Recent nail roundup

He we go with another recent nail round up and I have been really lucky recently with some nice gifts and freebies.

Lets start off with a lovely gift brought back from the states by one of my best friends. I had asked him to pick up the new Hello Kitty palette from Sephora which I will be reviewing soon and he also picked up this cute Hello Kitty polish for me. The shade is called Blueberry and it kind of a periwinkle/forget me not blue and I love it. It is such a sift shade and suits my pale skin very well although I can imagine it wold look awesome with a tan.

The application was good and it was a fairly thick and pigmented polish so 2 coats is more than enough and it was a very easy to control brush.

The next is something I couldn't resist picking up and that is the new pirates of the Caribbean collection from OPI, this is mermaid tears with the silver shatter and the finish is beautiful. They have managed to make the shatter really sparkly so it is quite sheer this allows a lot of the base colour through.

Another freebie and this was part of the recent Nails Inc give away with Instyle. Whilst I love Nails Inc polishes I have only ever parted with cash for one and that was before they started giving them away. I feel the brand would do slightly better if they stopped giving them away and reduced their prices a little (£11 a polish is more expensive than OPI). Their polishes are lovely and their colours are always on trend but I am never compelled to part with my cash for them.

This is Candy Orange.

the last one is a bit of an experiment, it's OPI catch me in your net with the Barry M blue crackle over the top. Not sure I like this one it was very bumpy!

Mammoth Nail Round Up

So here we are at the end of another year and again I haven't got nearly as much blogging done as I had wanted. So with the purchase of a new camera for Christmas we are going to change it up a gear and there will be more vlogging and hopefully better pictures.

So without further ado heres what I have been sporting recently

I went to Finland at the start of December and picked myself up a few new polishes, this is Orly Ou Of This World (deep purple with a gold shimmer) and it is from their Cosmic FX collection, you have seen this swatched a million times I guess but it is a lovely colour. Application is fairly good, it does not play well with the old Seche though and as you can see I suffered some shrink and horrendous tip wear. It didn't chip though and lasted quite well. The Duo tone wasn't as nice as I expected but hey still love it!

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Next up is another from the same collection and the formulation is the same this is Lunar Eclipse, Looks more Purple in the bottle but comes out electric blue again the duo tone isn't all the but a nice polish none the less.

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Nails Inc have been at it again with their free giveaways, this was on the front of some magazine which I can't remember the name of now. The colour is Saville Row deep aubergine purple and not a lot to be said about Nails Inc really. I don't think I have ever had a bad one the polishes are a great formulation and last really really well.

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Up next is Mac from the Venomous Villains and it's Bad Fairy. This was the only unique polish from the collection and it's a beauty, I wasn't sure at first it;s a coppery pink and not really my style but once on it is mesmerising and not as garish as I thought. This seems to be the same formulation as the Orly Cosmic FX (with the other two polishes being direct dupes) so you do get a bit of tip wear.

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Again you have seen this a billion times but it is the Barry M Dusky Mauve which is a direct dupe of the Chanel Paradoxal which was a big hit back in the summer. I have to say I like this more if you remember my review of the Chanel I wasn't all that impressed but the shimmer in this is just a little stronger and the formulation is a little better not to mention the price.

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I can never resist a Mavala release their polishes are always quality and they are trying really hard with the colours even if they are still a heartbeat behind. This is Blue Smoke, smokey blue with blue glitter. I actually liked this more than I thought but I just never seem to feel comfortable with blue polishes.

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This is from the same collection and it is called Rococo Red. I can say hands down this is the best red nail polish I have ever tried the colour is so vibrant and it is a one coater, two if you are a perfectionist like me. It just glides on thin, precise and opaque I love it. I will be buying lots of back ups of this.

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This was a polish from my New York trip in October It's OPI for Sephora and the colour is 212. I think it is exclusive to online and in the times square store and it is such a hard colour to describe. it's a blackened brown jelly with glitter (gold and holographic) and kind of coppery flakies. Sounds complex, looks stunning!

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The final polish I have for you today is a little gem from Accessorize. They have dabbled in polishes and cosmetics before but their recent major release was a tour de force by them and this duo chrome polish is outstanding.

It's called Aztec and is a passable dupe for Mean and Green from Mac. Having them both I would say the glitter in the Accessorize is chunkier and the duo chrome slightly better, in fact I preferred this one to the Mac I think. Formulation and wear were the same you still need loads of coats but for £4 you can't complain.

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Recent nail roundup

Time for a run down on the colours I have been wearing the last couple of weeks and it has been quite a mixed bag.

Bourjois - 17 Noir de Chine

I have had this a couple of year it was a special edition I think with some reds that I also have, when I first got it it was lovely, as most bourjois polishes are but over time had dried out quite a bit which I find is another common problem with their ranges. A little OPI thinners made it just about fluid again to use but it was a struggle. Lovely shiny black though that is opaque in one coat.

Barry M - Berry Ice Cream

Ok so people have raved about this already so I won't go on about it too much but I can say I was dubious after the failure of Lucky Lucky Lavender, I am also not loving the light purple I have coming up later on. I am pleased to say I am pleasantly surprised with this though because whilst being a pastel shade it still has enough pop to it to compliment my skin tone. Application was fantastic and there was virtually no shrinkage from the Seche Vite. I lasted really well too which makes this an instant fave.

H&M - Goddess On Stage

Be still my beating heart, how much do I love this polish! If you can't bring yourself to splash out on Nars Purple Rain or Illamasqua Baptiste then this is the polish for you, deep and shimmery and very very Cadburys purple. The application was phenomenal for such a cheap polish (£3 I think) and it lasted and lasted this photo was taken on day 3 after lots of typing and generally bashing my nails off anything they came into contact with. Only problem is that it is more of a winter colour than a summer one and doesn't go with much that I am wearing right now but I can't wait for the right time to wear it again.

Nails Inc - London (free with diet coke)

Another free Nails Inc polish, I think it's an evil plan to get us all addicted to their product and I guess it is working as I like this one too. Yet another greige but you really can't go wrong with them on pale skin, I won't bore you with application and wear time because you know the drill, I will say this is very similar the the Mink given away by InStyle but up close the are quite different Mink is pinker and dark than London. The only bad thing about it was that it seemed to pick up some weird staining from somewhere no idea what that is all about.

OPI by Sephora - Metro Chic

Another cult greige, I have been after getting my clammy little paws on this for a while so when the lovely Jo from Music and Make up asked me if there was anything I wanted brought back from her trip stateside this was at the top of the list (along with the tokidoki make up which I will review at some point). Quite a dark one this one but man it is lovely, you can't see it from these photos but it is actually subtly purple. The shinkage you are seeing on the thumb is only because my Seche Vite was getting old and the coat went on too thick. I can see why people like this so much as it is very easy to apply and even easier to wear. I shall have to get a bundle box at some point so I can get some more of these polishes over from the states. Or you know Sephora could open a London store, just saying ;)

Nails Inc - Paris (free with diet coke)

Not really my kind of purple but once it was on I loved it, just as good as the other I have tried recently and I think this would look great with a bit of a tan or on toe nails. This one did suffer a bit of tip wear but still outstanding.

No7 - Decades Collection Mai Dress

Not like the swatch on the website at all. Another lilac that looks unfortunate on me with a lovely tippex like quality too it, it was also thick, gloopy, bubbly and an all round nightmare to apply. Some may love this I hated it the 70's obviously are not my decade and the whole thing was like one bad trip!