Illamasqua 'Raindrops'

This nail purchase was entirely motivated by Christine at Temptalia, who has really raved about this polish, and I have to say that after trying it, I really do understand why.This is my first try of Illamasqua polish and I found the formula to be quite good, although from what I've heard, that might not be consistent throughout their whole nail range.

Illamasqua 'Raindrops'

Illamasqua describes raindrops as a sheer light grey which I think is a pretty accurate description although I think I'd class it as bluey grey rather than just grey. Its a really pretty polish that I think gives the nails a kind of faded look which is really nice and surprisingly versatile because its not bright and doesn't make too much of a statement.

Illamasqua 'Raindrops' under bright light where you can see the subtle sparkle

I think that this is a much more sophisticated take on a blue polish, more so than a pastel blue or turquoise kind of shade. I'm more likely to wear this kind of shade in the autumn and winter than spring and summer because it is that little bit more muted which I tend to favour when the sun isn't shining as much.

3 thin coats of Illamasqua 'Raindrops'

I find the formula to be quite nice, as I said earlier. The polish does apply very sheerly but it is marketed as a sheer polish and this sheerness gives it a lightness that makes it look very fresh and pretty. Having said that, I did have to use 3 very thin coats to get the desired effect but because the coats were so thin they dried really quickly anyway. I also really liked that despite having to use 3 coats, the subtle sparkle wasn't entirely eaten up by the base colour.

 Close up of 'Raindrops' where you can see a tiny bit of the subtle sparkle

I really do love this polish and know that i'll be getting a lot of wear out of it when the weather starts to cool down a little. Have you tried 'Raindrops' or any of Illamasqua's other polishes?

NOTD from the OPI Euro Centrale Collection

Le sigh, the weather has taken a turn for the worse again here in the UK, but I suppose we did get the standard annual week of nice weather, I should be used to it by now. With this dip in the weather I didn't feel like sporting pretty spring and summer shades, cue OPI's Euro Centrale collection.

2 coats of OPI 'I saw...U saw...We saw...Warsaw'

'I saw...U saw...We saw...Warsaw' is a dark, cool toned navy polish, very inky and pretty. Formula was pretty good, 2 coats for opacity and it dried to a pretty shiny finish. This shade will probably get a lot of love from me in autumn and winter. What I would say is definitely wear a good base coat because this colour is so rich and pigmented that I can imagine it really staining the nails without one.

Accent nail has 2 coats of OPI 'Polka.com' glitter

I wanted to add something fun so I did a glitter accent nail using 'Polka.com' which is also from the OPI Euro Centrale collection. Very unique, at least in my collection, and the perfect little pop of colour. This is 2 coats over 'I saw...U saw...We saw...Warsaw' because this is in no way a full coverage glitter, I can imagine it taking 4 or 5 coats to get full nail coverage with this one.

(L-R) OPI 'I saw...U saw...We saw...Warsaw'; OPI 'Polka.com'

All in all, I like this manicure a lot. My uni exams are all done and dusted now so I'm going to be getting back into posting much more again, hooray!

My Top 10 Spring Nail Picks

I’m Back! Things have been fairly crazy for the past few months and I just haven’t been able to find the time to post. Now that the uni year is winding down and summer is fast approaching I hope to be able to start to posting much more again. I’m jumping back in with some of my spring favourites for this year. This year I’ve been thoroughly sucked in by conventionally spring-y pastel shades, but i've been mixing in a few of my brights that have been thoroughly neglected over the cold months.

Revlon 'Sheer Sunburst'

I do have to admit that this polish takes a fair amount of work, and I didn't actually see the word sheer in the title before I purchased it, I just saw it and thought DUPE FOR CHANEL HOLIDAY! MUST BUY! As far as the colour goes it is actually fairly close to Holiday but it has a different finish because this polish is obviously much more sheer. It takes three careful coats but if you’re patient enough then this does give a really beautiful finish, quite squishy looking.

Butter London 'Trout Pout'

This is the perfect light pinky coral shade and I love it, I already know that it will be on my nails a lot throughout spring and summer. A bonus is the lovely butter London formula, it applies like a dream and dries to a lovely glossy finish, this is probably my fave polish for spring and summer and I can’t see anything taking its place any time soon. I have a post on this from last summer that you can read here.

Essie 'Ballet Slippers'

I wear this on rare days when I want my nails to look neat and polished but I don’t really want them to be a noticeable colour. This is just the most beautiful very light, milky pink that applies to the nails very sheerly and just leaves them looking very clean and sophisticated, I know a lot of people like to use this as the base for an at-home French manicure. I never really had too much of a problem with the thin Essie brush but for this polish I definitely prefer the thicker brush that's on the polishes in the Boots/Superdrug diffusion line, gives a much smoother and cleaner finish.

Butter London 'Fiver'

This polish has replaced Essie’s mint candy apple as my favourite light minty greeny blue!  (I’m just fabulous at descriptions, aren’t I?). This is a little lighter than mint candy apple, and with a tiny bit less green, I just find that this looks a little bit more chic on the nails, like a more grown up approach to a seafoam nail polish. Again, this has an awesome formula that's opaque and ready to go in 2 coats.

OPI 'If You Moust, You Moust'

This came out last year in the vintage Minnie Mouse collection and to be honest I bought it, used it once and then it kind of just got lost in the shuffle and shoved to the back of a drawer until I was re-organizing my collection about a month ago and came across it. Lovely bright pastel pink with blue undertones, I find that it can be more forgiving then pinks with more yellowy undertones which can sometimes make pale skin look a bit funny.

Bourjois 'Adore-Bleu'; 2 coats of 'Adore-Bleu' in direct sunlight

This is the prettiest pastel blue that I’ve found as yet and the formula is pretty nice. I loved ‘Bikini so teeny’ from Essie’s summer collection last year, which was a similar shade of blue but I found the formula to be quite streaky and hard to work with so I’m glad to have found an alternative. This is what i've got on my nails right now for some of the first really sunny days here in the UK and I just love the way it looks.

Sinful Colours 'Boom Boom!'

This is not really a conventional spring colour, but the weather is heating up and I think it looks really nice in the warmer weather. It’s a darker bright pink that has some purple in it, very pretty and very flattering, think it would probably look great on all skin tones as well. I was ecited to see that they had started to sell sinful colours in boots, and for only £1.99 a bottle, I may have squealed a little. I’m very impressed with the formula as well, over all I’m a very happy camper!

Chanel 'Fracas'; Look at the subtle but beautiful shimmer when the light hits it!

As a very pale person, this is about as bright as I can go without the colour making my hands look dirty. I’ve worn this quite a bit already (although I think I’ll wear it the most during summer, I’m thinking it’ll be an almost permanent fixture on my toes!) and just find it to be the most lovely bright but not too bright pink with a tiny bit of a sheen. Good formula too, which I’m glad of considering the high price point!

Bourjois 'Amande défilé'

This is the only colour that I really have like this in my collection, I have so many light minty greens that have quite a bit of blue in them but this is my only pastel green that's more yellow based. I liked it a lot, I like this new Bourjois formula too, this isn’t quite as easy to handle as the blue but its not too hard, especially considering pastel crème polishes can be notoriously difficult. This looks very fresh on my nails.

Essie 'Cute as a Button'

I got this polish towards the end of last summer so I didn’t really get a chance to wear it much before I started wearing darker, more vampy colours for autumn and winter. A friend was looking through my stash and re-discovered it and I’m so glad that she did! This is a lovely darker pinky coral that happens to be really flattering on my skin tone (or at least I think it is) and just makes me think of warmer months. The formula isn’t the best that I’ve ever come across as it can be a little streaky but if you’re careful then it should be fine.

Deborah Lippmann 'Today was a Fairytale'

Today I wanted to talk to you all about the latest addition to my Lippmann collection, 'Today was a Fairytale'. In the bottle it looks like a dusty medium blue jelly base with silver micro-shimmer and larger hexagonal glitters. On the nail it looks nothing like it does in the bottle...thats not to say that I don't like it though.

2 coats of 'Today was a Fairytale' over 2 coats of Barry M 'Navy'

The blue base is so incredibly sheer that I think it would be impossible to get any sort of complete nail coverage using this polish, because of the sheerness I would consider it more of a glitter top coat than an actual nail polish. I was a little disappointed by this because I thought it was going to look very magical and pretty. Once that initial disappointment subsided I tried layering this polish over various other colours and found a combination that I really love, 'Today was a fairytale' over 2 coats of Barry M 'Navy' nail paint.

'Today was a Fairytale' as a glitter top coat

Once I put it over the deeper blue base colour it started to look like a pretty galaxy on my nails, it also looked quite pretty over black, although at the moment there are lots of black polishes with silver glitter in them which would probably produce a nicer result. The glitter was a little hard to place at times so I had to dab it on to some parts on my nail.

2 coats of 'Today was a Fairytale' over 2 coats of Barry M 'Navy'

Given the £16 price tag for Deborah Lippmann nail polishes in the UK i'm not sure I could recommend this as it's only suitable for use as a layering polish. However, if you're looking for a very sparkly silver glitter top coat then this might be just the thing for you, and since the blue base hardly shows up blue on the nail you could layer it over a lot of different base colours. For me, this polish wasn't worth the money that I payed for it but I can imagine some people really loving it like I thought I was going to.

Close-up of 'Today was a Fairytale' 

Have you tried 'Today was a Fairytale'? What did you think?

OPI 'Absolutely Alice'

OPI 'Absolutely Alice' is a beautiful blue glitter polish with some gold glitter in it. I think the gold is what makes this polish so pretty to me, I have quite a few blue glitter polishes but the gold really sets this one apart and gives it some depth. I'm so glad that I managed to get my hands on this polish when it first came out because it became so hard to find.

2 coats of 'Absolutely Alice' with 1 coat of Seche Vite fast dry top coat

Because the blue colour in this polish is a little deeper it suits a lot of skin tones and I wear it all year round. It's really hard to photograph it properly because it is so incredibly sparkly, under all types of lighting, but my camera just didn't want to pick that up unfortunately. You get the best idea of the amount of sparkle in the bottom photo of just the bottle, it is just so eye catching and beautiful, i'm not surprised this was a sell out polish.

'Absolutely Alice' under natural lighting

I used 2 coats of 'Absolutely Alice' in the photos above which I think is pretty good for a glitter polish. I didn't use a base colour which was a welcome change and used only one (thick) coat of top coat, although I think 2 would have achieved a smoother finish. I think this may be one of my favourite OPI polishes ever, its sparkly and very eye-catching, in a flattering colour that happens to particularly suit my skin tone and it's associated with Alice in Wonderland....what more could I ask?

You can see a bit more of the tiny sparkle in this shot

I wouldn't have thought that this would be a unique colour in my stash but it turns out it is which is always nice, but only one of many reasons that I love this polish. I like that the glitter is fairly small and not too chunky because sometimes I just feel like having the sparkle factor but without having chunky glitter flakes on my nails.

Sorry about the lack of focus, it was the best way to capture the individual glitter flakes for this polish

I'm really not looking foward to taking this off my nails because of the mess that is glitter polish removal so maybe i'll leave it off for a little while....or perhaps i'll just bite the bullet and remove it so I can try something new and fabulous (OPI Skyfall collection anyone???), probably the latter. *confessions of a nail polish addict*

See how sparkly it is in the bottle?.....Swoon!

Did any of you manage to get your hands on this polish when it came out way back in 2010?

Butter London 'Henley Regatta'

This post has been a very long time coming, really this is more of a summery polish but at the moment my nails are in need of some TLC as they were breaking quite a lot so I was looking through the photos on my computer and discovered that i'd forgotten to post on Butter London 'Henley Regatta'.

2 coats of 'Henley Regatta' over 2 coats of OPI 'Fly'

'Henley Regatta' is a bright teal glitter polish, Butter London describes it as a "nail lacquer glitters like the Thames on a sunny day — a fusion of green and blue glitter that varies in intensity depending on the light" and I think that is fairly accurate. It's so sparkly, I was drawn to the bottle like a magpie and I knew that I had to have it.

'Henley Regatta' under natural lighting

As far as glitter polishes go this one is actually fairly opaque, in the pictures above I have 2 coats of 'Henley Regatta' layered over 2 coats of 'OPI 'Fly' but I think that this polish would be opaque on its own in 3-4 coats. I think this a beautiful glitter for summertime, the sun shines off of it in the most delightful way, I actually took these pictures about a month ago when the weather was still nice here and I suppose that now it won't really be worn until spring/summer 2013.

I used Seche Vite fast dry top coat to give my nails a smooth finish

The formula was pretty nice, as i've already said there's a lot of glitter in this baby so it wouldn't take as many coats as some other glitter polishes to get an opaque finish. The clear base isn't too thick so the glitter doesn't all gather in one place on the nail, I like that there's a mix of blue and green glitter because it gives the polish some depth and reminds me of the ocean or something, perfect for summers by the sea.

Close up of 'Henley Regatta'

How do you feel about wearing bright and vibrant colours on your nails in the colder months? Do you love it or loathe it?

Rimmel Metal Rush

Rimmel just released a new collection of nail polishes for autumn, they're called 'Metal Rush' and they all have a duochrome effect. As well as being an ordinary polish, they are supposed to 'flip' a colour if you layer them. There are four shades available : Royal Blue, Pearly Queen, Purple Reign and Gold save the Queen. I tried out all four and for the most part I really liked them.

(Left to right) Royal Blue, Pearly Queen, Purple Reign, Gold save the Queen

All of the polishes were opaque in 2 coats apart from 'Pearly Queen' which was sheerer than the others and took 3 coats to get an opaque finish. In regards to the duochrome effect, its quite pronounced in all of the polishes, probably least so in 'Purple Reign' but even then theres a fair amount of colour shift in it. I liked all of the polishes on the nail but to be honest i'm not sure I could see myself wearing 'Pearly Queen' that much just because it is sheer, takes careful application and just isn't the kind of colour that really appeals to me, particularly in the cooler months where I prefer deeper and richer tones.

2 coats of 'Royal Blue' with Seche Vite fast dry top coat

Royal Blue was an interesting one for me, I really love the colour and the way it looks on my nails but i'm not sure i'll get much wear out of it in autumn or winter, for me this is a great summery duochrome; but perhaps that's because I personally favour lighter blues for the warmer months. The colour shift on this one was really great and true to how it looked in the bottle, goes from a blue to purple with a hint of yellow and green in there, a very pretty shade!

1 coat of 'Royal blue' over 2 coats of Nails Inc 'Black Taxi'

When put over black this colour is super beautiful, this I really can imagine myself wearing during autumn and winter. It kind of reminds me of when petrol and water mix and you get that great spectrum of colour. When this polish is layered over black I think it becomes way more complex and you can see lots colours in it. I really wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do.

3 coats of 'Pearly Queen' with Seche Vite fast dry top coat

Let me start by being very honest, this was my least favourite of all four of the shades, not because it was horrible or impossible to work with or did anything bad to my nails, but because it's just not my thing, I can see a lot of people loving it though. This was the lightest shade and the sheerest, it still only took 3 coats though which isn't too bad really. Again, the duochrome was quite pronounced in this one, and actually much prettier than it looked in the bottle. It went from a purpley pink colour to a light green, looked more opalescent than pearlescent to me.

1 coat of 'Pearly Queen' over Nails Inc 'Black Taxi'

I like this much better over black, its less frosty looking then it is on its own. It went a dirty, sort of purpley green colour. The duochrome wasn't so pronounced so it kind of just looked like a metallic polish with a little bit of colour shift. I like it, but again, I prefer some of the other colours in the collection.

2 coats of 'Purple Reign' with Seche Vite fast dry top coat

I like this polish a lot, it's the kind of colour that I really love for this time of year; it's deep, rich and warm which is pretty much my idea of a perfect autumn polish. The duochrome in this one is way more subtle than it is in all of the other shades but I don't mind that because there isn't too much of a colour shift in the bottle either. The shift that it does have goes from purple to red with a bit of gold that can only be seen very occasionally. Overall one of my favourites.

1 coat of 'Purple Reign' over 2 coats of Nails Inc 'Black Taxi'

As far as this colour as a layering polish goes, I don't really think that it 'flips' the colour underneath very much. There is the least difference between when its on its own and when it's layered over black -it just seems to get a deeper shade of purple, and i've got a similar effect just by using a normal nail polish over black. It still looks pretty though so I suppose I can't complain, it just doesn't live up to the 'flip your colour' claim made on the bottle. Overall I prefer this one on its own because layered over black it seems to lose the subtle duochrome that it has when worn alone.

2 coats of 'Gold Save the Queen' with Seche Vite fast dry top coat

Last but by no means least is 'Gold save the Queen'. I really really like this one, it may be my favourite from the collection. The duochrome is really pretty and goes from the slightly dirty looking gold colour to a pink and green. I think this is quite a unique colour, for my collection anyway, and I think i'll get a lot of use out of it, especially near Christmas time. To me, its a more interesting take on gold nail polish.

1 coat of 'Gold save the Queen' with Seche Vite fast dry top coat

Just like 'Purple Reign' this one seems to not transform the black base as much as the first two colours. Perhaps the more subtle duochromes are less suited to being layering polishes. I do really like the colour it made though, it's like a dirty brass colour which I think is pretty cool. I can't really see any duochrome in this one, again it just looks like a metallic shade (a pretty awesome one) but I probably will wear it layered just because I love the shade it creates and the formula is pretty nice on these.

All in all, I think that this collection is a winner, especially great for a cheaper brand 

(these polishes were £3.99 each and I purchased mine from Superdrug but you can get them wherever Rimmel is sold). I've been pleasantly surprised with all the less expensive nail polishes that i've been trying lately, what are some of your favourite cheaper nail polishes?

Revlon 'Blue Slate'

I've been hearing lots of good things about Revlon's new colourstay nail polishes and when I saw that they were buy one get one 50% off in Boots, I decided that it was time for me to pick a few up. There were lots of colours that caught my eye but I had dupes for a lot of them. 'Blue Slate' was one that I couldn't think of any similar polishes to, so I picked it up.

'Blue Slate' appears darker on the nail than in the bottle

'Blue Slate' is a moody, grey toned blue polish in a creme finish. I think this is great for autumn because it is that bit darker and more grey toned, I also think that this is one of those colours that suits a whole host of skin tones. The best thing about this polish is hands down the formula, can you say one coat wonder??? After one coat this polish dried to a completely opaque and glossy finish, and that one coat was really easy to apply, this seems to be the dream formula. 

1 coat of Revlon 'Blue Slate' topped with Seche Vite fast dry top coat

I think i'll get a lot of wear out of it just because it's so quick to apply and it also appears to dry quite quickly. It does appear a little darker on the nail than it does in the bottle but I don't mind that as I favour darker colours for autumn and winter anyway. I kept this on my nails for 3 days and only really saw some minor tip wear and no chipping which was pretty good.

In natural light

I think this is a great way to do a deeper blue for the autumn and winter without wearing navy, although I really do like navy, its fun to switch it up and give yourself more options, especially when blue nail polish is a true love of yours. Overall I was incredibly impressed by Revlon with this one, i'll definitely be purchasing some more from this line, I way prefer it to all the other types of Revlon polish.