Rimmel Lycra Pro : Stormy Skies

Today's manicure is something I picked up a month or so ago when visiting a larger town: Rimmel Lycra Pro, in Stormy Skies.

I hadn't seen this shade before, though I don't know if that means it's new, or if it's just because my local stores only sell limited amounts of Rimmel shades (the displays are always so tiny!). Either way, I spotted this one and had to buy it because it's an unusual blue/grey shade that really does make me think of stormy skies.

In the bottle, it's more blue than grey; a dusty, smoky version of periwinkle that I couldn't wait to see on my nails. Once on the nail it dried much darker than bottle colour and became more grey. In fact I thought it was a basic elephant grey until I put it next to something grey and realised it was still pretty blue after all. 

Application was pretty much a dream. It has the gorgeous wide, flattened, curved-end brush that I love so much about Rimmel Lycra Pro (these pictures show NO CLEAN UP whatsoever, that's how tidy a cuticle line you can achieve with this brush). The highly pigmented, creamy formula applies like butter, without any of the patchiness you can get sometimes with creme polishes like this. It was almost opaque in one coat - if you apply it thickly enough then it could be a one coater - and two coats was enough for perfect coverage. These pictures show three coats, though, because the blue tone in this grey shows up better with three coats than it does with two. Drying time was pretty decent, too - I didn't bother with a quick drying top coat, as it dries well enough by itself (though it's best to let each coat dry before adding the next one, or you get brush marks).

Pros:

Just about everything. It looks great, applies well and lasts ages (only a little tipwear after 2 days, no chipping, and that's without top coat).

Cons:

It dries darker on the nail and I prefer the colour in the bottle. My pictures all show it looking pretty blue, and this is accurate for bottle colour, but in reality it's a little more grey on the nail.

Stash or Trash:

Definitely stash. This is a really great polish!

Color Club Back to Boho : Nomadic in Nude

There's a lot of brands out there, most of them releasing special or limited edition collections, and usually I'll want one or two from this collection or that, but not all. There are a few brands, though, where I have to hide my wallet to prevent me buying everything they ever release ever - and Color Club is one of those brands. I can't decide if it's a shame that they're quite hard to get in the UK, or whether that's a blessing (for my wallet, at least) - but between TK Maxx and Ebay I seem to have amassed a nice enough collection of these little beauties in spite of the lack of 'proper' Color Club stockists over here!

Back to Boho was the 2011 Color Club autumn collection (that's fall, for those of you who are across the pond), a  shabby chic, vintage 70's styled collection that promised to bring 'Boho Glam' to your nails. Amongst the 12 was Nomadic in Nude, a pale putty nude creme that the press releases described as 'off white', though I'd say it was closer to grey-beige. I don't have a lot of nude polishes (most of them look a bit odd against my olive skin tone), but I loved the way this one looked in the bottle, so I tried it anyway.

Application - well, it's a creme. Not only that, but it's a pale creme (which for me tend to show the same application problems as pastel cremes), and kind of sheer to boot - so it was hard to get it completely even and smooth. It would have been better if I'd done three thin coats, I think - but I was impatient - instead I applied two thick coats, after which it was opaque, but a bit brush strokey. My fault more than the polish! Nonetheless, the formula was mostly nice - dried reasonably fast, went on smoothly (when I wasn't rushing it and blobbing it on too thick). I had no trouble with cuticle pooling, either. No clean up required :)

Wear was really very good indeed. It took over a week to chip and by that time there was only a small amount of tip wear despite my having spent a lot of time with my hands in water and even scrubbing things with a pot scourer!

What I liked:

The colour. It looked pretty nice even against my usually nude-hating skintone, against which most nudes tend to look too orange, or too pink. I liked how it looked almost white in some lights, grey in others, and even like pale chocolate milk at times.

The wear. It lasted forever!

What I didn't like:

It could have done with being a little more pigmented - then two thin coats would have sufficed. I dislike having to do more than two coats of polish (maybe I'm just lazy).

The formula wasn't quite as nice as some of the other Color Club polishes I've tried. It's very far from being horrible, though.

Stash or Trash?

Definitely stash. I can see me using this one as a palette cleanser, as well as a nice neutral/nude polish that doesn't make me cringe to see it against my skintone.

Rimmel I Love Lasting Colour : Azure

Now I know I post quite a lot of Rimmel polishes and I do tend to bang on a fair bit about how great most of them are, how they manage to include a good formula, pretty colours, often a great brush and excellent wear for very little money. However, every so often, one comes along that's just so great that I have to forcibly restrain myself from shoving my nails under people's noses and saying 'look at the pretty!'. One such polish is Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish, in Azure.

Now, I do love me a nice bright blue. I'm still searching for the ultimate eye wateringly bright, electric blue neon, and while this polish from Rimmel isn't quite that holy grail, it's a long way towards it.

(Hey, look! It's my swatching hand, returned at long last from its exile in nubbinsville! Hi there! Long time, no see!)

Azure is a bright electric blue shimmer with a slight hint of frost. It has a standard brush - not one of Rimmel's nice wider ones, sadly, though in truth it doesn't really need one; it goes on nice and smooth and clean and dries at a reasonable speed; my only slight criticism is a tendency to bubble if applied too thickly. 

This picture is a little blurry but it captures the intense electric brightness quite well. Azure is very pigmented and one coat was *almost* enough to be opaque, but not quite: shown is two coats over nail Envy and no top coat. Wear was good too: this mani didn't chip for almost three days and even then it only gave up because I was wrapping presents. I don't know any polish that can survive prolonged exposure to sticky tape!

Isn't it pretty? You can't see it here, but there's also a slight purple flash to this polish; it's not quite a duochrome, but it's trying hard to be. The purple is a lot more evident in the bottle than on the nail; though you do see it at certain angles and in certain lighting. It's very camera shy, though. I took a million pictures and couldn't capture the purple flash no matter what I tried. Oh, well. You'll just have to believe me that it's there... it's like a little secret you only get to see in person :)

Rimmel I love Lasting Finish : Your Majesty

Something festive for you today! 

Another one of Rimmel's lovely Lasting Finish polishes, Your Majesty is a beautiful metallic silver polish that I've worn several times now. It goes on nicely with minimal mess - though it's a bit of a glitter bomb when you remove it; your skin will be rather sparkly until you wash your hands. It is very pigmented (one coat could be opaque if you put it on thickly, I used two thin coats) and dries fairly quickly to a bright silver, almost chrome effect shine. It's not a chrome, though - it's pretty sparkly, almost enough that you'd call it a glitter, but not quite. This is a good thing; chromes show every single lump and bump and imperfection in your nail, but that sparkle makes this polish more forgiving. This is my non swatching hand for a reason; my nails on this hand are far from perfect and I don't really want my polish to broadcast that fact to the world!

Here it is without the bottle, in better focus. Apparently bottle + nails is too much twinkle for my camera to handle in one place!

Wear is really good. I wore this alone for two days, then added a crackle polish and wore it for another day. There was no tip wear at all and I only saw chips at the end of the third day. 

An attempt at a Christmassy pose, with glittery tree decoration; cue more freaking out of camera at all the sparkle!

Overall I love this polish. I don't have too many silvers in my collection but most of the ones I've tried have been more like a silvery grey than a proper metallic silver. This one fills that niche nicely and is my go-to silver, with its nice formula and great wear, yet cheap price, it'd be hard to beat this one!

Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish : Double Espresso

Just a short post today; I had a severe allergic reaction to something (not sure what yet) earlier this week that lasted several days and I haven't felt up to epic blog posts (or indeed painting my nails in the first place).

However, my naked nails have been taunting me and today I caved in and did this quickie manicure: Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish in Double Espresso.

This is a rich chocolate brown micro-shimmer; smooth and glossy when dry. The brown is shot through with very fine gold metallic particles which are most visible in the bottle (colour shown lighter than real life to highlight the gold sheen more clearly):

They also show up fairly well in pictures of the polish once applied (please excuse the messy cuticles - it's actually coloured hair spray from DS's 'messy hair day' at school, which washes easily out of hair but stains cuticles so completely it even laughs in the face of acetone!):

Frustratingly, however, in 'real life' the shimmer is very hard to see without squinting at it from less than an inch away. This doesn't really matter though; it's a rich, dark velvety brown which is pretty with or without the shimmer. 

Pictured are two coats over a single base coat, no top coat. Application is good, like most Rimmel polishes; the brush is the traditional shape and holds just enough polish for one coat without smearing, applying unevenly or blobbing everywhere. The polish flows nicely and drying time isn't bad; a few minutes for the first coat, maybe ten for the second (and I did pretty thick coats as I was in a hurry at the time and didn't waste too much time scraping the brush after each dunk!).

Wear: I Love Lasting Finish is formulated to resist colour fade and chipping. After one day of wear without topcoat, I had no chips, and only a little tip wear on two nails (and I did a lot of typing today so that's not bad).