Del Sol - Day Dreamer

In my lovely package from OxfordJasmine I also had a couple of Del Sol Colour Changing polishes.

As I'm sure you know these polishes change colour when exposed to sunlight (direct only I think - I couldn't get them to work with sunlight through the window)

So here it is out of the sunlight


In shade


In sunlight (through the window)

It starts off as a pretty pale silvery lavender with a pink flash



After a couple of minutes of exposure to sunlight the purple tones strengthen and you get a stronger lilac colour and the pink flash is still visible.

Application was fine, the brush is a little narrow but didn't cause any problems.  This is 3 coats and I still have some VNL - I wonder how this would work as a layering polish?  Would the colour change still be visible?

I really like the polish, obviously the colour change only works when you have sunlight, which rules out most of the winter here in the UK! but even if there isn't any sunlight this polish is like having a little secret on your nails!

Glitter Gal

Back in the Autumn the lovely Jasmine from YouTube and blogger fame asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing some nail polish, of course I jumped at the chance.

Unfortunately despite swatching the polishes fairly rapidly I haven't found time to post my swatches and review till now - bad blogger :-(

I can always find time to swatch a new polish, my unblogged swatch photo folder has over 2000 images in (which probably represents nearly 300 different polishes) but I have a real mental block with writing up the post to go with the pictures! I think I feel like it's always going to take longer than I have available. Anyone else have the same problem?

Anyhow onto the polish review.

First up is Suede from Glitter Gal







Suede is a greyed out brown with lots of holo sparkles - I'd say the holographic glitter was more of an accent to Suede rather than it being a full on holo polish.

The bottles are mid-sized at 9ml and the brush is quite dinky too but I had no problems with application from the brush or the polish.

As you may know I'm a big fan of these taupe/mushroom shades and this is no exception - with the added goodness of holographic sparkles.

Glitter Gal are an Australian company but I don't think they're widely available in other countries, yet.

Overall a very pretty polish - thanks Jasmine.

W7 Pewter

The last of my small but very impressive collection of W7's

This is Pewter


Sun


Shade

Pewter is a mid grey shimmer with fine sparkles
Great application with this polish, it was almost a one-coat-wonder.
This is 2 coats + top coat

Overall I've been very impressed with my W7's - for a cheap polish you get a large amount of good quality polish - result!

W7 Cerise Pink

Another old swatch of a W7


Sun


Shade

This is Cerise Pink, a sheer raspberry with gold microglitter

Unfortunately a little too sheer - this is 4 coats and I still have VNL. Shame because it's very pretty

Of course I should have layered it over a similar colour - if you want to see that head over to Nikki's blog where she helpfully shows you Cerise Pink layered over nails inc Hampstead Heath

W7 - Blue Lagoon

Another W7 for you gals - I found the old photos I took, no mean feat as I have over 2000 images (multiples of each colour) in my unsorted swatches folder - eeek!

Boy this one's a beaut!


Sun



Shade

Blue Lagoon is a wonderful blurple with silver glitter

Perfect coverage in  2 coats, no topcoat.  Again I'm very impressed with the quality and coverage of a pretty cheap polish - nice!

W7 - Fluorescent Blue (that isn't)

I picked this up on a recent trip to TJ Hughes (a discount retailer in the UK) - I'd tried some W7 before (which I haven't posted yet - bad blogger) and the colour intrigued me.

W7 are a low cost cosmetics brand that I've only seen in discount cosmetics & perfume places. They make a full range of cosmetics but of course I've only bought nail polish! I thimk the price was around £3, maybe less

The bottles are a good size and pretty dupey for OPI bottles.





I didn't realise till I logged the swatch in my text file that it was called Fluorescent Blue - it's not fluorescent, not even a little bit. In my book it's a
sky blue pearl.

This is 3 coats, no topcoat as usual and surprisingly brushstroke free.

I must admit I like it a lot more on the nail than in the bottle - what do you lovely ladies think?

BobbyPin Nail Collection from Boots

I thought I'd share these swatches as all the Christmas gift sets seem to be half price in Boots now.

This is a BobbyPin gift set with 4 polishes, two toe separators and a leopard print nail file, all presented in a squarish zip up clear bag.

Both the bag and the polishes have line drawing artwork - which I like and almost makes up for no polish names or numbers!

Bobbypin is created by jeffrey fulvimari, who google informs me is a fashion illustrator best known for illustrating Madonnas children's book.




I could only find my swatch pictures for two of the colours - I'm sure I swatched all of them but they're hiding, pesky pics!


First up is Stripey Hat Lady - a nude shimmer.


This is 2 coats, no topcoat and application was fine.  As you can see the bottles are of the Nails Inc style with the lid being as wide as the polish bottle which I know some gals find tricky.  The polish consistency and brush were fine, although the brush was a little short so you might run into problems towards the bottom of the bottle.  The bottles are also pretty wee at 4.5ml - a little bigger than an OPI mini but smaller than an Orly mini.

I really like this colour, it's subtle and elegant - definitively a conservative work friendly shade.


Next up is Wavy Haired Earring Lady - a cool toned mid purple pearl/chrome. 



Again this is two coats and application was good. And not too bad on the brushstroke front given the finish.

The other two colours are a dusky pink shimmer (Wavy Haired Necklace) and a bright red creme (Sunglasses Lady).  They'll turn up as soon as I hit publish, right?!

[edit] I took new pictures for Sunglasses Lady - a bright red creme, this is two coats, probably could've used 3



The original price for this set was £10 so £2.50 per polish if you don't include the extras. Not too bad a price but this set was in the Boots gift promotion where you got 3 for the price of 2 so I didn't pay that much. And of course post-Xmas it'll be £5 which is definitely worth a punt if you can find some.

Happy New Year!

Yes, I'm still alive although activity on here might lead you to think otherwise!

Unfortunately I fell foul of the most horrendous flu bug over Christmas (which I'm still not quite over and caused me to have a very miserable time) and combined with too much on in the second half of December meant my poor blog got rather neglected.

I hardly did my nails at all (my Christmas day mani was bare nails!) - I did manage to find the enthusiasm for a quick mani with one of the Andrea Fulertons I picked up while Christmas shopping and was very impressed with the wear.

I got 4 days with just some minor tipwear and then a bit more chipping on day 5.

I did a lot of cooking, dog walking and some housework so I was very impressed with how it held up.

Here's a candid shot of my left hand at the end of 5 days - my right hand was slightly worse (I'm right handed).




This is one of the Trios - Princess and is more vibrant than this low light picture shows. I'll do a fuller review at a later date but it's a double ended bottle with two polishes, designed to be layered over each other. One end is a purple glass/foil (2 coats on each nail) and then one coat of a hot pink glass/foil on my ring finger.