nailbox - October Review

Yey, October's nailbox is HERE and the colours are perfect for my 30 Days of Colour Challenge. This month we have an autumn themed box with three gorgeous polish for the season.

First up is Rimmel's 'Caramel Cupcake' what a great name and also a lovely polish. This was opaque in two coats and it's been a while since I bought or used any Rimmel polishes and they've made the brush much thicker. Just one swipe with this bad boy and my little fingers where DONE!

Really liked this polish and used this as my base and to create the gradient on the manicure below. 

Next is another Gel Effect polish from Nails Inc, I think this is the third polish I've received from nailbox from this brand, This is a gorgeous burgundy/purple colour and one of my favourite colours. This again was opaque in two coats and in the gradient came out much brighter than in the bottle.

Last but not least is a effects polish from Essie called ' Summit of Style' a lovely packed glitter polish with gold glitters of two different sizes. No need for fishing with this glitter just one dip and apply to the nail deposits plenty of glitter. In fact it's so packed in the bottle I wasn't sure if it was in a clear base or if there was black glitters in there too.

This month's nail care items were some nail scissors, useful because I'm always hunting for my pair, and some Drying Drops from OPI. I did use these when doing my Thanks Giving manicure, bit hard to tell if it dried the polish any quicker as I ALWAYS use a quick dry topcoat. Also when applying to the nails I wasn't sure how to apply it so it covered all my nail. Something to experiment with, if you have any tips or experience with drying drops let me know.

Here is the manicure I created using all the polishes in this month's nailbox and is also my manicure for the next prompt in the 30 Days of Colour Challenge 'Fall Gradient'. 

30 Days of Colour - The Progress

We're about half way through the 30 days of colour challenge and I've completed six manicures, so only four behind. Not too bad and I'm going to keep going. The next prompt of the challenge was denim and I wasn't sure what to do, I saw a few manicures online where they had painted stitching and pockets on the design. There were even designs for acid wash denim.

I didn't want to have my nails too obviously looking like a pair of jeans as I had training on Tuesday night, so I just went with a denim like polish. I had several to choose from, a Barry M one aptly called 'Denim'. 

Or an Essence Polish that is called 'Blue Jeaned' and labelled as a Jean Effect polish.

The polish I picked however was from OPI and is from their Suede line which I never knew existed until recently. This is the Suede version of OPI Ink and it dries to a Matt finish.

OPI Ink is such an amazing polish and the Suede version is nice if you don't want to faff around with a matt top coat, however it doesn't have quite the same colour shift that the original has. This is all I have to say on the matter and manicure...

The challenges next prompt was 'Leaves'. I really wanted to do some stamping for this prompt, but am limited to the very few stamping plates I have. Luckily a recent Nailbox subscription box included a MoYou Tropical Stamping Plate which included some foliage and leaves, although not quite the autumn design I was hoping for.

I hope I saved it from looking too tropical with the colour combination. I picked up a couple of No.7 polishes from Boots last week and the base of this Manicure is one, called 'Star Shower'. It's hard to describe, it has very fine gold, blue and silver glitters in it. I think the base is clear and just jammed packed with glitters, so I was able to make it opaque in three coats.

I used one of the 2true Metallica polishes in 'Aphrodite' I picked up from Superdrug a wee while ago to stamp the leaves with, and it stamped really well. I had to give it a bit more glitter as the leaves hide some of the base so topped the design off with China Glaze's 'Golden Enchantment'. LOVELY!

How well do you get on with stamping and do you have any favourite polishes to stamp with?

A all new level of addiction - £1 Polish

A little while ago I discovered that PoundWorld/Land sells top quality branded nail varnish that can retail from anywhere between £5.99 and £6.99 for just a quid!

The brands that I've seen them stock already are:

• Revlon ColorStay
• Revlon Parfumerie (You can still buy these full price in Boots at £6.49)
• Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure (CSM)
• Rimmel
• Bonita Polish
• NYC (Recently PoundWorld were selling these in packs of three for £1) These sell for £1.79 each in places like Boots and Superdrug. 

The main reason from what I understand on why you can buy these in PoundWorld/Land is that brands change formula or discontinuing lines as in the case of the Revlon ColorStay polishes. The majority of the Sally Hanson polishes I've picked up particularly from the CSM line are from old collections so maybe just left over polishes that they haven't been able to sell.

I'm certainly not complaining and everyone loves a bargain, and if you love polish as much as I do and aren't shopping for a particular colour it's a great way to find top quality polishes for a great price to add to your collection.

Now this is where the problem gets worse. The Revlon lines seem to have a definitive amount of polishes in the ColorStay and Parfumerie lines and once I'd bought a few, I wanted to complete my whole collection. PoundWorld/PoundLand etc... don't obviously carry the whole collection and these polishes appear at random, but now I want them all!

Fortunately I travel around a bit at the moment and have the opportunity to visit some Pound shops a bit further a field, and I've been able to pick up most of the line, but there are still some colours that are alluding me!

See how lovely they all look though, and think about how lovely they all will look if I had the WHOLE collection!!! It's become a bit of an obsession and now I trawl the internet trying to find the missing colours for a reasonable price. For some reason I've seen listings on Amazon for the rarer polishes ranging from £15 to £30. I'm not THAT mad.

What polishes do you lust after and what lengths have you gone to bag the polishes you desire?