British Nail Bloggers - Colour Me Crazy Challenge - Contrasting

Greetings All!

I did it! I completed my first challenge of 2014! I know it was only one manicure a week, but I'm still happy I didn't give up.

The final theme is contrasting colours, and I was a bit cheeky and just did some quick stamping. I was really stuck for inspiration!

I went for orange and blue, although it does look a bit green. I put too much faith in the combination of Sally Hansen Insta Dri and deeply etched MoYou plates. And I nearly got away with it! But not quite.


The base is Barry M Gelly in Mango, stamped with Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Blue By and MoYou Roxy XL 01.

UK Indies - R&R Lacquers Don't Cross The Streams Collection

*These products were provided for review*

Greetings All!

Today I have more Halloween polish swatches. I love Halloween, it's my favourite time of year, when everywhere is decorated with bats, skulls and spiders. It just makes me happy! Nail polish is something else that makes me happy, so of course Halloween polish...it just doesn't get any better than that!

R&R Lacquers have a Halloween collection based around Ghostbusters, and they glow in the dark! Things that glow in the dark also make me happy. I'm a very happy Halloween bunny right now.

Goo is a tribute to Slimer. It glows green in the dark, and has all kinds of green glitter, including squares, circles and hexes. This is two coats over Barry M Gelly in Key Lime.

The small green glitter is the brilliant, hard-working kind that even in low light still gives a rainbow sparkle, and I love the mix of green glitters. Here it is glowing in the dark!

Excellent, strong green glow. I have several glow in dark polishes, and this is definitely a good quality glow. It lasted pretty well too - I didn't do a wear test per se, but I could still notice it glowing about 30 minutes later.

Next up is Stay Puft. White crelly alert! This is two coats over a coat of Essie Waltz (my standard 'nail primer' for white crellies).

I love the colour combination, and the lovely red circles. They are holographic, but they aren't quite as rainbow-y in these pictures because of the white base. The glitter is plentiful and there was no need to fish (in fact quite the opposite on my ring finger!). This polish doesn't glow in the dark by itself, but it does come with a glow in the dark topcoat, in a choice of green or aqua. I have aqua!

I've used two coats here, and I've left it without topcoat. It dries to a very slightly gritty finish, and almost clear. The topcoat itself doesn't look very aqua, in fact I did winder it it was green, but it all became obvious in the dark!

The glow is very bright, and a lovely colour. As well as looking amazing in the dark, it gives an ethereal blue tint in low light that looked really cool! I need little excuse to gaze at my nails, but this definitely left me fascinated by my fingers!

These polishes will be released on Wednesday (October 1st!) in their Etsy store, and keep up date with all things R&R on their Facebook page.

Barry M Silk - Forest And Orchid

Greetings All!

Today I have swatches of two beautiful Barry Ms. I originally went looking for the new Glitterati polishes, but these looked SO much prettier. I ended up with a couple of both!

I passed on the previous Silk collection. I didn't like the combination of the finish and the pastel colours. However, these are much darker, and the effect is just gorgeous.

This is Forest, two coats. These polishes dry to a matte finish, so no topcoat!

I can never resist a matte finish, but this is an especially gorgeous shade of dark green, and the shimmer in it just glows. It does also have a slight duochrome to it, turning blue and indigo at extreme angles. The finish is so soft and perfect, I just love it!

Although I personally wouldn't waste the finish of this polish, I was curious what it would look like with topcoat, and I know some others are the same!

Nowhere near as special, in my opinion. But, it is very glowy.


This is Orchid, again two coats. Matte polishes tend to dry faster, and these did dry faster than regular polish, but not to the point where you have to hurry to get a coat on before it drags.

Another rich, deep colour, an orchid shade as the name suggests. The combination of shimmer and matte give it such a velvety finish, I kept wanting to stroke my nails!

Another topcoated picture, just for fun.

This one does have a really nice glow to it, but I still prefer the matte finish.


I'm not sure when these were released, I haven't seen anything about them, but they're perfect for Autumn and Winter. I got mine in Superdrug, £3.99 each.

WAMM - El Corazon 233

Greetings All!

Today for Work Appropriate Manicure Monday (on a Tuesday, I  know, but never mind). I have an absolutely beautiful polish from El Corazon. This is yet another new-to-me brand - sometimes I think I'm fairly polish savvy, but there must be hundreds of brands out there that I don't even know exist. That actually makes me feel kind of sad...like they're sitting, waiting to be discovered. The anthropomorphism of nail polish - that's totally normal, right?

Anyway, thanks to a very lovely lady in one of my polish groups I am now aware of El Corazon! This is shade 233, a beautiful nude polish with silver shimmer and teeny bronze glitter. This is three coats.

I love this polish! It's absolutely gorgeous, and somehow the glitter makes it more subtle. Something about the slightly mottled look instead of a plain, blank colour. It also really reminds me of a lovely sandy beach, so I decided to add a bit of beachy nail art. This isn't really appropriate for work for me, but I couldn't resist.

Sally Hansen Ivory Skull, Color Club Williamsburg, and a sponge for the waves. The blue is a little too dark, I know that, but I wanted something with a bit of sparkle.

British Nail Bloggers Colour Me Crazy Challenge - Complimentary

Greetings All!

I've reached the penultimate stage of this challenge! I don't have anything prepped for next week, but I'm determined to complete this challenge. It's been the only one I've taken part in so far this year, and I'll be annoyed at myself if I don't!

This week the prompt is 'complimentary', and I decided to use some of the new Barry M Gellys. I was really good and only bought the four I really wanted - once upon a time I would have bought them all, just to have the full collection! I went for Cocoa, Paprika, Mustard and Chilli. They seem to compliment each other rather well.

Sugar spun nails are yet another technique that I haven't done in forever. They're a lot of fun, because you get to mess around with polish. Dripping it out of the bottle, stirring it around until it gets all thick and stringy and goopy...things you aren't really supposed to do with polish. Things that seem wasteful. But then you use it to make nail art!

I like these colours together. I also like that I got to use them all together.

UK Indies - TarasTalons Returns! (Halloween Polish Alert!)

*These products were provided for review*

Greetings All!

Exciting news! TarasTalons is reopening, at 00:01 on the 21st of September. Technically Sunday morning, but I will be thinking of it as Saturday night. Three new collections will be released, plus a topcoat collection, and I have swatches of some of the polishes that will be available! Tara has new labels, plus new round mini bottles that match the full sized ones, and they look really good!

I'm also excited because there is a Halloween collection, the Scream collection. A great film, and a great idea to theme polish around. Tara definitely won Halloween last year, so I have high expectations!

Before I get to the swatches, I also have a discount code for you. You can use the code 'BACK50' for the first 24 hours to get an amazing 50% off!

On to the swatches. Of course I have to show you the Halloween polishes first. This is Ghost Face, 2 coats without undies.

White crelly base, loaded with black shards, hexes and circles. As soon as I learned about the Scream collection, I was hoping for something like this. Ghoulish and gorgeous! Perfect coverage, too.

Next, I Told You Not To Hang Up, two coats without undies.

This is my favourite. Just the sort of raspberry shade I can never resist, loaded with all kinds of black glitter, and a sprinkle of holo sparkle. It gives great coverage too, as it's very pigmented, but not too opaque. You could possibly get away with one thick coat.

Next up I have a polish from the Autumn collection. This is Blackberry, again two coats without undies.

A rich, dark purple with magenta glitter and red hexes. It's a perfect Autumn colour. The base is quite opaque, and it has covered up some of the glitter, but there is still plenty peeking out. 

Finally, Party! from the Return Of The Randoms collection. This is two coats over white.

This polish did strange things to my camera! It looks like the base is tinted pink, but it isn't. It's just a predominantly pink mix. There are some hearts and stars in the mix, and I really like the pop of blue. A very cute neon topper.

These, and many more, will all be available at 00:01 on the 21st of September, in 5ml and 10ml bottles, here. You can also see Tara's own swatches (and there are loads) on the TarasTalons  Facebook page. Remember the code 'BACK50' to get 50% off, but only for the first 24 hours!

UK Indies - Freckles Polish Autumn And HALLOWEEN Polishes!!

*These products were provided for review*

Greetings All!

I'm excited. I've been swatching my first Halloween polishes of the season! Last year I got an amazing haul of Halloween polishes, and I'm getting twitchy already over the thought of expanding my collection. If you hadn't noticed, I love Halloween!

To kick off the season I have two Halloween themed polishes from Freckles Polish. The collection is called I'm Spooked, and will be released on the 26th of September. I also have two lovely holos from the Autumn Dreams Collection, but I have to do these two first because, as I said, I'm excited!

That excitement had led to a pretty picture heavy post. You have been warned!

British Nail Bloggers Colour Me Crazy Challenge! Week 10 - Pastel

Greetings All!

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get something done for this prompt. I've been suffering from a major lack of inspiration lately, and when I do paint my nails, they aren't very pastel. A lot of black polish is being used around here.


Thankfully I remembered I have a whole folder of other people's nails bookmarked, either to inspire me, or because they were so nice that I just...needed to be able to look at them again!


Last Summer I saw these nails on PenguinsLeftGreenPolish (a fellow BNB and fellow leftie!), and they were so cute I couldn't stand it! I like to think of it more as an homage than straight up pinching the design, so I hope that's OK!


Pastel nails.

I really loved how Nada created the cone design with stamping, and even though I said I was avoiding stamping for this challenge, I've allowed myself. Trying to freehand this pattern when I have the stamps just sitting there just seems silly!


For the cones I used Etude House Ice Cream Nails in Peach, Barry M Matte in Mocha and PUEEN25. The ice creams are the Models Own Fruit Pastel collection. I was super lazy and just painted them on straight from the bottle. Then matte topcoat, for that sugary sweet look.


I've also managed to get next week's nails done. So I only have one more manicure to do for this challenge! As it's the only challenge I've done so far this year, I'm quite pleased with myself.

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