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

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.

Vintage Vault - L'Oreal - 416 Venus

Hi. I hope you've all had a nice weekend, mine's been nice, I've been enjoying the sunny weather and watching the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indy 500 both of which were good races.

Today I've got a vintage beauty for you,  it's an old L'Oreal LaquiResist called Venus and it's pretty special.

There's just something about vintage polish with glitter that always gets me excited, so when I got this I was really happy. Venus is a lovely wine red jelly with silver glitter in it, it's like a starry night polish but in red. The glitter's not too in your face as it's not the most reflective glitter, but it makes for a very nice looking polish, and it's very classy for a glitter polish. :-)

2true Glitterati - Shade 5 - Blue & Green Glitter

I don't know much about the brand 2true other than it's only sold in superdrug in the UK, at least I've not seen it for sale anywhere else. It's a cheap brand, the polishes cost £1.99 each and you can usually get 3 for £5.00. I haven't got anything from the brand for a while, but the other day I saw three glitter polishes that tickled my fancy so I snapped them up.

They were from the Glitterati range, and today I'll show you one of them, it's called Shade 5, I know, why oh why can't they give the polishes a name, it's pretty enough to deserve one, I'm going to call it Mermaid Scales, as I think that's a much more suitable name, especially as it's a blue and green multi sized glitter.

Maybelline Color Show - Polka Dots - Chalk Dust

Today I've got a brand new polish for you, I popped into town the other day and while in Superdrug saw a new limited edition collection from Maybelline. The new polishes are called Polka Dots and are part of the Color Show range, there's four in the collection and I love everyone of them, probably because they are full of black and white glitter which I don't have yet in my stash.

The polishes in the collection all have the same black and white glitter in them but the base colours are different, Shooting Stars has a blue jelly base, Speckled Pink is a pink jelly base, Rain Forest Canopy has a green jelly base, and the polish I'm showing you today is Chalk Dust,which has a clear base so you can layer it over any colour you like.

I decided to layer Chalk Dust over Bourjois So Laque Jaune Trendy (you can see my swatches of it on it's own here), I thought it'd be fun to have a yellow base and I think it shows off both black and white glitter perfectly. It has a mix of four different sizes of glitter, and just one coat gives you plenty of glitter on your nail while still letting the base colour shine though.

Models Own - Snowflakes

Yesterday I showed you Rimmel's My Denim, well today I'm going to show you what I put on top of it. :-) What with My Denim being a creme I thought it'd be a good idea to try out Models Own Snowflakes over the top.

I've lusted after Snowflakes for a while, I love flakies and I don't have any quite like this so I couldn't wait to add it to my stash. The flakies are more like torn up peices of irridescent glitter as they're alot thicker than traditional flakies, they flash, pale gold, green, blue and purple.

So, I should love this polish, but I don't, the clear base is so thick that it makes the polish really difficult to use and I would've thought that Models Own's base for their glitters would be a billion times better than a cheap unknown brand from the pound shop, but it's not, it's worse.

Maybe I got a bad batch or something, I hope so as if I didn't I won't ever be buying a Model's Own glitter ever again, I hate paying out good money for something that's no good. But I do have to admit, it looked super pretty....

Barry M - Yellow Topaz Glitter

Yay! It's the weekend, which for me will mean watching lots of Formula One action on the telly. :-)

Today I thought I'd share a really nice glitter with you, it's Barry M's Yellow Topaz Glitter, it's a clear base with a mixture of gold and holographic glitter in three different sizes, microglitter, small and larger hex glitter. I love the combo of gold and holo, it just seem so much more exciting than just plain gold glitter.

I decided to use black as my base coat, I thought the contrast would be good, I liked how it made the glitter stand out and I think it's certainly the right choice.

BYS - Pink On The Brink

Well the weather here is still beautiful, normally in the UK as soon as it's a bank holiday it rains so it was nice that it didn't yesterday. I've spent most of the weekend in the garden, I've been trying to get on top of the weeds and decide where I'm going to plant some new plants I got cheap, I'll do a post about it all soon. :-)

Today is yet another nail polish post (what a surprise!), and today I thought I'd have a modern polish instead of vintage. I picked a BYS called Pink On The Brink, it's a cheap brand I picked up from a market stall in Coventry. As with most cheap brands it didn't want to dry, but it did look pretty so next time I get it out I'll be grabbing my bottle of quick dry top coat.

Pink On The Brink is a pink jelly with a mixture of super tiny silver glitter, small pink glitter and slightly larger holo glitter. I used two coats in the photos below.

OPI - Spark De Triomphe

I have a confession to make, I broke my index nail on my swatching hand, and it was really bad, so I'm rocking super short nubbins right now, every time I look at my hands my it's so weird, but I'm lucky that my nails grow real quick so I'll be back to swatching in no time. 

So while my nails grow I'm gonna dig out swatches I did before the break, some aren't from too long ago, but there's a few from a few months ago, so you'll have to put up with not so good cuticles for a bit. :-)

Right, back to business, today's polish is OPI's Spark De Triomphe from the Serena Williams Glam Slam France Collection from 2011. I got this in a pack of three OPI's for £14.99 from TK Maxx, which I thought was a bit of a bargain, especially as I loved all three colours. Spark De Triomphe is a beautiful full coverage glitter, it's a mix of micro glitter and small round glitter which gives it a bit of depth. It's a mix of silver and pale gold, to my eyes it's mostly silver, but I do catch it looking champagne gold, you can see the colours better in the photos.

Blue Cross Meteorites - Young Star

Last year I got a load of Meteorite bar glitter polishes from ebay, but I've never got round to wearing them. I love bar glitters in the bottle and love having them in my collection, but I'm not alway keen on how they look on my nails, so I decided I'd get one out and see how it turned out, I was hoping I'd love it as much as I love this bar glitter.

The one I went for is Young Star, I hoped it would go well with the orange Rimmel that I wanted to try. It's a clear base full of red, gold, and silver, and a smattering of holo bar glitter.

Vintage Vault - Sally Hansen - Emerald City

As promised we're back to the vintage polish, and it's a polish I'm sure you'll love.

Sally Hansen's Emerald City is pretty old, but don't ask me how old as I haven't got a clue, but I do love old Sally's and this one has a matching handle which makes it even more special. I've got a few of these Hard As Nails Glitters, and I just can't get enough of them!

There's not much to say about this apart from it's a beautiful green glitter in a clear base. I don't have anything that's this shade of green, it's a blue leaning green which seems pretty unusal for a glitter as all the others I have are more yellow.

Photos below are with three thick coats  and a top coat.

Technic - Carnival

Before we start, I have to apologise for the dreadful photos, no direct light coming into my house and the dreadful weather have reduced me to photographing swatches using artifical light and I'm not very good at doing that yet.

I love a bargain, I hate having to pay more than £4 for a polish, I've been spoiled by pound shops offering Revlon and Sally Hansens to me for a quid, I adore the polishes I find and weirdly I love them more because they were a bargain.

So with my love of a bargain I couldn't say no to buying a bottle of Technic's Carnival for a £1, I mean how could I say no to a bottle of multicoloured glitter that's a little bit like a few famous polishes with the same type of glitter? I know with more expensive brands you get a better base coat that dries quicker etc, but I can forgive a long drying time in exchange for a beautiful cheap polish, and that's exactly what Technic Carnival is, it's just beautiful.

Here's some not very good photos of it over white.

Revlon - Ruby Ribbon

Happy New Year!

I'm really looking forward to this year, it feels like really good things are gonna happen and i'm excited to see what adventures lie ahead.

I decided that the first polish on my nails in 2013 would be a very special one, and that special polish is Revlon's Ruby Ribbon, a little Revlon fairy sent me a parcel full of Revlon goodies and it was the best early christmas present I could have wished for as I was lusting after Ruby Ribbon like you wouldn't believe.

Ruby Ribbon is a limited edition, in the UK the only way to get one was through an offer at Superdrug, but it is available to buy in stores in the US. It's a stunning mix of red glitter, fuchsia mini bar glitter and holographic bar glitter.

I love this polish, I'm so happy I have it in my collection, it's so cool, and I still can't believe the Revlon fairy sent it to me. :-)

Please be warned that before you look at the swatches, I had a really bad break on my index nail, it snapped nearly all the way across, but I was determined to swatch Ruby Ribbon on longer nails so I did a superglue and teabag fix on it, but it's made my cuticles look nasty, sorry about that. :-)

Vintage Vault - Sally Hansen - Twinkle

I'm back after all the christmas fun, I had a lovely christmas, I had plenty of good food, and lots of lovely presents, my boyfriend amazed me by getting me a boxset by my favorite band James with a signed print, I'd ordered one myself, but had to cancel it as money was tight and I wanted to spend it on presents for him and my family instead, I couldn't believe it when I unwrapped it, and was so excited that he'd somehow managed to get a signed print, I can't wait to frame it and put it on my wall. I hope you all had a great christmas too with your family and friends.

Right, enough waffling, onto the polish, I've been waiting for the perfect time to wear todays polish and Christmas time and new year is it, especially as todays polish is a vintage Sally Hansen Christmas polish. :-)

I picked up Twinkle in a joblot from ebay (I posted about it here), out of all of the polishes in the lot it was the one I was most excited about getting as it's so pretty. Twinkle is a clear base (although mine's a little milky) with the most amazing irridescent and multichrome bar glitter that flashes gold, green, blue and purple, it's also got small glitter that flashes gold. This polish really is the bee's knee's.

Vintage Vault - Sally Hansen - Festive

Today it's a Christmas polish from the Vintage Vault, it's time for a Sally Hansen Christmas polish called Festive to come out to play. I saw this swatched over at a great blog (which you should check out if you don't follow it already) called The Scholarly Nail not long ago, Jacqui put it over black and it looked great, I really wanted to swatch this myself, and probably would've gone for black as well, but I couldn't improve on Jacqui's swatches so I thought I'd offer something a little different using the same polish instead.

This is one coat of Festive over white.

Maybelline MNY - 170A Gold Glitter

I hope you've all got your Christmas shopping done, I'm being my usual self and I'm leaving some stuff to the last minute, it wouldn't be christmas without a little bit of last minute shopping! I'm dying to go shopping for myself, I have a huge list of polish I want including three Barry M xmas polishes, and some vintage goodies but I'll have to be a good girl and wait till after christmas.

After the complete blingfest of the last two posts I thought I'd calm it down a bit and have something a bit more subtle but still festive.

I picked out 170A, a gold polish by Maybelline, it's from the MNY range and it's a pale gold base with gold glitter mixed in to give a bit of texture and sparkle.

Pink Tease - Diamond Shaped Holo Glitter

In my last post I showed you BYS's Crystal over Revlon's Black Star, after I had taken photos I added another polish on top as I wanted to show you a new polish I picked up from the poundshop last week.

When I was in the pound shop digging through the make-up section I spotted a small box on a shelf which caught my eye, it was a box of Pink Tease glitter nail polishes, now I see a lot of Pink Tease polish and make up at the poundshop, and generally it looks like it's not the best quality and the polishes aren't very exciting so I've never bothered with the brand before, but the glitter polishes looked interesting so I picked two up. One was a green holo glitter, and the other was a holo glitter that was rather unique and I had to get a bottle for my collection. I won't describe it just yet, I'll let the photos do the talking.

Just like the last post this one is photo heavy as well, I hope you don't mind.

BYS - Diamond Collection - Crystal

I've decided to get all festive and have posts featuring polishes that make me feel Christmasy (is Christmasy even a real word?). Now of course Christmas means glitter, so expect lots of it in my posts from now until New Year. :-)

My first polish is from BYS's Diamond Collection and it's called Crystal, it reminds me of fairy lights twinkling away on a Christams tree. It's a cheap market find (£1.20), but I do believe that it should be easy to find for some of you where BYS is sold.

Crystal is a clear base with a mix of two sized of holographic glitter, small and really small, and it really twinkles. There's just something about holographic polish and glitter that I love, I'm like a magpie with the stuff, I think I just love having a rainbow on my nails.

This polish is so pretty I took way too many photos, but I needed to show you the lovely holo glitter, get ready for some photo spam...

China Glaze - It's Alive and Ick-A-Bod-y

I had completely forgotten I'd taken these photos of my Halloween manicure, so now they're a bit belated, but I'm posting them anyway.

I've only got about 10 China Glaze polishes and they're all glitters, I really want the latest glitters, but I've got to wait till after christmas to get them.  Anyway, two of my China Glazes are halloween ones, and this halloween I popped them on my nails and took some snaps.

The polishes I used were It's Alive from the 2011 Haunting collection, and Ick-A-Bod-Y from the Awakening collection from 2010.

I love both of these polishes and I couldn't decide which one should be on my nails for Holloween, my boyfriend said I should use both, so that's what I did, I think they work well together.

I couldn't just have one photo of my holloween manicure so here's some more of that glittery goodness, with a slightly arty background. :-)

November's Nail Polish Haul. :-)

Today we're going to have some bottle spam as I'm feeling lazy, and it's getting hard to do swatches as the light in my house is so bad now it's getting dark really early.

I sold a few old things on ebay last month so I treated myself, my lovely boyfriend got me a couple of things too, isn't he a sweetie. I hadn't got much polish for a few months, so I think I went a little crazy. :-)

Here's pics of my haul, be warned there's a lot!
 

Revlon Jaded, Nordic Sky & Blush Chrome

Revlon Punk, OPI The Living Daylights, Maybelline Aqua, Purple Rage