Yearly Archives: 2011

Essie Lapis of Luxury vs GOSH Limited Edition Lavender Love Swatch Comparison

April 17, 2011 4 Comments

Before you go any further, apologies for the dire state of these swatches I was in a hurry but wanted to get it done 🙁 sorry…

On my index and ring finger is GOSH Lavender Love, and on my middle and pinkie finger is Essie Lapis of Luxury.
Dupes? Not at all.
It was so tricky to try to capture the differences between these polishes because on flash they look identical. However, as you can (hopefully) see, the Essie is much more blue-grey toned, while the GOSH is very much more purple.
Formula-wise this is 2 coats for the Essie and 1 coat for the GOSH. I’m inclined to say I prefer the GOSH because it dries much more quickly and is much more opaque in 1 coat. However I still have some love for my Essie 🙂
I hope this helps anyone who might be wondering if they are similar.
Emma xxx
Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Models Own Smash Up Polish Silver – Blue/Turquoise Series

April 16, 2011 4 Comments

I was lucky enough to win the Models Own Twitter competition, celebrating the release of the black and the silver Smash Up polishes. I can’t tell you how excited I was to receive the silver crackle as I’ve been eyeing it up ever since I first heard about it. These two polishes were released on Monday 11th April. The polishes arrived super duper fast, and in a well protected package.
I’ve decided to do a series of posts on the silver shatter over different coloured nail polishes, as I always find it can be a bit hit and miss with certain polishes as to whether or not it will look alright. Today I’m starting with blues/turquoises.

Thumb to pinkie: Illamasqua Viridian, Accessorize Mermaid, 17 Fast Finish Peacock, Marks & Spencer Bright Aqua, Marks & Spencer Duck Egg.
In normal light.
In the lovely sunlight 🙂
As you can see, none of these polishes show particularly well through the silver.
Pinkie to thumb: Boots 17 Fast Finish Catwalk Couture, Barry M Cyan Blue, Nails Inc. Denim, Marks & Spencer Lagoon, Nails Inc. Chandos Place.
In sunlight.
In normal light.
This one, as you can see, has turned out a bit better. I’m wondering if it’s maybe something to do with shimmer polishes as all of the polishes on my left hand (the first photo) were shimmers. Saying that the M&S; Lagoon has turned out fine. Anyway, the two which turned out the best were Barry M Cyan Blue and Boots 17 Catwalk Couture (basically a dupe of Barry M Pure Turquoise for those interested). So I’m thinking bright is best with this shatter. Looking at the Pirate of the Caribbean collection by OPI I’d say that kind of follows, because none of the pastel shades in that collection show up too well through the silver shatter. I included Nails Inc. Chandos Place in place of Barry M Navy as they’re basically the same but my Navy has gone too gloopy to use.
I really like this shatter polish, it goes (as you can see) with all of these blue shades, and many other colours besides (as you will see if you follow this series!) It’s much thinner than the Barry M shatter polish, which I find to be very gloopy and hard to work with. The Models Own Smash Up, by contrast, gives a very smooth, easy application, and doesn’t dry too fast for you to apply it (cough Barry M). The only difference is that the Models Own polish gives much thinner cracks than the Barry M so less of the base colour shows through.
I will be doing a comparison of the Models Own black shatter with the Barry M black shatter soon. In the meantime I would absolutely recommend the silver shatter, it’s absolutely gorgeous, and most likely identical to the OPI one but a lot cheaper!
EDIT: Just thought I’d mention that the silver itself has a few random pieces of glitter in it  very pretty!
Thanks for reading 🙂
Emma xxx

Disclaimer: I won this polish in a competition from the brand owner. Despite this, I maintain that I will only publish my own personal views and opinions as I would hate to mislead any one of you, particularly as a student I know just how precious money can be.

BeautyUK – Slate – No.50

April 15, 2011 7 Comments

Just a teaser of what’s to come 😉

BeautyUK Glam Nails in Slate. This is a gorgeous deep grey. You know how slate tiles have that hint of purple in them? This polish has that, I love it 😀 Perfect name for this colour. One thing I’ve noticed is that it dries slightly darker than its bottle colour, so watch out for that.

This is opaque in 3 coats, which is a little more than I’d like but I’ll let this one off as it dries so fast the 3rd coat is on in the same time as a 2nd would be with any other polish. Perfect glossy finish, I can’t fault this one. Formulation was a little draggy, but if you’re quick it flows perfectly.

Hope you’re all well, hopefull I’ll have the Models Own Smash-Up post up by tomorrow!
Emma xxx

Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

GOSH Limited Edition Spring 2011 – 001 Lavender Love + Spring Nail Art

April 14, 2011 3 Comments

Just a quick forewarning this post is a tad pic-heavy as I just couldn’t capture the colour right.
This is pretty much the colour of the polish, or as close as my camera could get.
Against a bright blue to show you how much more purpley it is.
And some nail art just for kicks 🙂
First of all, this polish and 3 other colours (purple, pink and greige) along with the GOSH Matte Top Coat are all Limited Edition so if you like them, get them asap! The other ones you will find swatches of on google.
I want to say that my first experience with this polish was a bad one, it dragged and took forever to dry and was just generally a nightmare. The second time, it applied like an absolute dream, dried in a reasonable amount of time and didn’t dent at all. It was opaque in ONE COAT! I don’t know what caused my previous bad experience, I suspect I may not have let my base coat dry fully and probably applied too thickly too, so just a word to the wise if you are in the habit of this 😀
The polish is close to Essie’s Lapis of Luxury but has a more purple undertone, making it a true cornflower blue. (I will be doing a swatch comparison which should appear in the next post).
The polish itself, as I mentioned, is not only a one-coat-wonder, but also dried with a beautiful glossy finish, eliminating the need for top coat. I’ve worn it for two days now and I have barely any tip-wear and no chips whatsoever. I am very happy with this polish now, can’t say I was the first time round! I think the key is in the application.
The polish retails at £4.99 in Superdrug so I’d grab them while you can 😉 I’m sorely tempted by the neon pink but I felt that Lavender Love was the most unique highstreet polish of the lot so went for that one.
The nail art (which I cocked up on the ring finger, oops) is just dotting with my white Rio Nail Art pen (and letting the dots merge to make the ‘petals’ connect)
Hope you are all doing okay, drop me a line guys 😀 I have some lovely Lemon Earle Grey tea to hand, which I have to say is my lifeline at the mo following my second traumatic blood test experience this month, I’ve come home with 8 holes in my arms and hands, bruised to high heaven and generally feeling a bit shakey. They tried several times in each hole as well! Argh. Anyways enough of my moaning, I was lucky enough to win the Models Own Twitter competition and have the black and the silver Smash Up crackle polishes somewhere in the post! Thank you Models Own!
Let me know your thoughts on this polish.
Emma xxx

Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Marks & Spencer Aubergine (EP)

April 10, 2011 3 Comments

So the end of my four M&S; polishes is here, did I leave the best til last? You decide 😀 (by the way sorry for the rubbish photos, my nails don’t actually look this tatty IRL.)

Here is yet another impossible-to-capture colour, I’m starting to think maybe it’s my camera. Or my eyes. Anyway, this gorgeous shimmer is a very deep magenta-ish base, with red and gold shimmer. The gold is more apparent in the bottle while the red is more so on the nail.
I used to have this polish years ago with the old M&S; nail polish line, and I absolutely loved it then. The colour now is a little bit more red than I remember but still very similar which I love, because my old bottle dried right up.
This shade is at 2 coats. The chipping/sheet marks you can see is actually due to the dire state of my bare nails rather than the chip-ability of the polish, but I’m chopping them down tonight as I have work experience in a hospital for the next two days.
I absolutely love this shade. I first bought it when I was going through a dark clothing phase because I’ve never liked plain black polish, I just find it looks cheap and tatty on me. This was suitably dark and vampy for me and still is, I can’t tell you how flattering it is on my skintone and makes my fingers look longer and slimmer… I love it 😀 It feels very classy.
The shimmer isn’t as visible unless in direct light or sunlight but that hasn’t been a problem thanks to all the gorgeous sun we’ve been having 🙂 Dry-time again was fab (a little slower than the other polishes but still quicker than the likes of Barry M etc, probably more comparable to Nails Inc.) The formula was a little on the thick side but wasn’t an issue and didn’t drag sooo….
How are you all? I hope things are going well for everyone, I’m about to go and do some more revision but I must conclude with this post that I would definitely recommend the M&S; polishes because they are fabulous quality, and largely because (as mentioned before) they are certified Cruelty-Free by the BUAV, so if you want guilt-free polishing this is the brand for you 😉
Emma xxx

Disclaimer: Everything mentioned in this blog post was either bought by myself with my own money, or given to me as a gift from friends/relatives. All opinions expressed here are my own.