Tuesday 22 March 2011

BYS Voodoo Violet

Purple glitterbomb






Bottle shot

This is one from BYSs' Glitterazzi range.

Voodoo Violet
is a silvery purple with predominantly pale pink glitter and some holo glitter

This swatch is 3 coats and application was pretty gloopy but worth it!

Sunday 20 March 2011

Zoya - Piper

Warm medium pink creme



I'd describe Piper as a warm, medium pink creme

Swatch shown is 3 coats with no topcoat.

It's a pretty, neutral colour. Ideal if you're limited with colours at work (is anyone?). I bought a few of Zoya nudes/pinks and was generally happy with them.

Saturday 19 March 2011

Zoya - Skye

Nude pink creme





Zoya Skye is a dusky pink/nude creme, the swatch is shown with 3 coats, no topcoat.

Slightly troublesome application for me, in hindsight maybe I should've used Barielle Camo. On me it's almost a BBB but just doesn't quite suit my skintone.

Friday 18 March 2011

MeMeMe - Demure

Greige creme

 

 
MeMeMe Long Lasting Gloss in Demure (65)

Demure is one of those mushroom/greige/taupe colours that have been so popular over the past year or so. I must admit I'm a sucker for these colours even though I must have loads of dupes.

The swatch is shown with 2 coats and no topcoat.

This is the last of my new MeMeMe's so you won't have to read any more of my Maxi Brush Technology ranting. Suffice to say, this was equally bad. Yuk.

Thursday 17 March 2011

MeMeMe - Proud

Dark olive creme

 

 
MeMeMe Long Lasting Gloss in Proud (83)

Proud is a dark olive green creme and the swatch shown is 2 coats with no topcoat. It's wonderfully glossy but as you can see the colour on the nail is darker than the bottle colour.

I really, really like this colour, but again with the stupendously awful brush. With this one it would almost be worth decanting this into another bottle because the colour is so rich and vibrant and fabulous.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

MeMeMe - Chic

Cool brown creme


MeMeMe Long Lasting Gloss in Chic (81)

I'd described this a slightly milky chocolate creme and the swatch shown is two coats with no topcoat.

MeMeMe is, as far as I know, a Superdrug exclusive brand as well as being available online from their website.

They've recently revamped the range and this is one of the new polishes.  They have some nice colours, good size bottles and a good price (<£4 IIRC)  and I picked these up on a 3 for 2.

So why am I not shouting these from the rooftops?  In a word, the brush, it is truly, gobsmackingly awful.  MeMeMe describe it as having 'Maxi Brush Technology', for me that meant a huge fat brush that was almost impossible to control, combined with a somewhat gloopy texture meant this was like trying to apply polish with a piece of limp pasta on a handle!

I had to do a whole heap of cleanup to get the swatch pictures looking halfway presentable.

Now to caveat my rant, I do have small hands with narrow, petite nails.  Maybe this brush 'technology' will work better for others.  For me, this (and the other 2 I bought - swatches to follow) are going straight in the donation/car boot sale box!

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Nails Inc - Vine Street

Deep vampy red creme





Vine Street is a dark reddish purple creme. Very opaque - this is two coats and application was good and it's super glossy.



This is one that I thought was similar to another Nails Inc that I'm sure most of you UK gals have in your collection, Victoria.

And in a bottle comparison they do look pretty similar, but on the nail they're very different.



l-r Vine Street, Victoria, Vine Street, Victoria.  (2 coats of each).

Victoria is much lighter and more jellyish and more reddish/brown.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Accessorize - Pin-Up Take II

the purple glittery one!

 

 

The puzzle is resolved, several months ago I showed you another polish called Pin-up by Accessorize that I bought online.

As Jaljen pointed out they were sending out the wrong polish for online orders. Poking around in Superdrug a couple of weeks ago I spotted this which looked very interesting. Turns out it is also called Pin-up (eh?) and this is what I thought I was ordering before (still following?!).

I can only assume the previous one was mis-labelled although I can't work out which name it should've had!

Either way, this one is stunning.

It's a deep vampy purple jelly with silver glitter/shimmer. Although the glitter looks pink on the nail when you remove the polish you can see it's actually silver but the jellyish polish makes it appear pink, too cool!

This swatch is 2 coats, the polish doesn't dry smooth so I topped it off with topcoat for a glossy finish. And of course it's the normal glitter polish removal challenge!

I'm so happy I stumbled across the 'real' Pin-up!

Friday 11 March 2011

Barry M - Grey

Mid grey crĂšme


Shade


Sun

Grey swatch is shown with 2 coats, no topcoat.

Another great Barry M creme, I don't think I've had a duff one of these yet. Grey (does what it says on the tin!) is a mid grey creme, it's very pigmented, application was great and it's very shiny without a topcoat. What more could you want?

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Nails Inc - Buckingham Street

Pink glitterbomb

First checkout the pics of this amazing glitter polish...






Full sun




Buckingham Street is a purpley pink glitter in a clear base with some gold glitter.

The glitter is very fine and really packed into the clear base.

Swatches are 3 coats but I probably could've got away with 2 coats.

It didn't dry very shiny so added a big fat coat of Seche Vite which gave a great depth of shine and smoothed it off.

Sorry for so many pics I wanted to capture all its amazing sparkliness!

Monday 7 March 2011

Nails inc - Crown Court

Plum shimmer





Crown Court is a deep red leaning plum with pink & gold shimmer. Nails inc call it a shimmery dark purple, to me it's more burgundy or plum that purple but hey!

Swatch is 2 coats, no topcoat.

This is definitely a case of understated shimmer, the shimmer is there and very pretty but really mostly visible in the sun.

Friday 4 March 2011

Nails Inc - Half Moon Street

Raspberry pink shimmer





I adjusted the colour on this pink to make it more colour accurate.

Half Moon Street (I love that name, it's very evocative) is a raspberry shimmer.

As is normal for nails inc this was a great formula, pretty much opaque in one coat, although this is two, with no top coat

I also tried with Matte topcoat, although the pics have gone walkabout- it was nice, looked a bit like one of the zoya mattes...