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~

Fairy Dust vs Electric Lane Comparison

Hey there people, now here's a question.  Who doesn't want sparkly rainbows on their nails?  I know I do!  Nails Inc Electric Lane is the nail polish that made number one on my all time top ten polish list. If you want to look at that, here's the (link) which also includes a couple of Electric Lane swatches.

But I've seen manicures online using China Glaze Fairy Dust.  The difference between these two polishes is something I've been wondering for ages.  Finally, I couldn't wonder any longer so I bought some Fairy Dust so I can compare the two. 

I bought my China Glaze Fairy Dust from Amazon, and when it arrived, I couldn't see much difference at first glance:

The glitter pieces seem to be exactly the same size and colour to me.  So I made up some nail wheels with lots of different colours to try over:

Black: Deborah Lippmann - Fade to Black

White: Poundland Jess (link to full review)

Grey : Leighton Denny - Zero Gravity

Green: Barry M Gelly - Key Lime

Blue: Bourjois One Seconde - Bleu Water

Red: OPI- Big Hair...Big Nails

 

I decided to do one coat of each and no topcoat so you can fully tell the difference (if any).  Here's what I got:

I think you'll be able to guess, but the N's are the Nails Inc Electric Lane, and the C's are the China Glaze Fairy Dust.  As you can tell, more noticeably on the red and black is that the Electric Lane has a denser consistency.  However, in this light you can't really tell so well.  I have a couple of close ups which show it better:

 

Firstly the black:

I think this shows the difference in density much better, although in this lighting my photo seemed to come out a bit blurry, strange.  I think it might be the holo freaking my camera out.

 

Here's the red:

Again, a heavier glitter presence from the Nails Inc.  However, in my opinion, for a glitter topper, that's not necessarily a good thing.  The heavier covering of glitter is hiding the base polish somewhat, rather than enhancing it.

 

Also, Electric Lane dries to quite a sandy matte finish, which I like, but is another difference from Fairy Dust, which dries to more of a gloss as you can see.

 

Here's a picture I took in a rare sunny moment:

Definitely on the black you're starting to see the holo.

 

Here's how the brushes differ:

They both performed admirably, no problems with blobbing during application, and both glitters went on pretty evenly.

 

Here's a full nail swatch of Electric Lane over Nails Inc Devonshire Row:

So how much do they cost?

Nails Inc Electric Lane costs £12 for 10ml

China Glaze Fairy Dust costs £6.49 for 14ml

 

However, there isn't anywhere on the high street I can buy China Glaze, and Amazon have stopped free Super Saver Delivery unless you spend £10, so there will be extra to pay for shipping.  There is a Nails Inc stand in larger branches of Boots, so you can get them with no P&P to pay.

 

However, even with this taken into account, Fairy Dust is cheaper, and you get more.

 

I have managed to get full coverage on my nails with Electric Lane with four coats, I doubt you'd ever manage that with Fairy Dust.

 

So, which do I recommend?  Amazingly, I actually recommend Fairy Dust!  Electric Lane definitely has more bling, but I prefer the glossier and less overwhelming finish of the China Glaze.  Plus of course it's cheaper.

 

No one could be more surprised about this outcome than me, but that's the conclusion I came to.  I still like them both though in different ways, so you could certainly justify owning both.

 

Do you own either of these polishes? Or do you have a different favourite holo glitter topcoat?  Would love to hear about it if you do.

 

Until next time...

 

MASPOOASE x x x

~Wendy~

Alice in Wonderland freehand Nailart

I've got some mojo back, yay!  This is the manicure I wanted to do for the Artsy Wednesday Disney week, but I just couldn't make it work.  I absolutely love the book Alice in Wonderland, and I've wanted to put a representation of it on my nails for a long time.

My favourite character in the book is the Cheshire Cat, so he's the centrepiece of my creation.  One of my favourite quotes from the book is:

Alice "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Simple yet clever.  A sign of great writing, and the book's like that all the way through.

So without further ado, here's what I came up with:

I painted the Cheshire Cat mid-disappear.  I'm not completely heartless though, so gave him a nice branch to sit on.

The playing card characters are actually stickers, which I got from Amazon, here's the (link), and here's what you get:

Some of these are a bit too cutesy for me, and I probably won't use them, but for £3.25 with free shipping, I don't mind that too much.  They are quite thick, and as you can see I had a little bit of wrinkling, but in real life you can hardly tell.

So here's another pic, and then I'll go through what I did:

So, I started off with kitty cat.  I painted my nail with Nails Inc Albert Place, which is one of my go-to light blues.  I then put a coat of Seche on it to dry it quickly. Then I used a silver Sally Hansen nailart pen to sketch out the design.  I like this because it doesn't matter too much if it's not exactly perfect, as you hardly see it at the end. 

Then I drew in the branch with a brown Precision striper, and the leaves with a Color Club green striper.

Then I used my spotter brush and black acrylic paint to place out the mouth and eyes.  Once that was dry I filled in the eyes with green acrylic paint, and made the teeth with white acrylic paint.  Then I filled in his pupils and nmade a little highlight in his eyes, again with acrylic paint.  I then went over the whole thing with a coat of Seche, being VERY careful not to drag the design after all that painting!

The green nails (representing the Queen of Hearts croquet lawn) are one thick coat of Barry M Gelly in Key Lime, and the white nail (as a nod to the White Rabbit) is OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

A coat of Seche then went over everything to dry it in a reasonable time, and smooth out the stickers.

Here's a close up of my Cheshire Cat nail:

You can just about see the silver pen I used to sketch out the design under his right eye.  In real life it kind of makes it look 3-D, which is pretty cool.

And here's the tools of the trade:

If you haven't read the book, I wholeheartedly recommend that you give it a go, it's a real delight.  And if you do, please let me know what you think of it!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Artsy Wednesday - Three Colour Nail Art

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~

Artsy Wednesday - 2 colours

Hi there guys and girls,

Here I am, back with another installment of Artsy Wednesday.  This weeks theme means that we can only use 2 colours.  I was pretty excited about that, because while it's quite restricting, it's also very liberating, as they can of course be ANY two colours!

At first I wanted to do black and white, as it's supposed to be uber-trendy this season.  Then I had a bit of a think.  OK, so the magazines are telling me it's trendy, but apart from a few aztec leggings, I haven't really seen many people actually wearing it.  So is it just a trend they tried to make that didn't catch on?  Or maybe I'm not mixing in fashionable enough circles, which is always a possibility haha.

So then I toned it down a bit, and did yellow and navy.  And while it wasn't a total disasticure, it wasn't really neat enough, so I dismissed that one too.  I'll post a pic at the end of the post to show you.

So then I tried copper and blue.  Which was nice, but I wanted to stamp with it, and the copper wasn't opaque enough.  So FINALLY that brought me round to what I finally came up with.  Pink and grey.  Why didn't I think of that straight off the bat?  It's one of my favourite colour combos. *hits self on head*

I'm still having to use my weaker hand to paint with at the mo, as the left hand little fingernail that I was patching up finally grew out past my nail line, so I ripped it off.  I'm no good at getting my patches smooth, so it was making any polish job look a bit poor.  And since I don't want to subject you to the odd length nails I'm sporting on that hand at the moment, it's a weak hand mani or nothing!

Therefore I knew it couldn't be anything too complicated, so I brought out my tools.  This is what I came up with:

These are both Nails Inc polishes.  The pink is Marble Arch, and the grey is The Southbank.  The formula on both of these polishes is excellent, and they could both be one coaters if your nails aren't too ridgey.

I painted my nails with alternating colours, and then applied a coat of Seche Vite.  This is a tip I picked up from Sammy at the Nailasaurus (link to post) in her tutorial.  Then once that was dry I stuck a paper filing hole reinforcer to the top of my nail and then some striping tape stretching between the reinforcer and the free edge of my nail.   Then I painted over the top with the opposite colour, then peeled off the reinforcer and striping tape immediately after.

Once I had done this with all my nails, I then did my dots with a smallish dotting tool.

These are the tools I used:

The striping tape is actually gridding tape from Ryman the Stationers (link) I have both the 1.5mm and the 3mm versions, but on this occasion I used the 3mm, which is a bit wider than regular striping tape, and I like it because I don't find it curls as badly as usual striping tape.  The reinforcers were just cheap ones from Wilkinson.  The dotting tool is a Cheeky one I got from a set from Amazon (link) £1.63 for 5 with free shipping, how do they do those prices?  So nothing too expensive there (apart from the polishes of course) if you want to create this look on a budget. 

I'm on a low-buy myself at the moment, because my cars tax, MOT (two new tyres, could have been worse) and insurance have all come along at once, sigh...

Here's a pic of the nailart in the sunshine:

I really like how this came out.  Marble Arch is a softer version of Devonshire Row, one of my favourite Nails Inc polishes.  It's got a colour block look to it without being too plain.  Here's the gratuitous bottle shot:

It manages to be quite striking without being too in your face.  Unlike my original attempt, which I mentioned at the start of the post:

I painted my nails light yellow, and then used a Sally Hansen nailart pen to draw the design.  The idea isn't too bad, but my lines are the little bit too wobbly for my liking.  It maybe would have been easier with a striper.

Once again I'm grateful to Artsy Wednesday for making me get off my bum and do some blogging.  I haven't had any inspiration for a week or so, and this has woken my brain up again. 

Don't forget to check out what the other lovely Artsy Wednesday girls have to offer this week, it's always fascinating so see how different our designs come out even when the theme is the same:

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)

And a big welcome to our newest additions *waves*

Anna & Haylee at  Makeup and Masala (link)
Rosemarie at Every Little Polish (link)

Do you have a favourite two colour look?  I'd love to see it!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Nails Inc Candy Shop Collection swatches and review

Hi All,

A Bank Holiday again hoorah!  What with two bank holiday weekends and a weeks annual leave, the month of May has been very kind to me.  I wish every month could be like this.  And here I am, sitting in the garden blogging, living the dream haha.  I almost didn't bring my laptop outside because I thought dodgy geezers might walk past, see I've got a laptop, and come back in the night to take it.  Then I realised, who am I kidding, they're probably all standing outside the pubs by now, smoking, with no tops on.  And that's just the girls haha

So anyway, I digress as usual.  If you've been following me on Twitter for more than a couple of weeks, you'll know I was in Torquay on holiday not long ago.  I'm wondering whether I should do a post on it, but I never read other peoples holiday posts, so I probably shouldn't.  So, while I was on holiday, I took a day trip to Plymouth.  I didn't like Plymouth much, but it does have a TK Maxx and surprisingly I "accidentally" wandered in and "just happened" to make my way over to the polishes.

What I saw made me happy:

I'd almost bought this at full price on the Nails Inc website, but had decided not to, and I'm glad I waited!  As you can see from the price sticker (over one of the polishes as usual), this collection has been priced, as the Nails Inc collections in there usually are, at £14.99.  As Nails Inc's can go for £11 each, £14.99 for 4 is a good deal!  So I snapped it up.  I was super excited too.  Other half said to me "If I'd known you'd get this excited over some polishes, I'd have bought you some of those instead of taking you on holiday", ha!

So this weekend is the first real chance I've had to swatch them properly, so here I am sharing them with you.  The first one I tried was the one I was most excited about in the shop, Wimbledon, in the shade:

And here it is in the sun, (with a hair that I didn't notice in real life, how does that even happen?):

Now I don't often say this about Nails Inc cremes, but I was a bit disappointed with the formula.  It was pretty watery, and it bubbled a bit too.  It felt.... over thinned.  Maybe as it gets a bit older it may improve.  I wonder if they've tried to make it extra fast drying, and this is the formula they came up with.  It did dry really fast, but when you need more coats, it's hardly worth it.  I had to do 3 coats to get a non-patchy finish, and I was surprised by that, not in a good way.  But still, it is a pretty green-yellow-green colour, and unique in my stash, so I have a feeling that I'll still be reaching for it again, despite its shortcomings.

Then when I was taking Wimbledon off, I managed to break off the corner of the nail on my middle finger, which had been peeling, and had to file my nails down a bit.  That's ok though, they were getting a bit deformed looking anyway, they always curl over on the edges when they get too long.

The next I tried was Oxford, a pretty baby blue.  Here it is in the shade:

This had a similar formulation to Wimbledon, but perhaps a tad more forgiving, as I only needed two coats.  I do like it, but I already own some very similar Nails Inc light blues, so even though I quite like it I'm not blown away.   Here it is in the sun.  As you can see, it dries darker on the nail than it shows in the bottle:

The next one I tried was the final pastel in the set.  Cambridge, which is a delicate lilac.  Oh, just writing this I clicked, Oxford and Cambridge, doh!
Here it is in the shade:

Maybe a little bit too much shade there haha.  Here it is in the sun:

It was the same, slightly disappointing over thinned formula.  Three coats required to eliminate patchiness. 

Now don't get me wrong, it's not an awful formula, it's just that I know that Nails Inc can do cremes better than ANYONE when they choose to, so I always expect great things from them.  Most of my one coater cremes are Nails Inc.  If this had been my first ever Nails Inc purchase, I'd have been wondering what all the fuss was about.  Oh well.

The final polish in the set, doesn't really fit with the theme at all, it's not a pastel, and now I've noticed the name thing, it doesn't seem to match with that either.  I give you Richmond:

Again, it would seem I've slightly misjudged actually how shady it was in that corner, so here's the sunshine version:

Although I'm not the biggest fan of shimmers, this peach with blush colour shimmer would probably be a pretty nice combo if the peach polish wasn't so sheer.  This is 4 coats, and still you see the evil VNL.

In order to make up for that, I'll review a different peach instead, which COULD have fitted nicely into this collection.  It's called You're a Peach, and it came free with Instyle Magazine.  I love freebies, me:

That's more like it!  Two coats for peachy loveliness. 

And just to prove this was a better one for the set, I used the other pastels from the collection for a dotticure over it:

It's a little bit bumpy, could probably do with another coat of Seche, but you get the idea, right?  Somehow it reminds me of pyjama bottoms.

And there we have it, one collection swatched and reviewed, so what do you think?  What's your favourite brand in terms of formula, are there any others that do great cremes?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Artsy Wednesday - use a colour you usually hate

Here we are at Wednesday again, the weeks are whizzing away!  I can't believe it's May already.

The Artsy Wednesday challenge this time is to create nailart based on a colour you usually hate. 

Well, I don't hate any colour, but the colour I like least on me, and wear the least, is red.  I get lobster fingers extraordinaire.  I don't know who said it, but somebody wise once said "there's no such thing as the wrong colour, just the wrong shade", and I agree wholeheartedly with this.  If I am going to wear red, I'll usually stick with maroon reds rather than bright primary reds.

So, to stick with the theme, I've used the bright primary reds that I don't usually wear in this challenge.  It's two designs for the price of one this time.  I did one design, and although I liked it, it didn't seem very inspired so I did another one which I preferred.  But as I've done them now, I may as well show you both.

Backwardly, I'll start with the second design, as it's the one I prefer.  It's a take on the the Russian Doll design which I originally did (here) and I kept telling myself I'd return to.  Despite the fact that it's not perfect, I love the colour combo.  The red is Nails Inc St James, and the pink is Sinful Colours Innocent:

I have to admit, if I'd have remembered how long Innocent takes to dry, I'd have used a different pink, but am loving the raspberry ripple colour combination.

Here's a pic in the shade:

This design was really easy to do, and it doesn't need any nailart tools at all.  All you do is paint your nails red, use the pink to paint them again, but a bit further inside your nail leaving a border, then the red over the top of that, and keep going until you have a design you're happy with.  A top coat to smooth the layers (I used Seche Vite), and you're done.  In real life this was a super punchy design, and I'd like to try it in some other colour combinations. 

So, the original design I did was a stamping design.  I painted my nails with a different red, Rimmel Lasting Finish in Double Decker Red.  I tested a few polishes over it, and the one I liked the most was Nails Inc Old Park Lane.  You can see a swatch of Old Park Lane (here) if you want to see it full nail.  Here's how my design looked:

I used some studs (which I got from Amazon) on my ring finger, and I tried to mirror the stamping design.  The plate I used was Gals GA3, which kind of reminds me of either leaves, or the pattern you get in metal stairs on fire escapes.  Either way it goes nicely with the red I think.  Here it is in the shade:

My cleanup wasn't brilliant, but never mind.  I'm considering getting some neat acetone so cleanup is a bit more straightforward, but for some reason I couldn't find it in Superdrug or Boots, so it looks like I'll have to order it online.

As I said earlier in the post, I didn't feel that this stamping design was 'Artsy' enough, but actually looking at the pictures, it's starting to grow on me.

So what do you think, do you have a favourite? Is there a colour you usually keep away from like me with reds?

Don't forget to check out what all the other Artsy Wednesday girls came up with:

Michelle - Lab Muffin http://www.labmuffin.com/

Alanna - Pretty Purple Polish http://www.prettypurplepolish.com/

Maria - Maria's Nail Polish Blog http://mariasnailpolishblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Melanie - Nail & Polish http://nailandpolish.blogspot.co.uk/

Jessica - Beauty Gnome http://beautygnome.blogspot.co.uk/

Emily - An Accent Nail http://anaccentnail.blogspot.co.uk/

Ameerah - Valiantly Varnished http://www.valiantlyvarnished.com/

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Gradient Dots Nailart

Morning All!

How you doing today?  I've got a hangover haha!  Too much gin last night by far.  Have had some toast and LOTS of tea and am starting to feel vaguely human again.  One of the good things to come out of last night is that I ordered the Models Own Fruit Pastel collection, and then forgot, so when I woke up this morning and checked my emails, it was a nice surprise!  Lucky that's all I bought really.  I once bought all my sisters birthday presents while under the influence and had them shipped directly to her, she got some strange things!  Mind you I bought her a 'grow your own unusual vegetables' kit this year, and wasn't even drunk, I'm definitely a random gift buyer.

Also I was shocked to see that there were some of you lovely people that I'm not following!  Hopefully I've rectified that now.  If I've missed you, just give me a shout!

Another good thing to come out of last night was todays mani.  The checkerboard mani I wanted to do came out all wrong, so after going online and buying some stamping plates so I can do that mani properly, I decided to go with dots instead.  I feel like some of my nailart on here recently has been a bit lacklustre, and so I didn't want to post something that I wasn't totally happy with.

I wanted to make them a little bit different, so instead of redipping my dotter each time to keep my dots uniform, I loaded a decent amount of polish on the dotter and dotted straight down my nail without reloading it.  Here's what I came up with:

The base for this mani is Nails Inc The Southbank, a perfect light grey to use as a base for nailart.  As you can see, I've smudged my little finger at some point during the night, and my middle finger dots went a bit Siamese twinly, but never mind, that's life.  My awful middle finger cuticle is starting to heal now, but am still painting it out so you don't have to witness it's ugliness.  I believe I used two coats of The Southbank, but it could have been one because the formula is brilliant, and (due to gin) I can't remember haha.

This lovely fuschia is Nails Inc Devonshire Row.  It's one of my favourite polishes, and I use it alot.  You can see more nailart using Devonshire Row on my posts (here) and (here) if you like.  It also made my All Time Top Ten Polishes post (link)

The yellow is Color Club Almost Famous from their Poptastic Collection:

Such a punchy bright yellow!  I don't think I've been disappointed with any Color Club polishes I've bought yet.  I think in celebration of Easter I may do a comparison of the yellow polishes I own, will see how the weekend goes. 

And finally, here's the two polishes together, the sun's out at last, hooray!

So jolly!  Just looking at this combination makes me smile, and now thanks to the wonder of nail art, if I feel a bit down, all I have to do is look down at my nails and cheer myself up again.

How about you, what's your favourite colour combo?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~