My All Time 10 Best Nail Polishes

Hi everyone!

Back to normal blog posts again at last.  I really enjoyed the nail art challenge, and have met some lovely new people because of it.  A big thanks to the organisers Pink and Polished and Overpolished for organising it and doing such a great job.

This is a post I've been wanting to do for a while, I have probably about 250 polishes, which is a puny amount to some people, and alot to others, for me its not enough as I'm still missing some colours, and I don't have many of the 'famous' ones.  I've finally managed to get the Layla flash black holo polish that I've been craving, and I can't wait for it to come.  Nail mail is possibly my most favourite thing in the whole world!  I've also ordered some nail art supplies, and a few experimental purchases, which I'll share with you if they're any good.

Quite a few of these polishes, being my favourites, will have their own post, and where they do, I'll link to them so that you can see more photos and probably nail art involving them.  It was soooo hard to wheedle my favourites down to 10, and then put them in order.  Unless stated, none have a top coat, and all have a base coat of Sally Hansen Continuous Treatment Growth base coat, just because it's the one I'm currently using up.  It's taken me two days to do these swatches, how the big bloggers keep up I've no idea, there must be a knack to it.

So, I'm rambling again, without further ado, lets get on with it (imagine the Top of the Pops music here):

Aaaattttt 10:

NAILS INC WARWICK STREET
This is two coats.  It used to only need one, but I thinned it out a bit too much.  Very fast drying, and manages to be work appropriate with a twist.  I imagine the finish to be how the new 'cement' line will look.  You can see from the bottle that it's really cute red glitter in there.  THIS is the link to the post where I first swatched it.  Needless to say, a fab formula, which glides onto my nails, which is part of the reason I love it

Aaaaatttt 9:
JESSICA HOLOGRAM CHIC DISCO DIVA
This one nearly didn't make it into the top 10 because it's winter, therefore no sun to make it look good.  I debated to and fro for a while.  But it is one of my favourites, so deserves to be there, and holo is always a good thing.  It comes with its own base coat, which I used.  A full post including nail art on this polish can be found HERE and also on my dalek nails HERE

Aaaaattt 8:
COLLECTION 2000 HOT LOOKS MINT MOJO
This is one of only a few polishes that I've ever bought a back up of.  The formula is lovely, but because I've had it a while I had to thin it, and got carried away.  Therefore I had to do three coats instead of the normal two.  Of course it will thicken up again eventually and it's so fast drying it wasn't really a pain to do.  It's everything that I wanted Essies Navigate Her to be, without the yukky formula.  Not a dupe though as this is paler and milkier.  Superbly shiny as you can see.

 Aaaatt 7:
NAILS INC DEVONSHIRE ROW
I love the formula and finish to this.  You could easily get away with one coat if you have smooth nails.  Mine are quite ridged so I did two to get a nice finish.  Crazy reflections!  I used it as a base for THIS nailart

 
Aaaatttt 6:
OPI MOD ABOUT YOU
For me, this is the perfect light pink creme polish.  First coat is a bit streaky, the second coat is opaque perfection.  Dry time is medium to fast.  I used it as a base for THIS nailart.

And now we go into the top 5!

Aaaaatttt 5:
COLLECTION 2000 HOT LOOKS ALL THAT JAZZ
A lovely graphite grey shimmer, the formula to this is flawless.  It virtually applies itself, again you could get away with one coat of this if your nails are smooth.  This is two coats.  I did a full review post HERE and I used it for my halloween nails, which were one of my favourites HERE

Aaattt 4:
NAILS INC ALBERT PLACE
Another one coater for smooth nailed people.  I did two coats to get a nice finish.  It's kind of the blue version to Devonshire Row, similar colour tones.  It's the perfect sky blue, and I used it as the base for my skyscraper nail art tutorial HERE

 
Aaaattt 3:
NYC IN A NEW YORK MINUTE CANAL STREET
This was a super lovely online surprise buy.  I did a full review HERE it's fast drying and lovely to apply

Aaaattt 2:
OPI MY BOYFRIEND SCALES WALLS
If you've been following me for a while, this choice will be no surprise to you.  It's just off-white enough to be wearable, and for a white the formula is lovely.  Similar to Mod About You, coat one can be a bit streaky, but coat two sorts that out nicely.  I've used this one lots, and I did a comparison post to Alpine Snow HERE

And now we get to the numero uno spot.... I picked... drum roll.....

Number 1:
NAILS INC ELECTRIC LANE
Typically I picked a polish that's difficult to photograph!  It's a holographic glitter topcoat.  I can't imagine my polish life without this little magical beauty.  I do own a backup of this, and I will need to use it soon as I'm nearly at the bottom of this one, which is unheard of for me.  I've taken two pictures, as it's number one it's allowed, over Devonshire Row and Albert Place.  You will see that it does change the colour of the polish slightly, but it also gives it a super duper glitter holo finish which I love.  Removal isn't too bad for a glitter, but it still does take a little bit more elbow grease than a creme (of course).  It glides on, but it does dry slightly matt.  If you put a top coat on it really makes it pop.  These pictures are taken without though.  It dries in a flash too

You can see the holo awesomeness on my little finger - just love it!

Here's a lineup of all the polishes I've used in this monumental post, boy oh boy it's going to have alot of labels haha

These are my desert island polishes,the ones I would recommend to anyone starting out.  They all have great formulas, and I haven't needed to do clean up on any of these swatches.  If you see any of them for sale, snap them up!

I hope you've enjoyed this post as much as I've enjoyed making it.  Do you have a top ten post?  I'd love to see it!

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~