Jacava swatches

Hi everyone.

Tonight I have some Jacava swatches for you.

This is 'Damson Delight' - a dark red jelly polish...to which I added a few hand painted designs.

 'Marrakesh Nights' - this is a purple with a pink and blue shimmer.

 Last, but not least - 'Passion'. 

Personally, I think Damson Delight is my favourite out of the three although the other two are beautiful colours too. The formula is smooth and does not streak when applied. Have you tried any Jacava polishes?

xx

To gloss or not to gloss? That is the question.

Hello there!

Tonight, I want to share one of my Poundland bargains. I have at least 15 Revlon polishes - only one of which was bought for the full price (£6-7). This one was bought for £1...

Revlon's 'Red Ribbon'. Yes, it's a matte polish and yes, it did look like suede...but when adhering the rhinestones, the polish became glossy in some areas. To fix it, I covered it with a glossy top coat.

Admittedly, I do love glossy polishes. I'd rather turn a glossy finish into a matte by using a matte top coat, because that eliminates streaks (for me, anyway).

This is what happens when you use cheap rhinestones! As soon as I embedded these rhinestones in the top coat, their backs started to wrinkle. Any integral shine they had diminished immediately. I ended up smothering them in top coat in the end. Now they don't even look like rhinestones!

So, how do YOU feel about matte polishes? Are you a sucker for gloss, like me or is matte the way forward for you? Let me know in the comments box.

Take care!
xx

Leighton Denny 8 Piece Mini Mani Collection

Happy Friday everyone.

I have something special to show you today - Leighton Denny 8 piece Mini Mani Collection from QVC!

Admittedly, I've never used any of the products created by Leighton Denny, but I'd heard that he had some amazing polishes. When I was offered the chance to review this nail polish set, I had to accept.

The set comprised of 5 colours.
L-R: High Flyer, Diamond Diva, Rampant Rose, Pleasing Purple and Butterfly Wings.

L-R: One For All (base and topcoat), Precision Corrector and Miracle Drops Speed and a precision brush.

Exciting, huh?

Let's have a look at the colours first...

 

High Flyer (4.6ml) -  a  turquoise shade enriched with silver glitter. This is two coats plus on layer of the One For All topcoat. This was my favourite shade. The brushes weren't wide and flat, but they were well made and the consistency of the polish was creamy.

Diamond Diva (4.6ml) -  molten silver shade which can be used as a French manicure tip. I chose to put it on the whole nail, however, because I don't like how the look of a French manicure on almond shaped nails. The polish is beautifully pigmented and would look amazing marbled with a black polish. This is two coats without a top coat.

 

Rampant Rose (4.6ml) - deep red with a touch of brown. Two coats of creamy perfection.

 Pleasing Purple (4.6ml) -  The website states that this is a 'navy blue with a subtle purple shimmer', but I suspect that they swapped the colours around. This is a PURPLE with a BLUE shimmer, in my opinion. Initially I didn't like this at all, but after three coats, it grew on me. You may be able to detect a smudge on the ring finger...I used the polish drying drops and they did nothing to speed up the drying process.

Butterfly Wings (4.6ml) - sheer peach with an iridescent shimmer. This was my least favourite shade, because I'm not fond of shimmers. I will admit that this shade would look amazing layered over a darker colour. This didn't actually occur to me until just now!!

Left: One For All (4.6ml) all-in-one base coat, top coat, ridge filler and clear gloss coat - perfect for when you're on the go...or so the blurb says.
 It is fine as a base coat and gives a lovely glossy shine when applied as a top coat, but because it is not fast drying, I simply would not buy this. This is not a reflection on the quality of the polish, I just prefer the convenience of a fast drying polish.

Middle: Precision Corrector (4.8ml) - a three-in-one product that tidies up nail polish mistakes; also the key easily creating the perfect French and Naked Moon manicures.
 I love this! Seasoned nail polish bloggers will all confirm that a good 'clean-up job' is imperative, when polishing nails.  This does not appear to be acetone, because it does not leave a dry, white mark on the cuticle area after use. It's not harsh on the skin and it removes spills with precision and speed. I don't know what is in this miracle elixir, but I love it.  The little brush contained in the pack is the perfect size and the hairs are stiff, so they don't splay when you are cleaning the cuticle area.

Right: Miracle Drops Speed (4.8ml) - specially formulated to radically speed up drying time, help stop smudging and add lustre to nails and cuticles.
Unfortunately, the only thing these drops did for me were make hydrate my cuticles! After a few minutes, my nails still smudged. Again, perhaps I'm just used to my normal fast drying topcoats, but I'm not used to having to wait for my polish to dry anymore!

Overall, this was a sweet little pack with some top quality polishes. If the top coat had been a speed-dry polish, I would have been in heaven.

If you go head over to the QVC website, you can find this set for the introductory price of £28.44. 

Have a great weekend!

xx

Cover you eyes - manicure fail.

Hi all.

Today I have a bit of a fail manicure to show you. I have to confess that I'm sort of out of my comfort zone here. I honestly prefer my nails to all look similar. Thank goodness for nail polish remover, eh? Hahaha!

Excuse the tip wear! Come on, be honest...what do YOU think?

xx

Max Factor's Fantasy Fire - Swatch

Today, I have a swatch for you.

I was having an email conversation with RM the other day and she mentioned a Max Factor polish that seems to be a big hit at the moment. As it happens, I have been walking past this polish for a good while, simply because of the size of the bottle and how much it actually cost. Yes, I'm frugal.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I picked up a bottle just so I could see what the hype was. There have been times when a polish has been 'all the rage' and I've looked at it and thought 'why ?!' Remember Revlon's 'Perplexed'? Yeah...I didn't see what was so special about it.

 This is 'Fantasy Fire'.

Now, I have a few things to say about this one. The pro's are that it's gorgeous and has small shimmer particles in it and you could also put this in the category of a duo-chrome. It's an eye-catcher alright. I was wearing this last week and I got quite a few comments at work. The most amazing fact is that it is available at Superdrug and Boots in the UK...but not in the US apparently. It's usually us over here who miss out on the good stuff.

The con's? Oh my goodness. This is four, yes FOUR coats of polish. If you don't like the visible nail line (VNL), you might want to layer this over another colour with a better coverage. Because the polish is so thin and the bottle is so tiny, you may not get many wears out of this one I'm afraid. To top it off, this polish costs £3.99. Given the brand, you would expect to pay a little more, but they could have made the bottle just a little bigger.

As much as I don't want to like it (simply because I feel cheated by the size of the bottle), it IS a cutey. Imagine putting a matte polish on top...or even slapping a coat of glitter in between two layers of this beauty.

There are actually quite a few of these tiny polishes available in various colours, but I haven't had a good look at all of them. Maybe I will and maybe I'll come back with some swatches. Maybe.

Take care.

xx

31 Day Manicure Challenge Day 9 - 'Rainbow'

Hi all (and a big hi and welcome to my newest readers)

Today is rainbow day!

These 'rainbow nails' were one of my favourite manicures to do. I used a base coat and then my trusty acrylic paints. Thinking about it now, the pinkie is missing a stripe of pink...ah well.

Sally Hansen's 'Diamonds' was layered over the acrylic paint twice. I bought this from Superdrug for 45p - I kid you not!

I decided to stamp over the manicure and used the M60 image plate that I bought from Bornprettystore
Admittedly, I'd been looking at this plate on-line for a while and when I saw it in the sale, I snapped it up.  I'm happy to say that the images were clean and crisp; sometimes you get plates that have defects in them; they have spots or nicks that end up with polish in them and get transferred to your nail, thus ruining your manicure. The only issue I had with this plate was that this image was just too narrow for my nails. I had to transfer the entire image and go back in and a re-stamp again. You can see how messy it looks on the index finger.

I'm a little disappointed because I actually really like the pattern on the top left. It's a shame that it didn't fit. Nevermind, I'll just have to be creative with my applications in future!

I'll be back tomorrow with gradient nails...

xx

17's Crackle top coat with Barry M, Models Own Smash-up and Nails Inc Crackle Collection

I'm a little behind with my posts but have changed polish regularly. I haven't been in the mood for posting over the last few days *slaps wrist*.

I was in Boots the other day (yes, I should have probably have shares in the company for the amount of time I spend in there) and I found a 3-for-2 offer. I got these two:

 17's Supreme Shine in Bared and Twighlight Teaser

...and this was the freeness:

17's Nail Xtras Crackle Top Coat

 Everyone has been jumping on the bad wagon of late with these crackle/shatter polishes.  I don't understand why it's taken so long for other colours to come out, but I guess patience is a virtue. Nails Inc have some nice ones coming out and I'm eagerly awaiting the Models Own colours being released soon!

 Barry M's Neon Pink which has an electric blue shimmer to it.

 Right hand!!!

 Shatter polish

Not bad. Funny though, if you put in on without a basecoat, it wears like a normal pearlised colour. Interesting.

I like it and the price wasn't bad either. I can't actually remember, but the bottles of 17 were about £3.50 each or thereabouts.

xx

Eyeko and holo strip mani? FAIL!

Oh dear. I have a bad manicure for you today friends. I'm actually half embarrassed to even show you. But then, this blog is not about perfection so I intend to document the good, the bad and the down right ugly. I have to be honest right? I don't always get it right.

I was in Hobbycraft the other day and I came across a few scrap book accessories that were on sale, such as outline stickers. They were only 79p so I picked up a couple of packets along with some adhesive ribbon.  The outline stickers I used were blue with holographic backing and were like a thicker version of striping tape.  I thought it might work with a manicure...but then I quickly realised why I used to hate working with tape.

 I used Eyeko's Pastel Polish which is a lovely baby blue with slightly darker blue sheen or shimmer to it, some white nail art polish and some Sally Hansen Protein base and topcoat.

 

Urgh. Here are the offending stickers. They are pretty in their own right though.

 Here's the polish with a little direct light. Can you see that subtle shimmer?

 This is two coats.

 I made some stripes with the white polish.

 Put some of the tape on next to the stripes. I didn't put any special glue or bonding element on the ends of the stickers because I didn't intend to have the mani on for long. It lasted an hour.

 Even when I used to use striping tape with glue or a bonding element, it still lifted at the edges and I'd end up peeling it all off. Those lifting edges would give me the heebie-jeebies for some reason.

If you squint at the pictures the manicure doesn't look toooo bad. Does it? Erm...I'm lying to myself aren't I?

On a side note, remember I broke my index nail after Christmas? Well, the strip that I used on it is still holding up!