Vintage Vault - Urban Decay - Kiss

I think there's one brand that all vintage polish girls lust over and that's Urban Decay. There is just something about the brand that just makes us go weak at the knees, I personally love the old bottles and the colours are pretty sweet too. It was such a cool brand back in the day and the rarity of some of the sexier shades just adds to the appeal to us collectors (who doesn't love the thrill of the hunt?). One day I'll get a first generation bottle, but for now I'll settle for the second gen ones as they still make me damn happy. :-)

So today I thought it was time to show off Kiss, it's not one of the funkier colours, but boy is it pretty. Kiss is a red jelly with tiny silver glitter particles mixed in. I don't do reds very often, but reds like this are a joy to have on my nails. The polish just looks so juicy, and I love the little sparkles in it, it has a lovely glow to it and it really made me smile everytime I looked at my nails.

I've no idea how rare Kiss is, but I'm guessing it's pretty rare as I did a google search and came up empty, I couldn't find a single swatch, but that's probably down to my poor search engine skills, rather than no-one swatching it. But anyways, good luck finding one if you do want a bottle. :-)

Pretty - Concrete Effect - Turquoise

First thing I have to do in this post is to say sorry to anyone outside the UK, today's polish is by a UK brand called Pretty that's exclusive to Poundland.

Poundland now have two exclusive nail polish brands Pretty and Jess, both have some really nice shades and I've built up quite a collection of both partly helped by the fact that they're all just £1.

Now some cheap polishes can be a bit hit or miss, and usually they stink to high heaven and never dry, but this one is a polish well worth searching for, I've not seen anything else like this in other stores and for a pound I can forgive the pong.

It's a labeled as a concrete effect, not sure if it really looks like concrete, but the finish is certainly cool. It's a lovely turquoise with silver glitter mixed in, the base is quite thick but the glitter still peeks through. It dries matte, so you end up with a polish that's smooth to the touch, but looks like it could be gritty. Overall I really love this polish, and wish there were more colours in the range.

August's Nail Polish Haul

Well I'm not slowing down when it comes to polish, although this month my buying habits changed as I've been mostly buying from ebay as I haven't had time to go into town to the good old pound shops.

This month I tripled the number of Hard Candy polishes in my stash, although a few were not what I was expecting thanks to the seller advertising them as new (which for vintage polish reads un-used old stock) when in fact they were well used and in one case half used. but at least the seller did the decent thing and sorted it out with me, even though they were still adamant they were "new".

I added a bunch of old Rimmels to my collection after learning a hard lesson, if there's something you want on ebay as a buy-it-now and you think I'll wait a bit as they've got loads and they always re-list them, well buy it. I was holding off buying a bottle of Rimmel Sonic for that very reason, spending my money on stuff that was one time only auctions, and well, wouldn't you know it, when I went to buy it the other week, the listing had ended and the seller no longer has the stock, so I'm kicking myself and am rather gutted that I missed out on Sonic at a decent price. I have now learnt my lesson!

As well as the Hard Candy's and Rimmels, other vintage goodies added to my stash include yet more Revlons, some sexy L'Oreal's, a black label OPI and my first CND. I got some new stuff as well including more Jess from the poundshop, some Orly's, my first Elf's and the OPI Brazil Liquid Sand set, just because I love that finish and I had to have the yellow, I really wish they'd done full sized bottles of all the colours in this set.

So as usual, here's a ton of photos of all my goodies. :-)

Hard Candy - Flick, Ego, Complex, Angel, Pixie

Hard Candy - Anonymous, Retro, Trance, Liquid, Girlie

Vintage Vault - Sally Hansen - Night Lights

Okay, so I'm calling this polish vintage, not really sure if it qualifies, but I do think it's pretty old now so what the heck it can be vintage if I want it to be. :-)

Maybe you can help me decide, it's Sally Hansen's Night Lights from the Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear range, the oldest mention I could find online was 2006, so it might be that old, but I'm really not sure.

Anyways, on to the polish. Night Lights is pretty cool, it's got a thin grey base packed full of super sexy holo micro glitter. The base is pretty sheer, so I ended up using four coats but trust me, it was worth it to build it up to bottle colour.

It's a nice alternative to a traditional black or dark grey polish, in shade or low light it looks like a dark grey with silver micro glitter mixed in, and then when then light catches it, Boom! there's a ton of super sexy holo goodness going on.

As soon as I painted my nails the weather turned and it started to rain, but I was on a mission so as soon as there was a break in the clouds I went outside and made the most of what little sun there was.

Vintage Vault - Revlon Top Speed - Flash

Hello! I'm trying to get back into blogging, so I'm going to try to post at least once a week, no promises though, but I will try my best.

I have a ton of swatches that need sorting through and editing, so I'll try to get those posted. Somewhat unsurprisingly alot of swatches are Revlons and Rimmels, so I hope you don't mind seeing lots of the same few brands.

The star of this post is a vintage Revlon, it's one of their old Top Speed colours called Flash. I'm afraid that not only is this vintage, it's also a limited edition just to make it that bit harder to track down if you want to add it to your stash.

Flash is a silvery white shimmer, it looks like liquid snow in the bottle and is like nothing anything else in my stash. In the photos I think I used two coats and the formula was fine, just a shame it's a bit sheer, but I can forgive it for that as it's a delicate colour and you don't notice it too much in person.

Vintage Vault - Rimmel - Amazon

So, who doesn't like a sexy green polish? Today I have a pretty nice one, it's Rimmels Amazon, it's one of their old Lasting Finish range. I wish I knew when this is from, I hate not knowing the age of polishes, but there's not much info about old polish out there, thank goodness for all the vintage polish bloggers out there that have put so much work into researching old collections.

So, on to the polish, Amazon is one of those polishes that changes depending on the lighting conditions, it's a blue toned green, with beautiful shimmer that is mostly green but it does have a slight blue duochrome at certain angles. Polishes like this are the reason I love vintage polish, polish was just so much more funky in the 90's and early 2000's.

I took way too many photos of this baby, I wanted to capture how good this is, so sorry about the amount of photos there are for you to check out! :-)

July's Nail Polish Haul

I'm so rubbish at blogging at the moment, I just haven't got the time or the energy to do what I'd like to do, so I've been a bit poor at posting any swatches. But I'm still collecting polish and my stash is still growing, and haul photos are something that don't take too much time so at least I can keep up with my monthly haul posts.

This month started off slowly, I was on late shifts so didn't get to the shops much, but the second half of the month included visits to TX Maxx and pound shops, and I got a few bits from ebay.

Exciting finds this month included a sexy red vintage Revlon with flakies in it, some vintage Maybellines, my first essence polishes (my local Wilkinsons has now started stocking them), and my very first Chanel.

Right let's show you what I got then. :-)

OPI - AWoman Prague-ative, Miss Piggy's Big Number, Muppets World Tour, Kermit Me To Speak

Revlon - Heartthrob Red, Typhoon, Pounce, Berry, Fierce

Vintage Vault - My Rimmel Collection

There are three brands that dominate my polish collection, Revlon, Sally Hansen, and Rimmel. Rimmel was the first brand that I really connected with as a teenager, I remember going into Boots and buying my first Rimmel nail polishes. I wasn't into make-up but when I saw the bottles of Mania and Zeitgeist it was love at first sight, and then years later it was the act of trying to replace my gunky bottles that led to my current obsession and huge stash of polish. So I have a bit of a soft spot for the brand, and I do love those super cute rounded bottles.

Anyway, over the last few years I've collected quite a few old Rimmels and thanks to the pound shops I've got a ton of new ones too. I'm not really a fan of Rimmels core colours, to be frank they're soooo boring, but lately they've been issuing some funky limited edition collections so that makes up for it.

Anyways, that's enough yapping, lets get onto the polish porn shall we?....

Utopia, Arabia, Earth Star, Venus, Amazon

Embankment, Life Force, Millennium, Mania, Kinetic

June's Nail Polish Haul

 I was really good this month, compared to most months I hardly bought a thing!

I got some polish this month that I was seriously happy to have. Being a vintage polish lover and a massive fan of Revlon I've always wished I could find some really old bottles, well I spotted an auction on ebay with three old Revlons, they cost me £30 for the three, but I thought that was a bargain, especially when they're all still liquid and useable. They'll get their own post as they're so cool.

As well as the old Revlons, I got some Sally Hansens, L'Oreal's, a Nails Inc, and a joblot of really old make-up off ebay with some dried up Cutex and Nailcote polish and other bits, which also deserve their own post. Anyway enough yapping, here are the photos of this months haul...

Mays Nail Polish Haul

Okay, if there's an award for bad bloggers I should win it. I'm so sorry that I've not really posted much, I've been snowed under with other crap in life and the shifts in my job have been a complete nightmare so when I get home I just wanna eat and sleep.

So I know the last post was a lazy ass haul post, and I'm sure you'd much prefer some sexy polish swatches instead but you'll just have to put up with this instead, sorry about that, I hope you can forgive me. :-)

Last month I had a week off, I had all sorts planned, but I ended up spending the week in bed with flu, but ebay came to my rescue and I ended up chasing after some vintage polish which I hadn't had time to do for a while. I added some more Revlons to my stash including Comet, which I'd been after for ages, and it's not what I expected, it's much prettier. I also ended up buying a few duochrome OPI's and finally got a bottle of Urban Decays Bruise. On top of the Vintage I also picked up some cute glass fleck polishes from boots Seventeen.

Revlon - Comet, Harmony, Amethyst Shell, Get Platinum, Garnet Lame

Revlon - Silver Spell, Catty, Innocent, Girly, Downtown

April's (Very Belated) Nail Polish Haul

Okay, before you judge me, yes this is a MASSIVE haul, but it was my birthday this month so I have an excuse, and of course most of these polishes were just £1 from the good old pound shops.

Exciting buys this month include the amazing Spiderman collection from Revlon (I'm so happy to see the UK get proper limited edition collections from Revlon), my first Mavala's, and I used my Boots points to treat myself to Essie's Lot Of Lux.

The pound shops were great as I got all the Revlon Colorstays, Top Speeds and Duos, as well as a ton of Rimmels and Sally Hansens, I love getting polish that costs £7 in Boots etc for just £1, it's even better when they are polishes that weren't even released in the UK. :-)

Revlon - Super Powered, I'm Electro, 1000 Volts, Electrified Web, Spidey Sense, Gwen's Crush

Rich, Chameleon, Raspberry Scone, Not So Blueberry
Girly, Ritzy, Graffiti Top Coat 732 & 678, Gold Goddess

Vintage Vault - My Cutex Collection

Today I thought I'd post some vintage bottle spam.

Last year I was so lucky to find a load of old Cutex polishes in pound shops and charity shops, even though alot of them weren't the type of colours I'd wear I still had to grab as many as I could as I just loved the bottle shapes, and the collector in me just couldn't leave them alone.

I'm not sure when these are from but judging from the colours, formula, and bottle designs, they're probably from the 90's or early 2000's, if you know please get in touch as I'd love to be able to date them properly.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the bottle spam, there's a mix of Color Quick and Strong Nail polishes for you to ogle...

L-R Slime, Mischief, Gold Stripes, Burgundy Blaze

L-R Blushing Rose, Cool Crimson, Carmel Creme, Maple Sugar

Vintage Vault - Sally Hansen - Wired

Today I have a polish that is really special to me, it's Sally Hansen's Wired from the old Hard As Nails Line. I had ordered this off a seller on ebay and was chuffed to find it for sale in the UK for a really cheap price, when it arrived it looked great and I popped it in my helmer and left it alone for a week or two, then when looking for something to swatch I pulled it out and found that it was going funny, the glitter was shrinking and the base colour had changed, I think someone had basically topped it up with nail polish remover or something, but whatever it was it dissolved all the glitter in it, luckily the seller was really cool and gave me a refund.

A couple of weeks later a parcel from the US turns up for my boyfriend and he gives it to me to open, it was a brand new bottle of Wired! He knew I was sad to lose my bottle so hunted down a replacement, which is so sweet, and completely unexpected, so now Wired is one of my most precious polishes, just because of him. :-)

Anyway, on to the photos first, I'll chat about the polish after.

Outdoors - Bright Sunlight

Snap Crackle and Pop! Fuzzbox - International Rescue

Here's something a bit different today, it's a Snap, Crackle and Pop! post.

I want to share a bit of music from my youth, now I wasn't one of the cool kids, I was awkward and shy and I didn't have many friends, and so my musicial tastes weren't influenced by anyone I knew, I just listened to the radio and went into town on saturdays with my pocket money and bought whatever I liked. This resulted in me having a really eclectic record collection, going from cheesy pop, to Indie to rap, if I liked the song I didn't care who it was by and if it was cool or not.

The songs I want to share with you today are from 1989 and they're by a band called Fuzzbox (or as they were also known We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It). Fuzzbox were a UK band that only released a few albums and then spilt up.

Their biggest hit was International Rescue, which is as quirky as you can get, I loved the video and even though I hadn't watched it for years it was still filed away in my memory, and it really wasn't much different to how I remembered it.

Gallery Colours - Lilac Shimmer

Todays polish is from a UK brand called Gallery Colours, they make cheap polishes that sell for around £1. I get mine from my local market and I think you can probably find them on ebay if you don't have anyone near you that sells them.

Lilac Shimmer was on it's own on the market stall, I think it was the last one left, so I'm not sure if it's been discountinued. It's a pale pinky lilac base with silver microglitter mixed in. It does tend to look warmer or cooler toned depending on the light and in real life the silver glitter shows up much more than it does in my photos. The microglitter gives the polish a textured look as the glitter looks like lots of little bumps and it can also look like a foil if the light catches it right, it's quite an interesting polish.

March's Nail Polish Haul

Okay so I have no will power what so ever when it comes to polish, especially when it's on offer! Needless to say I have added yet more polish to my collection, and some of them I was very happy to find. When Rimmel released their Metal Rush collection I found out that in some countries there were 5 polishes in the collection, in the UK we only got 4, and so the hunt was on for Bronze Princess as I just had to have the full set, well thank you pound shops as that's where it turned up.

Other bargains included my first Butter London's which I got for a quid each in Boots, and a load of Claire's polishes which were on sale for £1 each, there were just too many goodies and I just couldn't resist, at least I still managed to save up to get my car fixed so I wasn't too naughty. :-)

Anyway, here's the photos of my haul, let me know if there's anything you'd like to see swatched.

Vintage Vault - Maybelline Express Finish - Pure Gold

Today I've got a golden oldie for you, it's one of my old Maybellines. I love the old Express Finish bottles, especially with their gold caps. I've got a few amazing colours and really wish I had more, they look so cute all lined up in my Helmer.

Out of my collection I picked Pure Gold, I tend to over look it quite often as it's not an in your face colour, but I decided that it was it's time to shine.

Pure Gold is a nice yellow gold, it's quite reflective for a shimmer and has a lovely glow when the light hits it. It seems to change depending on how much light there is, it can look quite light in bright sunlight, or much richer in the shade. All in all it's a really classy gold polish and it's not leaving my stash any time soon.

W7 - Orange Dazzle

Now as much as I love my vintage polish I also love cheap polish, especially when when it comes from a company who puts out really cool stuff.

W7 is one of those brands that I have ended up getting loads of as they just make such great colours and the quality isn't bad at all for a £2 polish. I used to be able to pick from most of their range from my local market stall, but since that closed I've had to rely on poundshops and T J Hughes to get them, I need to find someone local that stocks them as I'm missing out on new releases at the moment. 

I've got amazing duochromes, Magnetic and glitter polishes by them, and todays polish is one of their amazing glitters, it's sooo cool and it just gives me a big cheesy grin whenever I look at my nails when I wear it.

Say hello to Orange Dazzle, which really does dazzle you in real life, much more so than the photos show.

Ruby Wing - Sweet Cream - It turned orange!

Okay, so I loved this combo of Ruby Wing Sweet Cream and Seventeen's Monochrome glitter so much that it's been on my nails for a week and a half, which might be a record for a manicure staying on that long and still looking decent.

During that time it's been getting exposed to the sun every now and then, and it's happily going from light to dark as if by magic, but something weird has happened as the days have passed, it's turned orange and I've no idea how or why. It's kinda cool though.

I thought I'd take some photos as I'd like to know if this is normal, or have I got a bad batch?

I have to admit I do rather like how it looks, it reminds me of a tiger's colours, and as the photos below show, it still changes colour.

Vintage Vault - Sally Hansen - Prima, Prima Ballerina Collection

Okay, today I have a slightly different nail polish post, no swatches but bottle shots instead.

A few months ago I got a ton of old Sally Hansen Hard As Nails with Nylon polishes from the pound shops in town and being a bit obsessed with with my old vintage polishes I ended up trying to find out how old some of them were.

I'd noticed that a few had names that looked like they belonged in a collection and the numbers matched. Through a bit of digging I found that I had a few from one collection from January 2000 called the Prima Ballerina Collection, now of course I had to find the rest and armed with the names of the polishes I kept visiting the pound shops until I'd managed to find all but one of them.

So, as well as sharing the collection with you, this is a hopeful request, that maybe someone out there has a spare bottle of the one I'm missing, it's called A Star Is Born and it's number should be 2702-29 or 2702-38. I'd love to complete the collection, so if anyone can help me out that'd be great. :-)

Well I guess I better show you the rest of the collection, if you like any of these some can still be found on ebay and in some pound shops.

L-R Prima Donna, Take A Bow, Tutu Mocha, Encore

Ruby Wing - Sweet Cream + Seventeen - Monochrome

When I saw Ruby Wing polishes in my local Sally's I was soooo excited, I grabbed all of the ones they had in stock and literally skipped all the way home.

If you don't know, Ruby Wing polishes are colour changing and scented, they react to UV light, so are one colour indoors and change in the sun when you go outdoors, the light through glass is also enough to activate the change as well.

I decided to try out Sweet Cream first out of the ones I got as I thought it'd make a fun layering polish, I wasn't wrong as you can see below. The photo shows the colour change as it goes from light to dark, it's pretty awesome.

For this combination I started with two coats of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure Ivory Skull which is my white of choice right now, then two of Ruby Wing Sweet Cream, and then on top of that one coat of Boots Seventeen Monochrome.

Freshcover - Black Gold

Today's polish was found in a pound shop, I'd never heard of Freshcover before but the polishes I found were cool looking so I took them home with me.

I think Freshcover is a US or Canadian brand as I've never seen it for sale in the UK and all the mentions of it online on other blogs seem to be from that part of the world, if you know more about the brand feel free to fill me in.

Black Gold is a sexy vampy colour and I have no idea what so ever why it's got the word gold in it's name as there's no gold to be found here. Anyway's, the colour is a deep blackened dark red shimmer, it's one of those polishes that glows from within when the light hits it and catches the shimmer, but when there's no light it almost looks black.

February's Nail Polish Haul

Oh dear, I did it again, I just couldn't resist those pound shops and bargain hunting and I've ended up with quite a haul again, good job I got extra Helmer's to keep all this extra polish in!

Models Own had a great 50% off sale so I snapped up a few things off my wish list including Disco Inferno which for some reason my local Boots store never get any stock of even though every other colour gets re-stocked. Other goodies include some super sexy Nubar duochromes, Bling-tastic Nail's Inc Crystal Cap's, Amazingly cheap China Glaze Crackles for £1 each, yet more Poundland Jess glitters, and some more Laura Paige, which is a brand based just down the road from me.

Vintage Vault - L'Oreal - Laqui Resist - 193 Rome

Hi, today I've got a wonderful vintage polish for you, it's a lovely old L'Oreal LaquiResist called Rome.

I adore old polishes like this, I wish I could find out when it was made and what collection it came from but I think I'd have to do alot of digging online to find out, I shall just have to be satisfied that it's in my stash as it is rather lovely.

Rome (or number 193) is a funny orange, it's a bit of a colour shifter depending on the light, in the sun it's a bright orange but it's a more subdued dusty orange in the shade. It's a shimmer that it on the edge of being frosty, but whatever it is, it's pretty swoon worthy.

Jess - Disco Diva - All 4 Different Versions...

If you've read my haul posts lately you'll have noticed that I've been picking up quite alot of polishes by a brand called Jess from Poundland. One thing I love (other than the £1 price tag) is that they are quite free and easy with their colours, I've found several polishes with one name but with different glitter mixtures inside, although the main colour seems to remain the same.

One of these polishes is Disco Diva. I thought I'd post some swatches of the different versions I've found as it's one of the colours that there's still several versions available in my local store and it might be the same by you, hopefully with my comparision swatches you can decide which version you want to hunt down.

Helmer Alert for UK Polish Collectors

When I started this blog I didn't have a Helmer, all my polish was in boxes and I was soooo excited when I got my first one, shamefully to say as soon as it was built it was already full to the brim, so Helmer number two arrived and that too got filled up and I soon needed Helmer number three.

I put off getting my third Helmer as I wasn't really sure where I was going to put it and I thought there's no rush, the Helmer will be around for ages yet, but the other week when I finally caved and decided I really needed to get one and make room for it I found that there wasn't any being sold at my local store. I have red Helmers and I can't handle the thought of having other colours, I want them to all be the same, so I was a bit concerned when the red one was showing as only being sold at a few stores in the UK.

Barry M - Gold Mine Glitter

Barry M really do make some lovely polishes, I've got quite a few in my stash and what I like about the brand is that they have such a huge range of colours and finishes, as well as the cool limited editions that they release every now and then.

Most of my Barry M's are glitters, and todays polish is one of them. Gold Mine is a black jelly with gold glitter mixed in. I've seen loads of polishes that are black with silver so it's nice to see a gold version, and I like that the glitter shows up really well and isn't swallowed up by the black base.

January's Nail Polish Haul

Well January was a fun month for collecting polish for me, I got my first Essie's and some great bargains from the pound shops, on top of that I ordered some Nubar polishes from feelunique which got damaged on their way to me, it lead to a very long winded story to get what I ordered, but I have to say that their customer service team were really great and made sure I got my polishes in the end.

I also got yet more Jess polishes from Poundland, it seems they're being a bit sneaky and are changing some of the polishes as they go along, so there is a few different versions of some colours, in fact I've found four different versions of one colour so it looks like I'll have to do some posts about the different ones I've found for those interested in them, they certainly are coming up with some pretty awesome colours.

Okay, enough talk, here's my haul....

A return of sorts...

Hiya,

Well, it's been a while since I posted on my blog, I've been meaning to get back into my blogging, but work and having a crappy camera keep getting in the way of my good intentions.

Work has been an interesting journey, I've been a bus driver for over 6 months now and have been through the mill a bit already, it's a hard job, it can be so stressful and I'm so tired when I finish each day, but on a good day I really love it and it's really rewarding. I only drive on a few routes so I'm lucky that I can get to know my customers, most of them are lovely and I have such a laugh with them, but there are a few that try to misbehave but I don't take any crap so they usually get told to pay or get off, now when some of them see me they just pay which is kinda awesome.

The people I work with are great, I've made lots of friends and don't mind when they take the mickey out of me, it's how it is and you have to be able to give it back as well as  take it. It's funny, there's around 15 female drivers where I work and you'd think we'd be the ones that would be all relaxed about people not paying, but most of us are more strict than the men, we don't take any crap from passengers, whereas the guys don't want the hassle, you do have to use your common sense though, you don't ever put yourself in a situation that's dangerous, and when you're late because of traffic jams you have to just ignore them as it's not fair to hold everyone else up when they're already late.

I have also noticed that people can't drive these days, I've always prided myself on knowing the highway code, but these day's you're lucky if anyone indicates at a junction, I have to sit there and wait to see which way they're going which is one of the reasons buses are late, when that happens at every junction that can add quite alot of time to the trip. Oh I could go on about drivers all day, some are lovely though and I love the drivers that let me out at junctions and the ones that don't insist on squeezing past my bus as I'm pulling out from a stop.

Anyway, enough bus talk, what else has been going on?

Well two Bunny's joined the family, I'm still missing my cat Savvy, but Charlie and Dora are very cute and make me laugh alot as they're so funny. I'll have to do a post about them to introduce them properly. A lone Gerbil also joined the family too.

I got a new car a few months ago, it's 2nd hand but I love it, and like the bunny's it deserves a post of it's own as it's pretty awesome.

As for this blog, well, my plan is to post haul posts that have been sitting in my drafts folder first, the photos are easier to edit and they can be quick and dirty posts. Them I'm going to try to sort out the swatch posts that I've started, I've got a ton of swatches to edit, so I'm going to try to post at least one a week once I'm up to date with my haul posts. Then hopefully by the time I've done all my unfinished posts the sun will be back, I'll have a decent camera and I'll have my blogging mojo back.

I know there's been a few of you that I should've contacted while I've been away, I'm pretty rubbish at keeping in touch, but hopefully I'll be back on the ball soon and you'll get a message in your inbox from me. :-)

Cheerio for now,

Heather. :-)