Urban Decay - ID

I'd been waiting for the right colour to try my bottle of Urban Decay ID over and Beverley Hills from The Hills Collection by Nails Inc looked like a good choice

  
 

Here it is in sunlight to show the awesome sparkles (click for bigger pics).

ID is a pinkish coral with huge amounts of fine gold, green and pink sparkle. It's sheer though so you'd need lots of coats for opacity on its own, or much better to layer it.

Nails Inc - The Hills Collection

So I bought this collection because it had new colours, not because I'm some huge fan of The Hills, in fact I don't know what The Hills is, other than a TV show!

I tweeted that I was swatching this collection even though I didn't know what The Hills was and this was the response from my pal, Sam:

"OMG you're like, SO not with the programme, literally. It's like a totally kewl reality show set in LA. Durrrr"

Thanks for the update Sam, I think that tells me all I need to know about the show and why I don't watch it!

On with the swatches...

First up is Rodeo Drive, a dark teal, this is in shade

and in sun


This is 2 coats and a great colour. I'm hoping do some comparisons soon but it's definitely no dupe for Illamasqua Muse or Ciate Superficial which are both lighter.

Beverley Hills.

 

Shade

and this is in sunlight

Nails inc call it a raspberry red, to me it was more of a coral with a slight jelly finish

This is 3 coats and I still have some visible VNL.

Next up is Hollywood, my first neon.

Like most neons this dries with a level of matte finish, in this case more of a satin than true matte.

The true intensity of the neon is also impossible to capture. In reality it's a much brighter pink than the photo shows!

This was 3 coats as it was a bit streaky.

I also popped on a top coat to check out the shiny version

Last up is Melrose Avenue

This is a dark blurple, Nails Inc call it an indigo which seems right. I did tweak this a little to get the colour more accurate, like most blurples it photographed more blue than the real colour.

Formula on this wasn't great, I had to do 3 coats which is almost unheard of with Nails Inc.

In fact in general I'd say this collection wasn't up to Nails Inc usual very high standard. A couple took 3 coats to be even and opaque. Some great colours but overall not a great collection.

Zoya Mieko

 

This is Mieko, a raspberry pink with strong gold shimmer, it's such a pretty colour, almost lit from within, I couldn't stop looking at it and the sparkles really catch the light

It's slightly sheer so this is 3 coats & Seche Vite topcoat. I wore this as a full mani, it didn't chip but I did have major tip pull, which was probably caused by the SV.

 

Bottle Love

I got this and all my other Zoyas that you'll see soon from the Zoya Polish Exchange

Here's how it worked
The Zoya Great Nail Polish Exchange* lets you get rid of unwanted polish (any brand other than Zoya, used or unused - empty or full) in exchange for fresh new Zoya Nail Polish. Yep, that's right, "get something for nothing"** Zoya professional nail lacquer in exchange for unwanted polish. So pack up it and trade it in - there's never been a better time to discover Zoya's award winning, long-lasting, formaldehyde, toluene, camphor and dibutyl phthalate free nail polish.

You had to pay $3 each bottle for shipping and handling, pretty cheap considering Zoya retails for £9.25/bottle in the UK. The catch was it was only open to US addresses but thanks to my good pal Carl who lives in the US and his family who have kindly tranported polish back for me I was able to take part. I shipped my 'unwanted' polish over from the UK (that's another story - after all who has unwanted polish?!) and get them delivered to a US address

Nails Inc Winter Collection 09/10 cont...

Here's the rest of the Nails Inc Autumn/Winter 09 Collection

Previous post on Victoria Gate

First up is Hampstead Heath, a slightly muted plum/raspberry creme - I still don't think it's burnt red as the Nails Inc site describes but it's a nice shade.


Hampstead Heath - Sun


Hampstead Heath - Shade

Apologies for the smeary bottle in these ones!

This is 2 coats with TC


Next is Berkley Square, a blue toned dark grey creme. Love this. Again two coats plus topcoat.

Last, but by no means least, is Belgravia, described as a warm brown shimmer which I suppose is accurate but doesn't begin the cover the gorgeousness of this polish


Belgravia - Sun


Belgravia - Shade

It's a slightly cool brown with masses of fine pink and blue shimmer


Bottle shot in an attempt to show the shimmer

In all I think this is a good collection, Hampstead Heath is probably the least exciting of the four but the others are all great.

As usual with Nails Inc these are all very pigmented and easy to work with. I got these from the Nails Inc website. They're also available from ASOS and it looks like QVC have a slightly different Autumn/Winter collection with 5 shades, some of which are different.