Rimmel Lycra Wear 10 : Hypnotise

Spring is here!

Okay, maybe not. But I saw snowdrops on the way home today and even though it's still super chilly, it's been really bright and sunny the last few days. So I'm feeling kinda cheerful and ready to come out of hibernation after the long and depressing winter - time to start blogging again!

The polish I have for you today is Rimmel Lycra Wear 10, in Hypnotise. Please excuse the nubbin-nails, I decided to try one last time to have squoval nails, filed them into shape, and then immediately broke one (cleaning my teeth, of all things. HOW DO YOU BREAK A NAIL CLEANING YOUR TEETH??). Anyway. Once I had finished wailing and gnashing my (newly clean) teeth, I filed my nails down past the break, and this was the result.

Of course I then immediately broke another one. It's time to accept that I can't have squovals and that's that: the corners just keep breaking on me. Back to even shorter nubs (sob) for a while and ovals from now on!

Anyway, back to the polish. It's a really nice dark plum creme. It doesn't have the gorgeous wide brush that I adore so much in newer Rimmel polishes, but the brush it does have is pretty decent anyway. It has all the potential to be a great vampy colour (perfect for nubbins - why is it that when I have short nails, I always have the urge to wear dark colours?)

Sadly, it also suffers from horrible tipwear. I kid you not, I had really obvious wear and some small chips after only a few hours, and that was with three coats plus a base coat of Nail Envy. I will admit that I do tend to get more tipwear when my nails are short, but unless I've been especially rough on my nails with housework or typing, I do at least expect my polish to last a bit better than that. Especially if I've gone to all the effort of three coats. At one point I touched up the tips and then added a fourth coat, to see if I could get a bit more life out of it. As you can see from these pictures, taken one hour after the fourth coat, the tipwear is already coming back. GAH!

What I liked about this polish:
The colour. I got two compliments on it within an hour of getting to work.
Application. I didn't have to do any clean-up. It was also opaque in two coats.

What I didn't like:
The wear. Although the colour is pretty, it's nowhere near special enough for me to get over how easily the tip wear appeared. Probably it'd have lasted better if I'd used top coat, but then I'd have had 5 layers of laquer on my nails, and quite frankly my life is too short to sit around waiting for that much paint to dry.

Overall verdict:
I'm normally the first to say how great Rimmel polishes are, especially their 10 day/lycra/pro type polishes. But this one, while pretty, is just too disappointing for me. I probably won't be wearing it on my fingers again although I may keep it for my toes (why do toes always seem to chip much slower than fingers?)

Accessorize : Pin-Up

Happy Saturday! At last it's the weekend, ugh this week really dragged :( Why does the time always seem to move slower when you're waiting to go on holiday? Next week is the last week of work before I get the week off to go and do fun stuff with my family. I can't wait!!

Anyway the slowly dragging week somehow gave me the urge to have vampy nails. I haven't done that for a while and it felt like a nice change. My partner in crime for this vampish excitement was the lovely Pin-Up, by Accessorize. 

Pin-Up has an aubergine (eggplant, to you US types) base, filled with magenta glitter. It's opaque in two coats, applies nicely, dries smoothly and has a not-too-shabby drying time. This polish has multiple personalities! From a distance it looks like a dark vampy purple with purple shimmer...

...close up, it looks like this...

...and in the shade, it looks different all over again:

Isn't it pretty?

I really like this polish. EXCEPT. It is TERRIBLE for tip wear. I had tip wear within an hour of first painting! Undeterred, I wrapped my tips with it - and the tip wear came right on back.

This is after one day. It looks worse here than in real life (macro is brutal).

 It was weird though, because although it appeared fast, once it was there, it didn't get much worse. It just doesn't like sticking to tips! 

Pros:

I love the colour. 

The formula is great (apart from the tip wear) - goes on nicely, dries smooth, not too slow.

Wear - apart from that intial tip wear, it lasts ages! I didn't change this for four days and it still looked the same as it did after the first day (ie the last picture above)

Cons:

The tip wear :(

I was a little disappointed that the glitter doesn't show up on the nail as well as it does in the bottle. It sinks into the base too much.

Stash or Trash?

Hmm... it's borderline for this one. Although the tipwear wasn't bad enough to make me take it off for 4 days, I didn't love how quickly it appeared or the fact that wrapping my tips didn't help at all.

I did love the colour though. I'll probably try wearing it again, and wrapping my tips with top coat AND polish.

Nails Inc : Saville Row

A nice vampy colour for you today: Saville Row, from Nails Inc.

Saville Row is a deep plum creme that in the bottle has a lovely purplish berry tone; it reminds me of black cherries and loganberries and since I looove that kind of colour, I was quite excited to see it on my nails. Unfortunately it loses most of that colour once it's dry and becomes more of a standard dark burgundy, although still a nice dark vampy shade and especially good for this time of year.

Application was nice and easy, the formula is creamy and pigmented enough to be opaque in two coats, and drying time wasn't bad, either. Wear, however, wasn't the best I've seen: even though I used a base coat and top coat, I had chipping within the day and quite noticeable tip wear, which was a little disappointing for the price Nails Inc charge : £11, though I got this bottle as a give away from a magazine - I don't know whether they used a different formula for their give away polishes but part of me hopes so... if I was to spend £11 on a polish I'd want it to last a bit longer!

Overall I do like this polish and would wear it again (though with an extra coat of topcoat to try and resist the chipping a bit longer), though if I found a similar colour with a longer lasting formula I'd probably switch to that instead.