Glitter! GLITTER! Mwahahahaha!

Sorry I've been terrible at blogging over the last two weeks, I've just been so busy! Today I have some photos of the nails I wore for my in-laws ruby anniversary party last weekend. I think these are my favourite nails so far.

I took inspiration for these nails from these inverse glitter nails by Narmai over at PiggieLuv, and the dress I wore to the party, which was black with blocks of a predominantly blue and red pattern and an asymmetric collar.

I started by painting a coat of L.A.Colors Base Coat onto short square false nails, followed by one coat of N.Y.C. Water Street Blue, one of my favourite blue shades and the only polish I used for these nails that cost more than £1 (it cost £2.49 for 2 bottles at Superdrug). Once that was dry I started with the glitters. First was a coat of Jess Sea Breeze (Poundland exclusive), a mix of small square silver holographic and turquoise glitter with turquoise micro glitter. After that I used a coat of Technic Mermaid (Bodycare or lovethymakeup.com), a mix of medium and small holographic turquoise hex glitter which I adore so much that I've almost used up a whole bottle in six months. I followed with a coat of Pretty Graffiti Effect polish (available in Poundland and Poundworld) in the confusingly named shade 'Blue' which is a mix of medium sized red and turquoise hex glitter and gold and red bar glitter. To finish of the mass of glitter, I used another coat of Technic Mermaid.

Once all the glitter was dry I painted the inverse design using a striping brush and Jess Midnight, my favourite super-opaque budget black polish. I forgot to photograph this polish along with the other bottles. I finished everything with a coat of L.A.Colors Top Coat.

I am loving the L.A.Colors top and base coats at the moment. The base coat really seems to extend wear and the top coat is glossy, chip resistant and applies more smoothly than my usual more expensive top coat. I took the above photo of the nails after they had been worn all night, bashed around a lot (I'm not used to having longer nails!) and then pried off while a little drunk, and the only wear they show is at the base from when I removed them. I hadn't anticipated that the Nailene adhesive nail tabs I used were going to be quite as strong and stubborn as they were! I highly recommend them if you want to wear falsies for a few days but don't want to damage your nails with glue.

I loved wearing these nails. They are so glittery and full of holographic sparkle, yet they are still quite sophisticated looking and the colours matched my dress so well. What do yo think? Have you tried any inverse nail designs?

The Weekly Haul - Pretty glitters and P.S. Matte Top Coat

Today I'm going to do some reviews and swatches of my new polishes. It's almost as if this is a proper nail blog! I'm planning to make this a weekly feature, but this week I went over my usual £2 polish budget and had a bit of a splurge (I found three forgotten pound coins in a jeans pocket when I was loading the washing machine, woohoo!) so I'm going to split the polishes over two posts.

I was excited to discover that my local Poundland has relocated to bigger premises and now has a whole aisle of nail stuff. The selection of discounted big-brand polishes was uninspiring this week (it seems every brand has its own discontinued shades of sickly pale yellow and drab olive) but I did spot a whole rack of polishes by a budget brand called Pretty. I've seen this brand in pound shops before but never such a wide selection. Most of them were special effect polishes (concrete, denim, crackle, matte) and there were some sets containing polish and caviar or flocking powder, but what really caught my eye were the weird and wonderful glitters.

The first bottle I picked up was Graffiti Effect in Blue. It is a glitter topper containing a generous mix of medium sized red and turquoise-blue hex glitter and small gold and red bar glitter. Here I have swatched it over Rimmel Blue Vogue:

Wow! I really like how this polish looks. I've been lusting after Rocket from the Models Own Fireworks collection for quite a while but this just satisfied that glitter craving for a fraction of the price. The consistency is a bit goopy and it dries quite slowly, but there is plenty of glitter in this polish so no fishing around for bits.

My second Pretty purchase was Scatter Effect in shade Purple/Multi which is a very pale greyish lilac jelly base with red, pink and turquoise-blue medium sized hex glitter. In the bottle it looked a bit like an untextured version of White Barry M Sequins with different coloured glitter. My thumb, middle and little fingers have four coats of the Pretty polish, on my index and ring fingers I used three coats over Technic Pretty Pastels in Mr Blue Sky (a very pale grey-blue available for £1 at Bodycare).

At first I didn't really I like this polish on my nails. It looked like they were covered in gloopy white glue and glitter like a nursery school craft project. The first thing I noticed when applying it was the smell. The other Pretty polish smelled a bit strong, but this one is really offensive, worse than any other polish I own. At least the ingredients lists show that both of the Pretty polishes are 3-free.

I soldiered on through the smell and found that the base of this polish is very sheer. For the first two coats I didn't think that it was going to change the colour of my nails at all, but after a thicker third and fourth coat my nail line was only just visible. If you don't have a spare few hours to wait for layers of polish to dry I'd definitely suggest layering fewer coats over a pale colour instead. There is a good amount of glitter in the polish, but it does require a bit of smooshing around the nail to get an even distribution.

The thing that changed my mind about this Scatter Effect polish was actually my third purchase of the week. My local Primark doesn't sell many polishes, but I had heard that the larger branches do, so I had a look in the huge Manchester store. I'm so glad I did because alongside some rather lovely looking £1 polishes I finally found what I had thought was just a mythical creature, a £1 matte top coat! For months I have been trying to find such a thing with no success.

I tried out this P.S. Matte Top Coat over the Scatter Effect and have decided that this is the best £1 polish purchase I have ever made. I love this top coat - it has turned a polish I didn't like into magic space candy! This top coat makes bad polish look good! It's a miracle!

Next post I will review some more P.S. polishes from Primark.

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