Seventeen In The Surf

Seventeen In The Surf over John Lewis Brick

I just *happened* on this shade in Boots two or three weeks ago! I love pastel, matte glitters so it was a real surprise to see this - and great to see one of the lower end high street brands dipping their toe into this kind of thing. Go Boots!

Seventeen In The Surf over John Lewis Brick

The polish is a mix of light blue, light green and pastel pink matte hexes in various sizes and some larger peach hexes too. Application was easy - this is one coat and no fishing for glitter required at all. I finished the mani off with a coat each of Gelous and Seche Vite.

My base for this mani is John Lewis nail polish in Brick - another surprise find on the same day. I'd no idea John Lewis even had a polish range, but there are a few rather nice colours (I bought this and one other, which I've not worn yet). Formula of Brick is good, I like the colour, and I like the whole ethos of John Lewis shops (quality products, fair prices, good working conditions for the employees (who are the owners of the company) and no external shareholders), so I'll be keeping my eyes open for other colours they bring out in the future.

Seventeen In The Surf over John Lewis Brick

I purchased Seventeen In The Surf at Boots and John Lewis Brick at John Lewis.  

This is the last of the pointy nails for a while - I enjoyed them this shape the last couple of times I had them like this but I'm not really feeling them this time round, so I've decided to go back to square. I'm off to get my nail file now!

Orange dots!

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots

I'm getting more and more fond of dots! For this bright, jolly mani I used a base of Zoya Jacqueline and added big dots using an old Dior Addict polish, Orange Artifice. I love the finished effect! Not much more to say about this - here are a few pictures from various angles......

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots

After a couple of days I decided to add a bit of black. I was going to add zebra stripes, but when I started freehanding stripes on my thumb I thought that much  black overpowered the dots, and, because the mani had plenty of topcoat on, I was able to remove the bit of black polish I'd applied before it dried properly without too much damage. So I added black glitter instead - I chose Nail Laquer UK Dog Days which is a variety of black hexes, squares and microglitter in a clear base with a sprinkling of multicoloured glitter in various sizes, shapes and finishes (matte, holo, metallic) to give it a bit of extra interest.

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots with Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days

I love this glitter - I'm a great fan of all black glitter but I think the touch of bright colours really adds an extra lift. I used two coats of Nail Laquer UK Dog Days for this mani, smoothed out with a coat of Gelous and a final coat of Seche Vite quick drying top coat.

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots with Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days

I purchased Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days from AJ's Etsy Shop. I've had the orange Dior about ten years and Zoya Jacqueline was a gift from a friend this Spring.

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail Lacquer UK - Sticks and Stones RED & Sticks and Stones BLUE

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Blue

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Red

Here I've got a couple of interesting glitter toppers from a brand new indie maker in the UK, Nail Laquer UK.  I reviewed her polish Eat My Cake last week, and I got these two at the same time. They are a variation on the black and white splatter style glitter.......... it's about two years since I first got my hands on a bottle of Lynnderella Connect the Dots, which started this whole craze off. What a lot of glitter under the bridge since then! I love black and white glitter (and black glitter, and white glitter), and I've accumulated quite a few variants by now. Adding another colour to the mix definitely adds interest!

Let's start with the red version - here it is in the bottle. Black, white and red / pink glitter in a clear base. I'd describe the red as a cool-toned red or maybe even deep raspberry pink, and there are squares and hexes of different sizes in this colour, along with squares and hexes of a lighter pink too. Very pretty combination.

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Red

Black and white glitter has to be one the easiest and most versatile glitter toppers to use - you can throw it over just about any colour and as long as that colour isn't so light you can't see the white glitter or so dark you can't see the black glitter, it'll look great. Bring another colour into the mix and it get a bit more tricky - those rules still apply but the base needs to *go* with the third glitter colour. 

The easy way would be to layer it over a neutral or a paler or darker pink, but I wanted to try something a bit more challenging. I used my colour wheel and worked out that green was the complementary colour to red, and I liked the idea of a teal-leaning green. I chose MAC In The Limelight as the base colour for this mani, and added a sponge gradient with Butter London Slapper. Then two coats of Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Red, just as it came from the bottle, no fishing or special placement needed. I love how this turned out! I also like that fact that there's not too much bar glitter in this polish - I think a few bar glitters can look really effective but too much can spoil the effect (there's too much bar glitter in Connect the Dots for my taste, and I don't like the background shimmer in CtD much either, it's too distracting). 

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Red

I added a coat of Gelous to smooth the glitter out and a final coat of Seche Vite - as you can see the glitters in Nail Lacquer UK lie nice and flat and the mani is lovely and smooth. Here are a couple of macro shots for a bit more detail:

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Red

The other Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones, called *Blue* has bright blue and pale lavender hex and square glitters. Here it is in the bottle

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Blue

This needs bit more nerdy colour theory....... blue and violet are split complementaries of yellow-orange, so I chose a mucky mustardy orange I've had lying around in my stash for years as the base for this one. It's a Helena Rubenstien shade called Saffron from the late 1990s - it's a horror to apply but quite a nice colour, which is why I've still got it! I really like how the blue stands out against this shade. I also think Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Blue would look great over a chocolately brown or a murky olive green.

And finally a couple of macros to show the detail. As with the mani above, I used two thin coats of Sticks and Stones Blue, a coat of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite to finish with.

Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Blue

I purchased Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Red and Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Blue directly from AJ at her Etsy Shop; she has a blog and a facebook page for the brand where she posts updates about colours and stocking. The other polishes in this post are from my personal collection and were purchased by me - the Helena Rubenstein shade and awfully long time ago, the others more recently. 


Since we're looking at UK indie polishes, why don't you check out what the other British Nail Bloggers (including AJ from Nail Lacquer UK) are up to!

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.