17 - Pizazz

This is the second of the 17 Christmas collection, Tinsel & Tiaras.

 

 

This is Pizazz - a black jellyish creme with fine silver glitter
It's pretty - this one took 3 coats and I added a top coat.

I was pretty impressed with these, they were unusual colour/finish combinations and nice and Christmassy.

I'll certainly check out more 17 polishes - anyone else got experience of these?

Boots 17 - Shimmering Sequins

I'm a bit late in posting these as I'm pretty sure they were Christmas specials!

Despite 17 being a long running Boots brand I don't think I'd bought any of their polishes before. I assumed they wouldn't be good quality as they're pretty cheap. But of course, now I know that price is no indication of quality!

 
Sun - 2 coats with topcoat

 
Shade - 2 coats with topcoat

This is a limited edition range called 'Tinsel & Tiaras' and this colour is 'Shimmering Sequins'
It's a purple shimmer glitter and I think it's pretty wonderful. Formula and application was good and fully opaque in two coats.

Apologies for the messy application - why do I never notice this until I'm looking at the photos afterwards?!

Stay tuned for the second in this collection tomorrow

No7 - Night Silver

Here's another No7 Stay Perfect and I did pay for this one...

It's called Night Silver

 

I'd say it was a mid grey with strong shimmer, almost a frost...

This is 2 coats, with no top coat. As you can see it was slightly brushstrokey

Overall not too exciting but nothing to complain about either, perhaps with less shimmer/frost it would've been a more interesting polish.

No7 - Milan

This one was a freebie in one of those gift with purchase collections that No7 often do. I can't say I would've chosen this colour normally, it's a bit too 'mumsy' for me but I was intrigued enough to give it a spin.

No7 stay perfect in Milan
 
Shade
 
Sun
 
Sun

Pink foil with insane shimmer - 2 coats & topcoat.

Formula was good, I'm still not sure I like the colour but the intense foil/shimmer does redeem it somewhat.

No7 is a cosmetics & skincare range in Boots, the UK's leading drugstore. I'd say it was a mid-range brand, polishes retail for around £6.

Bloom - Yeojin II

I'd been wanting to try Bloom polishes for a while and finally found some in Superdrug in Sheffield - I've never seen them in any of the Superdrugs round my way.

Bloom is an Australia brand, created by Natalie Bloom back in 1993, and now includes a full range of cosmetics and skincare.

I only bought a couple of polishes as they're quite spenny, about £8 each IIRC.

First up is yeojin II, part of the designer collection and named after Australia designer Yeojin Bae.

It's a blackened blurple, very blackened, in fact it looks black almost all of the time!

Check out the pics taken in different light and see if you can spot a hint of purple in any of them?!

 
 


Nope, me neither. To be fair I can see a hint of blurple in some of the bottle shots but on my nails it's just black.

This is 2 coats with no top coat - it's very glossy (and very black...)

Formula was fine and you can see how opaque it was in two coats

So overall this colour didn't really work for me, it's dark, dramatic and glossy but you might as well wear black.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

For my St Paddy's day posting I decided to go with the blingest green I own

Welcome into the ring, the Bright, the Sparkling, the Apple Green Queen of Holo Glitter, Green Hawaii!

 
Shade


Sun

 
Bottle love

So this is GOSH Green Hawaii, isn't she just wonderful?

She's an apple green with multi coloured holo glitter

This is 3 coats and I still have some VNL, but heck, who's gonna notice? I'd be tempted to layer if I had anything else that colour!

She also does nothing for my skintone but oh so pretty, and unique, I don't have anything like this in my collection, in fact I'd be pretty confident there isn't anything like this out there? Anyone care to differ?

Hope you're all having a fab St. Paddy's day

Green, Green Grass of Home

Continuing with green week, I thought I'd take a walk on the bright side

This is Mojito from Ciate Paint Pots



It's a bright, but not acid, mid green creme. It was pretty sheer, this is four coats, not something I'd usually do but it's such a fun colour.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and I'm off out to a gig in the evening; of course my mani will be green, but which one?

At the moment I'm torn between Illamasqua Rampage and RBL Orbis non Sufficit, I love Rampage but haven't worn ONS before - decisions, decisions

Fried Green Tomatoes

Another installment of green week

This is Battersea Park from Nails Inc



It's a khaki green creme and this is two coats with no top coat, as ever application was faultless.

Another one that looks different on the nail - perhaps it's a green trait? It's more olive tinged and dusty on the nail.

This was part of the Handbag Collection which I think was exclusive to QVC, IIRC they sold matching handbags in the same colours (I'm missing the handbag gene!)

Green Door

Just a quick green post for Sunday night...

This is BYS Fern, a dusky dark green with silver glitter.

 
Sun


Shade

I'm pretty sure BYS is an Australian brand, over here (UK) I found it in one of those discount beauty/perfume places and it was inexpensive.

This is 2 coats, no topcoat. Formula was great, I'd definitely buy more of these.

Anyone else got experience of BYS?

P.S. Initially I was going to call this post 'Behind the Green Door' those being the key lines I remembered from the cheesy 80's hit by Shakin' Stevens (Wales' answer to Elvis) but on googling that line I changed my mind - I didn't want those kinda hits!

Anne of Green Gables

Next up in Green week is Ciaté Apples & Custard, part of Ciaté's Spring/Summer 2009 Candy Couture collection.

Apples & Custard is a gorgeous dusky mid green creme and to my mind looks nothing like apples & custard and more like the first edition cover of Anne of Green Gables, hence this blog post title.



This is 2 coats in the shade.

This is another that is rumoured to be dupey to Chanel's Jade but as I don't have that I can't really comment.

Ciaté's Candy Couture collection was actually a great collection and I think I have all of them so watch out for future non-green swatches from this collection

How green is my valley?

It's green week/month over on my favourite nail board Make-Up Alley , inspired by St Patrick's Day, so I thought I do a few green posts too.

This is GOSH Metallic Green, a pale green foil that is oddly paler on the nail than in the bottle, something to do with the foiliness I assume.

 
Sun


Shade

Despite being a foil the brush-strokes aren't too bad, just ignore that ding on my little finger :-)

This is two coats, no top coat.

It's an unusual colour, I don't think I have anything like it but I'm not quite sure it's me - perhaps it's the foil again. I'm not sure I've embraced my inner foil-lover yet...

Sleek Nailed - Oxford

Sleek Makeup is a UK cosmetics brand targeted at woman of all skin colours. They're sold in Superdrug (a UK drugstore) and Afro-Caribbean stores.

They're most famous for their amazing iDivine eyeshadow palettes, 12 colours of awesome intense pigmented shadow for a very reasonable £5ish.

But they also do polish, called Nailed, not a huge selection of colours but I thought I'd give them a try...

This is Oxford, a denim blue with strong blue shimmer

 
Shade


Sun

Good points
This is 1 coat! Very, very opaque.
Easy to work with

Bad points
Pretty thick & gloopy
Oddly unshiny although this was easily fixed with topcoats (not shown)

LA Colors - Purple Ice

This one could've been so good....

It's a beautiful colour, purple with fine blue & multi-coloured shimmer - look at the gorgeousness

 
Shade


Sun

And the sparkles


But - this is 4, yes four!, coats and I still have VNL.

Ah well, good job it was cheap - £1 or £2 IIRC

Illamasqua Nudge

Oooh, how exciting, arrived in Birmingham yesterday (for planned gig in Nottingham)to find gorgeous birthday present from my lovely friends Liz & Matt...

How well do they know me? Well enough to buy me fabulous Illamasqua nail polish

Luckily we had time before we left to apply a quick mani and this morning I grabbed a couple of pics.

 
Sun

Shade

This was two coats on all nails except my index finger which took three (and I didn't do a great job with the third coat - we were drinking sparkling wine, never condusive to great manis!)

This was pretty good to apply, especially for a pale creme polish, not as good as some of the darker Illamasquas but not terrible.

I also had to tweek the colour of these pics to make them more colour accurate, the original pics were too blue, IRL it's a minty green, so ignore the lobster hands!

I don't have Chanel Jade to compare it to but from pics on NailGal I'd say it was lighter and more minty green than Jade and doesn't have the secret shimmer

Anyone else have any of the Illamasqua Pastels?