Philly Loves Lacquer - Summer Down The Shore Collection

Hello everyone! Today I have a fab new collection from Philly Loves Lacquer to show you (the polishes were sent to me for review). I had been waiting patiently for these to arrive only to find out that they had been held up in Customs (grrrrr!). But they finally arrived at the weekend so I could get swatching! 

Starting with the glitter bomb that is Meet Me At Morey's. This has so many different kinds of glitter in it I wouldn't know where to start. Its shown here as two coats over Love Those Wildwood Days (more on that one later!) and with one coat of top coat.

Next we have the colour I used for the base above, Love Those Wildwood Days. Its a beautiful light sky blue scattered holo. I loooove the tone of this blue. Its poictured here with two coats and no top coat.

Wildwoods By The Sea is next and I love this sea green, teal-esque (yay, new word!) scattered holo. I rarely find polishes that I'd be happy to wear on their own without nail art, but this is one of them. The pictures show two coats and no top coat.

Next up is the champagne frosty goodness of Island Beach, another fab scattered holo. This one needed three coats, but the finish was excellent.

This next polish, On The Way To Cape May, is my favourite of the bunch (along with Wildwoods By The Sea). This surprises me as I'm not usually a huge fan of reds. But this red is full of strawberry-toned, juicy awesomeness and comes with a side of red and silver shimmer. This again was three coats and no top coat.

Last but not least from my selection, we have Watch The Tram Car Please. A fun yellow crelly with blue and green glitters. Shown here is three coats and one coat of top coat. I usually get annoyed applying this kind of polish, but this one was surprisingly easy.

Overall I love the collection, and the only reason I wouldn't wear the crelly is that yellow is not a fan of my skin tone! The stand out shades for me are On The Way To Cape May and Wildwoods By The Sea, plus there is another colour in the collection called Under The Boardwalk that I think would probably have been my absolute favourite (a charcoal grey with a purple shimmer). I'll be stalking the shop until the collection is released for that one!

The Summer Down the Shore collection will be available from 1st June at the Philly Loves Lacquer shop. Full size bottles will retail at $11-12. The entire collection will be available at $85 for full size bottles or $42.50 for the mini size bottles. You can also buy a "4 pack" (your choice of any four from the collection) for $42.50 for full size, or $21.25 for minis.

Sam xx

New Moyra polishes - Gel effect, Sand Effect and Holo

Hello everyone! After a massively busy weekend, I have a lovely pile of polishes to swatch my way through for you over the next week or so. There will also be the usual dose of nail art, but I hope you're ready for some super colours coming your way. 

I'm starting today with some more polishes from Moyra. I recently was sent some for review and as I was impressed with the colours and formula, I thought I'd go back for some more. This time I chose some polishes from their other ranges - a holo, a gel look and a sand effect.

Starting with the holo. This has the catchy title No 254 (!), but don't let that put you off - this is a super polish! A lovely silvery blue to start off with, the light catching rainbow from the holo effect it stunning! This is two coats with a coat of Seche Vite.

Next up is the Sand Effect polish, this one is Sahara. I'm not sure why it appealed to me so much in the website picture as its not the sort of colour I would normally go for, but I had to have it! It is a beautiful sandy colour with a lot of gold, but it manages not to be sparkly. The texture is very strong and these photos show two coats and obviously no top coat.

Last but not least, we have the Gel Look polish (and my continuing quest for the perfect green), Marion (No. 933). I had a nightmare trying to get the colour to show properly and I'm still not happy. Its a mid green that's just slightly sagey, creamy and opaque at two coats. It also has a lovely gel shine and is shown here without a top coat.

I stamped over this one and have been wearing it for almost 5 days now. I have had no chips and only very minor tip wear which after setting up the garden for a kids party and hosting said party is a minor miracle!

These polishes offer amazing value for money and having tried at least one polish from most of the ranges, they seem to be fairly consistent. There is a website coming soon, but if you would like to buy in the meantime, check out the Moyra UK Facebook page and take a look at what they have to offer :)

Sam xx

FingerFood's Favourites - Jessica Birds of Paradise

Hello everyone! Today I have something a little different to bring you. I recently downloaded an app for my phone which allows me to catalogue all of my nail polishes with photos and to sort by brand, name, basic colour and type. It took an age to get them all on there but its done - go me! Its mostly to help me look up polish names when I'm typing blog posts as I'm too lazy to get up and go to the nail room!), but it also reminded me of some polishes that I absolutely adore, but that have been sadly neglected - so there will be a series (I say series - it probably won't be a regular thing, but will be slotted in as and when) of shorter posts featuring some of my all time favourite polishes.

So, starting today with my beloved Jessica and Birds of Paradise, from the 2009 Botanicals collection. This is my second bottle (after discovering that my already half empty 5 year old bottle had not fared well in storage), and I was once again blown away by the colour and finish of this polish. It is one of the loveliest purples I have ever seen in my life (and I like purples!). Its a really deep purple, but has a soft, pearly quality that makes it glow and mutes the colour, stopping it from being too intense. Two coats for opacity and this has no top coat.

I know that I'm always banging on about how much I love Jessica polish, but I don't do enhancements. Well, I do them, but I don't wear them myself. Jessica was founded on the principal of looking after the natural nail and as a natural nail girl, that works for me. Their base coats (especially Restoration) are phenomenal and I swear by their Phenomen Oil. Their polishes last for years, the brushes work perfectly for my nails and the formula is smooth, so you can probably expect to see a few more in this series!

These posts may be a little shorter in future as you'll know what's coming, and as I'll be featuring only one polish in each, I'll try and be less verbose than normal! As always, I'd love to know what you think! :)

Sam xx

Primark PS Polishes - swatches and review

Hello everyone! I ventured out shopping recently and popped into Primark. We don't have one near us and despite the fact that I rarely find anything I would actually want to wear in there, I had a fair bit of success with both PJs and nail polish. I'm guessing you're not that fussed about the PJs (although I am pleased to report that the "soft feel" is indeed very soft!), but I bought three colours that will remain nameless thanks to uninformative labelling (polish, not PJs) and have them swatched to show you today :)

The first is a lavender creme. It has a lot of blue grey tones and I was pleasantly surprised by the formula - no streaking and two coats for an opaque finish (topped with Seche Vite for the pics). But the smell  - ouch! There is something about cheap polish (apart from LA Colors - yes I'm singing their praises again!) that has my little ol' hypochondriac self worrying about chemical poisoning. Luckily we're coming into spring, so I could have all doors and windows open :)

The next up is a real blue's blue. Its a solid blue creme. Bright but mid, again opaque in two coats (and again smelt horrible). It had quite a dull finish almost like a neon, which it isn't, but it soon got all shiny after a coat of Seche Vite.

Finally we have the deep purple. This is a gorgeous rich purple, unadulterated with shimmers, glitters or anything like that and is a very "Cadbury" purple. Minor issue in that when I opened the sealed bottle that there was no brush and the bottle was half empty, but in the grand scheme of things I have spare brushes and the bottle was also half full (!), so I swatched away! It shows a little more blue in the photos than it looks on real life, but this is two coats with a coat of Seche Vite on top.

If I set aside the issue with the smell and the missing brush, this really did not feel like a budget polish (I should also add here that after emailing Primark they are sending me a gift card to make up for the missing brush, so all's well that ends well :D) . For £1 a bottle the formula is impressively easy to work with and the colours are gorgeous! I would be happy to wear them on their own and they will work really well for nail art too. I was really expecting to be disappointed (which is why I only bought three!), but am definitely planning a return trip for more polishes, PJs and a cut price floral (faux Kath Kidston) print gas mask ;)

Sam xx

Who wants chocolate for Easter? Give me polish any day! Picture (and word) heavy!

Hello everyone! And Happy Easter! I've deliberately steered away from doing Easter manis this year, I just can't get excited about all the pastels, eggs and chicks this time round. Plus I have been so busy with the school holidays and other things that I just haven't had time to get ahead, which might've allowed me to fit a couple in, so I'll just have to get my fix from other people's awesome Easter creations!

Instead of chocolate (totally off it at the moment!), my lovely OH offered to buy me some polish and I decided to push my luck and see if he would buy me some of my most favourite brand. I've been a polish lover since I was little, but my obsession with polish as an adult started with my first Jessica. I bought Ruffled Bottoms (still one of my top five) about 5 years ago and from there it escalated rather quickly. Approximately 75 Jessicas later (:/), and with so many lower priced brand options available for a quick polish fix, I couldn't justify them to myself the way I always had, so now they are a treat (or a necessity if I need to replace empties). 

I chose four and here they are:

I'm starting with Color Me Calla Lily. I'm not really into pinks, but this one had always been on my hit list as my daughter's middle name is Calla, so it was meant to be :) It is a creamy pink with a lavender grey undercurrent running through it that mutes the pink slightly. It also fits the Radiant Orchid brief for this year so I'm surprisingly "on trend" for once! This was two coats - I adore the formula and needed virtually no clean up. This is without top coat too.

Next up is Banana Peel. I HAD to have this colour, despite the fact that I knew it was going to make my skin look horrific. It really is the colour of a peeled banana (I had saved one for a clever prop, but someone in my household was evidently peckish and it vanished mysteriously). The photos show three coats, again without top coat.

Third we have Radioactive, a super bright lime green. Another one I had to have! The formula on this was a little thinner than the rest, but it was still opaque at three coats and I love that these polishes dry so quickly without help. I'm on a bit of a green mission at the moment (there may be some colour specific posts coming up if I remember to do them lol), and this is a gorgeous addition to my "leaf detail" colours for nail art.

Last but by no means least we have Surfer Boyz n' Berry. I think I have finally found my Tiffany box colour. It has exactly the right tone but is a tad lighter. It has a gorgeous creamy finish and was opaque in two coats. Not that it should make any difference but I adore the name too :)

As you all know I am in no way a polish snob (I adore my 99p bottles of LA Colors and am always pitching them to everyone!), but no other brand gives me the sense of excitement that I get from buying a bottle of polish from Jessica. I can't really explain why - many brands have fab colours, awesome formulas, pretty packaging etc, but Jessica just does it for me. Always has, and always will...

Sam xx