Weekend Nails - Nails Inc Britten Street

Nails Inc Britten Street over Seche Simple But Significant

Long time no post, sorry! A few reasons for that - first of all I have a new job and I've been keeping my nails quite conservative in shape and colour most of the time so I don't have much to post about. And second, I have a big open water swim coming up and I've been doing quite a bit of swimming outside, in my wetsuit. Long nails, pointy nails and nails with square corners aren't wetsuit compatible, so another reason to keep my nails this shortish, rounded shape. Once the open water season is over I'll grow them and reshape them.....

But I like this mani I did last night so I did take some pictures! The base is Seche Simple But Significant, a pretty light beige. Nails Inc Britten Street itself is a pretty, easy to use blue glitter comprising light blue and white microglitter and squares in three shades of blue. All the glitters are matte, which is definitely my preference! I just used one coat, since I wanted to keep the effect quite sparse.

Nails Inc Britten Street over Seche Simple But Significant

 All products in this post are from my collection and purchased by me.

Models Own Sweet Shop Collection

Scented polishes that smell of old fashioned sweeties - what fun! I have three polishes from Models Own new Sweet Shop collection. First, here's Coca Cola Bottles - this is a pretty chocolately taupe with a gold shimmer and tiny pearly glitters. Really pretty and perfectly work appropriate, and it does smell of coca cola. Actually, the smell reminded me of a moment at last weekend's ultramarathon - flat, slightly warm coca cola is a staple drink given to runners at aid stations as its easy available sugar and being flat and warm easy to drink without making you burp or shocking your stomach. When I was filling my water bottle I caught sight of the marshall pouring huge bottles of cola into a big bowl in the sun to go flat and warm and it smelt quite strong! The colour of this also reminds me of those chocolate custards I like to slurp down when running too - I'm sure this polish will be popular with ultrarunners everywhere, lol. 

 I have to say I struggled a bit with the formula on this, I found it thick but sheer at the same time. I used two coats at first, but I thought it looked patchy, so I added a third to get a coverage I was happy with. But then my Seche Vite didn't play nicely with the polish and I got a bit of shrinkage at the tips. In spite of this, I like the colour and finish enough to want to wear the polish again. 

Models Own Sweet Shop - Coca Cola Bottles

 Next is Rhubarb and Custard, a yummy blue-toned red jelly with microglitter, presumably representing the sugar in the sweeties. Smells lovely, great colour, easy formula - this one is great. Top coat is essential to smooth out the glitter (but you'd expect this with any polish containing this much glitter).

Models Own Sweet Shop - Rhubarb and Custard

I used two coats for this mani.

Models Own Sweet Shop - Rhubarb and Custard

Bonus for me with this polish, it was a perfect match for the red bits in the complimentary buff I got from the race I was talking about earlier. I don't have a polish this colour in my collection, so it's sure to get worn again. I'm not sure why I have so few red polishes; I like red, and wear it often, but whenever I'm buying polish I always pass over the reds thinking 'Oh, they're just red, I've got red'. Then whenever I want a *specific* red for nail art or something, I don't have it. 

Here's the last, and my favourite. Gumball - a perfect bubblegum pink. Perfect colour, perfect formula. Two coats plus topcoat here. And it smells of bubblegum. In fact I've been wearing it for three days now, and it still smells of bubblegum, after two long swims and through my topcoat!

Models Own Sweet Shop - Gumball

Models Own Sweet Shop - Gumball

Models Own Sweet Shop collection is available now from Superdrug, Models Own website and Models Own Bottleshops. These products were sent for review.

MoYou Nails product review

This is a bit of a first-ever for me... stamping designs that don't cover the whole nail! I was asked if I'd like to review a few products from the MoYou Nails collection, including one of their stamping polishes of my choice, and I jumped at the opportunity, since my default white stamping polish (Sally Hansen InstaDri in Whirlwind White) is almost used up and I'm not sure where I'd find another bottle!

I received MoYou Special Stamping polish in White, MoYou Stamper and plastic scraper and image plates 105 and 106 to try out. 106 is a set of french tips. I've been intrigued by these for years, but a little scared, and I've had a few unsuccessful attempts with tip images that came with other sets of plates. So a little nervous to try this out, I selected this floral image.... 

This was rather easy to place - maybe because of my current nail shape and I loved the effect! The base mani is Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm, an old shade that is my favourite navy blue ever. 

I found the white stamping polish dense and opaque, without being thick at all - so it spread perfectly over the plate and was easily removed by the plastic scraper. The stamper I was sent was a *bit* squishy; I've not had great success with full-on-squishy stampers I've tried, and always end up going back to my old Konad stamper, which is really too small for my nails. But this one works great and I'm really happy with it. I roughed up the surface a bit with an emery board before I started, but I found the stamper picked up the image perfectly from the plate and transferred it very easily to my nails. My nails are not the easiest to stamp on, because I have quite a high c-curve, but this stamper handles that very well. 

Great so far - I'm very impressed by the polish, the stamper and the quality of the plate. I was a bit too hasty putting topcoat over my design and ended up with micro-streaks that show up in the pictures (but didn't in real life). 

The second plate was 105, a selection of individual heart images. I decided to test these out over a textured polish (Binky London Crystal Pink) and create a skittle design. My favourite image on the plate is the grafitti style heart in the middle; I used this on my index finger for a full image, off centre on my ring finger and multiple times on my middle finger to create a random whole nail graffiti pattern. Then I chose a different heart for my little finger. I love how this turned out and the application of the stamped images to the textured polish was a breeze.  

So I'm giving a big thumbs up for the stamper, the plastic scraper is fine (although I always find an old plastic card perfectly adequate for this job) and comes as a bundle with the stamper anyway, the plates are good quality and stamp very well (and gave me the chance to try designs I'd probably not have chosen otherwise, as I tend to always go for full nail images) and the white stamping polish seems great.... before I decide if I want to make it my default white stamping and nail art polish I wanted to try a couple of other things though... 

Full nail stamped design with a plate from my collection - the polish handled perfectly! I wanted a soft effect for this mani, so it has a layer of white jelly (Sally Hansen Polar Bare) over the stamping. The grey is Barry M Gelly in Almond.

And lastly - is it opaque enough for dots?  I think so - these dots over a dark chocolate brown (Megan Miller Ganache) certainly pass muster by my standards. So I'd definitely recommend MoYou's white polish for stamping and other nail art!

 The MoYou products (Stamper and Scraper, White Special Stamping Polish and image plates 105 and 106) in this post were provided for honest review.These are all available to purchase at the MoYou website. The Binky London textured polish was a review sample (see this post for my review of this polish). Everything else I used in these designs is from my own collection and was purchased by me.

Binky London Crystal Pink and Enchanted Green - swatch and review

I have two new shades from Binky London; this brand launched at the end of last year with some great classic shades I reviewed here, here and here. I was really impressed with the formula of the first polishes, and the shape of the brush, which makes application super-easy, so I was excited to receive new colours from the brand to try out.

Let's start with Pink Crystal. This is a rose pink texture glitter, easy to apply and super pretty.

Binky London Crystal Pink

I used just two coats for this mani, no basecoat (and no topcoat, but I don't need to say that!) so really quick to do. Although it's textured, the polish isn't too thick, so it's quite easy to handle, and the big, round ended brush makes it easy to get a neat edge. I didn't do any kind of clean up for this mani! I would say that some people might find the big brush a bit unusual at first, especially with the textured polish, but do persevere because the results are well worth it once you get used to it.

The polish also makes a great base for stamping! Here's a preview of a new stamping polish I've been trying, with Binky Crystal Pink as the base:

Binky London Crystal Pink with stamping

More info on the MoYou stamping polish in my next post!

The other Binky polish I was sent to review is a fabulous bright emerald creme, Enchanted Green. My pictures just don't capture how stunning this colour is, but I absolutely loved wearing this. The formula surprised me though - based on the Binky polishes I've reviewed already I was expecting this to be smooth and easy to apply, but it wasn't. It was thick and a bit sticky, and made worse by the big brush, which seemed make it go on rather streaky. At two coats it looked lumpy, but trusty Seche Vite topcoat smoothed it out a treat and I like the colour so much I can forgive a slightly tricky application. It was a hot day when I used this polish; that might have affected the consistency too. 

Binky London Enchanted Green

 This is two coats with Seche Vite Quick Dry topcooat.

Binky London Enchanted Green

Products in this post were provided for review. Binky London polishes are available from Retail Beauty.

Nails Inc Seven Dials... with some dots

Nails Inc Seven Dials (dots with Megan Miller Latte)

I'm on something of a roll with the dots - they're so fun and summery. I think dots, especially big ones, are my favourite nail art style. The base for this mani is Nails Inc Seven Dials, a soft emerald green and I did the dots with Megan Miller Latte. The colour of the dots surprised me a bit, as Megan Miller Latte is a soft coffee shade... but its rather sheer, so over the green became this interesting mustard. Not quite what I'd planned, but I like it all the same!

Nails Inc Seven Dials (dots with Megan Miller Latte)

Since people keep asking about the big dots, I use one of my silversmiths doming punches to do these. I have a bag of them in different sizes, and I usually just pull one out at random. The very biggest ones don't dot well (the dots become more like streaks) - I get the best results from tools that are about 5mm diameter. To be honest, any hard spherical object will make good dots, it just needs to be easy to handle - so these tools are great because they come with a handle. Before I thought about using these I made dots with various household objects - brush handles, bits of jewellery etc.

Nails Inc Seven Dials (dots with Megan Miller Latte)

Both the polishes in this post are from my collection and were purchased by me. I bought Megan Miller Latte recently from CutECOsmetics; I've not worn it on its own yet but I will make a post about it when I get around to doing so!

Pink Gradient with dots...

Essie Go Ginza and DJ Play That Song gradient with Barry M Lychee dots

A bit of jolly nail art for my newly rounded nails! I chose a couple of blue-leaning pinks for the gradient (Essie Go Ginza and DJ Play That Song), then added nude dots with Barry M Lychee. I put the dots on straight away, so no pictures of the gradient on its own, sorry! The gradient was done with my usual method of a fine, damp makeup sponge; I painted one coat of the lighter pink (Go Ginza) to give the gradient a base. DJ Play That Song is rather jellyish, but the formula blended well with the other Essie polish for the gradient and I love how the pale pink base of Go Ginza really makes the colour pop.

I really enjoyed this combination of colours, and I'm getting used to the new shape now - I was sad when I finally had to remove this mani the other day because there was too much growth around my cuticles.

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Essie Go Ginza and DJ Play That Song gradient with Barry M Lychee dots

All polishes in this post are from my personal collection. Barry M Lychee is one of my favourite nudes, especially for nail art - the formula is so rich and dense it works fabulously well for dots, striping and stamping.