My friend made me!

Just got back from Ikea :-S 

I know I said I didn't want one but it's only temporary! 

Now I need to put this together without breaking a nail

Nail Pop popping!

Happy Monday!

I've seen these Nail Pop polishes by LOOK Beauty on other UK nail blogs and have been wanting to try them since their release however I pretty much gave up hope of finding them after visiting several larger Superdrugs in London to no avail. I know they have them in Westfield Stratford but I refuse to go there again! So you can imagine my surprise when I saw them in the pokey store in Marble Arch! I picked up Kimono which is said to be very similar to Chanel's Peridot and Pearl Effect a lovely blue/purple flakie which I want to show you today.

OPI Siberian Nights and LOOK Beauty - Nail Pop Pearl Effect

The flakes shift from blue to purple but you do need to be in the right lighting conditions to witness this.  

I love it. I love it because it's very subtle.

The formula is so so. It dries quite slowly and you do need about 2-3 coats to get a decent coverage and to minimise bald spots. I still love it though.

That's all for now! xx

Minty glitter

Hi ladies hope you're all having a fab weekend. Yesterday I went to a forensic radiography study day which was fantastic. It was less radiography and more forensics with a lot more graphic imagery than I had been anticipating, thankfully though when it comes to guts and gore my stomach is quite strong but the imagery will definitely stay with me for a while! All the guess speakers (forensic archaeologist, anthropologist, odontologist, radiographer and chemist) were top of their field. Who knew there could be so much to learn about blue bottle flies! I totally want to visit a body farm! lol. Anyway I digress...

Today I want to show you Barry M mint green top with a glitter I bought from Claire's.

2 coats here

In my head I had envisaged a green version of DL Glitter in the air but as you can see it's not quite there. I didn't want to create a franken because the mint green is a bit too opaque and would hide all the glitter.

This nameless glitter contains a mix of large green, rose gold and gold hex pieces with small bits of gold. It's so delicate! The glitter topper does dry quite slowly and requires some strategic dabbing.

Do you like it? What have you been up to this weekend?

xx

Some midweek swatches

Models Own Pro - Green Envy

Green is definitely one of my favourite colours and when it's in a black jelly like this it's even more desirable. 2 coats, dries fast, great brush. LUSH. I then decided to put a layer of HITS Lambada over it

It's described as a "clear base with copper, red, green golden yellow, and turquoise flakie". Not sure about it to be honest. There's too much colour going on at once and it looks a bit garish. This may be due to the base I used so I'm willing to let this combo slide and try another coloured base at a later date.

OPI - Steady as she Rose

(Before I broke my nail!)

This image has been on my desktop for a while and thought I'd just slip it in. It needs no introduction. Perfect application and opaque in 2/3 coats. I can't quite remember!

That's it for now. Hope you're all having a nice week so far!

新年快樂 - Happy Chinese New Year!

Yay! It's my favourite time of year!! 

Happy Chinese New Year to all who celebrate.

OPI - Keys to my Karma (base) China Glaze - Ring in the Red L.A. Colors Gold glitter striper Barry M - Gold foil Seche Vite top coat

Bondage Nails

I sure most of you will have seen the amazing fashion inspired nail design by The Nailasaurus

back in Nov. I for one absolutely loved it and bought some bullions as a result hoping to experiment with them at some point. So while my net was down I came up with what I call bondage nails! Hope you like them. 

Saint George - a-England

Hey everyone I am back! Did you miss me?! Is it safe to come out after the frenzy caused by Fantasy Fire? hehe!

So my internet is up and running again a lot earlier than expected after it went down Wednesday night so here I am bringing you swatches of a-England's Saint George. Most of you will know that a-England is a UK brand run by polish artisan Adina who loving creates these polishes along with the concepts, satisfying the appetite of the most avid polish addict. I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to try a brand that is so close to home but I'm glad I didn't leave it any longer! Here is Saint George from the upcoming Legends Collection, a gorgeous teal holographic.

This bottle shot is not an accurate representation of the colour. I used a strong LED light to bring out the holo! The following image is more accurate.

I cannot fault the formula of this polish. It is easily a one coater but I always do two for good measure. It dries really quickly to a glossy finish. The holo is very shy. Under normal lighting it is very difficult to see but in direct sun it comes alive. However because I shoot at night I had to use an LED light.

Not sure if any eagle-eyed readers have notice my dodgy middle nail? It split quite low down and I've been patching it up waiting for it to grow out for ages. I did quite a shite job of patching it up this week so that is why you can see a strange bump and why I've not very subtly placed the watermark over the nail in the following images haha.

Have you or will you be buying any Legends?

Have a good weekend. XX

Grrrr

Today I received my a England order! Yay. Problem is my phoneline/
Internet is down so can't upload swatches of St George just yet. Also
some ladies have emailed me and I'm not ignoring you, just it's quite
hard to reply at the mo but I'll get there. xx

The Swatches - Max Factor Fantasy Fire!

I just couldn't wait! 

2 coats over Barry M Indigo!

Please excuse my fingers. It's absolutely freezing in the UK.

I don't have Clarins 230 :-( but I'll do a comparison of this with BeYu 209 and OPI La Boheme at some stage. xx

Sneak Peak Swatch - Max Factor Fantasy Fire

I know I said after my exams but I couldn't help myself!

Over: Barry M Indigo, H&M Plum and OPI We'll Always have Paris

New Max Factor SS12 colours

Image from vogue.co.uk

So after a little digging around I found out that Max Factor are set to release 18 new shades for spring/summer with Fantasy Fire part of the 'via Tortona' collection, a group of 5 metallics and from what I saw duochromes!

You can read a little more here!

Max Factor - Fantasy Fire (new unicorn pee)

I usually by-pass the Max Factor stand because their mini polishes have never really stood out to me. They're pretty expensive (£3.99 for 4.5ml) but for some reason I was drawn to the stand today! I noticed some new colours, some duochromes in fact and then saw this...

Does it remind you of anything!?

I don't know anything about it and there is hardly any information online so I am assuming it's pretty new? Have any of you ladies in the US seen this?

Anyway apologises my pics aren't to my usual standard but I wanted to get this up fast so I could share with guys. Swatches will come after my exams (**Swatches HERE**)

In the meantime leg it to your local Boots or Superdrug!!

Just wondering...

What you guys do with packaging? Do you keep or throw? After recently acquiring the Color Club sets I'm not sure if I should keep the polishes in packaging and the same with the mini OPI sets....

Let me know!

Small purchases

A few things I picked up this morning during a break from revision! I love The Body Shop Cranberry Joy hand cream so picked up 2 tubes as they were reduced from £'4 to £2 in the sale. I also bought green envy by Models Own. It's from their Pro range so was a little pricey but it's been on my wishlist for a while. I also found a duochrome polish in Claire's which was reduced to £1. In the shop I thought it was a purple to blue but it's actually a green to blue and is everything I wanted GOSH's Purple Heart to be!!

That's it from me, hope your guys don't mind my post via my phone. I will resume normal activity in a week or do!

Have a good weekend.

 X

Loving

My local TK Maxx have more Color Club sets in stock including the
Foiled collection and Art Club stripers. Obviously I had no self
control and bought them. I'm loving the foiled polishes right now!

Topshop Gypsy Night Back in Stock

I've just noticed this lovely black holo flakie is back on the website. If you're in the UK get ordering and don't forget to use your NUS card if you have one.

Let me know if you pick one up!

Models Own Beetlejuice WINNER

Firstly I just want to thank everyone who took the time to enter the competition and provided feedback about what they wanted to see on my blog. A lot of you wanted me to do haul posts which I'm happy to do but I don't haul (because I can't afford to) like other nail bloggers :-( . Also people wanted to see 'more' stamping?!?!?! I've never stamped and I don't own any plates but it is something I might look into after April.

So who is the winner?!?!

DRUM ROLL............ 

**Alexa1202 YOU'VE WON**
Congratulations!!!

I've already contacted her and she's responded so those polishes will be winging their way to her soon.

I'm completely amazed at the response with 155 of you entering! With all the extra entries the total came to 295, crazy!!!

Seeing double

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Hopefully you've all recovered and are ready for whatever 2012 may throw at you. For me this is going to be a very interesting year. I finish my degree in 6 months and will be all qualified and raring to go. It's been almost 3 years since I have a full-time job with regular income and I can definitely say the novelty has completely worn off. Fingers crossed I can get a job without too many problems.

So NYE was predictably quiet, I stayed in, had a few too many glasses of bucks fizz and was in bed by midnight watching the fireworks. I much prefer celebrating the Chinese New Year and to be fair I did have to start work at 9am. And because I had to work I had no mani to see me in to the new year!

But I'm making up for it now with this manicure!

For Christmas my bf bought me Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday and I know you're probably tired of seeing it but it's exactly what I needed, colour and bling!

Now do you notice any difference between the nails (apart from the obvious white base I used for the ring finger)?

No what if I showed you this...

 

Click images to enlarge

I've deliberately uploaded big images so you can have a closer look at the glitter

 

In the bottle they do look a little bit different but I can tell you now that the only difference between the two bottles is the ratio of colour glitter and I guess if you want to be picky the drying time as well.
HB has a lot more glitter packed in and there is also more small blue bits of glitter. One coat gives you a very good amount on glitter. NYX on the other hand is a lot sparser and with one coat you might get the odd large hex and a few smaller pieces. You have to 'place' the NYX glitter and because the clear base is effectively layered, drying time is slow. So with that in mind can you tell which is which? Nonetheless both are lovely and Carnival is a great alternative if you're on a tight budget. I don't really care that I have dupes because the more glitter the better.

Speaking of glitter and dupes remember I took advantage of the Models Own deal on ASOS, well look at this...

Models Own - Disco Mix, L.A. Colors - Jewel Tone

Anyway have a closer look and I'll leave it at that for now!

Anna xx