Dazzle Dry Quick Dry Nail System Review, New Favourite Top Coat and Subtle Summer Flowers

A few weeks ago, a company called Dazzle Dry contacted me to review some of their polishes. They own The Dazzle Dry Quick Dry Nail System which they say "revolutionizes nail care by slicing the time it takes for a normal manicure to dry by more than half". They are also 5 free  and cruelty free which means none of their products are tested on animals and suitable for Vegans.

Today I will show you a mani I did with one of the colours they sent me as well as the Dazzle Dry 3 Piece Nail System which consists of a Nail prep product, a base coat and a top coat.

I have been wearing this mani for 7 days today because I wanted to test the durability of both the polish and the top coat. So here is the mani and my views on the product:

Dazzle Dry - Petit Four (2 coats), stamped with BM221. Dotted gold glitter is Orly Glitz and Glamour.

What I liked:
- Polish, base coat and top coat are all extremely fast drying, just as they claim. Each coat was dry to the touch within literally a minute and rock hard in less than 5 minutes.

- Top coat has an amazingly thin consistency. This is a positive for me as one of the reasons I don't like SV is because of it's thickness. I think I found my new favourite top coat.So far, I adore it and would gladly spend my money on it.

- Top and base coat work with other polish brands and dry just as fast so you're not limited to using them only with Dazzle Dry polishes.

- The fact they are 5 free and cruelty free.

What I didn't like:
- (this only relates to the polish, NOT the top or base coat) - This particular colour was extremely streaky and chalky to apply. No matter what technique I used to apply it, the streaks were evident. Hopefully it's only this particular colour and the other bottles they sent me will be different. The following picture is 2 coats of Petit Four without a top coat. Look how uneven and streaky it is! For some reason it also dries semi matte:

Durability Test:
Judging from this "6 day old" picture, I think it's done pretty well. There is a little tip wear which I get even when I wrap my tips but no major chips other than what you can see on my thumb and pinky.
I don't think this particular polish alone would have such durability. Then again, most polishes wouldn't.

You can purchase Dazzle Dry directly from their US and UK websites. You can also see various swatches and manis on their Facebook page.

*The product(s) featured  in this post was sent to me for review.

Jade +Teal = Mix + Match

Can you guess which blogger today's mani is inspired by? Of course you can! She has the most perfect nails and her designs are always fantastic and inspiring - it's Amy Grace from The Polished Perfectionist.

I didn't have all the polishes or the stamping plate that Amy Grace used so I chose the following products instead. By the way, how amazing is CG Atlantis? Can't believe this is the first time I'm wearing it!

pinky and thumb: Rimmel London Misty Jade
ring: Nails Inc Electric Teal, BM221, Konad Special Nail Polish in White
middle: one coat of Nails Inc Electric Teal, two coats of China Glaze Atlantis
index: OPI Alpine Snow, Rimmel London Misty Jade, dotting tool

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Island Girl - Pink & Micro Holo Glitter

I only found out about Island Girl polishes around five months ago via the girls on Instagram. As far as I'm aware, these polishes are only available in Hawaii and they are also sold in ABC stores in Las Vegas. The brand has such cool and vivid colours and they are quite cheap as well (under $3), the bottles are shaped exactly like the China Glaze ones and the brushes are identical too.

Here I'm wearing two coats of Island Girl - Island Girl (self titled polish, lol!), a fuchsia creme packed with micro holographic glitter. It's still a bit gritty after the top coat which doesn't bother me at all but for those of you who like your nails smooth, a thicker top coat will do the trick! The accent finger is Rimmel London Misty Jade stamped with BM221. I think pink goes with green so much!

Here are the colours I've collected so far:

Going Bananas Leopard

Seems like forever since I last posted. I've been on a much needed holiday and my nails have grown quite a bit since the last time I posted. I'm going to try and keep them like this for a while, either until I scratch myself or they start getting in the way! Lol!

A very simple mani today. Leopard accent stamped with BM221and some loose glitter placement on the other nails.
The base colour is Going Bananas by H&M, which has been sitting in my untrieds stash for over a year. It's a soft, light, almost pastel yellow with green  and pink shimmer which was impossible to capture on camera. It reminds me of Chanel Mimosa!

H&M polishes are good, I don't own many but have never come across a really bad formula. The one thing I hate is the shape of the lid! The plastic square bit isn't detachable like Butter London, which makes for really awkward application.

Antique Blue & White China

The ladies from Born Pretty were so kind to send me a few more of their products to try out so today I have a stamping polish review for you guys.

I tried to recreate a blue porcelain pattern. I've seen something similar to this on Pinterest in the past and Fingers also did an awesome one which she has on her header. This is also my mum's favourite pattern. Most of her plates and tea cups are blue and white porcelain and just last week when we went to Ikea, she even bought bed covers with this theme. It's also a very popular pattern in Portugal and people often line the outer walls of their house with blue and white tiles.

The base colour is OPI Alpine Snow, stamped with Born Pretty Blue Stamping Polish and BM221. Also added blue striping tape to the tips.

I was quite surprised at how small the Born Pretty Stamping polish was (see pic below, it's tiny in my hand). I'm not sure why but I was expecting it to be at least 10ml.
Although in the bottle it's a dark blue, it stamps much lighter as you can see. It's perfectly thick and goopy for stamping which I thought was great and although the consistency is not quite like the Konad stamping polishes, I didn't really have any problems with transference. I messed up my pinky a little but that's because I didn't wipe my stamper properly after doing my ring finger.

If you want to purchase Born Pretty Stamping Polishes or any other nail art supplies, you can have 7% off by using my discount code -  VA7J61.

Bella's Minty Leopard

Hi everyone! I've been away for a few days and feel like I've missed so much. I've had a quick glance at my blog roll and you girls have posted up so many great things, I'll need to catch up on everything this week.

Since I haven't even had time to do my nails since I got back, here is a leopard mani I did a few days before I went on holiday.

I used OPI Alpine Snow as a base, stamped with BM221 and used scotch tape to add Essence Bella to half the nail. I really like how it turned out but I must say that waiting for all the layers to dry before applying the tape was a pain!

Softly Pink

It's been a while since I've posted a pink Wednesday mani, or anything pink for that matter. So here is something I put together last week before I started my glue-on nails experiment (which I will update you on soon).

For this mani I used Leighton Denny Babydoll which is currently my favourite"baby pink" and 17 Pink Grapefruit for the gradient. Stamp is BM221 and Konad White Polish.

Ice Blue Snow Leopard

I decided to do a different take on leopard print for this one. Usually, if I'm doing leopard, I cover the whole nail but I quite like the electric blue brightness of this polish so I only put the leopard print on half the nail. I used scotch tape to cover off the top half diagonally.

Snow leopards are obviously not blue (!) but these "cold" colours remind me of them. They are such beautiful creatures!

"The snow leopard (Uncia uncia or Panthera uncia) is a moderately large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia.The total wild population of the snow leopard was estimated at only 4,080 to 6,590 individuals by McCarthy, et al., 2003. Many of these estimates are rough and outdated. There are also 600-700 snow leopards in zoos around the world." - Wikipedia

source: smashinglists