Category Archives: Swatches

January 29, 2014

Real Nail Color – Nail polish from Japan!

By Ruth

This is the Third bottle of my Japanese nail polish stash that my wonderful friend brought back for me! 😀

This polish brand is called Real Color Nail and it’s an amazingly glossy pinky red creme!

Real Nail Color

Real Nail Color

This is two coats over base coat, I think that this has to be one of the most shiny polishes I have used! You can even see the reflections of the buildings opposite oO

Real Nail Color Bottle

Real Nail Color Bottle

My camera decided that it was going to show more of the blue tones in this polish. It is quite a bit darker in real life!

The application of this polish was wonderful! The standard round brush has very fine and quite long bristles which is perfect for the formula. But I did find the the drying time was a little on the slow side.

The bottle holds 9ml and seems huge compared to the other tiny Japanese Nail Polish bottles!

Real Nail Color Bottle

Real Nail Color Bottle

I really like this polish, I think it;s going to make a wonderful base colour for all sorts of nail art! 😀

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Swatches

January 23, 2014

GOT Polish Challenge – Blue

By Ruth

Golden Oldie Challenge

Here’s week three of the GOT polish Challenge! Today the theme is Blue!

I have a lot of blue polishes so today I’m going to show you my favorite blue polish ever! This shade is called Bleu Cosmos from Bourjois and it was sadly discontinued a long time ago!

Bourjois Bleu Cosmos

Bourjois Bleu Cosmos

It’s a lovely dark rich blue, almost black, jelly with huge amounts of blue, silver, purple and green iridescent glitter.

Bleu Cosmos Bottle

Bleu Cosmos Bottle

When was the last time you saw one of these bottles in a shop? Lol

Bourjois Bleu Cosmos

This is three this  coats over base coat, as I remember this polish tends to stain a bit. Even with no topcoat it’s still really glossy.

Unfortunately It had gone all thick and gooey so I had to thin it a bit before using it. but I have to say with how old it is, and how much I used it in the past, I’m surprised it wasn’t solid! 🙂

bourjois-bleu-cosmos

Look at the sparkles!

It’s so sparkly! I don’t think I’m ever going to find another bottle of this polish :/ but I will keep looking! 😀

Have a look at the Pinterest Board with more amazing GOT Polish nails! 🙂

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Challenges, Swatches

January 17, 2014

Nail polish from Japan Part 2. Berry Color Nail.

By Ruth

This is the second polish I have to show you from the amazing collection of nail varnishes brought back from Japan for me by a rather lovely friend of mine!

Berry Color Nail

Berry Color Nail

This brand is called Berry Color Nail, unfortunately I have no idea what shade this is, my Japanese really isn’t that good lol. But if you know what if is please let me know! 😀

Again this is a colour that I wouldn’t have chosen myself, as I’m not really drawn to pale colours. But after applying it I think this is really rather pretty!

Tiny Bottle

Tiny Bottle

This is pale blue/green with gold, silver and iridescent micro glitters, it applied really easily, which is amazing considering the amount of glitter they managed to cram in!

It did take a bit longer to dry than I’m used to, but I think some fast dry top coat would sort that out!

Berry Color Nail

BCN

It only took two coats to be opaque! When it dried the polish was really smooth and glossy, there was no grittiness as with some heavy glitter polishes.

I really think that I need more glittery nail polishes like this!  😀

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Swatches

January 14, 2014

Jess Nail Polish Part 2! The Glitter Swatches Breathless, Ibiza and Disco Diva!

By Ruth

Here are swatches of the last three Jess nail polishes I picked up, these ones are some of the glitter polishes!

The Jess nail polish collection is only available at Poundland for the bargain price of £1 a bottle!

You can find my swatches and reviews of some other Jess polishes here.

Breathless with Black undies

Breathless with Black undies

The first polish I have to show you is called breathless, it looked absolutely stunning in the bottle, pale blue with iridescent micro glitters…

Unfortunately on it’s own it was not nice, it made my nails look yellow :/ so in these pictures I applied two coats over Black Magic from Revlon!

Breathless jess nail polish

Breathless

I rather like how this looks, the glitter takes on a coppery/gold to pinky/purple colour shift! (much better than the nicotine stain yellow) So over black this is really pretty! This polish smells bad! Full of chemicals but as it only cost £1, I think I can let it off!

Disco Diva Jess Nail Polish

Disco Diva

This polish is called Disco Diva, it’s a mix of lilac and holographic glitter with larger Holographic Hex glitters, in a clear base. I think that this polish would look much better as a topper.

But I was curious as to how many coats it would need to be opaque, this is three coats, not quite opaque but very close!

Disco Diva Jess Nail Polish

Disco Diva Jess Nail Polish

The main problem I found with this polish was getting the large glitters out of the bottle, it was almost impossible!

Most of the glitter had settled to the bottom of the bottle and as there are no mixing balls it took rather a lot of shaking lol!

I have to say that there is a fair amount of glitter in the formula and it applies really easily, (after all the shaking and poking about for the big glitters) but like all of the Jess polishes I have tried this one also smells bad while it’s drying!

I think Disco Diva would be a nice polish for a glitter gradient.

jess nail polish Ibiza

Ibiza with black undies

Finally this polish is called Ibiza it’s a dark blue glitter with a smattering of holographic glitters in a clear base.

I have to admit when I opened the bottle for the first time I was really disappointed with the amount of glitter it looked very sparse,  but on application I was very surprised on how fantastic it looks over the black!

This is two coats over Black Magic from Revlon.

jess nail polish Ibiza

jess nail polish Ibiza

This is my favorite out of the three polishes. I think that this one is very much worth the £1 that I payed for it! 🙂

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Swatches

January 10, 2014

Jess Nail Polish Swatches! Atomic, Dancing Queen and Pixie.

By Ruth

Today I have some Swatches from Jess to show you, Pixie, a teal iridescent, Dancing Queen a pink foil, and Atomic a purple duo-chrome. The Jess nail polish range is from Poundland, and cost rather obvious £1 each! 😀

This is Pixie

Jess Nail Polish Pixie

Pixie

This is a really nice and my favorite of the three. The colour is a dark teal iridescent with a gold flash. The application was easy, the formula is actually really nice, if a little thin, it does smell of cheap nail polish, (probably because it is lol) it’s very chemical. But it’s really not bad for £1. This is two coats with no base coat or top coat.

Jess Nail Polish Pixie

Pixie

This polish is called Dancing Queen

Jess Nail Polish Dancing Queen

Dancing Queen

Dancing Queen is a pink foil polish, again it has a very chemical smell, the application was ok, there was a little dragging from the second coat and there are some visible brush strokes, it’s a very bright pink colour, it’s worth £1 but I wouldn’t spend any more than that on it. This was three coats with no top or base coat.

Jess Polish Dancing Queen

Dancing Queen

Finally this is Atomic

Jess Nail Polish Atomic

Atomic

In the bottle this polish looked really pretty, purple to green duo-chrome, on application unfortunately it was rubbish, there’s hardly any pigment in this polish at all 😦 I first tried without undies first but I think it would have taken 6 coats to reach a decent amount of colour! so here it is, two coats over Revlon Black Magic.

Jess Nail Polish Atomic

Atomic

It went blue! And hardly any sign of the duo-chrome finish, and it had the same chemical smell as the others 😦 Is it worth £1? No, which is a shame as I love a good duo-chrome polish, and a nice one for £1 I would probably buy all of them! lol!

Out of these three I really like Pixie, it’s worth the £1 and the smell lol!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Swatches

January 9, 2014

GOT Polish Challenge – Pink!

By Ruth

I have to say that this is the first challenge I have decided to take part in and I’m really looking forward to it!

Many thanks to Debbie over at The Crumpet for organizing it, and all of the lovely people at Crumpet’s Nail tarts Facebook group! 🙂

There’s even a Pinterest board here If you’d like to go see some more of the other lovely nails from the challenge!

Golden Oldie Challenge

THE RULES

  • The polish you use should be at least one year old.
  • If you haven’t been a polishaholic that long, you can use the oldest polishes you have.
  • The polish should be previously used, but if you’re stuck, you could free a yearling from Mount Untried.
  • You can use more than 1 polish as long as it fits the theme and the rules.

My GOT Pink Nails

Avon Futura Kir Royal

Avon Futura Kir Royal F65

What makes this polish worthy (over all my other pink polishes) to be showcased in the GOT challenge?

This is a shade called ‘Kir Royal’ and it’s from the Avon Futura range, and as far as I know (tho I could be wrong) this polish was made in the late 80’s!

Avon Futura Kir Royal

Avon Futura Kir Royal

Just look at that packaging!

I applied two coats (over two coats of base coat) and OMG the smell! The fumes! Ugh! I think it even made my sinuses crinkle up, and I ended up sticking my hand out of the window lol.

I dread to think about what chemical nastiness is in this!

Avon Futura Kir Royal F 65

It’s actually a nice colour and it’s incredibly glossy, but applying it was a nightmare! The brush is really stiff and scratchy, it was like trying to paint my nails with a toothbrush! That could just be that the brush is so old it has gone stiff but the bristles where very thick so maybe all old polishes where like that.

I have to admit that this is one of my untried polishes, rather than one I haven’t used for a long time, I do have another one from this range which is the same age that I’m going to be using later on in this challenge! 🙂

Oh if you have any info on this polish or polish range I would love to hear about it! I have done a bit of research but I really can’t find that much about them 🙂

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Challenges, Nail Art, Swatches