Color Club Foiled - Metallics - Review

Hi there again folks!
Once again I have a nail polish collection review for you.  This time it's Color Clubs 'Foiled - Molten Metal for your nails' collection.  I don't have many foil or chrome effect polishes, so when I saw these in TX Maxx for £7.99 for 7 polishes (although one is a topcoat), I thought it's enough of a bargain to have a go.

So here's the polishes:

And here's how they come packaged:

Now, usually I show each colour, and then explain how the coverage and application, etc was.  I'm not going to do that for this collection for one good reason - the application and coverage was exactly the same for each polish!  I don't find that much in collections, but certainly in this case that's what it was like.

And the good news is that it was really nice to apply, not too streaky or self deleting, and a nice amount of polish came off the brush for each brush stroke.  You do need to make sure you clean off the stalk of the brush though, because I found a couple of times that a blob came down it and blobbed in it's blobby way onto my nail!  Luckily it was pretty easy to swoosh back off with the brush with no harm done, but it was just a slight irritation in an otherwise seamless polishing session.

Coverage is good, first coat ever so slightly patchy, but you could definitely get away with it in a rush, with no VNL to speak of.  I think this is because it contains alot of tiny foil pieces.  All pictures shown here are two coats and thats definitely enough.  To get a smooth glossy finish you would need the topcoat that came with the kit, but I didn't use it for these pictures.  The topcoat is under the sticker in the packaging shot, in true TX Maxx style of covering up the polish with the price sticker.  Dry time was medium-fast.

I'll show them in the order they came in, as shown in the pacakaging shot.  One thing that bugs me about Color Club collections is that they don't put the polish names on the bottles.  I've got so many I can't really swatch as I don't know what they're called.  This time I've tried to get around that by cutting the names out of the packaging and supergluing them on the bottom of the bottle.  Don't know how long they'll stay stuck on, but it's worth a try!

So without further ado, lets get on to the swatches:

The first one is 927 Perfect Mol-Ten - a light pinky tan colour:

I think it would make an excellent base coat for 'lovely but too sheer' polishes, and am definitely going to try using it for that.  Heres another pic, I took loads, but have limited myself to two per colour on the blog, it wasn't easy to pick!

Next up is 928 - Antiquated:

A lovely feminine mid/bright pink - am not usually one for pinks, but this was my favourite of the lot.  Heres another pic:

Next in the box is 929 Cold Metal - a nice royal blue:

I simply couldn't limit myself to two pictures for this one because it appears so different in daylight and indoors, so heres two more pictures :)  one in daylight:

And one indoors, but daylight is shining on my thumb, the difference is clear between that and my little fingernail:

Next along is 930 Hot Like Lava:

This is a paler, cooler toned version of Antiquated, this and cold metal were my joint second favourites.  Heres another pic of it:

Next in the pack is 931 Foil Me Once - an almost duo-toned green:

The fresher green flecks are quite noticeable in the bottle shot above, but they seen to merge together once theyre on.  Heres another pic:

And last but not least, 932 Lumin-Icecent, a silvery light blue:

And here it is again, with the bottle in shot:

And that's all the colour, there was also a bottle of top coat, here's a picture of it, mainly so you can see what the brushes looked like!

So there we have it, one collection swatched and reviewed, and all in all I was pretty pleased with it.  I would have rather had a red in the same tone as the royal blue than two pinks, but then I am a bit fussy!  It makes a good addition to my ever-expanding collection, and I promise that my next post will be something different than nail polish!

Until next time.....

MASPOOASE X X X

~Wendy~

Jessica Hologram Chic - Disco Diva

It's the weeeekeeeeennnnnd!  Yaaayyyy!!!
Anyone who's seen my Twitter feed today knows how I feel about this polish kit.  I love it!

Lets get straight on to the pics - I've jazzed it up using Konad black polish and bundle monster plate BM221:

I really like this look, it feels really 'rock chick' to me, and one of the first times I've felt like I'm 'rockin' a nail look.  Although the BM plate is floral, the feel is very animal print.  I slightly smudged my stamping with my top coat, but I like it so much I don't really mind.  Heres another pic:

I ordered mine from Ebay UK and it came really quick, but I have seen it on Amazon UK too.  I paid just over £25 with free shipping.  Here's how it comes packaged:





And the back side:

As you can see, it comes packaged nicely enough to make a great gift.





Luckily for me it was sunny today, first day for a while, so I managed to get out and take a few sunlight shots, this is where the polish really comes into it's own.  Here it is in all its unstamped naked glory:

Application was lovely, the brush liked to cling onto the polish a bit instead of dropping it on my nail, but it wasn't at all streaky or self deleting.  This is 3 coats, but when I looked on my second hand, there was absolutely no difference between 2 or 3 coats, so I wasted a coat!  With one coat there was a bit of VNL, so am intrigued to see if I can layer it and change the look.

I have no doubt that this will become one of my regularly used nail art polishes, it's given me so many ideas for new designs, watch this space!

Until next time....

MASPOOASE X X X
~Wendy~

QVC TSV Nails Inc Haul

Hi All!

Yes I know it's not the weekend yet, but my QVC shopping channel special offer from Nails Inc came today, so I thought I would share it with you.  I know my last 2 posts were also Nails Inc, and I don't want to become a brand bore, but I already know what my next two nail swatch posts will be and they're completely different brands so I hope you'll forgive me!

Am going to TRY and keep this relatively short, as I know I can ramble on, so without further ado, let's go!

Here's a picture of what I bought:

And here's how it came packaged:

Which was fine for me, because I just wanted to get into the goodies, but if I'd have bought this to give as a gift I'd have been a bit disappointed.  The very best thing about this packaging is that it will fit through a letterbox, which is a big step forward for QVC as their boxes are usually massively too big.

So lets get onto the swatches, the first one I want to show you is Pudding Lane:

This is from their much advertised 'Sprinkles' collection.  I've seen alot of twitter posts (retweeted by them) that say oooh sprinkles my nails look good enough to eat, etc, so I was quite intrigued as to what it would be.  It turns out that its just glitter in polish, which I personally don't think looks good enough to eat, but maybe thats just me!  Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike it, but I don't adore it either.  I'm sure at some point I'll wear an outfit that this will be just perfect for.  Application was ok, the base polish was workable enough, but I did find the glitter application a bit patchy, and I had to work with it a bit to get it to a reasonable evenness.  It was quite fast drying, this was 2 coats.

The next polish I want to show you is Portobello:

As you can see from the sticker on the lid, this is listed as a neon.  Don't let my picture fool you!  It is showing as much brighter and much more orange than it was in real life.  It was really like a bright coral colour, but I just couldn't persuade my camera to get near to the true colour.  It wasn't a regular Nails Inc cream formulation, it was quite runny, streaky and sheer.  This is 3 coats and I still had VNL!  Not at all used to that with their polishes!  Also I would say it dried to a sheen rather than a gloss.  Not so happy with this one.

The next one I want to show you is Warwick Street:

I LOVED this! To my mind it was the absolute best of the bunch! It looked weird in the bottle, kind of flat with metallic in it.  It's when I came to apply it that I really appreciated it.  The formula went on like a dream, as you can see it's kind of a light grey with tiny purple, teal & read specks of glitter in it.  This is 2 coats, but I could have got away with one, just lovely!

The next swatch is a bit strange (for me).  I was kind of all glittered out, and I couldn't face putting on and taking off 2 more full hands of glitter so I decided to do 2 nails of each of the next ones.  As it is they both came out super sheer so it's fitting they're shown together:

The pink is Princes Arcade from their 'Nail Jewellery' collection.  Its a mix of purple and holo glitter.  The blue is Sloane Gardens.  They're both pretty much 'layering' polishes, and I think I will do a post about that all by itself.  These two were a bit disappointing but they may have potential.

The next polish is Porchester Square.  As you can see by this swatch my nails were starting to look a bit exhausted:

They're calling this a 'hero shade', I can see why, its a nude minky cream.  This is one coat, back to good ole Nails Inc reliable formulation, I liked this :)

And last, but not least, Cheyne Walk.  I've taken 2 pictures of this as its very different in different lighting:

The first coat was quite sheer and streaky, and I thought I was going to have a loser on my hands, but the second coat seemed to step up to the mark and more than made up for it! Its a purple & grey duochrome which came out lovely & shiny.  Brush marks weren't too bad for a metallic, but it was quite tricky to photograph!

And there we have it, all 7 TSV polishes.  They cost me £28.91 including p&p as the special value price, the collection is still available on the QVC UK website, but  I think it's about £5 more expensive now.  I'm happy with what I got at an average of just over £4 a bottle, and the icing on the cake was the beautiful Warwick Street!

I hope you've enjoyed my review, and thanks for reading!  Feel free to comment if you like.

Until next time.....

MASPOOASE X X X

~Wendy~

Nails Inc Colour Collection 2 - Swatches

Hi again!
Here I am with the promised second installment of yesterdays polish-fest.  I won't go back into where I got them etc, you can read yesterdays post with all the info here if you havent seen it yet: http://www.maspooase.com/2012/07/nails-inc-colour-collection-1-swatches.html

So here's a picture of the second box:

Once again, notice the position of the label, grrr....

Anyway, of course the first thing I did was check if the purple polish was the same as in collection one, and wouldn't you know it, it was! Buckingham Street, so now I have a dupe, maybe that will come in handy one day, I'm pretty sure it isn't the only dupe I have, thats the problem when you buy collections, but never mind.  I won't bore you by reviewing it again, as you can see it in collection one.

So, having learned from my mistakes in the last swatching session, this time I decided to swatch from light to dark, the first one I did was Bedford Square:

First impressions in the bottle was that it was a goldy, mustard coloured superfine glitter with a spatter of dusky pink glitter in it,  It laid down quite sheer and one coat made me think it could be used over other colours quite successfully.  It had a nice quick drying time, this is 2 coats.It reminded me of a sandy beach, and dried to that kind of dusty glittery finish that I really liked.  It's kind of like a 'glitter nude' that's subtle enough to wear to even a conservative office.  In fact after my swatchathon, when I was chilling out later in the day, this is the one I went upstairs to fetch and put back on.  It has to be said, even with a coat of seche on, it was quite badly chipped after 24hrs but I forgive it because I love it so much.  It's one of those 'keep looking at your nails' polishes, well it was for me anyway!

The next one I tried was Park Lane:

Yes it is incredibly blingy!  However I didn't like it much.  Its a light purple/lilac semi-fine glitter.  The application was patchy and self deleting, the coverage wasn't great, and this was 2 quite thick coats - perhaps good for layering?  It was just too textured for me, and it got everywhere when I was taking it off.

And last but not least, the darkest of the bunch, North Row:

This was a dark brown fine glitter with a smattering of gold & silver glitter in it.  It was quick drying, again the first coat was quite spread out and made me think of layering.  It was quite difficult to work with, but I still liked it, as it reminded me alot of tortoiseshell, or animal prints for some reason.

So there we go, that's all of them, Bedford Square I really loved, Buckingham Street I already had, Park Lane I didn't like, and North Row I quite liked. 

Am happy I got the collection, it was worth it just for Bedford Square.  I think that I'll get a lot of layering yummyness out of it, and hopefully my reviews will be useful to you!

I also bought a Colour Club collection, I haven't swatched them yet, but as soon as I do, you'll be the first to know!

Have a great week, and until next time...

MASPOOASE X X X

Nails Inc Colour Collection 1 - swatches

Hello again :)
I broke 2 of my nails this week so have had to cut them all down, am not sure Sally Hansen's Miracle Cure is doing my nails any favours, which is a shame because I've got a whole bottle to use up and I hate wasting things....  anyway, I digress...

I've been shopping today, couldn't resist a wander into TK Maxx to see if they had anything new in, and they did!  There were two Nails Inc collections I couldn't decide between, the problem was that each box had a polish in that I was excited about, and I was holding one in each hand, weighing them up.  I eventually decided s*d it, buy them both, we all know I'd just go back next week and buy the other one anyway.  It was a bit of an extravagance as the sets were £14.99 each, so we're talking nearly £30, and there was a polish in them that looked the same in both boxes.... but.... hey, you only live once, might as well be pretty and skint haha!

I've decided swatches on one collection per blog post, I think that if I did them both together it would end up a bit picture heavy, and take too long to load for some people.  Am not entirely au-fait with the technicalities of these things, but that seems to make sense to me anyway.
So here we go, this is what they looked like in the box:

I think these boxes are pretty and would make a lovely gift, just one complaint.... TK Maxx always stick their price stickers over one of the polishes! Its so annoying, because it makes people rip the boxes open, then polishes end up coming out, and I think thats how come some boxes sometimes end up with two colours the same in them, because the staff just pop them back into a likely looking box, or perhaps some unscrupulous shoppers just do a mix n match of their favourites grrr.

Anyway enough ranting, lets get on with the swatches, I decided to do them in the order, least excited about, to most excited about, hey its a system....

The first one I tried was Buckingham Street:

This was a nice surprise! In the bottle it looks like a dark fushia glitter, but actually once I got it on I could see some silver in it, it was a super fine glitter which was nice and smooth to apply.  Could almost have got away with one coat, but this is two.  My only critisism would be that it was quite hard to get a precise line down the sides of my nail, but that could have been as much my fault as the polishes - overall, I liked this

The next one I tried was Old Park Lane

In the bottle, this looks like a pinky/silver beige minky shade, so I thought I knew what to expect, but it was completely different once I got it onto my nails.  It was a one-coater (hooray I love those!) but it was obviously a bit slower drying.  It was alot darker on my nail and almost a perfect copper colour, a tiny bit redder in real life than it shows here, think rose gold.  It did show brush strokes though so it's not perfect.  I have a feeling this will be good for Konad stamping with.

Next up was Fitzroy Square

In the bottle, this confused me somewhat, I could see that there was fine and not-so-fine glitter in there, but I didn't get what that had to do with 3D, I still don't really... however the first coat blew me away!  I can't remember the last time I was so pleased with a polish!  The fine glitter seemed to lay down in a perfect light veil interspersed with the larger glitter, I can't wait to layer this and show you!  For swatching purposes I added another coat, so this is 2 coats, it was lovely to apply and quick drying, but glitter got e-very-where when I was taking it off - loved this polish, if I saw another 3D polish I would be tempted by it because I liked this one so much

And last but not least I tried Shepherds Market, this was the one hiding behind the label, and also the one I was most excited about in the shop:

I bet you're wondering why, because in this pic it just looks like a flat silver glitter, right? It wasn't really like that at all, but it was really hard to photograph. 

It took a while, but I think I've finally got a shot that shows how pretty this really is:

Hmmm still not sure it shows it, it did on my camera screen!  Anyway, it contains super fine red, silver, blue & gold glitter, almost a one coater, but I did two for the swatch.  I liked it, I think it's one of those that might look very different in different lights due to all the different colours in it.  Probably a clever person out there in internet-land will have managed a better picture than me.

I realised halfway through my swatching that doing them in the order of least exciting to most exciting was a bad idea, and I should have done them lightest to darkest, but there you go, live and learn!

The brushes were normal Nails Inc brushes, I've shown them on past blog posts so no need to show them again, but if you want to see, or know the ingredients, let me know and I'll add them :)

So all in all, not a bad bag for £14.99, I'll definitely use them all, Fitzroy Square was the highlight for me in this selection, probably Old Park Lane was my least favourite, but if it comes out well for Konad-ing, it will redeem itself.

I hope you've enjoyed these swatches, I've still got the other collection to do, I'll post it when it's done!

Until next time -

MASPOOASE X X X

My New Vanity Box

Its Friday again, yay!  I came onto my Blogger hours ago, intending to get my blog post for this week done nice and early, and what happened?  I started reading all the other entertaining blogs of all y'all, and before I knew it, time had just... well, passed!
Because my blog is most definitely supposed NOT to be just a nail blog, I've decided to post something different today.  A few weeks ago I bought a vanity box from TK Maxx, and have been intending to share it with you, but with going away last weekend I haven't managed to squeeze it in - so here it is!

The measurements are:
Height: 20.5cm
Width: 24cm
Depth: 16cm

I've been looking for a vanity box that will fit on my windowsill for a while, that's inoffensive enough not to offend the other half, who doesn't like my 'clutter' all over the place, but that's also big enough to hold what I need, with a mirror in the lid, and this seems to tick all the boxes.  Its made out of paper covered card, but don't let this put you off, it feels surprisingly sturdy and I reckon it will last a while.  The handles on the drawers are clear plastic and quite blingy.

The top section is compartmentalised like this:

Also a sneaky peek of my everyday make-up there, and I've just noticed my elbow in the mirror :)

The pictures above were taken in natural daylight, and are a good representation of the colours, but I realised there were some pics I hadn't taken, so the next two pics were taken in artifical light, and don't show the colours so well, but I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to post.

Heres a close up of the lid, I measured it against some normal printer paper and it's just a bit bigger than the sheet folded in half:

And here's a picture of the drawers opened up:

The drawers are a little bit stiff to open, I have to hold the top and pull the drawer, otherwise I'd pull the whole thing off the windowsill.  Also there's a magnet in the lid to keep it shut.

All in all, am chuffed to bits with my little vanity box, it cost £14.99 which I think is quite good, and if you're in there and you see one, don't hesitate to pick it up!  If nothing else, it'd make a great christmas present for the woman who's got everything!  Plan ahead, right?

Do you have a system for keeping your everyday makeup handy?

Am going shopping tomorrow, so knowing me I will get some polish, and I'll do a NOTD post at the very least :)

Until next time.....

MASPOOASE X X X

Russian Doll Manicure

Hello again!

Well, despite telling myself that I wouldn't make my blog a nail blog, it seems a disproportionate amount of my posts involve manicures, well it is my current love, so I forgive myself!  I've been planning a manicure this week which I'm calling "a reflection of me".  Like all of us I think of myself as an onion (or a Kinder Egg), lots of layers, and each of those layers are significant and different. 

I had the terrible feeling that this weeks manicure was going to go the same way as last weeks, which was a total fail, but after an hour or 3 of experimenting (dotting, striping, acrylic paints etc etc) I finally got a result I'm pleased with!  I've called it a russian doll manicure as it's a colour inside a colour, inside a colour.  Heres what I ended up with:

The polishes I used were (from cuticle to tip)

Base coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Cure

Pink: Nails Inc Bruton Street

Dark Red: Leighton Denny Saturn Seduction

Black: L'Oreal Color Riche Black Swan

White: OPI Alpine Snow

Pink: again Bruton Street

I love the fact that it looks like an elongated bullseye, and its much more punchy in real life.  Have had to post a day early this week as I'm off down home this weekend, am super excited to be spending the whole weekend with my family and besties, should be lots of music, dancing and feasting!

Hope you have a fab weekend, please feel free to comment, and see you soon!

Take care

MASPOOASE X X X

Essie Haul - Swatches

Hey there lovely people, it's the weekend, so it must be bloggin' time!
I would have posted yesterday, but for some reason my mani's weren't working out for me, and all I was making was a mess...  so I decided to crack open the G&T and chill out instead - my blog, my rules, hee hee!

So, at the end of June it was my 6 months of quitting smoking anniversary, during which time I've saved over £800, so I decided it was treat time!  Hit the shops big time, bought myself some clothes, some shoes, and of course, polish! 

The sets I was most excited about (yes there were a few) were the Essie sets I got from TK Maxx, £9.99 for 3 bottles.  I've never used Essie polishes before, but have seen them on other peoples polish pages, they seem to be mainly in America & Canada, not so much in England.  These are the bottles I got:

And this is how they came packaged:

It was a bit weird this packaging, it meant that the bottles rattled around in my shopping bag, and took up far more room than they needed to, but never mind, that was soon taken care of when I got home.  I've swatched all the colours one by one.  They didn't all have their name stickers on, so can only name the ones that did.

The one bottle that's not swatched is the see-through blue one, this is 'grow richer', which I had to look up, it turns out its a moisturising base coat, which I was surprised about, as it has an extremely watery consistency, but I've used it for every swatch and it did a pretty good job and dried fast.  I saw it on Boots website (sold out) at £8, so am pleased that I got it in this set!

First swatch - Lovie Dovey - bottom left of first picture

First impressions of Essie polish were quite disappointing, it was quite sheer and a bit streaky on the first coat.  It was also runny enough that it made it a bit tricky not to flood my cuticles.  It put me very much in mind of Bourjois 'So Laque' in Rose Lounge, which I already own, and wasn't a great fan of.  This is 3 coats and still VNL (visible nail line, my pet hate in manicures).

The next one I swatched didn't have a name, but it's pretty much a 'nail tip white'.  Bottom left in first pic.

It has to be said, it looks alot better in this pic than it did in real life, and thats saying something!  This is not sheer, but the first coat was very streaky, this is 2 coats.  If you own or have used Alpine Snow by OPI, this is pretty much identical.  Will probably come in handy for nail art, but I think it's unlikely that I'd wear it by itself.

Next up was Intimate, bottom middle in the first picture:

Mixed feelings about this one, off white with 'blush' coloured tiny shimmer in it.  In the bottle it looked super pretty and I really wanted it to work out.  The formula was the same as the others, a bit runny & self deleting if you go over your strokes too many times.  I really perservered with it, this is 4 coats and I still had some VNL.  I took it outside to photograph it as it was the only way I could get the colour to show up properly without washing out.  I think I could maybe make it work by painting it over an opaque nude (Liloo's idea, thanks x) I didn't try that, but I probably will in the future.

Then I tried the shimmer pink, I don't have its name, top left of the first picture:

It has to be said, I'm not a big fan of shimmer pinks, and I don't own many, this is 3 coats and still some VNL, I wrote notes as I was swatching, and I wrote 'frustratingly runny' for this one.  I can't see this one shortlisting for my 'most favourite polish of 2012' award.... enough said

And last but not least, top middle of the first picture, another 'no-namer':



I took both an indoor and outdoor picture for this, as I felt like it changed quite alot with different lighting.  Indoors in artifical lighting it looked almost brown, but outside it turned into a lovely dusky plum colour, still not really showing up here, but it's the closest I could get.  This was 2 coats, and was my favourite of all the polishes, it has a lovely glossy finish.  It had the same runny consistency, but because it was more opaque, it was easier to work with.

And I have to show you a picture of the brush, I've told myself I will do this with all the polishes I review, mainly because I don't see it done much, and I personally find it interesting, as if you're buying online you have no hope of being able to see the brush before you buy, and actually this came out as a closer representation to that last colour in natural light:

 So there we have it, all the Essie polishes I got.  I would have been disappointed if I had paid £10 for any of these, in my opinion they seem strictly 'high street' rather than 'high end'.  There's nothing wrong with that of course, as long as the price reflects that.  Also I don't know if these were in the sales precisely because they were the less popular Essie polishes, and so can't really form an opinion of a whole range in 5 bargain bottles, but I personally wouldn't pay top dollar for one now I've tried them, unless someone I trusted was seriously raving about it.

Do you have experience of Essie polishes?  Have I just been unlucky with these or is what I got representative of the brand?  Would be interested to hear your opinions.

Until next time -

MASPOOASE X X X