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.

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.

Dark Metal Lacquer True

Dark Metal Lacquer True

This is the second of the polishes I bought from Dark Metal Lacquer recently -True. A beautiful cornflower blue scattered holo! I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves... first, on a sunny day, but not in direct sunlight:

Then in strong, direct sunlight:

Dark Metal Lacquer True

And in the shade, still a very, very pretty shade of blue....

Dark Metal Lacquer True

And finally, artificial lighting...

Dark Metal Lacquer True

I love this, and holo is probably one of my least favourite finishes. Application was easy - this is two coats with Seche Vite. There was no pulling or dragging and the topcoat didn't spoil the holo, like it does with some of the fussy holo classics. I'd definitely recommend this polish to all holo fans!

I purchased True from Dark Metal Lacquer Etsy shop (using a blogger discount) - I also got a purple holo shade, Havens, which look super-pretty in the bottle - but I'm saving that one for a special occasion. Since I got these some very pretty pastel holo shades appeared in the shop too - I might be tempted by a couple of those in the future!

R&R Lacquers Shiso and Forget Me Not

R&R Lacquers Shiso

R&R Lacquers Forget Me Not

Here are a couple of lovely summery shades from R&R Lacquers 'Primavera' collection. First, this pretty aqua with white pink and gold glitter is 'Shiso'. 

I used two coats of Shiso with Seche Vite to smooth the glitter out.

R&R Lacquers Shiso

R&R Lacquers Shiso

The other shade is 'Forget Me Not', a delicate light cornflower blue with pink and white glitter.

R&R Lacquers Forget Me Not

R&R Lacquers Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not is quite sheer, so I layered it over Model's Own Cornflower Gleam... which is a lovely shade of light cornflower blue from their Hypergel collection. Here are is Cornflower Gleam on its own..

All these products were provided for review. You can buy R&R Lacquers polishes from their Etsy shop and Models Own are readily available in Boots, Superdrug or from Models Own website.

Lancome Nuit D'Azur with Quirk Peace is Free

I bought this stunning blue a couple of weeks ago - it's one of those sort of irresistable colours! I'd describe the formula as crelly; a bit denser than a true jelly but not a cream. As a high-end polish, I had high expectations for the formula and it did not disappoint. The brush is quite wide, flat and with a nicely rounded end that makes painting a neat cuticle line very easy indeed.

This is two coats with Seche Vite quick drying top coat.

Then I decided to add a sprinkle of blue glitter - this is Quirk Peace is Free.

Lancome Nuit D'Azur with Pretty Quirky Peace is Free

I purchased Lancome Nuit D'Azur from John Lewis and Quirk Peace is Free from the Quirk online shop. Sadly Quirk isn't making polish just now, but I'm hoping Kerrie will resume production sometime in the future.

Pretty Quirky Summer Collection - Shapes In The Clouds

Pretty Quirky Shapes In The Clouds

Today's Pretty Quirky Summer polish is a beautiful delicate blue - Shapes In The Clouds. I love the name too - it reminds me of a favourite book about fell running - Feet In The Clouds by Richard Askwith!

The polish Shapes In The Clouds is a pretty light blue crelly with an assortment of bright pastel glitters. The base formula of this one is a little thicker than the others - but Morven did change her mind about the formula of this one and and decided to beef up the colour of the base. She sent me a new bottle when she did - these pictures are the new and final formula. I was quite happy with the consistency and how the glitters handled in this.

Pretty Quirky Shapes In The Clouds

The mani is two coats of Shapes In The Clouds over a base of Barry M Huckleberry, which is the palest blue I own. I smoothed the glitter out with two coats of Seche Vite and as you can see from the photos the finish is super-smooth and glassy; none of the glitters in this are sticking up at all.

Pretty Quirky Shapes In The Clouds

Pretty Quirky Shapes In The Clouds was a sample sent for my review; I've already reviewed I Stole The Bouquet and Deva from this collection, and I've just put on my final sample shade, which I'll post about in the next couple of days. The collection (which comprises eight polishes in total) goes on sale Friday 16th May in the Pretty Quirky Etsy Shop. In the meantime, check out the Pretty Quirky blog and facebook page for more swatches and information about the polishes.