Bourjois Abricot Ouate with Lynnderella Bride of Franken

Lynnderella Bride of Franken over Bourjois Abricot Ouate

I've had a sort of fascination for light peachy colours for a while now - first Chanel June, then Nails Inc Wellington Square, and most recently, Butter London Kerfuffle. I see the bottles, and I think how pretty they are, and I look at swatches and I think they look great with some skin tones, and not so good with others. Then I pick the bottles up, and hold them against my hand and think 'ugh, that won't suit me' and put them down again. So I've never owned one of these colours.

I was buying a couple of Bourjois shades in Boots recently, and there was a 3-for-2 offer. And there was this peachy polish 'Abricot Ouate'.... so I got it as my 'free' item. And it looks awful on me! I'm just glad I didn't buy a high end polish this colour. But at least I know now! Here it is:

Bourjois Abricot Ouate

Three coats plus Seche Vite quick drying topcoat. Application is fine, and I'm sure it would look good on someone with darker skin. Or different coloured skin. Ouate apparently means cotton wool in French.

So what to do with it? I saw this gorgeous mani by Another Bottle of Polish the other day, which reminded me of a fruit dessert with vanilla seeds in it; I thought I'd like to try something with the tiniest of glitter, and a bit of a shimmery highlight in a complementary colour. First of all, I put a bit of Nubar Black Polka Dot onto a saucer so I could push all the bigger glitters to the edge with my brush before dabbing on a little of the polish containing just the tiny black microglitter. Then I added a coat of Lynnderella Bride of Franken. Bride of Franken is one of my favourite Lynnderellas - it's one of her very first ones. It's a mix of bluish iridiscent (or 'disco') glitter with a some holographic microglitter in a slightly lavender-blue tinged base. Even though it looks quite colourful in the bottle, the tint in the base is so light you can wear it over just about any polish without it changing the colour of the base.

Lynnderella Bride of Franken over Bourjois Abricot Ouate

I added a coat of Gelous and another coat of SV to smooth this out - end result is a delicate, pretty spring mani.  The iridescent glitters in Bride of Franken catch the light wonderfully!

Lynnderella Bride of Franken over Bourjois Abricot Ouate

If Bourjois Abricot Ouate was *orange* and Lynnderella Bride of Franken was *blue* (and they are, near enough) they would be complementary colours, which is why they look good together. Once I'd done the mani, the colours reminded me of a limited edition polish Lynn made called 'Habeas Coral' which sold for hundreds of dollars on ebay. Lynn clearly knows her colour theory! Here's a pretty swatch of Habeas Coral by PeachyPolish.

I purchased Bourjois Abricot Ouate from my local Boots and Nubar Black Polka Dot from Beauty Bay. Beauty Bay's prices include worldwide shipping. I received Lynnderella Bride of Franken in a swap a long time ago;I believe this particular shade is now discontinued and has been replaced by 'The Bride Turned Blue' which looks very similar, except the base is rather more blue tinged. In the USA you can buy Lynnderella polishes from her store on ebay; Norway Nails stocks Lynnderella polishes and ships within Europe.

Smitten Polish Polka Derp

Smitten Polish Polka Derp

This is such a fun polish! It's a light teal-blue base somewhere between a cream and a jelly (does that make it a 'crelly'? ) with circular glitters of various sizes and colours. I wanted to create an effect of sparse glitters over a densely coloured background, so I used one coat of Boots No7 Stand Back, which is a blue cream almost identical in colour to Polka Derp, as the base for this mani. I used two thin coats of Polka Derp, just letting the glitters lie on my nails at random without any attempt to place them in order. Polka Derp is quite a smooth polish; I just used a single coat of Seche Vite to finish this off.

Smitten Polish Polka Derp

On some of my nails the glitters piled up on top of each other; I really like this effect! The macro shots also show the abundant smaller round glitters, similar to the colour of the base, in the polish, which catch the light and add extra texture and interest to the polish.

Smitten Polish Polka Derp

Polka Derp was a small batch limited edition polish. I understand it was named because it resulted from a slight of hand with the blue pigment - this batch turned out to a lot darker than intended! A happy accident, in my opinion; I love the colour and the name just adds to the fun!

Smitten Polish Polka Derp

I purchased Smitten Polish Polka Derp direct from Noelie, the creator of Smitten Polishes. Noelie sells her polishes through her etsy shop or you can buy them from Llarowe.

Layla Coral Glam - swatch and review

Layla Coral Glam

OK - I have a confession with this polish ~ it's been sitting around in my untried box for over a year. Maybe I was just never in the mood for it on a day when the sun shone - I don't know, it seems a shame. Whatever, yesterday was a lovely sunny day, so I decided it was time to dust this one down and wear it!

The first collection of Layla holos were released in early 2012 and created quite a stir in the nail polish world. Mostly they were all soft, pastel colours (the notable exception is Flash Black, which is actually a dark charcoal, but superb nonetheless) and later last year Layla followed up with some brighter colours. At the time, these were fantastically holo, but since then there have been various holographic polishes from all around the world which have put these in the shade a bit. I'm not the world's greatest holographic polish fan - I have to be in the mood for them, but for a comprehensive review and swatch of just about any holographic polish, and tips on application, The Holo Queen is your girl!

On to my review, this is a pretty, dusky-pink-toned nude holo. I used three thin coats, no basecoat and no topcoat, and the application was straightforward - no bald spots or dragging. I did buff my nails first with the file Layla provide with the holo polishes; I've also used Nfu.oh aquabase with Layla holos and got good results; the main drawback I find with aquabase is that it takes ages to dry.

All these pictures are taken indoors on a sunny day. Firstly in indirect light from the window, the holo is visible, but not crazy:

Layla Coral Glam

However, move into direct light and the rainbow emerges!

Layla Coral Glam

This is a pretty polish and I'd consider it suitable for most professional situations. I received this bottle as a part of a swap rather a long time ago; you can but Layla polishes directly from Layla in Italy but as they have increased in popularity they are now fairly readily available around the world. In the UK you can purchase from Sally Magpies.

Layla Coral Glam