Regal Roses

Today I have a mani I have been meaning to post for some time!
This is in fact the mani which was my most popular on Instagram last month, however I never got round to posting it on here, oops!

I used two coats of Essence Do You Speak Love? for the base colour. I then used Barry M Matte White and Ciaté Pillow Fight to paint the Roses before finishing off with the Essence Quick Dry Topcoat.

This is such an amazing topcoat. I have quite a few of the budget brand topcoats and this is by far my favourite. Doesn't smell too bad, goes on nice and smooth, dries quickly and it is super dooper shiny! 

Glitter, Glitter and More Glitter!!

So, I went a little overboard on the glitter today!! Used 4 different glitter polishes!

My mani is also different on each hand, as I got a bit carried away experimenting, but nevermind! 

So this is how I started out, on my left hand. I used a base colour of Sally Hansen Fucshia Flare. On most fingers this was followed by a coat of Pretty, Pink Polka Dot, which is a clear base with pink small and large hexagonal glitter. On my Index finger I tried to create a sort of glitter jelly sandwich! I did a coat of Pretty Scatter Effect, followed by a coat of Pretty Polka Dot Effect, followed by another coat of Scatter Effect!

I love how this finger turned out! 

 I then topped the whole thing with another glitter - Barry M Diamond.
Before doing my right hand I realised how similar the Pretty Scatter Polish looks to Barry M's White Sequin Effect Polish.

So of course, I had to test them out next to each other for a proper comparison. I haven't used the Barry M polish before, so can't compare with old pics! 

Turns out they are nothing like each other!! I hadn't realised the Barry M polish was textured. It was also more opaque than I expected and the overall outcome was not very nice!!

I removed all polish from that finger and started again. This time doing just 2 coats of the Barry M, without a base colour. It looks much better like this, but I'm still not keen on the texture. I'm just not a lover of textured polish in general.

Once again, I finished with a coat of Barry M Diamond.

Here are your left to right comparisons:

I think I actually prefer my right hand. Which do you prefer?

I seem to have waffled on an awful lot in this post today. Sorry about that, and well done if you made it this far!!!

Pretty Poundland Nail Polish

So, for a while I have been buying the likes of Sally Hansen, Revlon and Rimmel nail polishes from Poundland. Every time I go in there I wonder what their own brand polishes are like, (which are called 'Pretty') but I never bother buying them as I would rather get ones I know will be good! So, as part of my birthday present my bf bought me this gorgeous looking pink glitter topcoat to try.

I have to admit, I didn't have high expectations but I was actually pleasantly surprised!!

It goes on reasonably easily, although a little fishing was required to find the larger pieces of glitter, and  didn't clump together. I was most impressed with the finish. I have had cheap glitters before that dry really rough, where the glitter sticks out of the polish, but this didn't happen. It dried with a nice, smooth finish, almost like a gel. Smooth enough I didn't need a topcoat (And that's something from me, who hates non-smooth nails!!). This meant it easily survived my shower and hair washing, which is always the challenge for glitter, when little strands of hair get stuck underneath!! It did take quite a while to dry though. The first hand I ended up smudging whilst trying to photograph them, and having to do again! (So excuse any pictures where it looks a bit dodgy!!)

                             

It has definitely made me want to buy some more of their polishes to try out. This is just a topcoat, so It will be more difficult to see how it lasts, but I am considering buying just one or two colour polishes to try.

The colours I used were Barry M Matt White, as a base for the glitter, and Rimmel Purple Pulse. I love this mani.. Just enough glitter to be pretty, without being OTT!

 Has anyone else tried the Poundland 'Pretty' polishes? What did you think of them?