A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

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?

It’s very pink isn’t it?

Play the Peonies: We’d put our money on this lovely soft-pink.
Come to Poppy: Surrender to shine with this shimmering coral-pink.
Be a Dahlia Won’t You?: Give the gift of fabulous fuchsia—to yourself!
I Lily Love You: Fall head over heels with this light pink sparkle.

Unusually for me, the only one that’s *really* calling to me is Come To Poppy, though I’d be willing to bet my dinner on I Lily Love You being a sell-out!

Will any of the offerings from OPI‘s upcoming Nice Stems collection be gracing your nails this Summer?

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.

Ok, so these aren’t necessarily ‘moody’ but I didn’t know how to describe them.  I love blue polishes and wanted to do a comparison post showing some of the blues in my collection that are a little different to the norm.  A little greyer… a little more… stroppy.

Some of you were also keen for me to elaborate on potential dupes for Butter London’s new Lady Muck polish.  I’m afraid I came up empty handed on that score!

1. Essie – Sag Harbor
2. Eyeko – Rain
3. Butter London – Lady Muck
4. Butter London – Victoriana
5. Barielle – June Bug

A close up so that you can see the finish of each polish.  You can see that the HTF Essie Sag Harbor and Eyeko Rain are definitely quite close in appearance.

Yesterday I was also asked about the differences between BL Lady Muck and Victoriana.  Hopefully you can see that they’re worlds apart.  Barielle June Bug?  Well that’s just a fun odd ball!  Incidentally, I wonder what’s happened to Barielle’s Spring/Summer collection… anyone know if there is one?

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What are your favourite ‘odd’ blues to wear?

I told you I had some rather special Butter Londons to show you – how about this one from the new Spring/Summer collection?

Lady Muck is described as a powdery periwinkle blue, slightly on the grey side and infused with pearl pigment for a soft, sexy sheen.

It’s a gorgeous alternative shade for those of us who don’t go for the screaming brights and Easter Egg pastels that are on offer.  Yes, it’s quite a toned-down shade that wouldn’t look out of place in a Winter collection but the silver pearl really lifts the dustiness and gives it a more floaty, ethereal look.

No complaints with either application or wear… there’s something about these greyed-out shades that seem to give me ridiculously good wear.  Very strange but always welcome!

Butter London’s Lady Muck is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online from PowderRooms

The final item I received in my goody bag from the recent Illamasqua Blogger Event was this nail polish…

Don’t be fooled by its demure-sounding name, Purity* is about as vivid as a peach can get!  Not entirely suited to my skintone, I can see this looking freakin’ amazing on dark-skinned sisters.  It’s creamy, opaque and glossy.

The formula was great and the above image shows two coats… longevity has been impressive as I’m on day four of wear and can only see a tiny nick on the tip of one of my fingers…. not even a proper chip and barely any tip wear at all!

A perfect peach of a polish that is guaranteed to turn heads all Summer.

Illamasqua’s polishes may be a little pricey at £13.50, but they back it up with quality formulas and exciting shades.

Illamasqua Purity Nail Polish is available now to buy on counter, instore or online.

* press sample

The crackle craze started in the UK last Autumn with a certain black top coat from BarryM that cracked and shattered to create interesting effects and nail art for the unartistic.

Then the BIG guns got involved with OPI and even Dior getting in on the act!

Now Models Own have jumped squarely on the crackle bandwagon and are doing it in style with their new collection SMASH-UP

Available from April, Models Own will be introducing an entire rainbow of crackle shades to glam up your nails for the Summer!

Priced at £6.00 each, you’ll be able to get your hands on them in Boots and online at www.modelsownit.com