Monthly Haul: January

Hi ladies! I haven't done a haul post in forever, so I thought since it's a new year, I would start doing a 'Monthly Haul' post, showing what I have been buying throughout that month. Not only as a way to show you, but also for me to keep track of my spending, not that I can change anything about it once it's here!

So, let's have a look what I have bought/received throughout January.

At the beginning of the month, I made a trip out to my local Sallys to pick up a few manicure essentials; cuticle cream, hand cream, buffers, sanitiser etc when I stopped by their OPI section and saw that they had all the Skyfall polishes reduced so I grabbed the Get Bonded trio for around £10 I think. Also on offer was Yodel Me On My Cell, which has been on my wish list for a looong time, I think I got that for £4 - both were trade prices.

I also received the OPI - Mariah Carey collection in a swap from a wonderful lady called Heather, who kindly picked me up a set after seeing my post on my Facebook page.

I've been meaning to try Kiko for the longest time now, but have never gotten around to it, so I was browsing around the site and saw that the Holographic polishes were on offer, I didn't fancy the other 2 that much, so I just got the Pink & Blue. Since you need to spend £25 min to order on Kiko, I found the Limited Edition Designer collection, which consists of 8 'Satin' polishes, I think it was around £20 for the set.

As you know, Debbie Crumpet sent me a package filled with 'rented' polishes for the ABC Challenge. Inside that package were also these 3 polishes, which she kindly added in as a 'Cheer Raych Up' present. So thank you Debbie!

I received these polishes for review from Nail'd It! and decided to feature these on my ABC Challenge post, which you can see here.

As I mentioned in the swatch post for these, I needed a brand beginning with V and had no idea what to use. Then when browsing the cosmetics isle in Tesco, I came across these Vivo polishes for £1 each! 

Similar to above, I needed a brand for Y and found these Yes Love polishes on eBay for around £1.40 each including shipping.

Again, I bought these for the purpose of the ABC Challenge. I asked on Facebook for brands beginning with Q and someone recommended these to me. These were $5 each and are available here. 

A England celebrated their anniversary with offers on Trios for £14 & Duos for £10 as well as singular polishes for £6. I've been wanting She Walks In Beauty since it started popping up over the blogesphere, and when it went into a Duo, I knew I had to get it. I also picked up a Trio.

Killer Colours were offering 3 sets of their polishes to 3 winners on Twitter and I was fortunate enough to be one of those winners! I've already reviewed Belladonna and Firewater, which you can see here.

I picked these beauties up from Sally Magpies when they were on offer for £9.95 each. I chose Attitude and Focus because both are created by my good friends, Kim from Overall Beauty and Sheila from Pointless Cafe. Also because they're both stunning.

These were sent to me for review by Sally Magpies, which will be shown tomorrow. I've been dying for Pshiiit for aaaages and now it's finally mine!!

 

BarryM kindly sent me their brand new Texture & Gelly polishes, which are to be released middle of next month, you can see swatches of the Textured polishes here and the Gellys here. 

And finally, my friend Jo from Lacquers of Kasterborous was kind enough to send me her extra bottle of Jem as part of a selection of polishes for the ABC Challenge, which you can see here.

So there you have my purchases/swaps/received polishes for January! Apologies if the descriptions are a bit mumbo jumbo, but I'm sure you're more interested in the polishes themselves than my reasoning for buying them. Hopefully I can tone it down a little throughout Feb, but with Professional Beauty coming up at the end of the month, I wouldn't be so sure about that. 

ABC Challenge; Z is for Zoya

Hi ladies! As usual, I completely forgot to post this earlier, because I got caught up in catching up with my shows on line! Whoops. Anyway, here is THE FINAL POST!! I can't believe it, I've reached the end and have been able to find a brand for each letter of the alphabet. Horray! I hope you've all enjoyed this challenge and have hopefully been introduced to some brands you were otherwise unaware of.

Now, for the final time in the ABC Challenge, let's get into the swatches!

Jem is a gorgeous deep Purple with Red and Gold duo chrome flakes. I tried to capture the best shot of Jem I could inside my light box and these were the best of the bunch. I applied 2 coats of Jem without a top coat for the photos. 

Twila is a densely packed Blue glitter with Holographic bar glitter. I wanted to see how Twila performed on her own without the aid of underwear and I was impressed, this is 2 coats of Twila on her own, I started with a thinnish layer then added a thick coat on top. I applied a top coat to smooth out the glitter and add a bit of shine.

So there you have it, the final instalment of the ABC Challenge, I'd like to say a quick thank you to Jo from Lacquers of Kasterborous for helping me out by sending a couple of Zoya polishes, since I only had one myself. I'd also like to thank Debbie from The Crumpet for all her help with various letters I was lacking, many of these wouldn't have been possible without her.

What has been your favourite letter out of the challenge and which brands were you able to discover throughout? I'd love to hear from you all. For the final time, all 26 letters of the ABC Challenge can now be found here.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see my new and hopefully regular 'End of the month hauls' where I will show you what I have been buying throughout the month.

Press Release: KBShimmer Spring 2013 Releases

KBSHIMMER ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF NINE NEW POLISHES

KBShimmer Spring Polish Line Set For Release February 15th.

KBShimmer is excited to announce the addition of 9 new colors to their 3-Free glitter polish line. Owner Christy Rose says "With Easter, warmer weather, and Spring Break fast approaching February is the ideal time to introduce softer pastels to our lineup, but also to add a splash of bold color." 

The spring lineup includes three glitter top coats, two bold jellies, and four creamy pastels, one of which is scented. "Our new line was created to play off the softer palette of spring, but also to accent unique glitters like small black dots and spring 2013 Pantone colors like the color of the year, Emerald Green. We are also excited to debut this collection in our new printed bottles. With the printed bottles, and our glitter grabbing flat brush, we feel our polish is a solid addition to any collection" says Rose. 

KBSHIMMER - SPRING 2013 COLLECTION

♥ A Dot Mess - Fuchsia and black dots, hexes, and micro slices in a clear base - Top Coat

♥ Pastel Me More - Pastel colored glitters in a rainbow of colors and range of sizes - Top Coat

♥ Squared Away - Square glitters in a variety of sizes, colors and finishes including metallic and holographic in a clear base - Top Coat

♥ Spring Training - Soft green crelly full of pink, purple, blue and green floral toned glitters, scented with a floral freesia note - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

♥ Where My Peeps At - Soft yellow crelly with circle and tiny hex glitter in fun jelly bean like shades - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

♥ Lottie Dottie - Turquoise and fuchsia dots and coordinating glitters micro slices in a soft white base - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

♥ Iris My Case - Violet pastel crelly with glitters in purple, pink, silver and blue - Full coverage in 2-3 coats

♥ Get Clover It - Emerald green jelly with micro shimmer and circle glitter in shades of green, gold and turquoise- Best in 3 coats or layered over coordinating polish to cover nail line

♥ I Got A Crush On Blue - Royal blue jelly with holographic silver glitters ranging from micro to extra large- Best in 3 coats or layered over coordinating polish to cover nail line.

Shipping February 15, 2013

KBShimmer products can be found at http://www.KBShimmer.com. For sales outside of the US visit http://www.HarlowandCo.org.

KBShimmer was founded in 2008 by the husband and wife team of Jason and Christy Rose. KBShimmer offers unique and colorful nail glitter nail polishes that are Big 3 Free, with all glitter formulas being completely free of chemicals such as toluene, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP). KBShimmer glitter polishes feature a flat glitter grabbing brush for easy application. KBShimmer also offers a 2-free quick dry polish top coat, olive oil lotion, sugar scrubs, lip balms, cold process soaps and other skin care products.

ABC Challenge; Y is for Yes Love

Hi ladies! I only have one swatch to show you in this post, the reason being these are probably the worst polishes I have ever used, now I can't say this applies to all polishes from this brand, but the two I bough for this challenge were awful. I found both needed at least 4 coats to even slightly cover up the nail line and the second polish I was swatching for this post didn't even make it to the photo stage, I got so angry at how bad it applied I just took it off.

I found both polishes to contain little lumps and flakes of dried polish, but until today these were unopened, so that blows my mind, unless they were tampered with/used beforehand. They also streaked like nobodies business, it took 4 coats to tame the streaks enough so that a top coat would smooth them out but even then they dried to a really weird texture full of grooves and lumps. I even thought about completely skipping this post completely, but it's the penultimate entry for the ABC Challenge and I've made it this far that I wasn't going to just give up now, so let's get into the swatch of the one polish I have to show you.

#8 is a bright, almost neon Purple with Pink undertones. As I mentioned above, the formula was terrible and I needed 4 coats of #8 to get to a good enough opacity, even then you can still see my Nail line...I applied a top coat to try and smooth out ridges and imperfections.

As you can see, I'm not happy with this polish, and although it only cost me 99p, there's so many alternative cheaper brands out there that aren't even half as bad as this. Unfortunately, I didn't want to splurge on Yves Saint Laurent polishes just for the sake of a challenge. Anyhoo, stay tuned for the final post of the ABC Challenge series coming later this afternoon! As always, you can click here for all previous ABC Challenge posts!

ABC Challenge; X is for XOXO Nails

Hi ladies! It's that time of night in which I show the second instalment of the ABC Challenge for the day. This time I have an indie brand that goes by the name XOXO Nails. This was another brand I stumbled upon by accident whilst looking around for missing letters. I thought I would have to skip X all together, but as you can see, I found one!

I have 2 XOXO Nails polishes to show you this evening, so let's get into them!

Halloween Party is a clear base with various sized and shaped Orange, Purple, Green and Black glitter. This polish instantly reminds me of witches, the colour combination is one often found in children's Halloween costumes, so the name fits perfectly! I applied 2 coats of Halloween Party over OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the photos above without a top coat.

Fun-fetti is a clear base packed full of large White square glitter as well as smaller White, Pink, Red, Blue, Purple, Pink and Green square glitter. I looove this polish! It literally looks like a party on my nails. I did have to do a lot of manipulating to get the glitter onto the nail evenly and had to fish for the large White squares. This is 2 coats of Fun-fetti over W7 - Black without a top coat.

I can't believe there's only 2 letters to go until I finish the challenge, this month has gone by pretty quickly. As always, click here to see all previous ABC Challenge posts! Which letter has been your favourite out of all the challenge posts?

ABC Challenge; W is for W7

Hi ladies! We're back to regular scheduling with the return of the ABC Challenge. Today I have both W & X to show you, but as always we'll start off with W. I wasn't sure if this post was going to go up today, simply because I've pulled a muscle in my shoulder over the weekend and it hurts to hold a bottle in certain positions and the mass swatching I did yesterday didn't help at all.

For W I have a couple polishes from W7 which were immediately sought after when they were released...Why? Because they're extremely similar to Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes but for 10th the cost! These have been sitting in my Helmer for the best part of 6 months and this is the first time I've broken them out, ridiculous right?!

Mosaic is a milky Turquoise base packed with circular Dark Blue, Yellow and Gold glitter. It really does live up to it's name, right!? I applied 3 coats of Mosaic for the photos above without a top coat.

Lava Flow is a milky White base packed with circular Red & Black glitter. I applied 3 coats of Lava Flow for the photos above.

I was surprised by just how many W brands there were to choose from, well okay not LOADS but there was a good selection. Of course, I couldn't keep these locked up forever, so W7 was a no brainer. What brand would you have chosen to represent W? Look out for X coming later today!

Swatch: BarryM Spring/Summer Gellys

Hi ladies! You may remember towards the end of last year, BarryM released a new line consisting of 9 'Gelly' Nail Paints (7 of the 9 shades by clicking here and here) which promised to be just as glossy as a Gel manicure, without the aid of a Top Coat or curing under a UV light, in just one coat. Though all of the polishes were super glossy, not all of them were a 1 coater but that being said, the sheer quality of the Nail Paints were enough to make them extremely popular amongst polish lovers everywhere.

This Spring, BarryM have decided to release 4 new additions to the Gelly range all of which are perfect for the Spring/Summer season and I'm super stoked to show you those today! But first I want to just give you a little overview on the polishes as a whole; of course we'll start with the formula, as with the previous Gellys, these all went on perfectly with barely any issues, there were a few streaks and patches along the way, but a lot of that is to do with the slightly runnier consistency than regular polishes, which I think has something to do with the ingredients to make it so glossy but a little perseverance and a kind hand those were easily concealable. They all lived up to the high gloss finish with the finest of standards but again, like the previous Gelly releases, not all of them were 1 coaters.

Okay, so whose ready to see the swatches?

Papaya is a muted pastel Coral with a Salmon Pink undertone. I had a couple issues with streaking and patching with this particular polish, if not for those issues this would have been 2 coats, however I added a 3rd to smooth out the imperfections.

Greenberry is a bright Jade Green, this was a nightmare for my camera to capture and actually leans a little more Green than it appears in the photos. Again, this was a little streaky on the first coat but evened out on the second.

Lychee is a light Beige and the perfect Nude for my skin tone. I applied 2 coats for full opacity.

Dragon Fruit/Dragon is what I would call a 'Nicki Minaj' Pink with the most subtle shimmer, so subtle that you can barely see if in the bottle or on the nail unless you catch the right lighting. This was probably the sheerest polish of the bunch, which was a little surprising. I had to apply 3 coats for full opacity.

Overall I was impressed with the new Gelly polishes, I did find the application process is a bit of a hit and miss, you have to really be careful with the amount of polish on the brush in order to get the 'perfect' coat. I found it works best when I place a generous dollop of nail polish onto the nail, wipe the brush on the bottle and then spread the dollop around. But of course, it's all down to your preference.

Like the BarryM Textured Nail Effects these are set to launch in Superdrug stores nationwide on February 13^th & Boots stores on February 20^th.  Products will also launch on BarryM on February 13^th alongside the Superdrug launch and will retail for £3.99 each! 

To make sure you don't miss the announcements remember to follow BarryM on their Social Media networks; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest!

Swatch: BarryM Textured Nail Effects

Hi ladies! Winter 2012 saw the explosion of the 'textured nails' around the Nail Polish Community, from Liquid Sand to Leather to Concrete and Feathers - it's no surprise that they continue to be a hit in 2013. With big named brands such as OPI, Nails Inc and soon to be China Glaze, it was only a matter of time before household drugstore brands jumped on the bandwagon & who better to start than one of the most renowned drugstore brands - BarryM!

I have all 4 of their new 'Textured Nail Effects' to show you this afternoon, all of which are Spring ready shades all named after famous haunts where Mr Barry Mero began his early working days in the markets of Ridley Road and Brixton.  Before I get into the swatches, I thought I would talk to you about the formula, since all 4 are the same consistency it would be silly to mention the same thing over and over again.

As with every BarryM Nail Paint I have tried, the formula is amazing. Especially due to the nature of the Nail Paint, I found all of them to be just the right consistency and applied like butter without any patchiness and streaking. All 4 polishes were opaque with 2 coats and dried in around 3/4 minutes to a texture similar to Nails Inc - Leather polishes, since they're not as rough as OPI Liquid Sands and also not as lumpy as Nails Inc Concretes. Though I don't own any Nails Inc Leather or Concretes, I'm basing my judgement solely on various swatches I have seen around the blogesphere.

Okay, so I've rambled enough, it's time to see the swatches! I want to just apologise now for my awful swatches, I have no idea what is going on with my nails/cuticles right now and I've also misplaced my clean up brush too!

Ridley Road is a Mint Green polish, similar to that of the same name from last years Spring release. I forgot to mention earlier, I found the easiest way to apply these polishes were to start with a thin layer for the first coat and then add a thicker second coat.

Atlantic Road is a light Sky Blue similar to Blueberry Ice Cream from the Ice Cream collection released last Spring.

Station Road is a Pastel Yellow with a Yellow/Gold Shimmer. Yellow polishes are like Marmite in the Nail Polish Community, you either love them or hate them, unfortunately I am the latter. Though I must say the shimmer was a nice surprise! Again, this is similar to Lemon Ice Cream from last years Spring releases.

Kingsley Road is a baby Pink similar to Strawberry Ice Cream from last years collection. I do believe, however, that Kingsley Road is a little bit lighter than Strawberry Ice Cream was, but since I no longer own that polish, I can't compare them for sure.

I'm sure you're all curious about the removal too? Well although I only had each polish on for 10 minutes max, the removal seemed fairly easy. I did have to apply slightly more pressure than usual due to the texture, so I imagine after a full days manicure the Tin Foil method or even a PVA glue base coat would be more beneficial and time efficient.

Overall, I was really pleased with the quality and how easy to apply these polishes were. After finding the Liquid Sands a little too rough for my liking, the Textured Nail Effects are a lot suited to my taste. 

If you're wondering where you can get yourself some of these Nail Paints, they are set to launch in Superdrug stores nationwide on February 13^th & Boots stores on February 20^th.  Products will also launch on BarryM on February 13^th alongside the Superdrug launch and will retail for £3.99 each! 

To make sure you don't miss the announcements remember to follow BarryM on their Social Media networks; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest!