Monthly Haul: April

Hi ladies! Well it's that time of the month again where I reflect on my purchases for this month. I'm pretty happy with myself this month, I didn't spend anywhere near as much as I usually do, and a lot of the polishes you'll see in the post were either gifted to me or sent for review. I won't go on and make a super long intro as I'm sure you're more interested in the polishes, so let's begin with the items I purchased!

I started off the month with a purchase from Nail Polish Direct. They were having a sale on the new China Glaze Hologlam polishes with an additional 10% off and since I've regretted not picking up the whole collection at Professional Beauty (mainly because the price was extortionate) I decided to get the remaining 6 I needed. Unfortunately, when my order arrived 'When Stars Collide' wasn't in the order, instead a note said that it was oversold and out of stock *sad face*. I also decided to pick up the new W7 Suede Effect collection to try, which you can see swatches of here.

I also placed an order with Krafty Gurl on Etsy after admiring some of her polishes for a while. The second from the left is a bit one sided after being shipped over seas on one side, but it still works perfectly fine. You can find Krafty Gurl polishes here.

I also nipped into Sally's on their VAT free day earlier this month to pick up some supplies I needed for college. Of course I ended up leaving with a selection of new China Glaze polishes and OPI - My Vampire Is Buff, naughty.

When I heard Sinful Colors had made their way into Boots stores around the UK I had to go into my local store and see if we were lucky enough to get them, which as you can see, we were. I had minimal money left on me after a day trip to the beach (of course it would have been the day I left my bank card at home) so I was only able to pick up 3. At the time they were on the 3 for 2 offer, which I'm unsure is still active? But for £1.99 each you can't go wrong.

That concludes my purchases for the month, so let's take a look at the polishes I have been lucky enough to receive this month.

I was kindly sent 6 W7 polishes after being asked by Nail Polish Direct if they could use the swatches I did of the Suede Effects on their website. These will be featured in an upcoming series I have planned for the blog starting tomorrow.

Next of course are the BarryM Confetti polishes, which can be seen here. I'm lucky enough to be an official Blogger for BarryM, which means I am sent the new releases to show you guys before they're available in store! I still pinch myself sometimes because of this. I've been an avid BarryM fan for almost 8 years!

I also got a little surprise package from Purple Professional with two of their new Spring/Summer releases. 

And finally we have the BarryM Nail Art Pens, which I haven't actually gotten around to doing a review of yet. I generally try and avoid Nail Art like the plague just because I'm terrible at it, especially when it comes to thinking up original Nail Art ideas. I will have some sort of post featuring these in the future!

So there you have my Monthly Haul post for the month of April. As I said, I've done pretty well this month with my spending, I think I spent about £40/50 this month on Nail Polish, which is a MAJOR cut back from what I usually do. How did you do this month? Have you killed any lemmings this month?

Nail Mail: April & Polish Count

Hi ladies, it's been a while! Before I start with the Nail Mail post I'd like to apologise for my lack of posting this last week. The weather in the UK has been horrendous, it's pretty much rained constantly for the past week so I haven't been able to get any swatching done! Fortunately, the weather is beautiful today so I have been 'catching up' on my swatching which I will be posting over the next week. Anyway, enough excuses - let's get into my Nail Mail for April!

BarryM; Black Multi Glitter, Silvery Lilac, Denim & Teal

Models Own; Ibiza Mix, Collection 2000; Hoola Hoop, Button Moon, Wham & BMX Bandit, GOSH; Splish Splash

China Glaze; City Siren & Traffic Jam

I picked up these polishes at the beginning of the month during my trip into town. I knew that BarryM had released new colours, so I wanted to see if my Boots/Superdrug had them in. Unfortunately they didn't have Copper at the time so I was only able to pick up the four you see, from Superdrug. Whilst in Superdrug I spotted GOSHs new Spring/Summer releases but to be honest, the other colours didn't really tickle my fancy so I only picked up Splish Splash. I then headed over to Boots in search of the always sold out Ibiza Mix from Models Own, to my surprise there was one left on the display! Needless to say I grabbed it. I also picked up a couple of Collection 2000 polishes, just because they were 2 for £3. Then just as I was leaving town I decided to quickly head over to Sallys to see if they had any of the new China Glaze/OPI collections, which they didn't, but it was buy one get one free on China Glaze Metro Collection! I only picked up two colours since I'd already spent most of my money in town >.<

China Glaze; Smoke & Ashes, Sinful Colors; Let Me Go

I got these from a mini swap I did with Traci @ The Trace Face Philes. I'd seen swatches of China Glaze - Smoke & Ashes around the interwebs and thought it looked interesting, so I asked her to pick it up for me. She was kind enough to throw in Sinful Colors - Let Me Go as a bonus!

GOSH; Rainbow, Silky Mint, Holographic, Rainbow & Sweet Rose

I've been on a little bit of a GOSH hype lately, ever since the discounted bin arrived in my Superdrug. Unfortunately, the two polishes I was hoping I would find in there were nowhere to be found. So I took to eBay to fish out Rainbow & Holographic and to my surprise I managed to find them both for a reasonable price! I picked up an extra Rainbow for my 1000 follower giveaway (only 12 people away!)

Dollish Polish; Dark Passenger & TEAM Salvatore

Now, if you know me in real life, you'll know that I am a HUGE Dexter & The Vampire Diaries fan! I've read all the books for both TV shows and have watched every season religiously. As soon as I saw that there were Nail Polishes named after characters in my two favourite shows, I had to have them! As you're probably aware, Dollish Polish is a pretty popular Indie brand that sells out literally seconds after she opens the shop and being in the UK I always missed out on the opening due to time zones. BUT I was determined to get my hands on them this time, so I specifically stayed awake until she opened. I snagged Dark Passenger straight away, but TEAM Salvatore kept jumping out of my cart, so after constantly refreshing and clicking I was able to get it.

Models Own; Peaches & Cream, Edamame & Naked Shimmer

Diego Dalla Palma

These polishes were kindly sent to me for review by the companies PR. Being a Models Own junkie, I was surprised that I didn't actually have the polishes already! You can see the swatches I did of those here. I've never heard of Diego Dalla Palma but I'm pretty impressed with their formula! I'll have a swatch post uploaded soon.

OPI; Pirouette My Whistle

This was also kindly sent to me by OPI's UK PR company. This was the only polish which stood out to me from the NYC Ballet collection, mainly because I'm not a fan of sheer polishes.

Wet N Wild; Grays Anatomy & Spoiled; Paying With Platinum

Catrice; Iron Mermaiden

You may remember a while ago I posted a picture on my Facebook page of Deborah Lippmann - Wicked Game, OPI - Not Like The Movies & BarryM - Silvery Lilac, well I have been asking around for dupes and the lovely Amanda from Mandy's Polish kindly offered to pick up the Wet N Wild & Spoiled polishes for me. I was then contacted by a lovely follower Daria saying she had the Catrice polish for me so we organised a mini swap for it! I will be doing the post sometime in May, so keep an eye out for that!

I apologise at how much I've rambled on in this post, clearly the lack of posting has affected my blogging ability. The main point of the post is the photos so you'll have to forgive me. Seeing as it's officially the end of April today, I thought I would tag on my Polish Count for the month. So without further ado, the grand total of polishes I now own is;

Polish Count (April 30th); 357

That's a total of 42 new polishes! The best news is that I now have a HelmerIKEA so I didn't have to pay the expensive shipping fees to have it delivered! I'll try and do an updated storage post soon to show you guys!