Hello! Not only have I not blogged for two weeks, but I haven't painted my nails at all either. I had bare nails throughout Christmas... Plus they've all broken and chipped and had to be cut short.
Today I have a very simple look for my first nail painting in two weeks. I started with bare nails and stamped over them with Konad White and MoYou London festive plate 02.
I thought this looked really simple and pretty!
I then thought it was a bit plain, so I added a coat of China Glaze Travel in Colour topcoat, just for a wintry sheen. I think that looks much prettier!
What do you think?
My friend Lorraine tipped me off that Wilko's is currently stocking Essence polishes, so today I toddled off to check them out. I've seen Essence on blogs, but not tried any, as I'd never seen them in actual shops.
This is what I got! They were on 3-for-2, and they're all dirt cheap (£1.75 or £1.80, that sort of price). What I don't understand is WHY the bottles are all different shapes! That's already 4 different sorts of bottle, and possibly 5 if you look closely.
The first one I tried is the red one, Me and My Lover. This is a "sparkle sand effect" which I suppose is the equivalent of the Zoya Pixie Dusts, the Barry M Textured Glitters, and the OPI Liquid Sands. The brush is really nice - it's a flat handle and a wide, flat brush with a rounded end. It's not so wide that it's like a paddle (like some Sally Hansen brushes!) but was just the right size for my nails.
Me and My Lover is a glittery red textured polish. This is two coats.
I'm not thrilled with the texture to be honest. It's a pretty colour, and applies really evenly and easily with no pooling or need for cleanup. However, I think it's a bit ordinary as texture goes. It's not really textured enough in my opinion - if it wants to be textured it needs to be much more so, like the Zoyas or the OPIs. It's neither one thing or the other at the moment, I feel. It's a nice colour though.
Then I used the XXL shine gel-look topcoat to see what it looked like glossy. Nice! I like this a lot more with a glossy finish. It's much sparklier and brighter.
I've heard a lot about this topcoat, so I was pretty excited to try it. However, it was just an ordinary topcoat in my opinion. It was nice and glossy, but not more than many other topcoats. And I can't see much of a gel effect, it's just a glossy topcoat. And I have to say - these nails did take quite a long time to dry, and with only three coats, I think that's not great.
I'd say it's definitely worth checking out the Essence polishes in Wilko. They're cheap, and it's nice to see a different range to the usual high street polishes. But I'm not blown away by excellence. And I suppose at that price, it's fair enough.
Oh, I meant to add! My camera broke! I'm having to take photos on my phone for now til I can either get my very beloved camera fixed, or buy a new one.
I saw this in Boots the other day and couldn't resist! I love a nice glossy topcoat!
This is Nails Inc's Kensington Caviar Gel Effect Plumping Top Coat. It was £12 in Boots, which isn't cheap, but which is cheaper than many other good topcoats. I was definitely attracted to the idea of gel look nails, without actually having gel nails.
I decided to compare it to some of my other topcoats. Left to right we have Seche Vite, Dior Gel Coat, Nails Inc Kensington Caviar and Sally Hansen Mega Shine.
This is one coat of each over Zoya Chynna, which is a highly textured pixie dust polish. Index is Seche, middle is Dior, ring is Nails Inc, and little finger is Sally Hansen.
I LOVE Seche Vite - it's really magical for drying quickly, and is glossy and long lasting. However, over textured polishes it sinks right in and needs at least 3 coats to be glossy, so it's not the best for this. This photo is two coats of each topcoat, although the second coats of the Dior and the Nails Inc are very thin, and the second coat of the Seche is actually a second and a third!
The Dior Gel Coat is really really nice; super glossy and long lasting. It isn't cheap though, at about £18, which seems very extravagant! The Sally Hansen is ok, but isn't particularly glossy. It's shiny, but not very thick, so it often needs two or three coats.
The Nails Inc topcoat is really good! It's more or less indistinguishable from the Dior one (I prefer the Dior brush, but the Nails Inc one is fine). This last photo is with Nails Inc over the disappointing Sally H, and over the Seche (which still left some texture after three coats) and over the thumb.
Also - isn't Zoya Chynna amazing with topcoat?!
I spotted this on the counter in my local shop the other day - China Glaze Travel in Colour. It's an iridescent topcoat, which is part of the 2013 Christmas collection (the Holiglaze collection). The shop didn't have any of the others in yet, just this one.
This is Travel in Colour on its own. It's a translucent, iridescent topcoat with tons of pinkish purple sparkles.
First I tried it over the polish I was wearing that day, Zoya Solange (a favourite gold and a favourite textured polish) and it added a lovely shimmery pinkish tinge to the top of the gold. It wasn't terribly obvious but it was pretty.
Then I tried it on top of some other colours - here it is over pink, red and black:
I then painted my nails black (Rimmel Black Out of course), taped them off with sellotape and added a coat of Travel in Colour, which gave this look:
I love how it looks!
It transforms the colour underneath and makes it super sparkly with lots of pink and purple, but also green and gold, depending on the light. It was quite hard to capture the purple side of it, but the blurry shots show it up quite well.
Travel in Colour sells for the usual China Glaze price, but is a smaller bottle than usual, at 9.6ml only.
I especially like that the label has British spelling! I wonder if the US version has US spelling, I'm guessing so..
I like this, and I'm sure I'll be trying it out over all sorts of things in the coming weeks.
