Models Own - Snowflake

The latest Models Own collection is the Wonderland collection. I didn't buy most of them because they don't look all that unique to me. However, I did pick up Snowflake, because I don't think I have anything quite like it, and it looks so pretty in the bottle.

This is two coats of China Glaze For Audrey, with Snowflake over the top.  I can't call this a coat of Snowflake, because it's not that kind of polish...

I have to say - this STINKS. The smell is absolutely abysmal. Worse than the Mirrorball collection, worse than W7 polishes... I think it may be the worst smelling polish I've ever met.  Because the mylar flakes are so big and unevenly shaped, they're also very bulky, which means that the polish is quite thick and gloopy. You can't really paint it on (well, you can, but the flakes all either drag right off, or clog up in a big clump on the tip of the nail) so you have to sort of dollop it out and spread it around, and fish for the flakes. 

The flakes are pretty - depending on the light, they're a mix of clear-white-gold in colour. Over For Audrey, they've got a greeny blue tint, but trying this out over other colours shows that Snowflake does vary a lot. I think this looks pretty, but it did need three coats of topcoat to even out the rough feel, and even then I have a couple of flakes that are still sticking up out of the nail, despite me trying to push them down with a cocktail stick, and then to glue them down with topcoat. I'm not keen on the way this feels, and I can still smell it, hours after it's dried. 

So overall, I'm not as impressed with the real thing as I was by the bottle.

Barielle - Elle's Spell

I was on a no-buy of nail varnish, what with having far too many, and being a bit broke. But I popped in to TKMaxx and ended up buying NINE bottles. It would have been madness not to. I got a set of 4 Nails Inc (sparkly shiny ones with duochromey bits in, I think) for £14.99 and a set of 5 Barielles (never tried them before, there are 4 foils and a goooorgeous glittery red, Elle's Spell) for £9.99.

This is Elle's Spell. It's a lovely crimson jelly full of red-gold glittery flakes. This is one coat of a plain red creme (Rimmel Heart on Fire) and then two coats of Elle's Spell.  Excuse the shrinking at the tips - I assume this was the Seche Vite effect. 

This looks amazing in sunlight - but sadly I didn't get time to take photos in the sun before I left for work, and by the time I came home it was overcast.

This is my first Barielle polish, and I like it! Nice bottle, nice brush, nice application. Nothing to blow me away, but nothing to complain about. And what a gorgeous colour! I love how it glows gold and firey in the sunlight.

USA Swap 1 - Milani Purple Rush

I couldn't wait to try out my American polishes, and it was so hard to decide which to use first! But based on what top I was wearing to work the next day (ie which one was clean and didn't need ironing!) I picked Milani Puple Rush.

This claims to be a 'High Speed Fast Dry One Coat Formula' - and it really was!  The application is quite thick, and was a bit tricky to start with, because it dried almost instantly! This meant that my first few nails became a bit lumpy, but coverage was very opaque. Because of the unevenness on my first nails, I went for two coats anyway, and added topcoat for extra shine, but I'm sure one coat will be enough next time.

This is a gorgeous dark purple foil, with bright sparks of pink in there in bright light. I didn't have much access to sunshine today, but the evening sun did show a little bit of this pink sparkle.



Then this evening, just for the hell of it, I also added a coat of the Finger Paints Asylum, which is a flakie unlike any I've seen in the UK. Instead of the usual orange, the flakes seem blue and pink, and go really well with the purple colour of the Milani - it seems all firey and alive to me!

So the first two polishes of the batch = SUCCESS!

Amazing USA Swap!

I made a new friend recently through Twitter, and based around nail varnish! The lovely @ari_kostan and I had a transatlantic nail varnish swap!  It was so much fun to do, and so exciting!

Yesterday my parcel arrived, and despite our cautious little budget, she sent me LOOOADS of stuff! Look at all the goodies!

There's a China Glaze Christmas set thing, with a sparkly bauble and a gold foil (Champagne Bubbles) and a lovely dark silver/black glitter (Tinsel Town). 

There are three amazing looking Milani polishes, a bright green foil (Racy Green), a bright purple foil (Purple Rush) and a bright blue foil that looks as though it has purple flashes in (Blue Lightening). 

There's a cute little Orly bright red (that I can't read the label of because of being blind!) and an AMAZING looking Finger Paints flakie (Asylum) with flakes that seem to be pink and blue, rather than the more standard orange. 

There are two stunning looking glitters from Sinful Colors - a bright greeny blue one (Nail Junkie) and a gorgeous gold and bronzey glitter (All About You) that reminds me of the Hunger Games China Glaze one that I have my eye on, Electrify. 

And then last but not least, there's a Wet and Wild Party of 5 Glitters, which looks like a brighter, more colourful Happy Birthday!

What an amazing present!  I'm so excited about them all!   

Leighton Denny - Inside Scoop

I haven't tried any Leighton Denny nail varnishes before, but I saw this last weekend for half price (£5.50) in John Lewis, and as I'd been thinking about getting a pale green polish for spring, I snapped it up.
This is Leighton Denny's Inside Scoop, a pale minty green, three coats plus Seche Vite.

Application was a bit streaky. The first coat was incredibly sheer and streaky and pretty unpleasant. The second coat improved it, and by the third I was happy.

The colour is a lovely fresh minty green, and it was really glossy and smooth, even before topcoat.  I liked it, although several of my colleagues weren't particularly impressed (one said my fingers looked mouldy, another mentioned Tipp-ex and one said it needed glitter). I probably wouldn't wear this regularly, but I liked that it was simple and clean and spring-like.

I then decided to jazz it up a bit with Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure. This is a polish I've read a lot about online, and from what I'd read it seems to be a bit hard to find, and has possibly been discontinued. Sally Hansen isn't easy to find in the UK (large Boots do stock some, but it's quite pricy) and I was surprised to find this in a rummage bin in my local market hall for £1.50! Bargain.


Anyway, I liked this a lot over Inside Scoop. Hidden Treasure is a flakie topcoat that changes colour a lot depending on the colour underneath, and here it moved between a shimmering greeny-blue and a golden effect. 

I liked this a lot more than Inside Scoop on its own, but I did like both.