Dazzle Dry - Nail Stories "Blue Fantasy" Collaboration Shade and Mystery Winter 2013 Collection

Hi everyone! Today's post is really special to me as I've had to keep it a secret since early summer. But it's finally being launched today and time to share with you that I've been chosen as one of the bloggers for Dazzle Dry's Winter 2013 Collaboration project. I also have swatches of the other polishes in the collection and which blogger created which shade.

About the polish:
When I was first approached by Dazzle Dry, I was really flattered to be chosen as one of the 5 bloggers to create a shade. It didn't take me long to decide on an electric blue as it's obviously one of my favourite colours.
However, I wanted to add a little extra something to it and it wasn't until my husband showed me some galaxy pictures which he obsesses over in his free time that I saw some amazing colour combos and it struck me! I wanted a vivid blue with small particles of pink shimmer swirling across the entire nail.

Without further ado, here are the beautiful shades the other ladies created:

Artic Sunset by Anutka from wackylaki. A striking white with silver/gold shifting shimmer.

Tiger Lily - a hot pink packed with iridescent shimmer that shifts beautifully. By Jen from The Nail Polish Project.

Moxie - a deep purple based multichrome. It shifts from copper to fuchsia to gold depending on the lighting. By Robin Moses

Feisty - a deep burgundy with pink and silver shimmer. By Rina from Simply Rins.

Dragonfly - a dark forest green shimmer/ foil polish. The duochrome in this one is gorgeous as well, it shifts from teal to gold.

The majority of these polish dry slightly matte because of Dazzle's Dry's super quick dry and Vegan formulas but the colours really come alive with a topcoat!

Availability:
The Dazzle Dry Winter 2013 Collection will be available to purchase from their website www.dazzledry.com or www.dazzledry.co.uk for UK buyers.

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

Pretty in Plum (Nicole by OPI)

This is what I've been wearing on my nails for the past few days.
From bottle shots, this red toned purple shimmer seemed to be the one I would like the least from the Selena Gomez collection. However, I really like the way it's so vivid in person which adds a bit of warmth to this autumnal weather.

Nicole by OPI polishes are available at Superdrug stores nationwide and retail for £7.99.

For more information, visit nicolebyopi.com, follow on twitter @NicoleByOPI and become a Facebook fan.

 

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

 

Autumnal Colours - Nubar Hieroglyphys Purple

Well, it's safe to say that Autumn is well and truly under way here in the UK. It's been raining on and off all this week and apparently we are having the first storm of Autumn today. I've had to bring out the wellies, the umbrella and the rain coats already!

Needless to say, I was in no mood for bright or pastel colours on my nails this week so I dug out this perfect transitional colour which isn't extremely dark but is dark enough to suit this weather.

This is 2 coats of Nubar Hieroglyphys Purple, a bright berry purple colour. It looks slightly brighter in the second picture as I was having trouble with my lighting! These kind of purples are quite elegant in my opinion, I'm loving this polish. What do you think of it?

Shimmer Polish - Karen

It's been a while since I've worn a Shimmer Polish. I still have a few left to try out and some of the darker glitters I have coming up will be perfect for Fall.

Today I'm wearing "Karen". A purple and pink glitter bomb with some additional scattered orange, blue and silver glitter. I layered one coat of Karen over La Femme Angel which is a vivid pink with purple undertones and compliments the colours in the Shimmer Polish nicely.

Shimmer Polish are very dense glitters and can be worn on their own if you apply 2/3 coats.

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.

*Some of the products featured  in this post were sent to me for review.

  

Orly Rococo A Go-Go - Holiday Mani

Good evening everyone! How was your weekend? I'm still on holiday in Lille (if this post goes live as scheduled) and I wanted to show you the polish I chose for the trip.

This is 2 coats of Orly Rococo A Go-Go from the Mineral Fx Collection. It's an intensely pigmented dark purple with multi chrome particles that flash gold, orange and pink.I wish it was easier to photograph beauties like this! It looks as good in the shade as it does in direct sunlight.

I received this beauty a while ago in a swap with an Instagram friend, Marcie (@madebymarcie). I can't believe it's taken me this long to try it out!

Look at all that shifting goodness in the bottle...

Thank you for reading and commenting!

BK Sweet Candy Fast Dry Nail Polish #10- Born Pretty Store Review

Hope everyone is having a great week so far! We're going off on a mini break to Lille tomorrow, I'm super excited because I've heard really good things about the place. Anyone else been there? Are there any good places to buy polish? Haha!

Today I have a beautiful light and wearable polish to show you. It's from the Born Pretty Store and its #10 from the BK Sweet Candy Fast Dry collection. A gorgeous lilac which applies smoothly in two coats. It photographs like a true pastel lilac but in person it's slightly darker and you can definitely see some hints of pink in there.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I really like the brushes in these dainty bottles. They are flat and just wide enough for my liking.

I have previously shown you a gorgeous blue from this collection here.  

What do you guys think of this colour? Isn't it a perfect shade to take a break from all those summer neons?

Don't forget you can use my discount code (VA7J61) to get 10% off anything from the Born Pretty website.

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

Clinique - A Different Nail Enamel for Sensitive Skins - Swatches & Review

Until very recently I wasn't aware that Clinique were bringing out a range of nail polishes! They did have nail polish in the past but I don't remember it ever being anything to shout home about.
Indeed the fragrance free brand has launched a new line of twelve core colours and nine limited edition Summer 2013 shades (see UK website for more details).

This nail enamel claims to be "different" as per the name and why is that you ask? Well, according to Clinique it was specifically formulated to minimise skin and eye sensitivity. They are also 5-free, but I thought established 5-free polishes were already kinder to skin? Check out Lipglossiping blog for more information on the formula and what the Clinique PR team had to say about it.

Today I'll be showing you 6 different shades. A mixture of some core line shades as well as some limited edition ones. You'll notice I have also filed down my nails quite a bit, it's much easier to swatch with shorter nails. All swatches are two coats although I would recommend three coats for the jellies.

Happy is my favourite from the bunch. A hot coral creme with pinkish-red undertones which is quite hard to capture on camera.

70o and Sunny (LE) is a bright sunflower yellow creme. Most yellows are streaky and this one is no exception. However, the formula was quite good to work with and therefore quite easy to minimise streakiness.

Black Honey is deep blackened cherry red jelly which is perfect for fall. The fact it's a jelly means that it doesn't apply so dark on the nail that it looks completely black as some of these polishes often do.

Hot Date (LE). An interesting purple jelly. With only two coats, you can see the magenta undertones in there that for some reason my camera picked up. It's slightly darker and more true to bottle colour in person.

Party Red is a classic fire engine red creme. As with the other cremes in this collection, opacity was great.

Juiced Up (LE) is an orangey coral jelly. Not as bright as Happy but still a must have for summer if you don't feel like wearing an in-your-face neon.

The bottle shape isn't my favourite (they remind me of Nails Inc bottles only thinner), but the embossed chrome metal caps are quite sleek and do keep with the Clinique image. The whole bottle is very clean (no writing whatsoever) with only a small sticker at the bottom showing the polish name. For a list of ingredients, you must refer to to outer paper packaging the bottles come in.

Although I was impressed with the formula on these, including the jellies; each 9ml bottle comes with a price tag of £12 which I know is a lot more than what a lot of people would pay for polish, myself included. People with sensitive skin prone to allergies and irritation should give this polish a go and see how it compares to their regular polish.

These are now available online at www.clinique.co.uk and at Clinique counters from 31st May 2013.

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

Holo Day: Speciallita HITS Dionisio

Today I have swatches of the lovely Dionisio from the Speciallita Hits No Olimpo collection. It's a gorgeous grape purple linear holo. Although I don't find the holo effect of these No Olimpo polishes as evident and strong as the newer Jade Holographics, the holo effect is still very good considering both these pictures are indoors and not in direct sunlight!
The formula is really good as well although since this collection was launched, various companies have ensured that their holo formulas have become better and better. Too bad these polishes have every chemical known in the book and aren't 3-free.

 These Speciallita Hits polishes are available through Llarowe for $8 I believe but I got this one in a swap.

Gold Quilted Amethyst With Jacava Marrakesh Nights

Today I have a British polish brand to show you - Jacava. I like that new brands enter the nail polish market every now and again. They always have something new to offer and it keeps the big boys on their toes.

What I really liked about this polish was the opacity (opaque in one coat) and the bottle shape (oval with a long gold cap). It looks very luxurious but not great if you store your polishes in a helmer.

The formula, although amazingly opaque, was quite thick but nothing a little thinner couldn't solve. The brush is a little too thin for my liking (I'm a fan of the OPI type brushes) but apparently the brush just touches the base of the bottle so you can reach the very last drop. That's actually great as I hate throwing away bottles that still have enough polish for about 2 manis in there.
Jacava is designed in London and made in the UK, its free of Formaldehyde, DBP, Camphor and Toluene.

I choose Marrakesh Nights which on the Jacava website is described as "The most sumptuous amethyst satin nail polish, laced with the finest crushed gold and diamond coloured powders." That just about the describes the colour accurately. The "coloured powders" don't actually show on camera but it still makes for a pretty autumn/winter colour.

I think this colour goes really well with gold so I stamped the accent nail with a criss-cross pattern (Cheeky CH11) and added some lose gold glitter. I really like this pattern, it looks quilted, so will probably try it as a whole mani although it would take me forever to place the glitters :(

Here is a swatch of Marrakesh Nights on it's own:

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

*The product(s) in this post was provided for review purposes

Two Tone Purple Chevrons

I really fell in love with this two-tone chevron design when I saw one of my favourite Instagramers, Rachell, doing it in blue and pink! When I'm not doing nail art on all 10 nails, I'm a one-colour-with-ring-finger-accent kind of person, so it's novelty to wear two accent nails and alternative colours on all other nails! I love it.

I used scotch tape for the not so neat chevrons. I had a little trouble with the scotch tape this time, it kept pulling off my base polish so in the end I just gave up and my chevrons ended up being different sizes. Ugghh!! A not so good nail day overall!

The polishes I used to create this look were Kiko 332 and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark, one of my favourite winter polishes. The glitter base on the accent nails is Accessorize Crystal Shimmer.  

OPI - Casino Royale (James Bond 007 Skyfall Collection 2012)

This is Casino Royale from the OPI James Bond 2012 collection. I was really excited to try this one. It's a perfect bright and rich plum creme with magenta and red undertones. A killer shade for Autumn/ Winter and I love that it's not too dark that it looks almost black. I found it to be lighter and brighter than the bottle swatches I had previously seen and love it even more for that. It's sexy and vampy yet such a classy and warm colour too.

I think this may be the base polish used in the promotional picture for Man With The Golden Gun. As it looks so well with gold (and sadly I don't have Man With The Golden Gun), I added a gold leopard accent with Orly Glitz and Glamour which as it turns out, reminds me of Golden Eye because of how saturated the gold flecks are.

I'm so glad I picked up a bottle of this after turning my nose up at it during my first browse around the OPI stand!

Purple Thursday

Today is "purple day"! Lol! Not intentionally of course, I just happen to have swatched two fantastic purple based polishes today and couldn't wait to upload the pictures.

First up is a Cult Nails beauty sent to me by the wonderful Bridget from Luxe Beauty Forever. This is one coat of Seduction, from the Divas and Dramas collection, over Milani Devoted 2 U. It's a purple jelly base polish, packed with copper and blue flakies that shift green! Awesome doesn't begin to describe this flakie. I know I'll be layering this over pretty much anything throughout winter!

The first picture is in direct lamp light and the second was taken with a white sheet partially covering the bulb. The flakies are much more evident in the second picture. That's pretty much how they show irl too!

Secondly, I have another stunner from Polished By KPT. I've posted about Katherine's other creations here and here. Midnight Kiss is a darkened grape purple jelly packed with holographic micro and medium sized round glitters. This is 3 coats on it's own. It sparkles so much, I couldn't stop staring at my nails. Check out Katherine's shop here and her Facebook page here.

Some of the product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.

Tip Top Nails - Creamy Orange & Complete Chaos

Hey guys!

Today I'm going to show you swatches of the last two Tip Top Nails polishes I have - Creamy Orange and Complete Chaos! You can see Traffic Lights here and Fairy Dust here.

Creamy Orange is a saturated orangey-pink, very bright and just shy of being a neon! Very pigmented and opaque in two coats.

Complete Chaos is a dark purple with fuschia shimmer which doesn't translate to the nail. I'm loving vampy/ gothic colours like this right now, especially because it makes my skin look pale. Again, the formula is really good as it was with all the Tip Top polishes I've tried.

About the company:
Tip Top Nails is a South African brand who have recently made their products available to consumers. Their polishes are the big 4 free and they don't test on animals. I'm not sure where you can buy their products as the website still doesn't have a purchasing option. If you want to find out more about Tip Top Nails, the best place is to check out their Facebook page.

The product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.