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.