Beyu 381

Glittery mid blue

Beyu 381, despite it's rather dull name, is a gorgeous polish.

A slightly purple toned shimmery blue with a good amount of fine, smooth silver glitter.

Beyu bottles are pretty tiny, only 8ml,  and have small brushes but I found application was fine with the small brush.  **disclaimer - I have pretty small hands/nails, although as you can see in the last pic I still managed to get polish on my thumb - d'oh!

I picked up my Beyu on one of my many trips to Germany, in a high end drugstore IIRC.  I just wish they were available in the UK.

Models Own - Raspberry Crush

Bright pink jellyish creme

Something bright and cheery to belatedly kick of the New Year

Models Own Raspberry Crush is a bright jelly/creme.  It's super shiny but probably could've done with another coat. I find the jelly always looks more pronounced in photos than on your nails.

I'd say it was a little more pink toned IRL.

Swatch shown is 2 coats, no top coat.

Happy New Year Blog Readers!

Gawd, what happened to the rest of December, huh?

Mostly Christmas shopping and planning happened, and a couple of gigs and my bff injuring her back and being laid up for 2 weeks.

In summary stuff happened and I lost all my blogging time.

But, New Year, new start.  My plan for this year is to be a slightly more frequent blogger, it's not like I don't have the polishes or photos, it's just the putting it out there that's missing!

So Happy New Year to all of my 473 readers and here's to a better 2012 for all of us.  Unless your 2011 was perfect already, in which case, more of the same!

Nails Inc - Wyndham Place

Deep raspberry with fine sparkle

Wyndham Place is another from QVC, from the 8 piece Runway Ready collection that was a TSV back in August.

Nails inc describe this as metallic purple but I think that's a bit misleading, I'd describe this as a deep raspberry/plum with lots of very fine pink and blue sparkle/fine glitter.

It's very pretty although not very unique.


Swatch shown is 3 coats, no top coat.

Nails Inc - Wardour Mews

Purple/lilac foil with golden shimmer 

Wardour Mews is part of a QVC collection I picked up a few months ago.

The collection of four polishes was called 'Midas Touch' and was billed as a collection of sparkly polishes.

To be fair some of the collection are less sparkly than others, IIRC there were two sparkly foils (like Wardour Mews) and two cremes with more subtle sparkly shimmery accents.   I was quite happy with them but the reviews on QVC were pretty mixed due to the non-sparkliness!

Wardour Mews is a purple toned lilac with gold shimmer, so much shimmer it's pretty much a foil

Swatch shown is 3 coats, it was fairly sheer.

The finish is similar to the Orly Cosmic fx collection but I don't think there was a dupe of this colour?
From looking at swatch pictures it could be similar to OPI's It's My Year?

Zoya - Meryl

Glossy red-toned brown creme

The second of my 'vintage' Zoyas is Meryl

Meryl is a deep, red-toned  brown creme.

This swatch is 2 coats, with no top coat and again it's super shiny

Another win from Zoya, it's nice to see that these old bottles are in such great shape.

Zoya - Andrea

Rust toned toffee creme

I picked up a small number of 'vintage' Zoya and Zoya family polishes on ebay.


The bottles and brushes are the same size and shape and the polish quality seems the same but as you can see the design/printing on the bottles is a little different to todays bottles.

Andrea is a red toned brown creme, a perfect autumnal colour.  I know it's December now and a little past Autumn but bear with me, I took the pics in early November!

Andrea needed 3 coats, at 2 it was opaque but a little streaky.  And look how shiny it is without a topcoat.

I really like the Zoya bottles and brushes (I have smaller than average nails) and this colour just screams autumn.  A win.

Nails Inc - Prince Albert Road

Purple toned Blue shimmer

Prince Albert Road was part of a QVC set called OMG! that I couldn't resist.  OMG! is a small collection of 3 shimmery,  almost foil finish polishes.

Application was great, this was 2 coats, but you could probably get away with 1 if you were careful.

The finish is very shimmery, almost a foil really.    I love the finish and the colour, a win for me.

Models Own - Nude Beige

Nude creme

 Models Own Nude Beige is one of those 'does what it says on the bottle'.  It's a lovely, easy to apply nude beige creme.

Swatches are 2 coats, no top coat and as you can see it's lovely and shiny.

I really like this one, as you know I'm a big fan of taupe/mushroom polishes and although this one is lighter than most it still has a hint of grey to stop it being BBB

Pop Nail Glam - Neons

Pink and Purple Neon

Couple of Pop Nail Glam polishes that I picked up in the ASOS Sale. Actually they were part of a trio but I'm saving the other one for another day.

First up is Violetta

Violetta is a pink toned purple neon.  Like most, or is it all? neons, it dries with a satin finish.

This swatch was 2 coats and now looking at the pics I should've done 3, at least!

The photos have pulled a little pinker and lighter than real life.

Next is Pinkest

This swatch is 3 coats and I can still see VNL in the pics although it wasn't so visible in real life.

Again it dries with a satin finish and the pics aren't colour accurate, the bottle pic at the top is closer to the real colour.

Hmmm, so unfortunately these polishes just prove that me and neon don't get on.  I love the concept but I just don't like them on me.  Which means these, and the unopened box of Color Club Scented Neons I have, need to go straight into the Blog Sale pile.  If I get myselft organised I'm gonna try to do a blog sale before Christmas - famous last words!

What about you gals, are you fans of neon?  And is there a polish you'd recommend to change my mind?

Boots 17 - Fury and a Peridot comparison

Warm gold/green duochrome

**Heavy pic spam alert**


Fury is from the latest Boots 17 collection which I think is the Autumn collection.

Let's acknowledge the elephant in the room - it's not a Chanel Peridot dupe although they are kissing cousins!

So, onto the many swatch pics - hey it's a duochrome, 3 or 4 is the minimum, right?

 
Fury is a slightly copper toned gold with green duochrome.  It is really gorgeous and even looks good with my skintone which I was a bit worried about.  The gold is a rich warm gold and the green is warm too, I'd probably say olive toned.  Overall I love it, it's stunning.

Swatch is 2 coats, it's a little brush-stroky but I'm gonna forgive it.

At the time I was slightly obsessed with all the Peridot pics but it seemed to be sold out everywhere and I don't have a close relationship with my local Chanel counter so I unless I stumped up the fearsome delivery charge and ordered it from the Harrods site, I had mostly resigned myself to not getting my sticky mitts on it!

But then, on *another* trip to Germany, I'm killing time in the airport and yay, they have it in stock and it's cheaper than the internet (about £14) and no delivery charge, so I succumbed.  And spent a week in a hotel room twisting the bottle and admiring the gorgeousness.

So long story, here's the comparison...

Here's the comparison, in sunlight and indirect light.  Peridot is index and ring finger, Fury is on middle and little fingers.

As you can see they're not dupes but are similar.  Peridot is much cooler toned, both the gold and the green.  And Peridot is much greener.

And if you want to see an amazing Peridot franken made from this polish then check out this Fab Fingertips post

Mavala - The ELLE Grey

Mid grey creme

This was a recent covermount free gift with Elle Magazine.  Elle isn't usually my choice of reading matter, too much expensive fashion for me, but who can resist a free polish?!

There were 3 colours available, this Grey, The ELLE Red and The ELLE Orange

Formula and application were great and for such a small bottle & brush I find the brush easy to work with.  The swatch is 2 coats with no top coat.  My only complaint is the polish wasn't very self-levelling.

Anyone else pick thse up?

GOSH - Blue Sapphire

Blue shimmer with sparkles



Here's an old GOSH polish that I haven't shown the swatches for...

Blue Sapphire is a lovely mid blue shimmer which has lots of fine sparkles which nicely pop in the sunlight.


Swatch is 2 coats.


I really like this, there are a million dark blue sparkly shades but it's much rarer to find a mid blue.