Swatch: Sally Hansen's Insta-dry in Lovely Lilac

So, you may have noticed that I'm back! It's been a while I know but I've had a pretty hectic couple of months with Christmas and then I stated a new job...

So, I've bought a lot of new polish lately! I have also managed to get a lot of it pretty cheap, so I've decided that I'm going to do some posts with polish swatches to share some of the gems I've picked up...

So, here's the first one for you - today I'm swatching

Sally Hansen's Lovely Lilac'...

You can pick it up from Amazon here...

It's a lovely light lilac colour which I think is great for everyday wear...I only needed one coat of it so it's was nice and quick to apply. The consistency of the polish was good - not too thick - it actually probably looked a bit thicker than it was so I ended up with too much on my brush at first.

I finished the polish off with a coat of Seche Vite (of course!) What do you think?

Purple and Blue Matte Gradient - The Lazy 15 Challenge #2

Here is my post for day 2 of the Lazy 15 challenge, which is a gradient manicure.

I love the colour combination I've used and I think it goes together really well, but I'm not well enough practised at gradients as yet so you can see where there are a few bits of sponge stuck to the nail. I didn't get the best coverage either unfortunately. I finished it off with my Rimmel matte top coat...

I used Sally Hanson 'Model Behaviour' for the blue and Revlon 'Violet' for the purple gradient. So, just a short post today as I need to get my nails done for Wednesdays challenge as I'm out tomorrow night. I'm getting more organised but I'd definitely struggle with a 31 day challenge right now! :)

The Lazy 15: Tape Mani

Here is my first manicure for the Lazy 15, a great challenge set up by some of my fellow polishers across the pond! As it's my first challenge, I felt that this was perfect as it's not as intense as doing a mani every single day!

The first challenge is a tape mani. I've done several of these so I wanted to do something I've not done before. I have also been dying to use my purple glitter polish from Models Own, so this seemed to be an opportune time.

The colours used (from base to tip) are: Revlon 'Violet', Models Own 'Purple Haze' and MUA 'Shade 22'. The middle section was quite difficult to do as I had to tape off the top section which I'd done first, therefore I had to wait AGES for it to dry and even then I messed it up and had to start again. I ended up using my trust Seche Vite to speed things up... Also, as the glitter needed more than one layer to look good, and the fact that if I let it dry to apply other coats the tape removal would mess it up, I had to put it on REALLY thick. I was getting a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to go to bed until 3 am and I would be sat waving my hands in the air... Luckily it didn't take as long as I thought.

Overall I'm really pleased with the results, the glitter is still a bit sparse but it looks good and I love the colour combination. I can't wait to see what my fellow challengers have done!! You can see everyone else who has joined below!

Lilac with White Stamped Stripes

Today I’ve done some fairly simple stamping which looks quite effective!

The polish I’ve used is Nails Inc ‘Primrose Hill’ which is kind of a greyish lilac colour – very beautiful and shimmery! I’ve got the limited edition jewelled bottle thanks to the lovely girls at work. It was very appropriate birthday present, especially considering that Primrose Hill is one of my most favourite places in London!

Pretty Bottle!

The stamping is done with  Konad ‘White’ and plate BM-316 and it’s finished off with a couple of coats of Seche Vite. I think I needed another coat of the polish, but you can only tell in the pictures – it wasn’t at all apparent when you just looked at them. I actually got a lot of complements for these nails – I think because they are quite striking! 

MUA Nail Constellation Review

I was really excited to pick up a bottle of this as the colours they have are so lovely! I’m surprised that no other cosmetic companies have tried their own version of the famed ‘Fish Egg’ manicure.

Price wise it’s very reasonable at only £3 per bottle (particularly when you compare that with Ciate’s Caviar manicure at a whooping £18 per bottle). You don’t get the polish included as you do with Ciate but MUA do a range of small polishes at £1 per bottle so the total price is only £4. I’d imagine that each bottle will do quite a few sets. The base colour I used is MUA Plum Noir.

Nail Constellation comes in 5 different colours and I picked up ‘Leo’ but they are all very pretty – it was a difficult decision! Application was easy and you can see the MUA YouTube ‘how to’ video here… The video states that you can finish the nail with a top coat, however I tried initally with Sally Hansen ‘Hard as Wraps’ but it really ruined the colour and made it look a bit dull. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has tried this with a different top coat and what success they had?

I’ve got some ‘fish-egg’ beads from ebay from Goldleaf craft supplies which were good quality and a similar price when you include postage. You get about twice the amount of beads as well. The one thing that I have preferred about MUA’s version is that the beads are much smaller – maybe even half the size, which makes the manicure look a lot ‘tidier’ in my opinion.

How does it wear? As I couldn't use top coat I found that the beads started coming loose pretty quickly. I only wore this for about half a day in the end and I’d lost quite a few. Again, if you can find a topcoat that will wear well with this product then you may have better luck!

Overall I’m happy with the result and I think it looks great, however I’d definitely recommend wearing it for a special occasion rather than expecting to get several days of wear out of it.

Matte Purple and Pink Gem Nails

Good morning! Today I'm wearing a purple matte manicure, embedded with pink square jewels.

I love this colour and it’s already the second time it’s appeared on my blog – it’s Revlon ‘Violet’, topped with Rimmel Pro Matte Finish top coat. I'm really loving matte nails at the moment!

I’m really not 100% where I got the stones from. I think they were a free gift when I bought some nail foils but other than the fact that they were a freebee, I really am not sure! I think they are really pretty, the only problem is that they are all slightly different sizes, which you can tell when you look closely. I put a little too much top coat on the ring finger as well, so it looks a bit excessive where they have sunk in…

x

Pretty Purple Paisley Nail Art: Stamping

I recently got the latest latest Bundle Monster stamping plates and I have to say that after drooling over them online for some time this was top of my list to try out! The plate used was BM-315…

The polish used is Revlon ‘Violet’ (670) with the Konad White Special Nail Polish. I’m a bit disappointed with the fact that it’s a bit smudged. I think I need to be more careful when applying top coat. The top coat I used here was Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps. I think I perhaps didn’t use enough here so it pulled a bit on the stamping…

Pretty cute though! What do you think?