Barry M Nail Effects in Pink, Diamond Cosmetics Rubies & Diamonds + Bourjois Une Seconde

 

I got myself in 57 kinds of trouble with this. I tried to manufacture a stencil from a paper label. Nah. Ended up with red splodges on a couple of nails and had to stage a rescue operation.

Hey, it's bright. It's alright. 

 Jenni

W7 Cosmic Purple - a V mani

First time I've done this. I think it's uneven because the glitter is lumpy bumpy and allows leakage beneath the sticky tape. So next time I'll do it over a smooth polish. I think that should work. And I didn't realise I had slapped it so comprehensively over the cuticles but I was so exhilarated by the sheer blingitude of the whole shebang that I snapped it straight off and didn't think to check the photos too closely.

The silver is Diamond Cosmetics Silver Brocade which covers the glitter very effectively.

Oh, and the cheapo W7 polish was much admired by the Illamasqua girl in Birmingham Selfridges!

I know it's not a Mad Hatter dupe but it can still give OPI glitters a run for their money. For £3.98 or less it ain't so shabby.

Jenni

Silver comparisons

I surely have enough polish now to do comparisons - hundreds but not a thousand, I think. But curiously there are few outright dupes.

I do like silver. It ended up NOT a straight silver post but wanted to go glittery.

Little finger - new Topshop polish Wilderness - a poxy 6ml - it looks like a proper size polish on the website - swizz! metallic silver and a good polish
Ring - Topshop White Witch (goes pink on!) + Diamond Cosmetics Glitter Silver
Middle - Misa Dance Fever
Index - Hansen Dividends which is like the Misa only darker and leaves bald spots and never dries and wound me up no end + GOSH Silver Star (see Dividends for how it applies....boo)
Thumb - Diamond Cosmetics Silver Brocade - very like Wilderness but a hint of glitter

I conclude:

• Topshop sold me a pig in a poke with a teeny mini that didn't say it was a mini
• Don't bother with White Witch
• Misa is one of the best brands bar none - buy Misa
• Hansen Dividends not very good and neither is the GOSH - these are generally 2 brands I don't have much success with though
• Diamond Cosmetics - such a shame you can't get this in the UK any longer because it's another GREAT brand and it's crazy cheap
• My skin is unsually dry and it may be attributable to the Hansen Kwik Off polish remover that I am using but that people report to be tough on the skin

Jenni

2 questions

1. Straight silver OR silver glitter?
2. Are the LFW models too thin? When I say too thin I mean unattractively thin. Not unhealthily - that's another issue. Too thin to be attractive.

Diamond Cosmetics Matte Burgundy + Zoya Casey

Has to be one of the worst pix I've taken recently. And considering that this is the best of the worst (ya with me?) you get a flavour of how bad the batch was.

The ring finger has a coat of top over it and the index finger is Zoya Casey. The other 3 are Matte Burgundy. Looks way better IRL. You blow up these photos and you get warts and all.  Not flattering. Perhaps I should get an apprentice to take the photos from the next county. Distance lends enchantment to the view. This was from my haul from Konad Nail Stamping Nail Art - Flashy Nails. She's nearly cleared her stock now. But take a look at what's left.

You wear the Zoya in winter and you might just as well wear black polish tbh. But Casey is basically the same as the Burgundy + topcoat.

Miserable bloomin' weather. Not funny.

Looks Sixties to me. The Cutex packaging was always pretty uninteresting but the ad was maybe a bit radical for the time. 

Here's another one with an exotic inspiration. Well, except the polish is still the same old red. Quite a challenge really for the marketing department. 

What colours are we promoting this season? 

Well, how about red and pink. That's what we thought anyway. 

Red and pink, huh? But didn't we do red and pink last season?

Yes, but it's always been very popular. 

That's true. But have we ever tried any other colours?

No, no. It's a winning formula.

So we can just tweak the ads then. The product's the same, after all.

We can't do that! The polish isn't new but the advertising better be!

OK, we had the Oriental collection last winter so how about the Mexican collection for this one?

Good, good. We can't repeat the Cowboy collection or the Moscow collection so Mexican it shall be.

I could do with a Sunny Interval collection today so I can get these dogs out without us all getting thoroughly bedraggled.

Jenni

Diamond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm (holo)

I'm still anti-colour so today we have one of the best polishes I have.

You can sort-of see the holo on the ring finger. This is 3 coats. No TC.
Even if it cost more than a coupla quid it would be way worth it.

Look at the bottle!
I think this is a cross between dinosaur skin and fur.
People babble on about OPI My Private Jet but they can keep it. I don't know what gets better than this.
I want to stroke it. It's like velvet dinosaur skin-fur. It's like serenity and bliss in a bottle. It makes even my pudgy paws look vaguely half-decent. It's the song of the blackbird on a cool morning in May.


Now for the mundane.
In the UK it's available from Konad Nail Stamping Nail Art - Flashy Nails.
Every Diamond I have is a great polish.
Charm is one of only 2 polishes for which I have back-up.

It appears from my survey that most of you are dancer(s). Just saying.

The love of my life resurfaces on Thursday.
Test cricket. None of this 1-day malarkey. And 20-20 is beyond evil. The work of the devil.
England v Pakistan.
My cricket memories. Those days of yore.
My dream job would be cricket-commentator for the BBC. I kid you not.

Very cross as my googled image of Sir Geoffrey keeps disappearing. Bah, humbug.


This is one of my cricket heroes - Sir Geoffrey Boycott. Don't tell me he hasn't been ennobled because in my head he IS Sir Geoffrey. Why am I not doing a cricket-blog? Expect lots of cricket to have to skip beyond until the Test series is over but am I repentant? I am not.

Dream job?
Sporting hero?

Jenni

OPI Overexposed in South Beach + Diamond Cosmetics South Beach Pink + DotD

Not until I typed out the names that I realised the connection. South Beach.
South Beach where? Brighton? Skegness? Cleethorpes?

Must be Bournemouth, I think.

I was so impressed by the PPP from Diamond that I wanted to try another from the collection I got from ABOP.

2 coats of easy-going pink goodness. So that's more positive feedback for Diamond. I don't know how they do it for the price. It's not as if they are all tame colours and finishes. They do one of my all-time faves - Chainmail Charm. BIG respect to Diamond.

And the OPI's great too.

I have become thoroughly sick of flat pastel cremes but PPP and these pinks are bright. So I can't whinge about these. The odd finish is my fault. I washed my paws a bit too soon and I've messed it up a bit.

I couldn't do 2 hands of pink or people would think I was some kind of Katie-Price-alike but a single hand is cheering.

Silver Diva sent me the OPI after the naughty ebay-seller sold me a polish as Overexposed when it patently bl00dy wasn't!!! Lovely Silver Diva.

DotD

I removed the red-eye and it hasn't worked particularly well. This is our rescue dog. This colour cocker has a bad rep. for temperament and he bit me over the weekend. There's a marker on the gene that makes them that golden colour. It also makes them "flip". He knows he's in my bad books at the moment hence the soulful expression. I'm ignoring him. It won't last long. He's our dog and I mismanaged a situation when I know he's volatile. Ho hum. Silly me.

On with the jollity.

Talking of beaches, (yes, we were) what's your best beach or best beach memory?
I think mine was nude-bathing in Croatia. I hadn't done it before and it was soooooo liberating/refreshing.

Jenni-fur

Diamonds Cosmetics Pelican Peak Purple and OPI A Grape Fit - purple cremes

So..
I could have sworn it was Pelican BBBBBBeak but it isn't. It's PPPPPPeak. How did I get that so wrong? You see what you want to see....
Got the PPP from my ABOP giveaway "win". (see sidebar)

So I thought I'd have a go.
And then I thought: It's a pastel creme. I love the colour but it's going to behave fearfully badly. *gloom gloom*
I really want OPI A Grape Fit. I'll do that instead.
Rummaged for the OPI. Where IS it? Found it.
OMG it's really quite close to PPP. So let's try both. Have a comparison. I'm batty. I even thought they were dupe-ish at first. They are so NOT.
Couldn't open it at first - the OPI. A bit gummed up with old polish. One of the first bottles I bought when I got back into nail polish last September.

I have such a thing for purple. This was the in-colour when I was about 16 (c. 1971) and everything was purple velvet (not cars or obviously or bananas) and I loved it. I had a flower-sprigged Laura Ashley midi-dress. I had loads of stuff. Takes me back. Hawkwind. Silver Machine. 

This isn't hard. Which fingers are painted with which polish? Pic 1?

Oh, the Diamond was actually not a s0dding s0d at all. It was an easy 2 coats. Pleased I was!

I still love purple. I probably love it even more now.

The OPI is a great polish. There are loads like it. Done Out In Deco etc. I don't have them. I don't need them. Grape Fit is worth getting.

No dogs today. You'll have to provide your own pets. Sorry about that.

Jenni-fur