Tri Polish Challenge June 2013 - Manicure 3

Greetings All!

This is my third manicure for this month's TPC. The rules are - 4 manicures, using three polishes, representing three pre-determined collours! Here's a quick reminder of the colours I've been using this month..

Barry M Gelly Nail Paints in Passion Fruit, Dragon Fruit and Plum.

And here is today's manicure!

 I thought the juxtaposition of skulls and pretty little flowers might be fun. I don't really like the flower stamp I chose though!

The flower stamp is CH16, and the skulls are from the new Cheeky Jumbo plates (plate 1). I'm so glad I picked a polish that stamps! Technically Passion Fruit does too - stay tuned for that!

If you want to join in the TPC, you can do so here. There will be one final manicure using these polishes on Thursday. Until then, please check out everyone else's lovely nails!

UK Indies - Pocket Money Polishes Glitter Babies - I Put A Spell On You

Greetings All!

I mentioned last week I would be featuring another UK indie brand this week. Well, just this month, Charlie from Pocket Money Polishes released her own collection of polishes, called Glitter Babies (awww!). This is a polish from that first collection, which are all named after songs.

Here's how Charlie describes I Put A Spell On You:

Green stars, purple hearts with orange matte squares and a shifting rainbow.

This polish was inspired by my favourite version of this song,

a cover by Creedence Clearwater Revival – a bit of bayou voodoo magic in a bottle.

It's Halloween colours! One of my very favourite colour combinations. Of course that also makes me think of the Bette Midler version of the song from Hocus Pocus!

My first instinct was to put this over black, but I also wanted to see how it looked over another colour, so I kind of have accent fingers!

The lilac is Models Own Grape Juice, and the black is Barry M Black Multi Glitter (not W7 Black! I'm evolving!). I thought the holo glitter would tie in nicely with the iridescent glitter in IPSAOY. 

It's super sparkly and super pretty! I had to do a bit of placement with the hearts and stars, but I don't mind that with large glitter - it means you can put it where you want it!

I'll be honest, I don't love it over the lilac. I wanted to go with a deeper purple, but I thought I would 'lose' the hearts...I often make rubbish base colour choices! I'm already thinking of other colours to out it over though (Blue. And grey. And hot pink!). I think it looks pretty freaking amazing over the black though!

You can buy Glitter Babies here. They are mostly sold out, but there are a couple of bottles of this Baby left!

Gliiter Babies 2 will be released on July 1st. However, I do have some swatches of two of them coming your way later this week!

You can also visit here for all the latest news and infomation on Pocket Money Polishes, and Glitter Babies!

Tara's Talons Week - UK Indies All Week! Day 7 - I'll Be Your Clown, Rose Petal

Greetings All!

Today is the last day of Tara's Talons week! Boy that went by fast! Technically I could do another week as I keep buying them lol. However I'm having terrible trouble deciding which one to wear first!

Have you caught up on all the other days? If not, shame on you! Lol you can catch up on days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 by clicking on the numbers!

I hope you haven't had enough of UK indies though, because next week I will be showing you some polishes  by another UK indie polish maker! If you can't tell, it is something I like to support!

Have you ever thought about making your own polishes? I don't think I would have the patience for it! I asked Tara if she had any advice for anyone thinking about doing it. Here's what she had to say.

Have fun, don't stress about any negative people/comments that you encounter, make sure you find good suppliers and come and join my 'UK indie nail polish creators' group on Facebook for tips, support, feedback and chat!

So there you go! See, I'm fairly 'stressy' a lot of the time lol, I would probably end up throwing bottles of polish against a wall at some point.

Here's a quick reminder of all Tara's links

Etsy (her Summer sale is still going on - there's no better time to grab a bargain!)
Blog (where you can enter her giveaway to win 9 of her polishes!)
Website
Facebook
Twitter (well done me, for remembering that Twitter exists!)

Because you are such lovely people, you get two swatches again today!

First is I'll Be Your Clown. I have a real 'thing' for glitter in a pale base - I just love it! Sometimes I'll make my own with a jelly sandwich, but it's always nice to have it all in one bottle - I can be pretty lazy after all! IBYC is a rainbow of glitter in a very pale pink base, just slightly off white. I originally thought it was very similar to Vanilla Yogurt, but it's quite different, fortunately! As with every Tara's Talons polish I've tried, I only needed 2 coats.

Here we have 2 different sizes of hexes, and microglitter, in just about every colour imaginable! Some are even holographic. I love the soft, off-white, pinky tinge this one has, like a soft, fluffy blanket. But with glitter. This one was a real pleasure to wear, and I kept it on for nearly three whole days! That's an eternity in my world lol.

(On a side note, look how long my nails are getting! Super long! They'll need a trim soon, or they'll break. And I'll cry. And people will laugh. And I'll feel stupid)

This pretty is called Rose Petals. It's similar to Red Wine, but a brighter, pillarbox red. Again, 2 coats.

It's the classic red colour, but with sparkle! I've said before that when I wear red polish, I nearly always go for a straight up creme, but I can see me reaching for this one instead because GLITTER. This is another fairly textured polish, so you can wear it two ways!

So, dear reader, the series is over! What's been your favourite? If you live in the UK, I would seriously recommend this brand - I haven't had a bad polish from Tara, and I LOVE it when people comment on my nails, and I tell them I own the only bottle of it. They look so confused!

And remember, she does custom polishes too! So you can tell her what you want, and I have been assured that she will not rest until it is made for you! (OK, that might be a lie. But she really will make a custom polish just for you!)

Tara's Talons Week - UK Indies All Week! Day 6 - BBQ Water Fight - BYOB!

Greetings All!

Guess what today is? It's day 6 of Tara's Talons week! Lol, clue was in the title. Here are the links to day 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. You can also catch up on my first and second posts about her polishes (from waaay back in, erm, April! It seems like a long time...).

I've been asking Tara a different question for each day of this week. My official reason is so that we can all get to know her better, but really, I'm a nosy bugger! Sorry, I mean I have an inquiring mind! Today we're finding out what indie brands the indie polish maker likes! (how meta is that?!). So, Tara, what indie brands do you like?


This is a difficult question because I can look at indie polishes ALL day! They are all so pretty and I can't believe the talent of these creators! I drop orders off to one of my customers because she lives quite close to me and she shows me her indie polish collection and they are all beautiful, I get mesmerised by the glitters! I honestly can't say that any indie brand is better than another in terms of their hard work and the pretties they create but I will say that I recently found an indie in New York called 'Starrily' and she had some BEAUTIES!

(You can check out Starrily polishes on Etsy here). They really are so pretty! 

Unfortunately I have been bitten by the indie 'bug', I resisted for quite a while but yeah, I'm infected now lol. There are so many fabulous brands, but the shipping is very, very expensive, sometimes more expensive than the polishes (Starrily, that Tara mentioned, charges £10 for shipping, and many other brands aren't much cheaper EDIT Starrily have now reduced their postage to £7.99 for international postage!). I'm not having a go at the polish makers at all - I'm sure they don't make money from postage, it's just an unfortunate situation that we're all stuck in, with indie polishes having to be an indulgent treat, instead of the daily sustenance they should be!

That's another reason to buy UK polishes - the postage is much cheaper, and much quicker too!

Link time!

Tara's Etsy shop - with her sale still on, plus grab bags, and pick and mix bags for big savings, her indie polishes have never been cheaper!

Her blog, where you can enter her giveaway to win 9 bottles of polish, and a discount coupon! Plus you can check out her nail art! She paints on false nails, which I love. It means you can keep your favourite designs, and rewear them!

Her website has all the useful links you will need!

If you're all media-sociable, you can also find her on Facebook and Twitter, for all kinds of updates on her polishes!

Today was originally going to be another polish from the Life's Little Luxuries collection, but recently I've been wearing some of Tara's newer polishes (with another 5 arriving in the post today!!), so I'm going to show you two of those instead! These are both from her Summer collection, and as we had Midsummer's day here yesterday, and apparently it is meant to be Summer (ha!), they fit right in!

First up is BBQ BYOB. As always, 2 coats plus topcoat.

So the naming of this one is pretty obvious - it looks exactly like a sticky bbq glaze! Hovering in between brown and red, with loads of holo added for good measure. This polish isn't quite as opaque as some - you can still see the glitter peeking out under the second coat! As usual, I love it! Even the teeny tiny holo bars, as they are very well behaved and stay in the polish, and don't stick out everywhere. Plus, what's more Summery than a bbq? I work in a bakery, and I can confirm that at the slightest hint of sunshine, people go ape for hot dog rolls and burger buns.

Water Fight is another very aptly named polish. Bright sky blue, with a generous splash of blue and silver glitter. 2 coats, surprisingly! I've never needed a third with Tara's polishes!

My favourite shade of blue! And so laden with 'watery' glitter - blue, silver, holographic, it is so evocative of water! In the last (closeup) picture especially, you can also see how much depth it has. Pretty good for just two coats!

Tomorrow is the last day of this series (boo!), but you will still be seeing plenty of Tara's polishes on the blog, because I can't stop buying them! BUT there is good stuff tomorrow, I promise!

Tara's Talons Week - UK Indies All Week! Day 5 - Gold Jewellery

Greetings All!

And so we move on to day 5! You can still catch up with days 1, 2, 3 and 4, if you haven't already.

Today we're finding out - how much time does Tara spend on making polish?


LOTS! I really love doing it so I don't mind at all but it does take lots of time because it is such a long process. It takes quite a bit of time to find suppliers and place my orders but even more  time to come up with a collection theme, names and colours, then I have to create the polishes, including the glitter bleed test time! Then I have to bottle, label and photograph them before they're ready to list on Etsy which again takes quite a while and then I have to try and get the word out about my brand and new collections so there are days I don't get to bed and I'm up making polishes and then packing orders about 6am ready to go to the parcel shop but I wouldn't change it for anything! This is the best job I've ever had and the support I've been given from bloggers and polish lovers and the lovely comments I've had make it all worth the hard work! One day I hadn't been to bed and I was SO tired and grumpy and then I got an order from a lovely girl who had ordered before and she sent me a message saying she loved the polishes that she had just ordered and couldn't wait to try them and that she loved the last polish she had ordered from me and it was her favourite out of over 200 polishes she owns! I was NOT grumpy after that! It made me smile all day and I put the screenshot of it on my website :D


Isn't that nice? Still, it sounds like a lot of hard work - I don't think I could do it!

Tara's Summer sale is still going on Etsy, where she has also released her newest (14th!) collection. You have to be quick though - as nearly all her polishes are one of a kind, once they're gone, they're gone!

She also announced today that she is hosting a giveaway on her blog - you can win 9 of her lovely polishes (I own 2 from the collection, which you can view here), plus a coupon for 60% off an order from her shop! How very generous! At this rate she'll be cleaned out!

You can also visit her on her website and Facebook. Oh, and Twitter! I always forget about Twitter lol.

Today's polish is a real gem. It's called Gold Jewellery. While I'm not a fan of gold jewellery itself, regular readers will know that I'm a big fan of gold polishes, so as soon as I saw this one, I knew I had to have it! This is, as always, 2 coats. It needed a generous amount of topcoat, due to all the glitter, but left alone it's very much a textured polish, and reminds me of the Zoya and OPI textured polishes! So I can wear it two ways!

Just look at all that sparkle! Including a generous amount of holo glitter (which my camera is rubbish at picking up!). This is so my kind of polish. Gold, glittery, and beautiful. I've also included a picture of it without topcoat, so you can see the difference.

It's like having 2 polishes for the price of one! And so on-trend (she also has neon glitters too, so in fact she's very trendy lol).

This weekend I'll be bombarding you with swatches - I hope you're ready!

Relaxed 31DC Week 17 - Glitter

Greetings All!

It's Friday! We made it through another week - just! I'm now well into the second half of this relaxed version of the 31 Day Challenge, although it does not seem like nearly 4 months since it started! Today the theme is glitter. Unless this is the first time you've read this blog, you should know I'm a total glitter bunny - I LOVE me some glitter! Sparkly, matte, holo, large, small, I love it all! So I bet I've got something really awesome to share today, right?

Wrong! Ha, I use it so much, I didn't really know what to do for today. So I went with a simple glitter gradient using my favourite colours.

Apologies for the shorty nails - I prepped this one while I had an ugly injury on my right hand (bread-related, as usual!). The base is W7 Black, as always, and the glitter is OPI Goldeneye, my favourite gold glitter. I especially love how it looks when sponged on, because it looks like teeny tiny flakes of gold leaf. It goes with every colour too!

Please take a moment to check out everyone's glittery nails! And special thanks to Pram for sorting out the inlinkz codes!

Tara's Talons Week - UK Indies All Week! Day 4 - Log Fire

Greetings All!

So if you haven't worked it out yet, this week I'm sharing with you some awesome UK indies from Tara's Talons. You can catch up with days 1, 2 and 3, if you missed them!

Today, I've asked Tara why there are so fewer UK indie polish makers than in other countries (USA being the big one!). Here's what she had to say:


I think it's because it is SO hard to get the supplies here. Most UK suppliers will only sell in huge quantities so if you can't buy them in those quantities you have to import them from other countries in smaller quantities which usually doesn't cost much less! I really hope that supplies will become more readily available in the UK and that UK indies will become more common like they are in America!


So, suppliers, pull your fingers out! Don't you know we're just as polish addicted over here?!

On to the polish! Another one from the Life's Little Luxuries collection (the others being Childhood memories, Magical, High school reunion, Things I love, Have a drink, Random, Favourite songs, Summer, Just because, Be polished, Brights. and Perfectly Polishes - Part 1, with Part 2 being released tomorrow!). It's called Log Fire. This is 2 coats with topcoat. I don't think I've needed more than 2 coats with any of her polishes!

I like this one because it's too orange to be yellow, and too yellow to be orange! It's just about exactly between the two! Unfortunately some of the glitter gets hidden by the rather opaque base, so it's quite a subtle sparkle, but I'll forgive it because I don't own a colour like this!

Bonus! Nail Art!

Of course it had to be fire! OPI The Thrill of Brazil, and DRK-B. Can you believe it's all from one stamp?! Gotta love a wide stamp!

All non-custom polishes are at least 20% off in Tara's Summer sale! Check out her Etsy shop HERE. You can also check out her Facebook, Website and Blog, where she does all kinds of nail art!