China Glaze Monsters Ball - Bat My Eyes & Howl You Doin'

Hello ladies, in line with my new year's blogging resolution to catch up with my swatch posts I've got a couple of polishes from the China Glaze Halloween collection to show you (Halloween at New Years? Really?...).  The 2013 collection was 'Monsters Ball', the collection was mostly glitter polishes, with a texture polish and a glow in the dark polish thrown in for good measure.  So it hit a lot of key 2013 trends.

The polishes that I picked are 'Bat My Eyes' which is a gold/bronze glitter, and 'Howl You Doin' a pink/purple/blue glitter.  Pictured here are two coats with Nail Envy base and Seche topcoat.  In both cases you can see tipwear in my swatches - I was pretty disappointed with the wear of both manis, this tip wear is < 24 hours from application and it chipped within 1-2 days.  I hesitate to blame this on the CG though, it's possible that this was due to my Seche which was getting elderly by this stage. Glitter polishes are notorious for early chipping, so perhaps that's why.
 

China Glaze Bat My Eyes - Natural Light

Bat My Eyes was a gorgeous polish, and a big surprise.  I've seen this described as a black jelly base, but to me it looked more brown.  That warmth in the base jelly really compliments the warm toned glitter pieces which are bronze and gold, in a range of sizes (hex and round).  There is also a very small amount of orange bar glitters in here, but at such a low number it almost makes you think that they got into the polish by accident in the factory rather than being part of the mix.  I really liked this polish, I don't see what's 'Halloween' about it, I think it's a lovely part polish for any time of year.  The colour mix made me think of art deco and 'great gatsby' type styling, for a glitter polish this has real class.  My only disappointment was the wear issues I had.



China Glaze Bat My Eyes - Artificial Light

Howl You Doin is an intriguing polish.  From the swatches I'd seen I wasn't sure what colour it would really be 'on nail', and I'm still not sure having worn it!  It's a deep purple crelly/jelly base with glitter particles in blue/indigo and pink glitter pieces and shards.  The combined effect is really rather pretty, and varies according to the lighting conditions.  I didn't find it to be very sparkly for a glitter, it didn't have the 'wow' factor for me that Bat My Eyes does. Up close you can see all the sparkles that online swatches show, but just glancing at your hands it's a dark purpleish polish, which is nice but not incredible.

China Glaze Howl You Doin - Artificial Light

Of these I'd recommend Bat My Eyes, it's a really unusual polish and perfect for party manis.  Whether the wear issues I had were due to my seche or these polishes I'm not sure, but since party mani's only have to last a short time who cares?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year lovely ladies! Can you believe its 2014 already?

I've been on holiday with the folks for the last few weeks (sans broadband....how do these people survive without internets?!) so I couldn't blog.  I hope to be making up for it in the next wee while.  I'm delighted to see that my pageviews have gone past the 1000 mark while I was away! It's encouraging to know I'm not the only one reading this ha ha.

If I have one New Years blogging resolution it's to get through the huge backlog of swatch pictures I have stored up.  So expect lots of posts, where my nails will apparently miraculously grow and shorten at non-human rates, since they were taken at all different times....

In the meantime happy holidays! 

Dupe test: Girly Bits 'Shift Happens' vs Max Factor 'Fantasy Fire'

Hello ladies! Today I have a comparison to show you of two fabulous topper polishes: Shift Happens (love the name!) by Girly Bits and the famous Fantasy Fire by Max Factor.  I know that the Max Factor is about as easy to come by as leprechauns outside the UK, whereas Girly Bits is a US brand (and cheaper by the ml to boot!).  So perhaps this comparison will help you get the topper effect you want without breaking the bank or paying to import...

Looking at these in the bottle, its not obvious that there should be any similarity between them
 - Shift Happens has a soft opalescent rainbow effect in the bottle, whereas Fantasy Fire has a strong indigo background with pink and purple shifts.  From the bottle you'd guess that the Girly Bits polish would give you a soft pearly shimmer in a whole rainbow of colour and the max factor would give you purple or pink sparkle only.  If you guess that, surprisingly, you'd be wrong.



left: Shift Happens right: (l-r) Fantasy Fire and Shift Happens

Without further ado, let's see these on the nail (please excuse the splodgy mess I made of my index finger when I was getting out the camera...) All swatches are in artificial light:


index: black base + SH, middle: black base + FF, ring: EMIO + SH, pinkie: EMIO + FF

I chose two different base colours to compare these on: plain black (No7 "Just Black") and a purple based shade (OPI "Every Month is Oktoberfest").  I used one coat of each undies shade, and one coat of each topper.  I was keen to see whether having a purple base shade would make the indigo based FF appear different to SH.  In fact, from this you can see that they are practically identical.  The main shade that I got from both these toppers was this gorgeous cinnamon shimmer.  By changing the angle of the light source this deep russet shade shifted through gold, amber and right through to green:



index: black base + SH, middle: black base + FF, ring: EMIO + SH, pinkie: EMIO + FF

The green was a big surprise for me, coming from the Fantasy Fire.  I see absolutely NO evidence of green in the bottle, no matter which way I turn it, yet it's clearly right there on the nail!



(l-r) SH over black, FF over black, SH over EMIO

Seen here in closeup of my middle finger, you can see those green and gold shades popping from the FF and it's just stunning.  Both of these polishes were like pure bottled Autumn leaves....gorgeous.

I would say that IMO these two polishes, at least over the two shades I tried here, are close enough to be dupes.  Certainly I wouldn't advise that you shell out for both of them if you have neither (personally I'm always keen to save my polish funds for something new, I'm always sad when I find I've accidentally bought a dupe, as in this case).  

In terms of value for money, Shift Happens is a full size polish and I picked mine up for £10 from Rainbow Connection. The Max Factor (in the UK) can be bought in any Boots/Superdrug etc for £3.99 for the mini size bottle (with its fiddly brush).  So the Girly Bits is cheaper by the ml, but depending where you live you might find one easier to find than the other (and really who of us will manage to use up even a mini size topper polish? Not me!).

Later on I'll post a fabulous mani I did with Shift Happens on top of OPI Germanicure, which was all kinds of warm toasty brown cinnamon loveliness...until next time :)

Posting Polish in the UK

Hello ladies.  I just discovered that the Royal Mail have relaxed their restrictions on posting nail polish in the UK for personal customers.  In case you also missed this news here's the skinny:

Nail polish has been added to the 'Restricted Goods' list, the relevant section is copied below...

" Nail varnish, polish and gel (solvent and water-based) :
Volume per item must not exceed 30ml. No more than four bottles of nail varnish can be sent in any one package. Bottles of nail varnish must be placed in strong outer packaging and be so packed, secured or cushioned in such a way that they cannot break, be punctured or leak their contents into the outer packaging.

An ID8000 label must be applied ( see example ID8000 label). The sender’s name and return address must be clearly visible on the outer packaging.

These items must be presented at a Post Office® counter."

This is a relaxation of the previous rules which had said that personal customers could not post nail polish at all.  This change sees personal customers given the same posting rights as business customers.

Posting nail polish from the UK to international destinations is still banned for personal customers.

Polish magazine giveaways - December 2013

UK girlies there are some polish giveaways this month! The latest issues of Glamour and Cosmo both have multiple polishes to choose from.  The Glamour giveaway is for full size Nails Inc polishes supposedly designed with 'Kate Spade of New York'.  I have no idea who Kate Spade is but I'm not inspired by her polish choices, they look like the same stock freebie polishes Nails Inc roll out every time.  The red reminds me particularly of the free one that InStyle magazine gave away this summer, which was pretty shoddy.  So I won't be rushing out to grab these.

 

Nails Inc with Kate Spade - free with Glamour UK December 2013 issue

 Cosmo is giving away Orly minis that are really teeny, so although the colour choice is a lot more festive it doesn't seem a big enough bargain to me to suffer through the magazine.

Orly Minis - free with Cosmopolitan UK December 2013 issue

 So there you have it ladies.  If you fancy a freebie this is your month!

Indian Summer

Today's NOTD is from my latest Indie haul - be prepared for a lot of picture spam because this one's a doozy!  This is "Indian Summer" by Crowstoes from the new 'Better Late than Never' collection (I also have Hellhound to show you later, which if it lives up to the promise in the bottle it's going to rock!).



Crowstoes 'Indian Summer' - Artificial Light

Indian Summer is a metallic multi-chrome from Indie brand Crowstoes.  Shown here I'm wearing two coats, over NE base and black undies (single coat of No7 'Just Black') with SV to top it all off.  No issues at all with formula or application, both were fab.  I love the bottle design too, the logo is really cool and Halloween-y (I know that's not a real word, but it is in my house). 

Crowstoes 'Indian Summer' - Natural Light

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that this daylight shot was taken in a car - I was parked I promise! Living in Scotland I have very little access to sunlight during winter.  I'm at work for the 5 minutes of sunshine we might get in a day, so I've done my best for you with my crappy camera phone.  The multi-chrome effect comes across best in natural sunlight, as this shot shows.  I'm now going to moan a bit about the multichrome effect so bear in mind that I almost never got to see this baby in sunlight....

I didn't find the multi-chrome effect to be particularly strong with this polish.  It's not like a Hits polish (you NEED to get as many of those in your life as you can by the way - go to Sally Magpies for those).  It is totally gorgeous though.  I would say that 90% of the time this polish appears to be a lovely shade of metallic blurple (and you know how I feel about metallic purples).  At more extreme angles it shifts to magenta.  In the bottle, at the extreme of the inner curved surface, there's gold too but I didn't see that on the nail at all (see pic at the bottom of this post).  I've noticed that all the online swatches suggest that this has a mega-chrome effect (including mine, yeah I know...hypocrite).  What's undeniable though is that multi-chrome or not, this is a beautiful polish.

Crowstoes 'Indian Summer' - Macro bottleshots - Artificial Light

Above: the two main colours are seen here by repositioning my desklamp relative to the bottle.  On the right, the blurple shade, is the dominant colour that you see at direct angles.  The magenta on the left is the secondary colour, which pops out at wider angles.

Looky looky! It's a bottled sunset!

Above, again with my trusty desklamp, with a fair bit of fiddling you can get to a red gold tone that's awesome.  Not sure what angle you'd have to peer at your nails at in real life to see this one but you'd probably do yourself a neck injury trying.  And finally, taking advantage of the curviest part of the bottle you can see the whole range of colours - its a sunset in a bottle!

This polish is absolutely lovely, I highly recommend it.  I picked mine up for £10.25 from Rainbow Connection. In fact they're having an offer right now that orders placed before 2nd December will get you a £3 off voucher for your next purchase.  But sorry, Indian Summer is currently sold out....

Disclaimer: I am in no way connected with any of the shops or brands that I blog about. I'm just a happy customer and nail nerd. All the shades I blog about have been bought with my own hard-earned moolah.

New York State of Mind

Today's NOTD is a new brand to me, and a fairly new brand to the UK - Morgan Taylor.  Morgan Taylor polishes are owned by the same company that make Gelish polishes, and as far as I know the brand was released in the US earlier this year.  It was only available in the UK to trade customers until really recently, but I'm now happy to report that Sally Salon supplies is now stocking a wide range (63!) of these polishes on the high street!



New York State of Mind by Morgan Taylor - Artificial Light

New York State of Mind is a black jelly polish packed with micro glitters in a range of colours - predominantly pink and blue hexes and squares.  I'm wearing two coats here, with NE base and SV top coat.  I couldn't photograph this until a day later, so there's some tip wear on show too (sorry).  Coverage was good, no VNL, and the finish was fairly smooth for a glitter of this density.



New York State of Mind by Morgan Taylor - Artificial Light

Formula was not brilliant to be honest, I had some issues with drag, but in this case I think its the result of being such a dense glitter.  What bothered me about this one was that overall I found the effect of this polish on the nail rather underwhelming.  I really wanted to be whelmed by it, but it just doesn't quite live up to the promise in the bottle.  Is there anything more disappointing than a polish that looks better in the bottle than on the nail?



Ooooh sparkly!

I mean look at it! Isn't that soooo pretty! It's a sparkle bomb but on the nail it doesn't have the same POP! factor.  In the spirit of fairness, perhaps this polish suffered a bit by being the mani I replaced the stonking Klaatu Barada Nikto with, frankly any polish isn't going to compete with that one for sparkle-factor.  All in all though, this polish left me feeling 'meh', which isn't a good thing.  My collection is large enough that even my favourites only get used a handful of times so I suspect it'll be a long while before this one gets another go around.

That being said, there is a really wide range of colours out there, so perhaps I'd be more excited by one of those.  I'll certainly give MT another go.  I particularly want to try Under the Stars but sadly it doesn't look like this is currently one of the shades Sallys stocks.





 

New York State of Mind - Macro

The price point for these is £10.99, so around OPI/Nails Inc prices, and that seems fair.  The quality was good, wear time was similar (if a little less than OPI, but with a glitter polish that's not a fair comparison), and I really like the bottle design.  The brush was good too, not as great as the OPI pro-wide (but then what is?).  I really want to like this brand, it's got a good look and a good range of shades.  Have you tried any Morgan Taylor polishes? Do you have a shade you'd recommend? I'm always on the hunt for good tips :)