Nail Polish Storage

Good morning girls!

Last night my boyfriend came home with these 3 pretty gift boxes for me.

They are gold and silver with a red and green design. The red bits are velvety and feel lovely :-)

My boyfriend suggested I use them to store my nail polish. Good suggestion as my previous nail polish box was overflowing and was very inconvenient to move around the flat. It also wasn't big enough to store my polishes upright- something which should be done in order to help keep polishes in good condition for longer.

I had a great time sorting through all my polishes. I have half my collection here and half at my parents' house. Here's how I've arranged my polishes here:

In the big box: pinks, purples, blues, reds, greens, browns

In the little box: silvers, greys, whites, topcoats, basecoats, nails tools, image plates

I'm very happy with my new storage system. It can neatly be stored away and looks classy :-)

How do you store your nail polish collection?

Bye for now,
Laura

No7 Crystal Lilac Nails

Currently watching: Top Gear

Hello dear readers,

Today I have a Boots No7 nail polish to show you. I was given this shade, Crystal Lilac, at Christmas and didn't think much of it initially as I tend to find No7 polishes a bit of a letdown. This also wasn't really a colour that appealed to me. However, I'm glad I tried it because it may actually be one of my favourite nail polishes now.

I used this a few weeks ago, before I cut my nails, but didn't manage to take good pictures hence I didn't feature it as a NOTD post. The only reason I'm showing you these pictures now is because the Boots vouchers offering £5 off No7 products are doing the rounds until Sunday 31st January and I thought anyone wondering what to use their voucher on might like to consider this polish which will cost £2 using your voucher.

I hesitate to use the word "duochrome" because I'm not entirely sure when to apply it to a nail polish, but I do consider this shade a duochrome. In some lights it's very pink whereas under other lighting it's much more of a bronze colour (which I never managed to capture on camera). I think duochrome polishes are quite popular at the moments, judging by the coverage on other blogs about those in MAC's Venomous Villains collection and in the Accessorize range of make up.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the easy application and long staying power of this polish, I can't vouch that all No7 polishes are the same, as I've certainly found a few of them rather troublesome and disappointing in the past.

Do you have a No7 voucher to use? Are you a fan of No7 polishes?

Bye for now,
Laura

High End Nails

Currently watching: Top Gear

Good afternoon ladies,

Happy New Year to you all :-) Let's hope 2011 is a happy, healthy and prosperous year for us all.

My boyfriend and I were apart for Christmas but we were reunited on Friday. Here's the lovely gift I was given:

That's right, designer nail polish!

Graphic Berry by Dior and Pink Moon by Yves Saint Laurent

Swatches coming soon!

Bye for now,
Laura

Purple Polish Collection and Primark Polish Addition

Currently listening to: Rose du Bitume by Diams

Hi folks,

While I was in town yesterday I popped into Primark and picked up a new purple nail polish which caught my eye.

I love purple polish but I'm always searching for my perfect shade:

Might Primark possibly have provided me with my perfect shade of purple polish?

This cost £1 for 10ml. I love the bottle's appearance and the smooth white top. I haven't tried this yet so I have no idea what application or finish will be like but I'm not expecting too much although I do have high expectations of the shade. It's a more blue, less grey shade of purple than my other pastels and oh there remains nothing more to say except I can't wait to try this!

Has anyone else tried Primark's polish?

Bye for now,
Laura

OPI and China Glaze

Currently listening to: Melanie by Diams

Greetings girls!

Today was my first day at my new job so I wore one of my lovely suits, took my beautiful bag and briefcase with me and started at the bottom of the accounting career ladder. This week is an induction week, which means lots of information is being thrown at me (and the other new trainees) but most of it won't make any sense until we start working properly. Tomorrow we're being introduced to the firm's auditing software. I think it will be an intense day. Anyway, I heard a lot of worrying and scary stuff during the course of the day but one piece of good news I did pick up on is that, starting from next Monday, I will be in college for two weeks. Why is that good? Because college = casual clothes = nail polish! Yay :-)

This leads us nicely on to the title of today's post, OPI and China Glaze. When I was in London at the weekend I noticed a hairdressing salon with nail polish on display in the windows. On closer inspection, I saw this:

This was very exciting for me because it was the first time I'd ever seen OPI and China Glaze nail polish for sale. Of course I've read about them and seen swatches on your blog but I'd never seen the bottles in real life.

What about the prices? OPI bottles were priced at £10 and China Glaze at £5. Is this normal? I knew OPI was around the £10 mark but I had no idea what price China Glaze retailed at. For me £5 is a bit expensive, although I did spend that on my GOSH Holographic polish, but if I really wanted a certain colour I would consider spending that. I didn't buy any (due to a lack of spending money and short, short nails) but oh I did enjoy looking.

How much are you willing to spend on a bottle of nail polish and what are your favourite brands?

Bye for now,

Laura

Revelation

Currently listening to: Terrified by Katharine McPhee

For someone who apparently doesn't like blue polish that much, I have a surprisingly large amount of it in my nail polish collection.

It came as quite a surprise.

Are there any surprises in your nail polish collections?

Purple Comparison

Currently listening to: Broken by Lifehouse

Earlier this week I was in Boots and got tempted by the Barry M 2 for £5 offer on nail polish. One of the colours I got was Pure Turquoise (yesterday's NOTD) and the second one I chose was Berry Ice Cream. I knew I had a similar shade at home (pictured below on the right) but the application is terrible so I was happy to get a higher quality dupe. However, I also thought it was a similar shade to Eyeko's Lilac Polish (again, bad application) but after today's swatching session, I now see how wrong I was.

Left to right: Milo, Barry M, Eyeko

Left to right: Eyeko, Barry M, Milo

Left to right: Milo, Barry M, Eyeko

As you can see, the Milo and Barry M shades are really similar (and even more similar in reality than in these photos I have to say) so I'm pleased about that. However, I was surprised to discover that the Eyeko shade is a lot darker and more purple than I had pictured it in my head. I'm actually quite pleased about that too because, despite the poor application, I still think it looks great on my nails so I will definitely be using this more in the near future :-)

Bye for now,
Laura

Perfect Match

Currently watching: Mary Queen of Shops

Morning folks,

My brother kindly bought me some Eyeko nail polishes for my birthday:

Now so far I've only used the lilac polish, and that was for my toe nails, so I'm not in any position to comment on how well the polish applies and lasts etc, I just want to show you how perfectly it goes with my new shoes :p

(Marks & Spencer Outlet, £19.50)

What a match!

The shoes were a spur-of-the-moment purchase on Saturday afternoon. My mum was returning a pair of shoes and I spotted these leather ones which felt very comfortable when I tried them on. I've been wearing them for two days straight and I love them. And I can't deny that having matching nail polish makes me love them even more!

When your toes are on display do you try to match your polish to your shoes?

Bye for now,
Laura

New Collection

Currently listening to: Closer by Josh Groban
Song: Oceano (it's been on repeat for three hours)

I was very strict with myself when I moved to Poland and limited myself to bringing only two bottles of nail polish:

But I wasn't so strict with myself when I actually got here and this is the collection I'm going home with:


I hate packing.

Bye for now,
Laura

Essence

Hello girlies :-)

Today is my second last day in Poland so I'm a bit occupied packing up everything (my suitcase seems a lot smaller than I remember), saying goodbye to people, exploring Warsaw for the final time, working out how to get to the airport for 4am etc. However, I still have time for blogging!

I have lots of pictures from last week's trip and hopefully I'll be able to show you a selection of them soon but for now I want to show you my purchases, in particular my Essence buys.

I first discovered Essence when I went to the Czech Republic in 2007 and then I saw the brand again in Germany last year. In Germany, Essence was stocked in a chain of pharmacies called Rossmann but unfortunately Rossmann in Poland (or at least Rossmann in Warsaw) doesn't seem to sell Essence products and as far as I'm aware Essence isn't available in the UK. While I was on my travels last week I was lucky enough to spot some Essence stands in a department store when walking through Ljubljana, Slovenia. Yay! Their selection was immense and it was great seeing things that I've been reading about on some of your blogs. Of course I couldn't buy everything though so I settled for the following:

I'm sure I tried a Boots 17 nail polish remover pen years ago and wasn't very impressed by it but I decided to try the Essence one as it was fairly cheap and could turn out to be a good investment. Does anyone else use nail polish remover pens?

I also bought nail repair, another glitter topper because my current one, which I purchased last summer, is running low, Colour & Go shade 33 Just In Case and Multi Dimension shade 55 Princesses Rule!

Just In Case is the first brown nail polish I've ever bought, and I'm sure I've been buying nail polish for well over 10 years, so it's definitely something new for me. I haven't swatched it yet but I may come to regret not having bought two as the bottle is rather small (5ml).

Princesses Rule! is a light pink shade with some silver shimmer through it, so the name is quite appropriate. I think this will be a good colour to use just now while my nails are short and I want to have them painted whilst avoiding drawing too much attention to them. Saying that, I recently acquired some jazzy nail decorations that I'm eager to try out ;-)

Bye for now,

Laura

Do these shades really exist?

Currently watching: The Apprentice USA Season 1

After seeing a lot of bloggers posting swatches of blue polish, I've now decided I'd like to try creme blue. Pastel yellow is in my mind too. Yesterday I went to my local cosmetics shops in the hope of finding nice blue and yellow shades there but I didn't have any luck. My dad is currently on holiday in Spain and since I usually stock up on cheap nail polish when I'm across there I decided to ask him to go the shops I frequent and look out for the colours I wanted. I sent him a text asking him to look for creme blue and pastel yellow nail polish for me and a few hours later, enough time to have a look around the shops I suppose, I received a text: Do these shades really exist? Ah. Guess I'll just have to wait until I'm back in the UK to look for the branded nail polish I've read reviews of.

In the meantime, I ended up buying a neon pink shade for 3 zloty (65p).

I was so happy when I bought this because in my mind it was the exact shade of neon pink (it doesn't really look neon in the photos but I promise you it is) that I've been wanting for years. I applied two coats today (application was horrible, especially now that I've cut my nails and I'm still getting used to painting short nails) and was fairly happy with it. Until it dried. Once dry, it looks exactly like the other neon pink I bought a couple of weeks ago even though in the bottles, the two shades look completely different:

Bah. So disappointing.

To cheer myself I added some Essence Glitter Topper (which I love)

Have you been disappointed by any of your recent nail polish purchases?

Bye for now,

Laura

Adding to the Collection

Currently watching: The Apprentice (UK) Series 3

Earlier today I was out and about looking for postcards (more about that another day) and while I didn't manage to find any, I did manage to pick up four new bottles of nail polish on my travels. They cost 3 zloty (about 65p) each so they certainly didn't break the bank and I can't wait to try them all although the bright neon pink one will have to be saved for the weekend as I don't think it's really appropriate for work.

I tried the silvery purple shade then used Konad m3 with black polish and I absolutely love the results. The butterflies are stamped in different positions on each nail and I would maybe do the positioning differently next time but I think this look is great.

What do you think? A successful Konad session?

Bye for now,
Laura

Spring Style

Back again, but without any colourful patterned background. I just can't work out how to customise my blog, despite reading numerous tutorials and attempting to download background layouts. Anyway, I decided to write a post on a new nail colour I tried yesterday, a pastel purple which I thought would be ideal for spring.

The photo doesn't really show this colour as it appears in reality- looking down at my nails just now, the colour is much brighter and pinker than the dull purple/grey here. I quite like this one although I don't expect it to last for long since I paid around 5zl (£1) for it. What I'd really like to try is Avon's Luxe Lavander, which apparently is long lasting and a beautiful shade of purple. If you access the Avon site via Google you can get free delivery on orders of £20 and over but right now I don't see enough products I'd like to get my order up to £20. I haven't tried Avon's nail varnish before but this one's definitely on my wishlist. And in other news, I bought this dress from New Look recently. It's not my usual style at all (in fact, I very rarely wear dresses) and I don't know when or where I'll wear it but for some reason it caught my eye and I was reluctant to leave the shop without it.

Bye for now,

Laura

PS: Last night I saw the film New York, I Love You. I don't know when it was released in the UK but it came out in Poland last Friday and, having eagerly awaited the release of this film since I first heard that it was in production, I went to see it at the first available opportunity. Its premise is based on Paris, Je T'Aime, which I really liked, but the 11 short films in New York, I Love You were nothing short of disappointing. I thought Valentine's Day would win the award for worst film of the year but it appears there's a new contender for the title. What's the film you've been most disappointed by this year?