H&M ~ Various polishes

H&M ~ Various polishes

Petrol Sky, Peacock Glitter, Scarlett Purple, Skyscraper, Poppy Red, Golden Days

I bought this set of six polishes in the January sales in Sweden. I had actually seen them here in Denmark as well, but gave them a miss. But they were on special, so I thought I would give them a go anyway. H & M polishes are usually either hit or miss: They either really good or crap. These ones turned out to be good, yay.

The pack consisted of six polishes: Three glitters, a shimmer and two crellies.

Let me show you a crelly first: Petrol Sky.

It’s a mix between a crème and a jelly, and to be brutally honest, that’s usually not my favourite finish. This one was easy to apply though and covered really well. Two coats is what it took to make this baby shine to the maxx! Take a look:

Let me emphasize that I’m not wearing a topcoat on these pics!

Then I applied a glitter: Peacock Glitter.

That’s basically blue and green glitters in a clear base. I made a reverse glitter gradient on four of my nails and applied glitter on the entire ring finger nail as an accent nail. I finished the mani off with a layer of topcoat and here’s the final result:

Verdict:

I was surprised over how much I like Petrol Sky. Squishy is what it is! And so easy to apply! Thumbs up for that one. At first I thought Peacock Glitter was too sparse for my likings, but it isn’t. Sometimes it’s nice to not have glitter all over the place. And no, you can’t quote me on that, hahaha!!

Moving right on to Scarlett Purple.

That’s a dark red crème leaning blue – hence the “purple” in the name I guess.

That’s also a beauty, and it actually covered in one coat! I applied a second one to make sure that my camera, harsh observer that she is, wouldn’t pick up bare spots I couldn’t see with the naked eye.

Here’s what two coats and no topcoat look like:

You can see on the first pic that the polish actually dries up darker on the nails than it looks in the bottle. I don’t mind that one bit!

I paired it with Skyscraper, the silver/holo glitter of the bunch.

I just applied a layer of glitter over the entire nails. I sealed the whole thing up with a layer of topcoat as usual. Here’s what that looks like:

Verdict:

Scarlett Purple also surprised me. It’s much prettier on the nails than in the bottle, and application was so easy. Skyscraper is a to go silver/holo glitter that can’t offend anybody.

Poppy Red is the shimmer of the bunch. It’s a Christmas red with golden shimmer. It’s just as easy to apply and covered just as well, perfect! Two coats made this shiny and pretty – take a look:

No topcoat yet – but look how shiny this is. Shiny is good, right?

I paired it with Golden Days, the golden glitter of the bunch. I’m not usually a fan of golden as you probably know, but I think this collection came out around Christmas time, and it’s hard to get around a Christmas collection without a golden touch, isn’t it. And this glitter is actually ok.

I made a glitter gradient on four of my nails, and applied the glitter all over my ring finger nail as an accent nail.

A layer of topcoat finished the mani off, and here’s what that ended up looking like.

Verdict:

Poppy Red is a classic Christmas red, and I am really fond of this type of red. Golden Days is a good allround golden glitter. It suits the red perfectly in my not overwhelmingly humble opinion.

Overall this is a great collection of polishes, and they are really good value for money, especially when on special!

Divage Cosmic ~ 9806

Divage Cosmic ~ 9806 

Petrel blue with silver shimmer

Here’s another Divage polish from sweet Anastasia from Little World of Coloured Nails. I was very excited to see if this one was just as impressively good as its sister, 9805 (Click here to see her).

I can reveal it right away: It was just as good. Great formula, fantastic pigmentation. Dryng time was just as slow as 9805, but it dries up beautifully, and then I’m very forgiving. The brush isn’t the easiest one to work with, because the handle is so small and weird to hold. But it’s manageable.

 I applied one coat to achieve this look:

There’s no top coat involved just yet, but man, this polish is pretty! Here’s a pic from another angle:

Then I used my light blue striper from Color Club called “Blue Chrome” – and that’s exactly the colour it has. I made 3-4 stripes on the top of each nail, and then I sponged some glitter from Amour on the tips. The glitter is called “Silver Stars”. And then I topped it all with Poshé top coat, and my mani was done!

Bottle shot:

I’m very impressed with Divage polishes so far. The biggest downside is the drying time. I’m not that good at just sitting around and wait for it to dry, but hey – sometimes it’s just worth it, you know?

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 9/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Summer Challenge Day 26: Inspired by a pattern

Summer Challenge Day 26: Inspired by a pattern

Patterns, eh? I googled patterns, and there’s quite a lot to choose between. After a lot of browsing, I decided to go for none of them :D 
Instead I went pattern-hunting in my own house. And after having browsed from room to room I ended up with something useful. I’ll get back to what it was at the end of this post.

The finished manicure ended up looking like this: 

 I used “Deeper Dive” by Spoiled. It’s a teal, shimmery jelly with small flakies in it, and it is opaque in two very easy coats. I love the polishes from Spoiled, even though the fat brushes can be a challenge to work with. Here are two coats of Deeper Dive – without any top coat on.

I stamped with a no name silver stamping polish and I used the bubble motif from Mash’s stamping plate #50. I really like how this mani came out! 

 Are you curious about where my inspiration came from? Or have you guessed it already?

Here’s my inspiration:

My shower curtain! :D

I had in mind to make the rings with a drinking straw dipped in polish, but my nails are too curved for that, even though I have never thought of them as particularly curved. I didn’t manage to make one single ring with the straw, no matter how hard I tried. So thank god for stamping plates, when everything else fails!

There are other Danish girls who also did a “inspired by a pattern” mani today. It’ll be very interesting to hear where they found their inspiration, so why don’t we check their blogs out?

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for nails inspired by artwork!

HOT Makeup ~ Petrol Blue

HOT Makeup ~ Petrol Blue

A petrel blue crème

and

Klean Color ~ City never sleeps

A clear jelly packed with teal glitter and larger pink and gold hexagons

HOT Makeup is a very cheap brand here, not very common, but sometimes available in the larger supermarkets. They usually have a lot of (to me) uninteresting colours, but I fell for this petrel blue (and yes, it’s called Petrol Blue).. I thought it was a great colour, and if the formula wasn’t much good, I imagined I might be able to use it for stamping.

I wanted to test it out, so I applied one coat, and it covered perfectly, and I mean *perfectly*. The appropriate word here is ‘impressed’. The formula is a bit on the thick side, but it was *so* easy to work with and covered the nail without streaks or bald spots.

Here is one coat. One!

Had I wanted to stamp on it, I might have added a second coat, just to smooth out the surface perfectly, but I had other plans for this baby: Klean Color’s “City never sleeps”. 

This glitter is in a very thick jelly, which I imagine will be on the tricky side to work with after a little while as the polish get older. But for a fresh bottle of polish it was great. The glitter spread out evenly without any problems whatsoever.

The only con is that it leaves the surface very bumpy, so it needed two generous coats of Poshé top coat to even it out nicely.

I’m pleased with this. Very pleased indeed.

HOT Makeup ~ Petrol Blue

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9.25/10
Buy again: Yes

Klean Color ~ City never sleeps

Opacity: 2/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: Yes