Essie - With the Band

Warm brick red creme  

With The Band is a lovely autumnal polish, a warm brick red creme.

Application was great, this was opaque in one coat, of course I did two for completeness. I really like this, a warm red shouldn't really be my bag but this one works.

With The Band is from the Fall 2015 collection so I'm only a year behind with this one!

SpaRitual - Can You Dig It?

Brown/burgundy shimmer  

New month, new brand - my first SpaRitual

Can You Dig It? is a warm brown/burgundy shimmer with lots of fine gold shimmer within.

The base colour is an interesting shade, sometimes a warm brown, sometimes leaning more burgundy and even heading towards purple.  Almost duo-chrome although I'd hesitate to call it so.

Swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.  This isn't necessarily a colour I'd be drawn to but it does look good on.

SpaRitual is a brand I've been aware of for a long time, it used to pop up regularly in the 'olden days' of nail blogging, but was never very easy to get hold of in the UK and pretty expensive with it.

CYDI is a classic shade that's been around since 2008 at least.

This polish came to me through the wonders of TKMaxx, I'm so much more likely to take a punt on a polish where I don't have to pay postage and it's massively reduced from RRP - pretty sure this one was £3 or £4

Rococo - Brown Button

Deep burgundy creme  

Another of my bargain Rococo's - this time the slightly oddly named Brown Button

Odd because Brown Button isn't actually very brown at all - it's more of a deep burgundy creme.

Brown Button also leans purple unlike the burgundy classics like Chanel's Rouge Noir or Nails Inc Victoria which tend to lean red and have more of a crelly finish.  Instead Brown Button has a slight creamy/opaque aspect to it rather than the sheer of a crelly.

Application was great, swatches shown are 2 coats, no top coat.  But look at that shine!

D'Orleac - 29

Burgundy Gold Foil Shimmer

D'Orleac 29 is an interesting burgundy/gold foil.  The base is a deep burgundy foily shimmer and then there's a strong flash of yellow gold foil shimmer running through.  Which ends up being quite lovely.  Which is why it should have a name!

Application was good, nothing notable about the brush and swatches shown are 2 coats, no top coat.

I think D'Orleac is a Spanish cosmetics brand.  I bought this and a selection of other colours and nail care products from a French online sale site and this shade cost me £2!

Golden Rose - Rich Color 34

Rich burgundy shimmer  

Golden Rose Rich Color in 34 is a rich, shimmering plum/burgundy.

This was almost a one-coat wonder for me and the polish is marketed as a one-coat product, but these swatches are 2 coats for full depth of colour.

And the one-step maxi brush wasn't too bad at all.  I think I'm realising that not all wide or maxi brushes are terrible for me - although there is still a special place in hell for the MeMeMe maxi wide brushes!

Nails Inc - Whitcomb Street

Burgundy foil shimmer  

Belated Happy New Year everyone!

Kicking off 2015 with a gorgeous gold flecked burgundy from Nails Inc.

Bottle closeup

Whitcomb Street is a gorgeous deep burgundy jellyish creme with loads of gold and pink flakie goodness.  It's stunning in sunlight and nearly as awesome out of it.

Application, of course, was great.  Swatches shown are 3 coats due to those jelly tendencies, with no top coat.

There are hardly any swatches of this online so I'm wondering if it was a QVC special or similar, most people seemed to get it as part of a Nails Inc lucky dip....  Can't remember how I came by it but I love it!

Nails Inc November - Glamour magazine giveaways

Nails Inc freebies

This month's Glamour magazine has a choice of 1 of 4 free Nails Inc polishes.

As the magazine is only £2 (and I'm obsessed) I picked up all four!

The colours are:

Hanover Square - burgundy creme
Marylebone Mews - Grey/lilac/taupe creme
Tate - classic red creme
Wigmore Street - Deep purple creme

Hanover Square is a wonderful vampy burgundy creme, fabulous application and so shiny.

Marylebone Mews is a grey/lilac that can look a bit taupe (bottle shot).  I thought this might be similar to the classic nails inc shade, Porchester Square, but a quick comparison showed Marylebone Mews is much cooler and less brown/taupe than Porchester Square.  This is the only shade that might've benefited from 3 coats.

Tate is one of the earliest Nails Inc colours, a classic glamorous red creme.

Wigmore Street is a dark purple creme that never looks black.

Formula and application on all these was up to Nails Inc's usual high standard.

All swatches are 2 coats with no topcoat.

If you haven't already, get yourself down to your nearest news outlet to pick these up!*

* Sadly UK residents only...

Nails Inc November - Mad Men Collection - Westchester

Deep red creme  

I'm back!  With what's becoming a yearly event, Nails Inc November.  Well when you have over 500 unique Nails Inc colours it's good to have motivation to swatch them all!

October was a bit of a washout in these blogging parts - holiday, work pressures and general lethargy meant little time nor inclination for blogging.

Enough excuses, on with the show...

Winchester is from the Mad Men collections released for Season 4 of Mad Men back in 2011

The collections was just 3 colours, Brooklyn, Westchester and Madison Avenue, all named after key locations for the show.  Brooklyn is where Peggy is from, Westchester is where Don & Betty lived and of course, Madison Avenue is the eponymous place where the (M)Ad Men work.

I have Madison Avenue too but am missing Brooklyn - you have to draw your obsession line somewhere, right?!

Westchester is a deep burgundy red creme with maybe a tiny hint of brown.

The formula is fantastic, pigmented and a joy to apply - if you were careful this could be a one-coat wonder.

Swatches shown are 2 coats with no top coat.

Black Up - Shade 08

Aubergine shimmer  

I picked this polish up from Debenhams (UK department store) when I was on one of my 'must check out all unknown brands' kick - thankfully I've grown out of that now - mostly!

Black Up, as you'd expect, is a range of cosmetics for women of colour and I think is only sold in Debenhams in the UK.  Their branding says Black Up Paris.

Shade 08 is a lovely, if not unique, burgundy/aubergine/eggplant shimmer

This had a great formula, easy to apply, opaque and long wearing

Swatches shown are 2 coats with no top coat.

As this is another of my swatches from 2010 they've actually changed the bottles since I bought this but there's still a colour called 08 which looks similar on the online swatch.

Butter London - Perfect Prezzie

Deep burgundy red shimmer   

Another Butter London with some slightly elusive shimmer.

You can see masses of of fine golden shimmer in the bottle - look, swathes of it!

That doesn't transfer to the nail, don't get me wrong, you can certainly see the shimmer on the nail but it's nowhere near as visible as in the bottle - ah well, the joys of nail polish eh?!

Application was great, the formula, brush and application were all fab.

And it's pretty much opaque in one coat, the second (shown in the swatch pics) just adds depth

Alessandro 213

dark burgundy shimmer

I picked this up in Germany and it's a bigger bottle (10ml) than I've bought before and it came in a box.






This is 3 coats with no topcoat. Application wasa bit tricky and the shimmer is not very visible.

Overall it's a classy colour just not very exciting.

Nails Inc - Vine Street

Deep vampy red creme





Vine Street is a dark reddish purple creme. Very opaque - this is two coats and application was good and it's super glossy.



This is one that I thought was similar to another Nails Inc that I'm sure most of you UK gals have in your collection, Victoria.

And in a bottle comparison they do look pretty similar, but on the nail they're very different.



l-r Vine Street, Victoria, Vine Street, Victoria.  (2 coats of each).

Victoria is much lighter and more jellyish and more reddish/brown.