Mid Browns - Nails Inc Ganton Street Vs Jessica Guilty Pleasures

I have decided that fate doesn't want me to blog about nail polish at the moment. 

Because of my pesky ongoing achilles tendon problems, I have to have physiotherapy on a Thursday afternoon. 

Because I don't have enough annual leave left for my hospital appointments, I'm having to work on Saturday morning instead to make my hours up.  This is so INCONVENIENT!  Guys and girls who regularly work at the weekends, you have my undying admiration.  I just feel like theres no time to do anything. 

Also, because I'm working on the Saturday, I can't have my usual swatch-a-thon on Friday night.... so all in all it's a right royal pain in the behind.

Well, here's two fingers up to fate, because I've managed to do it anyway!  You may know that I'm craving a dark brown nail polish right now, but with the aforementioned problems I've had to resort to just mooning over web swatches and wishing for things to get back to normal. 

I decided to look through my polishes to check what browns I actually do have, in case I already had one (I didn't but you never know until you look!), but I did find two mid brown polishes which were virtually identical, and similarly priced, so I thought you might be interested in seeing a comparison.  They are, as the post title suggests, Nails Inc Ganton Street and Jessica's Guilty Pleasures.  For a change I will start with the brush & bottle shot:

There you see, pretty similar, right?  The Jessica is a tad warmer, but very similar all the same.  Apologies about the dark corner on the picture, with Autumn setting in it's getting harder and harder to find bright places to put things...

So onto the swatches, I found the best place to show the difference was under the trusty LED craft light.  All pics are two coats with no topcoat.  Nails Inc on left 2 fingers:

Then, amazingly, the sun came out for a moment:

Then it went back in.  So here's a pic in shaded light:

Application wise, there's hardly anything to pick between them either.  If you've used Nails Inc before, this is their usual creme formula, which I like as it's got good coverage and is pretty quick drying.  The Jessica was a teeny tiny bit more sheer on first coat, but by coat two they looked the same coverage-wise.  I preferred the Nails Inc brush, because the Jessica one was a tad softer so therefore not quite as easy to work with, but I really am splitting hairs (LOL) here.

Out of the two, it was the Nails Inc I chose to put on afterwards, it's a Malteser brown, and somehow for a darker colour it seems quite work appropriate, which is good.  Unless of course, you do what I did and put nail art all over it haha.  It didn't exactly work, but I liked the colour scheme:

The Jessica has 14.8ml in and the Nails Inc has 10ml in.  Nails Inc polishes cost £11 and Jessica Polishes cost around a tenner, but I have seen both cheaper on Ebay.  So mil for mil the Jessica is probably better value, but if you're willing to spend more than £10 on a polish that doesn't really matter so much to you.

So there you go!  Formulation and application are both pretty much the same so it just comes down to the tint you like the best.  Hopefully this will prove helpful to someone!

Until next time.....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Holographic Floral Nailart Inc. Artsy Wednesday - Vintage

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~

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~

Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Day 11 - Tinsel

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~

Jessica Gelato Mio Collection nail art and review

Hi there!

Hope your day's going great, here's another polish review for you.

I love pastels, so when I saw the Jessica Gelato collection advertised I was super excited!  Scrangie reviewed them recently LINK HERE and as usual her pictures were mouthwateringly good.  What swayed me most of all though is that she said the formula was perfect and it was OK in two coats, which is quite unusual for pastels. 

So I went on to Amazon UK and ordered Banana Peel, which is yellow (surprisingly lol), and Strawberry Shake It, which is pink (no suprise there either).  They cost me £9.75 each including P&P, which is near the top end of what I'll usually pay, excepting the odd Chanel or extra special polish.

Here's what I've done with it today, please excuse both my dodgy dots and my super dry cuticles, I am still on the hunt for that 'it' treatment for my cuticles, there will be a very long post of 'what I've tried' when I do finally find it!

For a change my camera has picked the colours up quite accurately, they're just a tad 'whiter' than this, but not much.  While I like the colours, I myself didn't like the formula.  I found it runny, streaky at 2 coats, and sloooooowwww to dry.  This is 3 coats.  Perhaps it's because my expectations were so high, but I think you can tell on the dots quite well what the formula was like, which is why I did them.

The other bit of a let down was that I realised when I got it home, that I already had a very similar pink with California Dreaming, see:

Thats Strawberry Shake It on the left, not much difference, certainly not enough to justify owning both anyway, sigh....

And true to all my other polish reviews, here's a picture of the brush.  Jessica in their wisdom make a round end on their lid so it didn't stand up very well:

So there you have it, pretty colours, but the formulation was a bit of a let down.  I'm glad now that I didn't buy any of the other colours, I didn't mainly because I already own similar ones to them, and also they were expensive (to me anyway), but I think I will use the ones I got despite them being a bit of a pain.

I hope you found my review interesting, or at least useful, and until next time....

MASPOOASE X X X

~Wendy~

Nail Art - Daleks!

Hi again everyone!

Have given in to myself and decided to allow myself another couple of nail posts. Am house sitting for someone at the moment, so don't have all my 'lovely things' around me, but I did manage to pop back home for my polishes!  I had already decided on a sci fi theme this week, and eventually decided on daleks - here we go!

EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

For the base I used Jessica Hologram Chic as it seemed to match the sci-fi theme, and for the Dalek's body I used Jessica Irridescent Eye.  The black and red are both Color Club nail art polishes.  It was easy/medium difficulty, and if anyone wants a tutorial, just let me know and I'll do one for you!

Ok, one last picture...

For extra geek points, my daleks were modelled on the 1970's ones, not these modern fangle dangled stair climbing ones ;-)

Hope you like them, and 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~