A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

When I heard that Glitter Gal polishes had made it across to the UK last month, I immediately skipped over to the UK stockist and placed an order for the two polishes that I’d been wanting for a while.  I first tried a Glitter Gal polish a couple of years back, and very pretty it was too – since then, the line has expanded greatly and my heart was going pitter-patter for their holographic RED… but more on that one another time (i.e. when I’ve done the photos).

Light As A Feather is a subdued holo which compliments the soft, ethereal shade beautifully.  It looks plumpity and squishy on the nails with a little visible nail line peeping through despite three coats.  I think it actually suits the calm demeanor of this shade to be a little sheerer.  Sure, it’s not a wham-bam in your face holo but it feels like a demure, more grown up version of the trend – ideal for those of us looking for a work-appropriate bit of sparkle.

Once the light hits it (please excuse my dry hands and nails), the holographic particles spring forth and dance a little jig on your fingertips.  They’re linear in placement and sparkle rather than dazzle with their prettiness.  Jenni has a great swatch of it here.

Glitter Gal Light As A Feather is priced at £8.75 and available to buy online in the UK at Sjmwell Nail’s & Beauty

I’ve got two NOTDs to show you today, and I thought I’d bunch them together seeing as they both fit neatly along a theme. Union Jack Black and Saucy Jack… err, you’re getting the connection right?

Butter London – Union Jack Black

Butter London – Saucy Jack

Union Jack Black is a rich black with a patent, high-gloss shine.  At three coats, it requires one more than I’d like to reach full opacity but it applies effortlessly and dries rapidly.  When I got to meet Nonie Creme, she ranked Union Jack Black as one of her personal favourites from the line.

Saucy Jack is an intriguing shade with its almost jelly-like finish and blood-red hue.  It gives a stained glass-like impression that is really intriguing and ranks up there as one of my most vampy shades.  Most jellies are quite soft and squishy looking, this is far more gothic in its interpretation.

Talking of Jacks… my brother used to get mistaken for Jack Black a lot.  This is not really relevant but watching this clip always makes me laugh.  Not only does my brother look a little like Barry.  He basically is Barry, albeit slightly less hyperactive.  Also not relevant to the post, but my other brother played bass on Dry The Rain, also in the film here.  It’s like trufax Thursday right here!

Both shades are available to buy online from Powder Rooms, priced at £11.95 each.

Share a random trufax with me!

It’s like that time I found out about coconut m&ms (did the m&m website really just age-check me?!), I can’t remember where… some foodie blogger who was baking immense cookies with them or something.  Oh, how I hungered for the crunch of a more tropical m&m… I thought about ordering online but realised that if I’d ordered enough “candy” to make the postage worth it, I could kiss goodbye to both my diet and ever-decreasing arse.  So I waited.  And I waited.  I contented myself with peanut M&Ms as my weekly treat but it was never quite enough.

Then one day.  I snapped.  Actually, I think it was about three days later, but whatevs.

I don’t know if I’d dreamt about them but I woke up with a mission, and one that I was going to fulfil if it killed me.  We were going on a roadtrip and I WAS going to have my coconut m&ms damnit.  We jumped in the car, Leila still rubbing her eyes after being dragged from her bed (don’t worry, I made it up to her with a Tootsie Roll) and we headed up the M3 in search of Shangri-La.  Or the Stateside Candy Co. in Aldershot as Mr. L called it.

I bought two packets.  And some root beer, mac & cheese, cheetos and Vanilla coke… what?

Well anyway, I got back to the car… cracked open my Vanilla Coke (O.M.G) and dipped into the bag of coconut m&ms.

Meh.

A bit like this polish.

I wanted China Glaze Fast Track from the moment I saw it online, I mean… look at the bottle!  What in the name of all things sprinkled in gold shimmer could be more beautiful?  But on my nails, it just doesn’t translate so well.  There’s nothing wrong with it per se, it’s just that the base shade does absolutely nothing for my skin colouring.  Infact, it looks a bit fecal in an anaemic kinda way and no amount of beautiful golden sparkle can make a turd look good.  Unless, you completely obscure the turd with gold glitter, but this doesn’t do that.  I digress.  I didn’t mean to talk about turds either, sorry.

So yes, on paper… it’s a wonder, but when you get down to it… like coconut m&ms. it just leaves me feeling a bit, disappointed.

China Glaze Fast Lane is available to buy as part of the Hunger Games collection, priced at £6.59 from Sallys

* I want to live off cheetos and mac & cheese for the rest of my life. Orange food ftw.  Oh and these mini-doughnut things that must have been packed with enough preservatives to restore the defunct do-do.

I love a good rusty orange, and before you jump on the it’s too Autumnal thing (I saw you making me feel completely off-trend with Minger!), I’m sticking two fingers up at trends.  Well, that and the fact that I bought this last Autumn.  Busted.

I see brushstrokes, does that make this a frost?  Does anyone else struggle a little bit telling the difference between all the various finishes?  I’m gonna call this a frost.  Go on, you can correct me if I’m wrong – I’m wearing my big girl’s pants.  I’m always wearing big girl’s pants 🙁

Desert Dune is a great shade for Autumn Spring, it’s rich… velvety and a looks non too shabby on a pale skintone.  Application with this one was trouble-free, with a few coats covering the nail bed to a good opacity.

LA Colours is available to buy in BeautyBase in both of London’s Westfields.  I picked this up from Whiteleys Shopping Centre on Queensway last time I was in London.  I think it was 99p?  I might have made that up.

What is your favourite LA Colors shade?

Not the first time I’ve featured this polish but I gave it another airing recently and fell in love all over again…

Haha, look at my chunky placement – crapiologist alert.  These DL glitters are so good for disguising a tired manicure…. with just a single coat you can totally move the attention away from raggedy cuticles and tip wear and onto the sparklez!

Deborah Lippmann Today was a Fairytale* is available to buy online and instore at House of Fraser, priced at *gulp* £18.00

What’s your favourite Deborah Lippmann glitter?

* press sample

I was a little bit traumatised at the sight of this shade when I pulled it out of the bag.  I mean, it’s orange.  A proper pumpkin-esque shade that I would imagine to work best on olive skintones.  Boy, was I wrong.  This is pretty much the only orange in the world that I can wear without looking like a try-hard.

It still has the vibrancy that you might want from this kind of shade but it has a subdued edge and a beautiful autumnal vibe that complements rather than screams at pink-toned skin.  A certain dusty quality that I’ve always loved in my purple shades, translating terrifically to something I’d least expect.  Opaque in a couple of coats, creamy and warm.  Lovely.

The bad news is?  It’s being discontinued so don’t expect to be able to find it once Autumn rolls around again.

Butter London Minger is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online from PowderRooms

This little polish spoke to me a couple of weeks ago when I was in my local Tesco (ok, not local – I especially went the extra 3 miles so I could visit one with a beauty aisle) picking up some baby wipes.  It’s a slightly odd colour no?  A bizarre mish-mash of khaki, nude and gold with a delicate multi-coloured shimmer.

It spoke to me.  It said, “Buy me.  You know that you shouldn’t because you already have a billion sitting unswatched, but you know you want to.  Put down the Harissa Paste (what do you need that for anyway) and buy me instead.”

Coincidentally, the Harissa Paste was £2.99 (what do I need that for anyway?) and this little polish from Barbara Daly was £3.00 – fair swapsies.

As much as I like it, it’s a four-coater – which sucks when the bottle is only 7ml but I think it’s still worth the punt.  Swap it for something less tasty though, like Domestos.

Barbara Daly Nail Polish is available instore at Tesco, priced at £3 a bottle.  I think it’s currently on a 3for2 aswell.

I pounced on the Zoya spring collection, probably my favourite of all the spring offerings this year – it’s subdued, with its muted softy pastels and delicate shimmer.  I could have bought so many more but stopped myself at two, here is the first that made it into my basket, Lotus.

Of the two purples in the spring collection, this is the one that had the dustier edge.  And I’m all about dusty edges… both when it comes to nail polish, and bookshelves.  Lotus has a soft pink shimmer that catches the light but sadly failed to pick up very well in my swatch photo – you can see it in the bottle though yes?  It’s not a glaringly obvious shimmer but gives the shade more depth and prevents it from sitting flat on the nailbed.

Formula was fine, the above photo shows three coats but you could get away with two… I applied my second coat with too much impatience and caused a bit of drag, hence the need for the third.  My fault, not the polish’s.

Zoya Lotus is priced at £7.99 and available online from beauty4nails-body.

Or… sweety nails as I like to call them.  What is it about these punchy corals that make me want to bite off my fingertips in the hope of a sugar high?  They’re just edible.

I think I should start a tag: nail polishes that make me want to self-cannibalise.  This one also does it to me.  As does this one.

As much as I love Macbeth on my nails, the fact that the above photo shows a single coat means that I may, MAY have to save this one for my tootsies.  I hate painting my toenails but it has to be done in the Summer and a one-coater coral with a beautiful formula is pretty much holy grail for ladies with short arms, big boobs and a belly.  You know what I’m talking about.

Buy this one, buy it now – it’s a fabulous shade for Spring with a brilliant formula to boot (even if it’s not the most original shade in the world).

Butter London Macbeth is priced at £11.95 and available to buy online at PowderRooms.

You wouldn’t haven’t seen this beautiful polish from Max Factor.  I did a quick search and couldn’t find any other bloggers talking about it, so I thought I should put that right immediately.

I know right?  I think I’m on to something with this scoop.

The lovely Liloo picked this up for me and sent it halfway across the country because my local Boots seems to stock every Max Factor Max Effect Mini Nail Polish shade except this one.  I’m not actually going to bother talking about it, I was about to write “this is a pretty good dupe for…” (finish that sentence) and I just couldn’t be bothered because even Leila knows what this is a dupe for.  If you’re the one person left in the world who doesn’t know?  Hai Google.

So, instead… just enjoy a little bit moar Fantasy Fire nail p0rn.  Swatched here over Estee Lauder Teal Topaz because on its own, it’s kinda shit.

Max Factor Fantasy Fire is priced at £3.99 and available (probably) to buy instore at Boots or Superdrug.  Also online.

My lovely friend Rowena from Cosmetic-Candy sent me a couple of Skin Food Nail Vita polishes last year and after falling in love with both of them (and not having swatched them yet, naughty!), I popped on eBay and picked up another that had caught my eye over on Witoxcity’s fabulous blog.

Puppy Purple is a beautiful, vampy shimmer – perhaps a little too vampy for March but I’m happy to break the rulez for this one.  It’s a little thick, though completely controllable and opaque in a single coat, although I did use two in the above photograph for the neatness value!  The shimmers in the creme base are striking and apparent on the nail, catching the light beautifully.  It’s not the most unique polish in the world but it’s one that I’m delighted to have in my collection and wouldn’t give up!

Perhaps the best thing about this polish?  I paid £3.49 for it, including shipping from South Korea.

You can buy Skin Food Nail Vita in Puppy Purple online from rubyruby76 on eBay.  Shipping was a little slow, but no major grumbles.

I’ve started delving into my new acquisitions from Pro Beauty and first up is SpaRitual’s It’s Raining Men – a swirl of pastels that look, at least to me, like a big cupcake-y nebula.

Comprising blue, pink and gold – on my nails, you mostly see the pink throughout the day.  I enjoyed messing with Leila’s head “what colour is it Leila?”

“Pink! No, it’s blue! Wait…”

Three coats will give a solid opacity, I was expecting to need more for this kinda of multi-chrome paleness but three covers admirably.  Any tip wear doesn’t really show too obviously and I didn’t get any chipping after even three days (with a top coat).

It’s Raining Men is available to buy online, priced at £8.50 with free shipping