W7 : Orange Dazzle

Happy Friday everyone! The weekend is here at last and I have such a fun polish to show you today!

Artificial Light

This cheerful bottle of sunshine was a present from a good friend of mine who knows how much I love glitter! It's called Orange Dazzle, from W7. It's a juicy, fruity orange jelly that's jam packed with glitter - the glitter looks mostly silver and orange, depending on whether it's on the surface or submerged in the orange base. I like that it's a kind of muted glitter effect; definitely glitter, but not in your face sparkly. It kind of reminds me of a coarser version of China Glaze Riveting (which I don't have but have been drooling over swatches of it for a while now). It also makes me think of yummy fresh oranges, it's so fruity and fresh looking. The orange is really bright too - not QUITE neon, but very, very close to it. I tried holding it under my blacklight and it did glow quite effectively!

Natural Light

I don't know if my bottle is old, but it was kind of thick, bordering on gloopy. That didn't seem to make it any harder to apply, though; actually it kind of helped that it's thick because it made it easier to spread the glitter evenly on my nails without bald spots in between (don't you just hate when glitter clumps like that? This one is dense and stays that way even on the nail). It's pretty sheer so if you don't want to use a coloured base, you'll need at least three coats to avoid VNL. I'm too impatient to wait all day for polish to dry, so normally anything that needs more than two coats puts me off - but not so with Orange Dazzle; it dried pretty fast despite its thickness so 3 coats wasn't a big deal.

Wear was A-MAZING. I kid you not, this stuff lasted through heavy typing, housework, being soaked in water and all other kinds of abuse for FOUR DAYS before it even showed the slightest HINT of tip wear. And even then I had to squint to see it. See that mark on my index finger cuticle? Five minutes after putting this polish on, I scratched that cuticle quite badly and had to wait four days before it healed and I could take pictures. As you can see, the scratch has almost gone, and yet the manicure looks almost exactly like it did on day one. 

Isn't it just so juicy looking? It makes me want to go and drink a cool glass of OJ :-p

Removal was a bit of a pain, but you'd expect that with glitter - and actually it wasn't that bad compared to some of the glitters I've tried. You don't quite have to resort to tinfoil and cotton pads. Interestingly, when I started removing it, the glitter took on a duochrome effect, shifting between silver and green. I suspect it was actually this colour all along but the orange jelly hides the green; you can't even see it in the bottle. It was pretty enough that I might try wearing this polish again and deliberately wipe the surface over with polish remover to see if the effect will reappear - an orange polish with green duochrome glitter would be amazing!

Beauty UK Glam Nails : Mauve Flash

Good morning! It's a lovely sunny day here in the UK and I've finally managed to find time for writing a post! I have a couple of things lined up already and I'm really excited to get back to blogging :)

Today I'd like to show you a polish I've actually worn several times now. Beauty UK Glam Nails, in Mauve Flash:

This unassuming, dinky little 9ml bottle contains a raspberry pink jelly that looks just so pretty on the nail... it's not really mauve (so what's with the name, I'm not sure) since it's most definitely pink - but it is on the purple, berry toned side of pink, even more so in real life than it is in these pictures. I don't know why, but in every picture I took, the bottle was a lot closer to the real colour than my nails were: the one above is about the closest of all.

Since it's a jelly, it goes on sheer: it took me four coats to get it opaque, though three coats was alright if you didn't mind faint VNL. It takes quite a long time to dry (typical of a lot of jellies) but this can be fixed easily with a fast drying top coat. I didn't use top coat at all because I had plans for this manicure; all will become clear in my next review :-p

I was surprised to see that Mauve Flash actually dries with a sort of satin, almost rubbery look to it. It also lacks that annoying tendency to flood the cuticles that jellies often have: a definite plus at clean-up time!

Isn't it pretty? It isn't the most unusual colour out there, but I like it. I'm such a sucker for berry shades, magentas and the like. Wear was pretty good, I had a little tipwear after 24 hours but nothing too bad and that's without topcoat. 

The only criticism I have is the packaging. The Beauty UK label is printed onto a clear sticker rather than directly onto the bottle, and on my bottle, it was doing its best to come off; it was bubbling and wrinkled and it looked a bit naff. I suspect I had a duff bottle, though, as the other colours I've got aren't doing this. I'll forgive the label though as I literally only paid £1.99 for this polish and it behaves a heck of a lot better than a lot of my pricier purchases. In fact the whole Beauty UK brand is pretty awesome; it's sold in Superdrug and almost every product I've tried (nail polish, lipstick, eyeshadow pencils, blusher) has been a lot better than I was expecting for the super cheap price tag. 

Have you tried any Beauty UK products? Which ones were your favourites?

Nails Inc : Victoria & Albert

My new lighting is here! I was so excited to try it out that I didn't stop to paint my nails first, I just took pictures of whatever I was wearing at the time: Nails Inc, in Victoria & Albert. Please excuse the sheet marks, I didn't think I'd be photographing this manicure when I painted my nails, but the pictures turned out so nicely I just wanted to put them up anyway.

Victoria & Albert is a classic warm red jelly. It's a little sheer (jellies generally are, so this isn't a big deal) but it's opaque in two to three coats depending on how picky you are about visible nail line. (In these pictures, you see three coats over Nail Envy and a layer of Orly Sec 'N' Dry topcoat. Once dry, (and drying time is average on this polish - not unbearably slow, but slow enough I still got sheet marks after an hour of not touching anything), you're left with the kind of bright red that you'd expect to see on a 50s Hollywood movie star, most likely teamed with matching red lips and a slick of perfect black eyeliner. It's very glamorous!

I haven't been that impressed with the formula of the other Nails Inc polishes I've tried in the past, since they cost about £11 a bottle depending on where you buy them from, yet don't seem to wear very well on me. This one is actually the best I've tried so far: I still had significant tipwear within a few hours, but not as bad as the other ones I've tried. Interestingly, although tipwear appeared quickly, it stabilised and didn't seem to get much worse on the second day than they had been on the first. Oh, and it's been two days now and there are no chips anywhere.

Application was a little bit of a pain. Since it's a jelly, it's a bit runny. This would be less of a problem if it was teamed with a nice wide brush, but Nails Inc polishes come with a skinny one that tends to hold an excessive amount of polish compared to the small area of nail it covers. It's not very easy to get a nice even cuticle line without flooding your cuticle completely - and since cuticle cleanup with this kind of red usually stains your cuticles pink, I'd rather it just applied nicely in the first place, thanks.

Things I like about this polish:
It's a gorgeous colour with bags of Marilyn Monroe type Hollywood Glamour appeal. My husband actually proclaimed it a 'nice colour' without being asked for his opinion - considering he couldn't care less about nail polish 99% of the time, this is actually high praise indeed.
It matches my hair colour pretty closely (which is why I was wearing it in the first place).
If you're prepared to spend time on the application, and faff around cleaning up afterwards, it can look pretty great.

Things I don't like about this polish:
Tipwear : too much, too soon.
Application: too runny, and the brush is too narrow. It reminds me of a cheapy drugstore polish brush from when I was about 14 and they hadn't invented decent brushes yet.
Price: if I'm going to spend £11 on a polish, I want a better formula than this. I can spend £2 on Collection 2000 and get something that goes on easier and lasts longer.
Would I wear it again?
Yes, but only until I find something else that's the same colour but lasts longer and isn't such a pain to apply.

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!

SpaRitual Emerald City

Firstly, a warning. This swatch was done with my right hand... the Hand You Never See. Mainly because I broke a nail on my swatching hand, right down to the quick, and it's going to be a while before I can inflict the sight of it upon the world. It's beyond nubbin territory into 'wow, I didn't realise you bit your nails, Opalline'. So for now, it's Right Hand Swatching all the way. Now, I have a skin condition known as Psoriasis, which, as a side effect, makes my nails grow very fast, but with pitting. It doesn't really affect my swatching hand, but it does affect the other one. See the ring finger, there? See how it looks like I dented the polish about 20 times? And that dent in the middle finger? Ignore those. It's not the polish's fault :(

Also, I am still nursing my cuticles. You wouldn't think that these fingers have been lavished daily with all sorts of nourishing treatments, because they still don't look that great, but believe me this is a big improvement to two weeks ago. This hand was much worse than my swatching hand as it took the brunt of the chemical abuse I put my hands through. You can still see on my index finger where it was so bad it drew blood! My poor little cuticles!

Anyway, on to the swatching. Hopefully you won't be too traumatised!

I think I've said before that I love SpaRitual polishes in general, with their eco/vegan/natural vibe and their choice of beautiful colours (this is one of the first brands I reach for when I want something pretty yet muted).

This is one of the many shades I own, Emerald City.

I feel this polish is rather oddly named (I don't know about you, but 'Emerald' in a name makes me think of a darker, richer green, or at least something more jewel toned), but we'll let it off because it's a really pretty colour anyway. In some lights it looks a little teal, in others a little turquoise, but it's not really either - if I had to pin it right down, I'd say it was a slightly minty Spring Green, too vivid to be a pastel and too pale to be a jewel shade. It occupies a niche somewhere in between that's happily not too overpopulated by other brands - I haven't seen many others like this.

Although the bottle states that it's a creme, it's more like a jelly, and the first coat is disturbingly sheer (plus has the effect of giving you rather impressive zombie/swamp/alien nails). This sheerness makes it a three or even four coater: the pictures here show three coats over one of Nail Envy (no topcoat), it's pretty much opaque at three but there's still just enough visible nail line that it could really have done with a fourth. However, this aside, it applies nicely enough and dries reasonably quickly and is nice and glossy once dry.

Bottle shot: this was taken two days after the first. For some reason the VNL is more visible in this picture: it wasn't quite that obvious in real life). You can also see that there is a little tip wear but no real chipping.

Overall this is a lovely polish. The formula could be a little better (less sheer would be nice) but the colour is gorgeous, the finish is nice and the wear is good. Definitely a keeper!

Essie : Bordeaux

An unseasonal vampy mani for today: Essie Bordeaux. I'll apologise in advance, it's going to be picture heavy - I'm a little bit in love with this colour, I'm afraid ;)

Bordeaux is a lush, deep berry-wine coloured jelly with a lovely formula that goes on smooth and dries super glossy. In full sunshine, like in this bottle shot here, you can really see the berry tones.

In shade, it darkens to a vampy red wine hue that makes your mouth water; anyone else fancy a nice glass of red now? Just me?

Even though it's a jelly, it's opaque in two coats (as in these pictures, where you see two coats plus a layer of Orly Sec'n'Dry), though if you add a third coat you'll get a less reddish colour that's closer to the dark wine it shows up as in the bottle.

Wear is good, and although I used quick dry top coat this time (the whole thing was done in ten minutes), I've used this colour before without any top coat and the drying time was just fine.

One little piece of celebrity trivia: Rihanna named this polish as her favourite in a Vanity Fair article this January, and no surprise, since it's the kind of shade she's often seen wearing. In honour of this accolade, here's a swatch against my bottle of Rihanna's new perfume, Reb'l Fleur.

I think the vampy wine looks good with the vampy stilletto shaped bottle!