Autumnal Colours - 2true Fast Dry Shade 12

Autumn is well and truly under way here. We've had strong gusts of wind and it's been raining all day! It gets dark really early as well which I hate! So I chose this shade to wear over the weekend! Wouldn't want to be all bright and perky now would we?!

This is two coats of 2true Fast Dry Colour Quick Shade 12. A greige creme which is actually more true to colour in the second picture, with a hint of brown undertones, my lighting was a bit off.

The formula on this polish wasn't as good as the last 2true polish I showed you here a couple of weeks ago. It becomes goopy very fast and doesn't apply as well. It's supposed to be a fast dry polish but that wasn't really the case.

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

Make A Spectacle With Your Nails

Hi everyone! Hope you guys had a lovely Christmas! I had a wonderful time with friends and family, a bunch of amazing presents and yummy food. Let's see what the new year will bring!

Today I have a darker colour with a bit of added sparkle to show you. It's actually an old mani lost in one of my folders. Miss Sporty 'New Black', a dark grey creme with a rainbow of micro shimmer which unfortunately cannot be captured on camera. Topped with China Glaze 'Make A Spectacle' from the Halloween 2012 Wicked Collection.

Make A Spectacle is an iridescent glitter with large hex pieces as well as smaller pieces swimming around in a shimmery base. I did a few layering experiments on a nail wheel and it looks awesome over over any polish. I was surprised I only needed one coat to achieve this much glitter load on the nail. It really transforms a plain colour and it's my favourite from the collection.

Pyjama Leopard

Since I've been in bed all day, in my pink and gray leopard onesie pyjamas (it's a Bank Holiday in the UK today), I decided that my most comfortable item of clothing deserved it's own mani! Lol!

It didn't turn out how I expected, in fact, it's one of the worst leopard manis I've done but this is pretty much all I could ask for after doing a mani in bed on a piece of cardboard!

I still like the colours! In theory, a pink and gray leopard sounded cute :)

All Essence Zebra

I thought Essence's Got A Secret would be a great base colour for a mani I've had in mind to do for quite some time - Zebra!!! A dove gray and black zebra is every bit as cool as black and white :) This mani was inspired by Sammy at The Nailasaurus. She did a really cool nude and black version a while ago.

I used Essence Vampire's Love TE - Hunt Me If You Can to stamp with and for the vertical lines on the left of the nails. So, this is an all Essence mani!

I really like how they turned out! You like? :)

Got A Secret?

I really like Essence. I think it's such a great brand. They always have a really good choice of polishes and make-up at very affordable prices! I like it even more so because we can't get it in the UK!!! So I can only get them when I go across the channel or through a swap!

This is Got A Secret from Essence's Colour & Go line.  It's a very soft and pretty dove grey creme. The formula is excellent and fully opaque in 2 coats!

Korres - Grey Brown #95

Today I wanted to show you a polish by Korres. This was given to me by a friend in Greece as a Christmas present.

Korres is a Greek brand focusing on homeopathic remedies and natural/ organic skincare and make-up products. Their polishes are "silicone, acetone, phthalate, formaldehyde, camphor, toluene and xylene free" and the bottle says it contains Myrrh extract, Oligoelements and Pro Vitamin B5. I can't really say that's made a difference to my nails after only 1 use but I suppose it's good to know?!

In terms of colour, I know what you're thinking. OPI You Don't Know Jaques right? I did compare them and in my swatches, Korres Grey-Brown is a touch darker!

Maybe due to the "lack of  chemicals", I didn't expect this polish to be very long lasting. And it wasn't! It started chipping after 3 days. The formula was relatively good, quite thin but opaque, 2 thin coats is all you need. However, as expected, drying time was slower than average.

I'm not sure how much these retail for but I think it's about €6.

The Dawn is Broken - Essence Vampire's Love TE

Can I just start by saying: Wow!! This is my first ever Essence nail polish and... Wow!! I'm speechless!! Are all Essence polishes this good? I know Essence isn't a big deal for most bloggers but it's not available at all in the UK and I had always heard amazing things about the formulas and the polishes overall, especially considering it's such a low cost brand. You always want what you can't have huhh?!

I recently went on holiday to Switzerland and had to grab as many Essence polishes as I could. I first saw the Vampire's Collection in one of Nihrida's posts and couldn't help but feel a little sad that I would never get my hands on it... and then by chance, after I had scoured many stores in Bern and Zurich, I walked into a tiny store in Interlaken and saw the entire collection just sitting there on the shelf! I'm sure the locals thought I was nuts!

Onto the pics, here is 2 coats of The Dawn Is Broken. A light gray with silver shimmer and what looks like black micro glitter to me . This is probably the least expected colour of the collection as the other deep red, dark blue and black are pretty standard in a "vampire" theme. Application was a dream, so much so that I didn't even do any clean up. It needs 2 coats for good measure but I was surprised at how pigmented it is with just 1 generous coat. The finish is quite gritty which is actually one of  the things I love about this polish.

I can't wait to try the other colours in this collection.

Miss Sporty - New Black & a Little Plaid Woolly Sock

I have another low cost/ drug store brand nail polish to show you. Miss Sporty - New Black. I try my best to avoid buying expensive polishes (which I'm not entirely successful at) and most of the high end brands I own were either on sale or were given to me by my mum, my husband, friends, etc.

I'm really happy with this polish, maybe because I had low expectations (it only cost £1.99). It's an amazing dark grey creme with the slightest rainbow of micro shimmer, you can see fuschia, blue, purple, yellow and green in there although it was extremely hard to capture it with my dodgy little camera. The formula is also very good. It applies really well and is opaque in two coats.

This polish is part of Miss Sporty's Lasting Colour collection which says it lasts up to 7 days chip free. I didn't put that to the test but it definitely lasted for 4 days chip free.

I also added a little plaid woolly sock pattern to the ring finger which I saw in this tutorial but boy was it hard to draw those diamond shapes and lines! This grey is pretty enough to be left on it's own! :)