Untried Polish Challenge Day 14 *In Season* - Essie Fear & Desire / Essie Off The Shoulder

Essie Off The Shoulder / Fear & Desire

OK, it's a dotticure really, but the base is a sort of gradient with two of my untrieds! I got into the dottig mood last week when I was playing around with Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal, The base colours here are two from Essie's summer collection, but they are from LAST year's summer collection! Still, I'm getting through my box of untrieds nicely and the end of this challenge is almost in sight. Two more manis to go!

I call it a sort of gradient because I think the formula of the two Essies is a bit sheer for getting a decent sponge gradient - I started off sponging but ended up just painting the two colours into each other fairly roughly to get a distinct colour change that will show through the dots. Here is how my nails looked before I started dotting; a bit messy but it is only the base after all......................

Essie Off The Shoulder / Fear & Desire

The colours are OK, nothing outstanding in terms of either colour or formula. I bought them from a market stall some months ago for a couple of pounds each........ knowing at the time I'd probably not wear them, lol!

I used Seche Vite to make sure the base colours were properly finished and entirely dry. Then I added randomly placed and randomly sized matt black dots using ManGlaze Matte is Murder. No more topcoat, I wanted to keep the effect of matt vs shiny!

I love the way this turned out - it reminds me of a tropical frog, although my husband commented that my nails look like ladybirds. I see more dots in my future...................

Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish 

Scofflaw Prototypes

I had an incredible stroke of luck a few weeks ago and I WON a draw for three prototype polishes from the wonderful Finch, creator of Scofflaw!

I believe these are early versions of three of Finch's latest collection. Each one is amazing, they don't have names, so I'll just call them blue, grey and pink!

*Blue* is a sheer blue jelly with black, bright red (!!), aubergine, gunmetal and tiny neon yellow glitter. I layered two coats over Bourjois 1 Seconde polish in Bleu Water, which is almost exactly the same shade as the base. 

This looks like what eventually became Paranoid Android, I believe. 

Next is *pink* - if you want to buy something similar Wyld Stallyns would be the nearest, although the glitters in my version seem a warmer set of colours than the final one. I especially love the aubergine matte glitters in this! Again the polish is quite jellyish, and I have an old Dior polish almost the exact same shade as the base, so I used that as undies for this mani:

And last but not least, *grey*. Pale grey with matt neon blue and all sorts of mossy green glitter. This is stunning! I wore it for days, I liked it so much. I used a base of OPI Skull and Glossbones for this mani. 

And I'd guess this one became Electric Salamander in it's final version.

I love these, I think these rank amongst the treasures in my indie collection; Finch makes fabulous polishes and sells them on her Etsy Store. You can also buy Scofflaw polishes at Llarowe.

Dior Lime

Dior Lime

Spring green is one of my absolute favourite colours, so Dior Lime was an instant lemming the moment I saw it. One of Dior's Spring / Cruise collection colours (along with Dior Mango) from earlier this year, I'm not sure it ever made it to the UK Dior counters, but a lovely polish friend in the US ordered this from Dior Boutique for me :)  I was a little wary of buying, as I do have quite a few colours in this family - for example Illamasqua Smash and Gosh Early Green, but Sheila at Pointless Cafe included a comparison of these two in her review of Dior Lime that totally put my mind at rest.

Dior Lime

The colour and formula are wonderful. The finish is ever so slightly jellyish; I used three coats plus Seche Vite quick drying topcoat for this mani.

Dior Lime

I added a lovely new yellow and green glitter to this mani after a couple of days - but I'm saving my pictures of that one for a post about the glitter polish itself later this week!

Untried Polish Challenge Day 13 *Prettiest* - Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

After the horror of my last untried challenge post, I've got something nice to share! Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal is such a pretty colour. It's somewhere between pink and lavender, and has a subtle linear holo effect.

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

In less direct light, the colour is a bit brighter and pinker, and the holo a bit less visible:

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

I used two coats of I'm Kind of a Big Deal with a layer of Seche Vite quick drying top coat to finish off with. Application is great, the formula is rich and smooth and very easy to apply, even on long nails.

After a day I added some dots with OPI My Vampire is Buff. I've been meaning to do dots for ages, and I loved the way this turned out!

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal with OPI MY Vampire Is Buff dots

The only problem with Enchanted polishes is getting a chance to buy them - they sell out so quickly! I purchased I'm Kind of a Big Deal direct from Chelsea at her Enchanted Polish website;  Chelsea posts updates about restocks 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.

Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish 

Pretty Serious The Pink One

Pretty Serious The Pink One

My first Pretty Serious! I love pink; the hotter and brighter the better, so this one is right up my street! It's a searingly hot pink with a sweet blue shimmer.

Application was unbelievably easy, this is two coats plus Seche Vite. I could maybe have got away with just one coat - one coat would certainly be enough for short nails. I'm really impressed with the quality of the polish, I've yet to be disappointed by any polish from Australia; even before the Australian indies burst onto the market Ozotic and Picture Polish were among my favourite brands (and still are). Not sure what else to say - I love everything about this; here are some pictures!

I purchased The Pink One from Sally Magpies; outside the UK you can buy from Llarowe; who ships worldwide.

Untried Polish Challenge Day 12 *Ugliest* - Maybelline Colour Show Polka Dots Shooting Stars

Hmm, I wasn't planning this as my *Ugliest* untried (I had in mind a polish the looks like the colour of cat food for this) but I'm so horrified by it's nastiness I just have to!

I bought this in Boots when it came out a couple of months ago. There were four colours in the Polka Dots series - this dark blue, a murky looking jade green, a dirty pink and a black and white glitter topper in clear base. I really love black and white glitter - Lynnderella Connect the Dots was my biggest lemming for weeks when Lynn and the whole indie thing started (that'll only be about two years ago but it seems like forever) and I was over the moon when I got my bottle. I've accumulated a nice collection of black and white indie glitters in various shapes, sizes and quirks since then. Shooting Stars was the only one of the Maybelline Polka Dots that appealed to me; I didn't need another black and white topper and I didn't like the other colours. I did think it looked promising though............

It's HORRIBLE! Everything about it is wrong! The base is too dark, so it almost covers up the black glitter, and pools and blobs over the white glitter. making the bigger white glitters look all uneven and streaky. The base is also too thin and watery to suspend the glitters properly when you apply it to your nail (you know how the bases on good glitter indies are thick and jelly-ish - well this is just the opposite!) so it dries rough and streaky, with the glitter sticking up like sandpaper. Look at it on my thumbnail:

I layered this over an existing blue mani (Chanel Blue Boy); I can imagine the streaky mess it would be if I'd tried to use it on it's own!

Of course, if you put enough topcoat on and take pictures from the right angles you can make anything look reasonable in pictures, lol!

But in real life this polish is rather nasty and I wouldn't recommend anybody buying it! I purchased it at my local Boots, for the record. And I used two coats over a blue base and added two coats of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite on top.

Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish