Very quickly, another Spotted! from Holland. Thanks to Helen at Nail Art for Dummies and her hot tip about visiting DA in Amsterdam, here are some more things I Spotted! DA is an awesome make up and beauty store, I was very well behaved and only looked in this store.
So first up Teeez.
Then PUPA, including their holographic and chrome ranges!
And finally, some W.I.C polishes.
I am a very lucky lady, I can currently in Holland on a work related visit. When I arrived I had a small window of time to myself, so what else is a polish lover to do but find polish!!
First up, I went to de Bijenkork, the premier department store in Amsterdam. Two reasons for visiting – I had a hunch that in mainland Europe the new Chanel range was already out. I was right on the first count, PLUS they also had one bottle of Taboo left, so I grabbed that along with Azure, the peacock green/blue. Absolutely killer range of products this time around, loving the eye liners too!
Secondly – On the second floor of de Bijenkork is the mysteriously titled ‘Nail Bar’, which turns out to be the KOH experience bar. Wow, this is a bit full on to be frank. When I was there is was RAMMED. They do nail treatments too and so can get very busy and distracted doing that and not serving customers. I took a lot of images…. just scroll for a bit.
Look at this giant box of KOH??!!
After that I went for a wonder and saw two wonderful stores that are well worth a visit – first up Douglas. A make up and beauty store. Lots to see here including their own brand polish and they also stock KOH.
Then, I stumbled across the HEMA Beauty store. They have recently released a range of duochromes and holographics. Lovely and very reasonable priced!! You can even get some of the polishes in the small store in centraal station, but if you are going shopping its worth seeking out the beauty shop.
I was also able to find Essence and Catrice in a store called Kruidvat and there are a couple in the city centre. There are probably lots of places where I should also look, so hit me up in the comments and you may catch me before I head home!
Another Maybelline Color Show Polka Dots to show you today. This one is Chalk Dust, a clear base polish, with black and white glitters of varying sizes. In the latter respect its very similar to the others in the range.
I layered this over Julep Salma, a hot summer red, and I think the colour contrast works really well. What you see above is one coat over my top coat. Getting the glitter out of the bottle was not a problem at all, this genuinely is one coat of the brush. The brush is quite thick, so you can probably get away with two swipes of the brush.
As with Rain Forest Cafe, you get 7ml of product for your £2.99, but its worth waiting until there are offers instore, such as the Boots and Superdrug Buy One Get One Half Off deals.
Did you pick up any Polka Dots? Or is it a glitter polish too far?
In my last edition of Spotted! I shared with you all the new Maybelline Color Show Polka Dot Polishes. This is the first one I have had time to swatch and share with you. This is the green one of the bunch, known as Rain Forest Canopy.
As you can see, its a jelly-ish teal green with black and white glitters in of different sizes. I wasn’t sure how opaque it was going to be as a true jelly is not my favourite type of finish. However, three average coats later and opacity was not an issue. First coat had a tendency to drag the glitter towards the free edge of my nail but careful applications on coats two and three rectifies that nicely. I used two of the Essence Better Than Gel Nails products; the base sealer and the top coat. Still quite fond of these, not sure how much is left as the bottles are not clear.
Drying time for this was actually very quick, by the time I had finished on my last nail, the first one I painted was pretty much touch dry. I was able to romp through this mani quickly, base, three coats and a top coat. Brush for the Maybelline Color Show polishes tends to be on the thin side, so you usually need multiple sweeps to paint a nail. Each bottle contains 7ml of product and retails around the £3 mark.
Find out more about Mayeblline Color Show on the (US) website here, check out the Pinterest Board and look at the (UK) Maybelline Color Show page.
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Just a heads up Nail Polish loving people….
In the June Edition of InStyle Magazine you can collect one of three Nails Inc polish, more info from InStyle here.
If you are looking for swatches, you can check out Kerruticle’s with You’re A Peach and Racho’s Nail Love for swatches of all three.
The magazine retails for £3.90 and the polish is usually in the £11 ball park, so a good deal if the colours appeal to you. Did you get any?
This is a polish I have worn a couple of times but neglected to take images. So here, third time lucky, is China Glaze Immortal from the Halloween 2012 collection.
As you can see, this is a slate gray polish with hints of shimmer within. There is a hint of pink and blue, its a super wearable colour and goes with most things. Application was good, I used three thin coats to build up opacity. I base coated with Seche Clear, top coating with Seche Vite to make it last longer. Formula was good, not too runny and not too thick. Drying time was quicker than average.
I love these gray polishes with shimmers, I have quite a few, I’m getting a bit obsessed. I’m not sure if Immortal is still available, but you can pick up China Glaze polishes from eBay, Amazon and other online retailers. Let me know your hot links if you find any!
Whoop! More Nerdlacquer today. This is one I scooped up when I picked up the last couple I showed you. I umm’d and ahh’d about putting it on and now I wish I had put it on sooner.
W.O.W. This is one holy smokes polish. It is amazing. When the light hits it, it is just spectacular. Spectacular! It is just jammed full of glitter, lots and lots of silver glitter. I used three coats here, opacity built up well and the formula was surprisingly easy to work with. The trickiest coat was probably the first one, but that one then makes the others go on smoothly. I used my Essence Better Than Gel Nails Base Coat followed by a top coated with Essence Better Than Gel Nails Top Sealer High Gloss. Which makes this baby shine like no-ones business.
Information about Nerdlacquer can be found on the website including info on any restocks. Nerdlacquer is also on Google+ so check that out for forthcoming restocks too. There was mention of April 15th, but do check Google+ for the most up to date information. Retail is $10 and shipping is also available for us international polish lovers via Nerdlacquer or if you are fortunate to snag any of the Harlow&Co NL editions.
Ah, new polish. What is better than new polish? I saw these today in my local Superdrug. I saw four in total, this pink one, the two below and a dark blue one.
I cracked and bought two. 200 Rainforest Canopy on the left and 197 Chalk Dust on the right. There is a deal on at the moment for buy one get one half price. RRP is £2.99 so that is a great deal.
Plus, according to British Beauty Blogger, they aren’t meant to be out until June. So consider this a sneak peak! Swatches coming soon.
Have you seen this in your local stores yet?
A glitter bomb of a polish for you today. This was sent to me by my Polish Picking Princess in a little bundle she sent my way and I forgot to upload the images.
Anyway, here we go!
This is seriously glittery. I love orange polish as you may well know. This is from the US Indie brand Rainbow Honey and is part of the Equestria Collection. Its a deeper orange, like marmalade in colour. Its packed with glitter in copper, gold and orange in square and hexagonal shapes. There is also a tiny smattering of iridescent and holographic pieces which really catch the light. Formula was good, what you see above is three coats, making the polish completely opaque.
It might look a little bit bumpy in the images but I can assure you its not. I used my Essence Peel Off Base Coat (which didn’t work s expected – huge disappointment let me tell you) and a thick coat of Seche Vite on top for the shine.
The RH webshop only ships to the US and Canada, international polish lovers need to select a retailer that will ship to where they live, but handily there is a webpage to help with that.
I love the RH concept, I adore the bottles and I’m quite taken with some of the newer collections. What do you think? Do you have any Rainbow Honey in your stash?
OK, pictures only coming up…. this is Model’s Own Pukka Purple, one of the new Ice Neon shades in a lovely frosted bottle.
It dries matte as you can see. I found the formula quite thick and hard to work with as it dries so quickly. I’d be very interested to here how you might have found some of the others if you have tried them.
The colour is VERY intense and the pictures do not show how intense.
As price point goes, Models Own are a very reasonable £5 and they have great online offers for multiple purchasing, so do check with website. You can also found them in larger Boots stores.
Let me know what you think or if you have tried these, love to have your comments!
