Top 10 Seasonal Nail Products and Polishes

Hey all,

Long time no see! Been so run down with work, chocka with cold and whatever lurgies have been passed to me that blogging has taken a temporary back seat. I have however still been painting my nails to cheer myself up!

So here are my top 10 nail products for the season. I love this time of year - I love listening to xmas songs, I love buying presents for people and I love receiving presents too of course! But most of all I love that I get to see a bit more of my family and we get to spend some quality time together, even if it is only a few hours around the table.

Again, I haven't really put these in any order.. I would really be here until after Xmas if I had to decide!

Firstly is a basic product - cuticle balm. With the coldness setting in, my Raynauds has kicked in again - not sure if its related to my Raynauds or just the cold.. but my nails and skin have started to go downhill big style. So I've been slathering on the cuticle balm like theres no tomorrow. It has left my skin and cuticles much better, but I'm not commenting on my nails just yet. My favourites are Sunny's Miracle Balm and Cutie Balm by The Nail Junkie. I carry my Miracle Balm around for every day use, and I usually wear my Cutie Balm before bed when it has time to soak in. Sunny's Miracle Balms come in so many different scents its unreal - my favourite so far is Eucalyptus as its not an overpowering scent. The Nail Junkie's Cutie Balm is unscented and perfect for anyone with sensitive hands and skin (or a sensitive nose like myself!) I also have my own that I've made myself - they're fairly easy to make, I've played around with mine to improve the texture as my first although they did work were difficult to apply and a little on the gritty side (new on the left).

Another hand care product is my hand cream. I have millions of these and to be honest, I don't have a particular favourite. They have all worked well enough for me, but I did happen to really like the texture of one I got as a sample in a magazine - its got a nice texture - not sticky, overpowering or 'claggy'. It works in really nice and left my hands feeling lovely and I didn't need to reapply after washing my hands during the day - so it's on my list to buy. It's called Aveeno Hand Cream with colloidal oatmeal. 

Onto the polishes and other nail products. I think Xmas calls for some solid basic colours. Black, white, red, gold, silver, (blue and green) are my Xmas go-to's. I have always been a massive fan of Zoya Raven for my go to black, but as its hard to come by and also expensive, I have swapped and been using Sinful Colors Black to Black. For £1.99 I really can't fault it - it is a one coater on my short nails and has a nice and easy to level formula with a satin finish. However, my new find is the Kate Spade - New York Noir polish by Nails Inc. Its absolutely stunning. I actually only picked it up for the sake of it being free, but I am so glad I did - it really was worth the £2 price tag on the magazine! Even glossier than Zoya and a fraction of the price!

Zoya - Raven

Kate Spade - New York Noir by Nails Inc

Red is a hard choice. It is one of my most owned colours after pink (which I hardly ever wear - go figure!) and I have so many that I love. I really love jelly reds - most of which I own are very similar, if not dupes.. but seen as I love them so much I can't part with them! One is Poppy Red from the Beauty UK Gel FX collection. 

It's inexpensive and such a beautiful vibrant red - what I love the most is that it's something I can wear whenever I want - red isnt just a Xmas colour. Another very similar red that I love is Sinful Colors Gogo Girl. It has the same vibrant colour and jelly texture as Poppy Red, the only difference is that you would need more coats for the plumped Gel look that Poppy Red has and a good top coat to match the shine. The last red on my list is Crimson Rose, also by Beauty UK. I really expected to dislike this but it is so classy and demure, I just stare at my nails all the time. It is definitely an autumn winter polish, although I'm not sure it's a specific Xmas colour. Just so you're aware, I did get the two Beauty UK polishes as samples for review.

Gold and silver are no brainers - Barry M Gold and Silver Foil Effects. I don't own the latter, I usually steal it from Becca when I'm polishing at her house. I picked up the gold from a blog sale and use it for pretty much anything that requires gold. They stamp great and have fantastic coverage for general nail painting as well.

Glitters! OMG. This was the hardest part by far. I LOVE glitter. Its the biggest section in my helmers as I class glitter as my favourite colour - it has two drawers. There are so many shapes and sizes, I don't think I could ever pick just one, but I do love a good multi-coloured glitter (Ellagee Crazy He Calls Me or KBShimmer Wrapper's Delight are my Xmas faves). 

I also have a passion for circles. Circles here, circles there, big, small, holographic... I LOVE ME SOME CIRCLES! I have a few now with circles in them, and some of my favourites come from Nail Lacquer UK. I have Midnight Prince, Grape Juice, Choose the One, Heart or Love and Ariel which are all circles from Nail Lacquer UK. 

Nail Lacquer UK - Heart or Love

Can you really pass through the season and not have some love for iridescent flakies? I certainly cant! I only own two - Finger Paints Asylum and Sinful Colors Green Ocean. Neither are easy to come by, but they are both worth it if you can get them. Completely different in their own right, but both just beautiful! (I also own a couple of iridescent glitter polishes which also create the same sort of effect and are much easier to find - my favourite is my new Nail Lacquer UK - Snow Topper which also comes with cute snowflakes as well!)

Holos! Could I not mention holos? Definitely not. There are only two holos that I swear by and they are both Zoyas. Zoya Storm - a black scattered holo, and Zoya Blaze, a deep wine red scattered holo. I own back up bottles of both and am considering backups of my backups - no holos have ever come close for me on how beautiful these are!

And last but not least - stamping plates. I have only recently gotten my Xmas MoYou London plates but I'm surprised there are any etchings on as I have used them that much! I don't want to spoil the Xmas manis I've done as I have seperate posts coming.. so here's my most popular and favourite stamp so far (also a MoYou London plate!)

What're your top 10 favourite seasonal products?

Rachael xxx

My Top Ten Favourite Nail Polishes

Hey all!

Today I have something a little different - a review of my top ten favourite polishes (of all time). This was much harder than I thought - after all I do have around 500 different polishes so to cut down to 10 is asking a lot!

I had a few in mind - I really don't think I can order them though. I love all my polishes and these 10 are just the best ones.. no better than each other all equally amazing!

But the first I will show you are my basic go to colours. 

The first is Modern Love by Deborah Lippmann. Until they recently started showing up in TK Maxx, I was a DL virgin. This was the first I picked up, along with 2 others - one of which is also in my top 10.

Modern Love was the first nude I ever got that suited my skin tone. I have very pinky red flesh, so many nudes just look awful on me. I also struggle to pull off purples for the same reason. This however has an almost mauve-ish undertone and is simply wonderful. When everyone went crazy raiding TKMaxx for them, I saw some terrible reviews for Modern Love but for me it really is just the best nude polish ever. It even applies well - 2 coats which for a creme polish I think is pretty good.

The second and third are both Barry M Gelly polishes. You just can't beat these - easily one of the best brands ever made for the UK. Both of my picks are blue - easily my favourite polish colour. The first is Blackberry - this was my first Barry M polish ever, and one I blogged about a couple of times almost a year ago now. I still love it, and intend on wearing it a lot this winter. Flawless application - 1 coater for me and my little nails, fantastic shiny finish, although I do always topcoat to prolong my manis a bit further. I actually realised I had no photos of it on its own, so you have the new one above  of it on its own and  one further on where I have worn it with KBShimmer Hex Appeal.

The second is Guava. I never imagined Guava as a blue colour, but there ya go! I love this shade immensely, and I am still very fond of this nail art I did using it earlier in the year. Again, a gorgeous shiny finish and in just 1 coat. Whats not to love? I miss my long nails....

A new favourite of mine is Blue Himalayan by Beauty UK. It's one of their new Gel FX range which is along the same lines as Barry M. I should let you know that I did get this as a press sample, but it has still become one of my new favourites. It is a beautiful bright cornflower blue - something that I have nothing even similar to in my collection. I have worn this alone a few times now and it wears really well and does really have that beautiful plumped gel look finish.

Now, onto the glitters. I became enamoured by glitters and polish in general when I saw a link on Facebook to a review of KBShimmer's fall line for 2012. The two that stood out to me were Quantum Leaf (below) and Jack (above). To get them at the time, I had to ask a friend across the water to purchase them for me and ship them to me as they were as easy to find as gold dust on Harlow and Co. He (the wonderful man) bought me 2 of each, and I have treasured both bottles all this time. I am almost down to 1 of each - I do wear both quite frequently and I generally wear them as they are, rather than layering. I have never found another indie quite like KBShimmer for their multi-level glitters.. they are just stunning. I have however only featured them on my blog a handful of times, so I apologise for the quality of my then newbie pictures. I hope you feel I have improved even slightly since then with these ones!

Since that time, I have fell in love with several other KBShimmers, but none so much as Hex Appeal. This just combines everything I love with a little bit of something I hate (purple) and yet comes out as one of the most beautiful polishes I own. Really cannot fault it. This is one coat over Barry M Blackberry.

This next polish was also originally sent to me as a press sample. Ellagee kindly sent me a tiny little 5ml bottle to review, which I ended up using in the space of about a week. I have since purchased a larger bottle and as you can see, I am steadily making my way through this one. You have to have a bit of multi rainbow glitter in your life - this is mine. Crazy He Calls Me was one of Ellagee's first lines - one of a number of glitter toppers (most of which I also own!) there are lots of almost equivalents out there - I suppose it depends on what calls to you - but this definitely calls to me and makes me feel unbelievably content and happy to watch it sparkling away on my nails.

Back to the Deborah Lippmanns. This was the original polish that found me diving for a shelf in TKMaxx and making me look just a little bit crazy! This is Deborah Lippmann - Across the Universe. There are a few dupes of this about now, but I still love it. When I first applied it I was massively disappointed - it takes 3 coats to get to the wonderful jelly effect that everyone loves, but even so - I love this polish and have plenty of plans for it this holiday season!

And last but not at all least - Cadillacquer We'll Meet Again. I was saddened to see this is discontinued, so I hopefully will be able to pick up a backup bottle before its all gone. The colour and whole makeup of this polish is just wonderful. A muted pink base with a holo shimmer and packed full of fine red glitter. It applies really smoothly and only needs 2 coats. It reminds me of curling up toasty warm in my favourite jumper.. except my favourite jumper is neither pink, red, or sparkly. Hmmm. Love it anyway!

What do you think of my choices? Any of your favourites in there?

Don't forget to check out everyone else's favourites!! 

Rachael xxx