Nutra Nail Gel Perfect

A few weeks ago I spotted this 'Gel' nail polish in Poundland.
It claims to be a gel which requires no UV light and dries in 5 minutes without smudging.
I was rather sceptical, so I bought it to try out. The colour I picked up was 'Ginger'.

I have kept a diary of my thoughts on the polish over the week:

Day 1:
Having just applied the polish, I found it was fairly quick and easy to apply. Basically each time you want to apply a coat of polish you have to apply a coat of activator first.
Each coat dried within about 30 seconds and once dry there was definitely no smudging despite my best efforts at scraping the polish on the side of my desk!! It is rock solid, as advertised!
The application is a little streaky, but not hugely so.

The main downside of this is the activator. Basically, it smells and feels like I am just applying super glue to my nails! I guess I could be for all I know?!
Also, neat application is key. Although I put the polish on neatly in the first place, I wanted to see how well it would clean-up. In all honestly, once it is on it seems to be staying on! So I wouldn't recommend this if you like to make a mess in application and just clean up afterwards!
I ended up with a strange sort of lump of polish on my thumbnail. Tried to clean this up with Acetone, no chance! The lump is staying for the foreseeable future!

Day 2:
OK, last night I did a quick Google on this polish and found that the activator which I said smelt like superglue literally is just nail glue. Great, I've just covered my nails in three coats of glue!

Anyway, day 2 and my nails are still looking good. No chips or tip wear.

Although, my thumb nail is missing a chunk of polish but that's my fault really... that big lumpy bit I had on my thumbnail was irritating me, so in a conference today I picked the lump off (Clearly I was having loads of fun and concentrating well!). Now it looks like I have 2 weeks worth of growth and need my nails re-doing!

Day 3.
I woke up this morning and it all went downhill!!
I haven't done anything much different to yesterday, yet my nails now look like this:

(Excuse the completely different lighting! I promise it is the same polish!)

 Also, my cuticles seem really dry. Probably because I basically applied 3 coats of superglue to my nails!

I think its safe to say I will be taking what is left off today!

This polish came off reasonable easily. It was no more difficult than a glitter polish, definitely not like removing gel.

Overall, I would not recommend this polish! Yes, it looks pretty at first, but I can get more than 2 days wear from a normal polish and the glue-like 'activator' wreaks havoc with your nail/cuticle health. Don't bother!

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! 

Back to School

Here is a very quick post today to show you my Back to School nail art, as I started teaching this week.

These are my first ever negative space nails! It's not really a technique I have ever been inclined to try, but I though I'd give it a shot!

I used Essence Do You Speak Love? as the main colour, Sinful Colors Savage for the leaf and brown acrylic paint for the stalk.

H&M Peachy Girl Swatches

Today I have got a review of the H&M polish, Peachy Girl.
I picked this up in their sale last week for £1, along with another H&M polish, Blue Bliss.

Here it is! 

This went on really easy and smooth, no problems. As I was applying it I thought it seemed a bit streaky, but once on the nail it seemed to smooth itself out as it dried. 

Drying time was quite fast, faster than I expected for a cheap polish, probably faster than most of the polishes I own. But not too fast that it was difficult to apply!

I did find the brush a little bit awkward to hold, as the lid of the bottle is rectangular, but the brush itself was good.

This polish lasted really well too. I wore it by itself for a day. I then painted my Yorkshire Rose nail art on top of it and kept this on for two days. When I took it off at the end of the three days there were still no chips, and hardly any wear on the tips either.

These pictures are taken with two coats, no topcoat, in natural light. It is definitely not a one coater, but two coats is perfect. You can see it is super shiny and smooth. The colour is gorgeous too, I don't own any other similar polishes either which is always good!!

Below is a picture with the two closest polishes I could find in my collection, just for comparison. On the left is OPI Where did Suzi's Man-Go, in the middle is Barry M Papaya and on the right is H&M Peachy Girl.

Overall, I really like this polish. It will definitely be well used and it is making me very tempted to buy more H&M polishes!

Jess Polish Review

Today I bought new nail polish!! Standard Saturday!
I'm just going to tell you about one of them at the moment, which I tried out this afternoon.

This Poundland 'Jess' polish. I was just looking at what colours they had and I fell in love with a purple polish called Madison. I'm not usually a big purple lover, therefore don't have many purple polishes, so I thought 'why not!'. My biggest issue with this polish was it's inability to appear the right colour in photo's!

This first photo I edited, to try and make the nails look the colour they actually are!! My skin is not actually this yellow, it's a side-effect of the editing!

They definitely are not this blue at all, I tried several camera's and several different intensities of light to take the photo's too, but no luck... just imagine they are the same colour as above!!

I absolutely loved this polish! One thick-ish coat was enough to fully cover my nails. I began adding a second coat to some nails, out of habit, but realised I could tell no difference whatsoever, so I stopped again! As you can see, the colour is really intense, even in just one coat. It went on so easily and smoothly too! I can't stop stroking my nails, as they have not been so smooth in such a long time! 

 I love how super shiny the finish is too! These pictures are without topcoat and they look so good. This polish also dried really fast. By the time I had finished one coat, they were dry enough to add a second coat straight away, so this mani literally took me 5 mins! Although, I do think this dried so fast, it might cause problems if you like to take your time painting your nails and it would not be very good for stamping.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this polish. Well done Poundland! I think I might be going back tomorrow to pick up a few more, as it is much better than some of the big brand polishes I have, and all for £1!