My Top 10 Mainstream Polishes of 2012!

Yes, it's the end of the year again. Why is it that as you get older the years just seem to go quicker!

So this year has been eventful for me in many ways, I got engaged, bought a house and got married! Nail wise I started a blog and got completely even more polish obsessive. I got into indies and increased my stash of HTF's.

So, I have been loving seeing everyone's posts about their yearly round-ups so I thought I'd do my own. This post is the first of two, today it's my pick of the best polishes from the mainstream brands this year. When I say this year I mean ones I have worn this year. I realise that these many not all have been released this year but they were new to me so here we go.....

In no particular order:


Deborah Lippman Across the Universe

Love this. I wore it when I went to try wedding dresses on and the girl in the shop was more interested in my polish than selling me a dress! I know there are several dupes but I love the Deborah Lippman bottle. This polish just makes me stare at it!

Nails Inc Baker Street

This was a 2012 release, in fact it was the polish Beyonce chose to wear after the birth of her baby Blue Ivy. It is bright and super gorgeous - I have worn it several times already!

OPI Goldeneye

I must confess, I bought a back up of this polish. It is beautiful and very unique in my huge collection. It is perfect for gradients like this and although I am yet to wear it on it's own, I know it will look beautiful.

Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo

I know this may seem like a slightly odd choice and I think it is older than 2012 but it is stunning. I took it on holiday to my friends wedding in Cyprus where I converted her sister into being a polosh obsessive, so now I have a real life polish friend. Can't be too bad eh?! I have OPI DS Original which is supposedly the same, I need to wear that one soon to compare.

NOPI A Million Sparkles

Again, a slightly left of field choice. This was my first foray into the world of bar glitter and I actually liked this a lot. It is super sparkly and I think it is unusual. I want to wear it over pink next time. This also reminds my of our trip to Vegas. I painted this over OPI Fly whilst in the queue to see the lions at The Mirage. People must ahve thought I was nuts!

OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me

This is from the Germany collection, which I think may have been OPI's best collection of the year. I hated this when I first saw it but it is unique and it grew on me. I will certainly wear it again. I also wore it to the Paralympic opening ceremony. Nice memories.

Kiko Peacock Green 401

I haven't used this polish on it's own yet but I have done several mani's with it. Really it's blue and not green but I have really enjoyed it. Nice application and the holo's from the Kiko Lavish Oriental collection are all worth a purchase.

Hits Mari Moon Unconventional

This was one of my early posts and I think it may have been the first multichrome polish I wore. I don't need to say much - look at the depth of this swatch. I just wish the bottle wasn't so small. I do remember I wore this the weekend I moved house and I caught my middle nail on a box under the bed, the corner tore off down the the top of my finger. A casulty of moving.

Zoya Aurora

This one I am still wearing as I am typing this. Stunning.

Number 1 Favourite mainstream polish of the year...... drum roll please......

Deborah Lippman Mermaids Dream

I know I didn't number these posts but this was my absolute favourite of the bunch. It is shimmery and pretty and gorgeous. Just look at it. The other great thing about this polish for me is that it was a truly unexpected gift from a dear friend, her husband chose it for me.

Anyway, I am off to start getting ready for the New Year. We're going to a 1950's rock and roll party and I've got a fab cherry printed dress. I'll show you tomorrow!

Have a very Happy New Year and be safe whatever you are doing tonight.
x

December Haul Post Alert!

It's a good one, or a very very bad one, depending on which camp you are in!

Now, I just want to say that I didn't actually purchase all of this in December, so of this took a little while to arrange, but nonetheless it did all arrive this month. The postman also just knocked on my door with an exciting package from Harlow and Co, but if I don't open it tomorrow it doesn't count towards this month does it??!!

Why oh why do I only have 10 fingernails?????

One thing you will see from looking at my haul posts is that I have certain brands that I keep buying from, almost monthly. I still want to support these brands but I have also been looking at Etsy a bit more, the problem with being in the UK is the shipping. Most Etsy stores start shipping at $7-10 for the first bottle, so of course I have to buy more to make it worth the cost. Next month will be the result of a few Etsy sprees, I don't want to miss out you see. I guess with shipping going up it'll only get worse in that respect for us international ladies.

Oh one more thing, I changed my name after I got married and Paypal took off my bank accounts till I could change my name. That was in October and I only just got everything changed and up to date with Paypal last week. So this just goes to show how resourceful I can be, even when I don't have access to my Paypal account. Maybe I should apply that elsewhere......

OK, so firstly we start with Candeo. One of my favourites. This is an example of the shipping rule, although I was very restrained here. I have wanted Dolce forever, well ever since I saw it on Christina's Let The Have Polish here back in April. However Melinda ran into problems with the glitters or something so stopped making it. When I saw she was restocking it I had to jump. The thing about this polish game, and something that probably keeps many of us hooked is that if you don't get it when you see it you may never be able to get it. Anyway, lemming aquired!

Now, typically I don't like magnets. I have super curvy nails and they don't work well but when OPI release something typically they do it properly and as these haven't even made an appearance in stores in the UK I just had to have them.

I've actually used this one and the magnet was great!

Everyone needs these!

I found an awesome blog called Coewless Nail Polish Blog which you can find here, I just became amazed at this lady's work, you should check it out. Well she made me need some Isadora's so my lovely Swedish polish friend was only too happy to oblige.

A timeless addition to my polish collection - one I never thought I'd own. China Glaze OMG

Got these from my amazing real life friend who isn't even into polish!

I had to order some topcoat and Maria was doing free international shipping, so it really would have been silly not to! I have wanted My Kinda Cool Aid forever!

I got these as a gift from a dear polish sister

Hare Polish, another weakness. I think I might use Holiday Hoopla for a Valentines mani.

Well everyone wanted this Dollish with the snow flakes didn't they. Now we just have to figure out how to get them out! Oh and Lacquistry Linda Lou. My mum's name was Linda and if it weren't for breast cancer she would be with me now, so another must. I'm saving this as her birthday mani 2013.

An awesome Secret Santa! I've worn both already

Ok, Ok, now on to the Lynn's. Firstly in my defence I bought these in September when they first came out. They just took a while to get to me!

And these..... well, I knew I needed the whole new collection so I went though all my unused skin care (yes, that's another collection) and took out a whole bunch of stuff to ebay. That actually paid for the whole lot, so technically it was free wasn't it!

Yes, these are LE's and YES they are beautiful! I am so very very lucky!

When you see Illamasquas on sale you gotta grab them right? Oh and the RBL Aqua Lily, I almost bought it from the RBL site but I faffed around over the shipping cost and it sold out. So, I ended up buying it from a lovely lady who had buyers remorse over backups. Yes I probably paid the same or more that I would have directly but it is worth it. I don't have to worry about mising out now.

Peacock Feathers!!! Do I need say more? This one has a great story which I will tell when I wear it and do the post. Pshiiit was an awesome extra from my fabulous swap buddy.

More Australian awesomeness!

My pre-order from Jindie Nails and a great extra too. Jen is lovely but I might have to wait till spring to wear this one.

A gift from my Avon lady - even she knows I'm in to nails. Oh and Sugar Skulls - it's fun what can I say?

These are probably the only ones I do feel a bit guilty for. They were supposed to be stocking fillers for my stepdaughters (they had a yummy lipgloss too). But I figured they probably wouldn't know the difference between Butter London or Barry M so........ these stayed with me. The lipgloss tastes of Vanilla Cupcakes too!

Lastly, another awesome Secret Santa. You won't see me post many Zoyas becuase we can't get them easily in the UK so this was extra thoughtful. I'm off to the US in Feb/March so I think I better place an order to pick up when I get there.

Well that's it. I think I better go make some room for these babies!
x

Zoya Aurora

I'm lucky enough to be in several (ahem!) polish groups in Facebook and this year participated in a couple of Secret Santas. I have always been incredibly lucky with all of my swaps and such like and these were no different.

The first Secret Santa was in my birthday group and I used the polishes to do this mani. The second was in a group I have been in since my polish obsession started. I got a ton of stuff, candies, candles, pens, nail wraps lipgloss AND 3 Zoyas. I love that because it is so thougthful, my girl knew I can't easily get Zoyas here so that's what she got me. It really was like getting a stocking to open. I really have found so much kindness and thoughfulness in the polish world, it really astounds me sometimes. In this crazy world a little bit of kindness can be so heartening.

Anyway, back to the polish. This is Zoya Aurora from the Ornate collection. I actually gasped at it's beauty when I opened it and I knew which one I had to wear first.

This is 2 effortless coats. The formula is fantastic and it is simply a beautiful scattered holo. I used a coat of HK Girl topcoat for this mani and it did not affect the holloness one bit.

Drool.........

x

Hare Polish Bisbee

I know I am late with this...... I was lucky enough to score it from Llarowe what seems like ages ago, I'm sure it was before my wedding in October. But alas it sat in my untried waiting to be used. I thought it was quite Christmassy so out it came!

For this mani I used 2 coats of Hare Bisbee and a coat of HK Girl Topcoat. The formula on this was great, very smooth and easy to apply. I did find within a day I got 2 chips which never normally happens, I'm not quite sure why but I think at least one of them was akward placement of a larger glitter.

Interestingly although this is a jelly I didn't get any shrinkage like I did with the Emily De Molly yesterday. I guess maybe Emily isn't HK Girl's favourire polish.

I've started thinking about my favourire polishes of the year so I may do a post on that, I've been really enjoying seeing what everyone else has picked. I'm also working on my NY Resolutions, not long to go now.........

Until tomorrow, enjoy!

Look at all that glitter goodness!

x

Emily De Molly Take That Garter Off

So today I have a custom which is one of 3 which was kindly gifted to me for my wedding by my awesome friend Nicole. These were my first, and so far only Emily De Molly's, but they certainly won't be my last! The other one I have worn so far is Happily Ever After which you can see here.

So, I thought still being in the spirit of Christmas this would be a festive polish to wear. Take That Garter Off is a mix of red and pink glitters in a dark red jelly base. This mani was perfect when I went to bed but when I woke up I had shrinkage at the cuticle so here I have patched it up, you can still see a little, especially on the middle finger sadly. This was the first time I have had shrinkage with HK Girl topcoat but I'll keep an eye on that. Maybe it doesn't like Jelly's? Maybe I wasn't careful enough with it on this occasion?

So for this mani I used 3 coats of Take That Garter Off and a topcoat of HK Girl.

I adore this polish, it really is squishy and has such a depth to it.

I need more Emily De Molly's in my life for sure.

Thanks so much Nicole. x

It's like a jelly soup!

And look who was watching me when I took the pictures.Why do cats always like to lay on something??

x