Challenge: Day 14 - Flowers

Hi ladies! We're almost half way through the challenge! Who's shocked they've made it this far? I know I am. I'm really surprised how many bloggers have joined in the challenge too, I spent so many hours looking through each and every one of your entries and have found some amazing blogs in the process too. Today is Flower Nails, I was originally going to post a mani that I did a long time ago which hasn't been featured on my blog yet, but since there was no untried polish used for that mani, I created a new one. For the base I used 3 coats of OPI - Pedal Faster Suzi on my index, middle and pinkie fingers and then used OPI - Your Web Or Mine? as an accent on my ring fingers. I then stamped using Mash-42* and Rio Printing Varnish in Pink* over the 3 nails with Pedal Faster Suzi and then added in a mixture of Rio Printing Varnish in White* to lighten the Pink for my accent nails.

I hope you lovely ladies are enjoying reading my posts as I am creating the mani's! Also, I'm ALMOST at 2,000 followers, which is amazing! I have some pretty cool custom polishes from 2 well known indie makers to give away once I reach that milestone and possibly some other cool goodies too! For those of you wanting to add the inlinkz to your own posts, click here to be taken to the google doc with everything you'll need for the next 30 days!

Untrieds Used; 

OPI - Pedal Faster Suzi!

Products in the post marked with (*) have been sent to me by the company or their PR for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure page.

Swatch: eye CANDY - Summer Neons

Hi ladies! I'm back with some more awesome polishes from eye CANDY. If you're from the UK you'll know that the weather has been pretty dull lately, we've had nothing but rain and dull, miserable looking clouds; definitely not SUMMER weather! Needless to say, I've been pretty miserable myself because I can't wear all the new summery clothes I bought over the last couple of months *curses at the weather* but that DOESN'T mean my nails have to be dull too, right!? So to add that little bit of cheer into my life again, out came the neon polish, since nothing says 'summer' like neon nails.

As I've mentioned in my other eye CANDY posts, I absolutely LOVE their formula, it's the perfect balance between thick and runny, which means there's no cuticle flooding, bald spots or waiting a long time for them to dry (I'm looking at you Essie! How were you still not dry after 40 MINUTES!!!???!). eye CANDY products are also very pigmented, which means you only need a couple of coats for full opacity! Before I show you the swatches, I had to alter my camrea settings and make it a lot darker, since it started to flip out on me due to the polish being so bright, so apologies for that - but it does make the photos slightly more colour accurate than if it were taken using my usual settings. All the photos below are taken without a Top/Base coat.

Label Shot

Natural Light

Direct Sunlight

Juicylicious is a bright Orange neon shade. Like all neons, Juicylicious dries to a Matte finish. I actually prefer matte finishes with neons, since the colour is so bright and in your face, to add shine to it would just be a bit too much in my opinion. I did notice that it didn't dry completely matte, when compared to others, but it was still 'dull' enough to be classed as a Matte polish. I applied 3 coats of Juicylicious for the the photos above.

Label Shot

Natural Light

Direct Sunlight

Provocative is a hot Pink, neon polish. As mentioned with Juicylicious, Provocative also dries to a slightly shiny, matte finish. I applied 2 coats of Provocative for the photos above.

eye CANDY Neon polishes are available for purchase at most large Sainsburys stores in the UK for £5 each! As of right now, Sainsburys are the sole retailers for eye CANDY polishes, but they are planning on expanding to selected retailers in the future. What are your thoughts on Provocative & Juicylicious and just neon shades in general, are you a fan or are they just not your 'cup of tea'? Let me know in the comments!

To keep up with the latest news from eye CANDY be sure to check out their website and also add them to Facebook & Twitter also be sure to check out my eye CANDY GIVEAWAY here, but hurry, it ends in the next couple of days!!

Swatch: eye CANDY - Tickle Your Fancy

Hi ladies, I have another eye CANDY polish to show you today in the form of Tickle Your Fancy. Tickle Your Fancy is a red-toned Fuchsia base infused with tiny Magenta shimmer. The application on this was perfect, it had full opacity in one coat! I did use two for the photos, just because one coat polishes don't sit right with me (as I've mentioned before) without a top coat. As you can see, even without a top coat, it's got a super glossy finish, which I love, except when trying to take photos and all you see is reflection!

Label Shot

Indoors, Natural Light

Direct Sunlight

What are your thoughts on Tickle Your Fancy? I currently have this on my toes, since it's so Summer appropriate, although you wouldn't think it's Summer right now in the UK! Have any UK ladies have tried eye CANDY polishes yet? If so, which shade(s) do you own? For my international ladies, make sure you enter my eye CANDY giveaway for your chance to own three polishes for yourself!

Swatch: GOSH - Sweet Rose

Hi ladies! I have a GOSH swatch for you today in the form of Sweet Rose. Sweet Rose was actually released with their Autumn line either last year, or the year before and is a gorgeous dusty rose Pink creme. The application was good, it applied well and didn't streak or flood the cuticles. Although this was released as part of their Autumn line, I think it's a perfect colour for Spring! The photos below are 3 coats of Sweet Rose without a Top Coat.

Label Shot

Indoors, Natural Light

Direct Sunlight

I do believe this was a limited edition shade, but they can still be found floating around eBay for a reasonable price. GOSH Cosmetics are available to buy in the UK from Superdrug stores for around £5 each. What are your thoughts on Sweet Rose? For a person who isn't a huge fan of Pinks, I really liked this colour!

Swatch: GOSH - Flamingo

Hi ladies! I have a super quick post today to show you another one of my GOSH polishes in the shade Flamingo. Flamingo is a bright pink jelly polish which is opaque in 2 coats. I picked this polish up in the 3 for 2 on GOSH products about a month or two ago.

Bottle shot

Label shot

Natural Lighting

Direct Sunlight

Direct Sunlight (more colour accurate)

GOSH polishes are available for £5 each at Superdrug, they are still currently 3 for 2 too! This colour is going to be one of my Summer faves that's for sure! What are your favourite GOSH polishes? Have you tried the brand yet?

Swatch: Models Own - Foxy Fuchsia

Hi ladies! Another swatch for you today! I'm totally nailing my swatch vault right now, woohoo. 

Here we have Models Own - Foxy Fuchsia, another polish I bought for a swap last year but decided to keep for myself after it didn't go ahead.

Foxy Fuchsia is definitely a Summer colour, it's a bright, hot pink creme and is opaque in 1/2 coats! The pictures don't do it as much justice as in real life, but they come pretty close. I'm not the biggest fan of pinks on my nails, but I loove the way this one looks against my skin. 

If you don't have this in your collection yet, I suggest you get to it! You won't be disappointed, I promise you. This will more than likely be a staple colour in my 'Summer Nail Wardrobe'.

You can buy Models Own from their website or most Boots stores in the UK for £5 each. For you international ladies, check out Harlow & Co to get your Models Own fix at $10 each!

Swatch: OPI - Meet Me On The Star Ferry

Hi guyss! I'm back again *gasp* two swatch posts in one day?! What is going on!!

Anyway, I have another polish to show you from my little 'swatch challenge' I did today. This has been on my wish list for a long time now, I'm not 100% sure why I wanted it so bad but thanks to Sarah it is now mine! Meet Me On The Star Ferry comes from the Hong Kong collection released in Spring 2010. At first look Meet Me On The Star Ferry looks like a dusty, rosy mauve with a golden shimmer, but when held in the light tons of multi-coloured shimmer appears!

How gorgeous does it look? When I saw this happen in the sunlight, all my doubts of why I wanted this colour just melted away. I can honestly say that I don't have anything quite like this polish in my ever-growing collection!

What are your thoughts and feelings on this polish? If you own it, were you as surprised as I was to see all the gorgeous shimmery goodness in the sunlight?

I plan to set myself another swatch challenge tomorrow, so if you've seen a polish on my Stash List that you want to see swatched, let me know in the comments and I will get right on that for you!

OPI - 20 Candles On My Cake

I have another polish for you that I got from Traci's blogsale in the form of OPI - 20 Candles On My Cake. Which is in fact from the swatch vault (albeit a newer one) as I accidentally tore my nail off whilst removing glitter polish! >.<
If I'm not mistaken this came from the World collection of 2001...In 2001 I was 10, weird. I don't think this is as hard to find as others from the collection, but it's still a bit of an oldie.
In my opinion 20 Candles On My Cake is a reddened rose pink creme, but I've seen people describe it as a pinkend red. Whichever it is, I love it! I think it's definately a colour thats suited to my pale skintone so I'm glad I was able to snatch it up!

Also, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who supported my friends music, he really appreciates it. All comments have been added into the giveaway. Speaking of which, you only have 5 days left to enter! Get to it if you haven't already!

Andrea Fulerton - Donna (Peel Off)

Today I have for you Donna by Andrea Fulerton. Now this isn't your average nail polish, in fact it's a one coat, peel off polish. Yep, no remover necessary. It's marketed mainly for pregnant women who want to feel pampered and primed but cannot stand the smell of acetone/polish. Although, I'm not pregnant, I think it's an amazing idea, it doesn't smell at all like nail polish and it really does just peel off. Perfect for a quick fix for your nails if you're rushing to get out of the door/going on a night out with friends.
Donna itself is a gorgeous hot barbie pink creme, no shimmer or glitter and it applies like a dream!
These retail for around £4 in stores and come in a limited amount of colours at the moment, but I'm sure that's subject to change. I think it's a brilliant idea and if I'm ever expecting and the smell of remover makes me ill, I know I will be saved by Andrea Fulerton!

Nail Trends: Autumn 2011 - Buff Pink & My Fair Lady

Today's Autumn Nail Trend is Buff Pink by Models Own and My Fair lady by Ciaté. Both of these are very sheer, nude colours, which again I think are perfect for Autumn. They're colours which you can wear without looking like you're wearing polish at all.
My fair lady is a creamy nude shade with a very subtle hint of pink that helps it to look natural and not washed out like some nude polishes have the tendency to do. I found the consistency to be really runny and the drying time isn't fast at all. I managed to smudge after almost 10 minutes drying time.

• Application: 5/10
• Pigmentation: 5/10
• Coats: 3/4

Buff Pink is a very sheer nude baby pink. I bought this with the hopes it would apply the colour in the bottle, however this wasn't the case. It's extremely sheer, I needed at least 5/6 coats to come close to the colour in the bottle. As you can see from the swatch, I used 3 coats and it still looks like nothing is there. I was extremely disappointed with this colour, due to the sheerness of it. However, I do think this is more for french manicures than for a solid nail colour, so that may have been my mistake.

• Application: 6/10
• Pigmentation: 2/10
• Coats: 5/6

I do have a shortage of Nude shades, so if you have any you'd highly recommend, leave me a comment below with the brand & Shade name!

Nail Trends: Autumn 2011 - Mod Mauve & Smoky Brown

Today's Autumn Nail Trends are brought to you by E.L.F's Mod Mauve and Smoky Brown. E.L.F or eyeslipsface are an online company in Europe and the US. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I THINK you can buy ELF in certain stores in the US? Their essentials line are priced at £1.50/$1 and their studio line from £3.50/$3. They offer high quality make-up at really affordable prices. And I love them!.
Mod Mauve is a gorgeous neutral plum shade with a brownish undertone. I've found that it does apply streaky with the first coat, but that evens out with a second. I did also notice that the colour isn't the same as it is in the bottle, which is a tad disappointing, but for £1.50 you can't really complain.

• Application: 5/10
• Pigmentation: 6/10
• Coats: 2/3

Smoky Brown is a deep taupe brown shade with a slightly greyish undertone. When I first got this I thought it was going to be a dupe for Below Deck, from seeing the swatch on the website. It isn't in the slightest. This is another streaky polish, but again a second coat takes care of that.

• Application: 5/10
• Pigmentation: 6/10
• Coats 2/3