A-Z Challenge - F is for China Glaze For Audrey and PMP Fairest of All

Good morning!

I have two F polishes to show you today! The base is China Glaze For Audrey, and the beautiful silver and holographic shards are a topper by Pocket Money Polishes called Fairest of All.

I am lucky enough to get to paint my nails often at Becca's (Kittys Painted Claws) house, which means she gives me full choice from her helmer. She is very organised and has every single polish cataloged in a spreadsheet. I started to follow her example, but I gave up when  I expanded to a 2nd helmer,  I couldn't be bothered after around 20 polishes into the 1st helmer. 

So she looked up all her F polishes for me and as soon as I saw For Audrey I had to try it.. it's such a beautiful mint shade. But then I saw PMP.. I have so few PMP polishes (I came into the game late!) that I had to try one that was new to me. Most of my PMP polishes are part of the colabs that Charlie did with Tara from Taras Talons. Oh how I miss the colabs! 

Anyway, I digress... here is my mani!

Sparkly! <3

What do you think?

Check out the other F manis over at the hub page!

Rach xxx

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

Swatched: Julep - Jodie

Hey all!

Couldnt resist picking this one up. My wonderful step sister is called Jodie, so when I caught this in a blog sale that could make it to the UK, I just had to have it. It has sat, well guarded but untried for around 6 months, but that has worked pretty well as its a beautiful autumn colour!

I also decided to pair this up with my new OPI Man with a Golden Gun, which I snagged from one of the nail sale groups on Facebook. What do you think?

Rachael xxx

Taras Talons & Pocket Money Polishes Collaborations - Swatches and Review

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey all!

Excited to show you todays polishes - some collaboration duos from Taras Talons and Pocket Money Polishes, two UK indie makers.

I was lucky enough to snag one Cinderella duo and one Beauty and the Beast duo for myself.

The first I have to show you is the Beauty and the Beast Duo - Mrs Potts by Taras Talons and Enchanted Rose by PMP. 

Here is Mrs Potts by itself. I can't decide if this is lilac or pink. I'm thinking a lilac leaning pink. Its really pretty and has a beautiful formula. This is 2 coats, with a base of Rimmel Stronger basecoat and 1 coat of Seche Vite. I would happily wear this on its own, its a rare pink that suits my skintone but I love this soft blush look.

And here it is topped with 1 dabbed coat of Enchanted Rose. These two polishes compliment each other perfectly - the various sizes of rose pink hex and a spattering of holographic hexes really make this look magical. As I said, I dabbed this on for even coverage, but thats just the regular for any glitter toppers if you want an even covering. 

What do you think overall? I think its super pretty as a duo, but Mrs Potts is great for a less sparkly occasion too! 

So here is the Cinderella duo. I found out about these really late, but was over the moon to find my favourites of the collection were the last ones available! These are Bibbity Bobbity Boo by Taras Talons and Magic Pumpkin by PMP.

You might think these are an odd match together, but I love them combined. Here is BBB (nobodys got time to type that over and over haha.. plus I can't spell it!) on its own. Its a beautiful turquoise shade. My favourite!

Application was perfect, lovely pigmented formula which self levelled perfectly. I only used 1 coat here with my Rimmel Stronger base and Seche Vite topcoat. Yay for short nails!

Aand here it is topped topped with Magic Pumpkin. The only slight thing I would mention is the base discolours turquoise. If any of you use Seche Vite, you will find it yellows certain colours and alters their true colour - mint green, turquoise etc are the most noticeable. Unfortunately this is the case for a lot of indie glitters too as they have the same ingredient in the base. Practically all my glitter toppers do this. A shame for the base colour, but it still looks good with the glitter shades Charlie has used. One thing I will say is that it doesnt yellow it as much as Seche Vite does though. This again has that magical sparkly holographic glitter element. Beautiful! This is one dabbed coat.

Do you have any PMP / Taras Talons polishes? Which is your favourite? 

You can find Taras Talons here:

Website

Etsy Shop

and Pocket Money Polishes here:

Website

Rachael xxx

Nail Lacquer UK - Review and Swatches

**These polishes were provided for my honest review**

Good morning all!

I'm sooooo glad to be back - I got home around half 3 yesterday and spent the remainder of my day polishing my nails. I did a whole week of naked shorties with nothing but a file and some Nail Envy for company. It did my nails the world of good but I am seriously glad to be home with my pretties!

Anyway, back onto why I'm posting - today I have 3 polishes to show you from Nail Lacquer UK - Megan (who makes these beautiful polishes!) kindly gave me three to review. The ones I have to show you today are Happy!!!, Golden Apple and Naughty or Nautical.

Quick bit of housekeeping - all polishes are shown with basecoat of OPI Matte Nail Envy and 1 coat of Seche Vite topcoat unless otherwise stated.

The first I chose to try was Happy!!!. From first glance, it is something that makes you feel happy - it is a beautiful glitter topper with a mix of bright blue, coral red, pink and lime green glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes. They range from tiny glitters and small squares to medium and large hex glitters. A really pretty mix! Also, look at the cute sticker on the bottom of all of the bottles - just makes them cuter!

As this is a neon mix, I decided to show you a couple of different looks you could go for. The first is the usual - a white base which makes the neon colours really pop. What do you think? 

The second base I chose for this was Barry M - Greenberry. I think this works really well with the range of glitter colours. 

The application of this was pretty good. I did have to dab a little to get some of the bigger hexes off the brush onto the nail. I didn't need to dig for any though which was great. Megan sent me the little bottles (4ml) and I was pleased with the brush quality and length as it reaches the bottom of the bottle so I won't end up having to shake and roll and fish for any polish at the bottom once I've used it a couple of times. Marvellous! Only point I do want to make - as I have quite curvy nails some of the larger hexes didn't lay completely flat, and therefore I did need an extra coat of Seche Vite to even it out.

The second polish I have for you is a beautiful shimmer polish called Golden Apple. It does really remind me of a Golden Delicious apple - its a beautiful light green with a golden yellow shimmer to it. I thought it would be quite sheer, but the formula is thicker than I thought and only needed two careful coats for full coverage. I found it quite hard to photo the true colour of this - the first shows the nice application but the second photo is much more true to its Golden Apple colour.

And last but definitely not least - Naughty or Nautical. As you will probably have noticed, this has a similar name to one of Essie's summer line polishes - but for me it sticks closer to what I would associate with Nautical - Blue and Red. The blue base is a gorgeous metallic inky blue and mixed in are small and medium glitters in red and holographic blue. The red is particularly pretty as it flashes a deep pink at certain angles. I really like this one - and as autumn is coming it'll be going into my work-appropriate stash as I love squeezing understated glitters in there! :) Here I used three coats on its own - it was much more sparkly in person - more like the bottle.

So.. there you are :) Which is your favourite? Do you own any Nail Lacquer polishes that you would recommend? Any on your wishlist? I have one more to show you which will be coming in its own post soon :) 

Thank you again to Megan for letting me review some of her polishes!

Rachael xxx

ER31DC - Day 17 Glitter

Good morning!

Its yet ANOTHER 31DC mani today. Glitter! YAY for glitter!

I have pulled out one of my favourites for today - Ellagee - Beyond The Sea.

Laura originally sent me this for review, but I loved it so much I had to buy a large bottle of it. I have it here over Butter London Slapper.

What do you think? Do you like it? Would you wear it? Do you have either of these polishes? Want them?

Don't forget to check out everyone else's glitterbomb manis!

Other posts you might like:

Ellagee Polish Part 2

Please note: these three polishes in today's post were sent to me for review purposes. All other Ellagee polishes I have posted about are polishes that I have bought myself.

This post is also EXTREMELY pic heavy!

The three polishes that Laura kindly agreed to send me are from her new 'You're the Top' collection. They are Beyond the Sea, I've Got a Crush on You and Crazy He Calls Me and are all glitter toppers (glitters in a clear base). All of the polish names in the collection are inspired by the great music from the 1930's and 40's.

I wanted to save my favourite of the 3 until last, but I honestly couldn't. I really didn't think I would be a fan of this, but I sneakily tried it out for an earlier mani last week and loved it that much I wore it for 4 days before I reluctantly took it off. This is I've Got a Crush on You.

'I've Got A Crush On You is a clear base with shades of pink, white, and silver glitter. Other colors in the photos are reflections from the holographic glitters.'

I also wanted to show you how versatile this topper is - its pale, feminine attributes mean it works well with a variety of colours. I chose one of my favourite neutral shades - L'Oréal - Soft Chinchilla to show you how soft and elegant this can look! This is 2 coats of Soft Chinchilla with 1 coat of I've Got a Crush on You and 1 coat of Seche Vite.

What do you think? I love the colours together - it's glittery, but not in your face glittery. Its demure, understated and very classy looking. It also doesn't HAVE to look barbie, ditzy blonde pink, which is why I love it so much!

The formula was wonderful. Not too runny or thick, very easy to work with. I did dab a little more than I usually would but only because its hard to brush properly when you're only doing a small section of your nail!

The above photos are all in artificial light.

The above 4 photos are taken in natural light - here you can clearly see how light and delicate the glitter is. Really beautiful! 

The second polish I have for you is Crazy He Calls Me. A beautiful rainbow of colours, which I chose to layer over black. Here I have 2 coats of Sinful Colors Black to Black, 1 coat of Crazy He Calls Me and 1 coat of Seche Vite.

I didn't realise just how many photos I took of this - I was quite taken by it!

This is what Laura has to say about it: 'Crazy He Calls Me is a clear base with shades of red, orange, gold, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, and purple hexagon glitter.'

I really like this against the black. I think because of the variety of colours, that it would probably look best over Black or White, but you could pick whichever colour you like - depending on the effect you want. This polish is heavily glitter packed, so you could achieve full coverage of glitter in 3 coats. All the above photos are in artificial light.

It reminds me of a party in a bottle, it brings a smile to my face when I look at it on my nails! I forget how much I love my black nails - I think this may make me wear them more often!

Absolutely lovely - love how all the different colours catch the light! Would you wear it?

And here is the final topper - this is Beyond the Sea. 

'Beyond The Sea is a clear base with shades of teal, turquoise  magenta, and gold hexagon and square glitter. Other colors in the photos are reflections from the holographic glitters.'

I chose to layer this over Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blackberry. I think it really showcases the beautiful teal / turquoise glitters. As you can see, there is a fine sprinkling of gold and magenta which is well balanced.

 The above photos are in artificial light.

 The above are in natural (fading - sorry!) light. 

What do you think of the three? You already know my favourite - which is yours?

Just a reminder - you can find these at Laura's Etsy store here.

Also, check out her Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter. She often posts details of discounted products and offers, as well as teasers for her new upcoming collections!

Please feel free to let me know what you think - I love hearing your thoughts and comments!

Rachael xxx