A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

From their Spring 2011 Collection, this is SpaRitual: Circle of Life

A very bright, blue creme which benefits from a top coat to boost the gloss factor.  Applies beautifully with no nail staining either (woohoo!)

I do wish SpaRitual polishes were a little easier to come by because they makes some beautiful shades.

As it is, you can purchase this online from their website priced at £8.50 for a 15ml bottle.

Irregular shaped bottles of varying sizes, shades and styles – nail polish.

You can’t stack ’em, slot ’em together and there’s only one way up for them!   No wonder they give me a headache.

I have around 208 bottles that were literally overflowing their allotted space in the stackable drawers I’d bought from Asda.  It was time for them to move house…

Into a brand new Ikea Helmer!

Oh, Ikea Helmer… you are the stuff of makeup-lover’s dreams.  Perfectly sized, you’re small enough to be considered compact yet spacious enough to hold our treasures within your functional (but not too officey) exterior!

The Helmers comes in white, red or silver and are priced at just over £20 each.  I own two white Helmers and they hold SO much crap it’s astounding.

If I’m completely honest though, I lust after an Alex:

But at over £80 a-piece, the price difference is hard to justify.

Here’s a quick phone snap of my polishes all snug and comfy in their new home.  Look how perfect they are, all divided by colour and standing to attention!

But my favouritest thing about their new home?  It means I now have plenty of space for more!

How do you store your nail polish – do you own a Helmer?

So, this is how I imagine the conversation went one day at Eyeko HQ…

“So guysssssss, how about it?”

“How about what?”

“Bile polish, you know… polish, that looks like Bile!”

“???”

“C’mon!  If Chanel can do Shit fingers, we can handle a bit o’ Bile!”

Eyeko Bile Military Polish is a murky brown/green mix that probably triggers equal amounts of joy/repulsion.  I’m… ok with it until the sunlight hits it and the slightly yellow-hued green shows through *gag*.

It’s a two coater with a fairly thick formula, it’s quite glossy on its own but the above photo shows it combined with a quick-dry top coat.  Wear was fine on this, 3 days before tip wear became enough of an issue to warrant removal.

So, it’s not my favourite shade in the world but I’ll tell you something…

Slick this on your toes before your Summer holibobs and you won’t need to put a towel out on the sunbed at 4am.  You’ll be clearing the poolside faster than you can say “fungal infection”.

Eyeko Military Polish is available to buy online from PowderRooms priced at £3.50

Hold on to your retinas, this one’s a scorcher!  SpaRitual Knowledge is Power is a stunner.

Not only is it a stunner but I think it has special powers.  I wore this the other day at the gym and even though I was HALFWAY through a 5 minute run, looking down at this shade on my tips cheered me up.  Magic.

Very nearly neon but not quite.  This one needs a top coat to bring back the shine as it does dry semi-matte, something not uncommon with shades as bright as this.

Mr. L hates this shade on me but I love it.  I feel just like Barbie, minus the boobs.  Ok, with the boobs, minus the waist.

If you wanna play Barbie too, you can buy it online from SpaRitual priced at £8.50

Aside from being completely in love with the name, I’ve fallen pretty heavily for the polish too!

Ciate Velvet Tuxedo is a lovely gunmetal grey with some rather special multi-coloured micro shimmer!  Sadly, the shimmer is pretty much undetectable in my photo so you’ll have to trust me that it’s there if you look closely enough!

The formula on this one was a delight and practically opaque in a single coat.  I did two coats more out of habit than necessity.  So, it’s not a very Spring/Summer shade… but do keep this one in mind next Winter because I can’t see you  being disappointed by its performance!

Ciate Velvet Tuxedo is priced at £9.00 and available to buy online from PowderRooms.

Are you a gunmetal fan?

For the love of all things shimmery, creme-y and smelling of solvent will someone PLEASE stock Diamond Cosmetics nail polishes in the UK again?

It was a dark, dark day when Flashy Nails closed and took with it the last (as far as I’m aware) of the UK stock.

Let’s have a quick recap of what we’re missing…

Yeah… we don’t really need much more convincing than that do we?  But just incase you do…

And some of the ones I haven’t gotten round to swatching yet…

Did I mention these used to retail at around $2.50 a bottle in the U.S.?  Don’t make me beg now…

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So, UK ladies – are you with me?  Who do we have to bribe with fudge to get our own way… and just how much fudge are we talking!?

I’ve featured vegan, polish brand SpaRitual on the blog before and thought you might like to take a peek at their 2011 Spring Collection, Truth.

6 Spring shades, 6 pretty cremes (do I spy an uber trendy yellow?!)

Knowledge is Power: Hot Pink Creme
Reveal Yourself: Pastel Lilac Creme
Circle of Life: Vibrant Blue Creme
Enlightened Soul: Yellow Creme
Eye of the Beholder: Grassy Green Creme
Face of Destiny: Peach Creme

Are you liking the look of any of these?  I’ve got swatches of Knowledge is Power and Circle of Life coming up soon!

SpaRitual polishes are priced at £8.50 each and available to buy online.

OK, enough with Spring/Summer… here’s my favourite season (in terms of colour – definitely NOT weather!).

OPI have previewed their Autumn/Fall collection, titled Touring America and it looks a little something like this:

It’s a large, 12-piece collection which can be split into the usual sophisticated yet dirgy, autumnal shades and rather awesomely, some fall-toned brights too!  From the bottle shots, the brights look like they may be metallics but I’m not 100% on this – I’ll have to wait to see some swatches before I can confirm!

Let’s have a breakdown:

Are We There Yet?: Melon
I Eat Mainely Lobster: Luminous Coral
My Address is “Hollywood”: Vivid Rose
Color to Diner For: Iconic Red
Honk if You Love OPI: Rich Raisin
Road House Blues: Deep Sapphire

Suzi Takes the Wheel: Grey
French Quarter for Your Thoughts: Sexy Grey
Uh-oh Roll Down the Window: Chic Olive
A-taupe the Space Needle: Creamy-Rich Taupe
Get in the Expresso Lane: Amped-Up Dark Brown
I Brake for Manicures: Eggplant-Plum

I’m pretty divided on this Touring America collection.

Autumn is the pinnacle of nail polish collections for me, it rarely gets better and if this represents the best of what I have to look forward to from one of the biggest players in the polish world.  I’m just not sure I’m as excited as I hoped I would be.

Coming from someone who loves their grungy, dirty shades… I would have liked to see OPI mix things up a bit.  Get adventurous with the dirge!  Some different textures maybe?  I don’t know… as I said, I haven’t seen these in person so there may well be something about them that lifts from the standard cremes.  I hope so but at the moment I’m left with an overwhelming feeling of deja-vu.

Thinking back to last year’s Swiss Collection (of which I own the majority!), I’m just not getting the same buzz from this year’s offerings although I am pleased to see OPI carry over some Summer shades whilst giving them an interesting Autumn edge!

These will be available from LenaWhite, priced at £10.50 each.

What are your first impressions of OPI’s Touring America Collection?

So, who’s for yellow nails this Summer?

Every year, the celebs get their banana polishes out of storage to threaten us with canary tips but this year… we’re in for some serious yellow fever!

image credit: MTV Style

We all knew we were in for a trend when we saw Chanel’s upcoming Mimosa polish set to launch next month but Mimosa is just the tip of the yellow-coloured iceberg!

image credit: Polish Police & Fashion Fame

1.  From NARS upcoming Summer collection, Kismet polish, described as a “shimmering sunflower”

2. Deborah Lippmann will be showing us which path to take… the jelly Yellow Brick Road of course!

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Will you be taking the plunge into the IT shade of the season or are you a bit yellow-bellied *groan* like me?

A bright, strong… vivid blue creme.  Perfect for tips or toes this Summer!

A solid two-coater, a great all rounder with average wear of 2/3 days before the tips start looking a bit ragged.  No chips but as I’ve said many times… I don’t generally suffer from poor nail wear.

It feels like a very clean colour that is somehow almost sensible enough to wear in the office.  Of course, being BLUE it isn’t.  But it just gives an impression of formality.  That makes more sense in my head than it does on this page.

But the thing is… surely it’s incredibly dupable?  And at £11.95, you’d hope it might be…

I went and bought BarryM‘s Cobalt Blue to compare because I figured it would probably be the nearest match (off the top of my head):

In the above photo, I’m wearing Cobalt Blue on the little and middle fingers whilst I’m sporting Blagger on my index and ring fingers.  They’re similar but Blagger has a teal edge to it and isn’t quite so “primary” blue after all.

What do you think?  Is the difference worth £8.96?

You can purchase Butter London Blagger online from PowderRooms priced at £11.95

If pastel pinks are your thing, you’re in for a treat!

Now… I don’t wanna get too cultural about things (says the lady with the degree in Cultural Studies) but DUDE! What’s with calling a Mod Pink “Teddy Girl”… tsk.

Names aside, Teddy Girl is a very striking pepto-bismol pink creme that needs a few coats to rescue it from streaksville.  This isn’t uncommon with these ‘white-out’ shades but it is irritating nonetheless when you get pretty good cover from the first coat.

Once any patches have been evened out, wear is perfectly adequate and the shade is super-striking.  I love combining it with a black outfit to really make my nails POP!

Butter London – Teddy Girl is is available to buy online now from PowderRooms priced at £11.95

Have no real use for your retinas?  Good… read on then…

Eyeko Punk Polish is a searingly obvious fluoro-pink!  If you want people to comment on your tips (I said tips), opt for a shade as blisteringly bright as this one!

As a mega Clash fan, I’m a little partial to the shade that proclaims on its website: “Pink is the only true rock n roll colour” Paul Simonon.

It’s quite thick and needs speedy work to get it to apply nicely… but if you can persevere with the less-than-perfect application, the results are worth it!

Two coats to achieve opacity and perfectly fine wear make this a great Summer choice.  Do combine with a top coat for a glossy finish though, as with most neon or near-neon shades, this has a tendency to dry a little matte.

Eyeko Punk Polish is available to buy online from Eyeko or at the original (pre price-hike price) from PowderRooms.