Katy Perry OPI The One That Got Away
I recently picked up the OPI Katy Perry mini set and I really like all the polishes. I LOVE Teenage Dream, but all of the polishes are really nice. There’s a mixture of colours and finishes and this one is a pretty purple shimmery foil-type polish. It’s like a purple base colour with very fine pink/raspberry micro glitter, which you can probably detect most in the last picture. I really love this colour, I have a soft spot for raspberry pinks and shimmers.
The application of this polish was nice and easy, two coats and done. The only down side was on removal of this polish it really stained my nails! I’m not talking a slight tinge either, I mean my nails were just completely stained a weird pinkish, yellow all over were the polish was. I always have minor yellow tinged tips due to excessive nail polish wear, but this polish was crazy for staining.
I’m not sure if it’s my Lumos base coat that is not very good at preventing staining or if this polish is just a stain monster. The Lumos base coat doesn’t seem very substantial, you can definiately see my nail ridges more with this base coat, but I do like the way it dries instantly. For now I’ve swapped back to my Nails Inc Kensington Caviar base coat. It takes a lot longer to dry, but it feels like you have a thick, substantial base to layer the colour on top. I’ll try this polish again with a different base coat when I’ve grown out my staining a bit! :s
This next picture shows the raspberry microglitter the best.
Has anyone else found that this polish is a stain monster? Although really I don’t mind, it’s such a pretty colour, I don’t mind putting up with a little staining :P
Barry M Lip Paint Pinkie Gold Sparkle
I’ve wanted this lipstick for ages! It is never in any Boots stores when I’ve looked and I never wanted to make a Barry M online order for fear of spending all my money! However, with a lot of restraint I finally made a small order and included this lovely lipstick. I was worried about the formula of this lipstick and buying before swatching it because some Barry M lipsticks can be a little drying, but I need not of worried because this lipstick is very nice and not at all drying.
The colour is, like it’s name, a pinkie sheer lipstick with a gold sparkle sheen to it. It’s sheer enough to apply without a mirror and although it’s lasting time isn’t great, it’s very easy to apply it doesn’t take long to top it up. The lipstick in the tube is really pretty too, it’s a nice dusky pink with a almost marbled gold shimmer running through it.
Finally here is a swatch on my lips. As you can see it’s not very pigmented, but leaves a nice pinkie gold sparkle finish. The lipstick is quite moisturising and this is my go-to lipstick for a neutral day with a bit of sparkle.
I’m in Marseille right now and I have a few scheduled posts for this week while I’m away. I’m probably still on Twitter though, I’ve sorted out my phone with an internet booster so I will have internet while I’m away. I’ve definitely packed this lipstick to take away with me. However, I am concerned about melting lipstick and myself melting in the heat. I’m a total heat wuss! Hopefully myself and my lipsticks will make it back in a non-melted state :P Speak soon! xxxx
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
Graduation! OPI Princesses Rule!
Hi there! Sorry for the unannounced absence, but I graduated last week, woo! I got to wear a silly gown and hat and prance around outside like I was one of the cast of Harry Potter! Luckily I had lovely weather and got to take some lovely pictures in the sunshine by the duck pond. There were plenty of little ducklings swimming around to coo over too, awww!
I also got some extremely good news three days prior to graduation. Remember all my moaning and groaning about having no future after I’d finished uni after I was turned down funding for a PhD in Psychology? I was moaning about having to get a ‘real’ job and having to dye my hair and be sensible and well…I was generally a grouchy git tbh. I applied for a place on another PhD course called Web Science. It was funded by Gordon Brown a few years ago and mostly focuses on mixing other disciplines with computing science to explore the web. Well, I had an interview for it and last week found out I had a funded place on the masters and PhD Web Science programme! So that’s me set for four years now! It really hasn’t sunk in for me, but I’m very very pleased about it! I can relax a little now :D
Anyway, I cannot have this post without my NOTD for graduation. First I was considering trying to match my nails to my gown hood which was a pale turquoise and gold, but I couldn’t find the right shades so I decided to keep my nails quite neat and neutral and opted for pink with sparkles.
I recently picked up OPI Princesses Rule! from Beautique.com when they had an offer and I got OPI Past, Present and Fuchsia for free. How could I turn down such an offer?! :P First I put on a coat of my trusty Eyeko Petite polish to cover up any staining on my nails and to even the colour out because OPI Princesses Rule! is quite sheer. Then I added one coat of OPI Princesses Rule! to make it lovely and sparkly. The shimmer is really dense so I only needed one coat. Lovely polish and I know I am going to have fun layering it on other colours too.
Congratulations to everyone else who has graduated in the last few weeks or is about to graduated! I hope the weather is lovely for you, but not too hot, those gowns are not fun in the heat! :S
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! :)
Miss Sporty Lasting Colour Nail Colour
I have no idea what this polish is called because it doesn’t seem to have a name, or even a number. I picked it up because I had a Boots voucher in the post to pick up a Miss Sporty polish for £1 or something to that effect. I picked up this bright pink colour. It’s a Barbie pink, but it has slightly metallic/shimmery look to it. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it looks like the pictures! :P It’s a little sheer. Even after three coats I still have a VNL, but it’s not too bad and I don’t mind a VNL. It dried pretty quickly and it did last, chip-free until I took it off about 3 days later.
Do you like Miss Sporty polishes? What would you name this polish?
Tape Manicure Fail
I forgot about this post. It got lost in my drafts after I was in two minds of whether to include this tape manicure in a post, but then I went to the trouble of doing the hideous thing I might as well! :P
I threw out all my old top coats and bought a new one after this bubbly disaster! I saw a post a little while ago on Lipglossiping about Lumos top coat as a non-gloopy, non-shrinking alternative to Seche Vite. I ordered a mini bottle from eBay to test it out, only £3.50 including postage, bargain! I’ve been using it for a month and I really like it. In fact I’ve used half of the mini bottle already. I will definitely grab a full sized bottle next time and perhaps try their base coat too.
My previous attempt at taped tips (Principality of Sealand Nails) I really liked and it lasted over a week, so I thought I’d go for something similar.
I used Revlon Plum Seduction as a base, taped off the tips and used Models Own Snow White, taped off the tips again and used OPI Charged Up Cherry. I thought these looked ok together, kinda reminded me of candy canes! I like the white stripe separating the colours, but my application was a bit crummy this time. I have a very ridgy index finger nail and my tape refused to lie flat so my line looks rubbish. The rest of the nails weren’t too bad though. After a few hours I thought I’d add a top coat. BAD IDEA! All of my top coats have wronged me lately, either by being gloopy or shrinking my lovely polish! Only Models Own 3 in 1 had not incurred my wrath so I put that on. Moments later lumpy bubble city! I hate you crummy old top coat, to the bin I cast you all! Lumos is my only topcoat from now on :)
Have you tried Lumos top coat and base coat? What did you think? I’ve quite impressed so far with the top coat. I’m going to write a review on it now as I keep forgetting, but as my spoilers in this post suggest, I love it :P
Zoya Blyss
Ok brain, I will let you have a break and update the blog. But you MUST go and revise more afterwards, deal? Deal!
Yes, revision has made me go slightly mad. I now talk to myself a lot. Normally I stick to clichéd motivational phrases or random insults. They either encourage me to work or at least entertain me. I am currently revising attachment theory and I have decided I am insecurely attached and a bit of a weirdo. I’m glad I didn’t take the clinical module this year, I’m sure I would have diagnosed myself with everything! OK! 10 minutes and get back to work brain!
This is my first Zoya polish. I’ve seen so many lovely swatches of Zoya I am quite pleased to finally try one for myself. I really love this colour. It is fuchsia pink, with a purple flash in it. The polish needed 3 coats to be opaque and for some reason was still a little sheer on the tips of my nails. It isn’t very noticeable, but still, I thought it was a bit strange. The polish dried really quickly, so the multiple coats wasn’t too bad. I really like the colour. I do have other colours similar to it, but they are cremes. This colour with the subtle purple flash is very pretty and I think I will wear this often. Although I might reserve this for when I’m taping off the tips and painting them another colour. Before I removed this I added another coat to see if I could even out the sheerness on the tips, but it didn’t seem to make any different unless I really slopped it on.
I wish all the best to those of you suffering the pain of revision and exams at the moment! Remember, it will all be over soon, at least that’s my comforting thought at the moment :) For those of you not doing exams, I am very jealous, but have a lovely week anyway :P
I’m slacking a little on reading blogs and writing them at the moment due to exams, but I’ll be back in less than 2 weeks! To celebrate the freedom from exams and my blogs 1st birthday I am having a giveaway! If you haven’t yet entered the link is just below or the link at the top of my sidebar. I’m giving away a set of Filthy Gorgeous polishes or your choice of 3 Barry M polishes. Go and check it out! xxxx
Click to enter my 1st Blogiversary Giveaway!
BB Couture Hermosa Surfer Girl
I recently bought this and one other polish in a blog sale from Jenni at nailPolishUK. It looked gorgeous in the bottle and from some swatches I googled it looked great too! It looks such a pretty pink in the bottle, filled with gorgeous multi-coloured, micro-glitter. The main colours I see in the glitter are green and gold, but it does depend on the light and angle. The base is a jelly pink and it needs at least 3 coats to be opaque. I could have easily put on another coat, but three seemed enough. Only if I held my hand up to the light could I see a visible nail line. It dried in a reasonable time, not very quickly, but for such a pretty glitter I don’t mind!
The finish isn’t too rough for a glitter polish, and I really liked the finish so I didn’t put a topcoat on (also all my topcoats are in the bin having annoyed me!). This polish lasted really well, as most glitters do. I had it on for 4 days and not a hint of a chip! To be honest I didn’t want to take it off, I really love the look of this polish. I’m interested to see what it looks like with a topcoat when my new one arrives.
This is my first BB Couture polish and I am impressed, I like the bottle and the polish is lovely and really nice to apply. I’ve seen a couple of other BB Coutures I want to pick up, they seem to have some great colours.
What do you think? Do you mind wearing glitter polishes without a topcoat? If it’s too rough I need a topcoat, but if it’s a fine glitter I don’t mind so much :)
Giveaway post coming soon! xxxx
Nails Inc Pallmall and Eyeko Chi Chi
Short post today, so sleepy!
I always wanted to try Eyeko Chi Chi polish. I love glitters and I don’t wear them enough. Chi Chi is a rosy pink glitter in a sheer pink base. It applies quite well and needs about 3 coats for the cover to be opaque. It dries pretty quickly for a glitter, which is always nice! Plus it was quite smooth after it was dry so I didn’t need lots of topcoat to make it smooth.
I put 3 coats on my ring finger to match my Nails Inc Pallmall polish. I think it jazzes up the more sensible look of Pallmall quite nicely. I think I’ll put it on all my fingers next time, it’s such a pretty glitter! :)
I added the glitter on just the one finger to test it while I was sat with hair dye on. I touch up my pink slices every 1-2 weeks, but so far I’ve normally had dark coloured polish on or at least I’ve not noticed this before. It might be the new dye, but look at my stained polish when I washed my hair dye off! That’s from only shampooing my hair! It’s a good job I have polish on all the time or my nails would be permanently stained. Maybe the pink dye would counteract the yellow staining from polish? Who knows! :P
The dissertation is nearly done! I just need to cut out 700 words and I’m finished! Easier said than done when you realise the word limit is 4000. Cutting out 700 words is a large chunk to remove without taking out important bits. I have a long night ahead!
I tried to finish before the weekend as I went to a wedding on Saturday, but it’s a beast of a document, so I’m still slaving away. The wedding was lovely though, very nice day, but after all the lovely weather the past few weeks it absolutely chucked it down! Now it’s back to lovely weather again, so unlucky for them! We weren’t really outside much so it didn’t really affect the day which is good though. It stopped long enough for them to get all the picture taken :)
Anyway I better get back to cutting out words! I’ll be so happy when I’m finished and can go back to reasonably normal stress levels! Hope you all had a lovely weekend! xxxx
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