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! :)
Topshop Cloud and Models Own Sterling Silver
Another stubby nail post! I didn’t change my polish very often when they were short so I think this is the last super short post you will see. I quite like grey nails and I really liked it with the silver accent. The silver was super shiny so all my pictures are quite poor for seeing the silver nail, sorry! But it does show that it was shiny! Also, talking about shininess, my topcoat is very shiny, check out my window reflection! I’ve almost finished my Lumos review, so that’ll be up next, sorry to take so long writing it. :)
I used Topshop Cloud and Models Own Sterling Silver in this mani. Cloud is a great polish, it is a one coater which is always nice. I like the shade of grey too because it isn’t a washed out grey, nor too dark, it’s definitely a dark rain cloud grey. Sterling Silver is similar to all the other Models Own foil polishes, fast drying and very shiny and metallic. The Models Own foils are some of my favourite polishes. I recently bought another, Green Flash, and can’t wait to try it out :)
To stick with the cloud theme I took this picture from my office cubicle the other week, before the last week of rain/wind and hail! I thought it looked heart shaped, but when I showed my OH he said it looked like a stetson, too much Doctor Who that is! I miss Doctor Who already. Everything I’ve watched recently has either been cancelled or ended for summer. This morning I actually sat and watched 4 episodes of the 1960′s Batman with Adam West. It was awesome in a super cheesy way. I’m slightly ashamed to say I’ve series linked it to record on Sky+…Holy pun-tactual daytime TV Batman!
(from ctk86 on deviantART)
Illamasqua Gamma with Nails Inc London Nights Tips
Hello to my new followers! I’ve been very happy this week as I’ve had a few new followers, it makes me happy that someone wants to read my driveling nonsense! :D <3 I was a bit bummed after I posted the first picture of myself a few weeks ago and I lost a follower, how depressing it that? :p Oh well, I’ll try not to scare the rest of you lovely people away!
My last nail post was Illamasqua Gamma and I didn’t want to take it off. It had no chipping or tipwear after 4 days with no topcoat, quite impressive! So, I decided to jazz it up a little with some black tips.
I taped off the ends at random angles and painted on some Nails Inc London Nights. It’s a shiny black one coater, perfect for taping. I accidentally put the black on a little thick on some nails so when I pulled the tape off it looked a little scruffy. It looked really obvious next to the bright orange so in order to fix my now scruffy looking manicure I finally got the nerve to give the paint brush a go! I have a load of paint brushes I bought from The Works years ago when I used to paint a lot. I think they were £1 for 5 different thin brushes, bargain! I used a thin angled brush and Models Own Sterling Silver and dabbed a line of silver along the join to disguise my untidiness. I do have a very thin stripe type brush, I think I’ll try that one next time. I was dabbing more than brushing so it’s not perfect. For a first attempt it isn’t that bad though. In person it looks okay because no one looks that closely at my nails, so I’m happy with it :P
Here is a picture as proof that I did that on both hands! It took quite awhile and I think I was getting the hang of it while doing my right hand. I think if I do this again I’ll section off larger bits, it’ll look better :)
What do you think? Do you use paint brushes to do any nail art? I’ve seen the Models Own nail pens, has anyone tried them and how are they? :)
Hope you are all having a lovely week so far! Sorry for my absence lately. I have a lot more free time now that it’s the Easter break, so hopefully I’ll be posting more often! xxxx
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! :)
Models Own Mystic Mauve and Sterling Silver
More foils from my Models Own haul! This is Mystic Mauve with Sterling Silver on the tips. I actually painted is in semi darkness, it got dark while I was doing it. I was distracted as I was watching a Star Trek marathon on TV, so I pretty much did a couple of nails per advert break. :p So I wasn’t sure of how this was going to turn out!
Luckily, it turned out well and it is super shiny! It took ages to get a picture were there wasn’t a a reflection or glare.
I only used one coat because whenever I do two coats of any Models Own foils I seem to get a lot of bubbling. One coat is enough as long as you don’t miss any bits. Other people may have better luck at applying foils than me, I’m no good at thin layers of polish, gloop! :)
Also, shhh! I’m feeling guilty having just bought a Urban Decay Naked palette. I know I shouldn’t, but … ok I have no defence.
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