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.

Laqa&Co TUXEDO and Models Own Nail Art Tool Kit - swatch and review

Laqa&Co Tuxedo

I've got some nail art staples to share today - black polishes and a nail art tool kit including brushes, striping tape and  dotting tools! 

Let's start at the beginning with the polishes. This is a polish duo from Laqa&Co - 'Tuxedo' is a glossy and matte pair. They come in the double ended bottle like the Laqa&Co Gold Fleck Manicure range - I have to say I'm not keen on the bottle format, it makes the brush harder to control because of the weight of the bottle in your hand and it leaves the tiny bottle you are painting from rather unstable. The polishes inside the bottles are great though!

Here are the black polishes on their own to start with - this is one coat of each , no topcoat. I'm impressed with both of them; the matte is a bit streaky but I think that is more down to me not being able to hold the brush steady because the 'handle' is a bottle of polish and is too long and heavy!

My first trial was to use the black polishes over my existing mani (Laqa&Co Bobby Dazzler) to create some nail art skittles using the Models Own Nail Art Tool Kit. The kit includes a flat wide brush (which I've been using as a clean-up brush for the edges of my nails; this is a perfect brush for this), a fine brush for detailing, a striping brush, a fan brush, two double-ended dotting tools (small and large) and a roll of striping tape. Just about everything you need to get started! I used the small dotting tool and the fine brush for my index finger, the striping brush for my middle finger and the fan brush for my ring finger; for all these fingers I used the glossy black from the Tuxedo duo. For my little finger I created a 'ladybird' nail - first I used the striping tape to make a neat edge for the french tip, then applied the matte black. Then I added the matte black dots with the biggest dotting tool.

Nail Art with Laqa&Co Tuxedo and Bobby Dazzler

My next test was a Tuxedo mani - but I liked the ladybird nail too much to remove it so it stays as my accent nail! I used the striping tape again to create the neat edges on the black nails.

And then I added black dots to match the ladybird nail on my other nails - glossy dots on the matte nail, matte dots on the glossy nails. I love how this worked out!

Nail Art with Laqa&Co Tuxedo and Bobby Dazzler

I wanted to wear this for a few days to see how long the matte stayed matte, so when I got bored with the ladybird nail I changed the accent for this green holo (Enchanted March 2014).

Nail Art with Laqa&Co Tuxedo and Enchanted March 2014

I'm pleased to report that the matte stayed matte until I removed the mani after three days. Sometimes matte polishes start out looking fabulous but go shiny almost overnight - this one did stand the test of time. And finally, here is a rare shot of my right hand - I reversed the pattern so I get more of that green holo goodness here. You can see the matte black is streaky here... definitely harder to apply and get a good finish with my left hand using that bottle!

My verdict on the Laqa&Co Tuxedo duo is that the polishes themselves are great, but I'm not keen on the packaging. I'd be all over these if they were sold in separate, full size bottles though. The Models Own Nail Art Toolkit is great, it contains a good range of brushes and dotting tools to cover most needs, the brushes are good quality and easy to handle. They seem to withstand cleaning in acetone pretty well. The striping tape is good and sticky (some versions are not) and a good addition to the kit - I like to use it for making neat edges as well as the more obvious 'stripey' manis!

Laqa&Co Tuxedo and the Models Own Nail Art Tool Kit were sent for review. Laqa&Co Tuxedo is available from  Retail Beauty in the UK. The duo is £14.95, which I think is quite pricey for such small bottles. The Models Own Nail Art Tool Kit is available from Models Own for a very reasonable £8. I purchased Enchanted March 2014 from a friend (the Enchanted monthly polishes are an unseen pre-order - my friend doesn't like green!).

Flash Nails Limelight

Flash Nails Limelight

I have another polish from Flash Nails to show you today - this is one of Nicola's newer shades for spring, Limelight. Limelight is a very pretty light green crelly with matte red and yellow hexagonal glitters. Red and green is one of my favourite colour combinations, so this polish is right up my street!

Flash Nails Limelight

Here it is in the bottle - the base is quite delicate so I decided to layer over a similar shade of green for my base as I wanted to keep the glitter looking quite sparse. I used just one coat of Rescue Beauty Lounge Abiqui - one of my favourite light greens - as my undies for this mani. 

Flash Nails Limelight

The formula of Limelight is fab, I didn't need to fish for glitter and the application was as smooth as smooth could be. The crelly base is a bit thinner than the base on Nicola's heavier glitter toppers like Bubble Bath, Jagged and Princess - each formula is perfect for the type of polish and I'm impressed that the brand has adapted the formula to suit the polish style. I used two thinnish coats here, and finished with Seche Vite quick dry topcoat; I didn't need any thick topcoat like Gelous to smooth this out.

Flash Nails Limelight

I love how this works with the second coat of the crelly base softening the glitters in the first coat, but letting the glitter in the top coat show through boldy :) 

Flash Nails Limelight

My bottle of Flash Nails Limelight was provided as a sample for review; you can buy from Flash Nails Etsy Shop. 

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.

Binky London - Swatch & Review 2 (including simple nail art ideas)................

Binky London Raffles Red with Richmond Red

I reviewed a few of the super colours from new UK brand Binky London recently (this post here); today it's time for my second instalment. Let's start with RED - because a) red is seasonal and b) I love red nails!

This first polish is Raffles Red, a classic red cream. It's a perfect pillarbox red, application was incredibly easy - this is just two coats. I mentioned the shape of Binky London polishes brush in my last review - the big rounded brush makes it really simple to get a perfect edge around your cuticles.

Binky London Raffles Red

Another great thing about Raffles Red is the staying power of the pigment - reds are often very soft and sometimes go dull quickly (and even worse, some reds I've worn leave streaks of red all over paperwork, which can be embarassing) but that didn't happen at all with this one - it stayed rich and shiny for the whole life of my mani.

Binky London Raffles Red

The other red I have to show off is Richmond Red. This is a shimmery, almost *foil* kind of red, a bit bluer in tone than Raffles Red. To be honest, whilst Raffles Red is really my kind of colour, Richmond Red is on the edge of my comfort zone - I prefer creams to shimmers and orangey reds to bluey ones. However, once this was on my nails I absolutely loved it. Bonus for me is that I don't have a colour anything like this in my collection, so it's sure to get worn again!

First picture is in window light - sorry about all the reflections here but it does show the colour nicely:

And then into the light box to calm down the crazy reflections:

Binky London Richmond Red

I think this one needs a macro shot to show the full potential of the shimmer..........

Binky London Richmond Red

OK, so if when I can't choose which polish I want to wear, the only answer is to wear more than one! Here I've done a simple stamping using Richmond Red over Raffles Red. I love how the subtle tone-on-tone effect works with the two reds. I used one of the zebra images from the Cheeky Wild At Heart jumbo plate for stamping. I think this is classy enough to be work appropriate, especially at this time of year! Richmond Red stamps perfectly.

Binky London Raffles Red with Richmond Red

No topcoat over the stamping, I wanted to keep the texture of this mani!

Binky London Raffles Red with Richmond Red

This next mani is a combination of Chelsea Coral, a bright coral pink (it makes me think of flamingoes) and the glitter topper Fulham Frost. Of course, I could have just layered the glitter over a base colour, or done a gradient with it, but I wanted to try something a bit more original, so I used it for dots!

Binky London Chelsea Coral with Fulham Frost

The mani is two coats of Chelsea Coral, which gave full coverage, then dots of Fulham Frost applied once the base was dry. Dots are very easy to do - you need a dotting tool of some description... small ones made specifically for nail art can be bought very cheaply from online sellers on Amazon or Ebay, or you can improvise with household objects. Anything that is effectively ball shaped with some sort of handle will do - so old earrings, pen tops, paintbrush handles etc are all perfect! I pour a drop of polish into a old plastic milk bottle lid and dip whatever I'm using for the dots into it. Practice on a bit of paper if you're not sure how it will look!

Binky London Chelsea Coral with Fulham Frost

Glitter is great for big dots because you get this great gradation effect around the edges:

Binky London Chelsea Coral with Fulham Frost

So my verdict on these polishes....... great staple colours and fantastic formula! I have a teal, another special effects topper and two metallic shades from this range to share soon!

My Binky London polishes are press samples provided for review but you can buy Binky London polishes online from escentual.com.