Nails Inc - Mercer Street

Bright blue creme gel effect  

It's a lovely sunny day here in Ascot so I thought I'd go for something bright.

Mercer Street is a bright, mid blue creme in a gel effect finish.

Application was good, swatches are 2 coats with no top coat,  but as you can see from my slightly dodgy cleanup this is a bit of a 'stainer' like a lot of blues and it's difficult to get a clean line.
But super shiny!

Nails Inc - Marylebone Road

Spring green creme  

We've had warmer weather, several days of sunshine and all the trees are in bud so I'm officially calling Spring!  So here's a lovely spring green creme.

Marylebone Road was part of the Picnic Perfect collection in 2014.  It's a light green, not super pastel but not strong either.

As you can see the shade varies depending on the light, looking more pastel or warmer in different conditions.

Application wasn't great - like a lot of pastels this had pretty streaky application and I had to apply 3 coats to get it looking ok

Nails Inc Gel Effect - St James

True red  creme

OMG, March - how did that happen?  I was away twice in February (Lisbon and Venice) so I'm afraid blogging took a bit of a back seat.

My Venice trip was to celebrate my 50th birthday!  So this is officially my first blog post as a 50 something blogger.  I'm pretty sure there aren't many others out there but give me a shout if you are!

On to the nails....

St James is one of my favourite Nails Inc colours, a fabulous true blue red with a very secret shimmer.

This is a 'Gel Effect' version with plumping effect, so extra shiny.

Application was great, swatches are two coats, no top coat.

St James is a super old Nails Inc colour dating back to 2008 at least... obviously the Gel Effect version is much more recent.

All That Jazz - Hello, Mr. Wolf!

Cool brown creme  

  

After seeing this new-to-me UK brand on another blog I picked up a couple of 4-bottle collections from ebay.

Hello, Mr Wolf! is a cool toned milky brown creme.

Application was good, swatches shown are two coats with no top coat.  And you can see it's not super shiny without one.

The bottles are a generous 15ml and this one was from The Enchanted Forest Collection.  The collections are available from the All That Jazz site for £29.98

Nails Inc November - Alice & Olivia - Sheer Beauty

Peach nude creme  

Sheer Beauty is an extremely misnamed peach nude creme

It's not sheer and it was certainly not a beauty.  The formula was horrible, it pulled back on every coat and even with three coats there are some baldish patches - bleurrgghh.

Swatches shown are 3 coats, no top coat.

I picked this polish up as part of a cute set of two mini polishes, a full size shimmer and this lovely printed bag.  Thankfully I didn't pay full price and the other two polishes are good.

The Alice & Olivia collection is a collaboration with alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet, a fairly high end fashion line.

Nails Inc November - Fleet Street

Baby blue creme  

Fleet Street is a fabulous mid to baby blue creme.

Application was a little streaky but not as bad as I was expecting!  Swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

This is a vintage Nails Inc that I stalked on eBay for quite a while.  In the end had to pick it up in a bundle of other polishes I already had....  Which is probably why I have three boxes of nails inc dupes!

Given the annoying Nails Inc habit of reusing polish names, there is a much later edition of Fleet Street that is a taupe Leather Effect polish.

Nails Inc November - Diet Coke - Paris

Plum creme  

Paris is a shiny plum creme.

Application was good, swatches are 2 coats, no top coat.

So back in 2010 Nails Inc teamed up with Boots (drugstore) and Diet Coke to offer a free bottle of specially branded Nails Inc polishes when you bought 2 bottles of Diet Coke.

I'm not a coke drinker but of course I still bought the coke and donated the bottles to pals - anything for free polish eh?!

There were 4 shades available in 2010, according to my spreadsheet I might be one missing from the following collection - looks like I have all the 2010 shades but only 3 of the colours from 2011 when they ran the promotion again with different shades.

Nails Inc November - Duke Street

Grey/mauve creme  

 

Duke Street is a greyed out blue/mauve creme.

Application was good, swatches are two coats, no top coat.

This is an old shade from 2010 and a swatch from then too!

It's a rather downbeat, melancholy colour which matches my mood today with the news of Leonard Cohen's death and Armistice Day.

Nails Inc November - Instyle Bare

Creamy nude creme  

Instyle Bare is a soft peachy nude creme with a great shine.

Application was good and these swatches are 2 coats, no top coat.

As the name suggests it was a covermount giveaway with Instyle magazine way back in 2009.

NIN Nails Inc - Palace Mews

Mauve creme

Palace Mews is a glossy mauve creme that I'd probably say leaned crelly.

This is a  old swatch I found lurking on my hard drive so apologies for just one pic and a slightly strange angle!

Application was good and this swatch is 2 coats, no top coat.

Palace Mews was from the Sorbet Collection

Nails Inc November - Bubble Trouble

Coral pink creme 

I'm featuring only Nails Inc polishes for November as I've done for the previous 4 years.  I usually find these theme months good for focusing my attention on blogging and I often end up with more posts for the month!

I'll show some older shades - my personal preference as I have an extensive collection of Nails Inc polishes in the old style round bottle with the hands/fingers overprinting - some of the later round bottles and some newer style Nails Inc where they can't seem to decide on a bottle type!

First up an old one...

Bubble Trouble is a coral pink creme that's almost neon in its brightness.  Love the name, love the colour, love the shine.

Application was great, swatches are 2 coats, no top coat.

This polish is at least 7 years old, maybe older and may have been an ASOS exclusive.  I picked it up on ebay after the fact.

I thought this might be similar to some other Nails Inc polishes in my collection so here's a comparison swatch

L-R  Bubble Trouble, Miami, Shoreditch, Bubble Trouble

As you see it's no dupe, Bubble Trouble is lighter and more creamy than the others.

Debby - ColorPlay 216

Taupe creme  

216 is a nice if not particularly interesting purple leaning soft milky taupe creme

Application was fine, swatches are 2 coats, no top coat.

You may notice the bottle has patches of turquoise polish on...?

This polish arrived in a package from a French private sale site, sometimes their packaging leaves a lot to be desired...

Everything loosely packaged in a box with no padding to stop it all banging around

Two bottles of polish broke (one was a clear flaky topper so doesn't show so much)

Every single item had some polish on it!

Definitely a Nail Mail Fail!

PostQuam - Purple

Plum creme  

You can tell it's feeling autumnal here in the UK, my second plum polish in a row!

This one from Spanish brand, PostQuam.   The polishes are pretty good but I really don't like the labels, the shiny foil printing makes them look cheap.

But onto the polish itself, this one is helpfully called Purple, although to me it's more of a plum, leaning pink rather than blue.  Slightly darker than yesterdays SuperDry but also super shiny.

Swatches are 2 coats, no top coat.  Unfortunately this one was a bit gloopy to apply but seems to have evened out in the pics.

SuperDry - Tom Thumb

Plum creme

Another winner from SuperDry.

This one is Tom Thumb, a mid to light pink toned plum creme.

Not a unique colour by any stretch but it's well executed, easy to apply and nicely shiny.

Application was good, as all the SuperDry polishes I've tried have been, this one is two coats, no top coat.