Poké-polish 2…

So way back in November, not long after returning from my Japan trip, I tried one of the two Pokemon x Its demo polishes that I brought back. It’s only taken me till now to try out the other one, not bad huh!

The first polish was clearly related to Pikachu, I mean it had lightening bolts in it – check out the post here. It was a bit harder to tell which Pokemon this one was based on but out of Pikachu and the three starters featured on the matching hand-cream I’d go for Squirtle because of the silver squares and blueish flakies.

Anyway, I decided the Charmander of nightmares (look at that haunting smile and dead eyes…) was the one I wanted to paint today. Even though I deemed the polish as being squirtle based, he’s my least favourite started so I didn’t want to paint him.

For being a cheap polish around £3 it is actually quite good quality – not smelly, plenty of glitter and dries quickly when applied with a sponge. I just wish I’d brought more back now! I’ll just have to start saving for another J-trip…

 

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Meteorite…

So today’s post does not contain any nail art. Here’s the two excuses as to why; firstly I’ve been very busy with general life, and secondly I’ve been working on designs for an up-coming stamping plate review meaning I’ve nothing else to post about.

Out of the three Primark polishes I bought last month, I’ve already used ‘Supernova’ and decided to use ‘Meteorite’ next. It’s quite a silvery, blue and not very metallic so it was a bit of a disappointment in that sense. But it did have amazing coverage, has a very smooth formula and didn’t smell horrendous. For £1.50 I’d say it was worth it!

Revlon Parfumerie Delivery…

So no nail art today, but certainly some nail polish! I usually use ‘Groupon’ (which is a discount website) for things like fancy dinners and tickets for events and experiences, however lately I noticed they also have a ‘goods’ section. I was perusing the wares and saw they were offering 6 Revlon Parfumerie Polishes for £9.98 (which includes delivery)! Now, I had looked at these bottles in store and as pretty as the shades were I couldn’t bring myself to fork out £6.50 for a colour that I didn’t really need. But at like £1.70 a bottle, well you know what happened. Here’s the twist though – the 6 bottles would be random, eek. In my head I imagined being sent all the beige colours, or even just 6 of the same colour. However, when the package arrived I was pretty darn happy as I received a good mix! (Can I just say that digging through those polystyrene peanuts trying to find bottles of polish was so much fun, especially because the colours were a surprise. I genuinely think it would be a great funfair game for adults or maybe that’s just me being a polish junkie.)

Let me show you them individually;

Personally I thought Autumn Spice looked the most interesting and had the potential to smell the best. Unfortunately I really only smelled the smell of polish but with some slight hint of something else – all of them were like this. Considering their scented element seems to be the unique marketing point, you would be right to be disappointed if you’d bought them to smell like how they’re described.

I was a little nervous at seeing how thin the brush was, but actually the formula is smooth and applied really well. I’ve only used two so far for designs, Italian Leather and China Flower, and they were both opaque with two coats which is about the norm. I was also concerned if the top would be clumsy to hold and paint with, but to be honest it wasn’t any real hindrance. I tried to do some half assed swatches which are below. Italian Leather is pretty cool, I like the speckling of gold/bronze that it has – it isn’t like any of my other polishes. China Flower is an odd one as it looks more pink in the bottle but comes out as this super punchy, pink toned, with undercurrents of orange, red shade.

Does anyone else own a shade from Revlons Parfumerie range? More importantly were you impressed?
P.S can I just add – how cute are the little bottles though!

A Mermaid’s Life swatches…

So I got a little impatient waiting on my nails to grow (I managed to break two so they’re a little stumpy), and decided to ‘swatch’ my handmade polishes today. I write swatch with the inverted commas because I’ve never really swatched before, and to be honest I didn’t nail it. Most swatch photos I’ve seen are photographed really well; the products look lush, the persons nails are long and there’s loads of shots at different angles. Unfortunately you’re getting my 2-dimensional, stumpy nails to look at.

(For those of you who don’t know, ‘A Mermaid’s Life‘ is my first trio set of handmade polishes. I wanted it to tell the life story of a Mermaid so it includes her tales, tears and dreams.)

First up we have ‘A Mermaid’s Tale’. This is a creme polish, made from mica powder; it dries super quick and has a sort of matte finish. On the left we have two coats and the right is one coat. I felt you could really get away with only one coat of this polish as it has a pretty good coverage. It’s super smooth and displays gold/green tones depending on the light and has a beautiful, natural shimmer. Even though the polishes can all be worn individually, I created this one with the idea of it being the base colour.

Secondly is the ‘A Mermaid’s Tears’. Some of her tales are a little sad I’m afraid. It’s made from  ‘ultra fine’ (0.008) hex glitters, it’s the glitter topper of the trio. But it can be worn by itself – it gives your nails a little bit of glittery interest without being overwhelming. It dries a little ‘gritty’ so does need top-coating and due to the glitter being in the iridescent category it can be pink/blue/green/purple/and so on which is okay for me, but could be misleading as in the bottle it looks true blue! (I got too carried away and painted all my nails with a second coat, so had to do a weird mashed together photo for a fair comparison. )

Finally, it’s the jelly of the trio – ‘A Mermaid’s Dream’, full of glittery goodness. I used a blue tint, teal stars and silver square glitter for this creation and personally it’s my favourite. One coat looks a little rubbish, but two coats is certainly wearable if you’re wanting to wear it as a solo polish. Even though this one does dry smooth (and relatively quickly actually) I would still recommend a top coat due to potential pokey-outy star points that could catch *shudders*. I felt my brush loaded fine with the square glitter but I did have to fish around for the stars, I suppose that could be due to their shape and size though – I’ve never used a polish with stars in it to compare it to though!

Can I just add how cool it looks with a matte top coat applied! This is two coats ‘A Mermaid’s Dream’ and one matte top-coat. You can really see the glitter and I much prefer it to the glossy look.

Still with me? You’ve probably just been looking at the picture right. As I previously said, they were designed as a trio for the option to layer together. In the following picture, I have layered the dreams on top of her tale on the left, just her tale in the middle, and then tears and tale to the right. I LOVE how the dreams and tale look together. What’s your favourite out the trio then?

I played with them further, but what I came up with will be revealed on Friday, mwahahaha. I will give you a slight peek though, what a tease… This is tale, tears, and then dream painted as an ombre effect.