Enchanted Polish Spinkled

Enchanted Polish Spinkled

I love hot pinks, and I love black glitter, so this one was just too much to resist for me! It's a sort of jellyish pink, and a very HOT PINK at that, with lots of small black glitter, including squares, some gorgeous microshimmer and a splash of holo microglitter - a super mixture!

These pictures are three thickish coats; I wanted to build up a good density of colour and glitter. The polish is quite thick but very smooth - the application is really nice. Also, because the base is thick and the glitter is small, the overall finish is super-smooth and only needed a single layer of Seche Vite quick drying top coat to finish it off. I like this a lot - I don't have much more to say so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Enchanted Polish Spinkled

In stronger light, the polish looks a lighter pink:

 And a few macro shots to show the detail of the glitter

 More subdued light

Enchanted Polish Spinkled

I purchased Enchanted Polish Spinkled direct from Enchanted Polish's website; as you'll probably know this is a very popular brand and sells out quickly at each restock. Fortunately, restocks are regular and Chelsea posts updates on her facebook page. Another good way to keep updated on restocks is to sign up for the newsletter. Llarowe also carries Enchanted Polish, but again most colours sell out pretty quickly. Both Enchanted Polish and Llarowe ship internationally.

Nails Inc Feathers - Cornwall

Nails Inc Feathers in Cornwall

This is my second Nails Inc Feathers polish - I reviewed Chester a couple of months ago when the Feathers collection was first released. I bought Chester from a Nails Inc counter on a City day out, but now my local Boots has them in stock I couldn't resist getting the other colour I liked - Cornwall!

Cornwall is royal blue and white bar glitter; it reminds me very much of the traditional willow pattern china. When I wore Chesters, I wanted to create an almost full coverage mani, but this time I wanted my base colour to show through a bit. I chose Max Factor MaxEffect Mellow Yellow for the base; here's Mellow Yellow first of all:

Max Factor MaxEffect Mellow Yellow

This is a pretty pastel yellow; I enjoyed wearing this on its own for a day before I put on Cornwall. This is three coats of Mellow Yellow, with Seche Vite quick dry topcoat. The formula on Mellow Yellow is quite densely pigmented, but kind of 'watery' so application was a bit tricky. I used a layer of Seche Vite between the second and third coats to help even things out, and I'm pleased with the overall result - it's dense and smooth ~ it is a yellow after all, and we all know the formula on yellows can be awful. I think it's pretty enough to be worth a bit of extra effort. My main disappointment with this colour was that I'd hoped it was going to be sheer enough to use for layering glitter through - but there's no way that is going to work.

On to Nails Inc Feathers Cornwall...........

Nails Inc Feathers in Cornwall

The Feathers polishes are a thick suspension of tiny bar glitter and need a bit of care in application. I explained my application technique in quite a bit of detail when I reviewed Chesters so I'll just summarise it here. I applied two thin coats of Cornwall, with a layer of top coat (not Seche Vite; I was concerned that SV might shrink as I would be putting it over what was effectively a dry mani at this stage) in between. I used a gentle dabbing type of brush stroke to make sure my whole nail was covered, and brushed in all directions to avoid all the bar glitters ending up pointing in the same direction. Feathers are very hungry glitters - I needed two coats of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite to get this smooth.

Here are a couple of macro shots showing the bar glitter in more detail; you can see how it sort of 'suspends' between the layers of topcoat - I really rather like this effect.

Nails Inc Feathers in Cornwall

I like the mani a lot, although maybe with hindsight I should have used a stronger or brighter yellow so the white glitter showed up better. I think Cornwall would also look awesome over a brick or burgundy shade - I love blue and brown together. I might try that combination next time!

Nails Inc Feathers in Cornwall

I purchased Nails Inc Cornwall from my local Boots - the Feathers collection are also available direct from Nails Inc website and a variety of other retailers.

I should mention that there are now cheaper dupes of the Feathers polishes appearing - I've not tried these myself yet but Anna at AnnaBean's nails reviewed Invogue Jaye Bird which looks like an exact dupe of Nails Inc Cornwall and can be purchased from Superdrug for £3.49 (Nails Inc polishes are £11). Barry M are also releasing a line of similar polishes in June called 'Confetti' - Polished Criminails has an early review of these; there are several colours including a black and white feather-style polish, which I'll be very excited to get my hands on!

Smitten Polish Bluebird II

Smitten Polish Bluebird II

Blue and brown is one of my favourite colour combinations - they're complementary colours (direct opposites on the colour wheel) which is why they look so good together! Smitten Bluebird II (a reformulation of *Bluebird* I believe) is a lovely creamy taupe base with various teal glitters, including some holo teal glitters. Noelie has done my colour geek thinking for me with this one!

Smitten Polish Bluebird II

The base is quite sheer, but it's not a jelly. I used three coats to get full coverage, and where the glitters are deeper in the polish, they turn more greenish, adding to the overall effect. In direct light the polish is quite caramel coloured, but in more subdued lighting it's deeper and pinker-toned. You can see the difference in the two macro shots:

Smitten Polish Bluebird II

Bluebird II is packed with glitter! I used three coats here to get the base opaque and even, and really I had too much glitter. I used two coats of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite to smooth it out, but it's still a little bumpy :(  Next time I wear this one I'll layer one or two coats over a taupe base. After I'd looked at  the macro shots I added more topcoat, and this did make the mani a lot smoother and I was much happier with it.

Smitten Polish Bluebird II

The colours in the teal holo glitters are so pretty when they catch the light!

I purchased Smitten Bluebird II direct from Noelie at her Etsy shop; she ships internationally. Llarowe also stocks Smitten polishes and ships worldwide.

Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds

Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds

I've reviewed a couple of  Darling Diva Polishes (Serendipity and Grumpy Bear) over the last few days, but I saved my favourite, Dirty Deeds, for last! Unfortunately the full glory of Dirty Deeds is difficult to capture in photographs, but I've done my best.

Dirty Deeds is from Darling Diva's Back in Black Collection; I have to confess I still like AC DC and I do have the Dirty Deeds CD in my car. Dirty Deeds was one of my favourite tracks when I was about fourteen and every time I hear it I can taste the cider............so when I took this polish out of the wrapper it made me smile from ear to ear! Teenage reminiscences apart, the polish is gorgeous - it's a sheer black jelly packed with glitter in many shapes and in a multitude of shades of lavender, purple and magenta, including matt, shiny and holo ones. The sizes of the glitter range from teeny tiny microglitter right up that massive great purple hex you can see on my ring finger. I like my glitters either simple or super-complex, and this is a great example of the latter!

Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds

Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds

The base is quite thin, but very smooth and easy to apply. I used three thin coats (no undies), with a layer of topcoat between the second and third coat - there's a lot of glitter in there and I wanted to avoid it clumping up on the third coat. To finish off I used a coat of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite - as you can see the mani is smooth as glass with no lumpiness from the glitter. I love how the colour has built up and how complex the glitters are - the whole thing makes me think of a delicious, glittery blackberry jam. I think this is the polish I wanted Deborah Lipmann Bad Romance to be! Not a problem, I have it now, and I don't think there's any reason dark colours shouldn't be worn in Spring :)

Here are some shots in various lights - one of the things I like about this is that in dull light the polish looks very understated, like a dark vampy jelly, but move your hands around in the sunlight or under a lamp and it really comes to life. I was driving when the sun was shining yesterday and my nails were really quite distracting.

Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds

In stronger light, you can see the jelly quality of the polish

And finally, a couple more macro shots I took in indirect sunlight to show the glitters - look at the holo glitters!

Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds

I received Darling Diva Polish Dirty Deeds as a sample for review; you can buy Darling Diva polishes from their Etsy Shop or from Llarowe or Mei Mei's Signatures - all these sellers ship worldwide. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva polishes and ships within Europe. You can follow Darling Diva on facebook for news of new colours and restock updates.

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity is a mix of medium sized lavender hex glitters, smaller magenta hex glitters, light green square glitters and tiny darker green hex glitters, all mixed up a sheer white base with a sprinkling of iridescent glitter too! The result is complex, springy and very feminine! It reminds me of pretty summer dresses and traditional english china! Serendipity means a pleasant surprise, and the way these colours work together in this gorgeous polish is certainly that!

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

The glitter in this polish is quite dense and generous, so for my mani I used three coats of Serendipity over a single coat of a very sheer white (Boots No7 Snowflake) as I wanted to keep the finish smooth but avoid visible nail line. I'm not sure I really needed the undies, and I wouldn't bother on shorter nails at all. I used a coat of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite to smooth and finish the mani. Here are a few pictures from different angles to show the glitters on the nail.

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

And a couple of macro shots for a bit more detail - you can really see how the iridescent glitters catch the light here

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity

Lovely! I couldn't help but think about floral china when I looked at my nails, so I thought I'd try layering Serendipity over a light creamy colour to pull the base a bit warmer. I used Barry M Gelly Nail Paint in Lychee as my base; this  is a light, biscuity nude with no hint of pink.

 Barry M Gelly in Lychee

Then I added two light coats of Serendipity...........

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity over Barry M Lychee

I love how this turned out! As with the Serendipity mani above, I used a coat of Gelous to smooth out the glitter and a thick coat of Seche Vite to finish everything off. The base of Serendipity is smooth and translucent enough just to lighten the base without causing any streaking or blobbing of the white. You can see how even the pigment is in this closer shot. The yellow / transparent glitters you can see here are the iridescent glitters where the light is hitting them an a different angle to what usually produces the blue-green flash you get from these.

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity over Barry M Lychee

I'll definitely try this out again with a different pastel colour for the base - I think a pale yellow would look especially good (I love yellow and purple together) or may a very light green or lilac. Darling Diva Serendipity is quite a versatile polish!

Finally, since I'd started a *porcelain* theme, I couldn't leave this without adding a matt topcoat!

Darling Diva Polish Serendipity over Barry M Lychee

Darling Diva Serendipity was sent to me as a sample for review. I also reviewed Darling Diva Grumpy Bear, and Dirty Deeds.

You can buy Darling Diva polishes from Darling Diva Polish's Etsy Shop, Llarowe and Mei Mei's Signatures; all these sellers ship internationally. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva and ships within Europe. 

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear - swatch and review

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear is one of Darling Diva's 'Care Bears' collection and as the name suggests is based on Grumpy Bear - that's the blue one with the white cloud with red hearts and raindrops on his belly, hence the heart and cloud shaped glitters in this polish.

The polish is a sheer, almost jelly-like periwinkle duochrome packed with pretty pastel glitters - white hexes in two sizes, pink and purple hearts and pale blue flower/cloud shapes.

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear

I used four thin coats of Grumpy Bear to build up a good density of colour and complexity of glitter. This also covered any visible nail line; I guess on short nails you could use three coats and still get a similar effect. The duochrome colour shift is from teal through periwinkle to lavender and is really pretty - much more complex than the polish looks in the bottle. The formula itself is good, the polish is fluid and the brush picks up the glitters easily without any need for fishing. The duochrome base builds to a pretty, glowing colour without any streaking or frostiness. I didn't attempt to do any 'placement' of the bigger glitters as I didn't want to stir up the duochrome base on my nails and make the polish streaky and lumpy, but I'm very happy with how the arrangement of glitters ended up. I smoothed the whole lot out with a coat of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite; the only areas of unevenness where I really needed this were around the heart and flower glitters; my nails have a strong c-curve and I usually find it difficult to get large, flat glitter shapes to lie nicely on my nails. If you have flatter nails this shouldn't be a problem.

In bright sunlight, the overall effect of Grumpy Bear is light and silvery, with a pretty lavender to silver-blue colour shift. In this light the pink hearts stand out well against the background colour:

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear

In indirect light, Grumpy Bear flashes a much stronger teal to lilac, and you can see the lovely transparent quality of polish too

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear

Here's a macro shot showing the teal shimmer and how nice and smooth the duochrome pigments are on the nail.

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear

Although I prefer Grumpy Bear without undies, it can be worn layered over a darker polish to emphasise the duochrome a bit more if you prefer. I think you need to take a bit of care when layering duochromes over dark colours, otherwise the end result can end up streaky, especially if you use multiple coats of the duochrome. I've used just one coat of Grumpy Bear over Revlon Carbonite here - I chose Carbonite rather than black as the lighter colour and broken, slightly glittery finish is a lot more forgiving than a stark black.

Darling Diva Polish Grumpy Bear over Revlon Carbonite

Darling Diva Grumpy Bear was sent to me as a sample for review. I've also reviewed Darling Diva Dirty Deeds and Serendipity. These polishes are all quite different to each other and all rather lovely! You can buy Darling Diva polishes from Darling Diva's Etsy Shop, Llarowe and Mei Mei's Signatures; all these sellers ship internationally. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva and ships within Europe.