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!

More Gradients with Splatter Topper

I picked up Color Shows 'White Splatter' from their Street Artist collection sometime ago and been wanting to wear it ever since, but been distracted by other bottles!

So finally got round to doing a whole mani with the polish and not just an accent nail. 

I googled it first to decide what colour I wanted to layer it over, it looked good over black, maybe a purple, lots of grey and teal colours too. So not being able to decide I thought I'd layer it over at least three in a gradient type of way.

I used, for the grey; Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Dorien Grey'. For the teal; Sinful Colors 'Savage' and for the purple China Glaze 'What a Pansy' from their latest City Flourish Summer 2014 collection. (One of three I picked up on a recent and secret trip to Sallys)

I used the sponge method to layer and overall happy with the end result, although the teal colour did over power the grey and purple due to pigment and formula being much stronger than the other two polishes. Just going to show that Sinful Color polishes being the cheapest of the three are a top notch brand, and I wish they were more available over here, along with their Sinful Shine range.

Teal Ombre Manicure

After my trip to the States and reflecting on the polishes I bought, there are two clear colours that I lean to. Blue and Purple. So in the last week I've started swatching my polishes and grouping them into colour types to review where I have duplicates and also identify polishes that I can use for an ombre manicure.

The above seems to work really well, although the lighter shades are very subtly different. For this look I used:

Thumb - Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal

Index finger - Sinful Color in Savage (This dry's matt so will need topcoat)

Middle Finger - OPI in Can't Find My Czechbook

Ring Finger - Vivo in Someday

Little Finger - Essie is Where's My Chaffeur

I'm pretty sure I can also do a similar manicure in purples too. Overall I'm happy with the effect, even though the last three nails are very similar at first glance. What I'll try next time too is using the same polish only with white added as per this post I came accross on Pinterest.

  

USA Haul

So a couple of weeks ago I went to the states for the first time, and I was excited to see what polish I could pick up over there, and at a better price in the UK.

I was limited somewhat as we didn't have a car and were reliant on public transport to get around. So I was unable to visit Target or those kind of places that tend to be on retail parks.

However we spent sometime in New York and Boston, and I was able to visit a CVS, a DUANEreade pharmacy and most importantly when in New York a Sephora! 

So then, not too much excitement on the nail front. I acquire three new polishes on my first shop at Walgreens. Two Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicures polishes (above) in 'Mermaid's Tale' and 'Black and Blue'. You can get these at home, but slightly cheaper in the States and I've had my eye on 'Mermaid's Tale' for a while.

The third was a Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Polish in the colour 'Scrab' (pictures on swatches here on the left). Gorgeous Duo Chrome that shifts from Blue to Green, great for a Mermaid manicure topped with 'Mermaid's Tale'.

My next polish purchases were from Sephora and I picked up a Deborah Lippman polish from the new 80's Summer Collection called 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. An amazing bright blue polish (below). Formula fantastic and wore really well, although I didn't base coat it as I had none with me at the time, and it stained some of my nails pretty bad.

I topped it with my other purchase Nails Inc ' Floral Street Mews' on the accent nail. I've not had a great experience with Nails Inc polishes before, but this one is a glitter with light pink and white glitter and blue and white flowers. Also swatched above on the right swatch at the front.

The last four polishes I bought were from DUANEreade and were, OPI's ' Yoga-Ta Get This Blue' (Right back in the swatch picture). In the bottle looks like a duo chrome that shifts from blue to purple but this doesn't translate on to the nail unfortunately. 

Next Sally Hansen's 'Save The Date' which is a dark plum/purple metallic with very fine shimmer (Left back in the swatch picture). 

A Milani polish, which I have never seen over here in the UK, called 'Sugar High' (Left front in the swatch picture). It has gold, peach, lime green and blue glitters. It looks like sprinkles for a cake.

The last polish I bought was Sinful Color's 'Mint Apple' a cool Blue/Green polish with a slight shimmer. Perfect from Spring/Summer and I used this for the manicure below topped with a blue/green glitter from Technic.

So all in all, 9 polishes purchases and I'd say nothing really out of the ordinary and apart from some of the Sally Hansen and the Milani nothing that you can't really get over here. 

However I did spurge on some make up at Sephora, I'll do a separate post on these. My nail varnish addiction seems to be now expanding to make up in general. I also found out that Sephora ship to the UK too for not too much money, this is bad, very bad...

Mini MakeUp Haul

I'm in the market for some new makeup and although I'm still figuring out the whole BB cream thing, I think I've got my head around the right foundation for me! 

My friend Ben introduced me to Benefit's POREfessional which is a pore reducing cream with a slight tint which really does work, although can dry my skin a little in places. This retails between £20 and £25 and so far has lasted me a couple of months as I only use it on my troublesome areas.

It's fast depleting however so whist in BodyShop, purchasing foundation in Pasty Northerner, I enquired about their pore minimiser and face primer. I've been using a MUA eye primer but don't use an overall face primer and whist BodyShop were doing a 3 for two on this and that, I thought I'd have a go at their versions. Not tried them as yet so we'll see if it stands up to the Benefit product. But with the BodyShop deal this little bundle cost me £27.50 and they throw in a small Perfume oil for free. I chose Indian Night Jasmine, from the selection they have to offer.

Had a mooch round a few other shops for NP, but not much doing. It also seemed that all the shops had damaged goods, smashed eye shadows and wonky NP bottles. Must have been a collision on the M6 with a large makeup lorry, no one was hurt though and they all looked fabulous.

The last little purchase was Mac's Studio Finish concealer, a great little pot to dab your brush in and cover up those red and bumpy areas. £15 for this, but lasts ages and has a great formula, matt and not greasy at all, I've not found another concealer that is anywhere as good!

Zoya Gem - A Disappointment

Time to try out my latest purchase. Zoya's 'Gem'! What a disappointment, that lovely gold shimmer you see in the bottle doesn't show up on the nail at all.

The colour, although gorgeous, shows up very purple on the nails and not at all the deep red you see in the bottle either. I tried an accent nail in China Glaze's 'Electrify' to try and bring some sparkly to the manicure, but I think the red and the gold glitter are completely the wrong colours to pair with this polish.

I cooked dinner after painting my nails and chipped the hell out of them, so redid the accent nails with Color Club's 'The Uptown' which works so much better!

This is a flaky polish in a sheer purple base, I swatched it over a blue polish to see what effect it would give. The gold/copper flakes you can see above looked pink over the blue polish, so something to experiment with. 

I do like the combination above, just disappointed with the lack of dimension on the Zoya polish. If it had looked as good on the nail as it did in the bottle, no glitter would have been needed!