31 Day Challenge - #11 Stripes, and my best purchase yet

A sober one today ladies, I am sure you are all glad to hear.

For the stripes challenge I decided to go for big blocky stripes, not thin ones and deffo not striping tape which just seems to repel itself from my fingers like fashion sense from a chav. Just 'had' to use one of my new essence twins again, shucks its a hard life. Therefore today is the first outing for Bella and Edward. They are so lovely. Perfect application and work so well together. ( Can I repeat my plea for anyone out there with any of these, or access to any of them to let me know as I would love the full set, esp Thelma and Louise, Carrie and Mr Big)

Here are my lovely pictures.

Here are the lovely folk who are also taking part in the challenge.

Now onto my purchase of the year., I heard people saying great things about this nail varnish remover, so decided to give it a go. It is absolutely fantastic. It even removes glitter without any harsh rubbing and scrubbing. Proper chuffed I am! So if anyone has a Bourjois distributor near them, grab it now ( I got mine from Boots for £4.99.

BFF Challenge : Music

I struggled with this challenge, mainly because I wanted to do something more than just a stamp. But I was saved because my new nail varnishes arrived and they included a duo called Romeo and Julia.

You may know from my last blog I have been feeling a little introspective at the moment and the varnishes reminded me of a song my Dad loved when I was little. It isn't the best song in the world, but just hearing it makes me remember happier times. The song is Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits, and here are the pictures of my manicure. ( and a cheeky link to the video)

Comparison Time! - NYC Lights-Camera-Glitter vs Essence Prince Charming

From the outset I should probably explain that I don't care about dupes very much. I get a kick from owning a certain something or other. Luckily for me my obsession with polish doesn't just involve expensive brands, so these were two quite cheap alternatives.

Here are all the swatches I took, NYC is always on the left, Prince Charming is always on the right. The swatches are
- 1 layer over black
- 1 layer over white
- 1 layer on its own
- 2 layers on their own

 Some of the next pictures are slightly blurry, but it meant that you could see that the smaller glitters were slightly reflective and very pretty.

One Coat over Black, NYC left, Prince Charming right.

One coat over White, NYC  left, Prince Charming  right

One Coat on its own, NYC left, Prince Charming Right

Two Coats on their own, NYC left, Prince Charming right.

I think the only real difference in the polishes is that NYC has some pale pink hexes in it, but they aren't loads of them, and the holographic glitter pieces in Snow White are slightly larger, but there are less of them.

MSE Challenge Week 6 & 31 Day Challenge Day 6 - Black and White

Yesterday was a lucky day. Firstly my friend came back to work. This was an advantage in so many ways. Firstly, she does the same job as me so my workload got a little easier, Secondly she brought my nail mail home with her. Woo Woo! Thirdly, I don't like talking to people about 'stuff' and will tend to just keep it inside, so with everything that has been happening at the moment it is great being able to talk to someone who understands and trusts.

But no one wants to hear about that, so lets hit the nails. I am a lucky lass that these two collided as I was knackered yesterday. I was so knackered that I didn't realise they collided until I came to take the first one off to prepare to do black and white again. What a tard!

Anyway, I went for a bit of a retro pattern from a BBM stamp, and used

Color Club - French Tip White
Konad - Special Polish - Black

I really really loved this, although it doesn't come out as good in the pictures as it looked in real life.

The other people taking part in this challenge can be found at the following web address for the MSE'ers

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3779621

and are the following people for the 31 day challenge.




Now onto the exciting stuff.

Nail mail, woo hoo. I am lucky enough that my friend's parents live in Torremelinos, so I could have some Essence and Catrice delivered to them which where stupid expensive to post to me in the UK. I am forever grateful to them for accepting the parcels ( Although I have heard they were bemused about the whole thing)

So here are the pics, and the names of the polishes

Essence Twins
Romeo and Julia
Bella and Edward
Chuck and Blair
Gabriella and Troy

Catrice
Absolutely Chinchilly
Greys Kelly
Londons Weather Forecast
Aretha's R-E-S-Pink
Raspberry Fields Forever
Sold Out Forever
Khaki Perry

Catrice

Rusty But Sexy

Salmon and Garfunkel

Essence Color and Go

Time for Romance

Make it Golden

Essence Snow White

Evil Queen

Prince Charming ( I think this is a dupe for a NYC polish)

The Huntsman

Catrice Million Styles

Million Dollar Baby

If anyone has any more of the twins they don't want, please let me know as I would love the full set!

Essence Circus Confetti vs Models Own Hedkandi Ibiza Mix

Very short blog, but thought I would compare the two after a little discussion in ManiMommies Swap n Shop. I have had Ibiza Mix in my collection for a while now, and I absolutely adore it. But when we recently to Tenerife I picked up quite a few Essence polishes, including Circus Confetti.

 Must admit I probably wouldn't have brought it if I wasn't having a nose bleed in the shop as I thought it was very very similar to Ibiza Mix. But hey, a girl can never have too much polish. So, in this little comparison

I have used - 1 coat of each on two swatch circles - 1 coat of each over two coats of NYC City Blackout - 2 coats of each on two swatch circles. Here are the polishes

Here is a picture of all the swatches I did, the order from left to right is
- Two coats of Ibiza Mix
- Two coats of Circus Confetti
- One coat of Ibiza Mix over City Blackout
- One coat of Circus Confetti over City Blackout
- One coat of Ibiza Mix
- One coat of Circus Confetti

Ibiza Mix on the left, Circus Confetti on the right, one coat of each

One coat of each over NYC City Blackout. Ibiza Mix on the left, Circus Confetti on the right.

Two coats of each, Ibiza Mix on the left, Circus Confetti on the right.

Things to consider... My Ibiza Mix was half full, therefore the glitter wasn't as full coverage as I would normally expect, Ibiza Mix stinks, where as Circus Confetti doesn't. The main difference appears to be that the speckles in Ibiza Mix are bigger, but Circus Confetti appears to have slightly patterned hexes in it.

Let me know what you think.

BFF Challenge 4 - Book Covers

Well, another Saturday, another challenge.

This one was to be inspired by a book cover. I had all these fancy ideas of what I wanted to do, but then I got carried away wanting to do a ruffle manicure as I have seen so many of them recently and never tried one myself. So, I decided to make the theme fit the manicure :) Is that cheating?

So here is my version of  '50 shades of grey' Although it actually is five (shhhhh)

For this manicure I have used....

Essence Colour and Go - Got a Secret
Revlon - Silver Screen
Revlon - Black with Envy
Accessorize - Metallized - Lolita
Milani - One Coat Glitter - Silver Dazzle.

To make up for the ruffles I did polka dots on my right hand which make their premiere on my blog!

Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

For Sarah Diamond - Bright Blue Sky

This is a special post for a special lady, who is having a bit of a hard time at the moment. I suggested that some of the girls on PolishAholics Anonymous do a manicure with her in mind. So, here is mine.

I decided I wanted something to show her there is a bright blue future out there, no matter what might happen.

So I started with a base of Sinful Colours 'Gorgeous' and added a couple of coats of Essence Special Effect Topper in 'Glorious Aquarius'. I love this topper so much because it isn't quite blue, and it isn't quite green, but what it does add is little sparkles of copper which are just wonderful. So, to make the sparkles stand out I used my Leighton Denny Matte Topcoat which is lush.

Hopefully Sarah will like the results, and honey, I hope you are feeling better soon

The weekends here, so let it be grey, and sparkly

Trying to go out of my comfort zone again with this one, as I NEVER wear grey nail varnish. However, I am quite chuffed with the results.

I used two coats of Essence Got a Secret and one coat of Color Club Backstage Pass. Must admit I am quite chuffed with the results. Backstage pass is lovely, it is silver, purple and pale pink hexes in a clear jelly. Om Nom Nom!

I wish I was a pretty peacock!

So, challenges over, I get to do my nails the way I want to do my nails. So it takes me forever to decide.

But, I wanted to use one of my new polishes, so plumped for Essence colour n go shade 78 'blue addicted' this consists of a deep blue jelly with tiny blue glitter speckles and green and blue hexes. I really really love how this looks but for me it needed a very strong base coat. So, I have plumped for Models Own Emerald black, which is about the darkest green I have ever seen in my little life! But, to make the glitter stand out better I decided to use a matte top coat from Rimmel.