A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Ice Cream.  That’s all I’ve been able to think of since painting my nails in these pastel hues from Eve Snow London’s new range of nail polishes.  It’s not as if I need much motivation to daydream all day about a 99 with a flake, but this is just silly.  I can’t look down without wanting to lick my nails, send help!

I’m missing my favourite flavour from my “nearly neopolitan” though.  Sad face.

British-made Eve Snow London launched last month, and is the work of Yvette Snowden who wanted to create a range of beauty products with added blends of vitamins and nourishing ingredients.  These added ingredients include: vitamin E, argan oil, and ginkgo biloba whilst the formula remains free of formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate.  It should be noted, however, that this isn’t a Big Three Free formula as these nail polishes unfortunately contain both toluene and formaldehyde resin.

I found that both of the colours I tried (Opium & Pixie*) applied smoothly and dried quickly to a shiny finish.  The 10ml polishes also behaved kindly to my attempts at a bit of nail art without dragging and achieved opacity in a couple of coats.

Eve Snow London colour nail polishes are priced at £12 each and available to buy online at www.evesnow.com

* press samples

Last week, I received a couple of samples from online beauty haunt, MyBeautyEmporium and one of them caught my eye instantly.  Priti NYC is a nail polish brand that have been around for a couple of years and I remember they caused some controversy back in the day when it was revealed that their collection (allegedly) consisted entirely of repackaged Diamond Cosmetics nail polishes.

For those of you who aren’t aware, Diamond Cosmetics are an inexpensive brand who offer a private label division for just such a thing.  There’s nothing wrong with this, nothing at all.  Private label cosmetics is a huge market and a huge amount of the cosmetics we buy aren’t made by the company on the label.  So what’s the issue?

Well, the problem was that Diamond Cosmetics polishes retail to the public at less than half the price of Priti NYC polishes.  The blogger Polish or Perish wrote a post on which polishes from the two brands crossover so-to-speak.  It would be foolish to spend more on an identical polish no?

Well, this isn’t really an issue for us in the UK anymore.  With the new Royal Mail restrictions, we’ve never been more of an island than we are today.  The only UK retailer of Diamond Cosmetics polishes packed up her online store a couple of years ago and if you want to get hold of some of the stunning polishes that DC used to offer… Priti NYC may be the only way you can achieve this nowadays.

If you haven’t already discovered the brand for yourself, I really recommend you pick up Lambstail Cactus – a beautiful, scattered holographic charcoal black.  Snapdragon* shown above is also a bit of a Summer must-have with it’s warm opaque-in-just-one-coat, jelly-esque squishiness that reminds me of a Jolly Rancher.  No top coat in that picture by the way.

Priti NYC polishes retail at £8.95 each online at MyBeautyEmporium

* press sample

Avon’s popular Speed Dry+ range has recently undergone a revamp with a new formula and colour update.  I received a selection of shades* from the 25-strong lineup for review and I was curious to put their 30-second drying time to the test!

 
Suddenly Sunny: A vibrant, sparkle-infused yellow that suffers from a draggy application but looks stunning once on the nails.
Ballerina: A sheer babydoll pink that would work well for French manicures, unremarkable.
Orange You Quick: An eye-searingly bright orange that gives full opacity in one coat. A stonking Summer shade for sun-kissed tootsies!
Reddy To Go: A warm, vibrant red… bordering on the neon.  Another one-coater, Avon are knocking it out of the ballpark with the brights.
Strawberry: A berry pink, and at the risk of repeating myself, another one-coater.  Applies beautifully.
Fast Time Teal: A lovely shade but requires three coats to achieve opacity.
On Point Blue: A pretty blue which manages to keep a hint of dustiness despite the bold hue.  Sadly, it’s also a three-coater.
Pronto Purple: A true royal purple, another three-coater… looks sumptuous on the nails.
Smokey Plumes: Is it purple, is it brown? Brurple.  An unusual shade with a rich, creme finish.  Another three-coater.

Out of the nine polishes I’ve been trying, almost half of them had brushes that suffered from stray long hairs and a couple deposited foreign particles (dust/brush fibres) upon first application, the usual irritations that you can often expect from cheaper polishes.  That being said, these Avon Speed Dry+ polishes are currently priced at only £2.50-a-piece (usual price £6) and still represent amazing value for money.

At the current price, you should consider stashing: Orange You Quick, Reddy To Go, Strawberry, and Smokey Plumes.

And what about that 30-second drying claim?  Well… nearly, but not quite – they are faster than usual though.

Avon Speed Dry+ polishes are available to buy online at www.avonshop.co.uk, priced at £2.50 each for a limited time.

* press sample

I like grey nail polish. It’s edgy enough for old people to look at your nails like you must be satan’s lovechild but not so edgy that it makes your boss search for valid reasons to move your desk into a cupboard.

CarolynK’s Helga is a neutral, concrete grey creme with no discernible jazz about it.  A straight-forward what-you-see-is-what-you-get shade that applies smoothly in a couple of coats.  It’s part of the Carolyn K London Neutrals Nail Paint Set which offers a trio of work-appropriate shades.

The set is reasonably priced at £12.99 and available to buy online from www.powderrooms.com

If you’re anticipating the warmth of Spring as eagerly as me, you may be interested in pre-empting the vibrancy with a little treat from LVX.  The vegan nail brand’s products are formulated without the use of Formaldehyde, Formaldehyde Resin, DBP, Toluene, and Camphor making them not just 3-free, but 5-free!

Midori* is a retina-searing chartreuse creme that applies smoothly, if a little thinly, in two coats.  The chunky square lid removes to reveal a slim handle for painting.  I found the formula to be quick-drying but prone to pooling at the cuticles, thin layers are the way forward but thankfully the pigmented creme is opaque in two coats.

LVX Nail products are priced at £10.99 each and available to buy online from www.cloud10beauty.com

* press sample

Because there can never be enough cerulean blue glitters in the world. Enjoy.

Butter London Scallywag is priced at £11.95, and available to buy online from powderrooms.com

I am quite fussy about glitter, and this one’s on my shit list. Which is quite surprising considering that I thought I’d love this and hate Gobsmacked (reviewed last week). My tastes have swapped places – what’s going on?!

So what is it that I don’t like about Fairy Cake?

Well… it’s mind-numbingly un-unique when it could have been great. Described as a “full coverage, silvery, multi-colour iridescent glitter suspended in a light grey base”, I wanted it to embrace that grey base with fervour and imprint an alternative take on a holo-explosion. And it’s just another “opaque in a couple of coats” glitter. The holo isn’t even that spectacular. It’s a bit too sandy, a bit too chunky. There’s no “edge” to it. And “edge” is precisely what I love Butter London for delivering.

Butter London Fairy Cake is available to buy online from powderrooms.com, priced at £11.95

* press sample

When I first saw swatches of this nail polish appear on the web, my nose wrinkled with disdain.

“Ugh. Lumpy.”

You see, I’m a simple girl (shut up) and I like simple nail polishes. I like shiny cremes, holos, and duochromes. And that’s it. I rarely bother with nail art, which is just aswell, because I’m not very good at it, and I just can’t be faffed with other embellishments.

I decided that, in the case of Gobsmacked, I’d probably like it with a thick coat of Gelous but that without, it could do one.  But then I applied it…

… and I really liked it.

It is lumpy, but in a way that somehow just misses setting my teeth on edge.  It applies nicely in three smooth coats and gave me no drying issues.

Which means that I probably owe a silent apology to all brands that have since followed suit with texture-based collections. I have quietly vomited in my mouth when perusing swatches of concrete, leather, and velvet.  Perhaps I’ve been wrong all along but the thing is, each time I look again…. I still want to rip my nails off in protest.

Butter London Gobsmacked is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online from www.powderrooms.com

* press sample

French brand, Kure Bazaar claim to offer the next generation of nail lacquer with a range of shades that offer fashion-forward colour alongside the ethics of a natural formula.  The “4 free” range (no formaldehyde, no dibutyl phthalate, no synthetic camphor, and no toluene) indeed offers a full spectrum of shades from its library of 37 colours.

I’ve got three here to show you, and from this small selection* I have nothing but praise.  The trio of shades featured below gave me fuss-free application, rich pigment and high shine.

From left to right: Cappuccino (also featured by LondonMakeupGirl here), Hipster, and Rouge Flore.

Each bottle contains 10ml of product

The above swatch shows three coats, Cappuccino is a fairly neutral-toned nude shade which should suit many skintones and certainly doesn’t appear too orange-toned against my cool, pink skintone.  The formula is thin on this one but offers good coverage.  If you don’t mind a little VNL, you could be done in two coats but I prefer a fully opaque look, for which, you’ll need three.

Hipster is one of four shades in Kure Bazaar’s Jeans collection, it’s a dusty blue… darker than cornflower but with the same soft leanings.  It’s certainly not a primary type shade but makes a great year-round blue for those who prefer toned-down brights to pastels and neons.  Again, three coats are shown but two would probably be sufficient if you weren’t needing to swatch them for photos!

I have a huge fondness for clean reds, and Rouge Flore is indeed a beautiful red with a great very-nearly-one-coat formula.  The above swatch shows two coats.  Rouge Flore is a warm red with enough orange to deliver retro leanings but not enough to make it an obviously orange-toned red (this makes more sense in my head than it does once typed out!)

Each shade applied beautifully and was dry enough between coats within the 10 minute mark.  Each image shows a top coat applied for extra shine.  I don’t comment on longevity because most polishes stick to my nails like glue anyway, sorry I can’t offer advice on that score.  I feel the brush is a little on the small side (think old style Essie brushes), and that these are quite expensive at £14.95 a-piece (considering you only get 10ml of product) but I can’t fault the formula, pigment, or application on the ones I’ve tried.

Kure Bazaar polishes are available to buy instore and online at selfridges.com, also online at beingcontent.com.

* press sample

Tired of all the glitz and sparkle that Christmas brought with it?  No, me neither (come back Christmas!)

Seeing as we have a whole year to get through before we can once again feel the warm glow induced by too many mince pies,Twiglets, and glasses of Baileys – let us all take a moment instead to bask in the glory that is this beast of a glitter polish from Butter London.

Lovely Jubbly is indeed, rather lovely with a party-on-your-nails mixup of glitters.  I spy blue, magenta, red, gold… and you know the best of it?  Opaque in two coats… three if you’re being pernickity.  Of course, it’s an absolute arse to remove and needs a full layer of thick top coat to get rid of the gritty feeling.  Some of you may not mind the rough, glitter finish but it makes me want to take an industrial sander to my nail beds.  Don’t do that.

Butter London Lovely Jubbly is available to buy online at www.powderrooms.com, priced at £11.95

Awesome, red nail polishes rock my world – especially when they’re squishy jelly-cremes like this one.  China Glaze’s Igniting Love is on the warm side of neutral with those retro-leanings that can make or break a red – in this case, the shade has a strange combination of tomato-tones with a hint of pink, I think my photo picks this up quite well and it ensures that Igniting Love works really beautifully (if I do say so myself!) with my cool skintone.

The formula on this one was great, it applied smoothly and two coats was the perfect amount for an opaque finish.  The photo above shows the polish without a top-coat (hence the small amount of nail ridge that you can see on my middle finger), and although this polish doesn’t *need* a top coat per se, it really sings if you treat it to one.

China Glaze Igniting Love* is a perfect example of a super-bright red polish, the kind that will stop traffic.  Especially if you hold a stop sign in your hand whilst wearing it.  Um.

Available online, priced  from £6.95 at BeautyBay.com and www.thebeautypartnership.co.uk

* press sample

I’m really sorry to do this to you but I’m about to feature a super-pretty polish that you can’t get anymore.  And when I say “sorry”, I mean, “not at all”.  You see, I would have featured this one earlier but I have a shoebox in my cupboard full of those naughty polish purchases that are usually made upon impulse and when the postman brings them to my door… I shove them in my shoebox until such a time that my shopping guilt has passed and I can go rummaging for treasures.

Well, I must have been very naughty because this one was bought back in February and I’ve only just pulled it out now.

It’s an absolute stinker of a polish and I’m sure I’ve contracted finger-cancer seven times over since applying it, god knows what it’s got in it… you see, it was an eBay purchase from Hong Kong, a brand I’ve never heard of… and I’m not exagerrating when I say that it stinks.  It could clear a room faster than a fire alarm.

But look!  LOOK!  It’s so sparkly and pretty!

The above photo shows ONE coat over a purple creme, the top photo shows three coats over a bare nail.  The formula is pretty horrible to be fair, thick and gloopy but it does spread evenly with a bit of patience.  It’s a very slow drier too, almost like a gluey resin on your nails – I was worried that I had infact, picked up a gel polish that would never dry without curing!  But it is just a regular polish…. albeit in dire need of a quick-dry solution painted ontop.

I think I paid around £2.50 or something for the polish, if you’re keen it might pay dividends to save a search on ebay for something like “glitter 189 polish” or simillar, I think that was how it was listed.

Do you like it?