BB Couture Santa's Sak + China Glaze Phat Santa

Enormously exasperated and very vexed that my photos don't show how jolly cherry-juicy these reds are. The Phat Santa is darker IRL. Glossy and gummy.

The first pic is today because I played with layering more Sak (!!!) over Santa. The bottom pic is mostly just 2 coats and is from yesterday. I'm pretty sure this is 2 or 3 days of wear.

Joyful polishes. Optimistic. Cheering. Just want to suck my fingers. Yummy.

The dreaded Christmas-craziness has begun to infect the school.

"I've already got my tree up, Miss."

'Is that so? Well, Christmas isn't coming to MY house for a long time yet and would you kindly consider actually doing a bit of work, you idle child!!!"  

I don't quite say that to them - not QUITE - but why do kids (er, they're actually 16-18) have to down tools this early? Grrr.  I want to work. When they take it easy they just make mischief. Teacher's nightmare is Christmas....

But the food is good. Lovely Bakewell sponge today. And leek and bacon quiche. Not in that order.

Jenni

BB Couture Shift Stick + CND Effects Gold Sparkling

One of my BB Couture haul from the ever-fabulous Kim at Overall Beauty.
Gorgeous mustard. I love fugly colours.

I did 2 coats. 3 would be better. But the CND is a super-subtle sparkle. Love it and it did mean I didn't need a 3rd coat but didn't change the overall effect too much. Result.

Stick Shift. Or as I know it - gear stick. Automatic cars feel like such a lazy option (I'm so old-skool) but I did love the one I drove in Canada. So simple. My new car has a 6-speed box though and very good it is too.

Oo, it's dark and there's not a breath of wind. Eerie. Will there be snow? We shall see.

Jenni

Missguided - and a 'good news' story...

I got this sweet email!

 

NB. This comp. is now over. Image just for reference purposes.

Good Morning,

My name is Phil Walsh from the Missguided.co.uk Marketing Team.

I have looked through your Nail Polish UK Site and I very much like the engaging and appealing content of your posts. I enjoy your posts on the different Nail Polishes on the market, you provide an informative yet light hearted view on what you feature.

What brought my particular attention was of course your post on the Missguided range of Nail Polishes. I was wondering if you would be interested in placing a link to Missguided.co.uk within the post, to enable your readers to directly access the cosmetic products we offer on the site. Do you feel this is something which would interest you and your readers?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I would love to hear from you soon.

Best Regards,

Phil Walsh

Missguided Marketing Team

E: webteam@missguided.co.uk

T: 0161 8747398

Aw! Was reet proper chuffed, like! 

So - to link or not to link?

I am linking because

A their polishes are made in the UK - hurrah!

B their polishes are great quality

C the rest of the stuff on their site appeals to me

D they have a facebook presence and they do some good comps 

E good customer service

F they asked me even though I criticised the brush in one polish - but maybe they didn't read that and maybe they are just sending this out to everybody!

A caveat though at this point. I won't buy made in China stuff if I can possibly help it and I can't vouch for their ethical policies or manufacturers of clothing or whatever. Just saying I like their stuff, prices are competitive and the nail polishes (which is what my site is about) are fab.

So, if I (not you necessarily) were buying items from them I'd be asking more questions. That's the way I work and why I buy a lot 2nd hand because I'm not driving demand for goods made thousands of miles away or by repressive regimes.

Oh, I couldn't buy their gear anyway because I'm a size *ahem* and they only go up to 14 so I'm not their demographic. But my nails don't know I'm old and fat. 

They haven't sent me any freebies and I think my conscience is clear about them. Plus I don't have a huge readership so I don't feel as if I have an enormous responsibility to consumers....

What would you do/have you done on this kind of issue?

Jenni

Barielle Coalest Day of the Year + ELF Metal Madness

The ELF is better. Not so dark and has more sparkle.

 

2 coats of each. The Barielle is on the index finger.

 

Top marks to ELF. It's a little thinner and doesn't disguise my ridges quite as well so the better option would be 1 coat of each with the ELF on top. Sorted.

ELF are getting some funkier colours up and running. Ha! Paint. Paint runs...Oh, never mind.

Jenni

ELF Glitter Glam

This is a new(ish) polish. At these prices ELF don't have glossy marketing campaigns. You just check the website from time to time and find new stuff. They just had a good sale and I got some freakily decent bits'n'pieces.

The little finger has 3 coats. The others have a coat of Barielle Aura Angora as a base because it looked as if it'd be as thin as Oliver Twist's gruel but it really wasn't. I like this. It dries very matte so I top-coated all except the ring finger. I'm in a very gold frame of mind at present. Odd. Because we get a lot of magpies. Usually five - for silver - or seven - for a secret never to be told. But never six for gold.

If you can't rely on the magpies then on whom CAN you rely?

Oh, ELF. If you're listening - you owe me a laser sight-restoration operation. The font on the base of the bottles is about 0.07. How am I supposed to read that?

Jenni

Missguided MissUnderstood

This is really a blood-red. Yummy! Darker than it appears below therefore.

I do like the Missguided polishes.
There's always a BUT though, is there not?

In this instance it's the brush. More stray hairs than a porcupine's posterior. What a mess it made. I had to do clean-up and I never do clean-up any more. Crossness incarnate. Or would have been if I let myself get stressed about such trivial matters.

Which set me to thinking.
Why do we have a brush for every bottle of polish? WHY? It's madness. Why not buy one brush that suits us and clean it after each use?
Bottles would be easier to store without big handles. Cheaper to manufacture/package/transport.
Why the crazy nail-polish-brush waste of resources?

What do you think? Have your own personal polish-brush. Polishes to come without brush as standard.

Jenni

Bourjois Bleu Violet

It is actually a genuine blue. Very cool-toned. It's looking blurple but I couldn't catch it accurately.
Suffice it to say this is my favourite blue ever. I'm not much of a one for blues in clothing or anything else but I do love this inordinately.

The China Glaze Fairy Dust on the index finger started out as accent nail. Then I noticed a big smudgeroony on the ring finger so had to douse that in Fairy Dust too. So it's not so much accented nails as naff nails.

Bourjois. Now then, now then.

1. Very good quality. Long-lasting. Highly pigmented.
2. The So Laque range does deliver 'ultra shine' as promised.
3. The colour range is mostly as lame as a 3-legged nag. Do you believe there is not a GREEN Bourjois polish in existence in the whole of the company history? How can this be so!   

It's actually sunny! Hurrah. Do you like a bit of sunshine? Or are you going to be depressed until May? Those of you who are making forays into foreign and sunnier climes may gloat at this point. I do actually love the winter - as long as it's DRY.

Jenni

Barielle Gelt me to the Party

I do find I get bad tipwear on Barielle (as you can see). Typically takes less than a day to develop. Not chips you understand. That's a huge no-no. But I still like their colours so I'm sticking by them.

With an accent of Accessorize Gold Dust. I thought that this would be a streaky mess but I rather like it. Not saying it suits me but I like it nonetheless.

I'm awaiting a bundle from BB Couture with no great patience. Also coming my way from the US is my cousin and her husband from Philly. Well, they fly out tomorrow/Wednesday. I warned them to expect cold weather. I think they know what that's like in PA.

I apologise for stating that Barielle was a British brand a few posts back. I should have known!

Jenni

Eyeko Military

I've wanted this for a while. Don't know why I waited so long.

Yes, it does look somewhat black after 2 coats, I have to admit. But this is under halogen and there's no natural light. It's more like bottle-colour in decent daylight (so I'll be waiting until May then, won't I, at this rate...).

With GOSH Rainbow as accent nail. I haven't painted them properly so the ring finger looks deformed. Never mind. Worse things. Sea. That kind of thing.

I'm in a right mood at the moment. Perhaps it's the weather. Can't blame hormones any more! I don't have any. Probably.

What (Northern hemisphere) food comforts you in these dark and dreary months? You can't beat fish'n'chips IMHO.

Jenni

Barielle Elle's Spell - a day's wear

What a rubbish day! I usually love my work (teacher) but today was bl00dy awful. Plus my mobile does not appear to be making or receiving calls plus plus plus.....On the good side daughter 2 rang to say she is OK after I read on her facebook that she had had lots of pills from the doctor! Kids, eh?

Oh, yes. Nail polish. I really like this one. End of.

AND I hate Children in Need and Comic Relief and all that forced jollity alternating with dreary violins. You have to be in the UK to know what I'm on about. And I wish I could exchange places if you're somewhere else.

Not that I'm curmudgeonly or anything. Much.

Are you ranting and raving or rested and relaxed?
Jenni

Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast & Misa Shop till u drop

Ridiculous name.

The BOGOF on autumn/winter 2010 polishes. I would never pay £8 for these. Don't get me wrong, Barielle are British (I think) and they are good but not THAT good.

I read that this is a bit of a weed so I put a coat of a similar colour underneath and then 2 coats of this. It dries dull as it's a foil so top coat was a must. I always TC anyway though....

It's pretty and that's as far as it goes. Pretty underwhelming. Heck, it's only nail polish.

I need to post about something more profound - cars, fashion, TV. Something really deep and meaningful...ahem.

I hear they've isolated some anti-matter particles in Switzerland. Now that IS remarkable. Apparently. If I understood it and hadn't failed physics at the age of 13. What gets to me is this: the scientists try to explain by way of analogy/simile but even THAT makes no sense to me. Which makes me think that they don't understand it either. I wonder......

What leaves you cold?
Quantum theory?

Jenni

Accessorize Bronze

14 blessed photos I took of this and not a single one that came anywhere near colour accurate.
It shows bronze/gold/brown/sulphur and emphatically NOT what I see in the photos.
So why post 'em?

You can begin to see hints of bronzitude in the next pic.

Well, I'm not sure my eyesight is entirely trustworthy. I think I'm going the way of low-level cataracts and I know that affects colour vision. So maybe I'm wrong and the camera is right.
Of course there's a whole existentialist debate revolving around how we see the world and how the world actually is. If indeed it can ever be said to have its own discrete existence except insofar as we perceive it.

I am duty-bound (true Brit) to mention the weather and the royal wedding.

• Weather - shocking. I'm not walking the dogs in this. They'll have to wait until tomorrow. Long-haired dogs get so wet and then they have to stay in the kitchen for hours on end and are miserable.
• Royal weddings. I'd be a republican (not a capital R American kind of Republican btw) if I didn't think we'd end up with an odious president such as Blair or a joke president such as Christopher Biggins. So the royal wedding leaves me cold.

Jenni

China Glaze Ingrid

Not the worst pic.
It shows the gold shimmer/glimmer.
I am loving browns at the moment.

2 coats and 3 wouldn't harm or hinder.
Got Accessorize Bronze on the other hand and that's quite some polish. I need a healthy dose of daylight to capture that as it's a duochrome. Or maybe a DUOCHROME!!!

Oh, well. Off to work. Up the M5/M6 today for a course in Wolvo. Will stuff myself on the free lunch and then go to visit daughter and grandson on the way home. Thank goodness for satnav. Last time I got thoroughly lost in the wilds of Willenhall. Eek!

Jenni

Missguided Missbehave

Weird one.
Sorta more grey/blue tones IRL.
Very shiny.

Their publicity says it's candyfloss (*retches*) pink and that's fair enough.
3 coats and I've got my classic ring-finger ridges problem that is hideously exposed by a creme polish.
Oh, fluff.
It doesn't look that old lady because the other hand is the cherry-pink. That's how I wear more trad colours - by contrasting the 2 hands. Life's too short and polish is too diverse to have 10 digits the same. A waste of fingers.

Which of these would you NOT do?
1 skittles
2 Konad
3 black nails
4 nail art
5 different shades on each hand
6 different shades on each finger (I suppose that's skittles..)
7 accent nail

I have never done Konad because I have all the dexterity of a drunken elephant in boxing gloves.

Jenni

Missguided Missdemeanor

I have the whole range of Missguided. 6 in all.
The brown/gold/black is a great polish. Almost a single-coater.
Same goes for this.

It's not the most exciting colour in the nailiverse for sure.
But it went on beautifully and it suits me.
Very glossy but I always put a TC on anyway.

I'll jazz it up tomorrow with a something or other.

I'm waiting for more Accessorize and BB Couture in the post.
You got any goodies on order?
And how much Christmas online shopping do you do?
A Nearly everything I get online.
B Some.
C I need to see it and I prefer old-skool shopping.

Jenni

And now for something completely different...

I did threaten say I'd post this pic.
And now I shall. Since I'm not changing my nails until tomorrow.

I had to wait 4 months for them to build this in Sunderland. It's a Nissan Juke and I could extol its many virtues to an utterly uncaring audience but I won't.

Suffice it to say I love it. It looks funky. Bizarre - according to colleagues. Bizarre is good though!

The colour is Force Red. It would not make a good nail shade but I like it on the car.

Your car character?

1. Not remotely interested
2. Sporty
3. Rugged
4. Just get me from A to B
5. Something vintage or veteran
6. Other - please elaborate

Jenni

Accessorize Purple Dream

Also the purple curse has been visited upon me. Can't get an accurate shot of this. It's fabolicious!

From the Illusion range with a coat of Merry Midnight on the middle finger. Think it's 3 coats.
Definitely one of those 'Were you saying something important, darling? I must have missed it as I was looking at my nails.' It is both purple and blue depending upon the available light and has the finest blue glitter. Looks as if it might be a bit like one of the Orly FX.

I love the Accessorize polishes and I think they're still free P&P at the moment.
I must resist though as I have 6 BB Couture on order and 4 Barielle.

Plus car mats and mudguards for my new car. I am so enamoured of my new vehicle I may have to post a pic. Feel free to ignore it. I know you will.

What is making you smile this autumn day?

Jenni

OPI Pamplona Midnight (sounds better than Merry Purple)

Started with 2 coats (should have been 3) of Pamplona Purple.
Then ring finger had 1 coat Merry Midnight.
Middle had 2 and index 3.

So it's a very subtle (boring/ineffective) gradient.
The idea was to layer MM over something and thus reduce the amount of MM I used (it being more sheer than I'd imagined).
But I ended up with 5 coats of polish on one finger! Hope it dries.

I'm purple-potty at present. A few months ago I thought I was permanently off purple and nearly cleared my stash of purple. Glad I didn't.

Is there one colour you can live without/never bother with or even outright HATE?

Jenni

Suzi says You'll need a Private Jet to get to my Midnight Coronation

And your problem with that is?????
I mean, what's wrong with that as a polish name?

Back-story.

• Got OPI DS Coronation on already for a coupla days.
• Had a loooooooong day culminating in a semi-staff meeting on grandmothers and egg-sucking or some such.
• Got home and wanted to try My Private Jet and Merry Midnight. So I did. Over Coronation.
• I have learned the following:

1. Coronation ain't very holo. I have Marks & Spencer for less money that's more holo but now I have an OPI DS so that's one box ticked.
2. I DO love Merry Midnight as I hoped I would.
3. This version of Jet isn't at all holo.

Er, Barielle have a 20% off sale. Plus it's BOGOF on the autumn and winter polishes. Downside is their P&P. £3.95 standard so you have to order a minimum of 4 polishes for it to be worth it. In MY nailiverse that's a lot. And I can't find 4 polishes .............yet. Give me time. I ordered 5 BB Couture yesterday despite vowing not to buy any more polishes.

Shoot me now. But my nail habit keeps people in jobs, right?

Jenni

Nails Inc Kingly Street

You see a Nails Inc you like and I can GUARANTEE you they have withdrawn it from sale. Crazy company! I think I've only even seen this on sale once. It's probably out there under a host of different names. They seem to do that. You'll see a polish under a new name that uncannily resembles something you thought you recognised as something else.

2 coats. Could have used a 3rd. Rather glittery without containing glitter as such. Or such fine glitter that it doesn't quite become a bona fide glitter polish.

Kim at Overall Beauty (have to google it, people, as my links aren't working) has got a BB Couture offer until the 10th. I am trying to resist. Every day is going to be the day I call a halt to my buying. Every day (well, too many days) proves to be the occasion for a lapse from grace. Oh, dear....

Jenni

Quickie post - Missguided

Really pretty bottles and packaging.

Proper chunky caps. The freebie with Cosmo doesn't have the square top.

The nude looks good. As does the berry-red.


World's lamest link to the next pic. BERRY red.

These are so not her colours IMHO. What were Revlon thinking? She's beautiful and they stitched her up like a kipper. Bit of a mixed metaphor going on there but .....

What kind of a model could/would you be?

• Catwalk
• Nail/hand
• Eye
• Lip
• Foot
• Glamour
• Catalogue
• None of the above

Jenni
I know someone who was a hand model aeons ago. 

Nubar 2010

Layered over the Missguided freebie. The one from Cosmo - not the one in the photo. That's Misschievous. (You see what they did there?)
This really shows the orange/gold aspect of the flakies.

And then over OPI Barefoot In Barcelona.

Look at the bottle! The Nubar shows green/orange/red over paler polishes like this.

I have GOSH Rainbow too and they are analogues. Nubar is more expensive but nail-polish-ownership has as much to do with availability and supply as it does with demand. So Nubar may be ten a penny in ....Sumatra. And GOSH isn't sold in................Timbuktu.

I now have all 6 Missguided polishes. They are beautifully packaged/presented.

Oh, yes. Mischievous. That's the correct spelling btw.
There seems to have arisen a misconception that this may be pronounced mis-CHEE-VEE-us.
No, it's MIS-chiv-us. No debate. No negotiation. Wherever in the Anglophone world you may be it's....what I just said.

Jenni
HAND

OPI Barefoot in Barcelona

One of the polishes I got for £4 from the asos sale.
Yet another nude. But I love 'em. Who'd have thought?

2 coats. Easy as an easy-thing. (Did I say Katie Price? No, that's in YOUR head.)

Next, please.

Name that (those) polish(es).
I did actually pay pretty near RRP for these but I'm trying to call a halt to polish=purchasing. Hey, I gave up smoking and drinking. How hard can this be?
So, yeah, guess the names of the polishes.

The next trio is my penultimate score. I'm waiting for my Missguided haul and then that's it. Nada. Nothing. No. Put a lid on it. Enough already.

Purple Dream Illusion, Bronze Illusion and Pin-Up Rock Star.
I'm pretty sure the pink one didn't look like that on the website so let's hope it has hidden depths. Hmmm. And the Bronze looks a lot like Aztec and the PD looks remarkably like Ruby Sparkle. More hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Longer and louder and with great suspicion this time.

Jen

Missguided Splash MissFit - free with Cosmo

Missguided 

Got this with the magazine - I am so not of the Cosmo demographic but the polish is GRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!

They only do 6 polishes but, if this is the typical standard, they promise to be fab.

This was 2 coats but 1 would be fine. I just wasn't expecting it to be so good so I wasn't careful enough first time so I had to do it properly the 2nd time. ONE COAT. I kid you not. It claims it's black with whatever bits. But it has a very brown/olive character to it. My nails look good. I am content.

This has impressed me so much I have used the COSMO20 code to buy all 6 polishes for a bit under £20 including P&P. The code gives you 20% discount. The quality of this is superb. The remaining 5 colours are not cutting edge chic (unless reds and pinks are the new mints, nudes and greiges and what do I know?) but I want to encourage this brand to stretch its wings. They do 2 themes - Love and Peace. Loving the bottle shape.

Enough with the gushing.

Blogger is playing me up something rotten today. Bullet points won't work. Cursor won't go where I want it. Enter key isn't taking me down....Or it takes me back to the start of the line. What's afoot?

So frustrating.

Jenni

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accessorize Ruby Sparkle and FREE P&P

I have no rubies. But I'm pretty sure they are not the colour of the sparkles in this bottle.
It matters not.

I put a meagre coat of aforesaid Ruby Sparkle over Accessorize Aztec and got ...fireworks!

Come on. £4 to pep up a slightly tired mani in pyrotechnic fashion. That's not too shabby.

And they've free P&P for a few days. I have been very impressed by these and consequently my wallet has slipped open as if of its own volition and the result has been (or strictly speaking, is ABOUT to be) immediate impoverishment.

To be honest I have memorised my card details. I don't need the physical card to shop online. 16 digit number, expiry date, security code. No problem. All in my head.

What numbers do you know by heart? Quiz time!

1 your credit card (or debit card)
2 your own mobile
3 doctor's number
4 work number
5 National Insurance (I know mine)
6 vet's number
7 bank account number and sort-code
8 at least one other mobile number

I know all except 3 because it's changed to some silly 0845 thing and I hate going to the doctor anyway plus it has a lengthy and boring menu.

Jen