Tag Archives: Duochrome

Ciaté – Kitten Heels

July 23, 2011 3 Comments

This came with my July GlossyBox, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a box containing 5 samples of ‘luxury’ products costing £10 (but £12.50 inc. P&P; from September) which comes around on a monthly basis. Once you have signed up, they will automatically take the money each month until you unsubscribe. Last month there was an uproar on Twitter because the box contained a small bottle of Batiste Dry Shampoo which isn’t ‘luxury’, although frankly compared with the price of the other products, I think it’s a bit greedy to expect all expensive items! I just think it’s a shame to see a brand new company get so much grief for one little mistake. Anyway, those who unsubscribed after that apparent outrage will probably be kicking themselves this month, as the July box was fab! Even better- it arrived on my birthday!
In my box I received a pack of Nouveau Lashes, Ciaté Nail Polish, Weleda Pomegranate Body Oil, Illamasqua Lipgloss in Explode, and the only sample sized product is the Xen-Tan lotion (in dark – I’m a bit scared to use it haha!)
So anyway, onto the nail polish. FYI, Ciaté is 3-Free (free from formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate and toluene).

1 coat – hopefully you can see the very pink jellyish base! This s reminiscent of China Glaze Strawberry Fields, and I actually wore my nails all day in Oxford like this as I loved the bright pink!
Left: 1 coat. Right: 2 coats. Huge difference!!
The gorgeous yellow-orange shimmer in the bottle.
This is my first bottle of Ciaté, I’ve always admired their polishes online, but never got round to buying one as I never managed to decide which one first! I have to say, as a first taste of the brand, I am SUPER impressed. The polish has a pink jelly base, with tons of yellow-orange-red shimmer, which I assume accounts for the red effect as the layers build up! I ended up applying a third coat, but if you don’t have nasty stained nails like mine, you could easily get away with 2. coats.
This polish is easily mistaken for a classic red shimmer in dim light, but as soon as you get under a light or into natural daylight, or even better, sunlight, this polish lights up like a fire! The blend of orangey-reddy-yellow shimmer makes it look like glowing embers, and you occasionally catch a hint of the pink base. Can I emphasise how amazing this polish is any more?
Onto application. I’m in love. You know that myth that you’re supposed to do three strokes with nail polish, middle then 2 sides? I’ve never ever been able to do that until I used this polish. The brush is firm enough to control the polish, but soft enough to maneuver it neatly around the curves of the nails. I love it! The handle is long, allowing for good hand control, and the brush is the perfect width and density – not too thin and not too thick. According to the GlossyBox notecard, the brush has 250 bristles, though it doesn’t explain why haha.
Ciaté polishes retail for £9.00 from the Ciaté website, or from the Powder Rooms. I would seriously recommend this fiery red to any of you! Well worth the £9.00 for 13.5ml, if you compare with OPI’s average £10.50 for 15ml in the UK and China Glaze’s average £8.00 for 14ml, plus the application makes it all the more amazing.
Just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you who said Happy Birthday in the comments on my last post, it made my day to a) know that you care and b) know that people actually bother to read my ramblings! I promise I will work on cutting down the waffle but thank you so much

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 Purple Heart

July 8, 2011 5 Comments

First of all, sorry for the large amount of photos, I blame the fact that it’s a duochrome and I’m not satisfied with the usual 3 pics! And second of all, sorry for not blogging as much, I don’t actually have a reason, I just… haven’t. My nails tend to get a bit raggedy before I take photos which I suppose I could use as an excuse but that’s not why- I’m just lazy and unmotivated and as soon as I feel like I ‘have’ to do something I automatically don’t want to do it, which is also the reason why I’ve taken down my ‘Upcoming Posts’ list – because now that everything’s on the list I feel a pressure to do it and that makes me put it off and blah blah blah, enough of my mindless rambling, and well done if you’ve bothered to read all of this! Anyway, I’m in a positive frame of mind and feeling happy about my blog again, hence the appearance of this post. Shut up Emma! Photo time!


Do you see the beauuuuutiful green duochrome?




This is yet another of those black-ish but not quite black polishes that I adore, since you probably have deduced by now that I really dislike pure black polish on me, but I love the very dark, not-quite-black polishes.
GOSH Purple Heart is essentially a graphite-black base with all that lovely purple floating around. I will just mention, the polish looks largely purple-black in most lights, but in some indirect sunlight (don’t ask, I can’t work it out either) it does have a lovely green sheen to it, like the feathers of a raven or crow. For this reason it has nudged it’s way into my top 10 (if I could ever decide exactly what they are) because I have always had a weird fascination with the lovely iridescence of bird feathers, and always had a desire to replicate it. Anyways, enough of my weirdoness.
The photos show 3 coats, although the polish actually only takes 2 coats for full opacity, but I used the third after a day of wear and I needed to touch up a few edges on my 2 problem nails (peeling and flaking – not the polish’s fault!)
Application-wise, I’ve found this a little thicker than other GOSH polishes, but it still is lovely and dries quickly and lasts forever with a topcoat!
All in all I’m in love, I couldn’t stop staring at my nails both times in the last 2 weeks that I’ve worn this baby.
I know this isn’t exactly a new polish, but it’s one I’ve never been grabbed by in the shop, then on a whim I went crazy and bought 3 GOSH polishes and this was one of them, and I am very glad I did! So if you’ve never been totally convinced in Superdrug then maybe this will help you one way or the other :)
Hope you are all doing well and lovely, I have a couple of photos of my school ball and my AMAZING (if I say so myself) dress, but I myself am not looking amazing, but I’ll probably put it on anyway. Argh, too much waffling. Too much of my thought pattern is appearing in this post so I’ll leave you with that! (P.S. I have 2 gorgeous brights coming up in the next couple of days! Get your sunglasses ready!)
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 564 Golden Dragon

April 25, 2011 5 Comments

I confess, I bought this beauty from eBay :) but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be in your local Superdrug, they never seem to sort out the displays and sometimes you can find some lovely (discontinued? I don’t know if Golden Dragon is?) gems hiding away :) If you see this polish, I 100% recommend you to buy it.

This is what it looks like in normal indoors light.
Flash.
Sunlight.
Sunlight.

I wore this on Andy’s recommendation for Earth Day, and also to go and see Derren Brown Svengali on Friday night, which by the way was FABULOUS, he’s such a good entertainer and I would one million percent recommend you see it if you haven’t already got tickets!!!

Golden Dragon has a lovely sea greeny-blue base, which is almost lost amongst the green and gold shimmer. I really is absolutely gorgeous, especially in sunlight and false lighting. It’s one of those polishes that doesn’t look right with a top coat, which isn’t an issue because on me it lasted 2 days with minimal tipwear before I caved and took it off. It dries relatively quickly, especially compared to many of GOSH’s creme polishes which take forever.

The photos don’t really capture the polish as much as I’d like. The top photo shows how it looks quite plain in natural light, but if you get the chance to wear this on a sunny day you will be rewarded with the gorgeous gold/green shimmer :) It’s a lovely sea-green colour, and definitely the colour I picture a dragon to be! It’s certainly one of those more interesting ‘sophisticated’ polishes.

Hope you’re all having a lovely long weekend with the sunshine, I have 2 essays to get through before tomorrow lol really not motivated at all!
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.

Accessorize Illusions – Mermaid

March 30, 2011 1 Comment

In sunlight
In ‘shade’ (This is what it looks like when not under any direct light)
Mermaid is a beautiful duochrome electric turquoise (if there is such a colour) with greeny-blue, it just gleams at you, even when it’s not in direct light it is just so bright! As you can see this is a turquoise base absolutely packed with green-blue glitter, it has an almost foily finish but is so so bright. The green glitter is so reflective, I think that’s probably where the brightness comes from.
This was still the tiniest bit sheer at 2 coats, but with all that glitter no-one will notice. Dry-time was super-fast, as always with Accessorize polishes.
I’ve had so many compliments with this polish, it’s one of my favourites. I am so impressed with the Illusions range – well done Accessorize!
I have also discovered that this is the perfect base for the black crackle. Since buying black crackle I’ve not been overly impressed but this combination is just STUNNING. Sadly I didn’t get any pictures before it chipped but I’ll definitely be trying that combo again as it’s a great way of drawing out the wear of the polish and plus it just looks fab, so keep an eye out ;)
EDIT:
I’ve also heard and by the looks of the photos agree that this is a very close dupe of OPI Catch Me In Your Net, Zoya Charla and Orly Halley’s Comet, so if you want a cheaper alternative (Catch Me In Your Net is also discontinued) then go for Accessorize Mermaid!
Hope everyone’s alright, starting to get back my blogging mojo lol feeling a lot better now, blood test results tomorrow and fingers crossed for the all clear! Thanks for reading :)
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.

Accessorize Illusions – Pink Spice

February 24, 2011 1 Comment

Last Saturday Andy and I took a little time out to wander up town and have a tea/milkshake and some cake in our favourite tearoom. He kindly agreed to buying me two Accessorize Illusion polishes and a Boots 17 polish. I’ll reveal the other Accessorize and Boots 17 polishes at a later date but for now here is the much coveted Accessorize ‘Pink Spice’.

I have heard many a muttering on the blogosphere that Pink Spice is nearly an exact duplicate of MAC’s ‘Bad Fairy’, which I am so so happy about because Bad Fairy is beautiful but much more expensive! CALI369 from Polishtopia did a colour comparison post here and a wear comparison post here.
Now for the piccies:
In the flashhhh
It looks darker here than it really was…
And here is the stunning orangey duochrome!
I wore this to a party and could not stop looking at the colour. In most lights it was a gorgeous foily pink, really really pretty, but occasionally when the right light hit it it became a stunning rusty, orangey colour. So in love with this. The pictures don’t really do this polish justice – it’s much more shimmery and much much more pink! The idea behind the Illusions range is that it allows you to “Create the Illusion of multiple colours and tones in one shade!”. I certainly did see more than one colour in this one!
I am so pleased with the Accessorize polishes, I now have 5, and am currently coveting about 10! All of mine dry quickly, which occasionally can be a little bit of a pain as the brush is fairly thin but really doesn’t pose much of a problem. It is more handy if I just can’t be bothered to wait around for my nails to dry (e.g. first thing in the morning or last thing at night) and you can get away with two quick coats. The cap is similar to that of Nails Inc., in fact it is identical in shape and size to the cap on the Diet Coke promo polishes, if a little less slippery.
Overall totally totally happy with this polish, it’s one of those ones that you will never stop looking at no matter how much you’ve ogled it. At £4 each for 10ml you just can’t complain! At least compared with Bad Fairy’s price, especially now if you check it out on eBay!
Now, my Andy was in a bit of a sleepy state when I persuaded him to let me paint his nails. In fact he fell asleep while I was doing it and I had to keep waking him to move his hand! So here are his pretty hands (he made me take it straight off after – can’t blame him really, as you can see I did quite a shoddy job!)
The blues were at his request. Hehe!
Hope you are all having a good week,
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.
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