Untried Polish Challenge Day 16 *Creme* - Nails Inc Marble Arch

Nails Inc Marble Arch 

 I can't believe I've finally finished the challenge! I still have a few unworn polishes around, but a lot less than I started with. :D

Just in case anyone is checking, I didn't quite take the polish categories in order - I have posted about a polish that was a gift - Rescue Beauty Lounge Insouciant.

The polish is Nails Inc Marble Arch, which is a super dusty lilac-pink. The formula is awesome, I used two coats but really I could have got away with one. I think I was just buying too many polishes when I got this one, because I really like these sorts of shades. If I remember correctly it came in one of those 7-packs of Nails Inc polishes that they often have in TKMaxx - whenever I buy polishes in *bulk* like that I always try out the ones I like the least first, and the ones I actually bought the box for get left until last and forgotten about! Silly really, I should stop buying multipacks.

Nails Inc Marble Arch 

I just had a scroll back through my untried choices and had a quick look at the colours - of the sixteen manis I've done for the challenge; six were pink! I do like pink, but I wonder if I buy more pink polishes than I get round to wearing. Maybe I've learnt something here!

And now the challenge is over, I'm going to change my nail shape.....................................


Other bloggers who took 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 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 15 *Glitter* - Butter London Rosie Lee

Butter London Rosie Lee

I bought Butter London Rosie Lee back at the start of this year, along with Fiddlesticks, which I wore straight away and really loved.  I think the reason I haven't worn Rosie Lee is that I was a bit scared when I realised it was in a clear base, I thought it wouldn't cover well.

Wrong of course  - three coats and my nails are fully covered with the prettiest glitter I can imagine! The application is really easy too. I used a coat of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite quick drying topcoat and the end result is as smooth as glass. Now I'm eyeing up some of the other Butter London fine glitter shades!

Butter London Rosie Lee

And a macro to show the detail in the glitter:

Butter London Rosie Lee

I purchased Butter London Rosie Lee from TKMaxx earlier this year in a duo with a matching BL Lippy (which I've worn quite a bit and think is great). I'm not sure why it was in TKMaxx, as it is a current shade and readily available, but there you go!

One more untried to go :D

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 

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 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 13 *Prettiest* - Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

After the horror of my last untried challenge post, I've got something nice to share! Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal is such a pretty colour. It's somewhere between pink and lavender, and has a subtle linear holo effect.

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

In less direct light, the colour is a bit brighter and pinker, and the holo a bit less visible:

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

I used two coats of I'm Kind of a Big Deal with a layer of Seche Vite quick drying top coat to finish off with. Application is great, the formula is rich and smooth and very easy to apply, even on long nails.

After a day I added some dots with OPI My Vampire is Buff. I've been meaning to do dots for ages, and I loved the way this turned out!

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal with OPI MY Vampire Is Buff dots

The only problem with Enchanted polishes is getting a chance to buy them - they sell out so quickly! I purchased I'm Kind of a Big Deal direct from Chelsea at her Enchanted Polish website;  Chelsea posts updates about restocks on her facebook page. Another good way to keep updated on restocks is to sign up for the newsletter. Llarowe also carries Enchanted Polish, but again most colours sell out pretty quickly. Both Enchanted Polish and Llarowe ship internationally.

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 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 12 *Ugliest* - Maybelline Colour Show Polka Dots Shooting Stars

Hmm, I wasn't planning this as my *Ugliest* untried (I had in mind a polish the looks like the colour of cat food for this) but I'm so horrified by it's nastiness I just have to!

I bought this in Boots when it came out a couple of months ago. There were four colours in the Polka Dots series - this dark blue, a murky looking jade green, a dirty pink and a black and white glitter topper in clear base. I really love black and white glitter - Lynnderella Connect the Dots was my biggest lemming for weeks when Lynn and the whole indie thing started (that'll only be about two years ago but it seems like forever) and I was over the moon when I got my bottle. I've accumulated a nice collection of black and white indie glitters in various shapes, sizes and quirks since then. Shooting Stars was the only one of the Maybelline Polka Dots that appealed to me; I didn't need another black and white topper and I didn't like the other colours. I did think it looked promising though............

It's HORRIBLE! Everything about it is wrong! The base is too dark, so it almost covers up the black glitter, and pools and blobs over the white glitter. making the bigger white glitters look all uneven and streaky. The base is also too thin and watery to suspend the glitters properly when you apply it to your nail (you know how the bases on good glitter indies are thick and jelly-ish - well this is just the opposite!) so it dries rough and streaky, with the glitter sticking up like sandpaper. Look at it on my thumbnail:

I layered this over an existing blue mani (Chanel Blue Boy); I can imagine the streaky mess it would be if I'd tried to use it on it's own!

Of course, if you put enough topcoat on and take pictures from the right angles you can make anything look reasonable in pictures, lol!

But in real life this polish is rather nasty and I wouldn't recommend anybody buying it! I purchased it at my local Boots, for the record. And I used two coats over a blue base and added two coats of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite on top.

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 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 11 *Most Expensive* - Chanel Taboo

Chanel Taboo

I've had this untried for a few weeks - although it's only just released here in the UK I got all impatient when I first saw swatches and got a friend in the US to send me a bottle. Then for some reason I didn't get around to wearing it - maybe it didn't feel summery enough or something. Anyway, here it is, and it's a beauty!

Chanel Taboo

The polish is basically a dark blue-purple jelly packed with plummy shimmer. It picks up different colour casts according to the light and the angle, but there is a lot of purple flash in there along with some bluish hints at times. It does look a lot redder and sparklier in the bottle than on the nail, but to be honest I prefer how how it looks on the nail. A long, long time ago (maybe around 2000), I bought a dark purple, almost black,Chanel polish called Cobra; at the time it seemed really rad but I wore it again last year and it was dull and rather ordinary. When I put Taboo on my nails, I realised this was what I wanted Cobra to be!

Here's a bunch of pics at different angles and in various lights to show what I mean:

Chanel Taboo

And a macro in full sun to show the shimmers in detail:

Chanel Taboo

The application on Chanel Taboo is impeccable. I used two coats here, with Seche Vite quick drying top coat. I could probably have got away with a single coat; one coat would suffice for short nails I'm almost certain.

I've been trying to do more nail art recently, and I really enjoyed my Gradient with Chanel Bel-Argus and Azure, so I thought I 'd jazz this one up a bit on it's second day too! I love purple and yellowy-olive green together (they're complementary colours so pretty much guaranteed to look awesome), so the obvious partner for this was Chanel Peridot! I also used SpaRitual Running With Wolves in the gradient as an 'in-between' colour. Neither Peridot nor Running With Wolves are untried; I bought and wore Peridot the day it was released here in the UK (August 2011, if I remember correctly) and Running With Wolves is an old favourite; it used to be a lucky polish for racing. In fact I might wear it next weekend when I run my first 50 mile ultra:)

Chanel Taboo, SpaRitual Running With Wolves and Chanel Peridot

Chanel Taboo, SpaRitual Running With Wolves and Chanel Peridot

Too many pictures in this post I know, but too hard to choose! 

All polishes in this post purchased by me. 

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 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 10 *Cheapest* Sinful Colors 24/7

Sinful Colors 24/7

Sinful Colors became available in Boots a couple of months ago - and in my opinion are a great addition to the range of budget polishes available in the UK. I snapped up three colours on a 3-for-2 deal when I first saw them; this is the one I've not worn yet!

Sinful Colors 24/7 is a true neon pink! It's super bright and perfect for a hot summer's day!

Sinful Colors 24/7

Whilst the colour is great, the application is not so hot; I found the formula rather thin and watery and it went on very streaky.  But that's typical of all neons and since the other Sinful Colors polishes I bought had great formulae I'm putting this down to the neon pigment rather than the brand. This is three coats with Seche Vite quick drying topcoat. I didn't use a white undercoat, but this might have helped make it more even. The SV leveled out the colour a lot, but if you look carefully you can see it's still not perfectly even. However, for £1.99 (actually £1.33 since I got them 3-for-2) it's a great value polish and a stunning colour!

Sinful Colors 24/7

 I purchased Sinful Colors 24/7 from my local Boots.

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