**These polishes were sent for my honest review**
Good morning all!
I have some very exciting products to show you today - polishes from Nelly Polish - the home of the first dehydrated nail polish.
I am sure that you are aware that in the UK, Royal Mail has restricted the postage of nail polish. It is now only allowed to be shipped in the UK and is only allowed to have 4 bottles in any package. If you're just buying one or two polishes, not too bad. But if you're a hardened nail polish fanatic and there's a deal on 5 polishes or more.. you're going to get stung for postage by having to pay for extra packets, or if its from abroad, you risk having your package destroyed or being fined and having it destroyed if you're trying to send it out.
Nelly Polish is one solution to this. Hilary (the wonderful maker of this polish) has come up with a dehydrated version of nail polish in a variety of colours - her first collection being based upon 'The Fungooms' characters designed by her husband for his toddler website. Each character is named after a real place in Cornwall, which gives each polish another very British element to them. Marvellous!
I asked Hilary to send me a variety of her polishes. She provides them in three forms - ready mixed, for all those living in the UK who would like the Nelly Polish bottle and aren't bothered about making it themselves. The second form is dried mixture in the Nelly Polish bottle, ready for you to add any clear polish of your choice. The third is for mixture only - if you don't mind having the polish in a different bottle. Each one is priced accordingly for how much work you / Hilary has to do:
Premixed - £6.50
Dried mixture with bottle - £5.00
Dried mixture only - £4.00
Premixed - £6.50
Dried mixture with bottle - £5.00
Dried mixture only - £4.00
Hilary very kindly sent me one ready made polish and one which I could mix myself. I was really quite excited at trying to make my own polish, I really do think its a fantastic idea and is so much more exciting that I get to be hands on and be my very own indie polish maker for 5 minutes! However, the reason I wanted to try each version was so that I could compare how my version would measure up to Hilary's.
So here is the first polish - Gumpas. Gumpas is based on Gampas from the Fungooms website. Isn't he cute? (I am 26, but I just couldn't resist playing a few of the games.. from an IT point of view of course!!)
Gumpas is the one I received ready made. Gumpas is a nude jelly with white, black and matte green glitter. It is VERY sheer and therefore you may want to layer it over a base colour. You can see other bloggers swatches of this polish here and here and their undies choices to see if there is one you like best.
I chose to layer mine over Ciaté Cookies and Cream. This is one of my favourite nudes and it works beautifully with Gumpas. I am wearing a base of Matte Nail Envy, 3 thin coats of Ciaté C&C, 1 layer of Gumpas and 1 coat of Seche Vite. The formula was beautiful - well mixed, no sinking glitters or pigments and it spread beautifully on the nail. I had no problem getting the green glitters out of the bottle but I did have to dab a little to get the pesky things onto a couple of my nails. Gumpas dries really quickly which is fab for a glitter polish, but it does dry slightly matte, so if you're a gloss lover Hilary does recommend a topcoat like I have used. I loved this so much.. I really was kicking myself that I didn't try Polperro first so I could keep this on longer!
Gumpas is the one I received ready made. Gumpas is a nude jelly with white, black and matte green glitter. It is VERY sheer and therefore you may want to layer it over a base colour. You can see other bloggers swatches of this polish here and here and their undies choices to see if there is one you like best.
The second polish I received was Polperro, which I was ever so excited to get as I had seen it reviewed by another blogger and it is beautiful. Polperro is a coral-orange with copper and gold glitter and just perfect for autumn which is just around the corner. It is named after Polperro from The Fungooms - again I had a go at his game (I really liked it as its about cleaning up the environment!)
My task now was to be able to mix my polish to the right consistency that I could apply it well to my nails. Hilary has formulated all her polishes so that there is a suspension agent in the dried mixture. Therefore you can use any clear polish to finish off your Nelly Polish and there should be no sinking glitters - hurray! The only clear polish I had was a Color Club - so that is what I used for this polish. As you can see, the pigment comes already in the bottle - so the main messy part is done for you. I was actually surprised at how much pigment is in the bottle - it doesn't look like there is much space for polish! But I did get a good 10ml in there.
So I steamed ahead, adding a little bit at a time, having a good shake, then adding some more. I did actually take a skewer to mix mine before I read the instructions properly.. but it did save my arm a little from the shaking. The mixture did mix fairly easily, it took I'd say no longer than 5 minutes (i'm not overly vigourous!) to mix.
I was a little concerned that all the pigments and glitters were at the bottom of the bottle when I added the clear polish but the shaking sorted this no problem.
In the bottle, this does look darker. On the nail it is a beautiful autumn leaves orange with sprinklings of gold and rose tinted glitters. It is much more pigmented than Gumpas and so I chose to wear it on its own. I have one coat of Matte Nail Envy, 3 coats of Polperro and 1 coat of Seche Vite.
Conclusion - I love what I have seen so far. I really enjoyed being my own polish maker for the day and I think for the price I would opt to buy dried with the bottle included. They are really pretty, it would be a shame not to have them all in matching bottles.
You can find Nelly Polish at the following places:
Etsy Shop
Website
She also has 20% off everything until the end of August with the code AUGUST20.
My task now was to be able to mix my polish to the right consistency that I could apply it well to my nails. Hilary has formulated all her polishes so that there is a suspension agent in the dried mixture. Therefore you can use any clear polish to finish off your Nelly Polish and there should be no sinking glitters - hurray! The only clear polish I had was a Color Club - so that is what I used for this polish. As you can see, the pigment comes already in the bottle - so the main messy part is done for you. I was actually surprised at how much pigment is in the bottle - it doesn't look like there is much space for polish! But I did get a good 10ml in there.
So I steamed ahead, adding a little bit at a time, having a good shake, then adding some more. I did actually take a skewer to mix mine before I read the instructions properly.. but it did save my arm a little from the shaking. The mixture did mix fairly easily, it took I'd say no longer than 5 minutes (i'm not overly vigourous!) to mix.
I was a little concerned that all the pigments and glitters were at the bottom of the bottle when I added the clear polish but the shaking sorted this no problem.
In the bottle, this does look darker. On the nail it is a beautiful autumn leaves orange with sprinklings of gold and rose tinted glitters. It is much more pigmented than Gumpas and so I chose to wear it on its own. I have one coat of Matte Nail Envy, 3 coats of Polperro and 1 coat of Seche Vite.
Conclusion - I love what I have seen so far. I really enjoyed being my own polish maker for the day and I think for the price I would opt to buy dried with the bottle included. They are really pretty, it would be a shame not to have them all in matching bottles.
You can find Nelly Polish at the following places:
Etsy Shop
Website
She also has 20% off everything until the end of August with the code AUGUST20.
Which is your favourite? Do you have any Nelly Polish or are there any on your wishlist?
Rachael xxx
