and I liked the look of this manicure from naildecor which she calls a glitter moon manicure. She also has a Youtube tutorial of how she does this, but I can't figure out what she paints the area of the nails where the glitter goes before putting the glitter on. No idea! So I just popped on a couple coats of China Glaze 'Lotus Begin' and painted on this lovely glitter polish I picked up from Urban Outfitters called 'Cloud 9'.

Fairly happy with this, and smoothed out the glitter with a good coat of HK Girl top coat. Picture is a wee bit burned out, but you can see that glitter polish pretty good in the bottle. It has purple and silver glitters and the odd star too.

Day 18 was half moons, and I've never done these before. I also didn't have, and couldn't find any ring binder hole reinforcements to create by half moons. I had a quick look on Youtube for some tutorials and a lot of people just painted then on. One lady used a plaster, the ones with the curved edges, so I gave that a go!

It's fairly neat, I painted China Glaze 'Oxygen' as the base the night before and top coated, before popping on the sticking plaster and painting on Revlon's 'Raven Red. The moons look a little straight in this photo, but I can assure you, there is a curve. You can see better on the thumb.

Not sure if I like it... I'm going to buy some of those Ring Binder thingies and give it another go, might look better with a smaller moon. Next two days are looming and Day 21 is WATER MARBLE. I have never done this successfully, dreading it and the mess I shall make...

Urban Outfitters Haul and Bourjois Nail Tattoos

 The facebook Groups I'm following has resparked my love of polish and is exposing me to plenty of new Indie polishes. Of which I have none (yet), and also sites to purchase a nail polish bargain.

One Group have just run a Destash Swap, where you are paired with another Group member and you send each other four polishes that need a new home. So thankful my match received hers today, as I was very naughty and didn't mark the package with the fact it contained Nail Polish. Mine is sat at the Royal Mail depo waiting for me...

It was so hard to choose which polishes to send, some were a no brainer, where I had duplicates of the same polish in two brands, but then what else to send? Most of my polishes are very dark and I was conscious of that when picking my four to send. Balancing these out with some glitters too seemed to work, who doesn't like glitter? My match seems to be very happy with her swap and I'm looking forward to seeing what I've been sent.

Anyway on to hauls... I picked up some WIP polishes from Urban Outfitters a while ago, see review here, and overall very impressed with the effects and the lovely bottles they come in. I spotted they were doing a sale and selling the beaded polishes of half price (£3 each). So I ordered some for me and some for my nail addict friend. Can't wait to try the glitters, all pictured below....

I also came across this picture on Pinterest of some Nail decals from Bourjoir. I spent some time scouring the internet trying to find where I could get my hands on then in the UK.

Took me a wee while, but managed to find them on asos of all places! I thought I'd give them a go as I'd already stamped on one of my nails this week. 

So easy to apply, although my placing is a bit squiffy! But no worries you get three sheets of transfers in each pack, so plenty to play with. I topped it with one of the polishes from Urban Outfitters called 'Holo' which has given the nail a lovely purple etherial shimmer!

On another note, no noticable chipping on the CND Vinylux polish now at the end of day two, although I will need to do the pots at some point! 

Urban Outfitters W.I.P Polishes

Since last weeks manicure I've been scouring the Internet for Holographic OPI polishes from their Designer Series. Their most recent collection is somewhat lacking in the colour or holographic effects I so desire and eBay have but a few polishes that are listed, in the region of £18. Much, much more that I have ever spent on one single polish.

So at the weekend I went into Manchester and had a mooch round Urban Outfitters and their polish display caught my eye. Two polishes for a tenner and these two really stood out. The left is called 'Black Holo' and was exactly what I was looking for. A gorgeous dark grey polish, I would say, with a gorgeous linear holographic effect.

You can see it here, both in the bottle and on the nail, it loses nothing once painted, and this was one coat! Day two and so far no chips, and I've even washed the pots! I topped it off with a Color Club quick dry Top Coat and was ready to go.

The other polish I picked up is a very, very fine beaded polish called 'Blue Beaded'. I'm not usually a fan of these type of polishes, but my friend pointed it out saying it looks like static TV in a bottle.

The polish has a clear base with tiny white and blue beads. The picture below shows two coats and you really don't need a base coat to cover the nail with this polish. It's a little textured once painted on as you'd expect, and although it has no glitter, it gives off a real glisten. The swatch here is without Top Coat, so I can't wait to wear this polish next to see how the Top Coat adds to the effect. They had this polish in light purple and a grey also, but the blue really stood out the most.

P.S. The Black Holo wasn't included in the 2 for £10 deal, so I ended up paying £12 for the holographic polish and £6 for the Beaded one.