Flash Nails PENNY LANE

Flash Nails Penny Lane

Penny Lane is one of the newer summer shades from Nicola at Flash Nails. I love this - it's such an unusual combination of colours and I think it's very work appropriate!

Flash Nails Penny Lane

The polish is a caramel coloured crelly with purple, blue, green and copper glitter. I used two coats for this mani, with one coat of Barry M Matte Nail Paint in Caramel (which is a perfect match for the base) as undies and a thick coat of Seche Vite to smooth out and finish off.

The application is flawless as I've come to expect from Flash Nails polishes - this is definitely one of my favourite UK Indie Brands at the moment!

Flash Nails Penny Lane

Flash Nails Penny Lane was sent to me for review; it is available to purchase at the Flash Nails Etsy shop. Nicola also has a facebook page for the brand with latest news and swatches. Barry M Caramel was purchased by me and is widely available in Boots and Superdrug. 

Pretty Quirky Summer Collection - Village Idiot

Pretty Quirky Village Idiot

The last in my series of reviews of Pretty Quirky's Summer Collection! This is Village Idiot, a sheer light green crelly full of bright neon glitters.

Pretty Quirky Village Idiot

Pretty Quirky Village Idiot

I love this combination of colours! I layered mine over a very light apple green base - 'Mint' from M&S Limited Collection. Not sure why it's called Mint, as it's not a minty green at all. This is one I spotted last summer in M&S and I think it's a real treasure - totally unique in my collection and the perfect partner for Pretty Quirky Village Idiot.

Pretty Quirky Village Idiot

Application of Village Idiot is pretty much perfect. I used two coats for this mani, plus two coats of Seche Vite to smooth it out. The base of Village Idiot is very sheer, I'm sure this could be layered successfully over colours other than green. I really like the polish, so I'll try it over an alternative base myself soon!

Pretty Quirky Village Idiot

Pretty Quirky Village Idiot was a sample sent for my review; I've also reviewed Shapes In The Clouds,  I Stole The Bouquet and Deva from this collection. The collection goes on sale this Friday (16th May) in the Pretty Quirky Etsy Shop. There are another four polishes in the collection - check out the Pretty Quirky blog and facebook page for more swatches and information those.

Flash Nails Bubble Bath :)

Flash Nails Bubble Bath

Happy Easter! I decided on a periwinkle blue base with glitter dots for my Easter mani. This is Flash Nails Bubble Bath over a base of Essie Bikini So Teeny. I love this glitter topper, it was so easy to apply for big circle glitter and the sprinkle of white microglitter is so pretty!

The circle glitters in Bubble Bath are a bit different to most of the circle glitters I've come across so far. They're sort of pearlescent, so they change colour from light to dark as the light hits them at different angles. They also seem quite thin and lie nicely on the nail. In the bottle, all piled up on top of each other with the light shining through them, they remind me of fish scales... rainbow coloured!

Flash Nails Bubble Bath

Flash Nails Bubble Bath

I used two coats of Bubble Bath for this mani; the glitter is generous and well dispersed in the base and there is no need to fish for glitter. I didn't do any manipulation or particular placement of the glitters, they came out in this nice random pattern on their own.

Flash Nails Bubble Bath

As with the other Flash Nails polishes I've tried, the base is nice and thick so I didn't need to use multiple layers of topcoat to get a smooth finish on my nails. I think I have a new addition to my 'special favourite glitters' list! I chose this base colour because I wanted a pale, spring-like effect, but I'm sure this will look fab over a dark colour (I've checked, the glitters are fully opaque and stand out really well on black (the cap of my topcoat bottle, lol).

Flash Nails Bubble Bath

I purchased Flash Nails Bubble Bath from the Flash Nails Etsy Shop. Nicola has a facebook page where you can check out new colours and other news......... in fact there's an Easter discount there at the moment :)

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

A really simple but wonderfully effective spring or summer polish! R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti  is a white crelly base with glitter in yellow dots, light blue squares, bright red hexes and some oversized neon yellow hexes. I love this - it makes me think of some of Cath Kidston's dot designs!

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

Application was very easy, there's tons of glitter in this polish and the consistency of the base is just about perfect so that you pick up the right amount of glitter on the brush every time. I used three very thin coats so I could build up the effect I wanted with glitter at various depths.

Instead of using a thick topcoat such as Gelous to smooth the glitter, I used a coat of Sally Hansen Polar Bare. Polar Bare is a very sheer white jelly polish - I was given this bottle a while ago and at first I thought I'd never find a use for it. However it turned out to be brilliant for turning any glitter mani into a 'jelly sandwich' and for toning down over-blingy glitters!

R&R Lacquers Tutti Frutti

I bought Tutti Frutti from R&R Lacquers Etsy shop; amazingly this was in the 'reject' bin of colours that didn't make it into their new Spring collection. So sadly this is a one off. There are lots of other super looking shades in the Spring Collection though; I'm eagerly awaiting my pick in the mail :)

Postscript:

I added a bit of stamping to this mani - white-on-white using Sally Hansen Instr-Dri Whirlwind White and MoYou Pro plate XL 05. I love how this turned out!

Flash Nails Jagged

I've been sad to see a few of the UK Indie brands (including some of my favourites) shutting up shop recently, so it's great to see new ones coming in to the market! Here's a brand new UK Indie, Flash Nails, who just opened her Etsy shop last week.

This polish is called 'Jagged' and it's a mix of multicoloured shard glitter. I have a fascination with the irregular shapes in shard glitter polishes, so I love this!

I used two thin coats of Flash Nails Jagged here; the polish is easy to apply with plenty of glitter - no need to fish them out or do any special placement on the nails. The base of the polish is quite thick, but easy to handle. I found the glitters lay nice and flat on my nails; I added one coat of Gelous to smooth the mani out and a coat of Seche Vite quick drying top coat.

The gradient base is NARS 15 Minutes and Illamasqua Jo'Mina, a couple of favourite spring bright shades of mine.

I purchased Jagged from Flash Nails Etsy Shop. Actually I purchased more than one; there are lots of pretty glitters here - so watch out for more from this brand here soon. The NARS and Illamasqua polishes are old favourites from my collection.

Christmas Nails - OPI Glow Up Already

OPI Glow Up Already

I chose an old favourite bling polish to wear over Christmas! This is OPI Glow Up Already, one of the Burlesque collection of glitters, which if I remember correctly were released for Christmas 2010.

OPI Glow Up Already

Glow Up Already is a mix of tiny glitters in light green, gold, orange, purple and blue. It sparkles like crazy under the lights and it's really beautiful - so festive. This is three coats with Seche Vite quick dry topcoat; no undies, and in real life it's pretty dense coverage. I've really enjoyed having this twinkling away on my nails the last couple of days :)

OPI Glow Up Already

Indy's Indies Balloon House

Indy's Indies Balloon House over Rescue Beauty Lounge Opaque Nude

OK - this post is more pic-spam than review, but I love how this man turned out so much I just can't help it. Indy's Indies Balloon House is a fabulous mix of multicoloured matte (awesome) circle (awesome) glitter. Awesome x awesome = awesome squared; I think that just about sums up this polish.

There's so much going on in Balloon House itself I didn't want to detract from it with a brightly coloured or complicated base, so I choose a simple nude - Rescue Beauty Lounge Opaque Nude ~ one of my favourite 'nudey' (than porcelain) nudes.

Balloon House is an interesting one to apply - it needs a bit of care and a lot of topcoat if you're going to get a smooth glassy finish on your nails. The glitter is VERY generous, no need for fishing here; in fact sometimes I thought I was getting too much glitter on my brush at a time and put some back into the bottle.  The individual glitters are quite thick, so I was careful not to let them pile up on top of each other on my nails - I used a dabbing sort of application to spread them around. Emma at Cambridge Nails placed the glitters from this polish individually to get a great effect in her nail art design!

Then the topcoat - I used two coats of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food (which is really thick and as the name implies, great for smoothing out glitter manis) before my Seche Vite. As it started to dry, it was still looking a bit bumpy, so I added  second coat of SV. So four coats of topcoat. And these are thick topcoats too. But totally worth it. I just had a look at my pal Cazzy's post about this polish (SpecialGirl Nails), and she used four topcoats too......... so I'm in good company here. Cazzy wore it over plain black - which also looks great - I think there are endless possibilities with this one!

More pictures, lol!

I purchased Balloon House from  Danielle at her Etsy Shop (sorry international ladies, shipping just in the UK, due to Royal Mail regulations). This is the last of the four glitters I got this time (I was definitely saving the best for last) - you can see The Snowman and Belle in this post here and I used Crushed Candy Cane in my Christmas Nail Art guest post at The Crumpet.

RBL Opaque Nude is an old staple from my collection but is still a current colour and available from the RBL website.

Tara's Talons Patchwork Quilt & Strawberry Shortcake

Tara's Talon Strawberry Shortcake and Patchwork Quilt

I've two gorgeously girly polishes from Tara's Talons to share! Firstly, here is Strawberry Shortcake, a rich, hot pink with a slight shimmer

Tara's Talons Strawberry Shortcake

 What a super pink! I love bright pinks - this is a warm, rosy toned one with just a hint of shimmer that makes it seem to glow from within, somehow. Application was perfect, the consistency is quite thin but highly pigmented, which makes it super-easy to apply. I hardly needed to do any clean up with this mani at all. I've noticed some non-glitter indies have a tendency to gloppiness but Tara has got the formula perfect here.  I used two coats here, with Seche Vite to finish off.

These macros really show off the shimmery glow!

The other polish Tara sent me was Patchwork Quilt; this is an icy shimmer of a base with multicoloured glitter of all sizes and shapes. 

Tara's Talons Patchwork Quilt

I layered Patchwork Quilt over Zoya Julie, a pretty grey-lavender pastel shimmer. This is two coats of Patchwork Quilt, as I wanted to get a layer of the shimmery base over some of the glitters to create more depth. I'm sure Patchwork Quilt would look great over white (or even several coats on its own) but I wanted a pale coloured mani today, hence my choice of Zoya Julie. I used a coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food to smooth the glitter out before adding a coat of Seche Vite quick drying topcoat. I was really happy with how this turned out!

Tara's Talons Patchwork Quilt over Zoya Julie

Again, the formula and application were flawless. Tara's Talons was one of the first UK Indie brands to launch, and I'm somewhat embarrassed to say these are the first of her polishes that I've tried. I'm highly impressed, and I'll be sure to be buying more colours soon :)

Tara's Talons Strawberry Shortcake and Patchwork Quilt were sent for review. You can buy Tara's Talons polishes either from Tara's Etsy or her Website. Readers can use the code SAVE10 on either site to get 10% off Tara's polishes!