Some new items out on shelves in the UK now – this is the Love Glitter collection from Rimmel London. Five glitter shard top coats – as you can see this advert suggests wearing these over black.
RRP is £3.99 but often these can be picked up in 3 for 2 or BOGOF deals.
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails and now I can also be found on Instagram here!
Hey there! How are things going with you all? I’m finally back into the swing of things post holiday – its always nice to be home and sleep in your own bed, but lets be honest, as soon as you get back you start planning for your next break. Or at least we are!
Anyway, I have lots of lovely polishes to share with you all. Including this beauty from Sinful Colors, part of the Bloomblast collection. This one is the excellently named Petal Be The Day!
As you can see, Petal Be The Day is a purple and blue glitter topper, the base is actually quite sheer so I put this over a base of Nella Milano Periwinkle Pucker. The base is ever so slightly tinted so it darkened the base colour somewhat. Look at all that glitter loveliness! Cool huh?
It was a bit of a dab and spread approach to application. Just painting it on meant the gliltter dragged across the nail and all ended up at the free edge. Not idea. Hence the dab and spread. drying time was quite quick, but I also sealed it with a coat of Nails Inc Kensington Top Coat just to keep the glitter from snagging on anything.
I do like this, I am quite into glitters at the moment and the colour combination is really nice! What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails
I have a polish I picked up from Claire’s in their recent £2 polish promotion, can’t really argue at that price! I was super intrigued by this polish as it has black leopard spot shaped glitter in it, along with some lovely blue leaning flakies and shimmer. Lets see how I got on…..
What you see here is one drop and spread blob on polish over a base of Nella Milano Crystal Coral* (review coming soon). Now I will be blunt, this was a NIGHTMARE to work with.
There is simply too much base coat per spot ratio. Meaning that in order to get the few you see on my nails here, I had to fish, for a while and do the wipe and grab technique on the neck of the bottle. The base if very thick so I have probably gunked up my bottle to the point of it never opening again – despite cleaning it! I probably could have guessed that by looking at it, but I really wanted to see what it looked like.
I really love the flakies, and who doesn’t, but its horrid. The effect is OK, but perhaps over a darker colour, such as a gray or purple I’d probably get a better look. On the plus side, the flakies lie flat as does the glitter. Although as my top coat was drying I did push it down with my nail just to make sure it wasn’t going to spring up and annoy me when dry.
You can find it here on the Claire’s website, RRP is £3.50 although I bought mine in a promotion. Have you tried this polish? Did you have more luck than me? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails
*Disclosure: This product was sent to me for review but this does not influence the opinions expressed in this blog which are entirely my own.
Just popping this post up in case any of you are off shopping today and fancy some new nail stuff! Having spotted them on European blogs, the UK is seeing the arrival of the Color Show All Access NY Top Coats. So far, I’ve only seen the black one. But lovely Briege over at Rare Opal has seen the red on and has bought them both! Also seen are new Dr Rescue nail products, an all in one and a gel top coat.
YES – this is square glitter!! 
Boots seems to still be in a 3 for 2 promotion so now would be a good time to pick these up! Have you seen these about? Let me know in the comments!
So I picked up two, well three in the end, of the new Essence Gel Nails range that has just been released. You can see what the stands look like on this Spotted post. And I’ve been giving them a test drive whilst visiting family over Easter.
First up are the top and base coat needed to make the Gel nail polish, Gel Nails…. these are £2.50 each.
These are the two polishes I bought originally – one the left the Jelly is Bubble Gum and one the right, the blue shade is Electriiiiiic
The instructions are quite clear, base coat, then gel nail polish and the finally the top coat.
So following these instructions I put on the base coat. It dries quickly to a waxy finish. Even when its dry, it is slightly tacky to touch. it is recommended that you wait until each layer is dry before doing the next one. Then I applied one coat of Electriiiiiic.
Formula was good, similar to the regular Colour and Go polishes, it was not opaque with one coat. I then waited until the first coat was dry, before adding a second which evened out the colour and provided better depth. After a few minutes drying, I applied the top coat. This is quite gloopy and takes a bit of getting used to, I did flood my cuticles once and then didn’t apply enough on another occasion. However, once on it does dry quite quickly and is touch proof in about 4 mins and rock hard within 10.
So, here we go, a long line of images showing you the polish at the point of application, 2 days later and then 5 days later. I couldn’t manage more than 5 days as I was itching to change my polish!
First up, after the original application – 
Here is the polish after application on the way to work – you can see the glossy finish.
I found that the first small chips appeared quite quickly. This may be because the sides of my nails are weaker and I have a little bit of splitting and peeling on one or two of them as well.
This is 2 days post application –
As you can see only a little bit of tip wear on my thumb.
Here you can see chips on the sides of several nails but overall, unless you inspected in great detail, I don’t think you could actually notice. The glossy finish from the first day is still apparent.
Finally, 5 days post application
You can clearly see the chips on the sides of my nails now, they have gotten larger over time. The shine is still evident despite having been on for five days.
First thoughts – I am quite impressed with the wear time of this polish. It will be interesting to see if this is repeated with other shades in the range (another review coming up in a week or so..) What I do like about the range generally is the price point, £2.50 for the top and base coat and £1.60 for the polish, and the fact that the whole range has been done as The Gel Polish. I didn’t try it on its own, but I would imagine it would be similar to a regular polish.
The top and base coats are a little bit smellier than regular polishes, so work in a ventilated area away from anyone who is sensitive to smells. The finish is also quite impressive, it is super shiny and remained so throughout my wear test.
I haven’t tried any other gel nail combo so I have nothing for comparison, but I would say for a weekend away, or a period of time when you know you will not be able to change your polish, this might be for you!
Have you tried other gel polishes? Let me know what you think the comments, could you try the Essence Gel Nails?
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails
I was in quite a large Wilcos and having seen a new leader for The Gel Nails, I thought it best (for you my dear reader natrually) to pop by the Essence stand and see if the Gel Nails had actually landed. And they had! Along with some of the other new products….
So first up, just to say that this Wilcos has two bays making up it Essence display, so you may need to either visit a stand alone pop up or a larger store to get a bigger range. 
As you can see, the whole top row on this bay and the next, is given over to the new polishes. Every polish is the Essence core range is now a Gel Polish. 
Here you can see is still includes the special finishes, such as the matte one you can see above. Here you can also see the base and top coat needed to make the nails Gel. The price point is excellent, polish is £1.60 and the top and base are £2.50 each.
Also new to the stand, and I’m only focussing on the nail items here, are updated top coats. From the left, holo glitter, sparkle sand, satin-matt, pastel ombre and the (not new) crackle top coat. NB if you want to see all the new products, you can on this page on the Essence Website.
Above you can see the wider range of pastel shades – these are not gel polishes, it appears to be the core range with the little colour cap that match the polish inside.
And finally, just another shot of the two required base and top coats for the Gel Nails. This does mean that
I did pick up a few things, namely two gel polishes, the top and base coat for the gel nails, the ombre nail topper, the holo glitter topper and a foil transfer liquid (not picutred). I have one of the gel nails on now for a wear text, so pop back in the next week or so, or sign up to alerts either by following me via email or through one of the links below.
Anything catch your eye? Have you picked up any of these new items yet?
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails
I found these images languishing on my camera, so thought I would share these with you. This is a Sinful Colors shade I picked up in the US. As the name Splatter Spell suggests, this was part of the Halloween 2014 range. Lets check out some pics.
Here is two coats of Splatter Spell over a base of Barry M Gelly in Lychee, a pale nude shade. Its a great orange glitter in hexes and shards, along with black pieces in medium and small hexes. Pretty easy to use, easy to apply on the nail, no complaints here.
I do love a great orange glitter topper, as you may well know! Its a great way to bling up a day old mani.
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails
Image from Chanel.com
OK, OK – no judging. I flew down south to visit the family and I HAD to pick with two of the A/W 2014 Chanel Collection Etats Poetiques. There are three vernis shades in the collection. Orage (navy with a shimmer), Secret (a pale nude) and then Atmosphere which I have to show you here. Lets go straight to the pics!
What you see here is two coats of Orage followed by one thin coat of Atmosphere. It really acts as a shade changer and iridescent topper. It does bit up some of the underlying shade and as you can see above, it has a really really strong duochrome effect. Although I only used on coat, it went on evenly and cleanly drying quite quickly before I topped with G&G HK Girl.
I think it would look stunning over red too, so will probably try that next time.
Has anything from Chanel A/W 2014 caught your eye?
Don’t forget that you can follow this blog via Bloglovin’, either by clicking the icon to the right or by clicking here. I can also be found on Twitter @BakingNails
Ohhhhhhh Sally Hansen update in the UK! New Colour Frenzy range, a selection of glitter toppers in the lovely square SH bottles.
RRP is £6.99 (ouch I know….) they are now up on the Boots website. What do you think? Would you pick these up or pass? Let me know in the comments
Today I have one of the polishes from the Sally Hansen Ltd Edition Spring 2014 Xtreme Wear Color Vibrations Glitter Mania collection (way to go SH for the longest collection name in a while….) For more info on the entire collection, you can see this page on Nouveau Cheap. This is Glam Fest a multi coloured glitter in a clear base.
Ah, glitter polish. What’s not to love? This one has mulit coloured glitters and small silver glitters within it. I wore this over a gray creme from KIKO so all the glitter is from the bottle. My experience with the recent Xtreme glitters has not been good. In my opinion, there is too much base coat, meaning that to get more than three bits of glitter, you have to pass over more than once. Plus if you dare to put it on too thickly, it bubbles quickly. Thin and slow is the way here and lets be honest, which a cheap drugstore buy, you want quick. Not slow.
Much as I love this combo, its not something I would reach for in a hurry. Drying time, even with top coat, too ages……
I didn’t get this in the UK, I bought it via a reseller on eBay along with a number of other polishes and lip balms (don’t have enough of them either) so if you want to take the plunge and you are in the UK, Europe or beynd, eBay is your best bet. Otherwise for those of you in North America check your local drugstores as there may be a few of these knocking about.
Let me know what you think. What is your fave glitter top coat?
Painted Nails & Baking Scales 