The Neverending Pile Challenge: Pastel

I almost thought I wasn't gonna post on the second day of the challenge because I had the idea that I didn't have any untried pastel polishes. Pastel colours don't really complement my skin tone so if I buy one of these hues, I do it for a reason and I will use it. After I had a good look in my stash, I came across a Nails Inc polish that I had bought as a gift but for some reason or another, I never ended up giving it away. So it sat on the rack for year and a half without even having been opened until today.

I present to you Little Miss Sunshine by Nails Inc, a peachy, nude creme that has a very nice, quick drying formula for a lighter polish. It got it opaque in three coats but it would have been fine with two if I had done been a little more careful with the application. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting much from this polish from previous experience with this type of colour but I was pleasantly surprised and couldn't stop looking at it for a while. As mentioned,  three coats and no topcoat for the swatch below.

I always get itchy fingers... (that was me trying to be funny, just in case you missed it) when I have plain nail polish and this time was no exception. The image that I thought of when I saw the colour on my nails was one of the many manicures that float around on Pinterest of metallic overlapping triangles over a nude base. I've seen them a lot (but I cannot find one of them right now!!!) and I knew exactly what colours I wanted to use. 

I brought out the striping tape and created one long triangle per nail with OPI's Goldeneye, let that dry and repeated the same process with Essie's Nothing Else Metals. I topped it all off with one coat of HK Girl Top Coat. 

Unfortunately, Some of the Goldeneye polish came off with the tape when I tried to create the purple triangles, then took too long to remove the tape when I was working with Nothing Else Metals, all which left the triangles a little rough. I tried to patch up the missing bits taken off Goldeneye with a dotting tool and it sort of worked but there was nothing I could do with NEM.  I'm tempted  to tag this as nail fail but it looks nice and sparkly from afar and I've learnt that next time, because there will be a next time, to make the triangles longer to help with the overall look and work within appropriate tape removal times with each polish.

I went for the best angles of the mani hence the lack of photos and different poses. :)

I already have the next prompt's mani ready to go and I'm roaring to dive into this challenge fully.

Till next time, 

Laura

GOT Polish Challenge: Pink

In my endeavour to post three times a week, I have chosen to take part in the Golden Oldie Thursday Challenge from The Crumpret's Nail Tarts group on Facebook (rules at the bottom of the post) as an incentive. I have a lot of polishes that have been left on the back burner as new pretty, mostly textured polishes have come into play, so this challenge seems to be a really good way to re-shopping the stash. 

For this week, I chose two Nails Inc pink polishes I got in a mini-bottle gift pack from some UK Black Friday sales. That's how I know how old they are and that they are both the same age, I also know I have tried them but haven't blogged about them. On my ring finger, I'm wearing three coats of Elizabeth St, a creamy pink nude that is quick drying and one of the better nudes I own. On the rest of my fingers, I wore four coats of Notting Hill Gate, a neon pink, which is nooooot colour accurate in the pics below. I didn't mind doing so many coats as each one didn't take very long to dry and with the help of Seche Vite, all four coats were dry to the touch within 10 minutes. I forgot how good neon colours can look against my skin so I might bring them out more often, plus it's summer on this side of the world. What better time to use them, right?

I knew I wasn't gonna be able to leave the plain colours, as pretty as they are, and I added some water decals and triangular studs I got from eBay. I went for a tough/sweet sort of look and I'm not quite sure if I achieved it but I am happy with the result.

Wanna check out some more pink manis? Click on the links below; there are some talented ladies in this challenge.

Till next time, 

Laura

Sassy Paints Guest Post

Hello, hello! I'm gonna keep it super short today. I've written my first ever guest post for Sassy Nails as she's starting a Sassy Saturday Guest Post series and I'm a thrilled to kick it off. Yes, it's Sunday in Australia but think of time differences. :)

This is the preview but you can check out the whole post here. 

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Till next time, 

Laura

Nails Inc Docklands

Super quick post that only includes one photo. There's been a lot of failed attempts at nail art this week and I really wanted to post something. Enjoy.

Last year, I went crazy at a Black Friday sale, which was actually hosted by a UK site*, and managed to snap up a heap of Nails Inc polishes for really cheap, including a pack of fifteen 4-ml bottles for about $30. Not a bad price for the brand and, considering I have never seen the bottom of a bottle, I figured it was justified getting a heap of little bottles rather than 4-5 big ones. 

After reading a few blogs, I was feeling rather proud that I didn't have any untrieds as I tend to put new polishes on as soon as I get them home, even if it's just one finger. Well turns out I was wrong. Looking up towards my rack, I realised I hadn't tried a few of the mini polishes I'd gotten from the above mentioned sale. I took one of the unopened bottles at random and came out with this little beauty, Nails Inc in Docklands. Swatched with two coats and no top coat.

Docklands is a leaning-towards-orange red jelly, which has a pretty amazing formula. I've never been disappointed with Nails Inc product (unless they came free with magazines, I've learnt my lesson -_-). I didn't even realise this was a jelly until the second coat dried up. I applied a first thin coat that turned out very sheer but other polishes from the pack had the same issue. My other red jelly, essence Snow White, is a lot thicker so I assumed all jellies were that thick. Pleasantly surprised it was thinner, very manageable and still had the same amount of shine. I guess that's why Nails Inc has the reputation that it does.

At the moment, I wouldn't know where to get Nails Inc polishes in Australia, apart from Adore Beauty. Considering their prices can go from $19.95 a bottle for 10 ml, I might have to skip this site. Googling for Australian stockists, I found a number to call, however, it seems to be disconnected and not at all useful. If anyone knows a place or site where Nails Inc can be purchased for reasonable *cough* less than $15/bottle including shipping *cough* price, please leave me a comment. I'd really like to know.

That's all for me ladies. Have a good weekend and 

Till next time, 

Laura

*As you may be aware, UK's Royal Mail changed to a stricter Dangerous Goods shipping policies, which means a lot of the UK sites no longer ship internationally. You can still check out Beauty Bay for other awesomely priced makeup products. What a shame, though. I can't feed my greed for English nail polish! 

Picture Polish Revolution

Last year, when essence's Ready For Boarding Peel Off Base Coat came out on the shelves, I was lucky enough to get a bottle before they run out within the day. From that day on I haven't looked back and have used it for all my glitter manis and, lately, I've been using it every time I put polish on as the smell of acetone was starting to put me off. I could keep going on about how good it is but this is a post to review Picture Polish Revolution.

I was actually a bit undecided as to whether or not to post this. After trying Revolution as a base coat for glitter, I couldn't help to compare it to the PVA base coat and the difference was enormous and not in a good way either...

If you haven't seen the bottle a million times on the blogsphere, here's a picture.

Revolution promises to ease the process of removal of glitter manicures. The Picture Polish website recommends soaking the polish for 15 seconds, removing what you can and continue the process until you are done.

I decided to put it to the test with a mani that I would normally wear with PVA glue as a base coat. First, I applied two coats of Revolution, which dried within 30 seconds per coat, then applied American Apparel's Office as the colour base, followed by three coats of Nails Inc's Emerald, a beautiful, foil glitter, and finished it with a coat of Seche Vite.

Not my best mani but it looked really good from afar. :)  I wore it for a day to see how it would hold up. As you can see on my index finger, there was a tiny chip after about 24 hours. I'm not sure if this had to do with my application, the terrible shrinkage I got on the glitter polish from using Seche Vite or from the base coat. Either way, it's something to note.  Two things that put me off were the curling that popped up when I tried to clean up Office and the residue on my cuticles, which I had to pull off with my fingers and made the edges pretty untidy.

Now, the removal. I haven't used acetone in a while so I was hoping this would work quickly. I used a quarter of a cotton pad and worked finger by finger. I applied the pad for 15 seconds at the time to see how it would work.  

First try, nothing came off. Time to keep pressing that pad onto my finger. Waiting... Finger stretch... Waiting...

After a few tries, very little came off. Maybe I put it to a very harsh, five-coats-of-a-mani test. I then read on the Picture Polish website that you need to give it a bit of a scrub. Mine was a tough scrub and there was glitter coming off in small chunks that went everywhere. 

This is what my hand looked like after I finished and gave it a final swab with a clean  pad soaked in acetone. Excuse the yellow nails...

There was a lot of base coat residue left on my cuticles as well as glitter stuck to my fingers. It took me about 10 minutes in total to remove all the glitter, including the stuff on my skin. 

From my understanding and reading the ingredients on the bottle, Revolution forms a plastic base on your nails that dissolves a lot quicker with polish remover compared to you polish alone. I see this would be an option if you want your glitter mani to last longer than by using PVA glue as a base. I really can't find any other reason to use it... As I change my polish every two to three days, I wouldn't use it for that purpose. Quicker than removing it with the foil method? Yes. Tidier? Maybe not for me. Would I use it again for glitter? Very unlikely. I'm sticking  to my essence PVA coat.

After all this whinging, I must admit, if you haven't seen this post, I got Revolution to use as a top coat for foils. I have used it for that purpose and it works really well. I felt like I needed to post about its original purpose before I moved on to better things.

Do you guys own Revolution? Have you found it to be amazing or would you give it a miss? Any other methods you have for the removal of glitter? I'd really love to hear what you think about this product.

Till next time, 

Laura 

What Will They Think Of Next?

* Edit *Check out my DIY version here*

Quick post. I just saw the news that Nails Inc is coming up with a new nail polish that feels and looks like leather. This has me very intrigued and I really wanna see what leather nails would look like. For those that are curious, this is what the bottle (and packaging) will look like.

Nails Inc. Leather Effect. (www.nailsinc.com)

Unfortunately, Nails Inc is a hard brand to come across in Australia even though they officially launched their product in Aussie retailers in July this year. They generally, like every other brand, take a season or two to send their new collections and Google only gave me a NSW number to call for the stockists. A number really? 

Nails Inc is available from their website but only deliver to the UK, so that e-tailer doesn't really work for us Down Under. The only other two e-tailers that I know sell Nails Inc and deliver to Australia are BeautyBay.com and adorebeauty.com.au. Then again, they don't keep up with the latest but sometimes you can get pretty good deals, especially from Beauty Bay.

Going back to the purpose of this post, I wondered what texture will be created and put into a polish bottle. We've had the crackle, magnetics, matte top coats, gold leaf (what am i missing?) and let's not forget the caviar and velvet manicures. I'm sure the possibilities are endless. I'm sure someone will come up with something crazy that we can stick to our nails and put it in a bottle and we'll be drooling over it.

What is your favourite texture-in-a-bottle manicure? Personally, I really like the magnetic polishes now that I've worked them out. I only own three but I think they will be used to the last drop.

Till next time, 

Laura