Weekend Roundup: 28th July 2012

Once a week, I'd like to share my favourite links from the nail world and the wider internet with you! Let me know what you think of these posts and the things I've linked to, all ideas gratefully received.

Nails

• Chalkboard Nails created a great fishtail chevron manicure that also swatched four of the China Glaze On Safari polishes for us!
• The Nailasaurus got out her glequins and made a Mernails design.
• Kayla Shevonne did a gorgeous 'POW' pop art manicure inspired by this tutorial.
• Pshiiit swatched Zoya - Valerie and I must have it!
• Colores de Carol swatched eleven holo polishes, all of which were wallet tempters. Especially a-England - Tristram, which I am currently lusting after.

My Posts

• NOTD, 23/07/12
• Swatch post of Rainbow Honey - The Worst Possible Thing

Other Stuff

• A Deadpool cosplayer at AM2 2012 (couple of bare chests and some comedy thrusting so maybe NSFW)
• The Internet Flowchart on ilovecharts 
• The 16th Avenue Tiled Steps Project, San Francisco
• Customizable steampunk rings on Etsy

Have a great weekend!

Rainbow Honey - The Worst Possible Thing

The promised swatch post! Rainbow Honey - The Worst Possible Thing is "A sheer layering polish, jewel encrusted just as Rarity would endorse, shimmering with opalescent flakes in purple and blue and a multitude of holographic and iridescent glitters" (official description). I think that's spot on! I can see giant flakes, large hex glitters in purple, medium hex glitters in purple, light blue and dark blue, and the promised holo/iridescent small glitters (all sizes relative to others, of course).

This could be layered over so many colours - black, purples, blues, light pinks and nudes, white...it's stunning. Here it is on a nail wheel:

Left: one coat of TWPT alone
Middle: one coat of TWPT over Avon - Licquorice (creme black)
Right: one coat of TWPT over Maxfactor Forever Strong Pro - Nude Rose (rose pink), which was too dark and muffled the smallest glitters

All photos below are layered over Avon - Licquorice because that was the swatch it showed up on the best. In future I'll try it over some of the other colours I mentioned. I'll probably share the pictures, if you ask nicely.

Some more pictures (some are duplicates of this post, can't go assuming you've all read both!):

Firstly, look at that enormous flakie! <3

So many colours!

I ordered this in the 7ml mini size, so it's a cute little bottle. The brush is short and not as flexible as I'm used to but it didn't affect application.

An out-of-focus picture that shows the enormous amount of rainbow-hued sparkle you get in bright sunshine (it was fleeting, sadly)

Application is good, I applied one good thick coat of this glitterbomb. Minimal shuffling of larger glitters was required because I am a compulsive rearranger ;)

I'm in love with this polish, I think I might end up ordering a full-sized bottle! All their polishes are 'big-3 free' and come in 7ml or 15ml bottles. What do you think? Do you own any Rainbow Honey polishes?

NOTD: Rainbow Honey - The Worst Possible Thing!

I was going wait until I'd done a proper swatch post for this polish before I showed you these pictures, but I can't resist sharing. I got three minis through from Rainbow Honey last week and only got chance to repaint my nails yesterday.

Today's nails are Rainbow Honey - The Worst Possible Thing over Avon - Licquorice. Pictures below!

In the shade it's predominantly pink, purple and blue. An absolutely gorgeous glitterbomb.

This picture is out of focus but look at that giant flake of glitter!

Here it is in the morning sunlight, just before I went to work today - you have to catch it when you can at the moment. Once you get it in the sun you realise that almost every bit of glitter, big or small, has a holo effect to it, and your nails are covered in rainbow sparkles!

Finally, a picture in the brightest sunshine I could find. Isn't it just amazing? Next time I'm going to layer it over a navy or purple to see if/how that changes the colours. A proper swatch post and review for this will be up on Wednesday :)

Returning to work made easier

I'll be honest - I don't really like my job, but I'm grateful to have one when so many lovely people don't and I try to remember that on the bad days! It helps if you come back from a week off to a haul like this too:

L-R: W7 - Glittery Red, Glittery Gold, Glittery Silver, Blue Diamonds, Green Dazzle, Fluorescent Yellow/Green/Pink/Orange, Cosmic Latte, Glittery Black, with OPI - Plugged In Plum and DS Extravagance. Huzzah, new polishes! Sorry about the photo quality, my point-and-shoot is sometimes a bit subpar. I think a better camera is going on the birthday wishlist.

I picked up these OPI minis in the Lena White sale, partly because they were also offering free postage and I'm a sucker for that. I've wanted to try one of their DS colours for a while now and I'm pretty excited about swatching Extravagance!

Glitter polishes are a bit of a weakness of mine and these minis came in a set. The poor things don't have official names! There's a pink-red sheer with silver glitter (seen over a red creme in yesterday's NOTD post), a gold sheer with silver glitter, a clear with silver glitter and a dark grey sheer with silver micro glitter. That last one is similar to my OPI - Metallic 4 Life, but the OPI polish has different glitter sizes (and more of it).

I wanted to try fluorescent/neon-like polishes as a bit of an experiment but didn't want to spend a lot of money on colours I may not wear, so I stuck with W7 as they were a very reasonable £1.66 each. I'm hoping to swatch these soon and will probably layer them over a coat of white to make them pop.

Glitters! Not much explanation needed here, I loved the colours. Both are in a clear base so I'll probably layer them over something else. The last polish, Cosmic Latte, is another gap-filler for my stash if it makes the cut - I like it in the bottle but I'm not sure how well it'll suit my skintone. All W7 polishes were bought from Katys Cosmetics.

Have you treated yourself this month? Tell me your favourite purchases!

Charlotte

Spotted: a-england sale on 18th-22nd July!

Drop what you're doing and head over to the a-england site. Their Mythical collection polishes are on sale for £5 each, and the best part? Shipping is free to all countries. Tristram will finally be mine!

(Sale spotted on Caitt's Nails via Twitter!)

Spotted: Maybelline on offer, 2 for £4

Maybelline nail polish, two for £4 at ASDA. Includes the Forever Strong Pro and Express Finish 40 Seconds ranges, ends 26th July. I picked these two:

Cosmic Flash - the glitters in this shift from green to blue to purple depending on the light. This really brightened my day, I keep tilting it this way and that to look at the colours.

Nude Rose - a creme finish light rose pink that should fill a gap in my collection.

They had a gorgeous turquoise shimmer, but I have two of those already. Most of the shades are in the pink - purple part of the spectrum but there were a few brighter colours if that's your thing. Sorry I didn't take a picture of them all, I'm feeling a bit exhausted and didn't think to snap them!

NOTD - Red and more red

After I swatched Rimmel - Ready, Aim, Paint! yesterday, I wanted to make the most of having a red creme on and added my new W7 red glitter over the top.

I like that the glitter flashes pink-red or silver depending on how deep it is within the polish, but this didn't have quite the effect I was hoping for. It might be better in the middle of a jelly sandwich.

It's also a tricky glitter to apply - you need to sort of splodge it onto the nail and then flatten the polish out. I was rushing to get pictures before the light got too bad so these are taken without topcoat, and now I've added some Seche Vite the finish is a lot nicer. Lesson of the day: don't take pictures without topcoat!

Rimmel - 315 Ready, Aim, Paint!

Sneaking off to the makeup aisle last time I was in ASDA, I spotted this polish and realised I didn't have a true red creme, non-shimmer polish - I know, it's a shocking absence of a fundamental shade - so I grabbed a bottle of Rimmel 60 Seconds - Ready, Aim, Paint! to fill the gap.

This is a lovely red creme which actually looks nice against my skintone. Coverage is good and it could be a one-coater but it's hard to work with. You have to be quick at doing each nail because it goes tacky and starts to drag in about 6 seconds, a side effect of its fast-dry formula. The brush is wide and easy to use, which helps a bit.

The application issues are probably my poor technique! For £2.48 I can put up with slightly trickier application but I know this would bug some people. Each coat dried within the 60 seconds advertised. All pictures are 2 coats, with Orly Bonder as a basecoat and no topcoat (I was adding glitter afterwards). Cleanup was a bit of a nightmare (pink cuticles, what joy) and I'm pretty sure this is a stainer, so basecoat those nails!

What do you think? Are you prepared to overlook trickier polishes if they cost less?

Charlotte

OPI - I Have A Herring Problem

Swatch post! Later than expected but as promised, here are my pictures of OPI - I Have a Herring Problem, from the 2012 Holland collection. It turns out I forgot to clean the edges up before I took these but we can ignore those if we try, right?

I Have a Herring Problem is “a shimmery green-blue” but I felt that it was more of a dusty blue with hints of grey and green. The shimmer flashes gold, green or even pink depending on the light.

All pictures are with three coats. It applied well and you could probably get away with two coats in a hurry, or if you’re better at getting good coverage than I am!

You can see the pink in the shimmer above, a little.

It lasted well with only a bit of tip wear by the third day. Overall I was really pleased with this colour, it’s a lovely muted shade that I didn’t get bored of and only took off when it had got visibly chipped.

Charlotte

Deborah Lippmann - Stairway To Heaven

Alright, first post! Today my latest polish order arrived and I'm not gonna lie, I actually made a little 'squee!' sound when I unwrapped them. The new additions are Nails Inc - Electric Lane (which I'll show you next time) and Deborah Lippmann - Stairway To Heaven, seen below:

This is packed with tiny square glitters that flash green/blue/purple and bigger hexagonal ones that flash yellow/orange/pink. It has a sheer cream base but there's very little colour when you apply it over plain nails. I'm wearing two coats here but I did have to rearrange the glitters a bit on each nail because they had a tendency to huddle together like cold penguins. Not that I mind the extra effort for a polish this pretty!

All pictures are with one coat. On future applications I think I'll try another coat or two and see how well the glitter stacks. I'm still trying to get into good cuticle care habits because I'm relatively new at this so they're kind of atrocious. Sorry, people with nice cuticles who are wincing in horror.

I couldn't get a true sunshine shot because frankly the weather here in Leeds is dismal. Once the sun returns I'll hunt for a good spot to take these pictures in! I'm actually going south for the weekend to Cambridge so Electric Lane is coming with me in case it's sunnier there (normally we drive from rain into sunshine as we progress south so the odds are in our favour). Until then!

Charlotte

 Edit: the best sun I could get that weekend, which wasn't great!

Topcoat and basecoat

When I decided to start doing this manicure thing regularly, I figured a proper basecoat and topcoat would be a good investment. After a lot of reading around on various blogs, I went for Orly Bonder as a basecoat and Seche Vite as a topcoat. I've been using them for a few weeks so here are my thoughts.

Orly Bonder is marketed as a rubberized basecoat that helps grip lacquer to its surface, making your manicure last longer. It goes on easily and it isn’t smooth to touch - it really does feel slightly rubbery. I've been using it for a few weeks now and I haven't had chips like I normally do, just a little tip wear. It's also prevented any staining.

Seche Vite has quite a strong smell but it applies well, dries quickly and has a good shine to it, so it’s already miles ahead of the non-branded topcoat I was using before! A daily coat of this has kept manicures going a little longer, but I have noticed pullback at the tips with non-creme polishes. This might just be my application but it's happened when I've wrapped colour over tips too. Overall, I'm open to trying other brands but I have no major problems with Seche.

In other news, my cuticles are marginally better but still a massive work in progress - it’s going to be a lot of intensive care until I get them sorted!

Saying Hello

My name is Charlotte, I am 25 and I have become a nail polish addict. A girl has to have a vice, right? It's practically compulsory. It's also great way to let my personality show even though I'm a bit of an introvert, plus I have naturally strong nails that don't break often and grow well (I know, I'm very lucky) so it would be a crime not to paint them, and no-one likes to commit crimes, do they?

I'd been researching season trends for nail colours for the last couple of years and had picked up a few gems (like Chanel's Paradoxal or OPI's Just A Little Rösti At This) but I wasn't buying lots of polish until May 2012. I joined Tumblr, started browsing the #nailart tag one day and had to look up a load of brands I'd never heard of. It was only a matter of time, after that. Suddenly, I was taking a new one home every time I went shopping!

A few of the blogs I could probably attach some blame to and that you should certainly feast your eyes on:
Mr.Candiipants
Chalkboard Nails
Polish You Pretty
Chibi Nails
All Lacquered Up
The PolishAholic
Lacquerized
Polish Police
Polish or Perish

I'm going to start reviewing polishes I have that you could still obtain and all the new ones I acquire (this is the bit I'm super excited about). I might also link to some reviews by other bloggers if there's a shade I want but can't get!

Of course, I'll keep showing you what I've got on my nails because that's half the fun of it. Once a week I want to post my favourite nail art find because the things people can do with polish never cease to amaze me.

So. With the introductions out of the way, I guess I'd best get to work on choosing a polish to show you...