Louise Gray for Topshop

Recently, scottish designer Louise Gray released a cosmetics collaboration with Topshop, and after seeing the promo images I was excited to check it out. Whilst none of the make-up items excited me enough to make a purchase, some of the nail polishes absolutely did.

My picks from the Louise Gray for Topshop collection

There were four nail polishes in the collection, all of which were glitter. The two that I didn't pick up were a pumpkin orange colour ('Dart') and a muted green ('Hat Trick') which were pretty but to me just didn't seem like polishes that i'd ever really wear. These two polishes were also finer glitter which I find doesn't look as pretty for layering which is what I principally use glitter polishes for because they tend to be on the sheerer side.

Louise Gray for Topshop nail polish in 'Dart'

Louise Gray for Topshop nail polish in 'Hat Trick'

Now onto the polishes that I did get; firstly, I picked up 'Pinch Punch' which is a pinky red jelly base with pink and silver micro shimmer and much chunkier silver hexagonal glitters.The second polish that I purchased is 'Junk Yard' which is a very sheer blue base with multiple sizes of glitter in bright blue and green colours, really reminds me of the ocean or something.

Louise Gray for Topshop nail polish in 'Pinch Punch'

Louise Gray for Topshop nail polish in 'Junk Yard'

I'm not the biggest fan of 'Pinch Punch' if i'm honest, it's too sheer to be worn on it's own if you want more than a few flakes of glitter on each nail but when you put it over a different colour, I put it over OPI's 'Pinking of you', it changes the base colour because of the jelly base. I tried seeing if 2 coats of 'Pinch Punch' over a bare nail would give my nails any colour from the jelly base alone and they just ended up looking like i'd worn a red polish without a base coat and it had stained my nails. I'm not a fan of this one but it was fun to try, negativity over.

1 coat of 'Pinch Punch' over 2 coats of OPI 'Pinking of you'

To me, 'Pinch Punch' has much more bottle appeal

On to 'Junk Yard' and a much more positive review, a rave in fact. I really love this polish, I think it looks so beautiful on   the nail and I think I may run out and purchase a back up right now. The different colours of all the shimmer and glitter give this polish quite a multi-dimensional effect and it's just so pretty when some of the larger glitters hit the light. The base is so sheer that it doesn't tint the base colour you put underneath like 'Pinch Punch' although I didn't try this one over bare nails because I just loved it over the blue colour (2 coats of a blue MUA polish if you were wondering, can't find a name but it says C10 on the bottom?). It looks a tiny bit like scales, but in a good way, a mermaidy way, I can't help but feel that in winter i'll love pairing this over black and in summer over turqouisey blue colours, a read round win for me!

1 coat of 'Junk Yard' over 2 coats of a blue MUA polish

This applies much truer to bottle than 'Pinch Punch'

These polishes were £6.50 each and I bought them in store, they are also available on the Topshop webite. So overall it was a bit of a hat and miss experience for me, but its always fun to experiment.