Avon Nailwear Pro : Violetta Sparkle

Now that the trauma of TMI Thursday has passed, I thought I'd soothe my frayed nerves with glitter.

Enter Violetta Sparkle, from Avon.

Were my nerves soothed by this lovely glittery purple? 

Not in the least. I've spent all day trying to get a good picture of this polish. I've used two different cameras, four different rooms and about a million light sources. Unfortunately the camera that came closest to capturing this colour accurately was my camera phone, so you're going to have to ignore the kinda blurry pictures I'm afraid. But at least the colour's right!

(with flash)

Violetta Sparkle is a Cadbury purple jelly with lots and lots of gold glitter. It goes on quite nicely, no particular problems with application (though the brush is pretty bog standard and I don't especially like the square lid, which makes it less than comfortable to hold, but that's minor really). Like many other jellies it does need three coats to be opaque; I tried to get away with two because the purple was more obvious that way, but it dried patchy and I had to add a third, whereupon the purple became less of a Cadbury/royal purple and turned into a darker, more vampy shade. 

On the nail, it reminds me of a darker version of Orly Oui, or OPI It's My Year. Though in every single one of my shots, it looks darker on the nail than it does in real life. It's so frustrating trying to capture this sort of shade perfectly!

Drying time was okay, not especially fast, but not painfully slow either. It doesn't claim to be quick drying, so that's okay. Wear was a little disappointing, though. It didn't chip after two days, but there was tipwear by the end of the first day. Maybe if I'd wrapped my tips it would have helped, but it still appeared too fast for my liking.

See how it looks in the bottle here? That's how it looks on the nail in real life. The glitter is absolutely gorgeous - just enough to catch the light and twinkle beautifully, but not over the top. In some lights I even caught a green flash amongst the gold, but couldn't see any actual green glitter, so it must be something to do with the way this particular gold reflects at certain angles.

Finally I got an accurate shot of how it looks on the nail! This was picture no. 9364583853652. Or at least, that's what it felt like >.<

Overall, this polish is absolutely stunning. The colour is lovely, the glitter is beautiful. It's definitely one of those polishes that looks better on the nail than you thought it would when it was still in the bottle - I thought it was pretty to start with, but when I painted my nails with it, I kicked myself for not having tried it sooner. The only minus is the tipwear, and I suppose the need to use three coats is less than ideal (but then it's a jelly so I can hardly complain). Considering that Avon often play it safe with rather boring colours, I think they've outdone themselves this time. Let's hope they keep going like this (but also make it a bit longer lasting)!

EDIT: So... I was going to change this mani but first, I filed my nails. I often file them down while wearing a dark polish because it helps you see the shape better and helps protect the nail from being damaged by the file. And after I'd filed them, the polish still looked great (I filed off the tipwear). And since then, no more tipwear has appeared, and it's now 3 days later!! I don't know what the problem was first time round, because now it seems like a really long lasting polish. Go figure!

Avon Nailwear Pro : Ruby Slippers

Introducing Ruby Slippers, from Avon. Not to be confused with the China Glaze polish of the same name, this little gem is a lovely, cheerful, bright red polish with silver glitter and it's one of my go-to red shades, especially for toes. In some lights it's a knock your eye out scarlet, in others it takes on more of a cherry tone, and in all lights it makes me smile!

The silver glitter is quite prominent in the bottle, but on the nail it disappears into the red jelly finish and looks more like a red shimmer. This isn't a bad thing though, as it's still very pretty! (Please excuse the strange red patches on my fingers; I had a slight accident with some hair dye...)

Since it's a jelly it's a little sheer - pictured are two coats (with one of topcoat) and it's more or less opaque, though there is still a little VNL - this would most likely disappear if you added a third coat. Application is really easy - the brush is just a standard style, no frills one, and the square bottle lid makes it a little awkward to hold, but the polish itself applies beautifully, dries reasonably fast, and doesn't try to run into your cuticles.
Wear is okay - it chipped on the second day but that was after several hours of rearranging the spare room and general housework. 

Avon polishes used to be rather hit and miss, but they've definitely improved in recent times - and since they're so often on half price special offer, you can usually pick them up for as little as £3. No wonder I have  so many!

Layering: Revlon Gold Get 'Em over Avon Green With Envy

Morning everyone!

Today I want to show you this accidental layering that I did just to test out the bottle of Revlon: Gold Get 'Em I bought at the weekend. I wondered what the finish was like, so I painted it over one nail of my existing mani for a quick look-see and I liked the effect so much I kept it and did the other 9 the same!

On it's own, Gold Get 'Em is a really sheer, shimmery gold (I'll do a post with it on its lonesome at a later date) but layered over the dark green of Green With Envy, it transforms into a beautiful rich colour that reminds me of aged copper verdigris.

It's bronzey and shiny and antique-metallic and (I'm told) expensive looking; I had quite a few compliments on this manicure :)

Avon Nailwear Pro: Green with Envy

Morning all!

Today's mani is Avon Nailwear Pro in Green with Envy. Here we have two coats of basecoat and two coats of polish.

I have quite a few Avon polishes and they tend to vary in quality/longevity (the older ones I own are terrible for chipping but they seem to have improved their formula recently and the newer ones are much improved) -  this is one of the newer, and better ones I own. It's a very, very dark green creme (and quite hard to photograph without it just looking black -hence the strange lighting in these pictures, which was the only way I could seem to get the green to show). There isn't any shimmer or glitter, just a plain rich green which dries very glossy (all these pictures are without topcoat) and is opaque in two coats although you could get away with just one thick one if you preferred.

Green with Envy comes in the same standard 12ml square bottle as most Avon polishes. It goes on quite smoothly, although it's a little runny for my tastes - which makes it harder to do an even, thin coat without it blobbing all over the place. Because of this, both coats I applied were quite thick and took a long time to dry. I waited 45 minutes after the 2nd coat before going to bed - and woke up with not-too-bad-but-definitely-there sheet marks on the hand I did last :(

Two days after dong this mani I was still chip-free and the polish looked great, with only slight tip wear despite the lack of top coat. (Pictures were taken at the two day mark - you might be able to see the wear if you look closely). I think I'll get at least another two days out of it before the wear is too much to put up with.

Interestingly, Avon in the US uses different names for some of their polish colours- Green With Envy is the UK name, I'm not sure what it's called across the pond. But it's the only dark green they have so it shouldn't be too hard to spot!