An update :-) December 14, 2009

Hi all,

I am sort of back to health now, but I don’t think I will be resuming my blogging antics.  This is in part because the weather is just dreadful and it’s a complete nightmare trying to get decent daylight pics.  The other reason is related to why I wasn’t up to blogging in the first place.

My husband and I are expecting our first baby 🙂 I am starting to be over the worst of the symptoms I had, but apparently pregnancy does not agree with the strength and health of my nails and hair, and my nails keep breaking off all the time, and I can barely get them to grow before something snags them and causes them to break.

So I want to let you all know, I am still reading plenty of blogs, I read so many now that I keep them all in Google Reader, so I tend not to leave comments as I can’t do it in the reader window but I AM reading and keeping up with you all.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Holiday Period!

Jen x

A Whopping Big Apology November 3, 2009

Hey guys.  I’m sorry for not having posted for a while, but I’ve not been feeling well.  I don’t think I’m going to be up to posting for a while yet but as soon as I get back to fitness I will start updating again.  I hope you stick around for that!

Really sorry, I feel like I’m deserting but I felt I should at least let you know where I am and why I’ve been MIA for a while.

Hope to be back to posting soon 🙂

Jen

Diamond Cosmetics Mystical Knights under GOSH Rainbow (Flakies!!!) October 22, 2009

Ok Helen asked me to swatch Diamond’s Mystical Knights, which I have done, but I was so excited to put Rainbow over the top I didn’t take any pictures of it on it’s own Helen, sorry!

I have wanted Flakies for soooooooooo long, I saw a pic on a blog ages ago where someone had used an NFU-Oh flakies polish over something and it just looked SO AMAZING.  I looked on the interwebs and couldn’t find a UK supplier so I was pretty disappointed.  However, I didn’t realise there were brands who sold flaky polish (that sounds amusing) other than NFU-Oh until recently and at which point I couldn’t afford to buy any!  UNTIL, that is, I was having a quick, passing glance at the small range of GOSH my local Superdrug sells one day last week, and it hit me that what I had been thinking for so long was opal glitter was actually flakies!  Unfortunately though I couldn’t afford to buy it but this week we had a little more money and some good news to celebrate so I was allowed it.  And WOW.  I am in love!  Without further ado, here are many pictures of GOSH Rainbow.

Bottle love and some rainbow goodness!

Squee!! See the pretty colours?!

Rainbow Goodness

The green end of the spectrum

Green, Yellow, Gold, Bronze, Red 😀

More multi-colour

*Sigh*

The (mainly) red end of the spectrum

I could have posted BILLIONS of pictures of this.  Isn’t it amazing.  I may be overreacting, but I’ve never had flakies before and oh My!  I think I may need a second bottle as back up!  I had tested the polish over Diamond Oh, Tiff! but as the polish was pale it wasn’t too impressive, and by the time I took the bottle out again to do this mani, it had thickened considerably (only the following day) so it could do with some thinning, but other than that, the formula was great, application was great, it didn’t stink, the bottle and brush were comfortable and easy to use and I really like the shape of GOSH bottles.  I would definitely buy from them again.

I think I need to go lie down!!!

Diamond Cosmetics Cheery Cherry October 20, 2009

So Lucy requested Cheery Cherry from my polish haul.  I applied two coats and just wasn’t feeling it for some reason, so I went with a third.  Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood to appreciate red that day, but I was looking at it thinking “boring” (don’t get me wrong it is a nice colour but I’ve been in a bit of a colour funk lately) so I decided to Konad it.  As such I don’t have any pictures of it bare, as it were, and there was soooo much gloss that the pictures haven’t come out great because there was major glare from the sun, but here it is.  (Konaded with Konad Dark Purple special polish and M63)

It looks a bit rubbish on the pictures but it looked really really nice in person.

I’ve had a bit of good news lately which I will probably share at some point but in celebration I bought myself a bottle of Gosh polish.  I’ve had my eyes on it for a while now, it’s called Rainbow and it is a bottle of opal-esque flakies in clear topcoat and it is lovely!  So I will be showing some pics of that soon and then I will get round to wearing Helen’s suggestion 🙂

Thanks for reading, hope you are all well 🙂

My polish collection (picture heavy) October 14, 2009

Okay ladies, I am about to post pictures of my polish collection – they’re not exactly the best in terms of quality or colour accuracy but here they are.  I’m so used to looking at all my colours that I’m finding it difficult to choose what to wear when I change my polish so I would like some help!  Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think I should wear next.  I will be able to go through them one at a time to select my next manicure and the one after that etc (assuming I get any comments lol)

You may notice I have a few issues with blue/green and blue/purple colours, I have a slight colour blindness so if you think anything is in the wrong group that’s why!

Oh and to save me typing long long names, DC = Diamond Cosmetics, CG = China Glaze,  BM = Barry M, C2000 = Collection 2000,  C2000HL = Collection 2000 Hot Looks, SH = Sally Hansen and NI = Nails Inc!

Here we go:

Miss Sporty Silver | DC Matte Smoke | Maybelline Mirror Image | CG OMG | Barry M Matt White (it's not matte!) | Technic Jet Black | DC I'm Raven About You | DC Matte Black | Constance Carroll Wizard

Wild and Crazy Purple Glitter (It's green and black - go figure) | Beauty UK Purple Glitter | Beauty UK Silver Glitter | DC Silver Glitter | DC Opal Glitter

Piggy Polish Island Hopping | BM Block Orange | Miss Sporty Yellow | Jade Suppressed Temptation

Stargazer Red (no number sticker) | DC You Set My Heart Ablaze | No Name Red | BM Red Glitter | Cosmo Porsche Red | NI Knightsbridge

DC Hue Are You? | DC Cheery Cherry | Miss Sporty Red | DC Blackberry | Rimmel Black Cherries | DC Matte Burgundy | C2000 Midnight Rouge | CG Lubu Heels

DC Party Hearty | No Name Gold | BM Gold | NI Battersea Power Station | DC Yukon Gold | DC Chainmail Charm | DC Decadence | DC Joust For Kicks | NI Mount Street | NI Friendly Selfridges

DC Don't Teal My Heart Away | DC Oh, Tiff! | George Streamer | C2000HL Button Moon

DC Never So Ever-Green | Stargazer 135 | Sinful Colors San Francisco | BM Racing Green | BM Green Glitter | C2000HL Ninja | La Femme Ultra green (Major neon, doesn't look it here)

NI Marco Polo House | DC Mystical Knights | DC Midnight Blue | BM Blue Glitter | George Indigo Dazzle

SH Chic Cobalt | DC Metallic Blue | BM Blue Glitter | Rimmel Azure | C2000 Hello Sailor

DC Midnight Passion | NI St John's Wood | Orly Cashmere Cardigan | C2000HL BMX Bandit

BM Vivid Purple | DC Metallic Venom | DC Monarch Masquerade | Stargazer 125 | NI Buckingham Palace | DC Drift Away | DC Hi Ho Silver

Revlon Night Light | Milani Cloud 9

Miss Sporty Pink | Massini Sheer Denim | DC Iced Plum | NI Fulham Road

No Name Pink | C2000HL Hoola Hoop | NI Brompton Road | NI Regent's Place | NI King's Road | C2000HL Dynasty

C2000HL Vixen | SH Plum Sequin | DC Sparkling Sherry | BM Shocking Pink | DC Feelin' Groovy | DC Matte Mulberry | No Name Purple

So that’s my whole collection (well not counting Konad polishes etc)  so please, PLEASE pick me something to wear!  (Feel free to choose a colour to go under a glitter if you’d like to see a glitter.)

Thank you!

Autumnal Konadicure October 11, 2009

Hey girls! I actually have not only a post, not only a post with nails in BUT a post with some Konad in it! It’s been a while, in fact it feels like it’s been forever! This is my manicure for Autumn, I mentioned in my last post that I hate winter, and I’m already really really starting to feel the effects of winter drawing in (I suffer from SAD – well I seem to suffer from it all year round pretty much lol, but it is much worse in the winter) so I thought I’d do a nice manicure to try and cheer me up a little bit.

This is the falling leaves design from Konad plate M20 with Konad Gold Special polish, Konad Orange Special Polish and Konad Deep Jungle Princess Polish over Diamond Cosmetics Joust For Kicks. I really like it, although in hindsight I should have used a red rather than the green, to stay with the colour family, but I was having a bad day yesterday and wasn’t really concentrating on what I was doing and it genuinely didn’t occur to me! Hope you like it!

Catching up again October 9, 2009

Hello again my lovely readers,

I don’t have any pictures for you as we have had pretty dreadful gloomy overcast weather here so I haven’t been able to get any good pictures lately, but I just wanted to drop in and make a quick post to let you all know I’m still here, and I still read your blogs every day.  I have a lot going on at the moment which is a bit stressful and the start of Winter is already making me depressed so I’m really really looking forwards to March when the weather will hopefully start to turn a bit nicer.  I know it’s only October but for myriad reasons, I HATE this time of year.

Anyway on another note, I want to let all you UK ladies know that the 10% discount offer on Diamond on my website ends on the 11th.  I also want to let you know that at the moment I only have FOUR BOTTLES of Chainmail Charm left so if you have been on the fence about ordering and that’s one of the colours you want, you might want to hurry!

I am going to be placing a new order shortly, which will probably include some of the new Winter release of four colours (you can see them here on The Nailphile ) I say some of because I’m not too sure about Smokey Rose, but I will be ordering the other three colours.

I have got a local nail salon interested in selling Diamond so I will be getting a few different shades, and what I wanted to ask is, any of you girls in the UK, (or internationally who have ordered from me or are going to order from me), I’d really like to know if there’s a particular shade you want. I based my first order mainly on colours I liked from the swatches, but obviously I want to be able to supply my customers with what THEY want. So, if you are likely to buy from me and want to see a particular colour available, comment and let me know and I will see what I can do when the ordering time comes around 🙂

You can see the colours here: Diamond Colour Chart

Thanks for reading!

Hello Ladies! October 4, 2009

Today’s post is a bit of a mixed post.  I would like to show you my current manicure (which will be Konaded later on today if I remember/can get motivated).  I have copied the one finger different style I have seen on a few blogs lately and basically went for the opposite of what Skye did inThis Post. I really like it:

Nails Inc Brompton Place (pink) and Nails Inc St John's Wood

Now St John’s wood seemed to be a dupe for Orly Cashmere Cardigan, which in turn is also a dupe for Collection 2000 Hot Looks Button Moon (one of my favourite polishes ever).  So next week if I remember I will swatch the three of them side by side to see what they look like.  But I also realised, when contemplating the similarities of St John’s Wood and Button Moon that in fact Brompton Place reminded me of Collection 2000 Hot Looks Hoola Hoop, thus:

Lr- Hoola Hoop, Brompton Place, St John's Wood, Button Moon (and a hella lot of sun!)

And this in turn reminded me of an old post I did where I used Button Moon and Hoola Hoop together, amnd they’re really not dissimilar to the post I have put up today with my current manicure.  Here is the old manicure

Well if you’re still reading after all that, and not horribly confused, then you’re doing better than me! lol

I also wanted to point out that Diamond Cosmetics Opal Glitter ROCKS, especially over Black or very dark Blue.  I have a couple of pictures taken from my Diamond swatchboard, but they don’t really show the awesomeness very well and I’m not so hot at describing things, but see what you think:

Diamond Cosmetics Opal Glitter over Diamond Cosmetics I'm Raven About You

Diamond Cosmetics Opal Glitter over I'm Raven About You

See, Fantastic, the blue-yellow-greenness is so gorgeous!  I think this may be a great contender for some slightly less OTT Halloween Nails!

Hope you enjoyed!  Sorry I haven’t posted for a while.

Nails Inc Knightsbridge September 24, 2009

Hey Ladies!!  How are you all?  Well, I hope.

Just one pic again today as the others I took were a bit rubbish, but this is Nails Inc, Knightsbridge.  I needed cheering up the day I wore this as EVERYTHING is seeming to go wrong at the moment for my husband and I.   So a funky, loud colour and a cute Konad were the order of the day for me.  I really love this colour, it’s kind of red, orange and coral all at once, I can’t really describe it.  I really enjoyed wearing it though.  Here’s my simple (but effective) Konadicure!

Nails Inc Knightsbridge, Konad M10 and M11 (thumbs)

Heee heee, I love these little guys!  M10 is one of my favourite plates, and yet I’ve never used it before this Konadicure.  I also used, on my thumbs, the two ‘cats’ off M11, with their tails facing each other, it was so cute! 

I’m currently wearing Nails Inc Buckingham Palace, which is a purple jellyish polish, and I’m not sure about it.  I’ll try to remember to take pictures before I remove it. 

Thanks for reading!  😀

Lots more Diamond Cosmetics Swatches September 19, 2009

After this post, I have only three more Diamond Swatches to do for you guys.  This is good as it means I can start wearing polish PROPERLY again!  I’m going to rattle through these guys.  I had no drying time issues with any of them, I really loved all the colours (yes really!) especially Decadence and Sparkling Sherry, and the big surprise of the bunch for me was Midnight Blue which is a purpl-y navy blue.  Just lovely!  I’ll try to do better write ups of the diamonds when I post proper posts of them where I’ve worn them as a proper manicure, rather than a quick swatch.

Diamond Cosmetics, Decadence

Diamond Cosmetics, Sparkling Sherry

Diamond Cosmetics, Matte Black

Diamond Cosmetics, You Set My Heart Ablaze

Diamond Cosmetics, Blackberry

Diamond Cosmetics, Midnight Passion

Diamond Cosmetics, Metallic Venom

Diamond Cosmetics, Midnight Blue

Also, Nails Inc had an offer on recently (it may still be on, I don’t know) where you could  buy a set of 9 of their colours and a bottle of base coat for £27.  So I did! Lol.  It came the other day all boxed in a nice display case/gift box thingy, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I had been looking at all my polishes in colour groups the night before it arrived, and I noticed that I have a lot of pinks (despite not really being a pink fan), not as many purples as I’d expected to have, and hardly any brown shades.  In fact all the brown-family shades I have are all from the Diamond haul I’ve just got.  So, this is what I received:

Top L-R: Kensington Gardens (growth treatment), Regents Place, Mount Street, Marco Polo House (looks lovely, very like Midnight Blue by Diamond), Battersea Power Station (which looks like Yuk in a bottle!)

Bottom L-R: Buckingham Palace (can’t wait to try), Knightsbridge (looks interesting!), St john’s Wood (HAS to be swatched against Cashmere Cardigan and Button Moon!), Brompton Place, Fulham Road.

So, three more pinks to add to my pink collection (sigh), and two browns.  Fab! Lol.

Well, thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your weekend!  😀