Polish round up – Brown and Gold

You may have noticed an increased effort on my part to stop spending recently. It’s going pretty well. The last cosmetics I bought were a little Sleek haul on the 27^th December. If I can get to the end of December without parting with any more pennies it’ll be a big achievement. Long story short I’m focusing on paying off some student debt. Anyhoo boring stuff over, as part of my ‘enjoy what you have’ project I wanted to go through and have a look at what nail polish I already have in an effort to dissuade myself from going out and buying any more similar colours. These are the browns and gold’s I’ve accumulated. First with flash and then without. 

From left to righ we have; Diamond Cosmetics Yukon Gold, Orly Rage, L’Oréal 395, Collection 2000 Foxy, Little Rose (got this in Thailand, no idea what it’s called), OPI Sand In My Suit, Barry M Dusky Mauve, China Glaze Ingrid, Barry M Chocolate Brown, Nails Inc Jermyn Street, Barry M Mushroom, Essie Mink Muffs. 

All of these are 2-3 coats with no top coat. The purple shimmer in Dusky Mauve isn’t as apparent here as it is in real life, trust me it is there really. Some of these colours are very similar too however none are exact dupes of each other. Oh and please excuse the cat fluff in the back ground. That rug was literally washed 24 hours before those pics were taken but madam decided it needed to be fluffy again.  I hope this is useful in comparing some of the more popular brownish shades out there. Any other colours you’d like to see a roundup of? 

*Sadly I bought all of these myself apart from Jermyn Street which was free in a magazine*

NOTD: OPI Blushingham Palace

Again with the work appropriate nails... Yawn. I suppose if anything is going to be office friendly it’s going to be a polish from the ‘Classics’ range. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fab polish. It’s just that pinks aren’t really my thing.

Blushingham Palace is a rich shimmery rose shade with a gold sheen. The gold makes it a little more interesting than a straight up pink. This is three coats.



The wear on this is fab. I don’t worry about going away for a couple of days on business and looking raggedy before I get back which makes it a practical choice for a busy work week.

Before I fall totally out of love with painting my nails let me know in the comments what shades OTHER THAN PINK you think are appropriate for the office. Any suggestions for polishes or even just colour palettes would be greatly appreciated! X

*I bought this myself. The disclosure policy is in the menu on the left*

Attempts at Nail Art

I’m not the best at nail art but I like to mess about a bit. I did my nails with OPI Sand in my Suit and decided I didn’t like the colour on me so I popped some Famous Suede Effects in shade 26 over the top to break it up a bit. Not content with that I then decided to throw some nail art stickers on too. I was sent these by Born Pretty Store and was keen to have a play with them. 

Next time I would pair them with a more flattering colour combination but I do like the stickers themselves. They look cute and I do love all things Chanel (and my initials are CC!). With a top coat over them they stayed put for the couple of days that I wore the manicure. You can clearly see that my shaky hands are no good at free handing designs so stickers are an easy alternative that don’t require any effort. 

You can find the stickers here with each sheet costing between $4.66-$5.23 depending on how many you buy. There are plenty of other designs to have a peek at too. The Hello Kitty ones are adorable! Remember if you do make an order there is a discount code over to your right on my blog x

*Stickers were sent free for review consideration. My opinion is honest as always regardless of whether I paid for a product or not*

OPI Nail Envy

*First section written on 26th June*
The drama of my horrible nails is well documented in here. I love doing NOTD posts but recently my nails have been too disgusting to inflict them on the world. Over the last two months I have finished exams, started a new job, gotten married and graduated. Ordinarily I never bite my nails however when I’m stressed I have no idea I’m doing it. That disgusting habit, along with damage from false nails, means currently I have thin flaky horrid nubbins. This picture is not for the faint of heart.

Ew. Having tried Nail Dr (it was ok, no miracle worker) and many other cheaper options I have finally caved and shelled out the £18 for OPI Nail Envy. They have a variety of different formulas catering for different nail ailments. Brittle, thin, peeling, soft nails. This was a problem. I’m D – all of the above. So I went with the original formula. It’s a milky colour in the bottle but goes on clear and glossy.
The instructions say to paint 2 layers on and then add a layer every 2 days. At the end of the week take it all off and start again. It dries very quickly (quicker than normal OPI polishes) so it isn’t a huge chore to keep topping it up.

After two weeks of religious use these were the results. Better isn’t it?
I’ve been filing my nails quite a lot to get rid of the damaged parts. My nails generally grow pretty fast so the damaged nail from the fake plastic wedding nails has now reached half way up the nail bed. I reckon another 3-4 weeks and it will be totally grown out.

They aren’t peeling which is amazing considering how flaky they normally are. They are still thin and flexible but I suppose they will be until the damage has grown out. All in all I’m impressed. Again it isn’t a miracle worker but it has worked better than anything else I have tried. I still think £18 is a bit steep but I’m prepared to buy another bottle once I get through this one. As a result stay tuned for some more NOTD posts! Xx

*I bought the above product with my own money. I always give my honest opinion of a product. For further info see my disclaimer in the menu on the left*

A Few Quick Corals

Hello, all! I know that I've been somewhat MIA this week. Work has been so stressful that I've just been coming home and basically crashing! I'm hoping that the long weekend will do me a world of good, but you can't start summer without a manicure and pedicure! To me corals just scream summer, and these are the ones I'm really loving lately.

Sephora by OPI How Cute is That- this is a pinkish coral with a pink pearl.

SPARITUAL Miss World looks pink in the bottle but has a definite coral undertone.

Essie Carousel Coral is a gorgeous melon. It makes a great pedicure coral on my pale skin but would definitely offset deeper tones nicely.

OPI My Chihuahua Bites is a hot coral color. It's the perfect shade for those who admire this season's neon nail trned but aren't quite ready to go that bold.

NOTD – OPI Off With Her Red!

This is a classic 50’s style red with orange leanings. I love this kind of red. It’s classic, strong but not vampy and it suits my skin tone. Unfortunately I only have a miniature bottle of this so I’ve ‘hand modelled’ with some cuticle oil to avoid giant hand syndrome.





The application is a little patchy and it isn’t the quickest drying polish. I have two coats on here, I could have done with three on some nails but I don’t want to use it up too fast! That said, whilst I do love this red I can’t help feeling that when it does run out I will be able to find a dupe fairly easily. The wear was pretty good too with minimal tip wear until I chipped my right index finger at the end of day two (no reflection on the polish. This nail is so weak it bends and splits every polish I put on).

Quite a few people have commented, and I agree with them, that it seems such a waste to have two reds in the Alice collection. I would have rather seen a mad colour for the Cheshire cat personally. If I has to choose between this and Thanks so Muchness I would choose this every time. The colour is more wearable for me.
On a random note whilst my nails are still stumps my cuticles are a lot tidier! Huzzah!

OPI Happy Anniversary

I don't own this and I am gutted because it is just enough gleam and glitter to say "I am in a happy mood" but not too much to scream "whhooo, look at me...oh no I have to remove it and don't have any tin foil in the house" See here if you don't know what the 'ecky peck I am going on about.

Lovely apart from the nick that is on my little finger - grrrr