Things I am loving - nails

I finally feel like I might be back into the swing of blogging!

I have bought a fair bit recently and each time thought that maybe I should blog and then either not had the time or the inclination so this is a bit of a catch up.

First up, still obsessing over my nails.  I have a vertical split in the nail on my middle finger on my right hand which I cannot grow out - all the while the nail doesn't flake it holds itself together but when the nail flakes, as it always eventually does, the split appears.  This last time I actually clipped my nail as short as possible to get below the split and it hasn't really worked.  Because I can not abide nails of differing lengths I have taken all the others back to very short too, not that they were any great talons to begin with.  I actually prefer them very short, especially if I am wearing a dark polish, which is handy given how much they flake!  So nail purchases:

Love that its now possible to buy Essie in Boots.  On a recent 3 for 2 promotion I picked up Good to Go top coat and Nourish Me base coat.  The base coat is the blue bottle, its a nice thin liquid base which works for me as I am not a fan of goopy base coats.  The top coat is thicker and dries to that touchably glossy finish that makes your nails feel really smooth - ideal for nails that have flaked.

Recent trip to a larger Boots store saw me standing pretty much open mouthed in front of a massive Revlon Colourstay stand.  So much pretty all in one place!  In the end I managed to pick up just two colours but I have my eye on, oh, about 30 more. 

I didn't read up on these until after I had purchased, apparently used with the Colourstay base and top coat they are supposed to last up to 10 days and are a diy shellac sort of thing.  I only have the polishes which I am using with the Essie top and base and wear is good - I get bored after about 2 days so longevity in my mani is not top priority. Really great colour is however and this range is falling down with stunners.  Rain Forest is a dark green jelly with lighter green glitter it is stunning on the nail, opaque in 3 coats and dark dark green, but still distincly green, not erring into that territory where it could be black.  I think it could be similar to a China Glaze polish, Emerald City, which I have always loved the look of.  Pics of it on the nail to follow.  Midnight is a beautiful teal - purchased before the whole colour exploration of this week, yet another example of having around me the colours that work without realising!  I love this because I have red hands and the teal makes them look like alabaster!  Pics of that mani to follow too.  The polishes are pretty thick and have a self levelling property that is an absolute blessing if you are cursed with peeling nails - currently my thumb nail is in tatters but you'd never know with this on.  On the downside I hate the brushes, never had a Revlon polish with a rubbish brush and now I have two! The shaft of the brush is flat and wide which made me think the brush would be a bit like the lovely Rimmel curved, wide xpress Flat Brush, sadly not. The brushes do have a longer bit but rather than it being in the middle to create a curve its on one side which makes getting neat cuticles a complete mare. But the colours and the self-levelling are so fab I will be buying more!  

Have you tried these and if so what do you think?

NOTD - L'Oreal Color Riche Beige Countess

This is one classy manicure!  Super work appropriate for anyone that's important to, one of the benefits of being self employed is that I can wear any colour nail varnish I like!  Some nudes can be pull out any of the pink tones in your skin, this one doesn't seem to do that on me and I completely love it.  There is a chance that I like this one most of all in fact.

Em and I are heading back to Boots on Friday, I have a fancy for a pale grey cream now, if anyone has picked up and blogged any of these please let me know, I'd love to see how some of the other colours look.

NOTD - L'Oreal Color Riche Rebel Blue

I LOVE when this happens, when a nail varnish that looked a bit meh in the bottle looks fantastic on the nail!  I mentioned before that I had expected this to be more of a cobalt blue when Em brought it home on Wednesday and was disappointed with it, especially with the shimmer.  Which is why I waited until today, Sunday, to try it.  

It looks so much darker and brighter on the nail than in the bottle, much nearer the cobalt shade I had in mind, I am really pleased.  I am not sure if its because of the shimmer but this one seems less glossy than the creams, not massively but just a tad.  I also am less impressed with the brush on this one, it is a bit fatter than the others and I struggled to apply the polish neatly; all my notd pics are without clean up - I have very sensitive skin so avoid using nail varnish remover unless its to actually remove an entire manicure, which is why I need polishes with great brushes.  Any polish with a huge brush that spits polish into my cuticles soon falls out of favour and into the bin.  Onto the pics:

Still not the dupe for Nails Inc Belgrave Place that I am searching for - I know I could just buy Belgrave Place but I am not really a fan of Nails Inc polish, I have had some very dodgy brushes, which whilst irritating in a £4.99 polish is appalling in something that costs £11.50 or thereabouts, I have a feeling though that I am going to have to cave at some point and buy this one.  Hope everyone is having a fab weekend.

More L'Oreal Color Riche Nail Varnish - Blue Reef, Rebel Blue & Beige Countess

I am obsessed!! sent Emily back to Boots in her lunch break on Wednesday to pick up Rebel Blue and Blue Reef for me.  Have taken pics of both and added the  Beige Countess that Em bought on Tuesday and has worn since, its a lovely "work appropriate" nude!  So enough waffle, on with the pics!

Rebel Blue, Blue Reef, Beige Countess - again all very colour accurate

Numbers and names in same order as above

Rebel Blue has some shimmer to it, which was a disappointment - when I saw it on Tuesday I was convinced it was a cobalt cream but when Em brought it home on Weds it was less cobalt and had this annoying shimmer into the bargain - L'Oreal please please please a bright, gorgeous Cobalt cream the colour of the Hermes Birkin bag would be perfect, thank you!

The shimmer isn't really visible here

The lone bottle pic for this one came out too dark, this is colour accurate.

If you click on this one to enlarge you can see shimmer running up the middle

I wore Rue Monmartre for 3 days with only a very small amount of tip wear, no base, no top coat.  I only took it off because I was sooo desperate to try Blue Reef.  Which looks like this:

Oops nearly forgot - I got a better pic of the brush which is flat and with a curved end and makes application a breeze.



 So gorgeous it hurts!  So hope this inspires some weekend nail splurging, please please let me know which you bought and what you thought!  And if anyone knows of a the perfect, super glossy cobalt cream pleas let me know - I had the Barry M one, but its not glossy enough and Barry M polish doesn't light my fire, sorry!!

NOTD - China Glaze Stella

Quick NOTD, last night filed my nails to the minimum length possible as part of my January "assume it's broken and darn well fix it" programme of self improvement.  My nails are pretty ok at the moment, even the hideous full length flake on my right index finger is pretty much grown out (tempting fate or what?) but they are still getting lots of attention.  My regime of Nailactan nightly after an application of Mavala Cuticle oil, hand cream all day long and twice weekly applications of Scientifique is still ensuring that my nails are looking good, I might not be the biggest fan of Mavala polishes but I have yet to find nail care products that deliver other than these.  If you have flaking, peeling, weak nails you need this trinity of nail care in your life imo.

So China Glaze Stella vibrant purple with red shimmer to give a high gloss magenta finish.  Application is all you would expect, perfect formula, fantastic brush that whilst long is still easy to use even on my very small nails.  Wear is brilliant with this and whilst I was hankering after a burgundy cream polish this morning this one caught my eye instead.  I am definitely going to apply a coat of Nails Inc London Bridge before I take this off just to see how it looks!

Nails Inc Glitterati

Whilst I am sure none of you doubted it for a moment the following post is proof of my fabulty as a mother.  My sister and I swop cheques and purchase presents for our kids that we know they will love and there are occasions when that has massive benefits.  Like when you buy your daughter a collection of nail varnish you know she will adore and will also of course be obliged to SHARE!! 

Ladies I give you Nails Inc Glitterati collection: 

 

Are they not 3 of the most glorious glitters?  This post is seriously picture heavy (see previous post re new camera)

London Bridge

Chelsea Embankment

Hatton Garden

So good it gets another pic!

In spite of reservations regarding the removal of glitter polish and because I am a martry to my blog I decided I would swatch all three in a glitter ball, nail bling marathon.

First up Chelsea Embankment.  This is a gold base with a mass of tiny bits of gold glitter so much so that it looks like a metallic foil when you get to 3 coats.

1 coat

2 coats

3 coats

I love this and the whole metallic nail finish it creates.  I wore it out recently as an accent nail on both ring fingers with a deep blue polish on the rest of my nails and loved how it looked.  

Next up Hatton Garden.  

 

 Oh dear Lord. Is that not to die for?  I think this really is my absolute favourite, a real walk into walls and crash your car cos you cant stop looking at it winner.  This is a clear polish with large holographic and silver glitter, its chunky and clunky and still I refuse to hate.  I rarely would never wear a sheer polish but I actually rather like this with just one coat to give bare nails a bit of sparkle.

Every collection has its problem child.  Meet London Bridge.

Blue polish with the most gorgeous fuschia glitter, the glitter is larger and less dense than the gold and smaller than the silver.It is beautiful but it's a total mare.  I was swatching and didnt want to let the coats dry completely as was hoping to get these off with minimal nail damage so maybe if I had let each coat dry really well I might have been able to even out the glitter better on the 3rd coat.  No glitter post is complete without some layering.  I decided to layer these on top of Illamasqua Eclipse, a recent sale purchase that I will blog soon. 

Index - gold, middle - silver, ring - purple

Index - gold, middle - silver, ring - purple

I think had I been a bit more sparing with the gold this might have looked really good, as it was I was too heavy handed and the layering thing went out the window.  Of course the silver layers like a dream, a clunky chunky dream but guessing a good top coat would smooth things out - although your polish would be mm thick.  London Bridge is killing me, it could look so nice but it just refuses to play ball.

Removal of these was not the trauma I had feared.  Admittedly I didn't let them dry completely and went at them with a litre of polish remover and its possible that left to dry fully I would have needed to go down the tin foil glitter polish route, I will update this post when I next wear them properly to let you know.

I paid £25 for this collection but it is on sale for £21.25 with free delivery at www.feelunique.com or £18 from the Nails Inc website, delivery extra.  I know the season for glitter is now behind us but maybe a bit of sparkle is just what we need to get us through the dull old months of January and February, what do you think?

UPDATE: It is with great sadness that I have to report the untimely demise of hatton garden. Not 2 hrs after completing this post our smallest dog, who will be henceforth known as "that bastard dog" knocked it off my desk and broke it.  Allegedly.  There is a conspiracy theory kicking around (Emily saying it like it probably is!) that my husband, actually broke the polish and blamed "that bastard dog" (which is far more likely in my opinion) but sadly that cannot be proven.  That said "that bastard dog" has no money and OH does, so it will be OH that pays to replace hatton garden and not tbd anyway!

 

2012, a new camera & my beauty blogging mojo back

Happy New Year lovely people!  New Years Eve was a quiet one for Steve and I, we stayed in, we drank some wine and we watched the fireworks on tv, it was bliss and Em more than made up for us - she went out at 4pm and got in at 7am, she's her father's daughter for sure!  Steve and I went to York on NYD.  Not a total success in that the weather was pants and 90% of the shops were shut, Jessops wasn't so we did come home with a fab new point and shoot so there will be blogging and there will be photos!  My fab "proper" camera takes amazing pics but I get completely precious about it and spend hours striving for perfect and of course without a macro lens there is no chance of good close up pics.  My new point and shoot remedies all of this so I am looking forward to getting back into beauty blogging in 2012.  

I have a few things planned, I am working on a facial oil comparison post as I now have the Sanctuary Oil, Clarins Santal and Liz Earle Superskin Concentrate - this year I am going to concentrate on posts about stuff that I would like to have been able to find but couldn't, facial oil comparisons was one of them.  I am also going to compare Aveda and Kerastase hair care soon.  There will be pics of the 2 perfumes I got for xmas (Miller Harris La Fumee and Penhaligon's Juniper Sling - I know spoilt rotten) and a review of sorts as I am crap at describing scents!


But for now a teaser from the new camera!  I bought Em the Nails Inc Glitterati collection.  To. Die. For. Even if you have to have your nails sandblasted to remove it!  Check this out - this pic is missing the purple glitter the proper post will include it.

If insane nail bling is your thing this is a post you wont want to miss!
x

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!