Stellar Nail Polish

 Through the Nail Groups I follow on facebook, I've discovered some great indie nail polishes and Stellar Nails is one of them. The lady who runs the business is active on the All Things Nails Group and I was lucky enough to benefit from one of the offers she posted on facebook. I received a free nail polish with my order and free postage, Whoooo Hoooo.

This is my second purchase into the world of Indie polishes and delighted that I found these readily available in the UK. The first polish I tried (above) is called Ayla and is a gorgeous blue with shed loads of glitter. Metallic purple and blue with silver micro glitter running through the whole polishly loveliness! I didn't notice, until I put this on, it has purple butterflies too! An added bonus!

This polish along with the polish on the left below called 'The Warmth' are both thermo polishes. These are my first and when you dunk your hands in cold water or when eating a Jubbly as I was the other day, the polish turns purple! To get a better idea of what that looks like, check Stellar Nail Etsy Shop here, my pictures just don't do this polish justice!

The blue on both of these polishes is gorgeous, yet hard to describe. It has this lovely colour dimension to it, blue leaning to a purple.

The middle polish is called 'Two Princes' and I layered this over OPI's 'Lincoln Park After Dark'. This one is a green and red gold flakie glitter topper. Going to be perfect for Christmas manicures too. I love putting Glitter over a cream it makes the whole manicure pop and also makes it last for much longer. Here's may attempt to capture the polish and failing miserably, lights in my house are rubbish!

The last item I bought from Stellar nails was a nail polish ring, she has just brought out some earring which I'm going to have to purchase too! These are so cute, they come in a range of different colours, the one I chose is the Purple Galaxy, of course!

Stellar nails are running a Giveaway at the moment. You can win two full size bottles of nail varnish and a pair of her new nail polish earrings. Enter here for a chance to win, as of today the Giveaway is open for four more days.

So far very impressed with all my Indie Nail Polish purchases, will definitely buy more Stellar Polishes. If you like the look of these, be sure to follow Stellar Nail Polish on facebook to keep up to date with the latest additions and offers they have.

Cirque Polishes - OMG

So whilst writing my Blog the other day and linking to Rainbow Connection, something caught my eye! Cirque polishes! For Sale! I've had my eye on these little babies for a while, and only found one site, Covet that was selling them in the UK for £15.

Well rainbow connection are selling these babies for £9.50 and it's £1 shipping if your order is over £20. Easily achieved when purchasing these polishes, oh go on then, I'll have to order as least three! Other wise I'd have to pay £3.50 and that could be put towards another bottle. Makes sense right?

This is the first one I've used called "Never Nude', a champagne nude with a rainbow holographic finish, most of these polishes I bought are linear holo's, can't get enough. This was bought specifically with the intension of doing this holo gradient from Chalkboard Nails.  

Obviously I needed to buy the darker polish called 'Fascination Street' in order to do the manicure and these other polishes fell in the basket too!

The boxes give them a little something else don't you think?

I shall get round to swatching the rest, the colours are so amazing on these polishes, it's not JUST the colours it's the depth and effect of the holo too.

Other news! As you can see from my last few posts I've been going polish crazy and this is only the tip of the iceberg, I haven't revealed the complete story of my polish purchases of late. I blame that Nail Polish Group on facebook, I may need to go cold turkey. People keep posting about polishes that previously was unaware of, and know I am, I need them.

So my Destash Swap buddy has invited the Group to an untrieds challenge. Total up your untried polishes and use as many of these as you can during the rest of the month. Also this is to encourage you to not buy new polishes. Really should be using the polishes I have before buying more. So no more polish purchases... for his month at least. What date is it?

Nail Polish Splurge - The Good and the Bad

I had a bit of a splurge this week. Mostly at Superdrug and Poundland, many a bargain to be had. Whilst I was on a nail polish roll and buying a few things in New Look, I spotted these Kelly Brook polishes by the till. I was purchasing a pale orange dress and the colours below attracted me, I thought these would match and offset the dress.

Plus, look at the bottles. Aren't these the cutest?

Well, the colours and the bottles maybe the best thing about the polishes, as the formula, application and THE SMELL are NOT good. In the above manicure, I used the left polish in a gorgeous light blue with a sparkle running through it. (These polishes have no names either, shame on your Kelly Brook!) The application was patchy and the polish quite thick. The above is two coats, could have used three as you can still see the nail line. I tried to even the finish out with top coat.

I'm just really disappointed with them, and at £2.99 each the formula should be so much better, if Barry M can do it, GOSH and many other brands at the same price, why not these? Sinful Color polishes sell for £1.99 and £1 if bought from Poundland and the quality is so much better.

I used the pale orange for a pedicure, and the formula was better than the glittery polish, but still, the smell and the streaks! Yuck! I'd include a picture, but don't really want to share my trotters with you all. Especially as I'm running a lot at the moment, not a pretty sight!

Anyway on to bigger and better things... I found these in Superdrug by MUA!

Just LOOK at these glitters, really unusual and the colour combinations are gorgeous. There are six in the whole collection and I bought just these four. (I know, how restrained of me!) The first three you can see are all the same combination of diamond glitters with really tiny bar glitters and micro shimmers, but as you can see come in different colour combinations. The one at the back is called 'Luna' and has blue, purple and white circle glitters. 

I did a quick swatch of one of these, it may take a little fishing and a few coats to build up the glitter, but just look at the colour combinations! The possibilities are endless with what colours you can layer these over, in terms of matching the glitters or just something that is going to totally contrast!

Detash Swap and my first Indie polishes

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently took part in a facebook Group Nail Polish Swap and this is the lovelies that I received! 

My first of three brands here, a Seche polish in 'Pretty Little Heart Breaker' the pink polish on the left, a KR polish in '004' which is a lovely turquoise colour with gold, turquoise and purple glitters (think there is some bar glitters too), a Laval gelly polish in 'Sugar Plum' (I'm thinking gelly Sandwich here) and a 17 polish in 'Copper'. As well as these four polishes my swap partner sent me some sweets, a card, some striping tape and some tip guides. Overall a very enjoyable experience which I will definitely do again, only when I feel have have some polishes I can bear to part with. That was the hardest part!

Last month I also bought my first indie nail polishes from Rainbow Connection (Oh crap I've just gone to the site to get the URL and they now have Cirque polishes for sale!). Another find thanks to the lovely ladies on the facebook nail Groups, these are so bad for my addiction and purse!

I went on the site to buy the latest top coat everyone is raving about, HK Girl. Forget about your Seche Vite ladies, HK Girl doesn't smudge your nail art and doesn't get thick and gloopy like Seche does, so go check it out, you won't regret it.

So it would be rude just to buy the one item, I mean lets face it, Top Coat is not really nail polish is it? So I had a shifty round the many Indie brands they stock. One thing that is annoying about the site though, is many polishes are sold out. I found myself finding something I like only to find it wasn't available, so annoying. Anyway I didn't let that stop me and bought two! The first is a polish by a company called Wing Dust and it's called 'Steel Town Girl'.

Lovely, lovely dark blue gelly polish with shredded glitters in gold and teal. Opaque in 3-4 coats so I layered it over Color Clubs 'Baldwin Blues' as the colour match was pretty accurate. Love it, very pleased with my first Indie polishes. The other was 'Ember' by Ethereal Lacquer, swatches to come soon when I also show you the Indie polishes I bought from Stellar Nail Polish.

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! 

CND Vinylux weekly polish

So last week I treated myself to a manicure. My cuticles were a mess and I've still not really figured out how to deal with them efficiently. Last time I had my nails done at the Swan Beauty Salon they used one of the original OPI DS polishes, which was freaking AMAZING! This time they used a CND's Vinylux polish in the blue on the picture below. 

I nearly had kittens when she started to apply the polish (BLUE) without a base coat. No, she said when I exclaimed, these new polishes need no base coat and they should last for one whole week without chipping and wear.

Well, managed to gouge a line of polish off my index finger within an hour of getting these done, but this was my own fault as I was cooking etc... Otherwise the polish lasted very well until the end of the week with minimum wear.

Whilst viewing the All Things Nails Group on facebook, I saw someone else posting and commenting on these polishes. So I thought I'd investigate further... Seems these polishes were currently on sale at The Nail and Beauty Link (tnbl) for £3.75 along with the Top Coat you are supposed to use with them, and so I purchased three. The blue, I had applied for my manicure 'Blue Rapture', 'Rock Royalty' is the gorgeous purple and 'Sage Scarf' is the dusty green. I just love the name of the green polish, both this and the blue are such unusual shades.

So tonight I used 'Sage Scarf' and was hoping to stamp a more geometric design on my accent nail, but neither design stamped well or straight. So I just did this little circular pattern from the same plate. Let's see how this Sunday Night manicure endures the week!

Oh, one more thing, I purchased my first Indie polishes this weekend! So excited to see what they are like when they arrive, AND I took part in my first Destash Swap. Have sent four polishes off to a new home and waiting to see what I receive in return!

I got the blues

So on my recent trip to the States returning with several polishes I noticed that I have a thing for blues. I knew I had a thing for purples, but this was new!

Recently that trend has remained and the latest polishes I've been wearing and buying have been different shades of this lovely colour.

First up in Color Show's 'Lilac Rebel' from their Acid Wash collection.

I've just found a new Group on facebook called 'All Things Nails' and whilst I was searching for information on Color Show's Bleached Neon collection, someone posted a picture of one of these Acid Wash polishes. 

I'd never heard of them, or seen them in the stores, and it seemed like another limited collection had quickly passed me by. On further investigation it seems that these were still available in some places and after a visit to two Boots Stores I managed to pick up the above in a light blue and a minty green. They do four colours in this range, the others are a cream and a darker blue.

Overall I like the effect it gives, you don't have to fish for the white matt glitters and there are plenty of the larger hex ones. However the application was a bit tricky, the polish, although thick is quite sheer and it took three coats to get the polish fully opaque.

I will keep my eyes peeled for the other two polishes as both Superdrug and Boots seem to be doing offers on Color Show polishes, whether that's buy two get one free or buy one get second half price.

Whilst on the subject of Color Show, I watched Nicole from Young Wild and Polishes review on their Bleached Neons collection. She loves them and commented they were great for water marbling (something I have yet to successfully do!) Disappointingly the seven polishes they brought out in this range were not duplicated over here in the UK. Omitting three shades including the blue and purple that I was really hankering after! Why Maybelline, do you DO this?

The packaging is different too, here are the four available over here. Why didn't they swap out the orange for a blue to mix it up a bit?

And these are the larger and more interesting collection they released in the States.

So why do they do this? There is probably a very boring and unsatisfactory reason behind it, I wonder if any letter to Maybelline would unearth the reason, or make them consider making the whole range available over here... I think the nail market in the UK is big enough for Maybelline to consider this, let's see! 

So I did pick up the UK set. Bet I make a dogs dinner of trying to water marble, whether that's due to formula, the colours just being too similar or just my lack of skills!