Barry M : Silvery Lilac

I have an unusual polish to share with you today: Silvery Lilac, from Barry M.

I don't usually get on all that well with lilac polishes - they give me lobster hands. But this one is a foil, and I love foils, plus it's unusual to find a foil amongst the drugstore brands that isn't just silver or gold. Also, it's a duochrome. Foil AND duochrome?? Sold. 

This is a real chameleon polish, almost a multichrome; in some lights it appears silver, in others a dusty lilac, sometimes a sort of shimmery gunmetal shade, and at certain angles it even looks green. Although in the bottle the green flash is quite obvious, it's less visible on the nail, but not completely lost. It's very sheer, but three coats is enough to reach opacity. These pictures are of three coats, and you can still see a little VNL, but it's not visible in real life.

This shot shows the green duochrome flash quite nicely. It's a subtle effect, but adds an ethereal sort of 'glow' to the polish that makes me think of fairies or unicorns.

Application is pleasant, but not perfect. It goes on nicely, not too thick or thin, and the brush is decent. I didn't need to do any clean up with this one. It is a little prone to bubbling though, and the drying time could be faster, so several thin coats are preferable to fewer thick ones (you can see on my index finger where I got a bit impatient and used a thicker coat, resulting in a few bubbles, though again this is invisible in real life. Cameras are not kind!). 

Please excuse the blurry camera phone shot here - I wanted to show how Silvery Lilac becomes a darker lilac/gunmetal kind of shade when lit indirectly, and I found that my camera phone was better at capturing the lilac tones in this polish. My digital camera preferred to see the silvery side :-p

Pros: 

I loved the colour and had a lot of compliments on it too. It's shiny and pretty and unusual, but in a muted kind of way - you could still wear this to work, for instance.

Wear was great - 3 days in, no topcoat, and I am only just starting to see tipwear.

Cons:

The formula could be better. It's sheer. Though I wonder if that would make it good for layering... hmmm...

Prone to bubbling (though only very slightly, can be avoided by careful application)

Stash or Trash?

Stash. I really like this polish and will be experimenting with it for layering too.

2 True Crystal Nail Polish : Shade 1 Midnight Blue

Happy hump day!

Sorry it's been a while since my last post; I've been on my first holiday in 8 years! It wasn't anything exotic, just a fun family camping trip to the seaside, but wow it was the most fun I've had in a long, long time. I can't wait until next year when we can go camping again!

Anyway, let me tear my brain away from kite flying and fossil hunting for long enough to show you the fourth and final polish from 2True's Crystal Nail Polish collection: Shade 1, Midnight Blue.

Released around Christmas time last year, the Crystal Nail Polish collection consisted of four jewel toned shimmer polishes, so shimmery they looked almost like sparkly metallic chocolate wrappers! They were perfect for parties and, at less than £2 each, perfect for your wallet too! I reviewed the other three HERE, HERE and HERE and I loved them all. They apply like a dream, and look amazing, and Midnight Blue is no exception to that rule. 

It's opaque in two coats although I found that adding a third coat added more richness and sparkle. It lasts absolutely ages without chipping or showing any signs of tipwear - when I took these pictures I'd already been wearing it for three days. Do you see any chips? I didn't think so. These pictures show it a little more royal blue than it is in real life; it's closer to denim blue really (the bottle colour in the first picture here is closest to how it looks on the nail). The only negative about this polish was that it took a while to dry; not painfully so, but if you're in a hurry you'll need a quick drying topcoat. I did find that leaving each coat to dry completely before adding the next helped a lot.

Pros:

Gorgeous colour, packed with shimmer. 

Opaque in two coats

Applies easily

Lasts ages

Cheap as chips!

Cons:

A little bit slow to dry

Limited edition (though almost a year later I still see it in Superdrug occasionally)

Stash or Trash?

Definitely stash. I love every polish in this collection. I'm wearing this one right now as a mani AND a pedicure. I'm far too fickle to wear the same polish in both places unless I really love it!

17 Fast Finish : Fury

It's August already! If you're in the UK you'll already know about the loooong rainy spell we had (OK so it was more like a biblical flood), followed by one measly week of actual summer sunshine. That was last week, and it didn't last - we're already back to rain :( It is in honour of the rain's return that I show you today's polish - Fury, by Boots 17. Mainly because if that one week is all the summer we get, I will be furious!!

Now I'm not going to lie. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with 17 polishes. They have some gorgeous colours, but the formula on every 17 polish I have tried before has kind of sucked - especially with the 'Fast Finish' polishes, which seem to take FOREVER to dry. However, I saw this colour, and I liked it so much I figured it would be worth another try. Armed with quick-drying topcoat, I dived in.

In the bottle, Fury is a rich antique gold with a subtle green duochrome shift. Once on the nail, you mostly lose the duochrome effect, although it retains a sort of green 'hint' to the gold, it's not very easy to see the two colours separately. Depending on the light, it's either the same sort of antique gold you see in the bottle and on this picture here, or else it's more of a coppery bronze colour like in the picture below.

Application wasn't as bad as I expected, although patience was required and I had to do a couple of fingers twice. You need to let each coat dry completely (I used two coats here) before adding the next or you get horrible brush marks and the polish underneath smudges. You also need to apply the polish quite thickly for it to look smooth, which can make it a bit of a pain getting a nice cuticle line. Finally, you'll need a lot of time, or a quick drying topcoat (I used Orly Sec 'N' Dry), because it may say Fast Finish on the bottle but frankly Slow Finish would have been a much better name. It's worth persevering though because the end result is actually a really nice colour and finish which wore surprisingly well. In these pictures I have already been wearing Fury for three days and the tipwear is only just starting to show.

What I liked about Fury:

It's a gorgeous colour, quite unusual - there's a lot of gold/green duochromes out there already but this one is more of a bronze/green.
It wore well - no tipwear until the end of the 3rd day.

What I didn't like about Fury:

It takes forever to dry
It needs very careful application to look good.

Bin it or Keep it?

Keep, because I like the colour so much - but if I found a dupe with a better formula then I would probably ditch this one and keep the dupe instead.

Ebalay Golden Green

Good morning, beauties!
My card reader is finally here (after a two week wait and three increasingly irritated emails to the company I bought it from! It was meant to be next day delivery, what a joke!) and guess what? The polish I put on to review for you all just WON'T play nicely with my camera. No matter what I try, I can't get the colour to look right. Luckily my camera phone seems much more accommodating and the colour looks a lot more accurate, but how frustrating to wait all that time and still not use my proper camera!

Anyway, enough ranting. I have another polish from Ebalay to show you, courtesy of KKCenterHK. Just like all of Ebalay's polishes it doesn't have a proper name, just a number, but KKCenterHK have given it the description 'Golden Green'.

In the bottle (which reminds me of an OPI one) it does indeed have a gold/green colour, with a pinky/purply duochrome shift. I tried it on its own and it is incredibly sheer. After 5 coats I still had a ton of VNL. The colour was sort of pretty, but I didn't like the colour enough to warrant the zillion coats it would need to achieve opacity (and it didn't look good left with the VNL). Undeterred, I layered it over black to see if that made a difference, because many duochromes look better with black underwear. (Again, pictures are taken on a camera phone, so please excuse their slight dodginess)

CHECK OUT THE PRETTY!!

I almost fainted when this gorgeous, emerald, super-sparkly colour appeared. Where was this hiding in that bottle of goldish murk??

It's not just green, either. There's a strong shift to purple in some lights (which even my camera phone struggled to capture, but in real life it's a lot more obvious.

All the pictures in which I managed to catch the purple are blurry. Hopefully you can still appreciate how pretty this polish is despite the blur.

There's almost no trace of the gold colour in the bottle: the green is a definite rich emerald colour. But sooooo pretty. Lots of people complimented me on this manicure.

What I liked about Golden Green:

- Over black, it's a stunning green/purple duochrome, very sparkly and eyecatching

- As well as the OPI like bottle, it has a brush similar to OPI too. Application was pretty easy.

- Drying time was pleasantly fast, even with multiple layers

- Wear was pretty good. I didn't get tipwear until day three and no chips at all.

What I didn't like about Golden Green:

- I don't think the formula is 3-free. It pongs a bit!

- It's so sheer that you have to layer it to avoid VNL. Unless you have very short nails, bottle colour without VNL would only be possible if you layered it over something like a nude or maybe a gold colour.

Overall this is a really gorgeous polish and worth buying for the effect over black alone.

Golden Glow is available HERE from KKCenterHK. It's priced quite reasonably at £4.60 ($7.24),  KKCenterHK also offer a 10% discount until the 31st January 2013 to anybody using the code glitter-mountain at the checkout. (Use of this code does not benefit me in any way)

Disclaimer: this polish was sent to me as a free sample for consideration. My opinions remain my own and are unaffected by this.

2 True Crystal Nail Polish : Shade 2 Vampish Red

Let me introduce you to a rare gem in my collection: 2True Crystal Nail Polish in Shade 2, 'Vampish Red'.

Do you remember when I reviewed 2True's gorgeous limited edition turquoise and purple Crystal polishes, HERE and HERE? Both times, I was blown away; they had awesome formulas, applied beautifully, dried smooth and sparkly, and looked and wore like they cost one heck of a lot more than the £1.99 (3 for £5) I paid for them. Vampish Red, an almost metallic looking, vivid cherry red (it looks a little more pink toned in real life than in these pictures) is every bit as great as they were; it went on a treat, dried nicely, and with only two layers plus one of top coat, it's survived two days of housework, showers, bleaching my hair without gloves on and washing the dog, and there isn't even any tipwear yet.

I absolutely love this polish and I currently have it on both my fingers AND my toes. It looks great with my sandals (not that I can wear them outside the house since it's peeing down with rain and so cold I've had to turn the heating back on, but still). It has this lovely inner glow, too - I love when a polish does that, don't you? Although this range was supposed to be limited edition, the last time I was in Superdrug they still had all four shades. I'd definitely recommend you snap this one up pronto while it's still around!

Rimmel 60 Seconds : Camouflage

Happy Easter everyone!
Having got all creative with the lighting in my last couple of reviews, of course my lamp went and broke on me today so you're all going to have to endure some rather naff natural lighting pics (naff because it's really gloomy outside today) that don't really show the true beauty of what I'm photographing. Sorry about that.
But in more exciting news, I've ordered a light tent and some new lamps!! I'm looking forward to playing with them and hopefully taking lots of lovely bright pictures once they arrive. Anyway, on to the polish!

Today I'd like to share another Rimmel offering (I promise I'll run out of steam with Rimmel eventually!) : Camouflage, from the 60 seconds fast drying range.

In the bottle it's a pretty emerald/leaf green frost with noticeable gold shimmer - a bit like GOSH Golden Dragon or maybe one of the various green/gold duochromes that're around at the moment (though this is not actually a duochrome). I thought it was really beautiful, (though nothing like any camouflage I've seen, since that tends to be more murky greens, but never mind eh) but once I got it on my nails I was surprised to find it's even nicer thean it is in the bottle (a nice change, actually, since so many polishes are the other way round!).

On the nail, the colour shifts slightly. The gold shimmer is less prominent but the green becomes a LOT more vivid and jewel toned. Instead of green with gold shimmer in it, it appears more of an intense, almost metallic green with gold/yellow tones. It changes according to the light; sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, different shades of green from leaf to emerald to that sort of green that makes you think of Christmas. It's really very eye catching, especially when the sunlight hits it directly and you get this glowing effect:

(Sorry it's blurry - this was the only close up shot I could get that was colour accurate as well as showing the inner glow). This is also one of those polishes that looks a lot better with topcoat than it does without. The topcoat seems to bring out the glow and the depth of the colour and gives it more of that 'wow' factor.

Application and formula are surprisingly good. I was actually dreading it a little since the other 60 Second polishes I've tried have tended to be reaaaaallly slow drying, thick and gloopy (since they try and be opaque in one coat, but aren't, and then you have to use two and the drying time becomes a nightmare). But happily, Camouflage seems to be exempt from this trend: it's a little thick, but not gloopy, and it's definitely not what I'd call fast drying (especially not if you consider their 60 second claim, which couldn't be further from the truth). But it's alright... it's not overly slow drying either; just 'normal'. The second coat dries quicker if you wait for the first one to be completely dry first. 

 It has that nice wide, round ended 'pro' type brush that reminds me of OPI and Rimmel's Lycra Pro range, which splays out nicely and covers the nail in a good, even coat of not-too-thick polish that dries without leaving brush marks. The rounded bristles and thicker formula make it easy to apply without flooding cuticles - all these pictures are without any cleanup (since I was in a hurry!).

Overall, this is a really stunning polish which has to be seen in real life to really appreciate how vivid it looks - it's especially gorgeous in sunlight (which of course was in scarce supply when I was trying to take pictures). Application is pretty good, not one of the best I've tried but definitely not the worst either. If I had to pick on one thing to complain about it would be the wear - two coats over Nail Envy, with one coat of top coat (Orly Sec 'N' Dry, which normally wears like iron) showed quite noticeable tip wear after 24 hours. It didn't chip though, so I added one more coat and it lasted me easily though the second day before the tipwear reappeared. Considering what a gorgeous colour this is, it's definitely worth putting up with the less than perfect wear and I will be putting this one in the 'keep' pile!

2 True Crystal Nail Polish : Shade 4 Regal Purple

Today I have an absolute beauty of a polish to show you all: 2 True Crystal polish in shade 4. Like the mysterious turquoise I reviewed recently; it's known only by its number unless you check out the 2 true website, whereupon you discover that it's also called regal purple. Just like the turquoise, it has the same super cheap price of £1.99 (and their 3 for £4.99 offer never seems to end, either), the same great formula that outshines many of the more expensive polishes I own, and the same insane levels of glitteriness that make me rather surprised my camera didn't refuse to focus completely.

It wears like iron, it's opaque in two coats (three shown here for extra depth of colour), and it's absolutely beautiful - really metallic looking, in fact I wish they'd also made this in a fuchsia colour so I could finally stop searching for my holy grail of the perfect metallic fuchsia!

I took about a million pictures of this, trying to capture how awesome it looks - in some lights it takes on a two-tone, almost duochrome effect, moving from magenta purple to a more regal, blueish tone. It reminds me of the foil wrapping you get on certain types of chocolate at Christmas time!

Please excuse the odd lighting and weird finger positions. This is the closest I could get to capturing the insane almost-two-tone metallic glow! 

I can't stress how much I love this polish. It's going to be hard to find something I like more than this one (and at such a cheap price too). I just wish it wasn't limited edition!

Miss Sporty Crack Me Up Top Coat : Blue

This mani is courtesy of my next door neighbour, who swooped into my house brandishing her new bottle of Miss Sporty Crack Me Up polish, painted my nails with it, then ran away laughing before I could take a picture of the bottle. 

Unhelpfully, I can't seem to find a stock photo of it anywhere, either. So here's a helpful link to the Boots.com website, whereupon you can gaze upon the black version of this polish (you'll just have to picture it in blue, I'm afraid). 

Pictured is one coat, over Rimmel Your Majesty. Like all crackles, it dried quickly to a matte finish (I added a layer of top coat to make it shine). Compared to other crackles I've tried, the crackle effect is a bit more hit and miss. One finger on my other hand didn't crackle at all, and my ring finger on this hand crackled kind of strangely compared to the other nails. 

The cracks also tended to be mostly vertical - not so many crosswise cracks as I saw with the Barry M Instant Nail Effects and Rimmel Crack Your Colour. It was quite sheer, too, which I thought made for quite a nice effect over the silver Rimmel as it turned the blue colour metallic :)

Wear wasn't the best - I had chipping by the end of the day, although this might have been because it was over a manicure that was already two days old, so I wouldn't write it off as an easy chipper until I'd tried it again. Overall, I liked this a lot more than I thought I would - I wasn't that keen on blue crackle until this, but actually it was a pretty nice shade of blue and looked rather festive, especially with the shiny metallic effect it gained from the silver base. 

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 60 Seconds : Green with Envy

Today's polish has driven me insane for two days now. It's almost impossible to get a good, colour accurate picture of it - I thought it was my camera at first, but looking at other swatches online, I see that everyone else has the same problem. So... you might have to bear with me here. I've managed to get the colour more or less right, but only with some pretty unusual settings and lighting ('antique warm' effect with daylight white balance settings under fluorescent lighting in the ladies' loo, anyone?), so these pictures are a little odd looking!

Green with Envy is one of Rimmel's fast dry polishes from their 60 second range. It's a very pretty, vivid metallic jewel toned green that leans towards the turquoise/aqua end of the spectrum. Whenever you try to photograph it, it comes out as a strongly blue toned turquoise with almost no green whatsoever.

This is the most colour accurate picture I could get. Please excuse the horrible lobster red fingers and the way that the picture makes my cuticles look like a rat chewed them; it's a side effect of the bizarre settings I had to use just to make this polish look green. (And it's still not quite right: in real life the green is a little stronger).

Application is a pain. The brush is nice (it's one of those slightly wider ones that make application easier), but the polish itself is a little too thick, and it's prone to brush marks and bubbling (see that huge bubble on my index finger there?). I think this is probably because the bottle claims it's a one coater, hence the thicker formula to try and get away with one coat, but really you need two - one coat on its own wasn't anywhere near bottle colour and had visible streaking.

Drying time is a lot longer than the 60 seconds they claim, but it's nothing a coat of quick drying top coat can't cure (I used Orly Sec 'N' Dry), and once dry, wear is actually quite good. The bottle shots in this review were taken after 48 hours and a lot of typing, and as you can see there is just a little tip wear and no chipping.

Overall, I like this polish a lot, despite the fact it's a bit tricky to apply. The colour is really pretty and I haven't seen too many like this in other brands. I'll definitely wear it again (unless I can find a less tricky dupe elsewhere!)

Rimmel Crack Your Colour Crazy Top Coat : Silver Clash

This mani is a little different to my others: it doesn't have a proper bottle shot. There's a good reason for this: my sister in law took one look at my nails, hooted, then pounced on the bottle and carried it away triumphantly before I got chance to take a photograph. I guess that's a good advertisment for this polish: Rimmel Crack Your Colour Crazy Top Coat, in Silver Clash.

In lieu of a proper bottle shot, here's a promo image from Rimmel.

Now, I'm the first to admit I'm a little bored of crackle polishes: they were cool and exciting when they first popped up, then every brand and his dog brought out their own version, and they got a bit overexposed. However, this one is silver - actual, sparkly, light reflective silver, so it caught my attention anyway. What can I say... I'm a sucker for metallic/shiny/sparkly polishes!

On to the mani. I layered one coat of Silver Clash over one coat of 2True Shade 39, a basic black creme, and two coats of Nail Envy. I also added a top coat of Orly Sec'n Dry, because when crackle polishes dry, they have a slightly odd rough texture that sets my teeth on edge (I'm the same with terracotta). For the record, it already looked nice and shiny before the topcoat - I just prefer not to wince every time I touch my nails!

Application is a piece of cake. The brush is one of those wide ones so you can cover the whole nail in one or two swipes. If you want chunky crackles like these, you use a thick coat. A thin coat will give you dainty, spidery crackles. Either way, it dries super fast! The crackles take longer to appear than the Barry M polish I already reviewed, and the crack pattern is not quite the same, but it's still attractive (some crackles seem to give a very odd pattern that I don't find as appealing; more of a blobbed-on look).

You can see that Silver Clash is definitely sparkly - I've seen some silver crackles that were more like a slightly silvery grey, but not so here. It's not glitter though, it's just very shimmery silver that catches the light easily because of the uneven texture. I got a ton of compliments on this manicure!

I only wore this mani for 36 hours as I have work in the morning and have to go to a meeting where silver sparkle nails aren't the best idea - but in those 36 hours my nails went through three showers, hardcore housework, laundry and lots of typing as well as many hand washes and a ton of hand cream (the cuticle first aid mission continues!) Despite all this, there was no tip wear, chipping or any other sign of wear whatsoever. 

Another keeper!

2 True Crystal Nail Polish: Shade 3 Mysterious Turquoise

An update: Nail Envy seems pretty good. At least, after a week of using it, my nubs have 1) failed to completely break all the way back to the quick like they usually do without acrylic overlays, and 2) they seem to have grown. Just a little bit. Also, the new cuticle butter I've been using seems to be helping my poor long suffering cuticles. They're still not perfect but they're getting there!

I've been putting the Nail Envy on religiously but I have to say... I'm bored of looking at my naked nubbins :/
The Nail Envy instructions do hint at the possibility of using nail polish at the same time (it says 'remove along with any nail polish after a week') so I figured it couldn't hurt too much to restore some colour to my nails!

So without further ado I present to you: 2True Crystal Nail Polish, in shade 3.

Now before we start, I'd just like to say I wish companies would stop only using a number to describe their shades instead of a name. It's boring, uninspiring, and uninventive. A little poking around on the 2True website has revealed that this shade is actually called Mysterious Turquoise: still not that inventive, but at least they tried. I'm just not sure why they don't actually put the name on the bottle? It'd make it a lot easier to picture the colour when you don't have the bottle in front of you, for a start.

Anyway, mini rant aside, this polish is from a limited edition collection 2True have released in the run up to Christmas this year. There's 4 shades: a red, a purple, a blue and this turquoise, all are very pretty, vivid jewel toned metallic/shimmer shades, with more than a hint of sparkle and an attractive price tag of £1.99 for 7ml (I got 3 for £4.99 on a special offer deal).

Application is surprisingly good for such a cheapie polish: the first coat is disturbingly sheer and you catch yourself thinking 'oh no... it's going to be an 8-coater'. But appearances are deceptive and it's actually opaque after two coats; I did three for the extra depth of colour. The brush is long and thin and quite narrow, nicely flexible without being floppy, and holds just the right amount of polish for a neat and tidy cuticle line - handy for me at the moment, since whilst my cuticles are recovering from their recent trauma, clean up, and any more acetone than absolutely necessary to remove the mani once I'm done wearing it, are banned!

Drying time is average, though it's touch dry pretty quickly, it's a while longer before you can risk poking it any harder without expecting it to leave a mark. Wear is good; considering my nails are so short now and chip much faster than they did when long, I only got a little wear and no chips after 24 hours even though I didn't use a topcoat. The finish is really good: heaps of really fine grade glitter that catches the light well and gives an eyecatching shimmery metallic effect. There's no hint of brush strokes or patchiness either (once you get past that uber-sheer first coat: brace yourself, it's all going to turn out fine!).

Overall, I really like this polish. It's cheap and cheerful yet with a decent formula: a colour that hasn't been too done to death by the other brands yet, and is pleasantly sparkly, yet with fine enough glitter that removal isn't a big deal. I suspect that the sheerness seen when you only use one coat might make it a good polish for layering, too... some experimentation needed, methinks! It looks pretty festive, without screaming 'Christmas Manicure', and with the trend this season for jewel toned clothes and accessories, you'll get use out of it for more than just the office Xmas do.

2 True Glossywear : Shade 14

First off, apologies for not having posted a mani for a while; I've been dealing with some RL issues that have kept me from blogging. I'm back though, and this time it's a dip into the GlitterVault again with 2 True Glossywear.

This uninventively named colour (don't you hate when things are just given a number? It's so uninspiring) has lurked at the bottom of my stash for a while now, though it's still available all new and shiny in the shops. 

(Apologies for the lack of cleanup - I originally didn't intend to blog this mani so pics are taken at my desk at work, later that day when I changed my mind about blogging it but had no cleanup kit at hand)

It's not that exciting looking in the bottle and it's depressingly sheer to apply (shown are three coats plus base and top, there are still some 'bald' patches though they're hard to see if you're not looking for them). It also dries slowly; hence the dent in my middle finger when, after half an hour, I gingerly tried to take my glasses out of my bag. And that's with a layer of quick drying topcoat, too.

Sounds terrible, doesn't it? But despite this rather negative write up, I actually really like this polish. It dries to a pretty decent, shiny, brushstroke-free metallic finish and is a good, bright, eyecatching blue that got me a surprising amount of compliments throughout the day. It also wears well, no chips and only a tiny bit of tip wear after almost a week, although it does tend to scratch a little bit owing to the metallic finish. It's not perfect, and if I come across another brand with a similar finish and colour that applies easier, I'll probably take the new one over this. But for now, I like this and will wear it again).

I also noticed something a little strange. My nails tasted kind of metallic whilst wearing this polish... not that I was sucking on them (!) but whenever I ate with my fingers or touched my mouth I noticed a faint metallic tang. It kind of reminded me of the smell of cheap, old fashioned tinsel. Now I'm wondering if this is common to all metallics and I just never noticed before, or if this is a unique phenomenon!

(Can you just picture me now, licking my nails every time I use a metallic from now on? If I disappear, I probably poisoned myself).

Beauty UK: Glam Nails - Aztec

OK so I admit it. I'm too addicted to last more than a couple of days without polish ;)

I caved yesterday and tried out a cute polish from Beauty UK. This is a brand I've only just started seeing round here, it's a pretty cheap drugstore type brand that I found hidden out of the way on a tiny, scruffy display in my local Superdrug and almost didn't look at it. On closer inspection, though, they seem to have some really nice stuff! Shame on the store for not putting it in a better spot!

They have some nice looking eye palettes, eye pencils and what not (including eyeliners with big sparkly gems on the packaging - the magpie in me is excited already), but as I am a polish addict first and foremost I decided to test the polishes first. I picked up two of them to try and here is the first: Glam Nails, in Aztec.

Glam Nails is the name for Beauty UK's standard polish collection: it doesn't make any wild claims about lasting forever or drying in milliseconds, but they do have cute, cheap little bottles and come in a pretty decent range of colours from brights to darks and in between. This one is a warm and shiny, metallic yellow gold and it applied nicely enough, nothing special about the formula or the brush but nothing horrible either. It took quite a long time to dry (shown here is three coats though it was opaque in two), but not painfully so, in order with most non-quick-drying polishes really, and didn't streak or bubble.

Once dried, the finish was pretty good: nicely metallic with a good foil sheen, but with minimal brush marks (something which can plague metallics and foils at times). Wear is good so far; after one day and plenty of typing there's minimal tip wear, nothing more. 

Overall I'm very impressed with this dinky cheapie; I'll definitely be trying out some more Beauty UK polishes and probably some of their other make up products too. 

Essence Meet Me @Holografics.com : Lil@c

Today's manicure is Lil@c, from the limited edition Meet Me @Holografics.com collection released by Essence recently. The nail polish section of this collection includes five colours - Lil@c, Blue Ray, Gagalectric, Prism@tic White and Holoberry, and despite the name, not one of them is holographic in any way! They are, however, duochromes, and since I'm rather partial to a nice two-tone effect I decided I wanted some anyway.

Essence is sadly not available in the UK, but thanks to the efforts of a fellow polish addict in Switzerland, I now have my glittery tips on a number of Essence polishes - including Lil@c, shown here.

Lil@c comes with a long, thin, quite flexible brush which holds just the right amount of polish (with a scrape) and is soft enough to splay out a little on the nail, which makes a tidy cuticle line much easier to achieve. It's a gorgeous purple colour (all these pictures show it slightly more blue than in real life, as purples are hard to capture accurately) with a green duochrome sheen, is very pigmented - opaque in two coats, though the duochrome effect is more obvious with three - and dries reasonably fast to a fairly glossy shine (though it could be improved with topcoat).

(Excuse the ding in the index nail. I was in a hurry to catch the daylight and didn't wait for it to dry properly!)

Wear is very good, after two days I've yet to see much in the way of tip wear despite lots of typing. 

The green duochrome sheen is actually pretty muted compared to some other duochromes I've seen, even compared to the other duochromes in the same collection... with two coats and indoors light I couldn't see it at all, and it wasn't til I added another coat that I noticed it (and even then it's only really in certain light, when you hold your hand at a funny angle and squint a bit). The effect is much clearer in daylight.

Overall I really like this polish - one thing I noticed (but found it hard to capture on camera) was that despite the slightly disappointing duochrome effect, Lil@c did have a really nice metallic sheen to it that reminded me of some of the coloured Minx overlays (not as metallic as silver lightning - but then again, is anything??). It's a pity they didn't do a fuchsia pink version of Lil@c as I've been hunting for a really metallic fuchsia that wasn't too foil-y or glittery for ages now.