China Glaze Poinsettia

Time for another untried and today was London Marathon day!

My lovely boyfriend was running the marathon so I know what effort goes into training and preparing, it's an amazing acheivement. I wanted to do a mani to support this occasion but I only thought about this the day before and we have been moving into our new house so I really haven't had a lot of time to plan it.

One of my lovely birthday girls suggested that I use the London Marathon Logo which I thought was a great idea.

I started off with China Glaze Poinsettia. I know this isn't a complete untried to me as I used it in my Cadbury's Creme Egg mani (here) but I've never used it for a full mani and I really think it deserves it.

This is a gorgeous true red creme which I think is actually quite jelly like. It is a bit more sheer than most cremes and has a beautiful squishiness and the shine typical of jellies.

This is 2 coats with NYC topcoat:

I then wanted to add some hearts. It got really late and I tried a few different plates when I settled on this one. It actually looks more like a Valentine mani than a Marathon mani but it was cute anyway. I used Konad special white polish and Red Angel plate 101. To give it a little sparkle I then topped it off with Northern Lights Silver Hologram Topcoat.

I'm only a newbie at stamping so I think that also qualifies for another untried.

I don't want to take this mani off but it's Monday and work (non-polish wearing) beckons. My boyfriend completed the marathon (yay and congrats!) so I guess it served it's purpose, next time I'll have to try and think of these things further in advance!!

Have a look at what untrieds my other birthday girls have been using:

Helen at Nail Newbie

Zoe at Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Alyssa C at Polish Junkie Ninja

Ashley at One Nail To Another

Lexi at Finger Painted

Alyssa B at Fancy Phalanges

Nicole at Epitome of Superficiality

HITS Mari Moon Chameleon

As part of the 'Nail Newbie and Friends Untried Month' this is my second post, it's been a really busy week so yay for the start of the weekend! I'm so excited I get the keys to my new house and my boyfriend is also running the London Marathon on Sunday - I'm going to attempt a supportive mani so let's see what I can come up with. Anyway, on to today's post......

Firstly this week I got an amazing swap with a Brazilian polish friend. I'm going to do a blog post about it but I need some light to take some good pictures so it'll have to wait because the weather has been rubbish here this week.

Anyway, even though these are new untrieds and haven't been sitting unloved in my stash I had to use one of them straight away. I chose HITS Mari Moon Chameleon.

This polish is just gorgeous. It is a green polish with flashes of purple and shows itself to be a green gold in certain lights.

It does it's best duochrome shifting in the natural light where these pictures were taken. This is 3 coats using Poshe topcoat:

In artificial light Chameleon shows up as quite a vivid green and it does have some shimmer as you can a little in the picture below:

In true Chameleon style  in some lights it is also a green gold too:

These polishes are quite small at 6ml but are well worth it, my only complaint is that the name of the polish rubs off the handle of the bottle and so I'm going to have a hard time remembering what all the names are.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a Brazilian polish buddy then you can get these online at Llarowe or Ninja Polish.

Have a look at what untrieds my other birthday girls have been using:

Helen at Nail Newbie
Zoe at Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Alyssa C at Polish Junkie Ninja

Ashley at One Nail To Another

Lexi at Finger Painted

Alyssa B at Fancy Phalanges

Nicole at Epitome of Superficiality

A-England Princess Tears

Untried Month is here!

Ok so one of the lovely ladies in my birthday group, Helen at Nail Newbie, came up with the idea of an untired month - the idea being to help us all get through the huge mountain of untrieds we all have!

So, between the 14th April and 14th May I will only be wearing my untrieds. Now, I almost didn't join in on this because at my work for half the week I can't wear polish which makes me sad, but then again for 4 days a week I can so YAY!

The first untried I have is A-England Princess Tears which I received from my lovely birthday group friend Tracy. I was super excited to receive this as I have a few other A-Englands and their formula is just amazing.

Princess Tears is from the A-England Legend collection. This is the second collection that the lovely Adina has released and it is awesome. This polish is a liliac scattered holo and I think it has a bit of a dupchrome going on. In some lights the pink is more noticable, in others it's more grey. It's a beautiful polish and I liked it enough to wear it for 3 days!

For this mani I used my normal base of OPI Nail Envy Maintenence and because I had just buffed my nails in an attempt to de-stain them I also used a thicker protective base coat which was Leighton Denny Under Cover.

This was 2 easy coats of Princess Tears, it has the same beautiful formula as the other A-Englands and a topcoat of Poshe, which didn't appear to affect the holo at all.

These pictures were taken in the sunshine:

As we in the UK don't often get sunshine to show off our holo's I thought you might want to see it in the shade too:

And in artifical light:

This is what your bottle should look like:

A-Englands can be purchased from the A-England website http://a-england.co.uk/ where i believe they offer free worldwide shipping!

Please have a look at some other untrieds from my birthday group ladies - they do awesome swatches:

Helen at Nail Newbie

Zoe at Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Alyssa C at Polish Junkie Ninja

Ashley at One Nail To Another

Lexi at Finger Painted

Alyssa B at Fancy Phalanges

Nicole at Epitome of Superficiality

Deborah Lippman Across The Universe

So today I have on this AMAZING polish which I had lemming for quite a while and finally got in a swap with one of my lovely polish friends.

Deborah Lippman Across The Universe is a really beautiful polish which consists of blue and green hex glitter with tiny blue glitter, all suspended in a navy jelly base. I have layered it here over one coat Color Club Blue-topia. I actually applied 2 coats of Across The Universe but really it made little difference to the effect so next time I would save that polish and only use one.

I thought this polish would dry gritty but it was actually very smooth so all I needed was 1 coat of Poshe topcoat. I absolutely love it and will definitely wear it again. Deborah Lippman isn't the cheapest brand but I really do think it's worth it, if you don't own this polish I think it needs to go on your wishlist!

Enjoy.....

Barry M Pastel Skittles

It's a national holiday here in the UK on Easter Monday so with another day off work I thought I'd show you my second Easter mani.

I got my first ever Barry M's (I know, I know!) from my awesome birthday group girls, so I have used some of them and borrowed a few from my friend who has quite the selection - I'm going to have to get some  more for myself - all the colours are awesome!

I've never worn skittles before so thought I'd try them but I needed something to update them a bit - so I added some polka dots. I really liked this mani, it felt very spring like, shame the weather didn't match.

This is 3 coats of each base colour with a coating of Poshe:

And here's what I used:

As the Easter bunny has been and spring is evading us I think I might need a new mani tomorrow....

Cadbury Creme Eggs - Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

So the other day I saw a blogger post her Cadbury Creme Egg mani and I fell in love with it. Given my love for Creme Eggs I just had to try it!

Now I would just like to make it clear that this was unfortunately not my idea but I found it on the Cosmetic Cupcake blog, she does some awesome swatches and if you haven't had a look at her blog you should, you can find it here: http://www.cosmeticcupcake.com/

Anyway, so I thought I'd try and change it up a tiny bit. I matted the base and put a layer of Northern Lights Gold holographic topcoat on top of the egg. I'm not great with nail art but I think it turned out pretty good, hopefully it will give me the confidence to try nail art a bit more!

These are the polishes I used for this mani:
First my usual base coat of 2 coats of Nail Envy Maintenence
China Glaze Poinsettia
GOSH Deep Purple
White Nail Art Striper
Miss Sporty Taxi
GOSH Matte Topcoat
Northern Lights Gold Holographic Topcoat

I used tape on one half of the nail to paint the red part first, waitied for it to dry completely then taped over the red to paint the purple and then filled in the join with the striper. I actually think it looks pretty cool and I had lots of compliments on it just on its own:

Happy Easter, hope you get to eat lots of Creme Eggs. Mmmmmmmmm :-)

Sephora It's Time To Rock!

I got this polish sent to me in a swap from my lovely friend in France, she rocks! It is a teeny tiny bottle (5ml) but it is oh so pretty!


This is a hard polish to describe, it's not grey, or purple or blue but it has all of those colours in it with glass flecks. It is really subtle and slightly duochrome. I really wish they made it in big bottles.....


I've used my usual base coat of 2 coats of OPI Nail Envy Maintenance, 2 coats of polish and coat of Poshe to top it off. I really tried to be careful to cap the tips and cover the polish at the cuticles after the last time and I was pleased to get next to no shrinkage.

These pictures were taken in the indoor light:

Outside with natural lighting:

Look how cute the bottle is!!!!

Sinful Colors Cinderella

Sinful Colors Cinderella

I was lucky enough to pick up this pretty when I went to the US last month, and as you all know there has been a lot of hype over this polish and I have to say I can see why!
SC Cinderella is a very pretty baby blue which has subtle but noticable pink glass fleck throughout the polish.

Cinderella is a pretty sheer formula, this is 3 coats:

I painted my nails right before I went to bed and topped them off with a coat of Poshe topcoat, look what I woke up to.... shrinkage aroud the cuticle..... :-(

And around the tips....

But, even considering the shrinkage it is still a pretty polish and a nice colour to wear during National Autism Awareness which is this month. So I'm sure I'll be posting more blue mani's.....

If you want to keep an eye out for it, this is what it looks like:

I think next time I would use a slightly less fast drying topcoat, I had to change this mani after one day because I just can't stand the shrinkage.

Any tips o avoiding this would be much appreciated!