Shimmer Polish Lorene Studed Up

I know I promised to post pictures of the 4th Shimmer Polish in Wednesday's picture (Lorene) yesterday but I was so busy. So here it is - Lorene, a deep and rich raspberry glitter. There are a few different colour glitters mixed in there, blue, gold, green, pink, etc.

I used two coats of La Femme Angel and one coat of Shimmer Lorene. The studs on the accent nail are the 4mm gold square studs from the Born Pretty Store. The bag costs $5.73 but you can use my discount code VA7J61 for 10% off.

You can purchase Shimmer Polish directly from Cindy's Etsy store. There are also lots of beautiful swatches and product information on their website and Facebook page.

*The products in this post were provided to me for review.

Pink & Blair

I have another Essence polish on my nails today! Sorry to all the girls who can easily purchase these at their local drugstores. To me they are special because if I run out, I can't get anymore :(

This is the Blair part of the Nail Art Twins set. I've also got Chuck which Nihrida kindly sent me a few months ago and will be trying that very soon!

I layered a coat of Blair over an unamed polish by La Femme which is of a pinkish/ purple tone. My cousin wanted to throw this bottle away but I couldn't bear seeing her do that so I had to give it a good home! Now it's in a happy place, on my shelf!

I then mattified the glitter just to see what it looked like. I always have this urge to mattify glitter and flakies!

And here is that pinkish/ purple La Femme on it's own! It's a very pretty colour and actually applied really well! It makes my hands look a bit red and lobster-like but oh well! What was my cousin thinking throwing this baby away?!

Starry Starry Blue Sky Gradient

Check out the nubbins! I've had to file my nails right down after removing the glue-on nails. After a little buffering, they were as good as new!

I decided on a blue and glitter gradient today as I wasn't really inspired to stamp, scotch tape or do whatever kind of nail art. Sometimes a gradient is just as pretty!

Polishes used: Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, Miss Sporty Blue Berry, China Glaze Blue Iguana, 17 Midnight Sapphire, Essence Blair, La Femme Purple Glitter.

Update & Conclusion on "A little experiment"

As some of you may know, I started my glue-on nails experiment on 12th January. It's now been 7 days and although the nail stickers have fallen off and I added a coat of Color Club Covered in Diamonds and a coat La Femme Purple Glitter to spruce them up a bit, they are still intact. 
No sign of budging, no lifting and the gap between the nail and the cuticle isn't that noticeable (other than on my pinky which is my fault as I didn't shape the nail properly in the first place).

So far they are living up to the reputation my friend has given them and I'm quite impressed with the durability even after a week! They are showing no signs of budging so I will be removing them in the next couple of days as I have so many new polishes which I want to try out!

My pros:
- Very cheap alternative to Salon nails if Acrylics are your thing
- Very durable for such cheap glue-ons. If they lasted a week on me, that is saying something as I don't use gloves for anything and am not careful with zips, buttons, etc
- Your nail art will look as good on your non-dominant hand if you prepare the nails before you put them on
- Good for people who have "bad" nails or who can't grow them at all but still like the look of long nails
- Literally chip-proof. Polish doesn't chip on plastic as it does on natural nails. They will start to fall off even before your polish starts to chip
- You can do other things whilst the nails are drying, without having to worry about smudging or denting

My cons:
-  I like to change my manis all the time so durability on these is more of a hindrance to me
-  Damage to the natural nail

Although I have more pros than cons, glue-on nails are not for me as I have quite strong natural nails which I can grow to my desired length. The only way I would wear them again would be if I didn't have a nail blog and stopped changing my manis 3 times a week (which isn't happening anytime soon). If like my friend, you are the type of person I mention in my "pros", then you would most certainly be very happy with these glue-ons.

A little experiment...

I'm not a false nail kind of person, I'm not into the acrylic look and to be honest I don't even know how I let my friend talk me into trying these out. Although they are much thinner than salon acrylics, they are still...plastic!

She uses these glue on nails which you can buy on Ebay in bulk, for an average of 3 to 4 weeks before they start to fall off (not a major concern for me as I change my mani way too often). They come in sets of 12 nails. I filed around them a little but could have done a better job with my pinky finger as the back of the nail didn't fit my cuticle properly.

I decided to polish over them before I glued them on. I used 2 coats of an nameless La Femme Polish. It's a dark mauve-purple polish packed with gold micro-shimmer.

If indeed these glue-ons have such staying power, I suppose they are good for people who like extensions and the acrylic look but don't want to pay £30 for a full salon set. A pack of 300 sets of these on Ebay cost me £3.80.

I'll let you know how I get on with these, I'll post about my progress and verdict soon. In the meantime, I'll be posting manis and swatches I've done previously.

I've created a Green Gooey Crackling Monster (with a little sparkle)...

...yes I did !!! What was I thinking?! When I finished this mani, I couldn't help but laugh.
I used a really nice shimmery neon green by La Femme as a base colour and was planning to do a tape mani. However, this polish bubbled so much (I'm still not quite sure why) that I decided to do a glitter and crackle sandwich instead.

The end result is something out of Men in Black that went splat! Lol! I won't even tell you how many layers there are in this sandwich *hangs head*!
I'm happy I played around with crackle polish though, which I don't do very often at all.

Here is 3 coats of La Femme neon green (bottle is nameless):

And then...