New Nail Mail from The Nail Junkie!

Nail Mail!

Been waiting patiently for this - one of my only buys from last month.You all know that I LOVE Nail Junkie polishes.. and these are no exception.First of all, I will show you one reason I love Aleta and her business so much - its so personal!(You will notice some of these are taken in a car.. I was so excited to open them I had to photo them in the car before opening them as I couldn't wait until I got home!)

Cute little envelope addressed to me and sealed with a cute little heart sticker for Valentines.

And a lovely note wishing me a happy Valentines in advance :)

The four polishes I treated myself to are Violet, Watermelon which are lemmings I've had for a while, and Bouquet and Cupcake from Aleta's new polish line. As you can see, they came with a cute little set of nail polish pads and a cutie balm (and I haven't lost this one!! :D )

So I decided to go for Violet first - I think this is a gorgeous polish and really has a 'Spring' feel to it. All my photos are two coats, no top coat. It has what I would say is a semi-matte finish, its frosty look means that it still has quite a shine to it (you can see this more in the photo below).

Application was really easy - all Nail Junkie polishes are thinner than most indie brands I buy from - but this works well - very quick drying time, no lumps, bumps or streaks, and opaque at two coats. Gorgeous!

Aaaaand.. just because I couldn't possibly NOT try it on after waiting so long for it...

Yes, my new circle glitter polish - Cupcake. I am in love! It has a beautiful sprinkling of microfine silver glitter, and a smattering (word?) of circle glitters in pale pink, magenta and red. I know I'll see it lots over black, pink or white for the next few weeks, so I thought I'd put it over violet and I really love it! Can't wait to see what other colour combos I can put it with :)

Application for this was just as good - its not jam packed with glitter so no dabbing required at all to spread the glitters. Really quick dry time, all the glitters laid flat - I did end up putting one coat of top coat over just for protection.

And if you love The Nail Junkie polishes as much as I do - check them out in Aleta's Etsy shop, and check out her website for beautiful swatches, nail art and more! Don't forget, all polishes have a $1 donation to charity, free gifts with every purchase, free domestic shipping and only $6 shipping for us international lot <3 thanks Aleta!

Stay tuned this week for some more Cupcake swatches and also for reviews of Watermelon and Bouquet :)

xxx

Gotta Catch Em All - Week 2 - Fire Pokémon

So the Nail Art continues.. here is my attempt at Week 2 - Charmander!

I expected Charmander to be a favourite because he's a starter pokémon, but I love all the starter pokémon for all the games. I never EVER picked Charmander as my starter in game though. I always went for Bulbasaur :)

The reason I love Charmander so much is for his storyline in the animé. If you watched Pokémon as well as played it, you will remember that Ash comes across Charmander in the woods and tries to catch him, but Charmander won't let him because he is waiting for his owner to return.

 Charmander belonged to a horrible owner who abandoned him in the rain - he said Charmander was weak and stupid and so told Charmander to wait on the rock for him to come back. Charmander, being a loyal pokémon, waited through a storm for him and his tail fire almost went out. You see him curled on the rock in the storm holding a leaf over his head. Ash then rescued him and Charmander then chose to stay with Ash when his old owner decided to come back and get him. It was the first episode where I got emotional but definitely not the last! (Worst was definitely where Ash had to say goodbye to Butterfree!)

So here are my nails as an ode to the emotional Charmander episode!

 

Nail Polishes used:

Sally Hansen Salon Manicure - Stormy Blue

Sally Hansen - Lavender Cloud

Sinful Colours - Tapping Nails

Ciaté - Mojito and Big Yellow Taxi

Voodoo Lacquer - O Christmas Tree

Paris Memories - Black (cheapy black)

Check out the other amazing entries so far for this week! Love them all - wish there was a salon I could get these done at! <3

TGIF! Glitzing up a drab day!

Loved my Essie mani but its very easy wearing - so rather than remove it straight away, what better than a big coat of glitter!

This is one of my favourite glitters. Its surprising because its clear, which i absolutely hate normally! But it has such a gorgeous variety of glitters.

Ice Princess is a clear based glitter polish from Utopia's Polish.

It contains a mix of large and small aqua holographic glitters, large matte white hexes and medium white matte squares. It also has the lightest sprinkling of holographic silver bar glitter.

Application was good - plenty of glitter and no problem getting them from the bottle. Brush is good quality so no issues at all :)

If you love this as much as I do, you can find Utopia's Polish on Facebook and Etsy.

Xxx

Swatch - Essie - Bikini So Teeny

Hi everyone!

Just a quick post tonight. I hit gold the other day and came across a stall selling cheap Essie polishes. They had the usual colours that I see again and again - lots of nudes, pink and orange. So imagine my surprise when I spotted this little beauty in the middle.. for £1.99! Bargain!

Bikini So Teeny is a beautiful periwinkle blue creme with an ultra fine shimmer. I've stalked it for a while - its the one polish I pick up over and over again but can't bring myself to part with £8 for it!

This is two coats with Seche Clear base coat and 1 coat of Seche Vite top coat. I am just getting used to using Seche Vite as I loved my Rimmel top coat with the wide brush.. but I have to admit I love the fast drying time.

Up close, the colour of Bikini So Teeny is still a little patchy at two coats. The application itself was fine - but like all my Essie colours I think 3 coats is needed. It's definitely my favourite, closely followed by Navigate Her :)

What do you think? Do you have this / any other Essie colours that you love?

Nail Dilemma!

I am in a dilemma! After 2 months free of nail breakage, my right index finger gave up the fight today. It snapped a corner off diagonally, so I have to file it right down because of the angle it snapped at.

The issue is.. I have 9 other beautiful long nails. Do I file them all down to keep them even, or do I keep them longer and just have one 'wonky'?

Wanting to do some nail art this weekend and concerned I will not have enough nail space.. but the little voice in my head is saying no to wonky nails!

Polish Haul

I went for a look in my local Poundworld after Becca from Kitty's Painted Claws mentioned she had picked up some Sally Hansen Insta-dry in 2 beautiful red shades.

Now i was unlucky on the red front, but i did manage to pick up a range of gorgeous blues from various Sally Hansen ranges, as well as a gorgeous Revlon topcoat. I also picked up some cute butterfly fimo slices (there is a green dragonfly in there that i want!) and some nail wraps.

I then may have ventured into Superdrug, where an invisible presence forced me to pick up some Barry M, including one of their new chameleon shades.

THEN, I wandered into TKMaxx (another tip from Becca) and i stumbled upon.. A Butter London (Lips and Tips set) and a set of 5 Barielle colours! I ended up unwrapping these as soon as I got in - both had pretty battered boxes but I'm pretty chuffed! The Barielle colours are not amazingly different but I have some nail art in mind and the shades are perfect. Apparently Barielles are quite good for water marbling too - god knows i need all the help I can get with that!!

So all in all, a very very good day!

Racho's Nail Love: Bulbasaur

Everyone at school loved my Pokéball nails so much that I was excited to start Week 1 when I got home!

My favourite pokémon are the starter pokémon for each generation, so of course I had to choose Bulbasaur for my Grass nails.

Hope you like my effort - one nail was enough - I tried to add some vines / leaves onto the other nails but i kept messing them up so I stuck with the two nail decoration :)

Polishes used:

Base colour - Nicole by OPI - Jade in the Shade

Bulbasaur's Bulb - Ciaté - Mojito and Voodoo Lacquer - O' Christmas Tree

Bulbasaur's Head - Sephora by OPI - Read My Palm

Bulbasaur's Markings - Ciaté Headliner

Eyes - LA Colors White and OPI Monsooner or Later

Outline - Cheapy black polish

Flowers - OPI Monsooner or Later and Ciaté - Big Yellow Taxi

Check out everyone else's attempts! (They're going up at everyone's own pace, but I think a few will be up this weekend :) )

Rachos Nail Love: Pokeballs (Pokemon Nail Art Challenge)

So i found this AMAZING Pokemon Nail Art Challenge by The Blahg and Adventures of The Nail Friends. Time to multi-embrace my inner nerd and my inner polish lover! Excited! Already got my nails planned in my head for each week! Doubt they'll look the same in real life hahaha! If you fancy getting involved, check out the Facebook group.

First quick challenge was Pokéball nails! Mine are a bit messy, but they look okay from far away!

You can see on here that when I topcoated, the black smudged :( sad times!

Check out all the other people involved there are some fab nails already and some people are starting to post their grass nails for Week 1 :)

Pokemon Nail Challenge roll call: PokeballsBlogger 1.0

Sephora by OPI - Tinsel Town Swatches - Part 1

So I decided to swatch a few of the polishes that the OH brought me back from the US. There was so much choice - it was hard to figure out what to try first!

I decided to try the ones from the bottom row first.

Here I have Just A Little Dangerous on my index and middle finger (2 coats) and same on my ring finger, with one coat of Justa' Pinch of Glitter. There is 2 coats of this alone on my little finger. This has photo'd almost black - but is a rich grape purple in real life. Don't know whats going on with my camera atm but I'm struggling with some of these colours to give you a real representation! Justa' Pinch of Glitter is a dark metallic silver glitter, with microfine and slightly larger glitter in the mix. No dabbing necessary, went on like a regular polish - definitely for use as a topper - shame as I had hoped it would layer well but I'm not fussed on the end result - nowhere near as sparkly as the indies I have.

Here I have 2 coats of Leotard Optional on all fingers, with 2 coats of Merry Me over the top of my ring finger. This was an unusual combination for me, but it really grew on me. I love it! Application for both was fine - drying time was excellent - only 2-3 minutes per coat. I have no topcoat on here, and I am impressed with how shiny the finish is.

And finally here I have Read My Palm. This is a gorgeous darker mint green and I have kept this on as my work mani. 2 coats, lovely application and shine once dry. Like all the ones so far, dry time was good.

I have embellished these slightly with some 2mm square studs from Born Pretty Store on my ring fingers. Think it adds a little something extra and was really simple to add them on, but I think it looks good now its finished :)

Do you have / like any of these? I definitely think my favourites so far are either Just A Little Dangerous (unusual as I am not a purple fan) or Read My Palm.