Gallery

  • Emily de Molly

    No Love Lost
  • High Elbow

    Crummock Water
  • Dots!

  • Pocket Money Polishes - I Want Candy

  • Pocket Money Polishes Magic

    Gradient: Chanel Paradoxal and Dior Waterlily
  • Emily de Molly - Serenity

  • Fellrunning

    Dryburn Moor
  • Elevation Polish - Opal

  • Darling Diva Polish - Serendipity

  • Derwentwater

  • Pocket Money Polishes - Summertime

  • Nail Lacquer UK

    Eat My Cake
  • Scofflaw - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  • Hodge

  • Chanel - Taboo and Peridot

  • Chanel - Bel-Argus and Azure


Monday, 6 January 2014

Grungy dots.....

Jessica Casablanca with Illamasqua Kink
Jessica Casablanca with Illamasqua Kink

I was feeling in the mood for something a bit darker and more sombre than I've been wearing recently, I don't know if it's just the cold weather or I'm in need of a bit of a palette cleanser! This mani is Jessica Casablanca with big dots of Illamasqua Kink.

Jessica Casablanca is a black jelly with teal/purple duochrome shimmer. This must be quite an old polish, I've found swatches on line going back to around 2010 but I just bought it in John Lewis a couple of weeks ago when it caught my eye, so I think it must be a core colour. It's quite hard to catch the colour shift on camera - the polish looks great in artificial light but unfortunately the reflections seem to burn out all the interesting bits. Here it is in my 'diffuser' (a translucent bin from Ikea) and daylight lamp:


Jessica Casablanca

Jessica Casablanca

Jessica Casablanca
Jessica Casablanca


This is two coats, plus Seche Vite quick dry topcoat. It's a pretty polish, but not especially hard wearing; I could see wear around the tips of some of my nails after a couple of days. I think swimming in a chlorinated pool might have hastened it's demise.

Then I added some big dots with Illamasqua Kink. Kink is a rubbery finish, so I didn't use topcoat over the dots but let the finish contrast with the shiny base.


Jessica Casablanca with Illamasqua Kink

Jessica Casablanca with Illamasqua Kink

Jessica Casablanca with Illamasqua Kink
Jessica Casablanca with Illamasqua Kink

I purchased Jessica Casablanca from John Lewis and Illamasqua Kink from the Illamasqua website.

Thursday, 2 January 2014

Models Own Midori Collection - Swatch & Review

Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen
Models Own Midori Collection


The Models Own Midori Collection is three green polishes with a light melon scent. They're inspired by Midori, the melon liquer, which is a stunning shade of green. Midori actually means green in Japanese.

The first polish in the collection is a bright green jelly called My Midori. This is a stunning shade - so bright it's almost neon. The finish is neon-like too, it dries kind of satiny so needs a topcoat if you want a super shiny finish. Some people like to apply neon shades over a white base to make the colour pop, but I really like the squishiness of the jelly here, and I wanted to see how the colour looked directly on my nails, so my swatches are three coats without any undies. I finished this off with a coat of Seche Vite quick drying topcoat, which is guaranteed to give a super shine to any manicure.

Models Own My Midori

Models Own My Midori

Models Own My Midori
Models Own My Midori

There's a bit of visible nail line there, but I don't mind that at all. I love this colour and finish - so juicy! There's another clever trick I like to do with jelly polishes, but let's have a look at the glitter in this collection first.......

Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen
Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen


Dancing Queen is a super mix of blue, green and gold glitters in various shapes and sizes. I especially like the irregular shaped glitters, they give the polish  bit of originality compared to a lot of the glitter toppers out there at the moment. Of course, glitter is the preserve of the indie polish market, and some of these are a bit of a hassle to buy, so it's nice to see a UK mainstream brand making an interesting glitter that is easy to obtain.

Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen
Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen

Dancing Queen has a thickish base and lots of glitter, so there's no need to fish for the glitter in this polish, you get a generous amount on your brush and it spreads easily over the nail. I used two thinnish coats of Dancing Queen here, because I like a glitterly mani! The colours look great with My Midori as a base but I think this could be a very versatile glitter - it would look good with darker greens, any blue and maybe brown. And black or white of course!

Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen
Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen

If you read my blog regularly you'll know that I love glitter, but most especially MATTE glitter. There's a nifty little trick you can do with a jelly polish, which is simply to apply the jelly polish over the top of your glitter .... to make a *jelly sandwich*. This totally transforms how the glitter looks.......

Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen


Here I just added another coat of My Midori and see how different the glitters look!

Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen
Models Own My Midori with Dancing Queen ('jelly sandwich')

The last polish in the trio is a pretty green duochrome, Golden Green. In the bottle it looks like a shimmery olive shade, but if you tip and tilt it under the light you see flashes of bright green and hints of salmon pink. Here it is in daylight, you can see how the colour varies with the angle of the nail:

Models Own Golden Green

Models Own Golden Green
Models Own Golden Green 


I used three coats of Golden Green; the last coat I dabbed on with a fine, slightly dampened makeup sponge. I always use this application technique for any shimmery duochrome polish, as they often tend to show brushstrokes, which I really don't like to see. I finished the manicure with a coat of Seche Vite quick drying topcoat.

Here is Golden Green under my lamp - see how different the colours are in artificial light!

Models Own Golden Green

Models Own Golden Green
Models Own Golden Green 


These polishes were sent for review. You can buy the polishes direct from the Models Own website.

Wednesday, 1 January 2014

Happy New Year - NOTD Lacquistry Amazeballz !

Lacquistry Amazeballz
Lacquistry Amazeballz


This is amazing stuff - pretty much what it says on the bottle really! And it arrived just in time for New Year :)

Lacquistry Amazeballz


It's quite hard to capture how stunning it is in real life on the camera though; I can't stop staring at my nails because they look like some sort of shiny metal! When the camera focuses on the polish, it shows that it's actually tiny shards of metallic.....stuff; not sure what really, it certainly isn't glitter because the polish goes on smoothly and dries as smooth as glass, even without topcoat. 


Lacquistry Amazeballz


This could be used as a topper with one coat I suppose, but I used four coats here to get this full coverage. To be honest three would have done, especially if you have shorter nails.





Wonderful. I think this polish is truly unique, I've never seen anything quite like it before. I had intended to do nail art over it, but it seems too fabulous to cover up.

I purchased Amazeballz from Lacquistry's Etsy shop, shipping was super quick and it arrived here in the UK in under two weeks.