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.

Barry M - new gelly shade OLIVE with a bit of stamping.....

Barry M Olive with Essie Sew Psyched

The finished mani... Barry M Olive stamped with Essie Sew Psyched using MoYou Pro XL plate 05. I was really pleased with how this turned out!

The new Barry M Gelly Nail Paint shades include three pale neutrals, which are in that range of colours that I can't seem to resist - so when I realised these were a three-for-two offer at Superdrug I couldn't help myself. I bought Olive, Coconut (off white) and Almond (pale taupe).

Here's Olive:

Barry M Olive

I think the colour is fab and I'd say the formula is OK but not amazing, I used three coats here because it still looked a bit streaky after two. I like the colour enough for it to be worth the bit of extra effort with the application. It's quite a unique colour - I'm not sure I've got anything quite like it in my stash!

And here are some more pictures of the stamping. I've not tried Essie Sew Psyched for stamping before but it works brilliantly - and it's a lovely colour match for Barry M Olive! Some of my pictures are taken in bright sunlight and this really makes the green in Sew Psyched stand out!

Barry M Olive with Essie Sew Psyched

I purchased Barry M Olive from Superdrug last week - Essie Sew Psyched has been around in my collection for years but I think it's still a current shade.

Hipster Mani - with MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

Long title for this post, lol! MoYou released some fab new 'Hipster' plates last week so when mine arrived I dived straight in with a hipster style mani! I went for a beige, blue and red combination, with a bit of check! The plates have some great designs and all those I tried stamped perfectly.

I painted most of my nails with Essie Case Study; the accents are M&S Autograph Bordeaux and RBL Cuprum. I chose the accent colours because they were the nearest I had to the glitters in R&R Lacquers Steve. All the stamping is Barry M Lychee. I added R&R Lacquers Steve (from R&R's current collection 'Assemble') to my check stamped nails. Steve has matte dark red and blue hexes in a clear base along with white squares and small gold and holographic glitter. This is just one coat - application is very easy and the formula is smooth. I also added a single blue glitter to the red accent nail on each hand. For the blue accent nails, I added double dots with Essie Case Study and Barry M Lychee.

MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

Here's a closer shot of the check stamp and the glitters in Steve!

MoYou new Hipster plates 1 and 2 and R&R Lacquers Steve

I purchased Hipster plates 1 and 2 from MoYou's website; I purchased the fabulous Smash from R&R Lacquers Assemble collection recently and Rebecca and Rachel very kindly sent me sample sizes of the rest of the collection for review :) R&R Lacquers are available from their Etsy Shop; follow their facebook page for details of upcoming colours (there are some spring colours in the pipeline I have my eye on!). All the other polishes I used here are from my collection and were purchased by me at some point in the past.

Blue and yellow gradient with dots.............

I couldn't come up with a snappy name for this mani! It's a blue and yellow gradient with brown dots! The colours were inspired by an exhibition of small portrait works by Chris Ofili I saw recently. In the one which really caught my eye, the subject was wearing bright blue and yellow against her brown skin and hair. Ofili is best known for his use of elephant dung in his paintings - hence my use of the brown dots.

The base for the mani is a gradient of Butter London Jasper and Illamasqua Noble:

Butter London Jasper and Illamasqua Noble

Then I added dots in a range of brown shades - Essie Case Study, Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens, China Glaze Mahogany Magic and Essie Little Brown Dress.

And a few close ups of the dots to finish with:

I really enjoyed wearing this - I wore it for about a week, until my nails had grown an unacceptable gap around my cuticles. All the polishes here are old favourites from my collection, apart from Butter London Jasper, which I purchased recently at my local Boots.

An InLinkz Link-up

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 

Dior Mango, Elevation Daisen and Essie Action!

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

This blog needs some colour! My last few posts have all been about neutral polishes, so time for a change...........Dior Mango is a polish I've been lusting after for a while. And whilst it didn't disappoint in the least, once it was on my nails I wanted to add something a bit extra to make it more special!

Here's Dior Mango on it's own. It's a wonderful colour, and the formula and application are perfect. Two coats with Seche Vite quick drying top coat:

Dior Mango

I wore Mango alone for a couple of days, then I added a coat of Elevation Daisen, which is a lovely glitter topper with circular glitter in various sizes and shades of pink, plus iridescent microglitter in the background. In my last mani with Daisen I used a contrasting background, Rescue Beauty Lounge Abiquiu, but this time I was inspired by this gorgeous mani by Sminkan and I wanted to pair pink circle glitter with orange. I wanted to create a sandwich / jelly effect rather than full on bling, but Dior Mango is too dense for that, so I used a thin coat of Essie Action, which is a bright orange neon and worked perfectly. Essie Action also turned up the brightness of the orange a few notches, which I like! 

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

And a couple of macros to show the detail in the glitter:

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

I didn't purposely place the little glitter on top of the big one on my index finger, but I love how it turned out! And a fuzzy abstract pic to finish with.....

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

I'd been lemming Dior Mango since I first saw swatches when it was released earlier this year, and after several months of stalking the Dior counters without success, I asked a friend in the US to order it from Dior Boutique for me. I got my Elevation Daisen in a swap but it's still a current Elevation colour and Lulu does keep restocking it. You can buy Elevation polishes at Lulu's website http://elevationpolish.bigcartel.com/ and she posts about restocks, new colours etc in her blog http://lovebrownnailpolish.wordpress.com/category/elevation-polish/. Llarowe recently started selling a few Elevation polishes too! Essie Action is readily available; I can't actually remember where I bought mine. I'm not sure I'd really recommend Essie Action though, as the pigment in my bottle settled quite badly and all got stuck up in the brush - it needs a lot of shaking to make it usable. I've seen other comments about this happening too, so I don't think I just got a bad bottle or I've stored it badly.

Butter London Fruit Machine - swatch and review

Butter London Fruit Machine

I have to admit a weakness for pastel, bubble gum pinks! They remind me of the pink sugar mice we used to make at junior school!  When I saw Butter London Fruit Machine in swatches, I thought it was very pretty, but I convinced myself there was no need to buy it as I've already got plenty pink polishes - but once I saw it in person I couldn't resist so here we are.........

Pictures are taken in natural light, but it's quite gloomy here as usual. I used two coats of Fruit Machine, a coat of Seche Vite, then another coat of Fruit Machine followed by a final coat of Seche Vite. I always use this method of application for pastel creams - it seems to avoid any streaking and give me a smooth, glassy finish every time. The Butter London Formula is great; the polish is a good consistency and the brush is small and easy to handle. Here are a couple of photographs from slightly different angles

Butter London Fruit Machine

I have several similar colours to this one, but I think Fruit Machine is lighter and brighter than anything else in my collection in this colour group, so I'm happy I bought it. I was also tempted by Kerfuffle, which was incredibly pretty in the bottle, but when I held it in my hand it seemed to clash awfully with my skin..........still thinking about that one!

I did do a comparison to two of the *nearest* pinks I pulled out of my helmer - Essie Cascade Cool and Pixi Paradise Pink (at least I think it's Paradise Pink, it's lost its label). Here are a couple of comparison pics at different angles and slightly different light conditions. Butter London Fruit Machine is definitely the lightest of the three; Essie Cascade Cool is darker and slightly more cool toned; the Pixi polish is darker but also brighter than both the others. OK, the differences are subtle, but they are different!

Here are swatches of the Essie and the Pixi, I wanted to see how they looked as a full hand. First Essie Cascade Cool

Essie Cascade Cool

Distinctly more lavender leaning. And the quality of the pigment is quite different to the Butter London; whilst the Butter London is dense and chalky, the Essie is sheerer and rather luminous. The application is the same as above, two coats of polish, one coat of SV, another coat of polish and a final coat of SV. Essie Cascade Cool applies nicely, like all Essies do, but this one has a massive brush! I've seen a few Essies with big brushes recently, I don't know if there is any reasoning why some colours get them. Whenever I get a polish with a huge brush, it always reminds me of a teacher I had at art school - he was always encouraging us to use a bigger brush, and honestly, it does make painting easier. With this whopping brush I was able to paint my pinkies in one stroke and my other nails in two, all very neatly, as the brush has a rounded end that seems to fit the shape of my cuticle nicely. I've seen others complaining about the big Essie brushes, but I'm all for them!

My final pink is Pixi Paradise (?) Pink

Pixi Paradise Pink

This is stronger and darker than Butter London Fruit Machine, and brighter and warmer than Essie Cascade Cool. It's a dense, chalky sort of pigment, and the formula on this one isn't as good as the other two - its a bit gloppy and has a distinct tendency to streak. I used the same application regime as before, and this time I felt that without the SV between the second and third coats the end result would have been a streaky mess.

I don't really know very much about the Pixi brand; I only own one other colour besides this one. I've had both for several years. Both times I bought on the basis of colour, and in both cases the formula was 'meh'.

Butter London Fruit Machine is part of the Spring 2013 Catwalk Pastels Collection, and is readily available. I bought my bottle at John Lewis. Essie Cascade Cool was one of the summer 2012 colours - I suspect these might have been discontinued because they are turning up in discount retailers in the UK - I've seen them in sets in TKMaxx but I bought this particular bottle on a market stall a couple of weeks ago for about £2. I bought the Pixi polish from Boots several years ago, can't remember exactly when, but my local Boots doesn't stock them any more. Pixi has a sales website.

Has anyone pale tried Butter London Kerfuffle? Does it work with your skintone?