Weekend Mani #23

Although I am currently in the midst of some redecoration and have been for a few weeks now, hence the lack of posts, I decided that my nails still had to be done!  I may have had no make up on and my hair was in dire need of a wash but still, gotta be a little bit glam right?!

Meet 'Aquamarine' part of Revlon's Chroma Chameleon Collection.

First things first, this cost £1! One whole shiny pound, I urge you to go to poundland stat! I also got a few other Revlon polishes and a Sally Hansen Sugar coat which I will swatch over the next few weeks. 

This colour shifts from a beautiful sea greeny blue to a slight purple, this colour reminds me of 'The Little Mermaid', years and years ago, there was a nail polish and make up brand on the go called 'Spectacular' and I had about 300 of their polishes when I was a teen and my favourite one was called 'Ariel', this is the closest I have ever found to match that.

This is slightly thin, I used three thin coats for full opacity here, although I'm sure two would be fine if you took care to apply it neatly.  Colours like this with the duochrome effect can show up brushstrokes quite easily. 

The bottle is a good size and it's a nice shape for storing.  The brush is thin compared to the OPI Pro-wide that I'm used to but it was pretty standard and fit my tiny pinkies well! 

This has no topcoat on in any of these pictures.  It is very shiny and has an almost shimmery finish.

Such a vibrant colour.  The colour shift isn't too extreme but definitely enough to make it interesting. 

I was showing a bit of tipwear after sanding and doing other housey stuff so for 48 hours without topcoat, this lasted pretty good!

My mum has already hinted that she would quite like this for her upcoming holiday to Tunisia and I have to agree, this would look amazing on tanned tootsies!

I would like to try this over a purple base to try and capture more of the purple in it and would also quite like to add a few more of these to my stash. particularly 'Tanzanite' and 'Pink Quartz' 

Hope you have had a slightly more glamourous weekend!!

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

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

Weekend Mani #19

Weekend Mani's are back!  I kinda lost my mani mojo although it is slowly but surely coming back, helped along by this little nugget right here.

Let me introduce you to 'My Current Crush' an O.P.I Liquid sand.

As with most of the Liquid Sands I have tried so far, you would get away with one coat, as in the pictures above and below.  That also had the added bonus of drying quicker if you are in a rush.

 This is two coats and it is perfectly opaque.  I really love this colour, it is just the perfect mid-purple and the silver glitter running through it just gives it that extra summin' summin'.

This post is a little picture heavy because I love it so... sorry.  I'm not sorry.

This was part of a set called 'The TXTure Effect' of which the other part was a 'Natural Nail' Base coat which is surprisingly something I have never tried from O.P.I before, I usually just use the Nail Envy as a base.

In sunlight this takes on an added warmth to it and the silver becomes more evident.  The texture is not overly abrasive, just enough so that every once in a while you find yourself stroking your own fingernails... just me then?!

As is standard, it features the O.P.I Pro-Wide brush for quick and easy application, unless you have tiny pinkies like me then the brush is a little bit too wide! 

I got this set in TKMaxx just before christmas for £12.99 and gave it to my mum to give to my brother to give me for christmas, yeah, that's how we roll at christmas.  I think most people are wary of buying a beauty products for someone has a stash to rival Superdrug but at the same time, I couldn't think of anything I would rather have than beauty, skincare or nails bits and bobs.  

Although Limited Edition, there are still one or two places where you can get this. 

I've never used this website before but they are offering free delivery as are Nail Polish Direct, here. If you do go a-browsing, particularly on Nail Polish Direct, watch out for some of the glitters that are priced at £19.95, I think 'The Living Daylights' and 'When Monkeys Fly' were the two I remember seeing priced as such.  There is no need for them to be that price, they are not hard to find so do shop around.

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 #9

More O.P.I, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.  

Next weekend I will try and do a non-O.P.I mani!

This is 'Do You Lilac It?' from the Brights collection (2006) and 'Save Me' from the Nicki Minaj collection (2012).  

 'Do You Lilac It?' is a 'looks okay in the bottle polish but stunning on the nail polish'. It is almost a one-coater, which is extremely good for a pastel hue.  I really, really, really like this colour.  The one thing I did notice with this colour was that it brought out the red/pink tones in my skin, which isn't really a big issue.  

'Save Me' is O.P.I's first foray into bar glitter.  It has silver microglitters and holographic bar glitters.  I find the silver glitter is actually quite dense and overwhelms the bar glitters slightly. The bar glitter doesn't stick up on the nail, which is great as 'sticky up' bits can chip your mani.

They are both standard O.P.I pro-wide brushes, which allows for swift application.  On the pics here, I have two coats of 'Save Me' as an accent nail. 

To do the accent nail I used scotch gift wrapping tape that I bought from Asda for £2.  I stuck it to my arm a few times so that it wasn't so sticky that it took the polish underneath off.  This is a new trick I have just picked up and so far so good!! 

This colour is really great for 'shorties' or 'nubbins' as some folk call them.

I used a little solar oil cuticle oil after doing this mani as my cuticles were looking shockingly dry after the return to cold weather.

I know I keep harping on about the weather so I'm glad I picked this uplifting colour as this weekends mani.

How do you feel about bright colours in autumn/winter?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend Mani #7

Another week has flown by and I'm back with more glitter! Just one nail this time though...

This is O.P.I polishes at it again, I promise I do own other brands, these just happen to be the ones I 'collect'.

So for the main blue I used 'Can't Find My Czechbook' and for the accent nail I used 'You're Such a Buda-pest' topped with the beautiful 'Polka.com' glitter.

There is something about Polka.com which just really sings to me as a glitter, I think the combination of colours suits me to a T.  It has small, circular purple glitters and larger hexagonal glitters in turquoise, a purple again and a fuschia pink.  For a change, I love that it has no silver, sometimes I feel the silver makes glitters so shiny, it's hard to distinguish the other colours!

I took this picture to try and persuade my boss that we could totally get away with wearing nail polish to work when it matches our uniforms so perfectly!  She was impressed by the colour match however wearing nail polish to work is the stuff dreams are made of for us.  

These were definately my favourite colours from the Euro Centralé collection, and I have used these several times on fingers and toes.

Showing the colours in sunlight, the blue (Can't Find My Czechbook) is a really good aqua blue but not an in your face aqua, it was opaque in two coats.  The lilac 'You're Such A Buda-Pest' is a very light lilac and has a slight shimmer running through it (supposedly) but my eyes are missing that completely! I used two coats of this also and although the formula was a touch thinner than 'Czechbook' it was still easy to apply.

Do you have any favourite glitter combo's?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend Mani #6

It only seems like two seconds since I posted my last weekend mani and yet here we are on the 13th Saturday until Christmas! Yikes!

This weekend, I wasn't sure what I was in the mood for and I was sorting out my polishes and stumbled across a pairing I had been meaning to duet for ages. Both shades are from the O.P.I NYC ballet soft shades collection of 2012 and I think they go beautifully together.  

Meet 'my pointe exactly' topped with 'pirouette my whistle'

'My pointe exactly' is a very sheer, jelly grey colour.  To me it is the perfect grey, I just wish it was a wee bit more opaque.  The picture above shows three coats and still an awful lot of VNL (visible nail line) but that is kinda the intention of the soft shades collection.  I suppose it's like the tinted lip balm of the polish world.  I found this to be quite easy to use albeit a tad runnier than I'm used to.  

I ended up using five coats to get the opacity I wanted and so drying time was a killer and I did smudge a few :-( This is then a great time to pop on a glittery top coat to hide any mishaps! 

'Pirouette My Whistle' is a clear based polish with tiny silver micro glitter and soft, matte white hexagonal macro glitter in it.  The bigger glitters do tend to sink to the bottoms and sides of the bottle and so it needs a good shake before applying. 

 I love this jazzed up neutral nail, it is another example of an easy to wear combo that would be suitable for all ages. 

This combo has however one mnajor drawback... I now really, really want to buy Illamasqua's most talked about polish, 'Raindrops'.  I have a link to some swatches here, by 'The PolishAholic' as she always has great pics! 

Maybe it's living in the granite city but I really do have a soft spot for grey polishes and adding the hint of sparkle is just the cherry on top.  It is almost like the flecks in the granite of my home toon.

Do you have a favourite combo of polishes?

What do you think of this as a wintery mani?

Hugs,

Jodi