OPI Designer Series Tapestry
Hello again! I am a bad bad blogger. Yet again I go MIA without warning, I do apologise for my slacking of posting and commenting. I have been reading, but only in motion. I scroll through my Google Reader during breaks between running participants and hope to absorb all the lovely blog posts in a super fast blur of info, chat and beautiful pictures.
I am going to Marseille next weekend, my first time abroad and it’s to a psychology conference. I’m presenting a poster of my findings, but I still didn’t have enough data, so the last few weeks have been a mad rush of begging anyone to participant in my experiment so I can actually present my poster rather than a blank sheet of paper! :P I finally got the final participant at the end of last week and I’ve spent the weekend analysing my data and making my poster for the conference. Luckily my data looks good and the poster is almost done. Now I just need to get it checked by my supervisor and get the thing printed! Phew, I’m shattered again just thinking about the last few weeks. I’ve even been pulling 9am-7pm most days, in what can only be described as the world’s hottest cupboard with an eye tracker in! The eye tracker I use is actual housed in a Faraday Cage inside another larger room, so you can imagine the temperature with two people, two computers and only about 8 square feet of space! :S
Anyway…breathe! All I need to sort now is what I need to pack to travel abroad. I know I need a passport, and I assume a European plug adapter…I’m not sure? Any tips for a newbie travelling abroad would be greatly appreciated! :)
Now, I have still had just enough time to paint my nails still. I have priorities :P I’ve been painting them just before bed when I watch an episode of something to wind down. I picked up this lovely polish when I met up with Leisha in London. We found the rather beautiful OPI DS stand and both wanted them all! It took us quite awhile to pick a favourite, but I picked Tapestry, a warm, pink-orange colour with lots of holographic shimmer. I love this polish and I have already mentioned my love for the purple version Extravagance. I just love the holographic shimmer, it looks beautiful in the sunshine. This is two coats. It applies really nicely, these are some of the best polishes I’ve used, not only because they are pretty, but because they are so easy to apply and fast drying.
I wore this polish to my interview my my PhD place with a smart black dress and suit jacket. The colour is not too garish that it looked out of place, it was smart enough to be acceptable for the office, but shimmery enough to be special. The below pictures I took while I was waiting on a bench outside in the sunshine before my interview. I arrived ridiculously early because I was so nervous about being late, even though it was only a 5 minute walk from the office I was working in! Isn’t the polish lovely in the sunshine? :) Just after I took this picture a random black cat came over to the bench and sat next my me and my OH while we stroked it. It even tried to sit on my OH’s lap! Did the black cat give me good luck for my interview I wonder, seeing as I got the place? Maybe! :P
Anyhoo, I have lots of pictures to write into posts for you lovely people that are still reading this. I apologise again for leaving you all and not commenting. Hopefully when I get back from the conference all will be back to normal and I won’t have so much rush to get work done :) Hope you are all having a lovely summer! xxxx
GlossyBox June featuring OPI Designer Series Extravagance
This is a late review I know, I’ve already had my dispatch email for this months box! I was distracted by stuff, better late than never!
BioEffect EGF Serum – The super serum from Iceland. I hadn’t heard of this before, so when I received my box I just slopped some of this on when I got out the shower. You only need a few drops, but my skin felt really nice, even straight after applying it, so I looked it up online. When I found out that the sample alone is £8 and a BioEffect full sized bottle (15ml – hardly what I’d call full size!) is £125, is was a bit shocked and didn’t want to like it! However, it did leave my skin feeling plumped up (if that makes any sense) and it looked quite radiant, which my skin doesn’t really ever look. After researching it I also realised it’s best to apply it at night, but I apply a Benzoyl Peroxide gel at night so I haven’t been using the BioEffect. If I don’t use the Benzoyl Peroxide I turn into a painful, giant spot face, and I didn’t want to risk that! :S I don’t apply much of the BioEffect serum and I concentrate around my eyes as I’ve read that it can be good for dark circles, and I have quite severe dark circles. I’m not sure if it has reduced my dark circles, but my skin is much nicer and clearer around my eyes. The colour seems more even and I no longer have any combination skin around my eyes where it is dry and oily at the same time! I quite like using this just as an eye serum, at least it will last longer that way! :P I cannot afford to repurchase this, but if I had money to burn I think I would.
Batiste Original – Ahh, the box booby prize. I never use dry shampoo and the times I have tried it I can only really use the one for dark hair, the original makes me look like I had a fight with the baby powder bottle :P
Perles de Lalique – A perfume. Now, I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about perfume. I have two I like, Chloé, which is quite a fresh, flowery smell and my Litchi Milk Tea perfume oil from Haus of Gloi, which is very sickly sweet and I love it. This perfume smells like perfumes counters. It’s nice, but not special or different. I have been using it, it’s definitely nice, but I wouldn’t repurchase, I like what I already use.
Mama Mio Omega Body Buff – Again this is a really nice product, but for £23 for a full sized bottle, it’s not worth it for me. You apply it to dry skin before you shower and it contained ground up pumice stone. It’s a nice scrub, it smells lovely and left my skin smooth and soft, but most scrubs do and you can get them for a little cheaper! :P
Lastly, my favourite part of the box!
OPI DS Extravagance - The Designer Series have a “diamond dazzle”, it’s not a pure holographic polish, but it sure is pretty with it’s scattered holographic effect! I really like this and I actually bought a full size one (Tapestry) of these from Selfridges as a birthday pressie to myself. The whole range is gorgeous it was hard to pick just one. They look amazing in the sunshine and they are a pleasure to apply. These pictures show two coats and I didn’t even need to clean up my nails after application, the formula and the brush made it really easy to apply. The last picture is taken with the flash to show how sparkly the polish is.
So there you go, just in time before the July box arrives. I do like the GlossyBox idea, but as soon as they start charging postage I will probably abandon ship. I’m happy to pay £10 a month for a box of goodies and I enjoy trying out new things, but I wouldn’t pay more than £10- they are samples after all. I’m still looking forward to the next box though :)
Hope everyone is having better weather than I’ve had here all week. I have to packed a rucksack with clothes for all seasons when I walk into work! It’s raining, hot, sunny, windy, thunderstorms and even hail one day! I graduate next Thursday, so I hope the weather is nice to me that day. I’m not sure how I will cope with heels, a giant black cloak and a silly hat if it’s windy and rainy outside! Comedy photos at least :P xxxx
Katy Perry OPI Teenage Dream
I know, I know…I’ve been slacking on blog posts since I got home. I got out of the habit and I’ve been running experiments all week, or attempting to anyway. Let just say me and the program are not friends right now and I’ll fix it tomorrow. It’s been a bit of a mad week. I finally got my journal article fully published and it’s missing the abstract! Production glitch they say *facepalm*. Anyway my apologies, it’s no excuse, I shall try harder from now on :)
This is what I wore on my nails the week I was away. I love this polish, I actually have worn it on 3 separate occasions since I got it. It’s a pale pink base with fine pink/silver glitter and larger round hologram glitter. The polish is quite sheer so I first put on a coat of Eyeko Petite polish to give my nails a pale pink base and to disguise my nail line. I then put on two coats of Teenage Dream. It is definitely a glitterball polish, I really like it. The glitter on it’s own is awesome, but the hologram glitter really catch the light and reflect it, as you can see in the pictures, they reflect every colour in the rainbow!
This polish dries quite quickly, but the finish is a little rough so I prefer to add top coat. The polish lasts for ages. I had it on all week and only had chips on my thumb/index/middle fingers on my right hand on day 5, and they were only minor. Due to the pale and glittery nature of this polish I could touch the chips up and carry on wearing it for the rest of the week. This is a great holiday polish, it’s glitzy, pale pink nails go with most things and it lasts! I got quite a few compliments on them.
Do you like these kinds of glitters? I love the small, dense glitter and the larger holo glitter, I think they look great together. Although I don’t like the OPI Miss Universe idea, the Crown Me Already! polish looks like a similar polish but in silver, if it is I want it! :)
Is Marks and Spencer Rainbow a GOSH Holographic Dupe? A Comparison
Is Marks and Spencer Rainbow nail polish a dupe of GOSH Holographic? Let us see!
Firstly, the pros and cons of GOSH Holographic:
Pros
- It’s very pretty!
- It’s quite unusual. Well, except for the China Glaze holos and a few others, but it’s unusual compared to other high street polishes!
- It’s cheap, you have to love the high street prices.
- It’s known for being one of the most holographic holo polishes.
Cons
- It’s a pain to apply. It’s streaky, drags and takes quite a few coats to get the desired effect.
- It doesn’t last very long on your nails before chipping or pealing off completely.
- Using a topcoat seems to dull the holo effect.
- It might be discontinued soon?
The main problem with GOSH Holographic is that it applies badly and doesn’t last very well. From my experience with M&S Rainbow, it seems to fix both of those problems, but at a slight cost. The cost is that it isn’t as holographic as GOSH Holographic.
Below are some picture of the two polishes with and without topcoat to show the holo effects.
- Index finger – GOSH Holographic with topcoat
- Middle finger – M&S Rainbow with no topcoat
- Ring finger – GOSH Holographic with no topcoat
- Little finger – M&S Rainbow with no topcoat
My little finger clearly isn’t big enough to properly show Rainbow with topcoat, but I did wear it with topcoat in a previous post. It looks a little bit more dull in that post which could either be due to the lighting or that the topcoat does dull the holo effect similar to the way it does to the GOSH Holographic. Although, due to the great quality of the M&S Rainbow polish you don’t necessarily need a topcoat.
You can clearly see in the pictures they look very similar, but GOSH Holographic definitely has a more prominent holo effect. It is dulled a little by having the topcoat on it, but it’s still pretty holographic. M&S Rainbow is definitely a holo, but just not to the scale GOSH Holographic is. It is still very pretty though :)
In conclusion:
- M&S Rainbow is definitely a silver holo! But it isn’t as holographic as GOSH Holographic.
- M&S Rainbow applies like a normal polish, unlike GOSH Holographic with its streaky, draggy, fast drying craziness!
- M&S Rainbow has it’s ‘extra vinyl finish’ that leaves it looking really shiny and it almost feels like there is already a topcoat on it.
- M&S Rainbow lasts more than a few hours, even without a topcoat! No matter if you use 5+ coats of GOSH Holographic it still seems to have the finish of cheap tin foil, it just peels and chips within a few hours.
I think M&S Rainbow is a really good purchase. I was often reluctant to wear GOSH Holographic due to it’s poor application and the fact that it doesn’t last! It looks great and people will ask to see how fab it looks, but if it’s all chipped and peeling off, it won’t look as great as it did when you applied it!
Although M&S Rainbow isn’t as impressive a holo, it isn’t far off and it is a good compromise. I will definitely be wearing it often! :D
Marks and Spenders (M&S) Rainbow Nail Polish
Hello everyone!
I’m still running my experiment this week between lectures so I’ve had less time than normal for reading blogs and commenting :( On top of this I found a bug or something, to do with how I read my blog feeds. When I first started following blogs last year I used to access it all from the Blogger Dashboard. Then I figured out I could use Google Reader, which I thought was really handy. I had all the posts in one place that was easier to use and could access them easily on my phone too (yes, I’m that sad!). Every time I found a blog to follow, I simply pressed follow and was happy with the thought it would appear in Google Reader and so I stopped logging into Blogger. That’s not how it works apparently! I noticed I wasn’t getting updates from some blogs and didn’t want to have to have a separate list of blogs bookmarked, so I was a bit annoyed. I logged into Blogger and after a few minutes I noticed my Google Reader tab had 1000′s of unread posts. Apparently if I follow a new blog I need to login to Blogger to get my Google Reader to notice the new blog, woops! Good news is I figured out the problem! However, I’ve gone from having 100-ish unread posts a day to being able to get that easily 9-5 and pretty much the same again in the evening! I enjoy reading them yes, but it was a bit of a shock to see so many updating! Wow! Quite nice to see all these new blogs I’ve been missing out on!
To show you today, I have the most annoying to photograph polish in the world! It is Marks and Spencer Rainbow. I remember seeing this polish ages ago in a post by Jenni over at nailpolishUK. I kept meaning to pick it up for myself, but my local M&S has a rubbish make up section. I visited a larger M&S recently and remembered to look for it.
It is quite similar, almost a dupe of GOSH Holographic. More on this later in the week when I’ve finished sorting out the pictures. I’ve taken some comparison pictures of this and GOSH Holo to show you how similar/dissimilar they are.
As you see below, it is definitely a silver holo. The effect is hard to capture a picture of, especially in this grey weather (seriously, will these clouds ever part?!). But, you can see the holo effect where the light is shining on it. For your information these pictures are two coats of Rainbow and a topcoat. Topcoats tend to cause a dulling effect to GOSH Holographic, but I didn’t really notice a difference with this polish.
I like the M&S bottles, it’s a quite large square bottle with a long handle and a good brush. When I was in M&S I couldn’t really see the holo effect in the bottle, but I was pretty sure this was the right polish. Why would someone call a grey/silver colour ‘Rainbow’ was my logical thinking!
The application of this polish is a million times better than GOSH Holo. It applies like a normal polish and dries in about 5 minutes. Also, like the front of the bottle says ‘with extra vinyl finish’ when the polish dries it is really shiny and almost feels like it already has a topcoat on it. The polish is so much more hard wearing than GOSH Holo, not that that would be hard! :P I’ll stop comparing them now though because I’d do that properly in my next post.
(Notice my OH’s hand on his computer mouse in the background! It’s definitely a mouse, he is not a cyborg!)
The below picture shows the without the holo/rainbow shine to it. I just went to the room on the other side of the house with no light. Without the light shining on it, it looks like a silver/grey foil polish.
Last picture! I apologise for the dark picture, but this happened to be the best picture for capturing the holo effect.
I’ll post up the comparison between Marks and Spencer Rainbow and GOSH Holographic tomorrow, hopefully!
Finally! Seeing as this post is all about visual prettiness I thought I’d blah on about a related visual topic! This semester at uni I am taking a module relating to vision and how it interprets visual ambiguity. Our first assignment was to make an optical illusion! I tried a number of different things, but none of them worked out how I wanted. I ended up making a Penrose triangle, which isn’t that impressive a submission, but I like my video, if only for the awesome music!
Hope the post wasn’t too long. So many more pictures than I would normally include! Wait till you see the comparison post there’s even more of them! :S
Hope you are all have a lovely week! It’s half term in most places in the UK at the moment. I miss having half terms, I could do with a nice week off! :D At least it’s started getting lighter earlier now, sunshine is coming! :)
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