Saturday Swatch Spam: W7 Purples

Greetings All!

I warned you spam was coming! Lol I've been testing out loads of nail polish this week, and now I'm spamming you with the results!

Today, various purple from W7. I actually have loads of their nail polish (as I found out when organising!) and I would recommend them. The wear time isn't great, and a lot of their colours aren't especially exciting or original, but they have a solid range of 'core' polishes (black, white, red etc), a large range of glitters, and they do dabble in the extraordinary (their sprinkles range is gorgeous!) all at a very reasonable price!

First up is Purple Paradise, which is your standard royal purple shimmer. it isn't especially exciting but it is a nice example. This is 2 coats.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is rich enough. It's just a little bit flat and boring.

Next is Purple Dazzle. which is a blurple glitter. Usually my camera shows purple as blue, but in this case it was pretty colour accurate! This is 3 coats for full coverage, over Purple Paradise.

I like this because it is slightly more unusual than a lot of glitters. It isn't quite purple, it isn't quite blue, it's in between and i don't think I have any other polishes like it!


Last but not least is Cosmic Purple. This is a much more interesting glitter! Blue and magenta glitter in a purple jelly base that is quite sheer. It just adds enough colour to help with full coverage. This is 2 coats.

I think it's supposed to look purple overall, but to me it's more of a blue and pink glitter! I do like it though, and I especially like the jelly base. It's a lovely shade and I think it really helps to tie the glitter together. This is my favourite of the three.

So there you go! 3 less polishes in the untried pile!

Models Own Copper Pot and Stamping

Greetings All!

Just a quick post. I've had this polish since the Autumn, and I've never worn it! I thought it would be perfect for Autumn, but I tend to shy away from using shimmer polishes because they never look as good as in the bottle! This one is a copper shimmer, with a hint of green iridescence.

Fairly recently I've discovered that I really like the look of shimmer polishes under stamping, especially black stamping. I've been using my DRK-B plate again, I officially love it! The images are actually too big for all my nails, so it takes a lot of the hassle out of positioning the stamp correctly to make sure it covers my nail. I'll definitely be getting DRK-A and C, eventually!

Today I chose a floral stamp, and I used Konad Black, over 2 coats of Copper Pot (it wasn't as sheer as I feared it might be!)

I also tried it with matte topcoat.

This week I've been sorting through my top coats, and testing them out. This one smudged my stamping, even after I left it for about 10 minutes! I keep topcoats like that for when I do gradients (they're pretty good for blending). Apart from that, I love these nails! And it gives me a good reason to wear more shimmers!

Relaxed 31DC Week 4: Green

Greetings All!

It's Friday again! Hope you all have something nice planned for the weekend! Today is the fourth day/week of the 31 Day/Week Challenge, hosted by Katherine at Rambles of a Polish Addict, and the theme is Green. Shame this wasn't last week really, as it would have fitted in well with St Patrick's Day!

I decided to use OPI Jade Is The New Black again. I really love this green it's so deep and rich and perfect. I used my DRK-B plate and stamped a design that I thought looked a bit Celtic, using my trusty Barry M Gold Foil.

Unfortunately my stamping skills let me down a bit for this one.Stamping - so easy to learn, so difficult to master! I also tried to turn the design round for an accent nail, but you can barely tell! I'm loving the gold and green combo at the moment though.


Remember to check out everyone else's green nails!

A-England Avalon and Tess D'Urbervilles

Greetings All!

While I've been off work this week I've been having a thorough sort through of my nail polish, and I found these 2 in my untried pile (which is still slowly getting smaller!). All of my 'tried' polish is now either in my Helmer, or on a display stand. Getting it tidy has definitely motivated me to get it all swatched and organised!  I may be throwing some swatch spam your way soon!

Today though, 2 polishes from a-england. First is Avalon, from the Mythicals collection. This is a magenta purple shimmer that applied very nicely. This is 2 coats.

I've adjusted the last picture to try and get it more colour accurate. Apologies for the 'bubbles' - I've also been sorting/testing out my top coats. This one failed!

I like this, but I don't love it. I don't tend to wear shimmer polishes very often - they always look prettier in the bottle. It is quite a nice colour though.


Next we have Tess D'Urbervilles, which is green glitter in a black base from the Gothic Beauties collection. This is also 2 coats.

I had problems with Ophelia just looking black (you can see it HERE), but I had no such issues with Tess. Plenty of deep green shimmer lighting up the black. I really like this. Black has been my favourite nail polish for nearly 15 years, but I am starting to develop a taste for polishes that are black, but with a little bit more. This is definitely one of those!

You can buy a-england polishes HERE

Tri Polish Challenge March: Manicure 2

Greetings All!

This is the second manicure for March's Tri Polish Challenge. I did explain it a bit on Tuesday, but the details are all HERE if you want them.

Here is a reminder of the polishes I will be using all month for this challenge

I'm a bit gutted because on Monday I got a lovely Sally Hansen coral pink in the mail! Then I could have used all Sally Hansen and my bottles would have matched!


Today I decided to use all three polishes again, to do an Ikat style print. Now, I've never had any desire to do Ikat print nails. It's not that I don't like them exactly, I just never really wanted them on my nails. They don't really appeal to me, and I have no idea why! So I decided to do them today.

After this, I don't think I'll be doing them again! This is not a look I like. I was told that these were very easy, and that you don't have to worry about being a little messy because it's supposed to look messy. I think the first couple I did were like the neatest ikats ever! So then I tried to deliberately make them a little messy. Either way, I think they look weird. Very bright and eye-catching and colourful, but weird.

The Tri Polish Challenge will be back next week, with 2 more manicures using these same three colours!

Remember to have a look at what everyone else has done to their nails!

Let The Giveaway Begin!

Erm, pretty much what the title says! My first Giveaway is now live!

My First Giveaway!

Greetings All!

I know this is a little late, but better late than never! I kept putting stuff off because I knew I had this week off work, and then the whole Google Reader shutting down threw me a bit.

I've decided to still use GFC as the main option for this Giveaway. It finishes before Google reader closes, so hopefully it'll be fine! I've also included the option to follow me on Bloglovin'. I've imported all the blogs I read already so I won't lose anyone!

I also just wanted to say another thank you to everyone who follows, comments on and views my little blog. You guys are amazing, and you all make me feel very special!

On to the giveaway. Ideally I would have liked to buy some things as prizes for you lovely people, but the postal service in the UK isn't letting us post internationally, and I wanted to be able to open this to everyone, so we're going with a gift certificate :( BUT it is for $50! One for each lovely follower lol, even though I'm up to sixty something now.

You can choose which online retailer you would like your gift certificate from! Some suggestions are

Llarowe

Ninja Polish

Born Pretty

Amazon

Etsy


Basically anywhere that has gift certificates, and that will deliver to you. Oh, and ideally nail related people!





a Rafflecopter giveaway






The giveaway starts at Midnight GMT tonight, and will end on the 19th of April. The best of luck to everyone (including me, I hope this all works!)

British Nail Bloggers: W7 Suede Collection

Greetings All! This post is very picture heavy!

Is it that time already? Time for a British Nail Blogger post! This week my BNB post is about a British brand that I love, W7. I've been noticing their Suede collection popping up, I think it's fairly new (or at least, new to me!), and I do a love a matte/suede polish so I snapped up the whole collection!

Look, I even made a lovely collage of them! They come in 6 colours, and as you can see they pretty much do what it is says on the bottle! They dry very quickly to a suede finish.

Nail Mail! March 19th

Greetings All!

Just a quick post as I got some pretty epic nail mail yesterday what nail mail isn't epic?!), and this will either make you jealous, or make you feel much better about your own polish addiction!

If you are a regular visitor, you may know that I'm pretty obsessed with Sally Hansen Salon Manicure polishes. They're my favourite brand right now. I've already discussed all the reasons I love them, and a website I get them from, Fragrance Direct keeps adding more shades. I also found another website, Xtras Online, that has a large selection of them. So last week, I may have gone a little bit over the top ordering some...

These were from Fragrance Direct.

Top Row

Black Platinum, Commander in Chic, Anenome of Mine, Cherry Cherry Bang Bang

Middle Row

Dorien Grey, Gray By Gray, The Sky's The Limit, Pedal To The Metal, Greige Gardens

Bottom Row

Raisin The Bar, Shiny Penny, Terracotta, Boca Mocha, Buttercup

And these are from Xtras Online

Top Row

Purple Posy, Good To Grape, Temptation, Oxblood, Onyx

Middle Row

Ivory Skull, Barely Bluebell, Angel Wings, Hidden Treasures, Choco Latte

Bottom Row

Fired Up, Gilded Lily, Right Said Red, Shrimply Divine, Plum's The Word

So, there you go! I might have a bit of a problem...but that's why I'm here isn't it? And I'm sorry that the pictures are bad, but don't worry, you'll be seeing plenty more of these, probably soon!

Oh, and my display stand came from an eBay shop, Essex Sign and Display Ltd. They have all sorts of nail polish display stands, wall mounted and freestanding, different sizes, you can even get a personalised one! I like the black ones because they go with my decor! You can have a look at them HERE.

Tri Polish Challenge March: Manicure One

Greetings All!

Today marks the start of a new challenge hosted by The Crumpet. The rules are quite weird and complicated, you can try and get your head around them HERE, and if you want to join in, you have to join Crumpet's Nail Tarts on Facebook HERE. Basically we are given three colours. We then have to choose a polish to represent each colour, and create 4 manicures with those same three polishes. Apparently you cannot change polishes, and have to use the same ones throughout. You then post your manicures on the third and fourth Tuesday and Thursday of the month. You have to use at least 2 of your three polishes for each manicure, and you have to use all three at least once. You are also allowed to use black, white, gold and silver, and glitter. The colours are the only theme - you can paint what you like.

It's a bit complicated and faffy, but I'll take nearly any excuse to paint my nails. Unfortunately this months colour choices are awful - green purple and coral. Green and purple, fine, but coral?! Ridiculous. I don't know why they couldn't just say orange. Then you could use coral if you wanted (but no one would because it's a stupid colour). Orange purple and green  - Halloween! Green purple and coral  - ugh.

Anyway, I finally managed to find a coral polish. Here are my colours.

Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Grass Slipper, an unnamed Sweet Heart polish (that after all that effort, pretty much just looks like orange. FML) and Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Purple Pulse.


And this is what I did with them. I started with 3 coats of the coral (did I mention it's thin and applies horribly?), then I painted on some Grass Slipper and used cling film to remove some of the green.

Initially I was going to stamp over this, but I thought I should use all three, and get that out of the way. So I freehanded some swirls and dots with Purple Pulse.

I'm quite happy because usually this is the sort of design I would stamp, but I gave it a go freehand and for the most part it looks pretty good! A few little mistakes, but not bad.


Remember you can check out what everyone else has been doing, and see if anyone out there actually likes coral!

Blue Roses - My Crumpet Amateur Nail Art Contest Entry

Greetings All!

So, Debbie over at The Crumpet hosts a monthly nail art contest. You can read all about it HERE, but basically if you have less than 100 followers, you can enter your nail art, and people vote for which one they like the best. The theme for this month is blue, and after I did my Grey Roses, I wanted to do them using another colour, so why not blue?

I used 6, yes 6 untried blue polishes for this manicure! I started with Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Himalayan Blue, a lovely fresh bright blue. This is 2 coats, with matte topcoat.

Then while sifting through polishes to find some blues, I decided I wanted to add a bit of glitter. I used 1 coat of OPI Last Friday Night, and another coat of matte.

I drew on the roses using Collection 2000 Button Moon, and the details in BMX Bandit. I got both in my first polish swap! With Claire from Kerruticles. We both got multipacks of Collection 2000 in Poundland (3 for £1!) so we swapped some duplicates.

I added even more petal detail with OPI Blue My Mind, and drew the leaves with OPI Into The Night. To be honest, I think I probably used too many polishes. It's a bit busy, and I prefer the grey ones!

A quick reminder, you can enter and vote HERE, you can enter until the 23rd of March and then voting begins. I guess I should ask you nicely to vote for me, but really you should just have a look and vote for your favourite!

Accessorize Ladybird

Greetings All!

Another new week begins! Today I wanted to share with you a polish I saw swatches of, and had to go out and buy that same day! This was a couple of months ago though, and although I swatched it on one finger, it's been sitting in the untried pile ever since!

Accessorize do a lovely range of polishes - metallics, glitters, duochromes, all sorts! They also have a range of glitter polishes very similar to the Nails Inc Sprinkles range, or the W7 range (that I don't know the name of! You can see two of them HERE though, and the third one can be found HERE). They have 3 that seem to me to be exactly the same as those 3 W7 polishes, but several that are different.

After debating whether to get more than one, I only bought Ladybird (the one I set out to buy). Black small glitter, in a rasberry jelly base! Red with black glitter? Of course I had to have it! People online had recommended putting it over a matching base, so you can just use one coat of the glitter. I did do that, but I decided to go for 2 coats of the glitter. I found it to be a little clumpy and difficult to apply, so I went for 2 coats, to try and even it out.

Isn't she lovely? Maybe not quite the right red for Ladybird, but still really gorgeous. Left shiny, it looked a bit like dried blood on my nails, so I made it matte (that's why there's a little white dot on my ring finger - apologies! I must clean the bottle lol). I think it probably would look better with the glitter slightly sparser, or maybe with anther colour added, next time I will have to be more careful when applying it. Apart from that, I love it!

I bought this from Superdrug (my local Accessorize doesn't stock their own range of makeup?!) for I believe £3.49 for 10ml. The W7s are £1.95 for 15ml, so I would definitely go for those three over the Accesorize ones (the black and white one is called Leopard Moth. That's all I can remember! But there's a black white and red one the same as W7 Lava Flow, and a blue navy and gold one, exactly the same as W7 Mosaic, which is in turn the same as Nails Inc Pudding Lane!). I would however recommend the shades that are different. They're cute, and unusual! There's an orange one called Bumblebee I've got my eye on!