NOTD - China Glaze Stellar

The other polish I bought in my first ever visit to Sallys.

Blackened violet with a gold shimmer and a super high shine finish, love it.  Have had pale nails for ages now, had forgotten how much I like them dark!

Indoors, daylight

Indoors, bit more daylight

Outside, not full sun

Outdoors, bit more sun

Outdoors, as much sun as you would expect in England in July!

NOTD - GOSH Lavender Love

Had real issues trying to capture the actual colour of this, the bottle in the pic below is closest.  It is a truly gorgeous perriwinkle blue and I love it.  

Last year had my heart set on Essie Lapis of Luxury but couldnt find it anywhere, the minute I spotted this was pretty sure it was dupe'ish (if anyone has both would love to see how close these two are?!)

Have had GOSH polishes in the past and not been particularly overwhelmed but the application of this was lovely nice and opaque in two coats and wear is tolerable, am off base coat and top coat at the mo, none of my nail varnish applies well over a base coat for some reason?

I also nearly quite literally peed my pants in Boots when I spied this

Charlotte at Lipglossiping had been tempting us with the new Butter London collection, Lady Muck was calling my name and then to make matters worse she did a blue comparison post and Essie Sag Harbour was yelling it.
The minute I spotted this Revlon Blue Lagoon I nabbed it, its pale blue, which I love and it has glitter, which I don't normally but needed it to satisfy this particular craving!

Tell me that's not beautiful? Applies like a total biatch though, streakfest from hell.  Took 4 coats and then 6 hrs after application I picked its still tacky self off my nails.  Will be trying this one again without base coat just to see if its the Rimmel 3 in 1 base top and strengthen that's causing me issues.  The glitter in this is sort of flat, not sparkly so it gives the nail varnish a texture rather than a sparkle, it is quite beautiful and might be best spotted by clicking on the photo above to make it a bit bigger. 

Sorting out the links I am delighted to notice that Revlon Blue Lagoon isn't the same shade as Essie Sag Harbour at all so thats fab, means there is no excuse not to have both!

NOTD 11 - Revlon Blackest Black

Reminds me of an art teacher I once had. He had some serious anger management issues and I remember him going ape shit on a fellow student who, when told to paint something black asked "light black or dark black?" We were then treated to a 40 minute rant on the fact that light and dark do not apply to black and white. Did we care, no I don't believe we did. Were we traumatised by the maniac in front of the class, well yes I think we were. Mr Armistead - this one's for you.

NOTD 10 - Modesl Own In the Navy

Went on a mission to find slate green and grey purple and was so disappointed that they still weren't in Boots that I decided to console myself with a navy blue cream. Wasn't sure I really needed this and wasn't sure how much I'd love it as I was concerned it would be so dark it would look black in all but the strongest of light. I was so wrong on both counts! I love this, had forgotten how fab dark polishes look after a Summer of pastels!


Sunshine
This is a lovely glossy navy blue, realised when I got home all the dark blues I owned had shimmer or glitter and I think I prefer cream at heart. Application was good, I do find the Models Own brushes a smidge too long for me to get super neat application. I am seriously allergic to nail varnish remover, it literally makes my skin peel so it would be unthinkable to do a clean up with neat acetone, think my tips would drop off!


Shade
Love how dark glossy polishes make your hands look so sophisticated. Even mine which are sort of lobstery and squat!


Look at that navy loveliness.

I now seriously need a dark green cream I think!

NOTD 8 - Jessica Venus was her name

I am in love! This is the most gorgeous nail varnish ever, ever. Dark charcoal grey in some lights, bright shimmery purple in others. Application is a dream - it's Jessica what else could you expect. This is 3 coats, did 2 last night and then wrapped my tips and a 3rd coat this morning. Am convinced tip wrapping prevents chipping but also really like how "finished" it makes the ends of your nails look. It's tricky with thick, gloopy polish but a breeze with something as good as this.

Photos. Doing. My. Head. In. I cannot get them right and it's what I do for goodness sake, people pay me to take photos for them and I can't even take pics of my own nails. Have resorted to using smaller photos so the blurry hideousness is less obvious.


Check out that purple shimmer. Outside in sun


See the finish tip wrapping gives. You can see the grey side to this in the bottle. Outside in sun


Indoors with flash, best shot of both grey and purple


One last photo attempt for the day - the old faithful wall outside the back door does it again! At least this one is in focus! Thanks for bearing with me on the photo front!

So pleased with this and am now dying to try the other two Jessicas from Rae!

NOTD 7 - Max Factor Dazzling Blue

As I had thought not quite as fab on the nail as it is in the bottle. Nice shade of blue, switching to a nice shade of greeny gold but you have to have your hand at a really weird angle to pick up a hint of the pink that would make it opal like. Nice application, bit sheer for my liking - you can see vnl in some of these photos. Not wowing me as a manicure but am liking bit time as my holiday pedi, the vnl thing isn't an issue on toes, as god forbid there should even be one! Photos are a bit craptacular, might have to edit if I get a mo but wanted to show you the promised swatches.




Post Edit - another go at trying to capture the goldy green, seems beyond my camera! Have had a tweak with this to try and get it to show a bit more true, think that you can just see the hint of pink in the bottle corner and on the bottom of my index finger nail and it shows more green on the bottom of the middle finger nail, hope that helps.


This shows the blue'nes a bit more!


This one the greeny gold


And this one the vnl, a bit!

NOTD 6 - Rimmel Shocker

It's been ages again hasn't it, if everyone is bored to death of this non-event of a blog I would so understand, loads of stuff going on and not enough time to do the things I want to, sure you can relate! As is usual when I have time to do one post I generally do two, have updated my photo blog today as well with photos of Tom on his last day at school - he is too handsome!

Not my usual sort of colour this one, don't really do pink but Em wanted it to match the maxi dress she has bought for her hols and having seen it on her I rather fancied it for a change. Its one of those nice electric pinks with a sort of bluey ish flash. For some reason I have always associated this colour with my Aunty Helen, who I met when I was 14 and filled with self-loathing and in inveterate nail biter! She has the most gorgeous hands and fantastic nails and I was so envious and was convinced if I could stop biting my nails they would look like hers. Hmm, not so much! So in my head this is "aunty Helen pink"!




S'cuse the rather gleaming cuticles, grabbed my brush and oil combo and was painting away when I remembered that I had recently dipped the brush in the olive oil I was using so instead of a bit of gentle moisturising I was achieving full on oil slick!

Really like the Rimmel formula, not mad keen on the brush - I have very small nails and on my smallest the brush is almost too wide. The polish is lovely though, this is 2 coats with no top coat yet. Just a shame the Rimmel colours aren't more exciting, much as I love Barry M colours I don't think that anyone would argue that the brushes and the formula on some of them can be a bit tricky. That said bought the bright green one at the weekend, more of a jelly than the more recent pastels I have bought but I loved it on, must take photo next time I wear it! Oh and Em and I got the Barry M blue glitter which is craaaaaaaazy - looks fab on her, not sure I wouldnt be back in transvestite territory but might give it a whirl!

Spotted in the Body Shop.....

After reading Leanne's post on the Body shop Monoi Miracle Body Oil I decided I needed to make a detour to check it out, in spite of seriously limited funds at the moment! The oil is lovely but I have a feeling that the one they had on display had been sat open for some time as it had a slightly unpleasant petrolly whiff to it which rather masked the "holiday" smell that Leanne was getting from hers. Did pick up a travel mini of the Aloe calming cleanser - my £10 bottle has run out and like I send being careful with the pennies so a travel size bottle for £3 was perfect not least because I am away for work next week.

Whilst I was in the The Body Shop I spotted a fantastic nail gizmo - am probably years behind everyone on this and you have all been using them for ages, but in case not this is a heads up! In their Almond hand care range they have a fab Almond nail and cuticle oil, it comes in a pen with a brush and you turn the base to load the brush and then run it round your cuticles and nails. Mum bought me something similar ages ago which I kept on my desk and used religiously, as she said something about using the brush to apply and then massage in the oil seemed to really help and of course its quick and non-messy. So all great so far but nothing outrageously fab, where this item got kudos from me is that instead of just having a cap on the brush it is fitted with a good sturdy plastic hoof, like those flimsy ones you get on the old traditional hoof stick which frankly never seemed to achieve much in my opinion, although to my shame I have been known to use some pretty dreadful things in an attempt to shift my cuticles including an old false nail and the edge of the nail cleaner on a pair of metal nail clippers, isn't that awful? I always use an orange stick because they work I have always felt the proper hoof stick rubber tip didn't quite do the trick but as I say the one on the Body Shop nail oil looks much sturdier. This costs £7 which seems like a bargain to me - she says moving her half litre of olive oil that cost £1.50 to one side!

I do have to confess to a couple of purchases today - a Rimmel nail varnish in a light teal/turquoise called Sky High, a real splurge on Paul Mitchell Relaxing hair balm my excuse being that I have bendy hair that drives me insane and only good styling products will do the trick!! and some Sally Hansen Acetone free nail polish remover, used up the last of the Co-Op cheapo stuff last week and am paying the price; the skin is quite literally peeling off of my hands, ouch.

This is Sky High - taken with flash because it's beyond dreary outside!


I tried to tweak the colour to show you that its much more of green turquoise than a blue one.


And just to prove that even though I have the Barry M turquoise, it leans blue and this leans green so I did NEED it!!

Although that photo would suggest otherwise!

And a quick update on Barry M blues - just for comparisons sake:

L-R: Pale Blue, Cyan Blue, Turquoise

NOTD 5 - Barry M Cyan Blue

A post without photo's is like, well loads of stuff really; toast without butter, Coke without ice, Bank holiday without sunshine, you know what I mean - I have worked all day, one of the joys of being freelance is that I can work today and then take a day off later in the week when the sun is shining.

So here it is, Barry M Cyan Blue, it's another keeper, although if I am honest it is giving me the boiled beef fingers of terror. But right now I love it enough that I am prepared to over look that! It is a really bright blue and the finish on this is one of the best I have had with a Barry M - opaque in 2 coats and very smooth. I did a 3rd hasty coat for the photos and the brush marks you can see are from rushing, no top coat.

As you can see I have had a bit of a "self destruct" moment - when I have more than 2 glasses of wine for some reason I go into self destruct mode and decide that biting my nails isn't a vile habit that makes me cry but actually a lovely way to spend an evening. Luckily I caught myself just in time and dashed off to grab my glass file and sort them out before I could make it any worse. Still woke up in a cold sweat the next morning to check the damage in the cold light of day. I am convinced that there are no ex-nail biters, we just aren't biting them at the moment.


Isn't it lovely - this is taken outside on the greyest of bank holidays.

My mum sent me a pressie this weekend, she and my sister have been using Sally Hanson natural shine which is chock full of vitamins and minerals. Mum has very similar nails to me, or actually I have very similar nails to her - its genetic and she had them first! They flake and peel and we both suffer from a complete inability to not make a flake worse, even though we know how awful we are going to feel when we have done it. She is taking Perfectil and reckons they have really helped her nails but also thinks using Natural Shine has done its bit in terms of keeping the nail itself nourished and thought I might like to try it, hugs mum! I put 2 coats of this on, under my base coat and as I said this is the best Barry M application I have had so maybe it helped? You are supposed to use the nail shine on clean nails without polish but I just cant do the no polish thing so hoping that sealing all those nourishing things on my nail with nail varnish will make it work even better!

I am still massaging in lashings of olive oil too to see if that helps, it seems to be helping my cuticles so lets hope that in 3 months I will have nice strong nails - what seems even more unfair is that I don't even want long nails, just nice non-flaking, all the same length short healthy nails - not too much to ask is it?

Idea for a future post from Fran, cheers hen!, what would be your "Desert Island essential". If you were going to be ship wrecked which one beauty product would you be glad you had stashed in your bikini? Email me your absolute, can't live without, must have essential!

NOTD 4 - Nails Inc St Johns Wood

Oh is there ever a story behind this one. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin. Manchester March 2010 and I was on a mission - Nails Inc Jermyn Street or die trying. That may sound a little over dramatic, if you had been there you would know, it isn't! Hauled sister and daugher straight into Debenhams and to the Nails Inc counter, Jermyn Street was £10 on its own or for £18 I could have the "Griege" collection: Jermyn Street, The Thames (grey), Taxi (black) and a white/pale cream - cant remember the name. Well they say a fool and her money are easily parted and I am no exception. Was beyond delighted and over lunch shared out the spoils, hey, I am nothing if not generous - Em got the black and Ness got the pale cream and I had Jermyn Street, that lush Chanel Particulere (sp?) dupe and The Thames a fab grey cream. Was ecstatic til I came to use them, the brush on Jermyn street was straggly and un-even, the polish was thick and gloopy and I was peed off. Thames was worse, more straggles and at one point I dipped the brush into the bottle and it came out with a really long hair/fibre wrapped around the brush, yeuakk. The only other experience of Nails Inc polish that I had had was a freebie on the front of a mag and it too was super gloopy and nothing to write home about.

So in the interest of finding out how the hell Nails Inc could justify £10 something for a bottle of their polish I emailed customer services to ask if the polishes in the collections were of the same quality as the individual bottles. Got back the reply that they were and that I must have had a duff set and that they would be happy to replace the collection. I was pretty pleased and very impressed and waited for my new collection to arrive. And waited. And waited. You can probably see where I am going with this!!

After 2 months I emailed them again and said that whilst the offer of a new collection had been a lovely gesture, that was all it was - a gesture. Finally got a reply saying that the original contact had left but they would now send me a bottle of Jermyn Street. Of all the cheek! Wait 2 months and then instead of the original offer of a new collection get offered a single new bottle instead, I think not. They did then offer the Griege collection again but I am a bit over all that grey and beige so asked them if it would be possible to have a single bottle of St Johns Wood instead.

On Saturday this arrived.

How fab is that? Frankly had it been empty I would almost have been happy to have had the jiffy bag. ALMOST.

Inside the jiffy bag, was a Nails Inc black box and inside that, wrapped in black tissue was this

St Johns Wood - I am going to describe it as lavender cream, isn't it be-you-ti-ful? Actually in this photo its looking a bit darker than it truly is.

Just to give you a comparison here it is next to Purplicious - much more accurate on the colour.


Yesterday afternoon I finally had chance to get some on my nails. I am here to tell you that Nails Inc polish rocks. Seriously after having used 3 bottles and been pretty not impressed with the brushes and the formula this one has made me totally change my mind. The polish is very smooth and incredibly opaque, you could almost get away with one coat, but that just doesnt feel right so it got 2, did have some slight streaking caused by the brush, the polish is still fairly thick but it does go on like a dream.


This is 2 coats with Boots Expert strengthening base and top. Bit of tip wear and a whopper of a chip as I didn't get round to photo'ing this til this pm and I had done 3 hours house work and a spinning class by then!

You may have noticed my rather plump and luscious cuticles. Of course you did. This is due to this wonder product


It is amazing and makes my hands feel so moisturised without being greasy it is chock full of shea butter and smells like heaven. It was a b'day pressie from Rachel who is a bit of an Elemis fan and wanted to share the joy! Lucky me. She also got me a tube of their pre-tanning cream which I am going to use in the 2 week run up to my holiday in Corfu and if I tan, rather than doing that glow in the dark white, bright red lobster and back to glow in the dark all in the space of a day thing that I usually do I will be a convert for life! Cant wait to try it and of course will let you know how I get on!

NOTD 3 - GOSH Rainbow over purplicious

Shopping trip to Leeds was fab and although I didn't get the Essie blue polish I wanted I did pick up a bottle of GOSH Rainbow - a flaky, rather than glitter, top coat! I had seen it swatched on top of black polish and it looks very cool so was dying to try it, so much so that I whacked on a couple of coats as soon as I got home!

I have ramped up the saturation in this pic so that you can see the colours of Rainbow at their best, its not this craaazy in real life!

It's more like this...

ooh and did you spot that little Nails Inc teaser there - St Johns Wood as I live and breathe! Thats a whole other post! GOSH Rainbow is £5 from Superdrug btw if you are fancying it, Em put it over Nails Inc The Thames and it looked fab on that too.

NOTD 3 - Barbara Daly Purplicious

Still struggling with the whole nail of the day (NOTD!) photo thing! This one was taken using the little compact digital, much less shoulder wrecking and it is in focus so thats good but still not what I am looking for! Made a detour round Tesco's on Saturday as had read on a nail blog that there were some good green polishes to be had - no sign of them but spotted this one and had been rather fancying a purple cream.



Trouble with purple is that its hard to photograph, even if you aren't having all the photo issues I am having!! I bought Bourjois So Laque Violet Blu which is the bottle I am holding, thinking it would be this colour on the nail, it isn't it dries a much darker indigo shade and it has a pants brush. Barbara Daly Purplicious dries darker than it's bottle shade to the bottle shade of Violet Blu so I got what I wanted in the end! It applies nicely, this is 3 coats as 2 was still a bit thin in places and no top coat as I haven't managed to get around to that yet!

NOTD 2 - Barry M Pale Blue

Have SOOOO much that I need to post and have been working like a loon this week so no time to take photos or write interesting and witty things on my blog. Am planning a post on the Charles Worthington Dream Hair range - love and on my new hairbrush - bigger love and one of the Boots Expert serum that I mentioned in the News Flash email! So loads to do but as a brief respite from putting tractors on the tractorpool website thought I would take a quick pic of my latest purchase - Barry M Pale Blue. Am really after a very pale baby blue but am not prepared to fork out yet for an Essie one yet, always worried that these pale ones will give me hands that look like boiled beef!




This is the Pale Blue with flash - and without hand cream or cuticle oil. Yak. Sorry about that, was in the kitchen keeping the dog quiet whilst Steve checked in some guests and thought I should multi task and do the photo whilst I was there - of course all my nail stuff is on my desk and so you have knarly cuticles to enjoy! So yea pale blue with flash. Not quite the pale blue of my dreams but for £2.95 not bad!



Pale Blue sans flash. Also sans focus! But in lieu of cuticle oil had slapped on a tad of the Kelly Brook shimmering body lotion that I found in the cupboard - hence the weird sparkly bits and when I realised that looked pants dipped a tad of vege oil round them! The glamour round here is never ending don't you think!!

Just previewed this - that photo is pants, sorry about that. Oh and must mention have taken nails right back as flaking was out. of. control. so they look rather more nubby than I like!

Ok further post edit update - had to re-do those photos and still not happy, couldn't handle hideous cuticles on first and am still freaked by out of focus 2nd. I instantly switch off from nail blogs with crap photos, whats the point? So please bear with me and in future I wont bother with the multi tasking thing, this is clearly not something to be done in a hurry!

Now off to nurse my poor shoulder - fantastic camera but it has a focal length of about 2 inches longer than my arm actually is so I have to wedge camera into face and twist to the right whilst pushing my left arm as far forward as is humanly possible and then hold this whilst the camera focuses! The agonies I go through for my blog!

Watch this space loads more to come.

Nails

Finally last night got round to sorting out my poor nails. Have a very serious casualty on my right hand having done a bit of hand to headboard combat changing the bed in Room 7 on Friday, its fair to describe it as a stub. So no choice had to be pale nail varnish, cant have vampy dark nails that are stubs unless you are actually a goth.

Actually am seriously into the very on trend pastel nail varnishes at the moment which is new for me, normally much prefer a darker polish.


This is a No. 17 nail varnish from their new Candy Collection, this one is Parma Violet and I love it!

Have gone over to the cheaper polishes recently after some real disappointments with more expensive stuff. Bought a gorgeous Bloom purple shimmer which applied like a dog - streaky, sloppy, just vile and it cost £8. Managed to get a reasonable coat on once and someone saw it and comment on how nice it was and then said "is it a Barry M?"!! Imagine my horror, Barry M - make-up for 12 year olds, I don't think so love. Then I got over being a complete nail varnish snob and had a look at the Barry M nail paints and was amazed - bought Racing Green - deep, sparkly Emerald, sparkling purple (much better than the Bloom equivalent) and one other that I cant remember and was instantly a convert - 3 polishes for £9! Went home and chucked the Bloom in the bin! Have since bought Barry M Raspberry, Mint Green, Turquoise and Cobalt Blue and love them all. Em is currently sporting a fab manicure of alternate nails done in Mint Green, Turquoise and the Parma Voilet as above, seriously on trend for Spring - will try and add a photo later!



Notice Em's hands not quite feeling the love. Those poor poor cuticles!

Decided to pull out all the stops and do a full manicure last night. So first cuticle removal, use Boots Expert cuticle removing cream, its nice and gritty and you can give your nails a good buff with it too before gently pushing back your cuticles with an orange stick. Good wash to get that off and then a slide round with a glass nail file, always glass never those nasty gritty disposable ones which just shred your nails - have a Ruby and Millie one and its the one nail product I think is worth paying for, flipping expensive at £13 but they last ages (provided lumox of a husband doesn't stand on the damn thing) and can be washed to keep them nice and hygienic! Such a fine finish they actually leave a gloss on your nail tips so you know it is helping to seal the layers, v important if like me your nails flake. I used a Nail Dr's base coat that acts as a ridge filler to hide the worst of the damage where my nails have flaked. The nail varnish is well pigmented so its opaque in two coats, but needs both to even out its slight streakiness. Then topped the whole lot off with a coat of Boots Expert Strengthener and ran a bit of Boots Expert nail and cuticle oil around the cuticles. All done!

I am a huge fan of the Boots Expert range, all the nail products I have used have been fab and are generally considerably cheaper than other similar products. I also keep a tube of the lip balm in my skin care bag and religiously apply a slap of that after toner and before serum and moisturiser - I give my lips a bit of a massage with it each morning, gets the blood flowing and seems to help plump them up a bit, never a bad thing!

And to finish a nail varnish top tip - if you do your mani in the evening and wake up to sheet prints on your nails dont panic! Whack on a quick coat of clear polish and wola glossy, smooth nails with no sheet marks!

Any nail top tips you want to share - god mad, knock yourselves out, its good to share!