Nails Inc 2013 Autumn Winter Collection

It's getting cold now; the knitwear has come out, my coats are out at least once a week, my boots are firmly on and I've got out my fat socks for in the house.  Alongside all of this, I've been shunning my pastel and coral polishes in favour of darker, richer shades.  Whilst browsing through my collection, I came across this unopened gift set from Nails Inc!

I actually won this on a Twitter giveaway last year, but for some reason or another never got round to using it, but I really love the shades!  Inside there are four full sized nail polishes which are; Old Bond Street, St Martins Lane, Oxford Street and Regent Street.  

From top of the swatches to the bottom; Regent Street is a dark wine shade with brown undertones to it.  I think it has that quality to it where in some lights you can really see the red tones within, but in other lights you can see the browns.  I really love this shade, and it is definitely one that matches this seasons trend of Oxblood!  St Martins Lane is the shade I have had most use from, and is a bold purple grape shade.  Oxford Street is a more unusual shade, and has a real toffee tone to it.  Old Bond Street is a gorgeous deep blue with almost a purple tone to it.    

The formula has been really easy to apply - two coats for a completely even finish, but you could probably get away with doing one on all except Old Bond Street!  I think it's just habit to do the second for me to be honest.  The finish is very glossy, and just looks so perfect for the new season.  I always feel more glammed up with a high gloss nail.  The wear time is pretty good too!  I managed four days before I got my first chip.

I'd definitely recommend picking this up whilst you still can.  It's currently on sale on Beauty Bay for a bargain of £15, which is just £3.75 per polish!  This years 2014 collection looks just as nice, but with lighter shades, in the new Nails Inc packaging and you only get three but with 14ml instead of 10ml a bottle.  (Still a shame to be a shade down, but I love the dusky pink!)

Which shade is your go to shade for Autumn/Winter?

Wednesday Wishlist #6: The Christian Louboutin Nail Polish

Just look at it...

Source: Christian Louboutin

I can't stop thinking about the Christian Louboutin Nail Polish...literally nothing can get that out of my head.  I've settled for the fact that I don't need anymore nail polishes, and I've even grasped that I'll never own a pair of Louboutin shoes, but the fact that I don't really need this is just something that I can't get my head around because at this point in time, it's all I need.

The new nail polish though is just all kinds of beautiful.  It's a home accessory  that would sit beautifully on display in my bedroom, combined into the perfect red nail polish; I honestly feel like if I splashed out the £36 for this shade nothing would leave my fingers tips until Spring 2015.  You can't get more of a glamorous red than Christian Louboutin.

There will also be around thirty other shades including nudes, noirs and pops, but that's a wishlist for another day...

Source: Bagaholicboy.com

Source: Bagaholicboy.com

Shortest Wednesday Wishlist ever.  There is nothing that I want more this week.  Just this...please.

What is on your wishlist this week?  Will you be splashing on this luxury nail polish?

Models Own Speckle Collection

The Models Own Speckle Collection was one I was really excited about.  I absolutely loved the look of the Illamasqua I'mperfection Speckled collection, but never managed to bag myself any what with being a skint student when that collection was released.  Last month, Models Own released their own interpretation of the nail polish at a fraction of the price - hurrah!  Luckily for me, I managed to bag myself the complete collection (and another collection I'll save for another day!) on one of their Twitter giveaways!

I absolutely love the look of these nail polishes and have worn every single one of them.  The collection consists of five nail polishes, and I have worn and loved them all!  The polishes apply quite sheer, so two to three coats make them fully opaque and the finish is semi matte.

Going from left to right on the swatches, we have Swan.  Swan is a really pretty pastel lilac, and I really like this shade.  Next is Magpie, which is quite a vibrant mint green.  It doesn't quite fit into the pastel category in my opinion, because a lot more white could have been added to get a true pastel mint.  Duck is the pastel blue, which is almost a cornflower blue.  Dove is the gorgeous pastel pink, which reminds me of strawberry ice cream!  And finally, we have Goose.  Goose is a bit strange for me, I still like it, but the shade is so unusual.  I think without the black flecks this would be a really nice custard yellow, but the black almost reflects back on it or something and I think it comes out a bit of a muddy yellow - almost like a pastel mustard.

The wear time I was initially really disappointed with, but soon realised that the problem was in my base coat.  Removing the troublesome base coat, I found that the nail polish lasted a good five days with minimal chipping!

I absolutely love these nail polishes - they're such an easy way to add an interesting effect to your nails without going for sparkly glitter or intricate nail art!  I think my favourite is either Magpie, or Dove!

Do you own any of the Speckle Collection?  Which is your favourite?

Elegant Touch Rapid Dry For Nails

When I paint my nails, I could wait for literally ages without moving, and the moment I do my freshly painted manicure is miraculously wet again and it's ruined on the nearest surface.  If I can escape that, I wake up the next morning with a nice cotton imprint across my nails from my bedding so I never have a smooth surface.

Before my birthday, I was in a mad rush around Boots picking up parcels and some last minute bits for my birthday weekend away and I came across the Elegant Touch Rapid Dry For Nails.  I was a bit unsure on how well this would work, but for £3.05, I thought I'd give it a go.

It is an aerosol which you spray onto your freshly painted nails and it dries them in sixty seconds...yeah, right.  Well!  I kid you not, that is exactly what I thought, and I am amazed!  Maybe it's not done in sixty seconds, but I could definitely move, touch things and even wash and dry my hands within minutes without my nail polish being disturbed!  I use this all the time when I'm in a rush, and it's perfect.  I will definitely be keeping this as a manicure staple.

Have you tried Rapid Dry?

Hoarding Nail Polish: OPI & Sally Hansen

If there was one part of my cosmetic collection that did not need adding to, it would definitely be my nail polish collection.  Alas...Fragrance Direct was calling and as well as the Sally Hansen Cuticle Eraser and Balm that I mentioned in yesterdays post, I also came away with three nail polishes.  I got two OPI nail polishes, and a Sally Hansen one.

From the left is OPI Don't Touch My Tutu from the New York Ballet collection, Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud and OPI Steady As She Rose from The Pirates of the Caribbean collection.  All of these look so similar in colour in the bottle, but I'm so pleased with all of them.  The OPI polishes cost just £3.99 each, and the Sally Hansen was just £1.49!  Bargains.

A white based nail polish is probably one of the few colours that I actually don't own, so that could have justified maybe one of these.  Definitely not all three, but it's best to try I guess.  Now I don't need anymore whites...

Starting at the top of the swatches, we have Don't Touch My Tutu by OPI.  This is a gorgeous, sheer soft white.  It took me three coats of this to get the perfect wash of colour with no streaking, and it lasted a good five days with minimal chipping.  For better swatches of this, definitely check out Duckling To Swans blog, as it was her that convinced me that this was the one for me.  (I actually had to place a second order from Fragrance Direct to get this; I had it in my basket but then decided against it, and then regretted it...)

In the middle, Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud.  This isn't a perfect white, it has a very slight tint of lilac.  Literally, the slightest touch added and I really like it.  It kind of reminds me of a set of nail polishes that I saw on Cult Beauty a while back, and it was a set of maybe ten nail polishes that were all slightly off white inspired by white washing that had been tinted with other clothes.  I got really good wear time from this again, and got four days without a chip.  I used two coats to get the polish an opaque white.

Finally, we have OPI Steady As She Rose.  I really love this one, and I'm pretty sure it's my favourite.  It's a lilac nail polish which I think has a hint of a dusky pink about it.  It's perfect for the Spring season which is all about pastel colours, and I'm very pleased!  Wear time is slightly less than Don't Touch My Tutu by a day, and opacity is at two coats!

Have you tried any of these?  What did you last buy from Fragrance Direct?

Butter London The Black Knight

Over the festive and New Year period, this is the nail polish that I was wearing.  I usually hate wearing glitter nail polishes because they are notoriously difficult to remove, but I was literally living in this beauty over the festive period.  It is my first nail polish from Butter London, and this is The Black Knight.

Butter London are "three free" nail polishes and are formulated with no formaldehyde, DBP or Toluene - I had to Google what was so bad about these ingredients, and like practically everything, there have been links with these to cancers in animals so I'm pleased that Butter London are removing these.

So back to The Black Knight...I have never seen a glitter polish like it before, so I was pleased to add it to my collection.  It is a black base with lots of different coloured glitters suspended in it - the glitter is fine grained, so I think it has a slight sandy texture, and I can spy red, blue, pink and silver glitters!

Like the Chanel polishes, these have sneaky grippy caps hidden underneath the original cap so it's easy to hold and use.

I really love this shade, it's a glitter that's not just for Christmas and New Year, you can get away with all year I think.  And if you're a bit wary of using glitter outside of Christmas, this would make an amazing accent nail.  It takes two/three coats to get the shade to go opaque, but you could always put a cheaper black base underneath so you don't use up quite so much product.  I finish mine with a glossy top coat for a high shine feel!  The photo below is without a top coat, and it is just as nice without one!

My only downside to this polish is chipping...  It lasts three days at the most with a top coat, and only lasted me one night without a top coat on my nails, so I've been quite disappointed to be honest.  And it's not small chippage either, they're big chunks missing which I think is really unusual for a glitter polish.  I usually use OPI Nail Envy for my base and top coat, but I think I might experiment with switching my base and top coat to see if Butter London just doesn't agree with Nail Envy.  I bought The Black Knight from Amazon for £12 here!

Have you tried any Butter London nail polishes?  What's your favourite?

Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour

I must have been very good last year, as Santa bought me three beautiful goodies that arrived in a classic, white bag.  Never have I ever even bothered to browse the Chanel counter, as I know it's something that I just couldn't afford.  Well I could probably treat myself, but us beauty addicts all know that when something is good, one is never enough.

To my surprise, my boyfriend Liam got me these!  The only thing I asked for for Christmas was a pair of pyjamas and some unicorn slippers - I couldn't believe it when I spotted a Chanel gift bag, and when he told me he had spent a good part of an hour carefully selecting colours from the counter in House of Fraser!  What a cutie...and what a good job he did!

He bought me the shades Suspicious, Holiday and Taboo, all of which are absolutely gorgeous!  I don't really own any high end nail polish, and at £18 a bottle, this definitely stocks me up more than enough.  Although I do spy a gorgeous white shade called Attraction which will be perfect for the upcoming Spring and Summer nail trends!

I've been waiting to use this nail wheel for forever and here is it's first debut, how sad is that!  Back to the nail polish though...  Holiday first, Suspicious in the centre and Taboo on the end.  Holiday and Suspicious are perfect colour pops for the summer months - Holiday is a true tangerine shade and Suspicious is a raspberry which almost seeps into the Barbie pink!  Taboo is very blue based which I was surprised about as in the bottle it looks like an iridescent red/purple shade.  On the nail, it is a very deep purple and because of its iridescence and tiny blue glitter flecks, it kind of reminds me of space or galaxies or something.  It's so unusual, but so nice! 

Onto formula...I can't get enough of these.  They are really long lasting; they last a long time without a top coat, but last a REALLY long time with one.  I can make this last a week with very minimal chipping, and the top and base coat that I use is just the OPI Nail Envy in Original.  

One thing I did notice though, but it is the same with all nail polish I try, is that I get a really annoying white line where it has chipped off the very tip of my nail.  Well I say chipped, it kind of looks as though the polish has sort of shrunk away from the edge of my nail?  Anyone have any tips on how to stop this?

The brush isn't my favourite type of brush; it's quite long and thing, where as I prefer fat, flat brushes, but it's still nice to use.  The square cap comes off to reveal a grippy cyclinder which was a nice surprise so it was really nice to hold.

So, all in all, the boy did good.  VERY good indeed.  And I was right...when it's good, one is never enough.

Have you tried Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour?  Any nail tips for me?