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!

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.

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!  😀

A few more Diamond Cosmetics swatches September 17, 2009

I had no internet today from getting up at 8am until around half past 5.  None.  This made me sad and grumpy!  But my husband is home now and I feel a bit happier 🙂  So, because I had no internet and I’m not a big fan of TV (especially not daytime TV), and because the sun has been out a little today, I decided to make some headway with my swatching! So there are 6 swatches here, but there’s only one of each so don’t worry, it’s not TOO picture heavy.

Diamond Cosmetics, Hue Are You?

I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about Hue Are You?.  In the bottle it looked lovely but I don’t know, it didn’t seem as nice on my nails as I’d expected it to be.   Although it clearly looks the same on my nails as it does in the bottle, juding from the picture, so I don’t know what I’d expected!  I also made one heck of a mess putting it on, as you can see from the picture!  It was a good formula though and dried well, and is definitely packed with lots of tiny weeny gold micro glitter stuff.  It IS nice, I think I was just expecting something different for some crazy reason!

Diamond Cosmetics, Metallic Blue

This was LOVELY!  Like a blue version of Monarch Masquerade I guess.  I really liked it.  Great formula, dried really fast, the difference in depth of colour between one coat and two was incredible!  It went on fairly patchy on the first coat (which I think was more due to my application as I was trying to avoid my mum’s dog at the time!) but on the second it was just pure perfection!  Beautiful!  Nobody should be without a metallic blue or a metallic purple. 

Diamond Cosmetics, Yukon Gold

When I first saw this in it’s bottle I really wasn’t impressed with it AT ALL!  In fact I think the actual thought was simply “yeuck”.  And, to be quite fair, it isn’t as gold as it looks in Diamond’s swatches, however, once I put it on I really liked it.  It’s like a paler chocolate colour.  It’s totally not the same colour at all but it reminds me of Caramac chocolate.  Or maybe toffe flavoured hot chocolate.  Not as dark as milk chocolate but it DOES make me think of chocolate (as I’m sure we’ve established by now!)  I did really like this and I will be wearing it again (even though I initially didn’t think I would.)

Diamond Cosmetics, Feelin' Groovy

Ok so it took me a lot of willpower to swatch this, I’m not really a bright pink kinda gurl, but once it was on I liked it, it’s cute and summery.  I suppose it’s a glossy version of Matte Mulberry.  It does have a very subtle shimmer to it…maybe a ‘sheen’ is a more appropriate name than a shimmer.  It’s nice 🙂  Would make an awesome base for a black full nail Konad.  (Note to self:  TRY lol).

Diamond Cosmetics, Never So Ever-Green

Everyone raves about Never So Ever-Green and I can totally see why!  I’m really not a fan of dark greens, I’m more a mint green/teal/turquoise fan but I can totally appreciate this colour.  It’s really not an in-your-face shade, the gold teeny weeny microshimmer magic dust stuff (!) in there takes the edge off the green and it’s just beauteous and stunning.  I love it!

Diamond Cosmetics, Cheery Cherry

Lovely, Lovely, Lovely!  I thought this would be nice and it didn’t let me down.  It’s a strong cherry red, the formula is a little thin but it made no negative impact on application and I was a happy bunny!  Lol.  Got some shimmer/sheen in there too.  Lurvely!

Right Ladies, tomorrow will be Oh. Tiff! (and possibly the same with Glittler Silver over the top) and a couple other colours if I have time, as I actually have some plans other than sitting at home on my rapidly growing backside tomorrow.  Thanks for reading!  😀

Playing Catch Up September 7, 2009

Hi Ladies!  Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, and when I have done it hasn’t been with any pictures of nails but I’m playing catch up today.  Just a quick note for those of you who are waiting for Diamond from me, it still hasn’t arrived but I will let you know when it does!

Ok first things first, today I received a parcel from the wonderful Kris who writes for Polish or Perish and I was gobsmacked! We’d arranged a little swap as Kris wanted to get her hands on some Stargazer, and I was desperate for Orly Cashmere Cardigan and China Glaze Lubu Heels. What I didn’t expect was the SIX extra polishes she included!! Thank you so much Kris!! Here is a little (not very good) picture of the goodies she sent me:

Cosmo "Porsche Red" | Lubu Heels | Sinful Colors "San Francisco" | Cashmere Cardigan | Milani "Cloud 9" | Jade "Suppressed Temptation" | Piggy Polish "Island Hopping" | Massini "Sheer Denim"

 Here is the lovely mani I was wearing a few days ago: 

 

Sorry about the lines in that lact picture, that happens sometimes when I take pictures under my desk lamp for some reason.  The pink is Collection 2000 Hot Looks Vixen.  I can’t take credit for the loveliness of this though as I totally ripped it off from the FAB KonADDICT blog, which is an absolutely brilliat resource for all you nail art-ers out there.

And this little beauty which turned out SO CUTE if I do say so myself, was all my own creation.  In case you’re interested, I used Barry M in White, the Red was my “no name” from a make-up kit, Barry M Orange Block, Miss Sporty Yellow, Collection 2000 Hot Looks Ninja, Rimmel Azure, Stargazer 125 and Barry M Vivd Purple.  From that list of colours I bet you can guess what I made……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAINBOWS!

Right Hand (I don't much like the index or middle fingers but the ring and pinky are AWESOME!)

See?!

Awesome Cute-Kitsch!! Love this!

How totally awesome is that manicure!!  If it hadn’t taken me over an hour I’d totally be doing it again at some point in the future!!!

 

Thanks for reading.  I hope you all have a fantastic week!  Mine has got off to a great start!  😀

I used Streamer again! August 22, 2009

Remember This Post?  Yes the absolute horror of Streamer.  Well I honestly didn’t think I’d use it again after the trauma I had with it, but the other day I must have been feeling favourable as I thought I’d use it as a nice base to Konad over.  I figured that it didn’t matter too much if it looked awful after application as I’d be covering it with Konad anyway.  So I went for it!  And I’m glad I did.  Here’s the finished result

George Streamer, Konad Blue Special Polish, M24

 

These are full sunlight pictures but they were taken indoors!  I don’t know if I mentioned in my very brief previous post that we have been having new windows fitted this week, and we’ve gone from horrid old single glazed windows which have been in for years and years, with rotten wooden frames complete with peeling paint and a lifetime of dust around them, to beautiful new double glazed unit with lovely whic UPVC frames, and the house seems so much lighter!  The downside is, my house has been a state, all dusty etc for the last 5 days, I’ve been washing my hands and doing washing up etc a LOT because of the dust and my hands are now a dry, cracked, injured mess,  which you’ll see in the next post.

 

Thanks for reading!  😀

So Sorry! August 11, 2009

Hey guys (if any of you are still there!)  I’m really sorry about the massive delay between posts.  It’s my busiest time of the year wedding wise at the moment, and that doesn’t just mean one day at the wedding, it also means nearly a week of editing hundreds of pictures.  So I’m tired, and when I have done pics of my nails I haven’t opened them in Photoshop to resize them etc cos I’ve had loads of wedding photos open in there already and it’s just been crazy! 

Anyway, I’ve trimmed all my nails right down now – no white tip showing on any of them at all 😦 because I had like 3 breakages on one hand and it was just making me a little 😦 that all my nails were at different lengths so in a fit of pique I got out the nail clippers and they’ve all gone.  They better grow back stronger next time or there will be trouble!

Here’s a couple of manis I have done lately.  They only 2 good enough to have their picture taken!

Barry M Gold, Miss Sporty Silver, Konad Wine Red and plate M21 (I think)

I quite liked this mani ^^ but I found the colours made my fingers look a little….I don’t know….grubby?!  I probably wouldn’t wear it again but it was ok.

Collection 2000 Hot Looks BMX Bandit (yes, again), Konad Princess Polish Blue Pearl, and a Fauxnad plate full nail design.

Can you tell I am a little bit obsessed with BMX Bandit?!  I love it.  This ^^ worked really well too as the BMX Bandit is a creme, smooth looking colour and the Blue Pearl Princess Polish has a nice amount of shimmer to it.  Lovely 🙂

Thanks for reading, please bear with me, I’m trying to get back up to speed!

New Hoard July 28, 2009

As I have been feeling sorry for myself recently, and as I needed to make amends to myself for chopping off my nails, I have treated myself to a new hoard!  Yesterday I bought a Miss Sporty nameless colour from the ‘dollar store’ (pound shop) which was a metallic-esque cherry red.  Today I bought 4 Stargazer colours.  £2.50 each, fab prices.  I was thinking of trying to get hold of them to supply them on my website, but I want to concentrate on buying the Diamond Cosmetics range first.  These are some seriously massive bottles, 14ml in each.  The brush is a bit chunky but it’s not too bad to work with, even when you have (newly) short little dinky nails!

None of these polishes have names, just numbers (next pic)

170 , 135, 128, No number sticker :-(, Miss sporty nameless

All of them but the Miss Sporty

Miss Sporty and the Stargazer red, almost dupes!

 

I am in the process of doing a proper swatch of 128 (the gorgeous duo purple/rust/gold colour) so I will update once I have done it!

 

Thanks for reading 😀

Collection 2000 Hot Looks BMX Bandit/Hoola Hoop

 

***Late post as I forgot to publish it when I typed it***

Can I just say I’m in LOVE with BMX Bandit? It is so pretty! I actaully wore it on of the days I didn’t post over the weekend/end of last week, it was part of a disastrous manicure (incidentally it was such a disaster and got taken off so quickly that I can’t even remember what it was!) So I took any excuse to use it again!

This is an alternating French using BMX Bandit and Hoola Hoop (Collection 2000 Hot Looks). Hoola Hoop seems a lot more neon on than in the bottle, but I really like it. It’s like Candyfloss pink 🙂

BMX Bandit and Hoola Hoop

BMX Bandit and Hoola Hoop

Yep evidence of both hands for a change!  I do have two y’know!

Anyway It looked a bit naked, and I seem to have sorta loast the touch with Konad a little lately so I didn’t want to go down that road, and then I remembered in my birthday haul I bought a bottle of silver glitter which hasn’t seen the light of day yet………so guess what….neon, funky french and glitter all in on?  “She didn’t!”  Oh but I did!

BMX Bandit, Hoola Hoop and Beauty UK Silver Glitter

BMX Bandit, Hoola Hoop, Beauty UK Silver Glitter

Yes I have a big dent in the middle finger 😦 The base coats had been left over 24 hours to dry, and there was a couple of hours between the first and second coats of glitter, but for some reason, once that second coat went on it took hours for them to set hard.  Also this gliter is packed with little holo pieces as well as regular silver glitter bits but I haven’t managed to capture them very well.

I’m currently suffering with a summer cold (which I hope goes away before Saturday as we are at another wedding) so I don’t think there will be any new nails tomorrow, but if I feel better there’s a chance so check back 🙂

Thanks for reading! 😀

A sheer and flowery Konad

I did this lovely (ish) mani on Sunday night.  Unfortunately I had already severely split my thumbnail and teabagging it wasn’t working, and then I split the middle finger on the other hand, so I guess my nails were telling me they were too weak, so I chopped them all down   :’-(    they feel really strange now, really sort of sharp and weak but they will start to grow again soon.

Anyway here is the said mani:

Base coat: Revlon (Color Beam Sheer range) Night Light - from the pound shop (or Dollar store as you guys call it which sounds so much better!)Konad was done in Deep Jungle and Blue Pearl Princess Polishes, and M29

The little pink flower gem came with my Pro Salon Kit (I'd like to add, I knocked THEM ALL out of the container and spent about 15 minutes picking them up with tweezers 😦 )

I’ve had the Revlon a while, bought it in the ‘dollar store’ because I really liked it, but it’s just TOO sheer for me normally.  However I really fancied something a bit more sheer when I did this and it’s about the only sheer I have, so it got used.  It says it is free of two of the big three, so I’m not sure if it’s free of all of them or not.  It is very thin and watery but it did apply well, and although you can’t tell from these pics, it’s got a nice shimmer to it, and it’s a bit more lilac than it looks in these pics.  The only thing I don’t like is, it makes the tips of your nails look green for some reason!  I may consider using it to layer over another colour next time.