Butter London Pimms and Lynnderella Connect The Dots

Butter London Pimms

Here's a self indulgent post about some of my favourite things - yellow polish and black and white glitter! My newest yellow polish and my oldest black and white glitter, to be exact. This is Butter London Pimms. It's not a new shade, I think it was from BL's autumn 2013 collection, but when I saw it in my local Boots last week it just seemed so bright and perfect for summer I had to buy it! I don't have a yellow quite like it - I usually go for paler, lemony yellows, greenish yellows, mucky yellows or mustard yellows - avoiding primary yellows because they look kind of 'eggy' and I don't like them on my hands. But this is perfect! The application was fantastic too - this is two coats with Seche Vite topcoat. Much as I love yellow, many yello polishes can be a real pain to apply.

Butter London Pimms

So I wore it on its own for a couple of days then I added black and white glitter. I love black and white glitter, and I have quite a collection of them now - hexagonal ones, mixed shapes, tiny glitters, some with bar glitter, dots, squares, some with highlights of other colours, or background shimmer, or bits of holo - you name it, there's a variant of black and white glitter out there somewhere and chances are I own it, lol! But this is the one that started them all - Lynnderella Connect The Dots. I was amazed when I first saw pictures of this - I'd never seen anything like it before. This was back in the day when Lynnderella sold direct from her blog and people got together for group orders... lot of water under the bridge since then. But this was my first black and white glitter, and my first indie polish in fact! There are other black and white glitters I probably like more now, but this is the original, and I still have a soft spot for it.

Butter London Pimms with Lynnderella Connect The Dots

One coat of Connect The Dots over my existing mani with BL Pimms, with a coat of Gelous to smooth and Seche Vite to finish.

Butter London Pimms with Lynnderella Connect The Dots

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

Flash Nails Sticks and Stones over Barry M Rose Hip

Flash Nails Sticks and Stones over Barry M Rose Hip

I think Flash Nails is going to be a brand to watch over the next few months! This is Sticks and Stones, a glitter topper in a clear base with mixed shapes of matte black, white and various shades of pink. I'm a great fan of black and white glitter specifically, and matte glitters generally (I'm hardly ever attracted to the super-sparkly glitters these days), so this one is right up my street!

I ordered a couple of polishes from Nicola when she first opened up shop a few weeks ago (here's my post about the lovely Jagged) and she very kindly included a mini of Sticks and Stones as an extra!

Flash Nails Sticks and Stones over Barry M Rose Hip

My base for this mani is Barry M Gelly Polish in Rose Hip - one of the new pastel Spring Gelly shades. There have been a few reviews of this polish already; I like it, but like any very pale shade it needs a bit of care and patience with the application. I used three coats here, and topped with Seche Vite to even it out fully before I applied the glitter. I used just one coat of Sticks and Stones in this mani as I wanted to keep the glitter looking quite sparse - Sticks and Stones is very easy to apply, even from the mini bottle.

Flash Nails Sticks and Stones over Barry M Rose Hip

I purchased Barry M Gelly Nail Paint in Rosehip at my local Tesco; Flash Nails Sticks and Stones was a sample sent along with a couple of polishes I purchased from the Flash Nails Etsy shop. I like the Flash Nails polishes so much I placed another order last night :)

EDIT
I added a stamped pattern to this mani today using American Apparel Hassid and MoYou Artist Collection plate 03.......

Monochrome matte gradient - Barry M meets Manglaze!

Barry M Silk Nail Paints Pearl and Manglaze Matte is Murder 

Well this was intended as the base for a lovely glitter I have to review, but once I'd made the gradient I liked it so much I decided I'd wear it alone for a bit and add the glitter tomorrow! Manyana, lol!

Barry M Silk Nail Paints Pearl and Manglaze Matte is Murder 

I started out trying to apply the black gradient (Manglaze Matte is Murder) directly to my bare nails but that didn't want to work so I painted a thin coat of Barry M Nail Silk Paints in Pearl as the base. With hindsight I could have used a matte topcoat for the uncoloured part I wanted, but I'm happy with how it turned out in any case. I added a bit of Manglaze Santorum on my sponge to warm up the transition between black and white.

Barry M Silk Nail Paints Pearl and Manglaze Matte is Murder 

I purchased Barry M Silk Nail Paints in Pearl from Tesco; I've had the Manglazes in my collection for a long time (I had a friend in the US send them for me, but now you can buy them at Sally Magpies in the UK.

Indy's Indies Swatch and Review - Belle & The Snowman

Indy's Indies is a new brand to me - but I love matte glitters and circle glitters so when I saw her range I just *had* to try some! Today I'm showing you Belle, a mix of yellow and brown glitters, and The Snowman - black and white circles with shards of orange.

Let's start by looking at The Snowman:

Indy's Indies The Snowman

The Snowman has large white circles, smaller black circles and shards of orange in a clear base. There's lots of glitter in this polish, definitely no need for fishing to get glitter on your nails! I found The Snowman very easy to apply and I loved the effect it created over this dark blue (Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm, my favorite dark blue ever, sadly discontinued now.) I finished this off with a coat of Gelous and Seche Vite quick drying top coat - you do need at least a couple of coats of topcoat over The Snowman to get a smooth finish as the circle glitters are quite substantial.

Indy's Indies The Snowman

A bold design like this probably doesn't need a macro, but here's one anyway! Even if it's just to show I didn't do clean up, lol! Those of you who have Dead Calm will know this polish is impossible to clean up - it's best not to even try!

Indy's Indies The Snowman

The other shade I want to share today is Belle. This is a super mix of deep and bright yellow circles and hexes, with the odd yellow flower and a sprinkle of deep brown hex glitter. I'm wearing Belle over a gradient of Lilypad Lacquers In The Milky Way and Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal. Again, the glitters in Belle are very generous and the polish applied very easily. As usual, I used a coat of Gelous to smooth the glitter and Seche Vite to finish off.

Indy's Indies Belle

I'm really pleased with these two polishes - I'm giving this brand a big thumbs up! I have another couple of Indy's Indies glitters I'll be posting about soon.

I purchased The Snowman and Belle from Indy's Indies Etsy Shop. The other polishes are all from my personal collection.

Dalmations and Dominoes! Pocket Money Polishes Forever, Angels and Schools Out

Pocket Money Polishes Forever and Angels

Today I have two of Charlie's new Pocket Money Polishes September Sparkle Collection glitter toppers to show you - *Forever* and *Angels*. Charlie describes these as a pair of yin and yang polishes; I love black and white glitter in just about any format and I think it's a great idea to present the black glitter and white glitter separately - it allows for much more creativity!

Let's start with Forever. Forever is a mix of small black hexes, big black circles and iridescent bar glitters. In the bottle in reminds me of frogspawn - all black glitters do, lol!

Pocket Money Polishes Forever

Forever would look great over just about any colour, as long as the background wasn't so dark it blended in to the black. I was feeling in a bit of a monochrome mood, and the black circles put me in mind of dalmations - so here are my 'dalmation nails'!

I'm not very keen on pure white polish apart from for stamping and other nail art - I think it looks rather stark; I much prefer a cream shade. I've used American Apparel Cotton here - this is a super cream shade. The formula tends a little to streakiness, but two coats and SV is fine for under glitter. I'd probably use three coats of AA Cotton on its own.  I used two thin coats of Forever over the base, then a coat of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite. The iridescent glitters are interesting - over a light base they are yellow-pink, but over dark they flash green and blue, as you can see in the bottle shot above.

If you get the angle just right though, you see an occasional subtle flash of green from these iridescent glitters, even over a pale base.

Pocket Money Polishes Forever

Much as I love the monochrome style, I'm always looking out for ways to change and extend the life of my mani! So I decided to a splash of bright colour with another awesome glitter topper from Charlie  ~ *School's Out*. This is a mix of primary red, yellow and blue matt hexagon glitter.  

Pocket Money Polishes School's Out

Given that School's Out combines all three primary colours, it probably works best over a neutral base - I'd been planning to create some black and white nail art to wear this over......... and then I realised that I had that black and white nail art!  So here is a single, light coat of School's Out over Forever and the off-white base. I love this effect - very Mondrian colour scheme!

Pocket Money Polishes Forever and School's Out

The other half of the black and white glitter pair is Angels, which is small white hexes, white circles and the same iridescent bar glitter.  But see how different the iridescent glitter looks in the bottle with the white.

Pocket Money Polishes Angels

Reverse the effect above, and put the white glitter topper over a black nail and you have dominoes! I used American Apparel Hassid as my base here - this black is a one coater (certainly if you're putting something else on top).

How different the iridescent glitters look against the black base!

Pocket Money Polishes Angels

And then with a light coat of School's Out:

I think the combination of Angels and School's out over black is less striking than Forever and School's Out over cream - I'm not sure if it's the iridescent glitters flashing green and blue that makes the whole mani look more *busy*, or if it's just that multi-coloured glitter over black is a combination that I've worn many times before. I still like the effect, nonetheless.

Pocket Money Polishes Angels and School's Out

And, finally - well of course you can combine the Forever and Angels! Obviously if you put on one coat of Forever and then a coat of Angels you'd get a black and white glitter mix that would look great over just about any colour. But I wanted to do something a bit different - that you couldn't get from a bottle of black and white glitter (of which I have many, in all shapes and sizes).

I've been working at improving my gradient technique for the last few weeks, and a challenge that I'd set myself was to do a black and white gradient........... so here it is; a perfect base for a black glitter and a white glitter!

This last picture shows a direct comparison of how the iridescent glitter in Forever and Angels looks on a dark and light background.

Pocket Money Polishes Forever and Angels

And finally, a macro of my gradient; I'm pleased with how that turned out! I painted my nails with American Apparel Cotton then applied a sponge gradient using American Apparel Cotton and Hassid. Although the black and white look scary together on the sponge, it actually worked quite easily. And for once I remembered to put tape around the edges of my nails, which made clean up a million times easier than it usually is when I do a gradient!

Pocket Money Polishes Forever and Angels

I purchased Pocket Money Polishes Forever, Angels and School's Out directly from Charlie at her website, which includes a blog with updates of restocks, launches and new colours. Forever and Angels go on sale on 1st September - I was lucky to be able to get a preview order :)  You can follow Charlie on facebook too. For anyone in the US who likes the look of Charlie's polishes, she is planning a US pop-up sale in September - details on this facebook page.

American Apparel Hassid and Cotton were part of a gift from a lovely US polish friend - American Apparel does have a UK website where you can buy the polishes but they seem rather pricey (£9) compared to the US rrp ($6).