Lolly Gloss Watermarble

Here are some more nails I wore in the last couple of weeks, that I hadn't got round to blogging.  I thought I'd see whether the Barry M Lolly Gloss polishes work for watermarbling.... and they do! 

I started with a base of Barry M Cotton, and then watermarbled using Pink Candy, Purple Pop, Orange Fizz and Cherry Drop. 

As you can see, they work really well.  I'd wondered before about water marbling with sheer polishes, but the OPI Color Paints I have are only minis, and I wasn't keen to waste loads of polish. The Barry Ms are a fraction of the price, and are easier to replace, so I went with those. Plus these smell pretty!

What do you think? I really love how these look, and I'll be doing this again. I wish they did a green and a yellow as well!

 

More OPI Color Paints!

Following on from yesterday's big post about the OPI Color Paints (click here if you missed it!) here are two more quick looks I did this morning while I was experimenting with them. 

This is my first attempt at leadlighting. It's not the tidiest, but I do love the effect! I started with a base of Silver Canvas, then stamped using Laqa & Co Black Gloss and MoYou London Holy Shapes XL 04. Then I used a fine paintbrush to add the Color Paints in the spaces. 

This gradient look was done with a white base. I then added a stripe of Color Paints down each side of the nail (yellow and pink, and yellow and turquoise) which I then dragged sideways using the polish brush. Where the yellow and turquoise meet, they make green. Where the yellow and pink meet, they make orange. I love this effect!

 

OPI Color Paints!

Ever since I first saw the press release for these, aaaaages ago, I have wanted the OPI Color Paints polishes! They're described as "blendable nail lacquer" colours that can be combined for all sorts of artistic effects. Officially, these aren't on sale in the UK until July 1st, and will only be available in Selfridges. However, they are available on Amazon from lots of different sellers. I bought a set of the minis, as I couldn't decide on what colours I wanted, and didn't want to spend a fortune buying several and then be disappointed. 

This set has Silver Canvas, the 'undercoat' polish, and then 5 of the 8 colours: Primarily Yellow, Chromatic Orange, Pen & Pink, Purple Perspective, and Turquoise Aesthetic. 

How sheer are they?

They're sheer, but very pigmented, so they're nowhere near as sheer as polishes like the Sheer Tints.  Depending on the colour, some are more sheer than others. They are beautiful, glossy and pigmented jellies.

Here are, left to right, Primarily Yellow, Chromatic Orange, Pen & Pink, and Purple Perspective with one coat each.

Here they are with two coats each.The yellow is obviously more sheer than the others. The purple in particular is almost opaque. But I love how juicy and glossy they all are!


Do I need the silver base?
Well, it's going to be up to you. You probably don't need this specific silver base. Do you need a silver base? No, but it does do something different to the polishes. 

Here is Turquoise Aesthetic left to right over the silver base, no base, and a white base.  As you can see, the polish is less streaky over the silver base, and the colour pops much more. On its own, you have the sheer effect and less colour-pop, and over white you get the colour-pop but have some streakiness. Which you prefer is going to be a matter of personal taste.


How does the silver compare to other silvers?

Left to right, I used Models Own Chrome Silver, Barry M Silver Foil, OPI Silver Canvas, and OPI Push and Shove.  These are all one coat, except the Models Own, which is two. 
 

The Models Own Chrome Silver is good for stamping, but I find it hard to use as a polish on its own as it is quite thin, and drags a bit on application, so ends up streaky unless you're really careful. As you can see, it's a bit uneven in application. The Barry M Silver Foil is excellent for stamping, but nothing special to wear on its own.  Silver Canvas is nice and even. OPI Push and Shove is really nice as a shiny chrome, and is definitely shinier than the others here. I found the two OPIs very similar in application, although Push and Shove is more of a mirror-shine. Silver Canvas is really nice to apply, and isn't nearly as brush-strokey as many metallic polishes are. If you already have a silver chrome/metallic that you like, then you probably don't need Silver Canvas too. 

I tried  the Color Paints over all the silvers. As you can see, they're much of a muchness, so if you already have a silver you like, I wouldn't buy another just to use with the Color Paints.


How do they compare to the OPI Sheer Tints?

Very well! I was really excited when the OPI Sheer Tints came out, but they were so disappointing. Formula was gloopy and thick, and the colour was far more sheer than I'd hoped for. The Color Paints are what I hoped the Sheer Tints would be. 

Here I've compared Purple Perspective and Don't Violet Me Down from the Sheer Tints range. Left to right is one coat of Don't Violet Me Down over silver and on its own, then Purple Perspective over silver and on its own. This is typical of the difference - the Sheer Tints are very pale, just a hint of colour, where the Color Paints are very pigmented. The formula of the Sheer Tints is also really difficult to work with as it's so thick and sticky.  The Color Paints have a much better formula - it's much less thick, and not at all gloopy. It seems strange to me that the formula can be so much thicker on the Sheer Tints, and yet the colour less visible, but I suppose that was what they were going for. Anyway, Color Paints beat Sheer Tints hands down for me.  


Do they water marble?

Yes. I struggled to get the mini bottles to drip well, which meant that the colours dried more quickly than I could work with, but the actual spread is really good, and they look really zingy. 

Left is over silver, right is over white. I think my issue was only because the mini bottles are so small that you need to be careful with the brush, so the dripping takes longer and leaves time for the polish to dry on the surface of the water. With full size bottles, I think this would be fine. 


Do they stain?

Generally, no. But you probably need to be very careful with Turquoise Aesthetic!

Can you stamp with them?

No. But you can stamp with black over a base, and then use them for leadlighting. This is my next mani plan for these - I'll add a link here when I've tried this!


What can you do with them?

Lots of things! Here are two designs I did. 

This ruffian design uses the Silver Canvas base. I then painted on Chromatic Orange and Purple Perspective on alternate nails. I also added a stripe of another colour over the original - Primarily Yellow over the orange (which doesn't show) and Pen & Pink over the purple (which does!). 

I wore these for a day, and loved how glowy they were. 


My second design was this freehand flower art, which I did using all the colours and a fine paintbrush. I don't have the green one, so I used yellow and turquoise together. 

I love how this looks! 

It really glows in the evening sunshine!

What's the formula like?
It's good. Even and smooth, and not too thick and gloopy like the Sheer Tints, but not so runny that it floods the cuticles. Application is nice and easy, and drying time is normal.   

Overall, I LOVE this collection. I am definitely going to buy the red one in a full size, although I'm not sure I need the darker blue or the green. I may well also buy some of these mini colours in the full size, although I need to wait til after pay day!




   

So Susan LacquerLove - UK Nail Varnish Subscription Box!

I was contacted recently by Susan, the founder of brand new UK company So Susan, asking if I wanted to review one of her nail varnish subscription boxes. I LOVE the idea of a nail varnish subscription box, but so far they've not been available in the UK, so I jumped at the chance!

So Susan doesn't just sell nail varnish, as you can see by the website here, but the nail varnish subscription box is the bit that interests me! For £14.95, you get a box every month containing 4 items, of which at least 3 are nail varnish (postage is free).

The box itself is a lovely solid one, in a pretty pale Tiffany green. Rather than being just a box with a lid that lifts off, the lid kind of wraps round and closes with magnets! It's really cute and clever.

Inside this launch box, there are 4 polishes, and also an eyeliner/eyeshadow pencil in a dark greeny-brown colour. I'm not much of a make-up wearer, but I do sometimes wear eyeliner, so I'll definitely try this out.

The nail polishes each come in a nice box with all the details, and a little window to see the colour.  So Susan nail lacquer is 4-free, so does not contain DBP, tuolene, formaldehyde or formaldehyde resin.  It also contains rosehip fruit oil to moisturise and strengthen your nails and the skin around them. The packaging also confirms that these contain no parabens, no sulfates, no mineral oils, phthalates, triclosan or animal by-products, and that the polish is cruelty-free.

The 4 colours in this box are (left to right) Raspberry, Mimosa, Silver Clouds and Pink Guava. I have to be honest - my first reaction on opening them was that they looked smaller than I was expecting (they're billed as 'full size') and that the colours didn't look particularly unique. However - on the size, these are 9ml, which is 1ml more than a standard Rimmel bottle, and 1ml less than a Barry M bottle, so they definitely are full size. The bottles look smaller than say, Barry M bottles because when you hold them side by side, you can see the glass is much thicker on the Barry M ones, making them just look bigger. 

On to the swatches!

This is Mimosa, two coats, no topcoat.  The first coat went on very streaky, and I was a bit worried that this wouldn't look good. However, as if by magic, it dried non-streaky! I really like this colour - it's a soft, delicate, sheer pale pink, with a lovely glossy finish.

The application was nice - the polish is smooth and even, goes on well and dries quickly.  The brush is a touch on the short size for my taste, which is inevitable with the small shape of the bottle, but it's not difficult or awkward to use. 

Next up is Pink Guava. This is ONE coat (yes, really!) with no topcoat. 

Pink Guava is a fabulous bright pink, highly pigmented and very glossy. Excellent formula, application was easy peasy.  It's a lovely squishy-looking colour and finish, so shiny and happy. I love this one!

This is Silver Clouds, which is my least favourite of the four (not that I dislike it!)  This is two coats, no topcoat again.  Silver Clouds is a silvery grey polish with a pinky shimmer, a little bit like Barry M Dusky Mauve, but much nicer. 

This is a touch on the brushstroke-y side when it dries; not hugely so, but enough to make application a little fiddlier than the other polishes in the box. The shimmer is really pretty though, and this is very nice. It's just not as much MY sort of colour as the others in the set. 

Last up is Raspberry, a gorgeous red-pink polish. This is two coats, no topcoat. 

Raspberry is not quite a crème, not quite a jelly, what some bloggers refer to as a 'crelly'. It is a little bit sheer and you can still see some visible nail line - I'm fine with that.  The red is a gorgeous bright shade. Again, like Pink Guava, it's highly pigmented and very zingy and glossy. I really love this one too. The brights are definitely very me!

Overall, I think these are excellent. Very good quality formula and application, and the presentation of the box is really good.  For £3.75 per bottle I'd be very happy to pay for this. Now, my absolute favourite thing about this box is that you don't have to take it every month!  When you sign up, you get a preview of the next box, and if you like it, you do nothing, and it arrives. If you're not so keen, you just opt out that month, and you won't pay. Or you can also choose to send it to a friend, which I think is a really cool option!  It's a really neat way of sending a present to someone.  I think the box would make a great Christmas present for a nail varnish lover!   Mind you, from a preview, I would probably not have bought this box as the colours look similar to others I have (but then I have way too many polishes!) but on actually trying them, I really am impressed and will definitely keep all of them, and use them. 

You can sign up to buy this LacquerLove subscription box on the So Susan website, details here Oh! Another really cool thing about this - when you buy from So Susan, you get loyalty points, which you can collect for money off future purchases. There isn't enough of that sort of thing around in the nail varnish world!


This box was provided free of charge to me for my honest review. See my Disclaimer section for more information. 


  

Nails Inc - Cherry Juicy Sheer, aka Royal Ascot

This is another of the Nails Inc Juicy Sheer collection, the Cherry one. These only appear to be called Juicy Sheers on the Nails Inc website - everywhere on the bottle is only labelled with the names. This one is Royal Ascot.

Royal Ascot is a sheer, red jelly. This is two coats, with topcoat. 

(indooors, artificial light)
 
Royal Ascot has a really smooth application, which dries to a gorgeous shine. One coat gives a subtle blush-like colour. Two coats is still sheer obviously, with plenty of visible nail line, but the colour deepens to a really nice tomato-ey red. In some lights (indoor, artificial light) this looked a little orangey, and in others (outdoor sunlight) this looked far more cherry-red.


(natural light)
 
I bet this would look great as a jelly sandwich with some gold (or maybe black?) glitter. 
  

Nails Inc Chelsea Flower Show - Orange Juicy Sheer

This is one of the Nails Inc Juicy Sheer collection. On the label this is called Chelsea Flower Show, but it's also called Orange Juicy Sheer on their website. 

This is two coats of Chelsea Flower Show, and no topcoat. Application was really smooth and easy, and though the polish took a bit longer to dry than usual, I really like how this looks.

It's a pretty, shiny, sheer orange. I don't have a problem with visible nail line, although I know some people do. I'm going to try this with glitter in a jelly sandwich at some point soon! I love how juicy and squishy this looks!

Mystery Vintage Polish! Unnamed NARS jelly.

Today I am wearing a NARS polish that is probably around 20 years old. This was my mother's, and I recently "borrowed" it from her! I remember her buying this in Liberty's in London in - I think - the early 1990s. We were having a day out, and she bought me a Chanel polish that was a clear, bright red jelly (I think it was a Vernis Cristallin, but not sure) and this one for herself. 

There is no label, or writing at all, other than NARS on one side of the bottle, and NAIL POLISH on another. 

This is a deep blackberry-ish coloured jelly, and is in perfect condition despite the age. The bottle cap lifts off, like a Chanel bottle. This is three coats, with no base or topcoat. I woke up early this morning, so these photos are in very early morning sunshine. 

The colour is very very sheer, so the first coat is almost invisible in colour, but is very shiny. The second coat starts adding more colour depth, and the third makes the colour a lot clearer. The formula is a little thin, and the polish tends to pool a little round the cuticles, but application is really smooth, and the finish is extremely glossy!

I remember really loving my red Chanel jelly (I would really love to find another) as it looked a bit like a boiled sweet, but that this purple polish was a bit less impressive. Still, I do really like it, and I love that it's still great after all these years.


I wore this with my newest ring, made with Deborah Lippmann's Forget You. I did already have a Forget You ring, but the cabochon fell off during the Springsteen concert in Manchester, so I have now made a new one. This one has a larger, domed cabochon this time round, which is quite heavy and chunky, and adds to the effect. I like it a lot more than my old one.



       
If you have any idea what this NARS polish might be called, please let me know!

Essie Mademoiselle

Last week I tried my first French manicure, using OPI's Heart Throb as the base colour. I liked it, but I found Heart Throb a bit streaky, and that it took quite a long time to dry.  I very very rarely wear things like sheer pinks, but I decided that I wanted a better one, so yesterday I bought Essie Mademoiselle.

This is three coats. Mademoiselle is a very sheer pale pink, which applies beautifully without any streaks at all. I think it's really lovely! It's subtle and grown up, which is not me at all! I still love it though.

Instead of adding white tips this time, I didn't bother and left it at just the Essie. However, I then couldn't resist adding a coat of glitter to my ring finger. This is one coat of OPI's Crown Me Already. It's a very sparkly silver glitter with large and small pieces in a clear base. It was a bit at odds with Mademoiselle, so I added another coat of the Essie over the top of the glitter, just to tone it down slightly. I really like how this looks!

  

Barry M - Pink Iridescent

This is Barry M's Pink Iridescent. It's a very pale pink jelly base, with silvery pink holographic glitter pieces.

It looks great layered over other colours (I particularly like it over dark colours like black or dark blue, but it also looks great over various shades of pink, or most other colours you could think of) but this time I thought I'd wear it on its own for once.

This is three coats, with topcoat. Application is the usual Barry M - easy and straightforward, with a decent brush and fairly quick drying time. 

The glitter colour isn't easy to describe - it changes depending on the light, but this closeup gives you a bit of an idea. Sometimes it's pink, sometimes white, sometimes silver, and there are also hints of green and blue at times.

You can really see the holo effect of the glitter here.

As you can see - I had sunshine! It didn't last, sadly. This was on Monday. By the evening we had heavy rain, and by Tuesday it was gales and torrential rain and gloomy skies again.