Essie Starry Starry Night - Retro Revival Part Swatches & Review

Essie Retro Revival -

China Glaze Road Trip - some Swatches, Reviews & nail art

I have swatches of three of the polishes from the China Glaze Road Trip Collection for Spring 2015.

I also stamped one of these for a pretty look, great for a spring/summer manicure ...

China Glaze Electric Nights - Nail Art & swatches

I am a little late to the party but I finally got most of the China Glaze Electric Nights polishes! I have been looking forward to this collection, as I saw many people in the Nail Polish world were. It has some really gorgeous, bright cremes perfect for the summer, along with some unusual, multi-coloured glitters, though I only got one of those this time. I have some quick swatches and a review below but first, I used a few of these for this nail art ...

Neon Bubbles

The manicure today is based on the Neon prompt of my March Nail Art Challenge. I do love the bright and colourful look of these nails. If anything, they are even brighter and more striking in real life.

OPI Push and Shove - Swatch, Review & Nail Art

I am not a huge fan of chrome polishes but I do like them from time to time, specially for my toenails in the summer. When I recently came across OPI Push and Shove from the Gwen Stefani Collection, it promised a metallic ultra-chrome reflective mirror finish - so tempting - I had to try it!

Speckled Eggs Manicure & Models Own Review

I have the Models Own Speckled Egg nail polishes on my nails today. The three nail polishes that I have used are Duck Blue, Dove Pink and Goose Yellow. These also happen to be the colours for my Tri-Polish Challenge for April.

It was really hard to decide which colours to get - they are all such gorgeous colours - perfect for Easter, spring and summer. The matte black glitter for the speckled effect just adds to the gorgeousness. They do look a bit like bird's eggs and definitely like the Cadbury's Mini Eggs!

Models Own HyperGel - Swatches, Review & Stamping

(A word of warning - Very long and photo heavy post!)

All Models Own Products on their website are on a half off offer until the 4th of February 2014, to celebrate their Facebook page reaching 250,000 Likes. This includes their yet to be launched Hypergel Nail Polish range. This range will be launched in stores by mid-February. This is how Models Own describe their Hypergel range - "HyperGel! 10 brand-new mega-shine shades that are highly pigmented, long-lasting and chip resistant. Enriched with lotus flower oil, the gel-like finish gives the professional shine of a salon manicure. The collection is completed with limited edition colour caps, topped off with colour-matched high-shine swatches on the lids that reflect the gel effect finish of the polish so you can select the perfect shades!"

Delivery was extremely quick for me and came bubble-wrapped in a pretty box - I got it within one day of ordering. I have swatches and reviews for six of these new shades. And I also tried stamping with them to see how they performed. I have to add here that this is the first time that I have swatched so many polishes. Its only when you do it yourself, do you realise how difficult it is to take colour accurate pictures of the swatches! It made me appreciate even more how much great work some of the bloggers put in with their beautiful nail polish swatches!
The range is quite similar to the Barry M Gellys, in my opinion. The colours are gorgeous and the formula is good and easy to work with. The formula is generally thick but it does vary from colour to colour - some are thicker than the others. The thick ones are good one-coaters. But I think for the thinner ones, two thin coats give good results. All the polishes are super shiny and glossy and I loved all the colours I got. All my swatches are two coats without a topcoat, other then the stamped manicure, where I used top coat.

Silver stamping on blue and MoYou Sailor XL 05 review

The manicure today is to showcase some of the images from and to do a quick review of the MoYou London XL Plate 05 from the Sailor Collection. I used a base of the Collection nail polish No 23 Show Off. I then stamped with Essie No place like Chrome and the MoYou image plate.
The images stamp beautifully and the detail is quite amazing. I have to add though that the images are quite large on this XL plate - so with some of them, like the ones on the thumb, I just stamped the tips of the waves. I guess different parts of the image could be used to create a different look to take advantage of the large images. I do like almost all the images on the plate and see myself using it quite often.

Gold Paisley on Scarlet and Revlon Top Coat Review

Diwali, the Festival of Lights is just around the corner so I have been thinking of some Indian themed manicures. Today's manicure is just a little attempt towards that. For this manicure, I used the nail polish, Collection Cosmetics Scorched, which is a shimmery red-orange colour. I stamped the gold paisley on the nails from the Bundle Monster plate, BM315, with Barry M Gold Foil.

Also, I have been using the new Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat for the last week or two and thought I would do a quick review. This top coat is certainly quick dry - it is touch dry within a minute or two. It is however much thinner than some of the other quick dry top coats that I have used, say Seche Vite. The disadvantage of it being thinner is that it does not make the nails quite as glossy as Seche Vite. On the other hand, because its thinner, it is easier to apply, it does not bubble up even with a couple of coats and it did not streak my stamping. I think it is especially good to use as an intermediate top coat when you want the base layer to dry before you do your nail art. Overall, I am quite happy with it and would definitely buy and use again.