Sonnetarium After the Rain & If We Could Meet By the Sea

Good evening! Sorry for not posting for a bit, I've been on a course in Wales. To make it up to you I'm showing you two swatches from the indie brand Sonnetarium. I've had these for a while - I bought them at the same time as Samurai Princess - and I've worn them both before, but kept forgetting to photograph them. Anyway, here they are.

After the Rain has a blue shimmer base with multi-coloured glitter - I could see white, red, green, yellow and purple glitter. The base is pretty opaque so it doesn't need undies; this is two coats on its own. It has a great balance of glitter to base and was a breeze to apply.

If We Could Meet By the Sea has small teal and white hex glitter, smaller white glitter and teal bar glitter in a clear base. It's a really pretty combination and it does remind me a bit of the ocean. I've shown a single coat over Essie Turquoise & Caicos - again, it application was very easy. I think this is my favourite of the two!

Glitzology Swatches - Part One

Good afternoon! Today and tomorrow I'll be showing you some nail polishes from the indie brand Glitzology. It's quickly become one of my favourite indies, both for the quality and uniqueness of the polishes and for the fantastic customer service. The three you'll see today are glitter bombs in clear bases; the ones tomorrow each have a coloured base.

First up is As You Wish. I'm not ashamed to admit I bought this mostly for the name, as The Princess Bride is one of my favourite films. It has large white and holographic teal hex glitter and smaller fuchsia and lavender glitter in a clear base. I layered it over China Glaze Gothic Lolita; there is a lot of glitter in As You Wish so I had to be quite careful applying it that I didn't overload my brush. It gave great coverage in just one coat.

Next up is My Viking Boyfriend. The creator of Glitzology, Stacy, says this is named for her boyfriend, which I think is really cute. This is blue and silver holographic hex glitter, silver squares, dark blue hexes, and silver holo micro glitter. As with As You Wish it's absolutely packed with glitter, so I found it easier to dab it on rather than apply it normally. This is one coat over Nails Inc Baker Street.

Finally I have Skeleton Key. I believe it's inspired by the movie Beetlejuice, which I haven't seen. I absolutely love this one, I think it's my favourite of the three. It has matte black and white glitter (instant WIN) and two shades of purple glitter, all of various shapes and sizes. It contains bar glitter so if don't like that I'd steer clear; I personally love bar glitter! Again this polish is crammed with glitter so you have to be a little careful applying it. I layered one coat over Rimmel Grey Matter; as you can probably tell, I did a slightly thicker coat on my middle finger.

As a general note about all three polishes, they gobble up top coat so I did two generous coats of Poshe to make everything smooth. I'm happy to report I didn't experience any problems with curling glitters (hurrah!). Thanks for reading and pop back tomorrow for part two! :)

As Seen On... Nailside

Hola! I'm on holiday in Spain (Seville and Madrid) for the next nine days, but make not with the long faces because I have some fun nail art posts to keep you entertained until I get back. Every other day I'll be posting a manicure inspired by some of my favourite nail blogs.

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A few weeks ago I showed you this manicure that followed a tutorial from the Dutch nail blogger Nailside, and today I have another one. Probably her most famous design is the cloud one. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to recreate!

The base is two coats of a-england Galahad, a vibrant teal. The other colours are Barry M Silver Foil and Nails Inc Black Taxi - all British brands today!

Have you tried Nailside's cloud tutorial? If not, what are you waiting for?! :)

Illamasqua Muse Blinged Up

OK, I promise I have some more non-blue nail posts coming up, but in the mean time here's one that's not exactly blue. Illamasqua Muse is a bright teal creme that is opaque in two coats. As with all Illamasqua polishes I've tried, it goes on easily and effortlessly. I topped it with one coat of Lilacquer Selkie (you can see swatches of it over black here), a duchrome top coat with a blue/green shimmer, and finally a line of square studs down my ring finger.

Unfortunately my top coat bubbled horribly when I put it over the studs. Boo.

I only have ten days until I go to Spain! Not that I'm counting or anything... Being the insanely organised person I am, I'm already compiling a list of all the places I want to visit while I'm there. I'm going to Seville and Madrid, so if anyone has any suggestions of what I should see, please let me know! :)

OPI Glacier Bay Blues

OPI Glacier Bay Blues has been on my wishlist for a while, but as it's hard to find these days it was one of those nail polishes that I thought would stay just that - a wish. Then, a few weeks ago, a friend from my internship came in with a couple of nail polishes that she'd got from her mum and didn't want any more. One of them was an OPI polish that looked like it had barely been used, so when she asked if I wanted it I said yes immediately. The label on the bottom was missing but I thought it looked kind of familiar, so I did some Googling...and realised I had got my hands on a bottle of Glacier Bay Blues! I love weird coincidences like that.

Glacier Bay Blues originally came out in 2004 and I can tell my bottle is from then because it smells absolutely horrendous - definitely pre-3-free. It's a shimmery blue/teal/green duochrome with a bit of purple at extreme angles, but it was elusive on camera. It's really pretty and I don't know why OPI don't release more like it.

I love it! The smell might put me off wearing it too often though...

Do you have any HTF nail polishes that you got through a stroke of luck?

Lilacquer Selkie

I'm really excited to introduce to you the first indie polish of my collection. I bought three duochrome top coats (!!!) from Lilacquer, called Selkie, Lycanthrope and Kitsune. I'm a bit of a mythology/supernatural nerd, so I thought it was really cool that the polishes are named after mythological creatures. The one I'm showing you today is Selkie, which is my favourite of the three.

From Wikipedia: Selkies are mythological creatures found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish, and Scottish folklore. They are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land. If a man steals a female selkie's skin she is in his power and is forced to become his wife. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If she finds her skin she will immediately return to her true home in the sea.

Lilacquer Selkie is a blue/teal/green duochrome shimmer top coat. I used two coats of a dark teal, Nails Inc Blair, first, then two of Selkie. I was warned by the maker that I might find it a bit thick so I was prepared to use a bit of thinner, but actually I had no problems with it whatsoever. It went on perfectly.

I took eleventy billion photos of this polish and a part of me wanted to post them all...but I managed to narrow it down a bit!

Isn't it lush? It's even better in person. In the shade it's a pretty, deep blue shimmer, but when the sunlight hits it...blam! Sparklefest 2012. It's got such incredible depth to it, like looking into a pool of tropical water. The duochrome is very noticeable, and the different colours really complement each other. This is what Models Own Emerald Black should have been like.

Lilacquer Selkie retails for $6 (about £3.80) for 5ml. It's not an Etsy shop; to order you email the creater directly and pay by PayPal. International shipping is available at a very reasonable price, and delivery is quite fast - it took 10 days to reach me in the UK from the States. I'll be showing you the other two colours available very soon.

Models Own Beetlejuice Collection

Today I have the Models Own Beetlejuice Collection to show you. I'm a little late to the party with this one - it originally came out last year, but it was sold out for a while so I've only recently got my hands on it (in fact, I bought it as a present to myself when I started a new job last month). In case you don't know, Beetlejuice is a collection of five duochrome polishes. I wore each of these as a full manicure for a few days so I could see how well they last.

Aqua Violet. A blue/purple duochrome. The colour shift was stronger in real life than it appears in my photos. I didn't like the formula at all, it was quite runny and pooled on my cuticles, but it only needed two thickish coats for full opacity. I adore the colour - I'm a sucker for blues and purples! Wear time was rubbish. I took these photos the day after I put it on, and it's chipped already!

Emerald Black. This was the least duochrome of all of them. Despite the name, I wouldn't say there is actually any emerald apparent in it. It's more a blackened base with teal shimmer. However, I rather like it regardless as I think it's a great twist on the standard black polish. I had no trouble with the formula of this one, and it was opaque in two coats.

Golden Green. I'm going to admit something a little controversial here: I am not a fan of green nail polish. Or green in general, actually. I have brown hair and blue eyes; green is not a shade that suits me. I hated this polish when I first put it on, and I was tempted to remove it immediately. I'm glad I resisted, though, as it definitely grew on me. It's a green/yellow duochrome that some have likened to Chanel Peridot. It's actually really pretty. Formula wise, unfortunately it was identical to Aqua Violet and was rather runny...and lasted equally badly. It also showed the brushstrokes when it dried. Sad face.

Pinky Brown. This a pink/copper duochrome with itty bitty glitter in it. It was thicker than Aqua Violet and Golden Green, so I liked the formula much more as a result. It only needed two coats, and it lasted about three days before it chipped. I really like this one. Doesn't it look like autumn in a bottle?

Purple Blue. A pink/blue/purple multichrome. It has the same glitter and formula as Pinky Brown, which was good. This is hands down my favourite of the collection. The colour shift on this one is incredible, particularly in sunlight. I wore this polish at the Museum of London recently, and I spent almost as much time looking at my nails as I did the exhibits!

Overall, I'm really impressed with the Models Own Beetlejuice Collection. Despite the rubbish formula on a couple of these polishes, the colours are beautiful, interesting and - dare I say? - quite unique. I will definitely wear them all again (even Golden Green!).

I bought these polishes on the Models Own website. They retail for £5 each, or £20 for the set of five plus a 3-in-1 top coat. Very good value, oui?

17 Magentized Nail Polish

I had such a positive experience with Nails Inc magnetic nail polish that I was interested to try another brand's version and see how they compare. I decided to try 17 from Boots. I couldn't find it in store so I bought two colours - blue and teal - off their website.

The bottle design is idential to the Nails Inc one. It's a 10ml bottle with a detachable magnet cap. Both caps also have a little lip that you rest against your cuticle to line up the magnet.

So I could try both colours at once, I alternated the colours on each nail. As with the Nails Inc polish I did two coats of each, the first coat obviously without the magnet and the second holding the magnet over the nail while the polish was wet. It was incredibly easy to do. I then sealed with a top coat to make it super shiny.

These photos were taken after three days so there's a bit of tip wear, but no chipping. As you can see, the blue has a more subtle effect than the teal but I like both colours equally. They're just so pretty.

17 vs. Nails Inc

So if you were only going to buy one magnetic polish, which brand should it be? Well, the Nails Inc formula was definitely superior to the 17 one. I can't fault the former, which I found the latter a bit gloopy. It wasn't bad enough to cause any real problems, though. 17 has a choice of four colours (silver, lilac, blue and teal) and Nails Inc has three (gold, silver and purple). But the most obvious difference is in the price. I got the 17 polishes for £4.99 each, while the Nails Inc ones were a whopping £13! In spite of the inferior formula, for more than half the price and a wider range of colours, I'd personally go with the 17 polishes.