Unconventional

Unconventional is a multi-chrome by Brazilian brand Speciallita from their Hits MariMoon Multigirl series and this polish is INSANE!

I'm a massive fan of duochrome polishes and this is quite honestly the BEST one that I've ever worn.  This is a picture heavy post in an attempt to capture even a tenth of the gorgeousness of this polish....Its hard to believe that all these pictures are of the same polish, but I promise they are!



Hits MariMoon Unconventional - Sunlight

The range of colours in this multichrome is astounding: purple, navy, magenta, red and gold.  The main colour that shows depends on the angle of the light to your nails.  The main colours are purple/blue which show at direct angles, with the magenta coming out inbetween these, and the red/gold showing at extreme angles.



Hits MariMoon Unconventional - Sunlight

Formula and application were both perfect.  Shown here I'm wearing Nail Envy (base coat), one coat of Rimmel Black Cab, two coats of Unconventional, and a single coat of Seche Vite top coat.
The Hits polishes come in 6ml bottles and are really reasonably priced - I got this one for £6.50 from the wonderful Sally Magpies store.  Sally Magpies sells a range of exotic overseas brands in the UK and her customer service is fab (please note I am not affiliated with this store in any way).

Hits MariMoon Unconventional - Artificial Light

Under artificial light this polish comes alive!  This red gold colour is fantastic, and looks blood red in some lights.  It's a shame that it's at really extreme viewing angles like this one because you look like a crazy person walking around looking sideways at your own fingers....not that I do that you understand...err...


Hits MariMoon Unconventional - Artificial Light

As if that wasn't fun enough - check out this magenta! Wowza!

Hits MariMoon Unconventional - Artificial Light

If you like duochromes, get your credit card out now...this will be the most fun you can have for under a tenner guaranteed.  Formula is fantastic, colour is amazing, price is ridiculous. I'm definately in love with this Brazilian brand....I'm going to call it Brazilliant! No? Too much?...OK.

A word of warning - be really careful when you're driving whilst wearing this polish, it's seriously distracting and I'm guessing that's not an excuse on the approved list they give the police....


It's Red Babez!....and also rubbish

Today's NOTD is free with this month's InStyle magazine (May 2013).  This is a "specially designed" shade for InStyle magazine, one of three available, this one is called "It's Red Babez!".

 

I'll start by saying right off that I really, really didn't like this polish at all and I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Pictured here is base coat (nail envy), 3 coats of colour, and a single coat of Seche to top it off.  Even after three coats this was still sheer, you can just see on the middle finger here that the nail line was still visible under all those coats.  The formula was watery, thin, and streaky; overall a big dissapointment.

 



It's Red Babez! - Nails Inc for InStyle Magazine - Natural Light

 I'm not sure what the rational for this polish collection was from the Nails Inc point of view.  If this was an attempt at positive advertising I don't think that the quality of this polish would convince anyone to fork out £11 for their next bottle.  If the idea was to make a crappy cheap formula so that they didn't make so much of a loss by giving it away for free, then this isn't good advertising for InStyle either.  I'm beginning to view the bottle design as more of a disclaimer:  does "for InStyle" = "not our fault, blame InStyle"?



InStyle Magazine UK - May 2013

The bottom line is that this month, you can get a Nails Inc polish for the cover price of £3.90 which seems like a bargain - but poor quality isn't worth any money in my opinion.  In T K Maxx you can buy sets of Nails Inc polishes, often 4 bottles for £12-£13, which makes the bottle price similar to this but far better quality and in a better range of colours.

Also, the magazine was pants.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday...

Today's NOTD is the fantastic 'It's a Trap-eze' from the China Glaze Cirque de Soleil World's Away collection that came out at the end of 2012.  Kudos to my friend the lovely Clare for discovering this and then ordering one for me too :)  It's like wearing a birthday party on your nails!

China Glaze - It's a Trap-eze - Natural Light

It's a Trap-eze (IATE) is a milky creamy polish that's jam packed with hex and round glitter pieces in a range of sizes.  The main glitter colours are white, sky blue, red, green and there's some silver and gold in there too.

I started out with Nail Envy base coat and a single layer of a pearly white shade called 'Silver Bullet' by Rimmel.  I had heard that it's hard to build IATE to opacity on its own, although I think 3 coats of IATE on its own would have done it.  I then used two full coats of IATE, and a sparse 3rd coat to just fill in a few gaps.  Then I capped it with two layers of my beloved Seche.  This polish was surprisingly smooth for a glitter, although still feels a wee bit bumpy with the dual Seche topper.  The formula is fantastic and surprisingly easy to apply for a glitter.  The glitter is so dense that there's none of that fiddly dabbing your nail to spread it out evenly.




China Glaze - It's a Trap-eze - Natural Light

I really like this, although I am a wee bit unconvinced about whether I can pull-off white polish with my ridiculously pale Scottish skin-tone.  But this is so much fun that I just don't care.  I'm making an effort to try to have a tidy looking left hand for the photos, and nicely moisturized cuticles...but after applying Lush's Lemony Flutter for this photo-op I just look like I've got really greasy fingers...I promise I wasn't eating chips at the time...

This polish is pretty hard to find.  For some reason there's a selection of the 'Cirque' collection available everywhere, and some that seemed to be limited.  I got this one through Amazon, shipped from the US, but even with postage it was still just £7, which is the UK in-store RRP for CG.

Spring Greens



This week's manicure was a spring inspired combination of the mettalic shimmer "Metamorphosis" by Color Club and the gorgeous topcoat "Platinum Wishes" by Jessica.  Just look at how pretty these are in the bottle....



Jessica "Platinum Wishes" and Color Club "Metamorphosis"


This was my first experience of both brands, and I was very pleased with the application, formula and brushes.  The Color Club brush was narrower, but easy to use.  Metamorphosis is gorgeous on its own as a lovely sparkly mettalic shade.  It's very sheer, so I used three generous coats to get full opacity.  This polish was from a TK Maxx bargain hunt where I grabbed an 8 bottle set of the "Take Wing" collection which are all butterfly wing inspired mettalics, for a stonking £8.  That's how much a single bottle retails for online here in the UK.

Jessica "Platinum Wishes" and Color Club "Metamorphosis" - Artificial Light

Pictured here we have Nail Envy basecoat, three coats of Metamorphosis, two coats of Platinum Wishes and one coat of Seche Vite.  I think two coats of Seche would have been better as this still had a grainy feel to it, but by that time it was late at night and I couldn't be bothered waiting for another coat of polish to dry.  It's a hard life sometimes.
The Jessica glitter coat looks like a total glitter bomb in the bottle, with a mixture of bronze, gold, teal and blue round glitters that remind me of the colours of a peacock.  This would look gorgeous layered over quite a few different shades with that range of colours in there.  It does come out more sparse on the nail than you'd expect from the bottle, but with patience you could build this up to get the effect you want.

Jessica "Platinum Wishes" and Color Club "Metamorphosis" - Natural Light

A word of warning though - I have never had so much trouble removing a polish in my life!  I was at it for over half an hour, used two different brands of remover AND the foil method and was beginning to think amputation was the only answer.  I don't know which of the polishes was more to blame, or whether it was just the sheer number of coats, but this sucker was a b*tch to get off and my fingers were left a charming shade of green afterwards.  Still it was pretty while it lasted.  Spring might not be happening here in Scotland but it was happening on my nails this week :)

Bargains Spotted

This month's UK edition of InStyle magazine comes with a choice of three Nails Inc polishes, exclusively designed for InStyle.  You can see the full range of colours here:
In Style Magazine - Free Nails Inc polish

 

I went for the red shade called "It's Red, Babez", which is possible the lamest polish name I've ever heard, but the colour is a gorgeous fresh orange-red that will be perfect for summer sandal season.  Swatches to come.

In other bargain news, Sally Salon Services are having a 3 for 2 of beauty products which includes China Glaze.  Also, Boots are giving out No7 vouchers with purchases (£3 off make-up) and all No7 polishes are currently buy one get one half price - so with the voucher that's two polishes for £6.  Bargain!  You will also be given another voucher each time you buy more, so it's a dangerous cycle....

Getting Started

Is there anything more fun than that moment when you lay out all your manicure supplies and settle down for a relaxing mani-session?

I spend a lot of time painting my nails, but I spend even more time reading nail blogs for tips, swatches, ideas and just generally for the love of looking at pretty manicures. If you’re a nail polish nerd like me you’ll understand, if not then this isn’t the blog for you. After all that time looking at other people’s blogs I decided it was high time to start one of my own. I’ll use this space to share all things nail related and I’d love to make contact with other nail nerds out there :)