Palate cleanser of the week - Purple for B-Eat eating disorder awareness Smitten Polish Siren's Song

Hello!

A bit of a different post for this week's palate cleanser. Still an unadulterated swatch, but this time it's polish with a purpose! This week has been eating disorders week, and Beat is a UK charity providing helplines, online support and a network of UK-wide self-help groups to help adults and young people in the UK beat their eating disorders. My weight has always been something I've struggled with, and I can only think that if I'd had some help and support, somewhere to turn to when I was a teen I might not be in the place I am now. Anyway, purple is Beat's ribbon colour, and so a purple mani was born! Smitten Polish Siren's Song was a lovely gift from another blogger friend and although I painted my mum's nails with it once I've never worn it. It's a pretty purple/blue duochrome and I was perfectly happy to wear it alone!

I  love purple anyway, and this is a good-un! What's your favourite purple?

Hx

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GOT Polish? Orange!

Hello!

This week's Golden Oldie Thursday is bought to you by the colour orange! The orange in question is Nails Inc Hampton Court Palace Gardens. I teamed it with some OPI Pure Nail Lacquer Apps that I've had hanging around for a while and China Glaze Riveting in a simple reverse glitter gradient. The apps were quite simple to use, but I had a mare with this manicure and spilled polish everywhere (bye bye cute new jumper that I'd only worn twice), so it didn't last long although I really loved it.

When I googled to check if I needed to topcoat the apps, the press picture showed them as pink with yellow peacock feathers, but they most definitely aren't pink! How odd, but I love them anyway. You might have noticed I have a little thing for peacock feathers ;)

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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Holla On Top - Lacquerdaisical holo topcoat

Hi!

The lovely Alexia from Lacquerdaisical recently sent me two of her new holo polishes to try, the first being this awesome holo topcoat. I'd been thinking about getting one for a while but was worried about it affecting the base colour I wanted to holofy (totally a word) too much, so I was excited to give this a try. I've been jonesing for a baby pink holo for a while, so I knew what I had to try first - Holla On Top over OPI Pink Friday to create this perfectly pretty pink holo. As you can see, it didn't turn the base too grey, and just gave a lovely, holo finish. I love this combination!

Just how perfect? Next, I thought a good way to show it off would be some bright skittles! Any excuse for a skittle ;) Red holo in particular is hard to get without ending up slightly pink or slightly grey, but this is holo perfection. I used one coat over Barry M Blood Orange (red), Nails Inc Baker Street (blue), Barry M Mango (orange) and Orly Lucky Duck (green).

It barely affected the base colour at all, and I just love love love it! It has the perfect density of holo pigment - not too much that it masks the base colour, but not too little that you don't get that all important magic rainbow. Win!

Lacquerdaisical Holla On Top (and all of Alexia's other polishes) are available from her Facebook page.

Hx

Laquerdaisical Holla On Top was a PR sample provided to me for free for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own and 100% honest. Please see my disclaimer in the tab above for further details. All other products featured were purchased myself.

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Tri-Polish Tuesday Pink, Brown and Grey #4 - Blobby blobby blobby...

Hi!

If you were around in the 90's you'll know what my title refers to (in the UK at least)! I loved and hated Mr Blobby for many reasons which I wont go into here, but anyway, blobby! I still feel like I haven't mastered the blobby vintage roses mani, but Mr NN said they were pretty so I'll take that! The colours used for the final TPC of the month are Barry M Lychee - brown (ok, nude, but you'll let me off wont you?!), Sally Hansen Eel Skin - grey, and two pinks, OPI Pink Friday and Kiss Me On My Tulips.

I can't believe we're at the end of February already. Next month's colours are green, blue and purple. Inspire me please! And do you have any tips for the blobby roses?

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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Bad blogger...

Evening!

I've not posted in a few days, oops! I have had a visit from the in-laws and combined with not being 100% it's wiped me out! I'm not one of those bloggers who has a huge vault of photos to rely on when I don't have time - usually what I post is done at most a few days ahead and I only paint my nails every other day. I rarely 'swatch' a polish - that is paint my nails, take pics and take it straight back off again so what you see is what you get! Anyway, the in-laws are gone now so my normal schedule will resume! They live in Spain so we don't see them all that often, and the mother in law bought me some lovely Kiko polishes so I can't complain!

Anyway, this is what I was wearing when they arrived last Thursday. I don't know about you, but with the Barry M Gellies and other high street gel effect polishes, I overlooked Rimmel's version - Salon Pro, but I now have two of their polishes and they're crackers! The base for this was Barmy Blue, a lovely shiny navy two coater. Simply polish beauty.

It made a beautiful base for a bit of randomness! I topped two fingers with Color Club's pretty new flakie, The Uptown, the ring finger was adorned with Icing lemme See Your Peacock and then stamped with a swirly Pueen pattern in metallic green, Color Club Perfect Mol-ten.

Sometimes only random will do!

Hx

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GOT Polish? Chevron!

Hi!

Have you got your sunglasses ready? This one is BRIGHT! And I loved it! This week's Golden Oldie Thursday is all about the chevron, and my golden oldie is Orly Glowstick. In terms of nail polish, it doesn't get much brighter. I used a white base to really get the highlighter effect, and accented it with Barry M Silver Glitter, because, you know, it just wasn't bright or blingy enough already.

Bright enough? Not very me really, but who cares. It's February, it's depressing. Grab your highlighters and get colouring in!

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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Palate Cleanser of the Week - Cult Nails Spontaneous

Hi!

It's been a while since I did a PCotW but I finally joined the Cult and thought that this beauty deserved a post all of it's own! And when you see tomorrow's post you'll understand why I needed something like this on my nails. Let's just say it's bright! Anyway, onto the task in hand. Cult Nails Spontaneous is a muted purple cream with brighter purple microglitter, and it's purdy. This is such a me colour, I could wear it all day every day. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the formula - thin and draggy on the first coat, and it dried a little bumpy. I ended up with three coats and plenty of topcoat here. The microglitter just catches the light and makes it glow.

There are quite a few Cult Nails polishes I have my eye on, but they're quite hard to get hold of here without a hefty shipping cost and customs fee, so to make it worthwhile you have to make a bigger order. I just can't afford that (unless my children want to live on air pie and windy pudding...) so I'll just keep adding to the wishlist!

Have you joined the Cult? Which would you recommend?

Hx

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Tri-Polish Tuesday Pink, Grey and Brown #3 - Neon and on...

Hi!

I'm not sure what to say about this mani. The concept was good, but my nail art brushes let me down. I know, a bad workman always blames his tools, but I really need some new ones because my lines just aren't as crisp as I'd like. Oh well. The polishes I used were Sally Hansen Eel Skin and Models Own Bubblegum. I've heard that Bubblegum stamps well, which is unusual for a neon, so maybe I should have tried that.

It all looked so good in my head...

Hx

An InLinkz Link-up

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OPI Brazil Beach Sandies - Sandy Skittles!

Hi!

I have a thing for OPI mini sets. I'm not a huge OPI fan *LeGasp* but the minis are just so bloody cute I usually can't help myself. And even if I don't end up using them (more often than not...) they're a collectors item, right? And if I do use them and end up loving them I can get them full size. Yes, that did actually happen with a couple of the Pirates of the Caribbean ones so there. Anyway, with their new Brazil collection, OPI released two sets of minis, one with mini versions of the regular range (the Copacababies), and a liquid sand/texture range, which is only available in minis, the Beach Sandies. I had to have the Beach Sandies and when they arrived I thought they'd be perfect for a skittle. Pinkie to index we have: You're So Flippy Floppy (yellow), Samba-dy Loves Purple (purple), What's a Little Rain Forest (blue) and I'm Brazil Nuts Over You (hot coral pink). They all have really pretty shimmer that makes them really special. What's disappointing is that they only come in minis. It made me not want to do a full manicure of each of them, because they'd run out far too quickly. If they were available full-size, I'd want Rain Forest and Brazil Nuts at least. I think they'd make perfect summer pedi colours too (says the girl still rocking her sparkly Christmas pedi...)! I used two coats, but still had VNL in some lights so you might need three (or nude undies) if that bothers you.

Aren't they just yummy? I love the jewel tones, they're so bright and clear and just perfect. Full size please OPI!!!

Hx

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Valentines Week! My Patchwork Heart

Happy Valentines Day!

For my final Valentine mani this year, I challenged myself and went freehand, and I think it paid off. I really love this patchwork design! I started with a coat of China Glaze Dance Baby on all of my nails, and then added a second coat to my pinkie and index. Once that was completely dry I sketched out the heart and patches using Barry M's white nail art pen and filled the sections in. I used Dance Baby, a-England Briar Rose, Barry M Prickly Pear and Above The Curve Rain Kissed Strawberries. While this was drying I added stripes of white and Briar Rose to the other nails and then went back over the lines separating the patches to neaten them up and add the "stitches". Patchwork hearts. Done.

I hope you've enjoyed Valentines week! I actually haven't, but I've had a rough couple of days and all I want to wear is black. Maybe next week should be moody black week...

Whether you're celebrating or not tonight, have a great evening!

Hx

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