Glitzology Swatches - Part Two

Good evening! This is the second part of my swatches from the indie brand Glitzology; you can find the first part here.

Bad Things is inspired by the TV show True Blood, so I knew I had to buy this polish. It has a deep red jelly base with different shaped red glitter, small black hexes, and silver holographic micro glitter. It also has red hearts - you can see one on my middle finger! This is a surprise favourite for me; I didn't expect to like this polish quite as much as I do. You can build it to opacity on its own but I chose to layer one coat over Orly Ruby.

Second is Diet Cokehead. I love love LOVE the name of this one - it describes me perfectly! Hello, my name is Sophie and I am a Diet Cokehead. I drink it every day (sorry, teeth). Anyway, the polish contains red square and hex glitter, black hexes, and red and black bar glitter in a shimmery silver base. Basically, it looks exactly like a can of Diet Coke can. As with Bad Things it's opaque on its own but I layered it over Barry M Silver Foil instead.

Finally I have Snow Day to show you. It has matte white glitter and disco glitter (which looks slightly yellow in my photos for some reason...) with an iridescent blue shimmer. It's a wintry polish but I think it can look good all year round depending on what you wear under it; I used Essie Borrowed & Blue here. It's packed with glitter so I dabbed it on rather than applying normally, but it wasn't really a bother.

As with yesterday's, the polishes needed two coats of top coat to make them perfectly smooth, and there were no curling glitters. I am a huge fan of Glitzology now and I'll definitely be placing another order very soon. :)

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! :)

Black and Gold French Tips

Evening! It was my birthday on Friday - yup, I was born only three days after Christmas. A lot of people seem to think this sucks, but I actually really like it. I don't usually have to work on my birthday, and my friends are usually all around too so it works out pretty well. I turned a quarter of a century old so to mark this feat I went on a night out with my friends. I was pretty restrained in my alcohol intake and only got a little tipsy, yay me. I was wearing five inch wedge boots so my feet were not happy by the end of the night, but apart from that I had a great time. :)

Because I am a weirdo I always like to have a colour theme when I go on a night out, and for my birthday it was black and gold. For my manicure I started with OPI Goldeneye and added a coat of holographic glitter, China Glaze Golden Enchantment, on top. Once it was completely dry I used tape to paint the tips black. Simple but effective.

Do you have a colour theme in mind when you dress up for a night out, or are you less anal than I am? How do you do your own nails for your birthday?

KIKO Holographic Nail Lacquers

Evening! Did you have a good Christmas? I had a very relaxing day with my family which was nice. My birthday is in two days so I'm looking forward to that now. :)

Today I'm showing you three of the four KIKO Holographic colours that came out a while ago. I got these in London in October but only got round to wearing them quite recently. Shame on me! A general thing I want to mention about these is that the formula is better than I'm used to with holographics - I used a normal base coat underneath without any problems. They all dried to a slightly matte finish so I risked using top coat on them, and I think rather than dulling the holographic effect, it enhanced it. o.0

First up is KIKO 400/Steel Grey, a grey/black shade that was opaque in two coats. This was the most holographic of the three. I decided to test the wear on this so the photos were taken after three days; there is tipwear but it's not horrendous (unlike some holographic polishes that chip after a couple of hours!). I think being able to use a top coat with these is a great advantage.

Second is KIKO 401/Peacock Green - don't be fooled by the name, it's actually a very pretty blue-with-a-splash-of-turquoise colour. I used three coats for full coverage. There is a bonus photo of what it looks like in daylight because I was actually around during the day when I wore this one (gasp!).

Last but not least is KIKO 402/Jewel Pink. The name of this confused me because I thought it was red! I did some Googling and apparently it is pink...but I swear it still looks red to me. Hmmm. Anyway, this was the least holographic of the three and was opaque in two coats.

Catrice Dirty Berry

Evening! Today's polish is one I bought in Spain recently. It was the only Catrice shade that really called out to me in the shop. Surprise, surprise...it's purple!

Dirty Berry is a dusty purple with scattered holographic microglitter - so micro that it took me ages to realise that there was a holographic element at all! It's pretty subtle and didn't photograph well, but it added a little something extra to the colour to make it extra special. The formula was great - I only needed two coats. Unfortunately it wore very quickly. The photos show it after only two days - just look at all that tip wear!

Work Hard. Play Hard.

Happy Monday! Did you all have a good weekend? I went to an ice hockey game. I don't think I've ever voluntarily been to a sporting event before...in fact, I've actively avoided them in the past! But it had a great atmosphere and our team won, which made it even better. Also, it was all kinds of excellent watching the players try to beat the *bleep* out of each other! XD

Recently I went on a night out in London and I wanted some fun nails that would stand out against the black dress I was wearing. I settled on an old favourite, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy - you can see my swatch here - but I blinged it up a bit with China Glaze Golden Enchantment, a holographic gold micro glitter top coat (what a mouthful!). Then, as if that wasn't enough, I used some square studs that I got recently from the Born Pretty Store.

Okay, so the end result is kind of tacky and possibly something that would grace the nails of the girls in The Only Way is Essex, but I like it anyway. Oh, and the best/weirdest thing about my night out? I bumped into one of my cousins! Neither of us live or work in London but we both happened to be out with friends from work on the same night. Of all the pubs in all the towns in all the world...

a-england Lady of the Lake & Tristam

Hi! I have two a-england swatches for you today. I've had these nail polishes for ages and they're among my favourites of my entire collection, so I decided it was high time I showed them. You will have seen these swatched many times before...but now it's my turn. XD

Lady of the Lake is a blue-toned purple polish with the most amazing scattered holographic shimmer. In the shade it looks like normal shimmer, but in the sunlight it shows its true colours. One of the (many) things I like about a-england polishes is the formula; they all apply perfectly. LotL is very pigmented and was almost opaque in one coat, although I used two for the photos below. All but the last photo were taken in the sun.

Tristam has the same scattered holographic shimmer as Lady of the Lake, but its base colour is a navy blue. It is just as stunning as LotL. I actually wore this one when I went on holiday to Greece last year, and after a week it still looked great. It had grown out a bit at the cuticle and there was some tip-wear, but no chips. How awesome is that?! Again, I used two coats plus top coat for the photos below.

Do you have any a-england polishes? If not - why not?!

Wavy Tape Mani ft. OPI DS Extravagance

Good evening! I bought some French tip guides on eBay recently that came in a variety of different patterns - chevrons, curves, zigzags, waves, etc. The one I used for today's manicure was the wavy one.

I started with two coats of OPI Pamplona Purple, a medium purple creme. It's one of the first OPIs I ever bought, and it's still one of my favourites. Once it had dried completely I placed a wavy French tip guide down the centre of each nail and painted over with OPI DS Extravagance. It's a stunning berry purple with a scattered holographic effect. I've shown you it before but my photos are, quite frankly, embarrassing, so I won't link to it! While Extravagance was still wet I whipped off the tape, and covered with top coat once it had dried.

Can you believe I was actually disappointed with this manicure when I'd finished? In the shade the two purples kind of merge together, but then I went out in the sun and Extravagance came out to plaaaaay!