Monthly Haul: August

Hi ladies! I can't believe it's actually been a month since my last post! I've been swatching some over the past couple weeks, but I haven't gotten around to writing the posts (which is the worst part for me) so bare with me and hopefully I'll be back posting in no time.

As I've previously mentioned on my Facebook, at the end of July I was made redundant from my job, which was a huge blow to my financial situation. I have made a few purchases this month, but no-where near the same volume as previous months. The majority of my 'polish allowance' has gone towards purchasing Gel polishes and other things I need for doing clients nails.

Let's jump straight in shall we?

I started out this month with another purchase of IBD Just Gel Polishes. I absolutely love the colour range this brand has, as well as their staying power and pigmentation. It was definitely hard narrowing it down to 20, but I tried to choose a range of colours, as well as colours that I would wear myself.

When I saw the preview for the brand new Ultra-Chromes from ILNP at the beginning of the month I just about died inside. I knew that by the time they were released (in about a week or so), I wouldn't be able to purchase them and it made me a little sad. So on a whim, I contacted Barbra, the amazing creator, asking if I could pay for them there and then to be sure I had them when they were released. Amazingly, she said yes and that I wouldn't even have to wait for the release!! I've had these babies for a couple weeks now and I love them a little more each day. Thanks again to Barbra!

The last purchase of this month were these 3 beauties from Holographic Hussy's blog sale. I pretty much struck gold with these 3 polishes, as they're all discontinued/HTF. The best part about it? I think I paid £15 with P&P for them! For those wondering it's OPI - Sapphire In The Snow, China Glaze - He's Going In Circles and ILNP - A-Few-Shah.

Lastly, I was kindly sent these 3 beautiful glitters from an indie brand called Glitter Bunny! I'm in love with them and I can't wait to try them out over various colour combos. 

That concludes my purchases for August. As you can see, I've been EXTREMELY good with actual polish purchases. The Gel polishes did cost me an arm and a leg, but they're for 'work purposes' so it's kinda acceptable right?! What have you been buying this month? Let me know!

Monthly Haul: July

Hi ladies! Even though I'm not posting swatches at the moment, I will still be sharing my monthly hauls with you. This month is a bit of a mish-mash, I did buy/receive a couple of these last month, but I was unable to post them because a) the IBD Just Gels hadn't arrived yet and b) 3 were for the piCture pOlish blog fest, so I didn't want to show them until after the post was published.

This month has also been a little tame in terms of quantity, well at least when compared to some months, a lot of this has to do with that I was made redundant two weeks ago, which SUCKS, so some of these were bought before that happened, and some were bought afterwards to give me a little pick me up.

Some of you may not be aware, but I'm now a fully qualified Nail Technician, so over the past couple of months I have slowly been building up my Gel Polish, Gel and Acrylic Powder collections. As this is more of a polish blog, I've only included the Gel Polish I've bought but if you'd like to see an Acrylic/Gel collection, let me know. As I trained with IBD products, those are what I've decided to use as a starter brand. Hopefully as time goes on I will take a few training courses with other brands too. I just wanna say a HUGE thank you to Jenny for being my US polish mule for these babies and saving me a small fortune!

I started off this month with a purchase from ILNP, which is becoming one of my favourite indie brands, their sleek packaging, gorgeous colour combinations and amazing customer service makes this brand stand out in the ever-growing crowd. When I saw the preview swatches for the new holos, I knew there were some I desperately needed, but having missed out on the launch and the ones I wanted selling out, I thought that was never going to happen. However, the lovely lady behind the brand, Barbra, informed me that she had held a few shades back from the launch and I would be able to paypal her directly for them! I think I actually did a little dance for that, so thank you x100000 Barbra!

Around my payday, Harlow & Co. had a re-stock of piCture pOlish, so I grabbed a couple I had been wanting whilst they were available. Also whilst I was browsing I saw this Girly Bits/MakeUpMom123 collab polish and thought it looked AMAZING so I nabbed that too.

After my ILNP and Harlow & Co. order, I swore to myself I wasn't going to buy anymore polishes...and then I saw that Ciate were having a 50% off flash sale for one day only. Ciate polishes have always been a bit of a hit and miss in my opinion, sometimes I love the formula, other times I hate it. But for £4.50 I thought it was worth trying again. I also bought Funhouse & Helter-Skelter, but they were not at all what I thought they'd be like so I sold them.

After my redundancy, I went into Sallys to grab some supplies for doing nails like tips, files, cuticle pushers, nippers etc and saw that they had the Hologlam collection in stock. I said a little prayer in my head and went to look for the last remaining polish I needed in the collection and to my excitement, they had it in! Although now I wish I had held off buying them at Professional Beauty as they were almost half the price I paid in Sallys, boooo.

Last but not least, we have my piCture pOlish purchase (say that 3x fast). This was a REALLY naughty purchase and after it was completed I did get a bit of buyers regret. I was doing a bit of 'looking but not buying' on their website when I came across the Everyday Deals page *uh oh* and found that if I bought 7 shades, I'd get 2 free...There's something about the word free that makes everything sound like a must have deal. After that the world went black and the next thing I knew I had 9 new shades on their way to me. But they're just...so...pretty....

Last but not least we have the 3 piCture pOlish shades I was sent as part of Blog Fest 2013, which you can see my post here. Technically, these should have been in Junes haul, but as I mentioned earlier, I didn't want to show them until the blog fest post was live.

That concludes the polishes that I received/purchased this month. As you can see it was a very piCture pOlish oriented month. As of this moment, I'm unsure if there will be any more haul posts over the next coming months unless I am able to find a job, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Monthly Haul: June

Hi ladies! I'm still deep into my unmotivational stage where I just cannot even think about swatching/writing posts at the minute, and it's starting to bug me! I have multiple swatches in the vault that need editing and posting, but everytime I go to do it, I find something else more interesting to do. I'm in desperate need of some tips to get out of this rut I'm in, so if you have any tricks, let me know!

This is a little late since we're already 2 days into July, and I usually have these published at the end of every month, but hey. Better late than never right? I've been EXTREMELY good this month with my spending, like ridiculously so. I've actually shocked myself with how little I spent on Nail Polishes in June, granted, I have treated myself to 13 new IBD Just Gel polishes to kick start my Nail Tech kit, but those haven't arrived yet so they'll be included into July's haul.

As always, I'll start with the polishes I personally bought and then show the ones I was kindly sent for review at the end.

I started this months purchases at Harlow & Co. after they had a restock of some shades I'd been after for a while. Of course, I had to spend over $50 to get the free shipping, not doing so would have been silly, right?! I picked up 2 KBShimmer polishes in Pastel Me More and Squared Away, 2 Happy Hands polishes in Motherboy and Flowers On The Highway and because I'm wanting to expand my piCture pOlish collection and have been wanting this polish for a while, I snagged Blogger.

I then placed an order on Superdrug online for the two limited edition BarryM polishes whilst they had their free shipping promo. I also ordered NYC - Raindrops which I completely forgot to photograph, however on the bottle, it actually says Blue Sky, so I have no idea what went on there.

Whilst browsing the magazine isles in my Supermarket, I saw that Marie Claire have partnered with Ciate again and are offering 2 mini polishes with every purchase. Unfortunately there was one magazine left on the stand so I wasn't able to see which other choice there was! This is Cookies and Cream with Shooting Star caviar beads.

I'm sure you're all aware if you've seen my last few Haul posts, I'm a little obsessed with NYC at the moment. They're so cheap and amazing quality for the price and I just love their colours. When I heard they'd released a Foil range, I knew I wanted to get them to add to my 'stamping polish' collection so when I saw them in Superdrug on a 2 for £3 offer, I grabbed them all and a couple extra too (I ended up doubling up on one polish I bought so I gave it to a friend).

That concludes the purchases for this month, how good was I?! I'm thoroughly impressed with myself. Now let's get onto the polishes I have kindly been sent for review (which I'm slowly and surely getting around to doing, desperately fighting this lack of motivation I currently have).

I was contacted my Dazzle Dry in the UK to ask if I wanted some of their polishes to review. After seeing so many positive reviews about this brand, I jumped at the chance to try them out. Although I haven't swatched them properly yet, I have worn one of their polishes for a lengthy amount of time and I have to agree, they're amazing! I'll try and get the review of these up as soon as possible!

Jacava (for some reason I've always thought it was Javaca) contacted me at the beginning of the month asking if I'd like to review one of their polishes. After seeing them at Professional Beauty in February and hearing about them on Lucy's Stash, I was curious to see what they're like, so of course I accepted. I do have this polish swatched and will hopefully get around to posting it this weekend, so stay tuned for that!

A looong time ago, I signed up for Rainbow Honey's blogging community thing and had completely forgot I had even done so until I was contacted with a Press Release and that my goodies were in the mail! The best thing about this package? I received all 3 of the polishes I really wanted (with the exception of I Miss You)! As with Jacava, I have these swatched and will have the post published most likely on Thursday! Again, look out for that!

That concludes my Haul for June, again so sorry it's a bit late! Did we purchase any of the same polishes this month? Let me know in the comments! I'm already a little excited to show you July's purchases, I've been a liiiittle naughty. Until then.....

Monthly Haul: May

Hi ladies! Oh my lord, this month has been ridiculous for Nail Polish purchases, granted I was lucky enough to be sent a handful of these polishes, which I will include together at the bottom of the post, but in terms of purchasing I went a little crazy. Luckily a lot of the polish I bought was either on offer (3 for 2) or heavily discounted. Since this is going to be a super long post with lots of photos, I won't do a huge intro. So let's take a look shall we? If you want to know the names of polishes shown below, just let me know in the comments and I will reply back to you!

When I saw the new Summer collection from China Glaze I instantly fell in love with the majority of the colours in the collection, although I haven't tried them yet, I hear that the formula of the majority are quite bad, which I'm not too happy about because I bought these before seeing any reviews. Nevertheless they're still really pretty to look at! I got the whole collection from Nail Polish Direct for £60, however they have recently rose their prices, so I'm not sure how much it would be now!

Which the purchase of the new China Glaze collection, I also bought 4 new W7 polishes, which were featured recently in my May'd In Britain post, here. I'm really enjoying W7 polishes, they have such a wide range of colours and they don't break the bank!

This next bunch comes as part of a huge haul from Fragrance Direct. If you didn't know about the site, check it out! There's some amazingly discounted polishes (and make-up too), including Essie for £1.99 and OPI for just £3.99! I got this loot of 20 Nail Polishes for just £38 including £3 P&P with a 10% off discount code! Pretty good if you ask me!

I then placed an order with Superdrug.com mainly for a Birthday present for my boyfriends Dad, but I couldn't resist their 3 for 2 offer and picked up some more NYC polishes and a couple of MUA polishes to try also. All of this cost just under £10 with the offer!

Before the 3 for 2 offer hit Superdrug, they were having a 2 for £3 offer on NYC polishes and since I needed to collect a few brands for the May'd In Britain post, I picked 4 up whilst I was in town. It was these polishes that started my obsession with NYC, and well, you can see what happened there.

I then popped over to Boots to see if they had restocked the Sinful Colours display, which unfortunately they hadn't, however I did see these 3 beauties and decided to grab them. I seem to have a bit of a Green theme from here on out, as you'll see when you scroll down!

Again, another Superdrug order! I've been seeing the Maybelline Polka Dots around the blogesphere and really liked the look of them, so of course I bought them using the 3 for 2 offer and also the free shipping offer that Superdrug are currently offering. As you can see, I couldn't resist purchasing some more NYC polishes too.

And then we come to my recent trip to Amsterdam. What is the one thing to do when you visit a European country? Buy Catrice and Essence polishes of course! After spending what seemed like hours looking for a Kruidvat store (we would have found it in a matter of minutes had we not taken the alleyway onto the main shopping street just after the store! Unfortunately it was on a bend so we didn't see it when we emerged from the alley) needless to say when we did find it, I went a little crazy. I could have spent so much more money in there but I had to be reasonable with myself. I also bought some make-up items from both brands which aren't shown here.

And finally we come to my last purchase of the month. When I saw ILNP had released some holographic polishes I drooled a little. Unfortunately they were released before I'd been paid so I thought I had missed out. But when browsing her Etsy store, I saw that there were still some available there! However the ones I most wanted had sold out, but I did managed to snag 3 of them. I also bought a couple new released glitters.

That concludes my purchases for the month of May, so let's take a look at the beauties I have been lucky enough to receive!

Being an official blogger for BarryM (which I still can't believe and get giddy about a lot!) I get the chance to preview their new releases before they hit the stores. This month I received 3 new BarryM collections; the Summer Gellys, Confetti Nail Effects and Sequin Nail effects. I've already reviewed both the Gellys and the Confettis (and here too), but haven't reviewed the Sequin Effects because, to put it bluntly, they're awful. I gave up after attempting to paint 1 nail. So if you were looking for a review from me, I'm sorry to say you won't be seeing one!

I then got an AMAZING package from Shimmer containing 16 gorgeous glitter bombs. So you can expect to see some swatches of these over the next coming weeks!

I also received an unexpected package from Invogue containing 3 of their Matt Suede polishes. As you can see from my Fragrance Direct post, I'd recently just bought the Green suede! So maybe you'll see it in a giveaway?!

Finally I was kindly sent 10 Models Own polishes from Littlewoods to feature as part of my May'd In Britain series, which you can see here. As you'll probably notice, not all of them were featured...what does this mean?!

That concludes my MASSIVE May haul. I'd say that I purchased a lot of them for part of the May'd In Britain posts, but that would be a big fib! I definitely need to cut back throughout June, but will I do it?! We'll just have to see on the next Monthly Haul post!

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?