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!

 

L'Oreal Volume Million Lashes Luminizer

I am an ad man's dream.  Saw this advertised on tv and had to have it. Didn't even bother to check whether it had been enhanced in post production, it was purple mascara and I really really wanted it.

Hauled Em off to Boots today and dithered over buying just the mascara or whether to get the eyeliner as well.  Em, who is clearly now the boss of me, refused to let me buy a liquid eye liner until I had proved to her that I could use it?! so I settled for just the mascara.

One thing I don't get with these mascaras and eye liners is the colour options; purple for hazel eyes makes sense I guess, green for brown, can see that working though would have thought blue was better but blue for blue eyes, have been told since I was tiny that was a total no-no.  Anyway, not sure why I was bothered as I was buying purple for my blue eyes and would not be dissuaded.

So got home, cleaned off my usual L'Oreal mascara which I love and had a go at applying the Million Lashes.  First lets talk about the brush.  It's hard plastic and sodding huge.  It's like applying your mascara with a hair brush.  I have very short, sparse lashes and nothing ever really makes them look long and lovely and this was no exception, unlike my usual mascara I had to do a couple of coats to have any effect at all; for all its size the brush doesn't apply very much mascara. 

Anyway I was doing all this in my usual subterranean lair so wasn't expecting to see beautiful, illuminated colour on my lashes, though it would have been nice.

When I came upstairs into day light my disappointment was huge.  £12 all but and I had basically bought a mascara with a brush I  don't like that looks no different in colour to my usual £9 one.  Perhaps if I was having regular retinal scans the colour would be seen by someone, but even then I doubt it.  

It wasn't until I smeared some onto a piece of white card that I could see the actual colour which to my eye looks much more of a brown shade than a purple, if I was being generous I might call it garnet but I am not.  So in essence a brown mascara for people with hazel eyes, total fail surely?

Em seems to think I'd be much better off with the Collection 2000 purple mascara, which someone I was chatting to on Twitter (@misspurplemakeup - or similar twitter name?) also suggested so might have to give that a whirl instead.

To sum up, if you have been sucked in by the advert save your money, add £6 to it and buy the new Benefit mascara that EVERYONE is raving about, could bloody kick myself that I didn't. 

Em and I spent ages trying to get a usable pic of the mascara on my lashes by the way, she kept vetoing them because I "looked ancient" and apparently I don't in real life!  My eyelids are so crepey I was a bit freaked out.  Em decided I needed a helping hand......

Chanel Paradoxal

I have never been a lucky sort of person so I was totally amazed when I won not once but twice on the Lipglossiping Advent New Year give away!



I was so excited when Charlotte confirmed I had won Paradoxal as I had really fancied it back when it came out but would never be tempted to part with the sort of wedge Chanel demand for their nail polishes, I mean how much better than any other polish can brush, application and formula be?


I know all about aspirational products and the adoration those interlocking C's generate but hey its only nail varnish.

Just goes to show what I know!  It's a bit like the nail varnish angels have left heaven, decended to your kitchen and have applied this for you, given your cuticles a quick nudge and massage and done the washing up too.  Of course being a mousey greyed purple its a bitch to photo and all you get is the shimmery purple, which is lovely but frankly I have a million shimmery purple polishes.  What I really love is what you actually see when you aren't pointing a camera at this, that mousey greyed out colour.  Its not in this next photo,

But by the miracle of me being a photographic genius, or perhaps because I can make stuff happen in LightRoom! it is in this one:


I was in swatching mode not mani mode on Sunday when I took these photos so slapped 3 coats on my left hand, no base and no top coat, today its Wednesday and whilst its no longer looking perfect it only has a couple of little chips and some tip wear, neither of which were bugging me til I typed this and now it has to go! I consider myself incredibly lucky to have won this, but I think I may live to regret it as has potential to cost me a fortune, the brush, application and formula of this are all exemplary and the hideous price for a bit of nail paint is fully justified.

EOTN - colour alert!

Eastenders was a bit dull last night so I decided to have a bit of a play.

Having done it downstairs in the dark it was stupidly hard to get a good photo and got none of me looking into the lens.

Here's what I did.
UDPP on bare lid (in past have used on top of foundation on lid, it works much better straight onto bare skin.
Flash (purple) from UD Preen all over mobile lid
Painkiller (bright blue) from UD Preen into crease, outer corner and under bottom lashes
Creep (black) from UD naked into crease to darken things up
Blend madly.
Virgin (cream) from UD naked brow bone to soften edge. 
Tight lined top with Creep.
Black eyeliner on water line top and bottom.

 Whilst initially I was all a bit "ha look at me" *nervous chuckle* the longer I wore it the more I got used to it. It got the thumbs up from Steve and Em too so might have another go sometime when I am actually going out!

Scuse the foundation lips, all part of the experiment!
I am loving having nice stuff to play with, dying to get to Boots today and trawl through the Revlon Matte collection!

FOTD - 9th January

Am really struggling with this whole taking photos of my face thing.  I am not really a fan of how my face looks and whilst in real life most of the time I do not look as if I am in the middle of some kind of facial spasm in photos I do.  I have a smile that curves off to the left, or is it the right? Don't know but it looks weird.  And whatever I do with my foundation my skin still looks pink.  My hairline is a trauma all of its own - cant handle a fringe, not loving vast expanse of forehead either.   And then there are the technical difficulties, I have a pretty crappy compact digital camera so I cant adjust much and I dont have a macro lense for my slr so I cant do the arms length photo with my proper camera, finding anywhere with the right light has been impossible, so far think the laundry is working as the opaque glass on the door diffuses the light nicely, downside is the back drop of piles of laundry!

Anyway enough waffle, here it is.  My fotd.

 Foundation: Max Factor Experience in Cool Linen
Eye shadow: Une Sfumato Q02 all over lid with Sfumato Q23 on edge and used wet as liner on top and bottom lash line.
Brows: Clinique super fine pencil in soft brown
Lips: Bobbi Brown creamy lip colour in Heather brown (had been wearing Bobbi Brown pencil in cocoa too but that was hours ago!)


I really like the Une Sfumato eye shadows, I was having a trawl round for a brown matte shadow in Boots yesterday and couldn't find anything - was only looking at the cheaper ranges and decided against spending another £9 on a 3rd Une shadow, I also have in Q20, I think - its a khaki shade, and they are lovely and matte and blend really well.  Hadn't thought of using a damp eyeliner brush to use the shadow as liner, seen others do it on their blogs and decided to give it a go and really like it, much less harsh than my usual black pencil which I only ever used on top lash line as my eyes disappear once I put my glasses on.


Am completely loving the Bobbi Brown creamy lip colour, it feels like a balm on my lips and the colour is the exact nude shade I wanted, I also like the pencil and was pleased that the first time I had to sharpen it I didn't end up with a lap full of snarled up pencil - always used the Revlon propelling pencil in Nu which is the exact same shade and about £6 less so should really have had a 2nd lipstick for xmas and not the pencil - yet another desperation purchase at the Trafford Centre!


Anyway first fotd of the year!

Models Own - Purple Grey

Going to have to have another go at photos of this, it looks so purple in these and it really isn't. Much more of a taupe, with purple leanings than anything this purple. Will probably add a couple more later if I can get something that looks more like it. Both of these were taken outdoors, top in shade, bottom in light. I really love this, usual fab brush and application and works well with the Nails Inc base and top coats.

Boots No 7 Speed Dry Nail Polish in Blackberry

Here's the review I put on the Boots website:

Lovely colour; applies like a dog.
Loved the colour of this but its the last No 7 Speed dry polish I will be buying. Basically it dries on the brush as you are applying it, unless the brush is so full of polish it swamps your cuticles and makes an unholy mess, but bizarrely takes an age to dry on the nail - probably because 2 coats of this is the equivalent of 5 of a decent polish. The brush, by the way is rubbish - no matter how good the formula of a polish its only as good as its brush. Save your money - buy Models Own.

I think that about covers it! Although guessing it never appears on the Boots website it made me feel better. Am so disappointed, it really is a lovely colour - berry with a subtle shimmer, very vampy.

Outdoors with flash - not really how it looks but love how it looks in these pics!


Outdoors without flash, more how it actually looks, dark and almost a cream.


Outdoors and flash again, because I can!

As you can see application is far from perfect and with nails as short and small as mine I NEED thin polish and a crash hot brush, the bendy, flouncy broom in this bottle was seriously not up to the task. And what is it with fast dry polishes that it is impossible to apply a thin coat, seriously unless the brush was so loaded it was dripping off the stem - I have it all over my hands and the table and the bloody bottle - it was drying on the brush and becoming a brush strokey horror on my nails? Not doing anything this eve and wanted nails done for fab out in Leeds tomorrow so in the morning after I have washed my hair I will do the cuticle tidy up with an orange stick in the shower. (Leeds - off to see Clare Maguire and a band called Hurts at ....damn forgotten name and want to type Cockroach club and just KNOW that cant be right.....The Cockpit that's it! Few drinks and something to eat first and then, if you tube is anything to go by, some seriously good music. The friends we are going with saw Hurts at V Fest and thought they were fab - sort of Kraftwerk/Depeche Mode fusion (you lot might need to use wikepdia to find out who those two bands are as you are all sooooo young!) cant wait.)

It also isn't exactly glossy, this has got a coat of Nails Inc top coat on it to a) make it dry and b) make it shine. Frankly all I need now is for it to chip like a bitch and its on a fast track to the bin!

PS beloved daughter reneged on her promise to lip model my glosses on the basis that she has a hot date so had to spend 4 hrs getting ready, honestly I kid you not - she's the one that should be blogging here she spends £60 a month on mac foundation alone! last time I treat her to anything in duty free!

Little bit of weekend cheer!

No 7 Speed dry in Blackberry, Rimmel Vinyl (sad but true; I prefer these to my new Chanel) in Lovesick and freebie L'Occitane shea butter hand cream, could be me but has a bit of a baby poo niff to it. Yea, your right it probably is me. Gave up trying to upload the rotated image from Photobucket, cba trying any more.


Post update - that photo was the other way round yesterday evening. Not the right way up but horizontal to the left, now its horizontal to the right. Or was that wine stronger than I thought??!

ALU - Graduation mani

Lazy little blogger that I am this week I am making the most of the other fantastic blogs I love to read, first Rebecca's Illamasqua scoop and now this. I absolutely love All Lacquered Up and it was my first ever nail blog, I had no idea there were others out there that were as sad as me and what amazes me is that these people are in the gifted and talented pool of people making up our world, not the drifting and hopeless you might expect for someone obsessed with all things beauty (I count myself in the latter category btw!)! Please, how utterly gorgeous is this graduated mani, from CND teal to sparkly purple - truly inspired!

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!

Totall unexptected - NAIL MAIL!!

My complete huny of a friend Rae, from Jersey, has sent me a package and it contained 3 Jessica mini purple nail varnishes!! They are absolutely gorgeous and I had to take photos as soon as I opened them!

Are you seeing what I am seeing? A taupe/grey that looks purple and glittery in the sun? Could this be a Chanel Paradoxal dupe?? I saw Chanel Paradoxal reviewed on All Laquered up and Michelle described it as being in the griege family and I just wasn't seeing it, surely its just a purple sparkly polish? Then I saw the Nailphile review and her photos and suddenly I was seeing the whole griege thing. And now I think I may have a dupe on my hands, how exciting, Rae I can't thank you enough! What do you think - this pic shows the greyness with the sun picking out some of the purple sparkle.


And another taken indoors with the flash to really unleash that sparkle

How exciting cant wait to swatch this - promise I'll do it asap!

The other 2 colours are fab two there is a light metallic purple and a very regal deep plum which is the only one with a name sticker - Windsor Castle, how apt! There was one other name sticker that had come off a bottle and it was Bird of Paradise and I am wondering which of the other 2 it came from.

Ok thank heaven for Google! Its called Venus was her name and it is from the Goddess collection of 2008, so waaaaaaaaay before Chanel came up with the idea of a grey/purple combo! What a find. There are some great swatch photos here - seeing as my swatch photos are generally craptacular!

PS - Rae is a fantastic writer who I have been nagging to blog forever, well since I met her in France 2 years ago! She has just set up her blog so bob along and follow, that way she will be obliged to write something!

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!