Giveaway Time!

Hi all!

Great news - I'm taking part in a Multi-blogger giveaway to offer all my readers some fantastic prizes!

They include plenty of international prizes such as gift certificates for a choice of 3 e-tailers and also two lovely ladies have submitted some of their own polishes as prizes. Exciting!

To get involved, start following all our lovely sponsors using the rafflecopter widget below!

There are 5 entries per follow and a whopping 10 entries for each share of our giveaway, so get entering!

If you follow me already on Bloglovin, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook then there are 5 entries for each of the platforms you follow me on! Get entered! If you aren't - quick links are on the left or are in the Rafflecopter widget.

Good luck!

Rachael xxx

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Nails Inc polishes - Its Red Babez, Totes Pink and Youre a Peach - Swatch and Review

Hi all!

Most of you will probably have read somewhere, or seen that Instyle have teamed up again with Nails Inc this year to include a range of free polishes with their magazine. The colours this year are:

- Totes Pink

- It's Red, Babez

- You're a Peach

I'm sure you can guess what colours these are from their names, but the colours are below for you to have a look at. Personally, I think the photo is a bit misleading - both the pink and the peach are brighter in person and the red is more coral.

(Image Source: Instyle.co.uk)

I love Nails Inc, and its not every day you get to pick them up cheap, as they usually retail for £11 each from the website. These three shades have been designed specifically for Instyle and therefore I believe this is why they do not follow their normal naming ritual of naming after roads. I am slightly disappointed with the names, but I picked up all three colours anyway. Instyle magazine retails for £3.90, so less than £4 for a good magazine and a polish as well - can't go wrong at all.

The first colour I tried is Totes Pink - mainly because I know it doesn't suit my skin tone and to get it out of the way. My first thoughts (or rather, my friends thoughts) were that its a dupe of Elizabeth Street, but it is marginally lighter in the bottle, much more opaque and more pink, whereas Elizabeth Street is a tiny bit more nude-ish I think. Swatches are 3 coats, with 1 coat of Seche Clear as base, and 1 of Seche Vite as top coat. Like I thought, it doesn't suit my skin tone, but is a nice spring / summery shade of pink for anyone with a lighter tone than I have. I will probably keep it for nail art anyway as it applies nicely for a creme polish. I didn't realise at the time, but lighting was not as great as I thought.. so nails do look just like the Instyle bottle shot - well done me :/

The second is You're a Peach. I definitely think this is close to Wellington Square or to Peach Sorbet, which was the peach polish free with Instyle last year. I don't have Peach Sorbet, but I do have Wellington Square so I will do a comparison of the two. I think Wellington Square may be a tad darker.

The formula for this was just like Totes Pink - it applied well but needed 3 coats to level out. I like this more than the pink, but again I don't think its great for pinker skin tones. It really reminds me of summer though and despite it not doing much for me, I'll defo still be wearing it!

The third was my favourite - Its Red, Babez. Despite the more than tacky name, this is a beautiful coral red polish. I wore three coats, which still showed a VNL, but if you are happy with a more visible nail line, you could go for two - it was smooth in the first coat and was dreamy to apply. Dried, it has a lovely glossy finish, but obviously if you want to prolong your mani then top coat is the way to go - I really am just anal about top coat - even if my mani is only on for 5 minutes I'll add one! These photos were taken in artificial light, as the sun was gone by the time I got to the last bottle.

Which is your favourite? Did you pick any up? I like all three shades but Its Red, Babez was by far the winner for me.

Rachael x

Flip / Flop February Challenge - Day 10 - Fish Tail Braid / Half Moons

Today I tried my first Fish Tail Braid nails.

I used three Nicole by OPI shades - Loyalty to Royal-ty, Jade in the Shade and Fell From the Tree.

This took me AGES. It looks so simple, but when you factor in drying time... eurgh. Really pleased with the results though :) I saw one on Jill's page and I think I should've done wider lines like hers, then maybe it wouldn't have taken so long!

 

Check out what everyone else did today!

One Man's Trash.. Is My Treasure!! :)

A friend of mine texted me the other day as she was having a polish clear out, offering me first refusal on them - so of course I said yes!

And she wouldnt take anything for them - I was gobsmacked with how generous she was!

So here are my 'winnings' :D I'm so excited to share them all with you!

She put it all in this lovely little box for me (you can see some of my own polishes around the outside :) )

It's like finding gold! :)

So there were LOTS of OPI's :) Left to Right - Yoga-Ta Get This Blue, Absolutely Alice, Silver Shatter, 2 minis which don't have names but I think they might be from the Ger-Mini collection?

Left to Right - Lincoln Park After Dark, Music Hall Curtain Call, Off With Her Red, Schnapps Out of It!, Monsooner or Later

At first I thought I had gotten two bottles the same, but on the right is William Tell Me About OPI - I've put it next to Lincoln Park After Dark so you can see the comparison.

3 Nicole by OPI shades - Fell From the Tree (Green! <3) , Loyalty to the Royal, Jade in the Shade (as you can see, this looks blue in the photo, but if you look at the bottle in the shade, it does look jade green!)

4 Nails Inc Shades, plus another mini OPI that escaped my other OPI photos! - Left to right: Spitalfields (Magnetic Fishnet Effect), Portobello, Notting Hill Gate Mini, Chesham Street.

And lots of other brands - Ciaté - Jelly Bean, No 7 Stay Perfect - Milan 110, No 7 Stay Perfect - Glitterball Mini, Barry M - Bright Pink, No 7 Stay Perfect - Spice.

2 x Floozie Frost French polishes, Avon Nailwear Pro - Pastel Pink, Fearne - Lemon Drizzle. (Poor picture - I'm sorry!)

I honestly can't believe how generous she was to give me all of these for free - I am seriously looking forward to testing all of these out and I already have some nail art ideas in my head!

Thank you so much Angela if you are reading this! xxx

Do you have any of these shades / want any of these shades? What do you think of them? I'm most excited to try the Nails Inc Fishnet Polish (never tried magnetic polish before!) and the Nicole by OPI shades <3