Gallery

  • Emily de Molly

    No Love Lost
  • High Elbow

    Crummock Water
  • Dots!

  • Pocket Money Polishes - I Want Candy

  • Pocket Money Polishes Magic

    Gradient: Chanel Paradoxal and Dior Waterlily
  • Emily de Molly - Serenity

  • Fellrunning

    Dryburn Moor
  • Elevation Polish - Opal

  • Darling Diva Polish - Serendipity

  • Derwentwater

  • Pocket Money Polishes - Summertime

  • Nail Lacquer UK

    Eat My Cake
  • Scofflaw - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  • Hodge

  • Chanel - Taboo and Peridot

  • Chanel - Bel-Argus and Azure


Saturday 29 June 2013

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and Illamasqua Venous

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous
Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is one of those irresistable colour combinations! Teal is one of my favourite colours, and its complementary is orange-red, so this works a treat!

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a teal jelly with red and white glitters of various shapes and sizes, and gold microglitter too. I didn't want a translucent effect on my nails though, and I wanted to make the overall effect quite bold too, so I used a base of Illamasqua Venous.

Illamasqua Venous

Illamasqua Venous
Illamasqua Venous

Illamasqua Venous is a fantastic blue-green cream. Apart from being a great colour, the application is just perfect - this is one coat plus Seche Vite quick drying topcoat. ONE COAT!

Illamasqua Venous


Illamasqua Venous

Illamasqua Venous
Illamasqua Venous

After a day or so I added Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I used two coats, plus a thick coat of Seche Vite quick drying topcoat to smooth the glitter out. WTF pulled Venous a tiny bit more bluish, but not much. I love the finished effect - I wore this for several days until I had a little accident running - I slipped, grasped at a boulder to steady myself and snapped off the tip of my right thumbnail. WTF indeed! I had to remove the mani to check the damage; fortunately it was only a millimetre or so, so I was able to reshape the nail to match the rest without needing to shorten them all :)

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous
Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous

Here are a few macro shots to show the detail in the glitter a bit better:

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous

Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous
Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over Illamasqua Venous

I purchased Illamasqua Venous from Illamasqua's website and Scofflaw Whiskey Tango Foxtrot direct from Finch at her Etsy ShopLlarowe also stocks Scofflaw polish. Scofflaws sell out quickly, but you can get updates of restocks and new releases at Finch's facebook page.

Monday 24 June 2013

Elevation Polish Opal

Elevation Polish Opal
Elevation Polish Opal

This lovely polish isn't one you can buy (at least not right now), but I do want to share it! It's a prototype of a custom polish Lulu (Elevation Polish) was working on when I got into an online chat with her, and she very kindly sent me a bottle to try out! The polish is a mixture of grey, gunmetal and iridescent glitters in a white jelly base. There's quite a lot of glitter in the polish, so I used one coat of plain white as a base so I could avoid VNL without building up too much glitter on my nails. I absolutely love the effect - I hope Lulu brings this into production one day!

Elevation Polish Opal

Elevation Polish Opal

Elevation Polish Opal

Elevation Polish Opal

Elevation Polish Opal
Elevation Polish Opal

You can buy Lulu's polishes from her website Elevation Polish and keep up to date with new releases and other news on her BLOG too.


And finally, just for fun, after I'd worn this mani for several days, I added a coat of Butter London Disco Biscuit! Disco Biscuit is very sheer, and lends itself perfectly to jelly sandwiches so I thought it might work well as a colour glaze too. I love the result!

Elevation Polish Opal with Butter London Disco Biscuit

Elevation Polish Opal with Butter London Disco Biscuit

Elevation Polish Opal with Butter London Disco Biscuit
Elevation Polish Opal with Butter London Disco Biscuit

Elevation Polish Opal was a gift from the maker;  Butter London Disco Biscuit is a core BL colour and is readily available - I purchased my bottle from my local Boots.

Friday 21 June 2013

Untried Polish Challenge Day 7 *Cool* - Illamasqua Jan



Illamasqua Jan
Illamasqua Jan 

Time for an untried.........Illamasqua Jan is dusty lavender-leaning pink cream. I'd call it a 'cool' pink - so I choose it for my 'cool' untried!


I got this polish in a swap a few months ago and for some reason I've not got around to wearing it yet. But I needed work-appropriate nails the other day, so here was Jan's chance!

Illamasqua Jan

Illamasqua Jan

Illamasqua Jan
Illamasqua Jan 

This is three coats plus Seche Vite quick drying top coat. The formula was a bit stickier than most Illamasqua polishes I've used before, but maybe that's because it's an older bottle. It was applying a bit streaky at two coats, so I added a few drops of thinner to the bottle and my third coat went on much smoother.

The next day I added some floral stamping with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White. Whirlwind White isn't an untried - it's my go-to white for stamping and one of the most used bottles in my collection! However, I did use a stamping image I haven't worn before to keep in the untried theme - this is from the Bundle Monster BM224 plate.

Illamasqua Jan

Illamasqua Jan
Illamasqua Jan with BM224

I really like white floral stamping over a neutral shade - I did a similar mani with a nude base a couple of months ago RBL Opaque Nude with white floral stamping. My nails are longer now than when I did that RBL mani and these plates are too small to cover my whole nail now - today I used the plate sideways and stamped all nails twice. It's a bit of a faff to do this, but I do think it's worth it.


Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 
Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy
Raux at Raux Polish 

Thursday 20 June 2013

'Purple Sky' - a franken gift !!




This isn't a polish you can buy, but I just wanted to share it, because it's so pretty! It was made for me by a lovely friend, Ida, who has a super blog, Ida Nails It. If you don't already, you should check out her super nails and pictures :D

The polish is called 'Alison's Purple Sky' and it's a stunning purple with small magenta glitter. I'll just let the pictures do the talking!









Sunday 16 June 2013

Darling Diva Firefly

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load
Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load


I have another newly released polish from Darling Diva to share today. This one is Firefly, an acid green-yellow jelly with teal glitter and microglitter (some of the glitter looks to be holographic too). I was going to pair this with OPI Who The Shrek Are You but Sminkan wore Firefly over a similar green, so rather than repeat the lovely effect she got, I decided to go for a lighter base - Illamasqua Load - to create a brighter mani. If you don't know Illamasqua Load, it's a very pale yellow cream.

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load
Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load

This turned out very pretty and summery! Teen Polish Junkie wore Firefly alone, without any base, and it looks great on her nails - but I don't think it would work as well on me with my longer nails and lighter skin tone.

I used two thin coats of Firefly over three coats of Illamasqua Load smoothed out with a thick coat of Seche Vite - pale yellow creams are notorious for streaking and I wanted a very even dense base for this mani.........because it's a glow in the dark polish!

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load - Dark
Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load - photograph taken in the dark

With such a pale base, my nails glow almost white in the dark - very eerie, very cool. I love this effect, but it's very hard to capture on a photograph! This picture was taken with my compact camera in very low light, not pitch dark. In the photo, you can see how the different glitters block the light either fully (the coloured glitters, which appear black) or partly (the iridescent microglitter). The overall *glow* in the dark in real life is too intense to really see this though.

I'm really fascinated by the glowing in the dark, so I couldn't resist adding some nail art, especially after I'd seen this fantastic mani using black patterning over a glow in the dark polish at Lucy's Stash the other day. I wanted a bold, blocky pattern to give the glow in the dark the best chance of showing up. I drew the outline on with my Barry M black nail art pen, then filled in the black areas with Konad Special Polish in black and let it dry thoroughly before applying Sinful Colors Gel-Tech Top Coat. I chose the Konad black because I wanted as dense a black as possible (to block out the glowing pigments in the dark), even though I think this is the messiest make-up product I've ever owned when it comes to clean up and it's very prone to streaking. With a very careful application and letting it dry thoroughly before top coat I just about got away with it. I've been really impressed with the Sinful Gel-Tech Top Coat so far, it's thick, shiny, dries fast and doesn't shrink; and it's done great herein this mani too.

Here's the nail art in daylight:

Darling Diva Polish Firefly with freehand block nail art

Darling Diva Polish Firefly with freehand block nail art


Oh, and it's a Louboutin mani too! I hope this doesn't stain the insides of my nails!


And finally, in the dark. Different approach here from the plain mani above, as I couldn't get enough exposure to make a picture with my compact camera. These shots are very long shutter speed with my DSLR and macro lens, this really shows up the green glow ........... first, with an open door just letting a bit of room light in so you can see that this is four nails with a pattern on them.........


........... and finally, in total darkness, with just the Firefly parts of the mani glowing - when I move my hands around in the dark, this really does look like Fireflies dancing!!


Darling Diva Firefly was sent as a sample for my unbiased review; you can buy Darling Diva polishes from their Etsy Shop or from Llarowe or Mei Mei's Signatures - all these sellers ship worldwide. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva polishes and ships within Europe. The other polishes I used in this mani were all from my own collection and were purchased by me.

Dior Mango, Elevation Daisen and Essie Action!


Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action
Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 
This blog needs some colour! My last few posts have all been about neutral polishes, so time for a change...........Dior Mango is a polish I've been lusting after for a while. And whilst it didn't disappoint in the least, once it was on my nails I wanted to add something a bit extra to make it more special!

Here's Dior Mango on it's own. It's a wonderful colour, and the formula and application are perfect. Two coats with Seche Vite quick drying top coat:

Dior Mango

Dior Mango

Dior Mango
Dior Mango

I wore Mango alone for a couple of days, then I added a coat of Elevation Daisen, which is a lovely glitter topper with circular glitter in various sizes and shades of pink, plus iridescent microglitter in the background. In my last mani with Daisen I used a contrasting background, Rescue Beauty Lounge Abiquiu, but this time I was inspired by this gorgeous mani by Sminkan and I wanted to pair pink circle glitter with orange. I wanted to create a sandwich / jelly effect rather than full on bling, but Dior Mango is too dense for that, so I used a thin coat of Essie Action, which is a bright orange neon and worked perfectly. Essie Action also turned up the brightness of the orange a few notches, which I like! 

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action



Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action
Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

And a couple of macros to show the detail in the glitter:

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action
Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

I didn't purposely place the little glitter on top of the big one on my index finger, but I love how it turned out! And a fuzzy abstract pic to finish with.....

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action
Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

I'd been lemming Dior Mango since I first saw swatches when it was released earlier this year, and after several months of stalking the Dior counters without success, I asked a friend in the US to order it from Dior Boutique for me. I got my Elevation Daisen in a swap but it's still a current Elevation colour and Lulu does keep restocking it. You can buy Elevation polishes at Lulu's website http://elevationpolish.bigcartel.com/ and she posts about restocks, new colours etc in her blog http://lovebrownnailpolish.wordpress.com/category/elevation-polish/Llarowe recently started selling a few Elevation polishes too! Essie Action is readily available; I can't actually remember where I bought mine. I'm not sure I'd really recommend Essie Action though, as the pigment in my bottle settled quite badly and all got stuck up in the brush - it needs a lot of shaking to make it usable. I've seen other comments about this happening too, so I don't think I just got a bad bottle or I've stored it badly.