This is another of the polishes I found at the outlet mall place last week. I'm not sure how much Leighton Denny polishes, usually cost (over a tenner, I think) but these were £4.99 - I bought a couple of different colours. This is Fireball.
While this isn't that unique a colour - I have a few similar ones, I'm sure - it is just my kind of colour!
This is two coats, with no topcoat.
Application is really nice - smooth and easy, nice brush, no messiness, dries well. And the colour is gorgeous! Glowy red with gold and orange particles that really shine.
Close-up, you can see the blend of colours in there.
Isn't this a pretty colour? I wore this to work for two days, and it lasted really nicely, no chips or wear or peeling or anything. I then stamped over this with some guitars, because I was going to see Nils Lofgren in Sheffield on Thursday night.
I used MoYou London Rockstar 01 and Konad Black. I didn't have time to do anything fancy, but I wanted to add something to the nails rather than just leaving them plain.
The topcoat also really brought out the shine of the Leighton Denny polish!
A friend recently gave me a surprise present - look how cute this set is!
I've heard of the brand but only very vaguely, and never seen it in shops at all. My first try is the silver one.
This is two coats of the silver. I don't think it has a name, although perhaps the number is the identifier.
The formula of this was really nice. This is two coats, but it was almost a one coater. The polish is smooth, easy to apply neatly and dries quickly. I'm not crazy about the brush, as the square lid is quite awkward to hold, but it's not so difficult that it spoils the application.
Of the silver polishes I've tried, this is one of the better ones by a long way. It's not brush strokey, and it didn't chip or peel in the three days I wore this. The shine is really nice, and seems to have a real glow to it.
After two days I used striping tape and Barry M Black Currant to make a rays design.
I like this look too, although Black Currant still just looks black to me - it's very hard to see any purple there!
I fell in love with the MoYou London Steampunk plates, and bought two of them. However, I'm not quite sure what to do with them!
Today I used a couple of metallic autumnal shades and the XL plate 01, with a few tiny studs. I'm not convinced by the whole look. It's nice, but it doesn't blow me away.
I used OPI's Germanicure by OPI and China Glaze Harvest Moon. I stamped using my very precious and diminishing Barry M Gold Foil. The studs are stuck down with topcoat.
I really like the clock design on my thumb! The gold isn't a high contrast with the China Glaze polish, so in hindsight I'd have used black to stamp on those nails.
Like the rest of the nail blogging world, I went a bit crazy in the Models Own sale last week and bought lots of the new Colour Chromes range. They arrived today, and Oooooooo! They're shiny! I'm not a huge fan of chrome and metallic polishes worn on their own, but I was excited because these are apparently really good for stamping. And they are!
This is a base of OPI 4 in the Morning. I then stamped using Chrome Cerise, and MoYou London Holy Shapes 04 plate. The Holy Shapes range is the latest MoYou collection - the marketing for it seems very 90s and geometric, but I think a lot of the designs on this plate look very Art Deco.
Cerise stamped really well! It's very opaque and covered the black easily. I know I misjudged a couple of the nails and didn't get them lined up properly, but I don't think it's massively obvious in real life.
Have you tried the Chromes yet?
I was in a large Boots the other day and noticed a display of a brand I'd never seen before - Orly Color Blast. Google tells me that Color Blast is the high street 'cheaper' version of the Orly range. Not that much cheaper though, as these cost £9.50 each! The display was stunning, really gorgeous, and I ended up buying three!
This is Magenta Color Flip, 2 coats, with topcoat. Apparently the Color Flip range is the Color Blast duochrome range. This one shows a gorgeous red/orange in the bottle, which suckered me in immediately as I LOVE reds and oranges!
Application is really nice - it's even, smooth and clean, and the brush is really good. The lid is nice - it's rubbery and the ridges give a good grip.
On the downside, I can't really see any duochrome on the nails. There's a bit visible in the bottle, but it doesn't really translate to the nail.
On the other hand - it's a gorgeous, glowy, shiny colour! I do really like it.
Having said that, £9.50 is quite a lot for a high street brand, and I can't say that this colour is particularly unique. I do have a lot of glowy metallic reds! But this is beautiful!
I don't have a great track record with nail wraps - I've always found them quite fiddly and not as effective as I'd like. I'm always tempted by them though, as sometimes the designs are so fab! So when I was contacted and asked if I'd like to try some Kooky nail wraps from their new Neon Me collection, I was torn! On the one hand, there's my rubbish track record. On the other hand... just look at the designs!
So that was an easy decision! I was sent a pack of the Camera Flare Neon Pink design, which is a design of neon pink, black and metallic silver dots. It's really metallic and SO shiny!
The instructions say to use the Kooky Dehydrator to cleanse the nails before application. I didn't have that, but I assumed it was basically acetone, so I cleaned my nails thoroughly with that, and went ahead applying them.
It was a bit fiddly to find the right wraps for each nail in terms of size. Several of the wraps were just a touch too narrow, or a bit too wide, so I had to do some trimming, which was a bit awkward. It meant that there are one or two spots where the shape isn't totally smooth round my cuticles.
I think the overall look is fab! They're so shiny and bright, which I really like.
You can buy these from My Retail Beauty where these are currently on sale for £4.50 and also have free shipping. Some of the designs are really gorgeous! I especially like this one, which is a sort of neon/metallic ruffian which I could never do myself!
I'm still not convinced by wraps, I have to say. I think these are much, much better than wraps I've tried previously (which were thick, and ended up wrinkled and weird) as they are thinner and more easily moved around and smoothed out. If you're the kind of person with very evenly shaped nails, or quite flat nails, I bet you'd find these really easy to apply. The designs are great, the price is excellent, and the quality is really good. However, I still find them quite fiddly on my narrow, curved nails, so I couldn't manage to get them absolutely smooth in every spot, which I did find annoying. Maybe it just needs practice though! There are plenty of wraps in the pack (16 - all of which are enough for at least two nails) so I'll be able to have another go later!
These were provided for review purposes. Please see my Disclaimer for more details.
I was NOT going to buy this shade from the Barry M Aquarium collection, but then I was in Boots the other day, and Barry M was on 3-for-2... and, well, you know how it is!
This is Barry M Pacific, two coats, with no topcoat.
The formula is a little on the thin and sheer side - my second coat was thicker than the first though, and covered well. I wore this earlier in the week as well, when I was away, and it lasted perfectly for three full days and nights. Admittedly, I wasn't in my usual routine and so wasn't typing, digging around in my handbag for keys, or washing up, but even so, I was really impressed.
This is a blue-green duochrome, although to be honest, there really isn't that much duochrome or colour shift in there. The colour is mostly a turquoisey blue, although it does look a darker cobalt blue in some lights, and a brighter green in others. It's a lovely colour though, and a very pretty, metallic finish with a lot of shine.
Not content with leaving well enough alone, I thought I'd try this with some stamping over the top - I used Barry M Silver Foil and MoYou London stamping plate Pro 09. I used the 3 different butterfly designs.
The MoYou London plates are just so good! They keep bringing out new ones too, it's far too tempting!
I mean - look how pretty those butterflies are!
Barry M's latest new collection is the Aquarium collection: six sea-related colours. There are 4 duochromes and two shard glitters. I chose two of the duochromes, Caspian on the left, and Mediterranean on the right.
Aren't they pretty? First up, I tried out Mediterranean, the pinky-gold one. And just to warn you - this is going to be photo heavy, because it's PRETTY!
Did I say pretty? I mean DROP DEAD GORGEOUS!
This is three thin coats of Mediterranean, with no topcoat. Two coats would probably have been fine, but it's quite a sheer formula, so I added a third. This is a lovely pinky gold foil that moves between deep pink to bright orange, via peachy gold tones. I ran round the house taking photos in every different light I could find!
Formula is fine - this is smooth and even, dries well and applies easily. The first coat is a bit sheer, as this is a foil, so the particles don't cover the entire nail straight away.
It looks great in the sun.
It looks great in the shade.
I think it's a really flattering colour.
I think I love this polish! Because I can never leave well alone, I decided to also stamp over it. I used Barry M Gold Foil and MoYou London Nature 02 stamping plate.
I used the peacock tail section of the plate to get this feather design. I think the combination works really well!
I like the subtle contrast between Mediterranean and the gold stamping - it's not too obvious, but it is pretty.
The Aquarium collection is out now in Superdrug, and costs £3.99 each. However, I bought these two yesterday on a 2-for-£6 deal, so you can get them cheaper.
I'm a sucker for packaging! I saw this set in my local shop the other day and bought it (about £9 I think) without reading any reviews online, which was a bit of a mistake!
I like the packaging(although apparently I can't take a decent photo of it!), and the free bracelet!
These are the polishes. Yellowpalooza, Stand in Lime for Days, Rolling Bones and The Drummer is Hot.
The Drummer is Hot is almost identical to Roll in the Hague, from the Holland collection (although the formula is not as good - more on that later.)
Stand in Lime for Days is almost identical to Fiercely Fiona from the Shrek collection (again, with a less impressive formula).
The formula on these is poor! REALLY poor. The yellow and the green are very thin and streaky, and took at least three coats to be anywhere near acceptable. These coats then just failed to dry. Rolling Bones is quite pretty, but again is very very thin and watery, so took at least 3-4 coats to be wearable. The Drummer is Hot isn't too bad, two coats was enough, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as Roll in the Hague, and was still a bit streaky.
One coat - streaky!
Two coats of The Drummer is Hot (it is still streaky, although you can't really see that here) and three coats of all the others.
I did two manis with these, both of which failed completely. One was a tape mani with colour blocking - but the colours were so sheer that they needed so many coats that they just never dried properly, so the tape lifted up half the colour. The other also just didn't dry, so it dented and smeared about an hour after I finished it. After that, I gave up.
I will wear the bracelet, and I'll probably keep the orange and the grey, but the yellow and the green I think I will pour away so that I can use the bottles for something else. They're THAT bad!
You can buy this set in stores and online for about £10 if you really want to. Or I know where you can get a barely used second hand set for cheap! Lol.
