Happy Saturday!
I hope you're having a great day. Mine's gone pretty well so far, I haven't been up to much, mostly painting my nails and drinking tea, which suits me fine! I do have some housework to be getting on with, which is why I'm sitting here blogging haha.
Today I bring you the third installment of my Pretty Jelly reviews. I bought 4, and have already reviewed Bullet Rouge HERE and Grape Escape HERE
This one's called Diamond S-teal-er, which you would think makes it teal. To my eyes it's more like an icy mid-blue, not really enough green tone in it (in my opinion) for teal, but that doesn't make it any less pretty. And of course it's holographic anyway so who cares!
The holo is there, but it doesn't jump off the page with this one, although of course because I want to swatch a holo, it's grey and drizzly today, so that doesn't help. Here's how it looks:
I still have a bit of glitter left in my cuticles from wearing Nails Inc's fine sprinkles, but oh well.
This is two coats, with just regular basecoat and no topcoat. The formula on this one seemed a tad more gloopy than on the others I've tried. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't too awkward, but it didn't quite seem to glide the same. Dry time seemed a bit slower too, I wonder if I need to thin it a little bit? I think the lump on my middle finger is a bit of leftover glitter, I obviously wasn't very rigorous with my last removal! It had the same lovely high end finish as the others I've tried.
Here's a pic under the kitchen light to show the lovely holo:
I told you it was there! Lovely holo rainbow.
I already knew when I started painting my nails what nail art I was going to do on this, as I woke up with it in my head (sad I know). As Spring is on its way, I thought I would cheer it along with some flowers.
Daisies are a double win, because they're one of my favourite flowers, and also they're mega easy to do with a dotting tool. All you need to do is start from the outside of a petal and drag to the centre, repeat four or five times, then do a dot in the middle. If you can make a dot, you can do these flowers.
So here's what I ended up with:
I used OPI Alpine Snow for the petals and Collection 2000 Hot Looks in Lemon Soda for the centres. I didn't topcoat it because I didn't want to kill the holo. I took two pics I couldn't decide between, so I'm showing them both to you.:
And here's what it looks like with its holo kick:
So pretty! And because I've been a bit lax at remembering to do it lately, here's what the brush looks like:
You can buy the Pretty Jelly polishes from the Etsy shop HERE and I paid $10, which equates to around £6.50. Obviously alot of shipping on the top of that though because it came all the way from America.
The polishes are 3-free and cruelty free so happy days.
Unfortunately for me there are now some new, different, gorgeous, holo's in her shop, and I want them all!
What do you think?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Well hi there, long time no blog! Life is just too annoying getting in the way of my nail polish fun. Today not only has the sun finally come out, but I also have a day off work, yay! I am, of course, using the time wisely to finally show you my new nail polish.
You must know by now that I love holos. LOVE them. Somewhere along the way, I saw someone talking about a holo top coat, and was instantly intrigued. I went onto Google (as you do) to have a look for reviews. I found alot of swatches but nothing easily findable in the way of reviews, so I thought I'd buy it anyway and do my own review. So here I am.
Firstly, lets see it:
Pretty rainbows hooray! In real life it looks mega holo in the bottle, I could look at it all day. I like the simplicity of the label too, I don't think it needs any more than that.
So lets have a look at some swatches. The thing I was looking online for the most, and couldn't find, was a swatch of it by itself. Well, I did one for you. Here it is:
Just a linear holo sheen which is eminently safe for work. I really enjoyed having the polish on my nails this way. It was like my own secret portable rainbow.
But of course, that's not what it's designed for. I got a nail wheel out and experimented:
It really pops over black! I think you can click the picture to zoom in. The two I was most pleased with were the yellow and the white. All too often yellow holos are actually gold. A yellow holo makes me happy. And I don't think I've ever seen a white holo, it does work.
So how about on my nails? I thought I would go double whammy and swatch over a thermal polish. I chose In the Mood polish in a shade called Devious. Here is is "naked":
It is pretty by itself, despite having tricky application, I still use it because I love the end result. It dries semi-matte though, so I'm thinking a holo top coat might be just the thing.
Here's how it looked:
Application was easy, with no clumping or dragging, and the polish itself was fast drying. No hassle at all. This is without top coat, but I did apply a coat of HK Girl Glisten & Glow Topcoat after I took this picture, for longevity. It didn't dull the holo, so that's another plus. I got lots of compliments on this mani, and quite a few people asked me where I'd had them done *smug face*.
So what do I think? I love it! I don't know how I'm going to resist using it over everything. I highly recommend. I bought mine from Mei Mei's Signatures who ship internationally (link) for 17SGD which equates to roughly £8, plus shipping. It probably worked out around £10 overall as I bought other polishes while I was there so combined shipping. You can pay by PayPal so don't have to worry about exchange rates and currencies too much. Considering how much it will save me from buying other coloured holo polishes, I think it's well worth it! This is my first Liquid Sky Lacquer, and I'm sure it won't be my last. Any recommendations?
So what do you think? Are you mad on holos like me?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
These Wednesdays come around quick! This weeks theme is three colours. I've had these pics ready for a few days, then nearly forgot to write my post, silly me!
I won't bend your ears too much this week, a cold is hovering about, and it's doing it's best to get me. Early night and cosy jim jams for me tonight. Oh, the high life...
Without further ado, here's the nails:
I'm quite pleased with how these turned out, considering they didn't take me very long to do. I started off with a base of Nails Inc's You're a Peach, which came free with Glamour Magazine quite a while back. Then I drew a stripe down the middle of my nails with Layla's holo polish Coffee Love. I'm not in love with the full nail application of the Layla holographic polishes, they're too prone to bald spots, but for this purpose it worked just fine.
I then made a border down the sides of that with my Precis brown striper polish, and there we have it! A coat of Seche topped it off.
No sun today, but of course I can still find a place to show you that full holo goodness:
There we go, much better! I enjoyed wearing this very much, it felt just right for this late summer/early autumn time.
Here's one last pic, close up:
Don't forget to check out what the other talented ladies have to offer. It's always amazing how different our designs are with the same brief!
Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (link)
Maria at Maria's Nail Polish Blog (link)
Melanie at Nail and Polish (link)
Jessica at Beauty Gnome (link)
Emily at An Accent Nail (link)
Ameerah at Valiantly Varnished (link)
Anna & Haylee at Makeup and Masala (link)
Rosemarie at Every Little Polish (link)
Anna at Makeup N More (link)
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi All,
Today I bring you more holo! I've been on a bit of a holo mission since the sun came out, as you may have noticed, with varying success. So far my only real let down has been the Layla Retro Pink (link to post) which left a gap in my collection for a pretty pink holo.
It's no secret that I love Pretty Jelly polishes, the formula and coverage are so good, what's not to love? So I went on the hunt to see if they do a pale pink holo, and happily they do. Now usually this is the point where I'd need to find me a lovely mule to get my polish over (hi Wes! *waves*), but now I don't have to inconvenience them any more, as Pretty Jelly polishes are now available from Mei Mei Signatures who ship to the UK. If you want to try indie polishes, but haven't been able to get hold of them, have a look (here), she has so many. Happy days!
So without further ado, let me show you this little beauty:
I knowwwwww, right? Sooo pretty! A scattered holo rather than a linear effect, but on this shade I think that's just right. Some light pinks can make my skintone look awful, but this one has enough blue/purple in the holo shimmer to offset that.
Here's how it looks in the shade:
The shimmer in it keeps it light and stops it from being too cutesy, somehow it's a grown-up shade, and I think it would be a brilliant bridal colour. Feminine without being over the top. It's actually the only polish I've worn to work that's caused a stir, lots of people have said they like it. For a pale colour you wouldn't think it would attract attention, but this one certainly seems to.
Here's a close up of that glorious holo in the bottle:
Rainbows, yayyyy
And here's the business end, the brush:
The formula was Pretty Jellys usual buttery loveliness, no problems with application. The brush was not too soft, not too stiff. It reminds me alot of A-Englands formula, so if you've used those, you would know pretty much what to expect. The first coat was pretty sheer (layering possibilities?), but the second coat covered up all VNL. I did three though, as I wanted to cover up the very pronounced ridges on my nails, to show this off to its best. As it dries really fast, it wasn't a chore. I just used normal base coat, and no top coat, as it's shiny enough not to need it. All Pretty Jelly polishes are three-free, and cruelty free, so no worries there.
But, I can't leave you with that boring (but necessary) photo. The bluebells are finally out in our garden, and they're so lovely I had to share. Mother Nature really knows her stuff. Apparently our bluebells are Spanish ones rather than English ones, but they're still mega pretty:
Normally at this juncture, I'd throw in some nailart for good measure. BUT I just couldn't bring myself to paint over this, I've been wearing it all week and I'm still not bored of it, which is pretty amazing for me. It's definitely my new polish BFF.
You can buy Lovey Dovey (when it's back in stock) from Mei Mei using this (link)
I bought two Pretty Jelly polishes, and paid using Paypal, and in total I paid £22.65 including shipping. A bit more than high street polishes, but, that much better than high street polishes, and not as expensive as couture polishes. So price-wise, I think it sits nicely in that gap. I ordered it on the 29th of May, and it came on the 6th of June, which considering it came all the way from Singapore, is pretty damn awesome!
I have tried so much not to get too gushy about this polish, but I don't think I succeeded too well. If you're in the market for a light pink scattered holo - look no further!
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi there Guys and Girls, I hope you're having a great Sunday.
I've had a pretty good weekend, I bought Zoo, a book by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge, which was about all the animals in the world going bonkers, unfortunately I found I couldn't put it down, and I finished it this morning, so I will have to by another book now! Also I bought some art stuff, which I'm pretty excited to play with. I need another couple of days in the weekend to fit everything in.
This morning I woke up, and the sun was beating through the curtains, and I looked at my poor bare nails, and thought HOLO, because that's what us naileys do. If you're one too, you'll obviously know this.
And also, as you can see from the post title, I couldn't do this weeks Artsy Wednesday, as it clashed with my blogiversary post (link) so while I was lying there in bed, I was thinking up with something that ticked both boxes. Hopefully this manicure does that, I think it does anyway:
I see now that my cleanup wasn't brilliant, how come I never notice in real life, only when I come to resize my photos? The base polish for this manicure is Jessica's Hologram Chic in Disco Diva. I did a full review of it (here) but if you don't want to click about, here's what it looks like by itself:
This was two coats, over the basecoat polish that came with it in the Hologram Chic kit, and application was lovely, no bare patches or streaking. The holo is much stronger in real life, but as with all holos, it's a bit camera shy.
I think the vintage look shows a bit better in the shade, it reminds me a bit of seventies wallpaper:
I used Nails Inc's Chelsea, which looks black in the the bottle, but as you can see it's really a dark plum, to stamp over the silver base, using Bundle Monster plate BM-224, and then used quite a few of my Pretty Jelly holos and A-England Holy Grail (the old version) to fill in the centres of the flowers using my trusty purple dotter.
Here they all are:
Left to right, top to bottom:
Layla Hologram Effect in Retro Pink - full review (here)
Nails Inc Chelsea - see how black it looks in the bottle?
Bundle Monster plate BM-224
A-England Holy Grail - swatches and review (here)
Jessica Hologram Chic - full review (here)
Pretty Jelly Glamorous Thief
Pretty Jelly Grape Escape - review (here)
Pretty Jelly Bullet Rouge, one of my favourites - review (here)
Pretty Jelly Fairy Ring - review (here)
And, I'll leave you with one last sunshiny pic, happily I've got my cuticles back to the point where I don't need to mess about with them in my editing program, which makes the photo part of blogging MUCH faster, thank goodness. Sally Hansen's Healthy Cuticles Now certainly seems to work. I should do a post about it. How many times do I say this?
Don't forget to check out what the other girls in the Artsy Wednesday goup came up with for their vintage nails
Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (link)
Alanna at Pretty Purple Polish (link)
Maria at Maria's Nail Polish Blog (link)
Melanie at Nail and Polish (link)
Jessica at Beauty Gnome (link)
Emily at An Accent Nail (link)
Ameerah at Valiantly Varnished (link)
They're all great designs, and I hope I can keep up with them all and their creativity!
So, what do you think, do you think of holos as soon as the sun comes out like I do?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi there everyone,
I hope you're enjoying your Bank Holiday Monday. I was going to go shopping, but it's pouring with rain, so I thought I'd go with plan B. It was lovely and sunny yesterday, so I thought I'd make the most of it with my most favourite things in the whole world - HOLOS!
I already own the Layla Hologram Effect polish in Flash Black, and I like it, so I thought I'd try a few more colours. I had a look around and eventually decided on two, Retro Pink and Coffee Love. After much deliberation (about two minutes haha), I decided to wear Retro Pink yesterday. Here's how it came out:
I knowwwwww! Heavenly pink holo goodness!
BUT (and there's always a but), don't be fooled by the pretty looks, this polish is a real horror story.
I've painted my nails probably thousands of times, and I like to think I'm pretty good at it, but this polish made me feel like a gorilla wearing oven gloves. If you don't get a perfectly even coat in three brilliantly executed and very swift passes, you end up with a lumpy bumpy, hole-y hot mess.
Plus it's pretty sheer too. If you could manage not to get any holes, you could probably get away with 3 coats, but I guarantee you won't manage that. It does dry VERY fast though.
As you can see on my ring finger, it does shrink a bit too, and after one day of wear it's pretty chipped. Oh, and top coat kills the holo too.
Here it is in the shade:
You can see on my middle finger, it's so super holo, it's even showing some in the shade, that's pretty good.
But I can't make that the picture you remember of this polish, so lets have some more happy finger rainbows:
It's actually even more hologram-y in real life, but as anyone who's tried to take a picture of a holo knows, it's frustratingly hard to show the real life magic.
The brush actually wasn't that bad, wide, flat and quite stiff:
So, while you won't be able to stop looking at your nails in the sun, at the same time as admiring the beautiful rainbows, you'll also be wishing there weren't bare patches that won't, just won't, cover up.
Therefore, although it is mega-holo, and I should love it, I don't, and I'm sure there's better out there. I bought it from Amazon (link) and I paid £5.29 with free shipping, which would have been a bargain if the formula had been right. I couldn't find out if they are cruelty free, as it doesn't say on their website, but I have emailed them to ask, and will update when they reply.
A real 'Beauty and the Beast' polish. Do you know of any better light pink holos I could get?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi everyone, happy Monday
I hope you're all well, and that you've had a fab weekend. I've had my first day back to work today after my week off, shock to my system!
Still, I do feel all nicely refreshed, and I had a lovely time in Torquay. I think once is enough though, there was quite a bit to do, but it was all driving distance rather than walking distance, and Torquay is hilly! I didn't feel like I'd missed any gym time that's for sure.
The weather was so-so, we had some sunny/showery days, and a couple of miserable days. I still managed to get sunburned on the Dartmouth ferry crossing, but only on my face because I was all wrapped up in my coat, as it was freezing. It wasn't even a sunny day, I've been told since that if you're going on the ocean to always wear extra sun protection, as even when it's cloudy the suns rays bounce back off the water and you get twice as many rays. Live and learn. Well, I do anyway.
Anyway, the break has done me the power of good, and I'm back and raring to go. The mani I'm sharing with you today was actually done before I went away, but I ran out of time to write up the post. Usually when this happens, I lose the love for the mani, and end up not writing the post. But this one came out so awesomely I'm eager to share. Check out this little beauty:
I took ALOT of pictures of this, but you'll be glad to hear I whittled it down to just my favourites. Funny enough, this Estee Lauder purple polish is one I loved when I first tried it, then never really bonded with it. I reviewed it originally (here) and that's actually the only time I wore it. I don't wear many darks anyway, and being a three-coater, it's never going to climb high up my pile. That sounds wrong haha.
However, during some recent experimentations, I've discovered that its slight sheer-ness makes it ideal for doing layered stripey looks like this.
The base for this mani is my awesome bottle of Pretty Jelly Grape Escape, which I loooooovvveee:
You can just see on my thumb the holo loveliness peeking through. In real life this is super-holo, and a fab formula. I reviewed it in full (here) where you can see the full holo in the sunshine, and fall in love with it like I did haha.
Happy news is that the plan is for some Pretty Jelly polishes to be available to buy internationally outside of the US via http://meimeisignatures.com/ and you'll know when this happens as I'll have new polishes to show you. Thanks to the beautiful and talented Amy at Gotham Polish for the heads up!
Then I used striping tape to mask off my nails, and then applied the Estee Lauder. Here's another pic, I tried to capture the holo at the same time as catching the flecks in the Estee Lauder:
I loved this so much I kept it on for the best part of a week, until some chipping made me take it off, and I wasn't bored of it, always a good sign!
Here's one last pic, in the sunshine this time:
Pretty Jelly polishes are 3-free and cruelty free, and can be bought (if you're in the US) (here) at $10 each for the large size and $5 for the small size.
You can get the Estee Lauder polish from Boots (here) like I did, it's now £14.50. Not cruelty free sadly.
I think this has given me new hope in my too-large collection of sheer polishes. At some point, I will separate them from the lovely opaque 2-coat polishes that I love, and put them in their own section to be used for things like this, and sponged gradients.
What do you think, is this a look you would try?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Hi there!
The sun came out :-)
This means it's holo time! The next one on my to-try list is another polish from the Pretty Jelly Glamorous Thief collection that I bought recently. I've already reviewed Bullet Rouge from the same collection, and you can see that post HERE
I was in two minds as to whether to swatch any polishes this weekend, as I still have that slash on my cuticle, but as I don't feel like I've seen any sunshine for MONTHS, who knows when my next chance will be? So I decided to go for it, and cover up the slash with my watermark, YOLO, right?
So here's Grape escape in all its sunshine-y glory:
Awesome, eh? It's a lovely mid-toned purple, leaning to the lavender side, and really wearable. I still haven't managed to catch the real life holo loveliness properly, as it looked much more holo than it appears in these pictures. Definitely this could be office appropriate though, as in the shade it looks just as pretty but in a less 'disco' way:
This photo also shows the finish nicely too. This is two coats over regular base coat and no top coat. The formula was lovely to apply, and very forgiving, as I dug the brush into the first coat accidentally when I was applying the second coat. Other polishes could have made a bald spot clumping argument about that, but this polish said 'hey mistakes happen, let me smooth that out for you', and it did, nice. It left the brush (which was one of the thin-ish type, not pro-wide or flat) at a nice controllable speed and didn't flood or clump. Dry time was medium-fast. I like alot.
As a large swathe of the UK, including us here in Cumbria, have had alot of snow this week, I thought I would carry on the theme with snowy nail art. Looking through my stamping plates, I was surprised to realise I only have one full nail snowflake plate design, so it wasn't really a hard decision which one to use. Bundle Monster BM-323. I tried a few different polishes with this plate. Barry M Indigo worked really well, but it wasn't really the look I was going for.
The Essie Borrowed and Blue I bought from Amazon was delivered this week. I have been so disappointed with it. The colour is really pretty, but the formula is awful! Plus I thought Essies had wide brushes now, and mine has a thin brush in. Clumpy, floody, just a bottle of yuk. So imagine my happy surprise when I discovered it stamps perfectly!
Here's what I came up with:
As you can see from the photo, I'd lost the sun, so I took a pic under the kitchen lights so the holo could come out to play:
I'm really pleased with how this came out. It's definitely gone onto my list of 'lets do this one again' manis.
And just because I can, here's a picture of the polish nestling in the snow:
Just one little green shoot sneaking up past the cap, spring is trying to peek its way through!
Pretty Jelly polishes can be bought in the US HERE for $10 each, they are 3-free and cruelty free, so it's all good.
What do you think? Do you own this one?
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
Happy Christmas Eve!
I'm off work at last hooray! This morning was my last shift until the New Year, so I'm very happy about that!
I dodged the elves challenge. I was completely uninspired by it, and I didn't want to sell my blog short by just bodging something in order to have something to post, so I just didn't do it. It's a shame to not have done them all, but there you go, that's life sometimes. There are some manis from this challenge I've been really pleased with, and others I wouldn't have ordinarily put on my blog in a million years, but it's definitely been an experience, and I'm glad I've taken part. After this one there's only Santas left for tomorrow. Hopefully I can get that painted up and prepared today, because I'll be out most of the day tomorrow doing my own Santa duties. Ho Ho Ho!
Tinsel as a challenge can only really mean one thing - bar glitter. Luckily for me that means not much decision making because I've only got one bar glitter, a £2.50 silver holo one from Claires Accessories. I've found Claires polishes to be a bit hit and miss, so I thought I would double up this nail art post with a review of this polish.
Firstly I thought I would try it over a range of colours, so I used 2 coats of each:
White - OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls reviewed here
Black - L'Oreal Color Riche in Black Swan
Red - Maybelline Express Finish Cherry Red shown here
Silver - Jessica Hologram Chic Disco Diva reviewed here
Here's how it looks in all its Christmassy glory:
This is two coats of the bar glitter with a color club top coat. Dry time was medium. I found that I only got a decent amount of glitter onto my nail if I put the brush back in the bottle and gave it a good shake for each nail. Just dipping the brush back in the bottle without shaking it meant I just seemed to get clearcoat and not glitter. I also moved it around a bit on my nail as just brushing it on made all the bars face one way and that made my nails look hairy, which is the bar glitter look I hate.
The holo isn't as wow in ordinary indoor light, but it is still there:
But outdoors in daylight it really comes into its own:
If you want a really smooth finish to this you will need at least two coats of top coat, or perhaps one thick coat of Seche. With one coat of normal top coat I could still feel texture there.
I'm quite surprised because I thought I would like this best over black, but in fact it looks best over the most similar colour, the silver. I think this is probably because I'm not that mad on the bar glitter look anyway, and to just get that bling of mad holo is much more 'me'.
I also liked it over the white, it was quite a futuristic look. Am considering the silver for New Years Eve, I think it would be quite fitting and fun.
And there we have it, I hope it was tinselly enough for you!
Until next time...
MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~
