London Calling by Color Club

London Calling is one of those shades that I would never have picked up out of choice but as I watch myself type I can’t help but stare at the colour and be slightly memorised.

Nails of the Week: Color Club Mod in Manhatten

I’m in the depths of revision at the moment but I had to take some time out to sort out my nails, after all a break helps with productivity right?

Mod in Manhattan is one of the Color Club Wanderlust shades that I received in this month’s Birchbox.

I said in my post that neither of the colours I received are ones I would purchase myself. But this week I wanted something bright but clean — something that wouldn’t distract me too much in exams — and Mod in Manhattan is just that.

It is described as "a brilliant off-white that represents the glow of the mega-watt city at night.” But in my eyes colour is more of a cream, and in some lights borders on looking peachy.

The shade is chic and a nice twist on nude, it works well with any outfit and it is a colour I can see myself turning to a lot this summer.

The polish also doubles up as a base coat for the brighter polishes in the collection and I expect that it would work as a base to bring any bright colour to life.

To application needed two coats to be fully opaque in two coats and it has a sheen finish. It is one of those polishes that needs you to be very good at applying with one or two swipes as it starts to dry quickly and can smear. But I have been wearing it for 3 days so far and it has remained chip free.

Overall I am very impressed with Color Club and the shade, and I may even try the OPI colour I received in the May box in the hope that will be a pleasant surprise too. After the exams I’ll do something crazy and test out that London Calling green!

Color Club The Wanderlust Collection is £10 and exclusive to Birchbox.

Let me know, good or bad, what nail polish shade have you been surprised by?

Nails of the week: Barry M Lychee and Striplac

Shockingly this is my first nail post of the year and for that you get me talking about two quite different polishes in one post as compensation.

 The first is one that I *borrowed* from my little sister, Barry M’s Hi Shine gell effect polish in the shade Lychee.

Lychee is a light nude shade and although I think this would be better suited for someone with a lighter skin tone than mine, it still works as an every day, subtle colour. The application is slightly tricky, you need two thin coats for the polish to be opaque and there is the potential for streaks because it begins to dry almost immediately.

At this point I've been wearing it for 4 days and I'm still chip free — Barry M are usually good for their wear time anyway but this is particularly impressive.

The gelly polishes cost £3.99, the same price as the regular range and can be found at Boots, Superdrug and online.

On my accent nail there is something different all together. If you follow me on Twitter you would have seen that last week I tweeted an image of Allesandro striplac.

Striplac is similar to Shellac, with two major differences. It is a home system and the polish can be peeled off.

At the event we all had the chance to apply the polish to one nail ourselves. The application was simple, a UV base and top coat was applied in between two layers of polish, curing the polish with a UV light in between each layer.

The polish lasts for up to 10 days at which point the polish is meant to peel at the edges and you can strip it off. I was told that because the polish is coming away from the nails there is no chance of doing damage but that if you tried to peel it off before this point then you could.

I have been wearing the polish for 9 days now and it has just started to come away at the edges.

Striplac comes as a kit including a UV-LED lamp, a red peel off polish, a UV/LED base and top coat, cleansing pads, 4-step file, cuticle pusher and instructions and costs £129. Additional shades of polish cost £15.99.

If you are someone who regularly gets Shellac or any other type of salon nails done you would very quickly get your moneys worth out of this system. It wouldn't be the best option for me but I would definitely choose this over regular Shellac when I next go away purely for how convenient it would be to peel the polish off rather than go back to the salon to remove it.

What's your view on peel off polish? Or will you be sticking to good old Barry M?

Nails of the week: Rimmel Rose Libertine

I haven’t had a nail post for a few weeks having struggled with a new brand that chips before I’ve had a chance to take a picture…more on that in another post though.

So I decided to go back to a brand that hasn’t disappointed me so far.

Rose Libertine from Rimmel is a pretty, muted rose, pink shade. It is bright and summery without being garish, which makes it suitable for an office environment if you are someone who needs to be conscious of these things.

The polish dried pretty quickly, it doesn’t live up to the 60 second claim (or the one coat claim) and needed two coats to become opaque. It is also worth mentioning that I really like the brush, I have found it much easier to paint the edge of my nails without also painting my fingers too.

Four days on and there is only a slight bit of wear at the tips, which is perfect considering I always try to stretch my polish to last for a week.

Nails of the week: Nail wraps

My nails were in bad condition after using nail glue a few weeks ago. Polish just highlighted the damage so nail wraps seemed to be the perfect solution to make my nails look presentable while they recovered.

To be honest, as much as I like the designs of nail wraps at £6.99 or more a packet, I would rather buy a bottle of polish! But, I did manage to find these Girls with Attitude nail wraps at Savers for £1.99…bargain!

They are really easy and quick to use. The pack contained 12 stickers in total, 6 of each size. All you do is pick the one that closest matches the size of your nail and stick it on, then using a nail file, file off the excess wrapping by using the file at a 90 degree angle. Because there were only 6 sizes available I did end up using two wraps on one of my nails to get complete coverage.

The whole process didn’t take more than about 10 minutes and with the exception of one nail I didn’t have any issues with the wrap creasing or bubbles forming. A few times I applied the wrap in the wrong position and it was really easy to peal off and reposition.

The wraps lasted just under two weeks — I had to remove them before an interview otherwise I would have expected them to last much longer. The photograph above was taken after 5 days and you can see a slight bit of wearing at the tips but this was barely noticeable.

I am now on the hunt for more wraps at Savers. I think these will be ideal to use while on holiday as a much cheaper and less damaging alternative to shellac.

So, nail wraps, yay or nay?

Nails of the week: Rimmel caramel cupcake

It is very rare that I wear remove nail polish only to reapply the same shade again. But that is exactly what  I have done with a new polish I picked up from Rimmel called “Caramel cupcake”.

I’ve gone off wearing colours on my nails recently, I think it is probably due to the lack of good weather the past two months, but at the same time I don’t like the look of my bare nails.

Caramel cupcake is a great nude shade, from a distance it almost blends in with my skin tone — I’m not quite sure if that is a good thing!

Unfortunately I don’t love the formulation of the polish, although it does dry very quickly — I didn’t test to see if it was actually 60 seconds — it does look slightly streaky and one coat doesn’t give the level of opacity that I like.

That being said I still love the colour and I am now on the look out for the perfect nude polish.

Easter inspired nails

Just a quick post to show you my Easter inspired nails this Easter Sunday.

I used Barry M’s matt white shade all over the nails and let them dry completely before using manicure guides to paint parts of my nail in shade lemon icecream. Annoyingly, when pulling away the guides the line did not come away clean so I used silver glitter to cover this.

The finish isn’t as neat as I would have liked and the white shade I own is too streaky, but I like the idea in principal and will hopefully perfect the technique in another post!

Back to shellac – Tropix mix

In preparation for my holiday I decided to re-apply Shellac to my nails, which should hopefully last me the three weeks I am away.

I wanted to go for a neutral but bright colour to suit the weather. The salon I visited had a few swatches but two points worth bearing in mind when selecting your colour. The first is that the bottle looks nothing like the colour and the second is that the majority of swatches are done on the clear nail wheels, which again are not representative of the colour since they don’t take into account the colour of your nailbed. 

The colour I chose is a mix of colours Tropix and Ice Coral, with two coats of each applied. Tropix is a very bright orange/coral shade, adding Ice coral on top makes the shade completely different and tones down the brightness, the colour has a sheer finish and adds what looks like shimmer to the tropix colour, which is more matte.

I added the second coat to tone down the colour further and ended up with a nice peach-coral shade and finally the top coat gives the amazing shine, which was my favourite feature of the manicure last year. I have pictures of how well the manicure grew out last year and I expect this to be exactly the same.

Snow nails

When the snow fell and I was all snuggled up at home I decided to attempt a snow inspired nail look.

I even attempted an artsy photo! 

I have not attempted much nail art but decided to try a faded look. Instead of using a series of colours and blending them into one another, I used an old sponge to add white to the tips of my nails.

I used an old blue No7 polish as the base, which has a sheer finish and worked well for this look. For the sponging I used Barry M white, which I placed directly on the sponge and blotted off the excess so that only there was only a light transfer of colour onto the nail. I concentrated the colour only on the tips and tried to place more colour at the edge of the nail compared to where the white met the blue colour in order to look like snow fall on my nails!

To finish of the look I applied one coat of glitter polish.

I am hoping to attempt more nail art in the future, what would you like to see next?

Barry M croc effect

Just a quick nail post to show what I have been wearing the last few days on my nails. I decided to go back to the croc effect combining it this time with Barry M’s mushroom underneath.

I have spoken about the application of this previously so there isn’t really too much to add in this post, other than I really like the look when using muted colours underneath.

Next time I sport this look I intend to opt for a neon/bright shade…. any recommendations?

Nails of the week: Blue magnetism

Just a quick post to show you my nails this week. I picked up the blue magnetism nail polish from Fashionista before Christmas and have only just got round to trying it out.

I have a previous post on how to apply the magnetic polish so this is just a swatch post.

I really like the shade of blue, it is a nice denim shade and I have worn it to work without feeling like it is too flashy. I have noticed in very dim light that the shade can look green! Not a bad thing, just an observation.

When I have applied the magnetic polishes in the past I have tried to be a bit of a perfectionist with the application. This time round I was quick and thoughtless about it and it worked out really well.

As with before 2 days in and it is wearing and chipping, luckily the angle I took the photograph at doesn’t show this! When I do finally get my hands on the Seche Vite top coat this will be one of the first polishes I try it on.

Christmas nails

I really struggled deciding what to do for my Christmas nails…… but after testing out at least 8 different colours of polish and various designs this is what I settled on….

I used Fashionista red magnetism nail polish on four of my nails, but added my favourite red nail polish from Beauty UK on top. Now I know this will probably seem counter-productive, but the result is the beautiful red colour you see with the slight magnetised effect coming through, adding a nice depth to the colour and a more subtle effect on the nails. The picture doesn’t really do the look justice, but I am really pleased with the result.

I decided to add an accent nail, which was a classic French tip, red line and flower nail sticker.

Finally, I also ordered and received my first ever Glossy box on Christmas eve, but waited until Christmas day to open it as a gift from myself (sad I know!) Even though I had done my nails on Christmas eve, the magnetised polish had already started to chip so I decided to cover up the worst offending nail with the Deborah Lippman red glitter polish. The polish applied really well and dried quickly

I love the end result. I like that at first glance you don’t really see anything special in the way of design, since the colours compliment each other so well, but a closer look lets you see all the detail. The only shame is that the wear and chipping started after a day!

So what do you think? I want to try doing more nail art and mixing of colours. Please share your favourite Christmas and non-Christmas designs with me below.

Nails of the week: Lilac foil by Barry M

This week was the turn of the lilac foil effect polish from Barry M. This is currently limited edition in Superdrug, and free gift when you spend £6 on any other products.

I am still loving the foil effect and I think it works really well with this shade. Like the gold, it does have a streaky application but this is not obvious from far away. This is my second day of wear, and so far there are no signs of wearing at the tips or chipping so I am pleased.

Let me know below what your favourite nail effect polish is.

Nails of the week - Barry M gold foil

As regular readers can probably tell, I am loving nail effects polishes at the moment. They are such a nice on regular nail polish. The nail foils effect from Barry M have been available for a few months now, and this is actually my sisters, but I had to give it a try.

It is available in both gold and silver shades, but the gold is my favourite. It was quite difficult to picture   but I think my pictures have got the shade almost exactly. It is not a yellow gold, which I think makes it really complimentary to my skin tone. The effect is very striking, not really much like foil in my opinion but I have many compliments on it none-the-less. 

Two coats were needed for an opaque finish, my only complaint is that the finish is streaky however you try to apply. I can only assume this is the formulation. Other than that I am loving it, and I think this is a great colour and effect for the party season coming up.

How are you liking the gold nails?

My address is Hollywood

So I finally removed my shellac nails. On this occasion I had them on for over 3 weeks with no chipping occurring at all, but my nails were very long and I was so so bored of the colour!

I started by just soaking my nails in nail polish remover (acetone) and when it looked like the polish was coming away from the nail using an orange stick to remove it by gently scrapping away. This took a long time as you can imagine so I decided to replicate the salon manicure by soaking cotton pads in acetone and wrapping these around my nails and leaving them for about 10 minutes, until the polish started to lift. After all the polish was removed, I buffed all over the surface of my nails and filed them down a lot!

For this week I chose the newest of my auto-delivery OPI colours from QVC.

French Quarter For Your Thoughts lacquer (grey)

Plugged-In Plum lacquer (purple)

My Address Is Hollywood lacquer (rose pink)

The shade is from the 2011 autumn collection, “My address is Hollywood” and is a great transitional shade in my opinion. It is a pink-peach with a subtle gold shimmer. The polish dried very quickly and went on well, with one coat enough to get full coverage and a good finish.

My major complaint with polish is that within 3 days whole sections of the nail polish peeled off. I am hoping with the use of a different base coat this won't happen and that the quality of the nail polish isn't so poor. Needless to say this is not what I would expect from a brand like OPI, so I am hoping the other two polishes give a better first impression.

Nails of the week - Silver shatter

I have been really lazy with my nails this week and haven’t removed the shellac polish yet. However, I quickly got bored of the colour and decided to refresh the look with shatter polish!

I used silver shatter by O.P.I. I love this polish, not only for the colour but because the consistency is the thinnest I have used of any shatter polish which makes it really easy to apply.

Interestingly when I applied this straight on-top of my nails the polished dried but didn’t shatter.

I then removed the shatter polish layer with acetone-free polish and applied a layer of top coat to my nails and reapplied the shatter on-top of this, which worked!

I am not completely sure how shatter polish works so if anyone does I would be really interested to know. I assume it is something in the polish it reacts/interacts with, which is not present in the shellac polish. Either way, I love how it can transform the look of any polish.

Shellac manicure day 14 update

Two weeks of suncream, oils and chlorine and how did my Shellac manicure do?

Amazingly! This is day 14 and as you can see there is minimal chipping to speak of. The only thing is a huge amount of regrowth which cannot be helped, but looks much better than the usual regrowth and chipping combination that can occur when you are too lazy to remove your polish. The colour was perfect for my holiday and matched with a lot of outfits really well. That impressive shine also lasted throughout the time which is quite easily my favourite property of the polish.

In the first week the manicure was faultless, only by day 6 did regrowth start to become visible.

By day 10, I started to see what looked like lifting at edges. I actually visited a castle on this day and was climbing up the dodgy steps and noticed that there was a small chip but I think that this may have been from brushing against the stones. Having said that the shellac did a good job at strengthening my nails and protecting them against breaking which I am sure would have happened from the way I had been treating my hands.

I decided to reapply a second time just to compare regrowth as well as to observe how to take it off correctly so I can attempt to do this at home and then report back on how easy that is as well as determine how using the polish has left the condition of my nails.

The colour I opted for this time was “tutti-fruti” another beautiful shiny colour of pink with a hint of purple which shows up really well in the pictures. What I noticed this time was that the manicurist set some bubbles into the polish, which is frustrating when you know you have to look at that for at least two weeks!