Weekend Mani #22

It's another OPI weekend.  After a few weeks of not painting my nails due to decorating, I was really in a quandry as to which polish I would pick and so I thought a classic OPI shade which has been sitting untried in my box for quite some time now, was just what I needed to help me get my nail mojo back.

Let me introduce you to OPI Ink...

So hard to capture the complexities of this polish, it is an almost navy purple but has teeny tiny glass fleck particles through it, which, if you catch them in the right light bring a fuschia tone to the nail.   

Tried so hard to capture the almost duochrome effect that the glass flecks bring!  

As with most OPI, the formula was fab, two coats are all that I needed create an opaque finish and the pro-wide brush makes application a breeze.  

There's a lovely glossy finish and although it looks very much on the navy scale, it is definately more purple on the nail.  The glass flecks which make this polish so multi-dimensional is something you find with a lot of OPI polishes and they really do add that extra element.

There's some good swatches here. 

Once again, OPI hasn't let me down!

Here's the cheapest link that I can find where you can purchase this polish should you fancy it... here at Nail Polish Direct for £7.95 with free delivery.

Have you tried  OPI Ink before?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend Mani #20

So, last week when I posted my weekend mani, here, you would be forgiven for thinking that I had pretty much declared my undying love for 'My Current Crush'.  Being somewhat a polish harlot, I have a new love this week and it has left me wanting more! 

Meet 'Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow' an O.P.I Suede. 

This is why I love O.P.I.  This is essentially like a matte polish and was released maybe three years ago now, way before most other brands jumped on the textured bandwagon.

One coat in and things are looking a fair bit patchy but the essence of the colour was definitely there, a nice emerald green.  The shimmer appears very fine and not in a metallic or frosty kinda way. 

With a second coat, it begins to take on a whole new meaning! When first applied you can see glimmery, shimmery things starting to happen and then when it dries it has a gorgeous matte but better finish. 

This is two coats and the colour is a lovely, deep emerald green.  The texture feels quite nice too, there is no roughness to it.  As it is supposed to be a suede finish, topcoat is not recommended so that does narrow down wear time, I had a decent amount of tipwear 36 hours later but it was still presentable.  On the plus side, it dries pretty quick so you can do your two coats in less than 10 minutes. I have some pictures of this with various glitters etc which I might do as a wee collage, I just couldn't resist! 

Aaah, it's like someone took the evil dark fairy 'Maleficent' from Disney's Sleeping Beauty and bottled her! I love the almost villainous glow that the shimmer and finish to this polish evokes and it has definitely left me wanting to try more of the suedes.

Interestingly, the suedes are not really that similar to their namesakes which is a little bit bizarre, see what I mean here and here!

Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Hugs,

Jodi 

xxx

Thanks Santa!!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and new year, now that the fun part is over it's time for putting away the decorations and finding space for all your lovely goodies!

I was quite lucky this year and below is my 'stash' minus the chocolates, they are long gone! 

This is my goodies from my partner.

Owl slipper boots, they are cute and have a pink fluffy inside.  I also got some angora wool blend socks, they are from primark.  They again have a cute owl pattern but I won't use them as I am not comfortable with angora and the way it's obtained.

Some royal jelly bubble bath, I must admit, my initial reaction was that I'm not 70 and this is for old ladies but it's ok, it doesn't have a particularly strong scent and it creates decent enough bubbles. One major plus for living in the north east of Scotland is that we have soft water which means we get a good lather going on.  When I was at my partners mums in Kent, I thought I had forgotten how to wash my hair, there was nothing!! The book is a recipe book full of chocolatey goodness, not ideal for the New Year diet!

The Opi (I picked up this one in Sally's and told him it was from him!) is 'Black Cherry Chutney', it is a very dark, vampy colour but it has a shimmer in it that just catches the light beautifully.

This is my favourite and this was the result of an email being sent to him telling him 'I want this one please!'.  The parfum is Botannical Essence No15 by Liz Earle and I love it.  I spritzed this many moons ago in John Lewis and have longed for it ever since! At the time of the email, there was a special offer on if you bought a botanical essence, you got the nail polish and lip gloss free, absolute bonus! It also came with a mini cleanse and polish.

The rest I got from my mum and step-dad, brother and my auntie, bless their socks, we weren't supposed to be doing gifts this year (although I did get my mum and step-dad a wee pressie each).  My partner and I were cooking dinner for everyone though, I think there ended being twelve of us! 

So alongside the super cosy dressing gown, with a hood, the obligatory socks and pitch perfect dvd (it has a uv code too so it has now found a place in my ipad!). I got Lady Millions perfume, totally unexpected, I have had a quick sniff and it seems lovely but nothing can drag me away from the Liz Earle at the moment.

This opi was part of a set I bought at TK Maxx and said to my mum to get my brother to give it to me but she ended up giving it to me - monkey! It's called 'Current Crush' and it is a lovely purple with silver sparkles through it, it is a liquid sand and is one of several new liquid sands I have added to my collection recently! Oopsy! 

A nice bracelet to add to my collection, apparently it is pearl and supposed to promote calmness and relaxation - not sure if mum is trying to tell me something?!? One of my aims this year is to accessorise more and so this is perfect!  

It's not christmas anymore without a soap and glory gift set! I love soap and glory products so this is most welcome and will most definitely get used!

And last up was this Glade 'Winter Berries' candle.  It's a lovely little candle and initially I thought the scent would carry well but once lit, I couldn't really smell it unless I was at a certain distance and angle.

Just wait til you see what I bought myself for Christmas though, I have probably made it on to the 'naughty list' for next Christmas already!

Did you have a good Christmas and new year?

Was 'Santa' good to you?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend (ish) Mani #18 and a How To!

Merry Day After Boxing Day!

Have you had a look at the boxing day sales yet? I've ordered a few bits and bobs and so will post about them very soon!

My Christmas Day Mani was a bit of a quickie one, we were doing the cooking and prep etc for 11 or so people and so it was very, very busy!

I have made this into a wee tutorial type post too, since it's Christmas and all that jazz!

I have a multitude of different pictures too as my iPhone storage is kinda full and I still haven't figured out how to work my coolpix that I got for my birthday in July!

This mani was pretty simple, I was rather rushed and this was the only thing I could think of that didn't require too much effort (or thought!) on Christmas Day.

Here's the tools I went for: a selection of polishes, a topcoat, thread, scissors, dotting tool and a plastic tray thing for splodging my polish into.

After I applied my basecoat, I applied two coats of OPI 'I vant to be a-lone star, I love this for this particular mani as it is a frosty pale blue with a silver shimmer.  Some of my nails needed a third coat as there were some patchy bits.

Before adding the second coat, I cut the thread to size in preparation for the next step.

After adding the second (and third) coats of polish, I applied the thread to my nails before the polish was dry.  you can apply it in anyway you want, I quite like the loop on my pointer finger!

Use tweezers or the scissors to gently push the thread into the polish so that it adheres to the nail. 

I then applied a coat of topcoat just to seal it all in.

One thing I did forget which would have been really handy for while doing my dots would have been a cotton pad with nail polish remover on it to wipe my dotting tool on after each colour.

I then splodged my polish into the plastic tray, I started with yellow and did all the yellow dots on every finger before moving onto all the blue dots, then all the red dots and then all the green. 

The yellow I used was the Barry M Limited Edition Yellow I posted about here.

The blue I used was Nails Inc. 'Baker Street' quite possibly the bestest blue colour in the world ever!! I posted about it here too.

The red I used was the Mavala Rouge Rubis one I used last week, here, is a lovely little red.  I can't believe I have owned this for a whole year before using this, it really is a lovely, sparkly red and perfect for Christmas!

The green was a cheeky little poundland purchase but I really like the metallic effect.  It is a Sally Hansen Ultra HD in shade 'Resolution'. I have only ever worn this on my toes and although the colour is pretty lovely, the formula is quite thin and needs quite a few coats for opacity. 

I waited (not so) patiently for the polish to dry, trimmed the thread and then topcoated again just to keep it looking nice and shiny throughout christmas dinner!

This design could have so many variations, you could do a darker base or a glittery base, switch up the colour of the thread and silver and gold dots would make awesome fairy lights! 

Let me know if you give these a try, these would work well for New Years Nails too!

Hugs,

Jodi

So...about that 'no buy'...

I failed my self imposed 'no buy'.  Several times.  I went to TK Maxx and I failed.  I went to Boots and I failed.  I went to Semi-Chem, yup, I failed and then I had the audacity to buy a few bits on feelunique.com.  Ach well, as they say, you can't take it with you. 

TK Maxx had these two opi's including a limited edition liquid sand for £12.99.  I saved £12.99 on my winter boots from sports direct though so that balances out... Right? I'm going to give this to my mum to give to my brother to give me for Christmas.  Guilt appeased! 

In Boots, I bought a Max Factor foundation.  I have heard these are quite good for folk with pink skintones so I'm going to give it a whirl, the shade is the lightest one, 100 fair, so hopefully that will do the trick.  I haven't linked it as that particular shade isn't on the Boots.com website.  Also, because you were getting a free gift if you spent over £15, I also bought the wild shadow 2-in-1 gel shadow and liner pencil in the shade 05 which seems to be a nice bronzey brown and called 'Caramel Rage on Boots.com.  The free gift includes a full size lipfinity, a full size polish and a full size mascara which I shall review at a later date.

Now to Semi-Chem, I only went in for ibuprofen on the way over to my chums and came out with ibuprofen, oven cleaner (?!?!?) and a new nail polish, as you do. I got my first NYC polish for less than £2. That has been my mid week mani.

And Feelunique brought me the renowned Dr Bronner's magic soap in peppermint and Caudalie's beauty elixir in a limited edition L'Wren Scott designed bottle.  I had a £5 credit to use for referring a friend to Feelunique and it would have been rude not to use it! 

And I still haven't done my Christmas shopping! Yikes! 

Have you ever tried a 'no buy'?

How's your Chrsitmas shopping going?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend Mani #16

Yup, it's that time of week again! It's the weekend of indecisiveness for me I think, I have on this colour but as I am off work until Wednesday I may change it for something a bit more 'va-va-voom'! 

On my nails this weekend, I have 'meet me on the star ferry' by O.P.I.  This is from the Hong Kong Collection of 2010, of which I own a few others from that I didn't actually realise! 

This one is really difficult to describe, in the bottle it seems to be an almost mauve colour but with a touch of red and a silver shimmer running through it but on the nail it looks different in every light! It looks purpley, reddy, goldy, silvery, shimmery and frosty all at the same time!!

This shows it leaning towards purple.  The shine is amazing, I have no topcoat on in any of these pics. I don't know if the colour suits my skin-tone the best but that's a small niggle that most people probably won't pay any mind to.

Trying to capture the colour without the shimmer, turns out, it ain't that easy! Please excuse the peppy pig plaster, sliced my finger on a Gillette in the bathroom.  Strange I have peppa pig plasters and no kids...

In usual O.P.I. fashion, the formula was easy to work with and this was opaque in two coats.  I have three coats on my middle finger as I bumped it whilst the polish was still wet.

And there you have it, a polish captured in pretty much every light source I have at my disposal and still remains a bit of an enigma!! I like this polish and I wanted it for ages but I'm not as in love with it as I had hoped to be.  In fact, I'd quite like to put this on my gramma! (She's pretty cool though so...) 

Do you wear polish to suit your skin tone?

Are you a fan of shimmers? 

Hugs,

Jodi 

xxx

P.s. This is once again courtesy of my ipad.  Binx has chewed through my laptop cable and so I am awaiting delivery of (another) new one! Good job he's purdy!

Weekend Mani #15

Pinch, Punch, it's the first of the month!

December, seriously?!?  I was feeling a little bit Christmas-y this weekend and so this weekends mani definitely reflects that.  I was also at a a wedding and was wearing a berry coloured dress and so this colour complimented my dark hair and dark outfit quite well. 

Meet 'Honey Ryder' one of the delectable Bond Girls released this year as part of a six piece liquid sand collection by O.P.I. 

Love it. I applied this on a minibus, in the dark, going up some country roads to my chums wedding venue (we were going for the evening reception as we had both been working all day.) This went on like a dream, you could pretty much get away with one coat of this, similar to the other liquid sand, 'Get Your Number' , here.

The colour was more of a metallic sandy gold and dried down well.  It wasn't too gritty but the texture definitley gave it an extra dimension and gave a twist to what could have been a very safe mani.  Did I mention I love it?! I have a wee tutorial coming up involving this which would be great for christmas ;-) 

It doesn't have a multitude of different glitter particles, it does just appear to be a proper 'suits any skin tone' gold.  It doesn't lean too warm, too bronze or too cool, it's just right. I fear I may be starting to gush a little! 

The one problem that I'm finding is that it seems to be sold out on a lot of sites, what I would recommend is to keep an eye on sites such as nailpolishdirect, asos etc in case they restock (it is gold and it is christmas so we can hope!).  You can also get it on the likes of Amazon and ebay but always be wary that there are quite alot of fakes going around nowadays.  Also be aware that polishes sent from the states may never reach you as there are a lot of restrictions in place regarding posting polishes now. Phew.

In this picture, I'm trying to show that although it is a textured polish, it doesn't leave nails looking all bumpy and uneven.  I don't mind the texture of the Liquid Sand polishes but I know for some people it's a big no-no, that is something to keep in mind if you are thinking about buying it for someone else.

The colour doesn't change much in different light sources either.  As I mentioned, it applies easily, even on a minibus, and it has the typical O.P.I pro-wide brush.  It dries super duper quick and after 36 hours I had no chips and that was with no base coat *gasp* and no topcoat.  I didn't get round to trying it with topcoat to see if that changed it much. 

Ideally I would have used the foil method, see here for that, to remove this polish but it's going to be another one of those walking to work whilst removing my polish mornings tomorrow.  Pretty much dragging the weekend out as long as possible!

Also, there is a facebook group called 'Nail Sale' where a lot of lovely ladies buy and sell polishes, I think this is where I got this one.  Some polishes may be brand new, some may be swatched once or twice but for brands such as O.P.I and Nails inc, you can sometimes get them at half price.

Have you tried any Liquid Sands?

Have you got an Advent Calender this year??

Hugs,

Jodi xxx

Weekend Mani #13

Happy Weekend Peeps!

Sorry I have been a bit lax on the ol' blogging horse this week, winter has hit me right in the motivational mojo! 

This weekend the sun was shining for what is claimed to be the last 'fine' weekend this year, the mercury rose into double figures!! 

Following how much I enjoyed the contrast between the red and black last week for this mani, I thought I would go down a similar path this weekend.

I present to you Barry M 'Spring Green'...

This is a lovely bright green, which is really cheery and although I'm not usually a fan of green, I love this! As I have come to expect from Barry M, the formula is great, 2 coats gives opacity and the brush is really easy to use.  I actually picked this one up in SemiChem, that is far too handy as it's just five minutes walk away from my house! 

'Spring Green' jazzed up with O.P.I. Black Shatter...

Now, before you say 'not another O.P.I!' this was only one shiny pound from Poundland! £1! The formula on this was great, I've tried a few shatters or crackle polishes and often find they can be a bit weak or a bit wishy washy but this was a good, solid colour and dried into it's shatter super quick.  

This is from the Katy Perry O.P.I collection.

If you are a fan of shatter polishes, I would heartily suggest visiting the pound shop as I have picked up a purple, gold, black, red and green one over the past couple of months!

Have you tried shatter or crackle polishes?

Are you a fan of Barry M polishes?

Hugs,

Jodi 

xxx

P.s Boots and Superdrug both have a 3 for 2 across cosmetics on just now! 

Weekend mani #12

Ever since I first clapped eyes on the L'oreal confetti topcoat, I knew one day, it would be mine! Today is that very happy day!

Amazing how something as simple as black and white dots can really 'make' a mani.

For this weekends Mani I have used O.P.I Nail envy matte base coat, two coats of Ciate 'The Glossip' and a smattering of the L'oreal topcoat confetti.  

This is my first ever Ciate polish and it was actually one that my boss got in a Glossybox that she said she would never use, yippee! It looks like a peachy coral in the bottle but is much more red on the nails, with more of an orange undertone.  It reminded me alot of the Barry M polish I posted about here. 

           

It was a really easy polish to apply, I did this by candlelight the night before and haven't done any clean up, the formula was just right.  The brush itself was a good size, not too thin and the bottle is just the cutest with the little bow.  All in all, I was very impressed by this polish and the orange-y, red-dy and peachy tones in the colour has me looking at my nails all the time!

I should also mention that it is a creme formula and very glossy, I have no topcoat on at all and after 24 hours - no chips!!!!

I then went ahead and added my confetti.  Its weird, I would never think of black and confetti in the same grouping but it works! 

This is a really easy way to jazz up your mani without requiring any crazy good nail art skills yo!

It contains various sizes of matte black and white dots, it's a very grown-up 'non-glitter' effect and the monochrome is just an all round, timeless winner! I detected a very, very subtle silver glitter suspended in the clear base ( I think that's why the flash didn't like it so much) but super tiny particles so they don't really detract from the dots. 

I used two coats of the confetti although I just dabbed on the second coat in any bald spots that appeared after the first coat.  The formula wasn't thick and the dots were pretty easy to maneuver to where you wanted them to be. The brush was a good size too.  

I ended up adding the confetti to my thumbs too as I didn't think just one nail would be enough!

I really like this combo and am very impressed with the application of the Ciate and of the effect of the Confetti.  Both are now enemies of my bank account! I will definately be trying out the confetti over a wide range of colours too, I may have to make a confetti collage! 

Have you tried the Confetti Topcoat?

If you have, which colour did you try it over?

Hugs,

Jodi 

xxx