I got a sudden urge to wear one of my first Deborah Lippmann polishes, Across the Universe. I haven't worn this is AGES - maybe two years!
This is two coats of Across the Universe, with added topcoat for shine.
I love this polish. It's a deep blue jelly, filled with blue and silver glitter, which ends up giving a lovely jelly sandwich effect. I always think it looks mermaidy and sea-like.
I decided to up this one by painting the backs of my nails too. I haven't done this in a while, but my nails are getting really long, so it seemed a good idea. I used the Barry M limited edition blue foil from Christmas 2012.
It's really hard to take a photo of the back of my nails!
I've been wearing these nails for three days now, and I still don't want to take them off!
My first nail varnish jewellery post on here is my most-viewed post ever, by a very long way, and my other posts also have high view count, so I'm guessing there are still lots of people out there who like nail varnish jewellery! I've been at a bit of a loose end this week, as I'm off work until next Monday, and I had some fabulous glitters sitting on my desk.... so I made some more jewellery!
The ring bases and glass cabochons are from an American shop called Beadaholique, who also sell on Amazon UK. I bought these some time ago but hadn't got round to using them yet.
First up, I liked my Models Own Midori jelly sandwich so much that I made it into a ring.
I love how this looks, as it's not overtly glittery and sparkly, it's more subdued and interesting, I think.
Next is one of the Firework collection, Models Own Rocket. I backed this with black to make it stand out.
This one IS sparkly!
This ring is made with Barry M's Superdrug Christmas 2013 Limited Edition. You can see from the state of the bottle how much I like this one!
It's ridiculously sparkly in the light.
The last one is Ruby Wing Strawberry Shortcake. I love this polish, so I made a pendant and a ring to match.
The gold glitter is dense and super sparkly, and changes colour from a bright gold to a rusty pink gold in the sunshine (not that we have much of that today) and also smells of strawberry shortcake.
What do you think?
Hello again! I've had a bit of a break from the blog and from my nails over Christmas (I did paint them, but not with anything special) but now I'm home and raring to go with the nails for the new year. I hope you all had a good Christmas! Today I'm very excited to share a new limited edition Models Own set of polishes, inspired by gorgeous Japanese melon liqueur Midori!
I love a good cocktail! There was a time when I was very much into making cocktails, and Midori was one of my favourite liqueurs to use - I absolutely adore the smell and flavour of melons. So when I saw this set, I thought it was right up my alley - they're melon scented! The set consists of three different green polishes - a bright neon, a golden green duochrome, and a fabulous glitter. I decided to swatch them separately, and together.
My Midori is a sheer, bright green polish. It is very sheer - this is four coats - but the colour is SO bright and happy and juicy that I don't mind that. Some sheer polishes don't dry properly once they're built up to layers, but I didn't experience that at all with this one. This was a nice, even consistency, which dried very well.
I added topcoat to this for extra shine. The melon scent is delicate and pleasant, unlike some scented polishes, which can be a bit overly synthetic.
Golden Green is my favourite of the set - it's an absolutely beautiful greeny gold metallic, with a duochrome edge to it. Quality is really good - it's smooth and even. This is two coats.
Golden Green is so pretty in the sunshine (which we had some of today!) where it looks so shiny and bright and rich. Isn't it lovely?
I then tried the glitter, Dancing Queen, over Golden Green. Dancing Queen is a bit like the Mirrorball glitters in that there are all sorts of different shapes in there, from rough shards, to tiny and medium hex glitter, to diamond shapes. There's a blend of green, blue, silver and gold, and this is SO shiny in the sunshine!
This glitter doesn't have the unpleasant smell of some of the glitter polishes out there. Like the other two in this set, as it dries, it has a lovely fresh melon scent. Because of its nature, the glitter isn't the type you can just paint on as you would a normal polish - it definitely benefits from a bit of dabbing and placing to get even coverage.
Finally, I wanted to do a skittle using all three polishes. Because My Midori was so sheer, I thought I'd try it over white to see what that was like. I think it's interesting! My Midori looks much more neon this way. I like it a lot - but I have to say, I think I prefer it on its own as in the first swatches, as it looks a bit juicier. But for that neon look, this is perfect.
Here I have My Midori on my little and ring fingers, and Golden Green on my thumb and index. I've got Dancing Queen over the little finger and thumb, and on its own over white (Essie Blanc) on the middle finger.
I really like this set! I like that the greens are all different - I'm not sure that My Midori and Golden Green work so well together, but they both work really well with Dancing Queen, and I think that makes the set really interesting. You can buy this set on the Models Own website here for £15, but it is a limited edition, so I don't know how long it will be there! If you want more information about Midori (it's delicious!) then their website is here, so long as you are over 18.
Wearing these has made me really want some Midori now! I haven't made cocktails in quite a while, so I think I may have to get a bottle for new year's eve.
Edit: a comment from Squeakymom below made me realise that I'd not thought of doing a jelly sandwich! And My Midori & Dancing Queen make a PERFECT jelly sandwich!
This is alternating coats of My Midori (first coat, one in the middle, and then as a last coat) and Dancing Queen (two coats, in between My Midori) and no topcoat. I love how this looks!
This product was sent for review. Please see my disclaimer for more information.
This is yesterday's new purchase, Essie's Skirting the Issue. I was idly browsing in Boots, and picked this up thinking 'meh, another vampy red, I have loads of these...' when I suddenly noticed - JELLY! Oh wow. I have lots of dark, vampy reds. But I do NOT have any vampy red jellies! It looks great on its own, but I thought it might be fun to try a jelly sandwich.
This is one coat of Skirting the Issue. It's a lovely smooth formula, although a bit streaky at one coat. It dries semi matte in appearance, so this would need topcoat.
I then added a coat of Jordana's Copper Blaze. This was a gift from my lovely American friend Ari, and it's SO sparkly and pretty. It's the perfect glitter for me, in an orangey coppery gold. There's tiny microglitter, and larger hex glitter, all the same colour, in a clear base. I often wear this over black, or dark blue, both of which look good. Anyway, I then added another coat of Skirting the Issue, which gave me this:
I was initially disappointed, in that it clearly isn't going to make a typical jelly sandwich. The Essie is far too dark for that. You can't see the glitter clearly, much less the colour of it. However, after a few minutes of waving my fingers around, I decided that actually, this looks pretty cool! It was much sparklier and shinier than I'd expected, and I think it looks very similar to Barielle's Elle's Spell (which I posted about here).
After another coat of Skirting the Issue, I then added a final coat of Copper Blaze. You need to be a little careful when applying this, as the larger pieces can drag, so you do need to push them around a bit to get the placement even.
Copper Blaze is just SO sparkly!
I like this. I think maybe I'll just wear the Copper Blaze over the top of Skirting the Issue in future though, rather than layering it.
I found some Sinful Colors polishes in a bargain bin for 99p in the market hall a few weeks ago, and bought Daddy's Girl (a purple jelly with glitter) and this one, which is inexplicably called Serena and Chloe. It is a bright orange jelly with particles of shimmery gold.
It has been sitting on my untried shelf since I bought it, as I just can't decide how to wear it. This afternoon I decided to try it out a few different ways. On my little finger is five (yes really!) coats of Serena and Chloe on its own. On my ring finger is two coats of Serena and Chloe over an orange creme, OPI A Roll in the Hague. On my middle finger is a jelly sandwich, with Serena and Chloe alternating with China Glaze Solar Flare, my very favourite gold glitter. On my index finger, just for comparison, is China Glaze Riveting, my very favourite orange.
S&C on its own is fine, but looks very like S&C over a creme, so I would definitely choose to layer it rather than wear it on its own, as alone it took ages to dry to the same effect.
The jelly sandwich is something I haven't done before, but I do like it. I like how the big glitter in Solar Flare looks orangey with Serena and Chloe over the top. And I like how the top layer of Solar Flare looks more gold than the layer further down.
Serena and Chloe does look very like Riveting, although just not as shimmery. All in all, I still prefer Riveting.
Finally, just a quick shot of the Riveting and Serena and Chloe bottles side by side, just for Squeakymom, who wondered.
What do you think? How would you wear this?
