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 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! :)

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! :)

The Hungry Asian Twenty Ten & Vote For Purple

I was reorganising my nail photographs on my computer at the weekend (what an exciting life I lead...!) and came across some photos I took a while ago of some polishes I bought from The Hungry Asian on Etsy. Somehow I forgot all about them! You don't want to know how long ago I took these photos. *cough* May *cough* I bought four mini polishes (I love the bottles!), and I'm showing you two of them today.

Twenty Ten has a black jelly base with fine red, blue and copper glitter and larger blue hex glitter (for some reason the colours make me think of Alice in Wonderland - I have no idea why!). I layered one coat over Nails Inc Black Taxi for the photos below. As far as I can remember I had no application issues, and the glitter distributed itself evenly.

Vote For Purple has small purple and silver hex glitter in a shimmery base. It's pretty sheer but the glitter gives good coverage. I layered it over OPI Done Out in Deco.

What do you think? Do you have any polishes by The Hungry Asian?

Faded Jeans and an Old Time Movie

It was so windy today that the historic house I work at couldn't open to the public in case any trees in the grounds came down and brained someone! I spent the day polishing brass instead (such a glamourous job!) and now I absolutely reek of chrome polish. Nice. It also completely destroyed my manicure, which happened to be Nubar Faded Jeans topped with an indie glitter.

You'll probably have heard of the Nubar Jeans collection, which was released last year and is a cheaper alternative to the Chanel Les Jeans collection. It consists of three blue polishes - considering my love of blue nail polishes, it is pretty much my dream collection! Faded Jeans is the lightest shade of the three. It's a pale blue with a very nice shimmer that shows itself best in the sun. The formula was good; I used two thickish coats.

Isn't it pretty? I love that it's pale but somehow bright at the same time, if that makes sense! I decided to use a recent indie polish purchase, 365 Days of Color Old Time Movie, over the top. It's a black and white glitter polish, but instead of hex glitter or the like, they're shards. They mostly lie flat on the nail, but a couple stuck up so I just pulled them off with a pair of tweezers while the polish was still wet. I used one generous coat, plus a topcoat, for the photos below.

I really like this combination - it reminded me a bit of a speckled robin's egg. I was rather sad to see it destroyed by my brass-polishing frenzy!

If you want a better idea of what black and white glitter polishes are available, Sarah at Chalkboard Nails has a comprehensive guide to them here. Are you a fan of them?

Lilacquer Kitsune

Today I'm showing you my third and final indie polish from Lilacquer. You can see my swatches of Selkie and Lycanthrope by clicking the links. This colour continues the mythology theme with the name Kitsune.

From Wikipedia: Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore; in English, kitsune refers to them in this context. Stories depict them as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Foremost among these is the ability to assume human form. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this ability to trick others, other stories portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives.

Like the other two Lilacquer polishes I've shown you, it's a duochrome shimmer top coat - this is a green/red one. This was definitely the thickest formula of the three polishes, so I put a few drops of thinner in it first. As with Lycanthrope I started with two coats of Nails Inc Black Taxi, followed by two coats of Kitsune. I was very lucky again to have some lovely sun for these photos, so you can see Kitsune at its sparkliest.

It's very pretty, but it's actually my least favourite of the three. I have no idea why. The red/gold makes me feel that this polish is quite autumnal, so maybe I'll like it more later this year?!

Lilacquer Kitsune 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'm really pleased with my three Lilacquer polishes. They're so beautiful and can be layered over whatever polish takes your fancy to create something truly unique. I hope you've enjoyed looking at them as much as I've enjoyed wearing them!

Lilacquer Lycanthrope

Here is the second of the duochrome top coats I bought from Lilacquer. This one is called Lycanthrope.

From Wikipedia: A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope, is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, either purposely or after being placed under a curse and/or lycanthropic affliction via a bite or scratch from a werewolf. This transformation is often associated with the appearance of the full moon.

Lilacquer Lycanthrope is a green/gold duochrome with the same shimmer as Selkie. It was a little thick but not unmanageably so. I painted my nails with two coats of Nails Inc Black Taxi (a black creme) first before doing two coats of Lycanthrope. It doesn't dry particularly shiny so I followed this with a top coat.

(I was wearing this on Sunday while having lunch with my parents when the sun suddenly came out. I grabbed my camera and literally legged it outside to get some decent photos of it!)

I always say I don't like green nail polishes, but I keep finding ones that make me change my mind! When I initially put this on I decided it wasn't my cup of tea, but it's definitely grown on me. The duochrome shift is subtler than Selkie, going from a blue-toned green to gold, and it's so darn sparkly! All the same, I do think I prefer Selkie.

Lilacquer Lycanthropy 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 have one more Lilacquer polish to show you very soon!