Polished Up!

Life goes on...

2011-11-15T12:10:00.000+01:00

Hey polish fans,

Long time no see!

Well, truth is I've been busy shaking up my life - changing career, country and uh.. man. During the bad times I had trouble getting out of bed some days, let alone keeping my fingers looking pretty and I didn't really want to share that with you so I took a break.

Just to let you know I'm not dead and will hopefully return to the polish arena soon.

Much love from Denmark

Lau.

New Design! Starring A-England: Tristam

2011-02-02T16:37:00.001+01:00

What better way to celebrate a re-design than with a brand new brand of nail polish!

A friend recently told me about this new English brand of polish that did a some amazing quality and more importantly unique polishes. Well, of course I had to find out more! It took a bit of wheedling but she finally gave me the name A-England and a website address, so off I toddled and boy was I not disappointed.

There's not a whole lot of information about A-England out there, after some googling all I can tell you it's a brand new company and it was started by Adina Bodana who is originally Italian. They currently only have one collection of polish out called "The Mythicals" and all their bottles have excellent and relevant names.

I always approach online shopping for things I haven't seen with my own eyes with a certain amount of trepidation, after several impulse buys have left me rather disappointed *Yes I'm looking at you Illamasqua Scarab & Viridian *cough* so I bought the two colours that were recommended to me: Tristam and Lady of the Lake.

So, now onto the fun stuff!


Lady of the Lake and Tristam

Lady of the Lake is a deep velvety purple base with tiny iridescent holographic particles and Tristam has the same particles but with a gorgeous slate blue base.

As blue is my favourite colour I went with Tristam for this week's nails, keep watching to see the Lady in action in the future.

So... Tristam. Awesome name? Check. Gorgeous Colour? Check. What more could a girl ask for? Well Tristam is the guy that just loves to keep on giving. It's January 2011 and I already want to declare A-England my new favourite polish brand of this year. Tristam was an absolute dream to apply, fast drying, not too thick or runny, applies perfectly smoothe and has lasted me for nearly 2 weeks with only the slightest tip wear. If Tristam was an actual guy I think he'd probably be Mr Perfect.

Tristam in natural light with no flash (and a touch of Konad)

This is the most colour accurate picture I have of Tristam. It's a very deep muted slate blue, sometimes almost navy when not in direct light and the best thing, its pretty unique. I don't have another colour even vaguely close to this, and I'm sure by now you know how much I love blues!

Tristam with flash.

Of course the most important thing about a holo is, obviously, the sparkle and Tristam has it in spades!

Embrace the sparkle!

Imagine if you will a girl standing in her bathroom holding a bottle of nail polish in one hand, a camera in the other and a flashlight in her mouth. This is what I had to do to make Tristam to really sparkle for me, but it was so worth being caught and laughed at by the boyfriend for this picture. (well, til he realised it was his flashlight ^^)

Token blurred glitter shot.

The picture below needs to be enlarged to show exactly how good this polish is. I applied him over my usual 1 coat of Essie Billionails with another coat on top and there's no chipping, flaking or any other sort of nail disaster going on, just the tiniest bit of tip wear on my ring and middle fingers and some nail growth below. Colour me impressed!


2 weeks down and he's staying strong.

Overall I cannot rate this polish highly enough, a definite A+. The packaging was cute (although personally I'm not a big fan of reflective silver lids) and the brush was good quality but nothing unusal. I am so impressed that a new brand can release this high quality of product and frankly I cannot wait to see their next collection (whilst secretly hoping for more amazing - and possibly bright?- holos!). While I wish that I could keep this brand to myself, I had to share because this brand deserves recognition and everyone deserves gorgeous nails.

Tristam and Lady of the Lake are available from www.a-england.co.uk at £9.50 each and as a major plus they also ship internationally from the UK.

Next time on PolishedUp!: Our 2 year anniversary giveaway.

Not Nails: Le Marché

2010-05-23T13:13:00.011+02:00

Up before Midday? On a weekend? Well.. it's not *that* much of a rare occurence for me. Honest!

Today I decided to take advantage of the good weather and head into town - Versailles, which is on the outskirts of Paris - to see the amazing food market that sets up there every sunday. And then of course I decided to take pictures, which earned me a few odd looks from the stall holders but this is a tourist town for tourist people so I'm sure they're probably used to being looked at like zoo animals...

The market sells pretty much anything you could want, which is really good for people like me who forget to go shopping before the weekend as everything's closed on a Sunday. Dominos pizza have made a lot of Euros from me on Sunday nights...

No one wants to buy honey today :(

However, lots of people wanted to buy wine. Wine is huuuuge here! And why would you have a food market that doesn't sell alcohol? ^^

Apparently the honey stall sells excellent wine, there was an unorderly queue forming as I took this picture. Perhaps they should consider giving away the honey and investing more in wine...

One of my personal favourite stalls is the chicken stand. There's actually 4 of them in this particular market - seriously this thing is huge! It's so big it has 2 roads going through it! - but this one is the best (see, now you've been told ;). Today's purchases were a small chicken and some kebabs for breakfast (don't ask!) I'd show you pictures of how delicious they are but... well, I've already devoured them. Moving swiftly on!

I'm not wholly sure what this is - well, aside from the obvious - but it seemed picture worthy at the time. The sign says 'cooked potatoes' but I've never seen potatoes that coloured before...

And of course having so much stuff for sale creates a whole lot of trash... Remember folks, go round it not through it or you'll end up like the tourist I saw who nearly ended up on the front of a bus.

More vegetables, so that my last picture isn't of trash... And on a separate note the tomatoes in that picture taste like sunshine (I kid you not).

Happy *nom*ing til next time!

C'est La Vie aka That's Life

2010-05-22T17:55:00.000+02:00

Well I haven't posted for almost a month, as you might have noticed. This was due to a few things:

1) Getting stuck in England for another week due to the ash cloud
2) Wondering 'What's the point'?
3) The boyfriend's parents visiting and then getting stranded in Paris due to the ash cloud...

Main Street in my home town

I'll start with point 2 first as that's the trickier subject. Why do I blog? I blog because I love nail polish and because I want to make friends that enjoy that too. Recently I've become more disillusioned. Stuck in the mindset of, well why post if no one's going to read it? That's not what I want to be, so I'm posting when and how I want to post, and especially if certain *cough* elitist nailblog networks don't think I'm good enough then, eh, your loss. Many thanks to Pete <3 for pointing this out to me.

So after the rant, onwards and upwards!

My new home town.
(What I'd like to to think of as an 'arty' shot taken on a rainy day in a moving car)

My last post - that was supposed to automatically update while I was away, but didn't - was about my trip home to visit the family and of course... purchase nail polish!

UK Polishes... Where to begin?

Before I left I pre-ordered 8 Nubars from Beauty Shed during their 20% off offer and more NFU Oh's than I care to count from Affiniti. I do actually regret some of those ones after having looked at them, but I guess that's what you get for shopping online.Then of course there was the polish I bought (and attempted to buy!) while over there, with a few extra days of course to visit the places I missed the first time.

Today's pics are of the Nubar haul because they're all so unique and totally unlike anything else I own. Nubar have a special place in my heart for having great quality but being a total bitch to get hold of in both bottled and customer service! (including not answering multiple emails about international distributors - if you're reading this Nubar my email address is to the right!).

Petunia Sparkles, Night Sparkles, Iris Dust, Earth, Indigo Ocean, Reclaim & Conserve - Peacock feathers managed to escape from the picture.

Sadly no nail pictures at the moment as I managed to snap every single nail I had grown while back home in freak accidents ranging from peeling an apple to an altercation with the bathroom door.

Nubar Reclaim

The first of three that I chose from the 'Going Green' collection. It's a very pale grass green, almost pastel coloured holo. I must admit I picked this one for the uniqueness factor, I'm not a massive fan of greens, especially ones like this that don't veer towards the turquoise/blue but I'm very glad I got it as the photos on the Nubar site just didn't do it justice at all.

Nubar Night Sparkle

I'm really not a massive glitter fan. Sure, it looks pretty when it's on but it chips like crazy and is a total pain in the butt to get off again. So when the Sparkles collection I was a bit on the fence. I loved some of the colours (and was gutted that Beauty Shed didn't have Sky Sparkle, Violet Sparkle or Star Sparkle in when I was shopping) and after reading Scrangie's great review decided to take the plunge. And... it turns out that I should've gone with my first instinct.

Night sparkle is a dark blue glitter suspended in a dark blue base. It looks very nice in the bottle, and on your nails when in the light with the sun out, but if indooors at the office it looks dull and uninteresting.

My favourite thing about the sparkles collection polishes compared to OPI's Absolutely Alice is that Nubar really took time to think about the amount of layers it would take to make the polish opaque, and true to their word Night Sparkle was opaque in 2 coats (and even with 2 coats of diamont to get rid of the lumpy texture its still less than the 5 odd layers Alice took to cover my nails! ;))

Nubar Petunia Sparkle

The lighter, pinker sister to Night Sparkle, Petunia is a magenta glitter in a clear base.

Nubar Peacock Feathers

When mentioning to one of the other nailbloggers that I was going home and looking for Nubar as I only had a few I'd snagged off ebay before she said "You have to get Peacock Feathers." That's it, no explanation, no justification just 'you must get it'. So I trusted her and I'm so glad I did!

Peacock Feathers is a duo... no wait, multi-chrome nail polish. Just picking up the bottle here I can see the purpleish base colour with gold, amber, blue and green shimmers in there. Although I apologise because the picture above just does not do it justice. It is an amazing polish but it is ridiculously hard to photograph!

Nubar Iris Dust

Inspired by the multi colouredness of Peacock Feathers I decided to step out on my own and pick another duo-chrome. Iris Dust is an amber coloured polish with strong pink and green shimmers coming through depending on the light. I'm really psyched about being able to swatch this one!

Nubar Indigo Ocean

This is the Nubar that I have most looking forward to owning. I saw a picture of Indigo ocean on The Nailphile (although it was mislabled as Indigo Illusion) and totally fitted in with my hunt for the perfect blue. The colour itself is a medium blue, almost cobalt with a shimmery formula that adds a little je ne sais quoi!

Nubar Earth

Today's final polish review is Earth, again from the 'Going Green' collection. Although Earth and Conserve look a lot like dupes when in the bottle, when painted the two are very different. Earth is a darker forest green shimmer with hints of blue and turquoises added.

Whereas Conserve is a medium, erring towards dark emerald green.

Nubar Conserve

Overall I'm really happy with these purchases. The Nubar formula on all of the polishes, execept for the Sparkles is excellent - longlasting, anti-chip (well ok so nothing's perfect!) with a slick of diamont you're good to go! It's a bit sad that they cost £8 each + shipping, but even then I intend to purchase some more once they get international shipping sorted!

Til next time,
Happy Polishing!

I'm Blue da-ba-dee da-ba-die!

2010-04-18T04:05:00.009+02:00

I live about 30 mins by RER train from the center of Paris, though I very rarely get the chance to actually go shopping. And even less often with people other than the boyfriend. So I was very excited when a few of the girls I work with invited me to join them on a trip to La Vallee.

La Vallee is a discount shopping village. I've only been there once since moving here 3 years ago, and the last time I went they had a Vans and O'Neill store and as my natural choice of look is messed up surfer chic I jumped at the chance. C'mon, who can resist cheap shoes?

When we got there I took a quick explore and found that both of my desired shops had closed down. :(Luckily I was dragged into H&M and thus became the only person amongst my friends who went into a clothes shop and only came out with nail polish... What can I say? It's a gift!

H&M Polishes: U Must Have This, Blue My Mind, Aquatini

Please forgive the dry skin on my hands, I've recently started swimming regularly and its totally turned my skin into a sponge.

U Must Have This

My first sunny swatches this year, yay! Although I broke my pinky nail shortly after taking these. :(

U Must Have This is a gorgeous sky blue cream. The picture is of two coats, but it was practically opaque in one and the brush strokes are quite noticeable. Overall a nice polish, nice colour, but not exactly original.

Aquatini

Another sky blue, this time a shimmer. I was quite pleased that it was opaque in 2 coats again and dried really fast! Definitely my kinda colour, but just a bit... common. I think I own about 5 different brands with this exact same colour. (I'll be swatching and testing them soon! ;)

Blue My Mind

I left the best for last. Blue My Mind is a really original colour, a dark cornflower shade of blue and I fell in love with it instantly. Again, this is a cream polish and two coats which dried very fast, this time with no brushstroke issues. Hooray! Now I just need to find something to wear it with!

And now I will go back to my current puzzle: To Illamasqua or not to Illamasqua? That is the question.

Til next time, happy polishing!

Sometimes the snow comes down in June...

2010-04-14T00:11:00.008+02:00

It's been a bit of a trying time here lately, both in World of Warcraft *geek* and real life, things could be going better. So I was really excited to hear that my local supermarket finally got an Essence stand (after hearing so much about them from Nora @ NotW I was a tad excited!)

Unfortunately apaprently everyone else was just as excited as me, aand this was the state that I found it in:

Essence!

OK so... no cute aqua polish, no sensible pastels... that's all right, they'll restock I'll just try something for now. So I picked up a few nail decals and a dinky little manicure set.

Tiny box of fun!

White polish, pink topcoat and cute little star stickers!

Who could resist right?

... Apparently, not right! I followed the instructions, apply white polish, apply stars, apply top coat. Super simple! And then this was the result...

I'm actually kinda embarassed to be posting this pic...

Stickers 1 - Lau 0. When stickers don't stick in the place they're meant to and you can see that they're stickers and not some cool Konad design, you get the undesirable 'chav' effect. This look lasted only long enough for me to photograph it.

So to cheer myself up I got out one of the three bottles of Nubar I own and made something pretty. The Nfu Oh was awesome, but yet again ridiculously hard to capture on film.

Nubar Mali-blue with Nfu Oh 53 and Essence decals

That's just a little update for now. More soon! Though til then, happy polishing! :)

Butterflies and Hurricanes

2010-03-31T03:00:00.000+02:00

Everyone has their favourite colours, and a lot of bloggers seem to be on the hunt for the perfect green nail polish. Me? I'm more of a blue kinda gal.

Though, technically I'm in search of two perfect nail polishes. The first is the perfect light cerulean blue, the colour of the sea surrounding a tropical island, such as this particularly fine specimen from Bora Bora (where is that anyway?)

Bora Bora island getaway *drool*

And the second, I can't quite quantify, in my head its more of a dark ultramarine...I'll know it when I see it (great description eh?)

So here for your viewing pleasure is some of my attempts (and failures) trying to find the perfect pale blue.

The boyfriend and I were discussing my collection the other day, he asked if I could only have 1 bottle of polish forever. What colour would I pick? My answer was China Glaze - Sexy in the City (above) it's as close as I've gotten so far to the perfect blue (though that picture really isn't the greatest). It's not to shimmery, and goes opaque in 2 coats. Thank you China Glaze!

Not quite sure how 2nite snuck into this swatching session. Technically it is blue but I'm pretty sure I've never seen an ocean that colour before.

Ok technically Passion in the Pacific is green, but you with a name like that you could definitely use it for tropical island water comparisons. And while I love it, it is so difficult to pair with another colour that I've never actually worn a full mani of it.

So, I'm done feelin' blue for now. Til next time, Happy polishing!

You can stand under my umbrella...

2010-03-23T00:40:00.006+01:00

The weather is finally on the turn here in Europe, spring is springing and the freezing cold nights of snow are over. Sadly before the summer we just need to get through the (almost) April showers...

This week's Nails of the Week is dedicated to something as an English girl I hold very close to my heart, the rain...

ORLY - It's Up to Blue, Konad M79 & M8

It's a touch darker in real life than I'd prefer, I was aiming on encouraging some blue skies and maybe some pink umbrellas but once I'd put on a coat of It's Up to Blue I was hooked. I also really love how all the clouds are different opacities, like proper clouds should be!

Just a quick update for now, I'm currently swatching a large percentage of my polish collection to show you soon.

Til next time, happy polishing!

Oh Alice...

2010-03-18T00:28:00.006+01:00

Like a lot of other bloggers out there I fell head over heels when I saw the range of cosmetics collections being released for the Alice in Wonderland movie. I'm still desperately trying to get my paws on an Urban Decay Alice eyeshadow book, but in the mean time here's a few pictures of the OPI nail polish inspired by the leading lady herself:

OPI: Absolutely Alice

I really am not a massive fan of glitters, mainly due to the sheer amount of effort it takes to get them off again and of course the amount of coats it takes to get them opaque. The picture above is 4 coats and even then there were a few 'bald spots'. However, the best thing about glitter polish is that if it chips (which mine did after 2 days) you can just cover it up with more glitter and no one is any the wiser! ^^

Alice... now with added flash!

Kudos really goes to OPI for this polish, they picked the most perfectly coloured glitter here. I know most pictures online are not colour accurate so if you're wondering about this one just go watch the Disney movie of Alice in Wonderland and check out her dress.

Glitter close up (click to zoom in!)

Overall this is a really great polish and I'm sure one day it will become one of those rare 'must have' OPIs that everyone in the blogosphere would trade their right arm for. I'm just not too keen on the painful removal process that comes with all glitter polishes and involves tin foil and my hand becoming glittery for the week after wearing it...

Colour wise, I love the fact that its not just a flat blue glitter but has some tiny gold flecks (much like Alice's hair) added to it to keep it interesting. It's a happy glittery bottle of polishing fun which I'm very glad to own (but probably won't wear again for a very long time!).

Til next time, happy polishing!

Regrets, Gone Fishing...

2010-03-08T00:51:00.012+01:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been MIA due to health reasons and while I'm not fit as a fiddle just yet, I'm working on it - though filled with dread at the thought of the blood tests I have due this week *shudder*

Anyways, on to the fun stuff! While I've been out of posting range I've still had time to order one or two new polishes *ahem* including the collection I've been looking forward to since January, Orly Sweet:

L-R: Cotton Candy, Lollipop, Snow Cone, Gumdrop, Pixy Stix

There was one other colour in the collection, Lemonade, a pale yellow pastel but as it's identical to Lemon Fizz from the China Glaze Up & Away collection which was released in February I decided to pass. There's only so much pale yellow polish a girl needs!

I'm not sure if it was me over hyping the collection but after trying it I was kinda disappointed, the colours are much more muted than they looked in the press release pictures. The only shining star that saved it from being a total loss was Snow Cone, but that might just be because I love all blues and haven't found a decent pastel one yet. I just wish that it was a tad lighter.

Then of course there was the Orly Foil FX which was released at the same time as Sweet:

Rage & Luxe

Of all the foil polishes I've seen these two are pretty original, Rage especially is super special. I mean, Rose foil? Who thinks of this stuff? Its an awesome pale copper with a slight pinkish tone. I haven't had time to swatch it yet but when I sit at my desk with my 'to swatch' pile next to me my eyes keep getting drawn to it. Luxe is... Gold. A gold foil polish, nuff said. Pics coming soon!

Nailene China Doll nail art stickers

I won these in a twitter competition in honor of Chinese new year - it totally made my night. I would definitely suggest you add nailene on twitter, they seem like very nice people with lots of easy ReTweet competitions. ^^

And finally a few nails of the week. I was aiming for 52 separate looks this year so here's the last 3 weeks worth:

Belated Valentine:
China Glaze - Sugar High, Orly - Iron Butterfly, Art Club - Black striper

Not my most inspired look I'll admit, though not bad for 10pm on a Sunday night. It was cute til I caught one of the gems on my favourite jumper, ripped a whole and pulled it off... Doh!

China Glaze - Let's Groove, Nufu Oh 50, Art Club - You're Golden & Steele this Look

This mani taught me that Art Club stripers are shockingly bad for tip wear. After 2 days I was fixing chips at least once a day...

China Glaze - Sky High-Top, Turned Up Turquoise, Art Club - Midnight Blue, Aquarius

I'm not sure what I was going for here, this mani started with the two China Glaze colours and a glitter blend down the rest of the nail, but the glitter came out so thick it could just be peeled off. So I took it all off and started again... and had people asking why only I painted half my nails all week ;)

That's all for now from me. Til next time, happy polishing!

Under the Sea!

2010-02-12T23:41:00.017+01:00

Sorry for the abrupt vanishing act last week. I caught the flu, hung around in bed over the weekend and (sods law) was well enough for work by Monday.

Here for your viewing pleasure is today's nails of the week, a subtle blend of 3 blue (non China Glaze!) polishes:

Nubar Mali-Blue, Zoya Tallulah & Nicole It's Up to You - Blended

Add a Silver Konad Seahorse, for that under water effect

I've been in the mood for some sort of water themed mani this week after the boyfriend left me for a scuba diving trip to Belgium. So, after experimenting with water marbling, deciding its too smelly, messy and annoying... (That and I basically polished 3/4 of my ring finger on several attempts) to try something else!

A horrific water marbling accident
no fingers were harmed in the making of this pic!

After a bit of googling and youtubing I came across a super simple way to blend colours, while on your nails! So for your viewing pleasure I've made a little 'How to' guide.

You Will Need:

3-4 shades of polish, 1 base coated finger, some random top coat & nail polish remover

The key to this stage is to be quite fast so paint on your first two colours - don't worry about being neat, just make sure that they're a bit thicker than normal and overlap slightly. Oh and don't forget to leave room for the other shade!

Apologies for the terrible picture quality here, I had to enlist help from the boyfriend as I had my hands full ^^

Take your top coat, wipe off half of it into the bottle and then use the remaining to blend the two shades together. There is no right or wrong amount here but too much top coat tends to thing out your coloured polish and leave you with weird pale voids in the design.

Add colour number 3...

And once again blend with your top coat...

The first and most important thing I learned while doing one hand is that even when using Seche or any other quick dry item it still takes longer than a normal mani. So try and do it while there's something good on tv to keep yourself occupied while you're waiting.

The Finished Product

I hope you guys will give it a go, it looked totally awesome (I even got a compliment on them from the grumpy girl at the waffle shop!) and was super easy to do.

Finally a shout out to the totally sweet people at Nailene who are sending me some China Doll Nail art. I'm super excited! \o/

So, til next time, happy polishing!

Nails of the Week - Day 4

2010-02-04T02:38:00.003+01:00

Today's post is very short and sweet as I've been struck down by the plague... ok ok flu, but it still sucks!

The winner was Nfu Oh 53 (thanks tweeps and random emailer!)

Flakies in disguise...

I'm going to postpone today's choices until tomorrow when I will have hopefully stopped sneezing.

Til then, happy polishing! ;)

Nails of the Week - Day 3

2010-02-03T02:18:00.005+01:00

Third day of the challenge and I'm finally getting into it. Today's audience participation choice was China Glaze - Passion in the Pacific (by a whole 3 votes. Thank you!)

So after an evening of raiding in WoW (yes, I'm a big geek) and pondering over what do with today's colour I finally decided that the thing that goes best with spots is obviously... stripes!

China Glaze - Passion in the Pacific & Art Club - Steele this Look liner

Look Mom! Straight lines!

And onward to tomorrow's choices! Comment or tweet it's up to you!

- Nfu Oh 53
- Nfu Oh 38
- China Glaze Re-fresh Mint
- China Glaze Sugar High

( I tried to talk the boyfriend out of picking all CG polishes but he seems to just be drawn to the colours. I can see his point they do rock! He said "Fine, if I can't choose all the nice coloured ones can I pick the ones with boobs on the bottles?" hence we now have Nfu Oh as some of your choices... Men!)

Nails of the Week - Day 2

2010-02-02T02:24:00.005+01:00

Day 2 in the land of yellow nails. And today's audience participation colour choice was a tie! Between China Glaze Grape Pop and CND effects Sapphire sparkle.

So I painted Sapphire Sparkle over the Lemon Fizz, got out my faithful dotting tool and turned my middle fingers into "alien ladybirds" as the boyfriend described it.

I keep telling myself its a work in progress as the OCD me really dislikes going out in public without a full manicure. However, if necessary I'll be able to give someone a very unique middle finger gesture! ;)

Lemon Fizz, Sapphire Sparkle (zoom in to actually see it) and Grape Pop

With added flash - Grape Pop's true colour

So here's tomorrow's choices - comment or tweet me!

- CG - Sugar High
- Zoya - Tallulah
- CG - Passion in the pacific
- CG - Sky High Top

Nails of the Week - 5 Day Challenge

2010-02-01T00:48:00.014+01:00

So the new China Glaze Up & Away collection finally arrived in my mail box which co-incided perfectly with my latest hair brained idea. A 5 day long interactive manicure! (it sounded like genius in my head, trust me!)

Therefore I present to you this weeks Nails of the Week - Five Day Challenge. Every day this week I will give you the options of what to customise my manicure with by choosing from a selection of 4 polishes/items randomly chosen by the boyfriend.

So to start off I needed a base colour, and where better to go than my favourite people on twitter:

So with the vote tied at 2 all for Something Sweet & Lemon Fizz I gave the boyfriend the deciding vote...

I was praying for Something Sweet, a nice safe pale pink, lots of potential. Of course he picked Lemon Fizz because it looks like our pet cocktiel's feathers.

China Glaze - Lemon Fizz

So... Lemon Fizz! It's an interesting colour, a very soft pastel mid yellow cream. I honestly didn't think it would work well with my skin tone but now I have it on I can say that it's growing on me.

The forumla was quite streaky for the first couple of coats and I would recommend if using this colour to paint an area once and leave it to dry as the polish had a tendency to drag. And although it was a little streaky it was not at all chalky like most other pastels and it also dried to a superbly shiny finish!

The picture above is Seche base coat and 3 coats of Lemon Fizz.

Ze Smudge!

And finally onto tomorrow's (Monday) choices! Please comment below or tweet me your choice and I'll tally them up after work.

Here are your options (be kind!):
- CND Effects - Sapphire Sparkle
- China Glaze - Grape Pop
- China Glaze - Heli-Yum
- China Glaze - Something Sweet

So, til tomorrow... Happy Polishing!

Nails of the Week

2010-01-28T02:06:00.005+01:00

So as a new regular thing, instead of including my nails of the week in a normal post I thought I'd give them an entire post of their own! *woo*

This week, because my nails are actually growing and not splitting for once, I'm sporting a nice simple french manicure that I've jazzed up a bit with Nfu Flaky #38 and a little bit of Konad. Though I have to say even though its more jazzy than your normal French I got bored of it after wearing it for two days. I blame the new China Glaze collection sitting on my desk begging for attention.

Please forgive the terribly uneven edges, I just freehanded them but as usual I left doing my nails til last thing Sunday night, due to playing too much WoW and I had to rush it slightly.

I started off with 3-4 coats of Nfu Oh 38, a gorgeous almost clear base with large chunks of glitter that change between orange, pink and green in the light. One thing I did learn while doing this is that less is more! I love flakies but having so many coats basically turned my nails into one giant flake which makes it really hard to photograph the individual bits of glitter in the polish.

Once that was dry I free-handed the tips with Color Club Ooooooooo La La, added some Konad to my ring fingers with dark blue special polish and applied some gems for extra bling.

Orange, green & pink flakies up close and personal

I like this look a lot but its just a bit too... tame for me. I'm lucky to work in an office where I can wear jeans every day and no one cares what colour your nails are, so I take full advantage of it as often as possible.

I have a fun challenge idea for next weeks NoTW so please come back and check it out!

Til then, happy polishing! ;)

The Not-so-Secret Project: Part 2 - Affiniti

2010-01-24T16:15:00.000+01:00

My next stop, literally minutes after placing my order with FabulouStreet was www.AffinitiNailandBeauty.com another site which retails Nfu Oh as their major brand. Not somewhere I'd really heard of much before, but I stumbled across a link on a UK nail bloggers site and went to take a peak.

Note: As it's a UK site all prices were marked in pounds so I've just run the numbers through XE.com for a comparison.

Reunited at last: Nfu ohs 38, 52, 61 & 53

Price - 4/5
Unlike FabulouStreet the collections here had different prices. A bottle of the Nfu Oh Hologram collection (incidently, as a side note, I totally agree with Polish Pixie that they are *the* best holos anywhere) will set you back £8.75/€9.97/$14.09, the Opal collection (aka flakies as its known by bloggers everywhere!) are £6.75/€7.69/$10.87 and the regular Paint collection cost £5.50/€6.27/$8.86. So while technically cheaper than its competitors I do feel that the holos are possibly a tad overpriced.

Nfu Oh 61: Who's the holo-est of them all?

Variety -5/5
Yet again a site that seems to have every single Nfu Oh made available for sale. Although after closer inspection no sign of the infamous flakey 051... But I won't mark them down for not having 1 particular colour available, though I'd be interested to know why not.

Affiniti

Website - 3/5
Affiniti has a nice professional looking website. It's clean, its work friendly (as long as you're not looking at the main page you could probably get away with the boss walking past and not notice you're looking at nail polish) and its fairly self explanatory. You want Nail polish? click the button that says Nail polish. Simples!

One thing I did find peturbing is that there's no actual customer service type page on the site listing important information such as whether they ship internationally and what to do if your package doesn't arrive.

My only other gripe with the site was with their shopping basket system. Its probably related to my 'shopping style' but during about an hour browsing the site, adding things in as I went the basket managed to wipe itself about 5 times and by the end I was so frustrated I just wrote down what I wanted and chucked everything into it when I was ready to pay.

Nfu Oh 38

Customer Service - 5/5
Now this is where Affiniti really shine out above most other companies. As I mentioned in my previous post, DHL utterly hate me. They refuse to admit that my address exists and when I wrote to complain to them about my one other previous encounter where they delivered it to the right number in the wrong street in the wrong town they said "lol we can't help you, complain in French!" and that was that.

So as expected my poor parcel of nail polish started its long journey to me on January 5th and by January 8th I was having problems. I contacted Interparcel, who are the courier company for Affiniti and they provided me with my DHL shipping number. Two failed deliveries later and I'm wound up (boyfriend will attest to this, to the point where the words package and delivery were banned in the appartment for over a week).

So I send Affiniti an email asking what their lost package/refund policy is and I get a very nice response almost immediately saying they'll get Interparcel to poke DHL and see what's going on. The weekend passes, I get another email saying that I should hopefully be receiving my parcel soon and to let them know if everything's ok. The same day I get a call from DHL saying "hey we found your address but you weren't home!" (yes, sadly some of us have to work to pay for our nail polish habit!) and voila 4 days later I get woken up by a delivery man.

The point to this story is that Affiniti have great customer service. They care about people, which is super rare these days and they were by far the most helpful of all the Etailers I dealt with in this project.

Nfu Oh 53. Very sheer. 4 coats, no topcoat

Shipping - 3/5
The DHL thing really wasn't their fault, and Affiniti went out of their way to help me resolve it so I'm certainly not going to mark them down for that. However....

The actual cost of shipping is...interesting. According to their shipping page I should have been charged £8.00 as I meet the criteria for Europe Zone 1: France? check. Less than 30kg - check.

Yet at the actual checkout you get two options for shipping costs: UK or International. Obviously I selected International, and the price of shipping suddenly shot up to £14.95. Flat rate. For anywhere that's not UK. What the hell? That's a whole extra bottle of polish I could have got right there.

Packaging Success.

Packaging - 5/5
The bottles were packed in a box that had a little section for each of them, surrounded by packing peanuts and an air cushion all inside a larger box. Perfect packaging and free storage all in one!

Nfu Oh 53 bottle pic. Click to see a close up of the flakies!

Overall - 83%
When I started this project Affiniti were an unknown quantity to me. I feel like I've gotten to know them a *whole* lot better in the last week or so ;)

Overall the shopping experience was fine, I was very happy that they put in so much effort to help reunite me with my polishes and that even after the bottles had been bounced between vans and depots for the last 3 weeks they had been packed so well that they were all fully in tact AND right at the bottom of the box they included a sachet of free glitter (I love freebies, who doesn't?) as well as their business card.

I'm still confused over the shipping prices, and I think that would be a major factor in my considering shopping with them again, although as DHL now recognise my address I think that would be the only thing stopping me. Of course if you are a UK reader then I would highly highly recommend them, even over FabulouStreet just for the pure ease of having them deliver from the same country and the guarentee that if something does go wrong they'll help you fix it.

That's all from me for now. Happy Polishing!

The Affiniti Saga (aka DHL how I hate thee)

2010-01-18T22:03:00.000+01:00

So the next up on my list for reviews was Affiniti Nail & Beauty. They are another Nfu Oh supplier, this time from the UK. I was all fired up for this review as they had every colour in stock that FabulouStreet was out of so of course I laid down my card and put in an order on January 1st, the day after I ordered from FabulouStreet.

Five days after the order was placed I get the email confirming that the polishes had been shipped and were on their way to me via DHL. Yeah... DHL and me, we don't really get on. To the point where they say my appartment doesn't exist, and last time I had something delivered by them they delivered it to the wrong street in the wrong town (I live on Route *something* and they delivered it to *Rue* something) Luckily my colleague actually lived at that address and signed for it for me.

I wrote to complain to them and they replied with "haha complain in French" at which point, I gave up.

So why is this a saga? This is why:

Oh DHL why do you hate me so? I swear my appartment exists. I live there!

On Thursday they claimed they delivered it, on Friday they said they lost it and miraculously over the weekend they located it and tried to deliver it again.

I should point out here that Affiniti and their courier company have been nothing but wonderfully helpful in dealing with these idiots. With any luck I may actually receive my order (something which I had almost given up on last week).

Much like Chocaddict I also went to raid the local sales. Sadly I was a week late and missed most of the good stuff, like an entire Stila counter being sold off for 2 Euros each. I nearly kicked myself! Luckily I did come across one bargain:

Lancome Piha Black - Even better at half the price!

Limited edition Lancome Piha Black from their Spring '09 Irreverence collection. The box is a bit battered but the polish is in perfect condition. A charcoal-y black polish with varying size flakes of silver glitter. Yum!

I feel it's my duty to share my good fortune with this particular bargain so I'm going to keep it for now and give it away at some point in the near future. Keep your eyes peeled if you're interested!

And Finally (because I haven't started writing out the reviews for Transdesign & 8ty8) here's this weeks Nails of the Week:

China Glaze Let's Groove base, Zoya Trixie Stripes and China Glaze 2030 dots

This weeks look started off with a base of Passion in the Pacific but I just wasn't feeling the green vibe. So I removed it all and began again with one of my new China Glaze polishes: " Let's Groove", a gorgeous deep purple shimmer from the Fall '09 Retro Diva collection. On top of that I free handed some stripes with Zoya Trixie (an idea which I got from reading Azatoth's blog) then to add a bit of pizazz I grabbed my ol' faithfull dotting tool and my new 'go to' polish CG 2030.

I'm really happy with how this turned out, although I tried to get the boyfriend to help with the stripes on my left hand and ended up with 8 layers of polish and purple holes everywhere. Still, it's the thought that counts right? ^^

That's all from me for now. Happy Polishing folks!

Shopaholics Gone Wild

2010-01-13T01:49:00.011+01:00

It's a worrying fact that only a few days after trying out my beloved Nfu Oh 51 I got a bit bored of it. Bored? I know! The flaky, colour change-y goodness got old.

So I attempted to spruce it up with what I found out to be the world's most irritating Konad design:

Nfu Oh 51 with China Glaze 2030 Konad M63

I do like it even though it was irritating to put on (the 2030 dried too quickly and became this free moving entity all by itself, argh!) I really love the purple and gold colour combo. It reminds me of my favourite chocolate bar 'Cadbury's Caramel'. Mmm....

One important thing I learned from this excercise is that if you try and 'nad it too early the China Glaze will absorb some of the Nfu Oh and become this weird metallic purple colour. Luckily it only happened to my thumb, which is why it's not pictured ;)

Now I just need to convince the nice French DHL man that my address is a real and he really wants to deliver all my other Nfu Ohs that I purchased from Affiniti there.

I curently wait - rather impatiently it has to be said - for orders from: Head2Toe, Transdesign, 8ty8, Affiniti and 2 from Ebay (including the entire China Glaze Up and Away Collection - I'm practically jumping with excitement over that one. I love love love China Glaze!)

So I'll leave you with the happy news of two more new collection announcements:

China Glaze - Poolside. (mmm summer Neons!) Something pretty to take your mind off the snow! - Due for release approximately April 2010.

And Nubar Sparkles - Due for release January 30th:

I'm especially interested in the lilac and the light blue one they look so unique! Just need to work on an EU (non UK only) supplier!

That's all from me for now. Happy Polishing folks!

The Not-so-Secret Project: Part 1 - FabulouStreet

2010-01-09T23:20:00.026+01:00

So my first Etailer reviewee is www.fabuloustreet.com that sells the much drooled over Nfu Oh brand of polish and is run by the lovely Jocelyn.

Nfu Ohhhhhhhhh that's good. Side, back and front view.

So let's get down to business...

Price - 4/5
$12.50/€9.27 per bottle. Quite expensive compared to China Glaze or Color Club but seems to be around about the standard price for Nfu Oh as it's a Korean brand.

However I'd like to point out that the label on the bottom of the polish says "France" in bold letters, which is where I presume they are made. In which case I have paid to have a polish imported from Korea to the US and then shipped on to me, which was probably made somewhere in a 100 mile radius of where I currently sit. The irony is not lost on me.

Somewhere out there the cosmos is laughing at me.

Variety - 5/5
Every variety of Nfu Oh polish and product available is to be found on this site. Sadly the majority of the ones I was interested in seem to be currently sold out, including those on the 'featured products' box on the front page. I'll blame that on the Christmas gifting rush (and hey, it gave me an excuse to review another company that sells them!)

FabulouStreet.com - It's fabulous dahling!

Website - 5/5
Very easy to use website in a nice pretty shade of purple. Products which are not available are clearly labeled. There are a couple of dead links (such as the banner on the front page) that just go to a "Sorry, the product was not found" page, but it's really not a big deal.

The main thing is that ordering and paying is very easy with the choice of using either credit card or paypal (though the paypal option wouldn't work for me for some reason but I'm quite prepared to blame it on my firefox for now and test it again on my next shopping trip ;).

Nfu Oh 51. Now with added flash.
This is a very difficult colour to photograph and while it looks nothing like this in the bottle it is quite an accurate representation of how it looks solo on your nails.

Customer Service - 5/5
My favourite thing about buying from FabulouStreet was that Jocelyn has managed to add that personal touch to a fairly impersonal business. I got an email thanking me for registering with the site (aww!), another confirming my order and a third confirming shipping and giving me an eta... All within 24 hours. On New Years Eve. Colour me impressed!

Nfu Oh 67. Yum!

Shipping - 5/5
If I could give bonus points in this category I would. I ordered my polishes on December 31st and had them in my mailbox (and on my nails) by January 6th! Price-wise the cost of shipping was very reasonable, it cost me $11 for shipping 3 bottles to France (sadly I couldn't buy more due to the cost restrictions boyfriend introduced when seeing the cost of this project... *whistles*)

My utterly favouritest thing about the site is that they actually had a shipping price calculator (very useful when shopping on a budget *ahem*) which after a quick play worked out that I would have only paid $17 for the full 6 bottles I had to buy from everyone else. Super cheap indeed!

The Nfu Ohs were wrapped up snug in their... bubblewrap (?)

Packaging - 5/5
The bottles were wrapped in several layers of bubblewrap in a box full of polystyrene foam. Can't fault it.

The end result...
3 Coats of Nfu Oh 51 and a slick of seche.
(Middle finger had a slight accident with a paper cutter this week so my longer than usual nails all got filed down to very short nails :(

Overall - 93%
Reading back I can see how this review reads as me just singing the praises of Jocelyn but there really isn't a whole lot more I could ask for from FabulouStreet (aside from maybe branching out into China Glaze... *dreams*). The whole experience from the purchasing of the items to receiving them was a total breeze.

Perhaps the one thing I would ask for from this Etailer is just a smally niggly thing: When you browse the polish there isn't an "add to cart" icon on the main page. So in order to buy a certain colour you have to physically go to that colour's page. That might just be irritating to me though ;)

I will end this review by saying that I've no doubt I'll be purchasing from FabulouStreet again in the very near future. (once they have more flakies in.. and uh... my debit card stops crying...)

Birthday Nails

2010-01-06T23:09:00.010+01:00

Yes today is the fateful day when I pass over into the right side of my twenties. Twenty one was a bore, roll on thirty I say!

So just a quick entry to share with you my birthday nails and also to my surprise, joy and amazement the first arrival from The Not-so-Secret Project (tm).

China Glaze (who else?!) Long Kiss with China Glaze 2030 & plate M50

Long Kiss is a bottle I picked up from the Sally's I mentioned in my previous post. It's a long overlooked, never mentioned in other blogs kinda polish and to be honest I think it's quite a shame.

The colour itself is a beautiful pure red, not too light to be hookerish (although that picture above is a touch lighter than the actual shade) and not so dark to be vampy. It is in short the perfect shade of red in just two coats and a slick of Seche. Long Kiss by far made my birthday that much nicer. Thank you China Glaze <3

Long Kiss Konad close up and personal.
Apologies for the blur, I blame the sherry trifle I've just consumed. Mmm trifle.

Next up, after a frankly horrible day at the office I come home to find a small box waiting for me from the lovely Jocelyn of FabulouStreet - the first of my Etailer reviewees. I'll post the actual review in the next day or so but I'm just so happy to have received this today, very very fast shipping and I will definitely purchase from her again.

Nfu Oh...kay even EU residents can have the flakies super fast!
Nfu Oh 67, 69 and lucky number 51.

I totally had to paint some Nfu 51 on my pinky before opening my birthday presents (boyfriend was less than impressed). You know you'd be the same ;) And who wouldn't? These flakies are crazy gorgeous creations made to taunt other nail polish companies into matching them... bwahaha! My kinda polish!

And on that note I shall leave you and enjoy the last half an hour of my birthday in peace with more trifle and a box set of Scrubs on the ps2. Happy Polishing!

The Not-so-Secret Project

2010-01-03T00:42:00.016+01:00

I've been on the online beauty scene for 6 years now. I started Mac Sale/Swap back in February '04 and it's been a total blast meeting so many great people with a common interest *waves to the LJ peeps* but one thing that has recently started bugging me more and more is the raw deal European residence with this particular interest get. Be it in 'Buy $50 get free shipping!" or just "sorry we don't ship there" from both personal sellers, Ebayers and Etailers and to be frank this really gets me down.

Now I know there's not a whole lot I can do on this front, if someone doesn't want to sell to us then we just need to find a way around it...

No China Glaze for you Europe!*

...So after receiving my Christmas bonus this year I've decided to be positive about the state of things do a bit of investigative research (the boyfriend on the other hand says its just an excuse for me to purchase yet more nail polish) and rating some of our favourite and not so well known Etailers to make it easier for people to decide where to shop and where is Europe friendly.

I'm just matte about you...

The idea of this experiment is thus: Order a similar weight of items from each Europe friendly Etailer (approximately 6-7 polishes) and then compare them on price, range of items available, shipping cost, customer service (i.e how long it takes to dispatch and possibly arrive depending on the state of La Poste) and packaging.

What's the point? Good question! Everyone seems to have their own preferred Etailer, and sometimes it's good to experiment (for instance Essie's matte about you is $5 cheaper on Transdesign than Head2Toebeauty) but mostly I wanted to show people that just because you don't live in the US/Canada you're not a second class citizen and we can get just as much variety polish-wise that everyone else can, you just need to know where to look. And this is one issue where I'm very prepared to put my credit card where my keyboard is! ;)

So I'll leave you with a look from a couple of weeks ago, when I was feeling fierce in blue leopard print after breaking two of my nails:

China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway with Konad Dark Blue Plate M57

* The caption to that picture isn't strictly true. There is a very small Sally's in the town near where my family lives in England which I visit religiously every time I'm home but they stock no collections just the regular CG colours (sucks!) apparently I'm infamous there.

Also the lovely China Glaze people on twitter have pointed me in the direction of L'Instituit Laugier which is apparently the only CG retailer in France (luckily a 30 min train trip from my appartment). I intend to take a trip there on my next day off and get some pics for you guys, see what they have available.

You know you have a problem when...

2009-12-30T11:37:00.017+01:00

So last night I had a dream about something that's been bothering me for a while. The hunt for the elusive, European only Chanel Holographic!

Chanel Holographic - The James Bond of nail polish

The reason why this particular polish bothers me so is that I came across it by chance earlier this month in a Sephora in Paris while showing my Mom around the city. I grabbed it and began poking through the display trying to find an actual boxed version, ha! fat chance there. So with my meagre French (and, it has to be said a lot of frantic hand gestures *blush* I may possibly have got a bit excited) I accosted an employee and asked them to locate me a bottle. Sadly of course the display bottle was the last one, it was quickly removed from my hands and put somewhere safely out of my reach and now taunts me in my sleep. C'est la vie!

I shall leave you with a few pictures I took while wandering the city that day (please excuse the quality, I had to use my iphone) and go and paint my fingers with China Glaze OMG. Who needs Chanel anyway?

The Christmas lights of Galeries La Fayette - A French store which is so big it actually has a 'Japanese only' department that will only serve Japanese tourists. I kid you not.

The king of pop now immortalised in chalk... Well, at least until it rains.

What a Long Strange Trip it's Been...

2009-12-30T00:57:00.016+01:00

Well it's been a while. Slightly longer than planned in fact, I bought a new camera about a week after my last post but something just didn't quite click so I took a time out.

Luckily I remembered to document some of my favourite nail looks these last 6 months and thus I present you with Laure's Top 5 nails of '09:

5) Color club Ultra Violet & Pure Energy with OPI Paris Couture for sure Glitter Top Coat and some random nail decos I found in Printemps.

4) Lancome Indigo & Dior Rose Borealis with Konad M61. This is the only entry in the list that doesn't contain China Glaze! Dior & Lancome are two brands I rarely go near due to their extortionate 20 Euro price tag (per bottle!!). However, I couldn't resist Indigo which is the most perfect dark blue I have to date and Rose Borealis, while on its own is a bit plain adds sparkle and a slight lilac sheen to anything you paint it on.

3) Around October I was longing for the sun so I went a bit 80s retro with China Glaze Pink Voltage & Awaken with Konad M63.

2) China Glaze Sexy in the City with OMG tips & Konad M73. My second favourite mani this year, it looked amazing in the sun and I got so many compliments on it. OMG <3

1) OPI Blue my Mind base with China Glaze Emotion & Konad M65. I really can't say a lot about this one, I think the picture speaks for itself. It's just a really really awesome combination of colours!

And that's it for now, and in fact 2009. I'll be back in 2010 with more frequent updates and pictures of my amazing Konad Christmas present. Happy New Year!

Nail Polish Blues

2009-05-09T21:19:00.006+02:00

Haven't updated for a while, mostly due to new patch in WoW and the frenzy of raiding that followed... And also because my nails are shredding faster than, hm, well something that shreds a lot.

At first I thought it was down to my base coat, someone told me that Formaldehyde causes splits and flakes. So I switched from OPI's 'Start to Finish' to Mavala 'Barrier Base Coat' which not only boasts that it "forms a protective screen against outside damaging elements, moisturises and firms the nail while maintaining its natural flexibity" and definitely contains no scary formaldehyde like ingredients. Unfortunately the situation has gotten even worse and my poor right index finger has lost 2 layers of nail from the (now very short) tip to 0.5cm down it.

OPI Start to Finish Base and Topcoat - Being lazy plays havoc with your nails.

*at this point I'd insert a picture of my index finger but 1) It looks kinda gross and 2) my camera just died. RIP my canon Ixus 80 :(*

So if you've any suggestions for base coats and nail treatments to help my poor fingerss dear readers (preferably available in Europe or from an e-tailer/ebayer) then I'd be seriously grateful.

And to end on a high, here's a picture taken for my Easter mani (note: I didn't have a dotting tool so I improvised by cutting a prong off an old hairbrush - it was hell to work with but came out pretty well I think)

Index, middle and pinkie - Zoya Yummy. Ring finger - Zoya Creamy with Juicy (purple) and Sweet (pink) spots.

Until next time readers (and I purchase a new camera), to quote Siobhan: Love and Nail polish to you.

Gniod-ab!

2009-04-08T22:04:00.007+02:00

If you're wondering about the title, that's the noise I imagine a spring would make going backwards. It was tempting fate raving about the joys of spring yesterday as this morning I was greeted with big black clouds which decided to open just as I was walking to my car.

The day continued in a similar fashion, angry clients, chipped nails, failed raids (yes I play World of Warcraft *hangs head in shame*). So coming home to find a parcel in my mailbox cheered me up immensly. The Zoya Candy collection I got on ebay arrived! Hooray my first foray into Zoya with lovely springy colours!

Grab packet, run up stairs, rip open... find one missing. Balls. It's the colour I really wanted. Big hairy balls! Message ebay seller 'Tart is missing' (at least the name was appropriate), 10 minutes later 'you have received a refund'. I don't want a refund, I want my nail polish or at least an offer of re-sending it!

Tart-less Zoya: Sweet, Yummy, Creamy, Juicy, Tangy.

RIP Tart.

Ba-doing!

2009-04-07T23:59:00.006+02:00

Well spring has truly sprung in gay Paris. Versailles is covered in Daffodils and even the usually grim atmosphere of the metro has been brighter then usual due to the cheery tunes of the buskers (including my favourite duo of man who drags a double bass on and off the trains all day accompanied by his friend on the accordian)

It's days like this when I feel like I almost fit in and can happily say Vive La France!

Scrangie just reviewed the two new Zoya collections, and I am in loooooove! Of course the minor problem is that they still haven't started to shipping to Europe, but when has that ever stopped me? I'm sure Midori, Tallulah and Pippa will be visiting an ebay near me soon! *drool*

I had a play with the colour change nail polish I mentioned in the last post this week, and was really surprised with the results. It transforms from a dark metallic gray (the twin of China Glaze's Awaken) into a deep metallic red-pink all with the addition of some top coat. Unfortunately the pictures I took didn't turn out very well so I'll try and pose some better lit shots for you next time.

Nails of the week:

China glaze Sex on the Beach with Bourjois Bleu Violet overlay, Konad M57.

Apologies for the quality of this weeks picture, the pink CG base looks only slightly like it does on my fingers. In reality Sex on the Beach is a warm dusky pink with gold shimmer and small silver glitter flecks. It is the one and only pink I currently own and totally reminds me of a gorgeous sunset.

According to my boyfriend this weeks design looks 'hooker-ish' which is praise indeed ;)

Home Sweet Home

2009-03-28T21:03:00.005+01:00

Typical that I start this blog just before I go home for a few days. Anyway I'm back with pictures and a Sally's haul to share.

I was quite sad about the lack of choice, but I made the best of it...

L2R: Emerald Sparkle, Ruby Pumps, Princess Grace, White on White, Pink Voltage, Turned up Turquoise, Aqua Baby, Tempest, Blue Sparrow and Sex on the Beach.

Sadly that was all the China Glaze goodness to be had aside from a few shades of pink that didn't really appeal to me (or apparently anyone else as they were on sale and dusty ^^)

Next up in Sally's was the OPI stand, and the latest South Beach collection just begging to be bought, although after all that CG money was a bit tight so I had to settle for the Teenie Bikinis.
L2R: Done out in Deco, Suzi and the Lifeguard, Overexposed in South Beach, Rapidry topcoat.

And the final purchase was something I randomly spotted in Boots while trying to figure out how to spend a 'free' £5 No7 gift voucher. It's called Colour Miracle and claims to change colour when you add a layer of clear varnish over it. I'm quite keen on the base colour, which is called Chocolate and is a metallic mushroomy colour and apparently turns a mid-rose shade when clear polish is added over it. I've not had the chance to test it yet, however as I'm not a huge pink fan I'll be interested to see if my topcoat affects it.

The last thing I picked up on my trip were some polishes that have been languishing in my old bedroom since I moved out and were threatened with the bin if they weren't removed. The best thing about these is I didn't even remember I had them. Everyone loves a bit of free OPI right?
L2R: Dominant Jeans, Sand-erella, Sonic Bloom, Kyoto Pearl, Go on Green, Sahara Sapphire, Greece just Blue me Away

Polish wise it was a pretty good trip, and the first thing I did after stepping off the Eurostar was playing with them and my newly arrived Konad plates but being an impatient girl I couldn't decide what colours to use so I did a different design on each hand. Apologies for the photos they're a bit rushed.
Left hand: OPI Dominant Jeans with CG Aqua Baby overlay, Konad S6

Right Hand: OPI Done out in Deco with Overexposed in South Beach overlay, Konad M64

Introduction

2009-03-15T03:31:00.000+01:00

Hi! I'm Laure, and welcome to my nailblog.

I'd like to blame people like Scrangie and Misa for revitalising my interest in my nails, however if I'm honest I've been painting them on and off since I was 10 and got told off in gym class for having pink and purple striped toenails. From 11 onwards I spent all my pocket money on 'Spectacular' nail polish (hehe, can't believe I still remember the brand name) and made it my goal to wear at least three colours a week.

Unfortunately when I became a teenager I got lazy and went through a black phase, as most teenagers do, and it wasn't til the grand old age of 24 stumbling across Scrangie's beautiful pictures I felt truly inspired again. And so came the time, and expense and utter bliss of coloured fingertips.

And Konad! Why didn't they have Konad nail stamps when I was 11? I've only attempted two looks with them so far, but they look and feel fabulous.

My main issue at the moment is that I live in France, and not only is there a language barrier (and yes ok that's my fault, I'm terrible at remembering languages) there but a nail polish barrier. I'd love to know if there are actually suppliers out there that will sell me China Glaze, Color Club and Opi without having to pay extortionate shipping fees to Head2toebeauty.com (no matter how timely their deliveries may be!). When I had a similar issue with my MAC cosmetics habit, I set up a community on livejournal - Mac Sale/Swap however, there are very few people with nail polish as their interests. It's a quandry I try and resolve by going home to England every few months and blowing almost a month's salary in Sally's Hair and Beauty. My boyfriend is not impressed.

Anyway dear reader, that is me and I hope you'll stick around to see what I can do.

Contact Me!

2009-03-12T23:59:00.002+01:00

If you have any questions about this blog or just want to get in touch with me, my email address is polishedupblog [at] gmail [dot] com

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iShop!

2009-03-12T17:39:00.001+01:00

Here's some of my favourite online stores that also offer international shipping!

iSwap!

2009-03-12T17:37:00.005+01:00

As an international blogger it's hard to get my hands on some of the things I'd really like to try, so here's my list of things I'm really after, and if you're interested in organising a swap please just let me know. ^^;