Sation Most Likely Not to Chip

(And a sorry tale of poor customer service...)

I guess the name is a play on mint choc chip, but it took a bit of lateral thinking for that to fit into place, to me it seems like a fairly stupid name (says the lady who owns a bottle of Gelish Oocha Coocha Bing Bam Alakazy Alakazam!).

The shade number is 9025, it's a pearly bright mint.

 

A shimmery pearly finish, no surprises on the nail, its true to the shade in the bottle.

 

For these photos I used three coats with one of Seche:

 

I'm struggling to say nice things about this polish, not because I don't like it, but probably because I had a bad experience with Sation (aka Miss Professional Nail), and it left a nasty taste in my mouth.

A few months back I purchased a bottle of Sation Oh My Oceania from US supplier Pretty Little Nails.com and on delivery it had separated and settled.  Despite shaking it profusely, turning and swirling it and letting it rest (for over a week) to allow the colours to disperse, it remained in the state as shown:

 

 

 Ewwww....

The colour at the front of the bottle is a yellowy green mottled crème, whilst at the back it's a mid blue pearl. When swatched it has a totally flat matte finish and looks nothing like other swatches that I looked at before I ordered.

The colour of the polish at the front of the bottle.....

 

and at the back....

 

I emailed Pretty Little Nails, attaching the above photos and asked them if they would be so kind as to look into this for me, as the polish is clearly defective and unusable.

After much following up due to non response, I was eventually told that they had contacted Miss Professional Nail/Sation who apparently wouldn't accept responsibility, so to compensate Pretty Little Nails offered me a whopping 10% off a future purchase. Yeah, right - because that really makes up for a total waste of money on a polish I can't use........  
Caveat emptor.

H&M Wintersky

With silvery multichromes being hot stuff this Autumn (I'm thinking Essie's For the Twill of it and OPI's Peace Love and OPI in particular), I had to give this one a try, it was just £2.99 from H&M.

It has a pale silver base with lime and pink soft duochrome flashes. This is three coats with a coat of Seche.

 

 

 

 There are silver sparkles in there too.

Maybe notsohotso against my pasty white skin, but I wore it again recently with a bit of a summer glow going on and it looked a whole lot more flattering.

I think H&M polishes are overlooked on the whole, they have some amazing glass flecked and shimmer polishes, and the odd pretty glitter here and there too.  Naturally I didn't leave the shop with just the one (addicts, do we ever ?) when I bought Wintersky so I have a few more to share another time.

Anybody have For the Twill of it or Peace Love & OPI to let me know how this one compares?

OPI More Than A Glimmer

This is half of OPIs Pink of Hearts Breast Cancer Awareness Duo for 2013,  I chose to buy just the glitter, the other shade is a pretty pink crème called Pink-ing of you. If you buy the duo set it comes with little crystals and the Breast Cancer Ribbon symbol decals too.

This is layered this over Anny Never Can Say Goodbye, a silvery foil. I chose this rather that a pink crème for two reasons, I'm not really a pink person; and I was already wearing the Anny when this one arrived and I couldn't wait to get it on my nails!

I can't fathom why this polish excited me - I don't like pink much, I like my glitter to be uber sparkly and I'm not a massive OPI fan. But I saw this online and was desperate to get my mitts on it (as the poor chap at Nail Polish Direct can testify. I think they call it harassment these days.......).

It's a grown up glitter. A greyed, muted milkshake pink sheer base, with dense matte glitters in pink, gold, green and silver varying in size from small to tiny. 

It doesn't have the usual slightly rough finish of a matte polish - it's gentle and almost silky, I'd call it eggshell. Both of the above pictures are just one coat without topcoat as I liked the feel of it just as it was.

 

Here it is with a thin layer of Seche, although I think a matte top coat would have worked better:

 

 

My youngest son wanted a closer look, so I showed him the pretty colours.  He clearly agrees that it's one tasty polish. Ouchy.

 

Love & Beauty Purple Multi

Not the most imaginative name for a polish but a real stunneroo:

When my sister last visited the States a few weeks back, she gave me the address of her hotel and happily agreed to accept parcel deliveries to bring back to the UK. (She was however, a tad surprised at the size of some of the aforementioned parcels ).  I ordered 'quite a few' of these Love & Beauty polishes from Forever21.  They work out at about £1.50 each for a generous 14ml bottle, hence the large order.......

Apparently there are Forever21 shops in the UK and a UK website, but for some reason they don't sell polish at all. That's really disappointing as some of the Love & Beauty polishes offer something a bit different and rather indie-esque.

It has a plummy purple jelly base with silver, gold, pale pink, green and blue medium sized hex glitters.  The edges of the hexes aren't well defined and as I look down at my nails it resembles dot glitter. 

The consistency was gluey, sticky and thick, but it applied surprisingly well, these photos show just two coats. 
I normally really struggle with jellies and crellies; the base is either so sheer that I need a multitude of coats to cover the nail line and the layers of glitter disappear into a porridge of thick polish, or the base is too thick and although gives good coverage the glitter is obscured by the base and any depth is lost.

This one was perfect, the depth is visible and the jelly encases the glitter and gives a glossy glassy finish. A thick coat of Seche was necessary to smooth, but enhanced the glassy look.

If you're lucky enough to be visiting the States any time soon, I'd seriously recommend checking this range out.

Anny Never Can Say Goodbye (Shade 465)

This really isn't a colour I'd normally pick, but the tiny pink and silver sparkles in this warm buff toned foil like polish shone out in mesmerizing fashion.  The deal was sealed - it plopped into the basket, despite the Communards' high pitched sing - a - linging in my head, accompanied by visions of Somerville shaking his pert little arse in high belted pale denim jeans.  This should have been my signal to say goodbye to the Anny, but I failed to take heed..............

 

So I tried three coats, no joy,  I knew I'd need four - I have other Anny polishes and they're all fairly sheer and don't build up well.  But buying an Anny on holiday is like buying a souvenir, I know they're tricky to use but I also know that I'll come back with one. 

There are the sparkles, trapped inside the bottle.  I see silver sparkles on my nails, but no pink.

 

 

 

 

It warms up a bit in the sunshine, and there's the merest suggestion of pink but ultimately it looks pretty much like a standard pale silver foil.

 

I doubt it'll grace my nails again, but as souvenirs go I guess it beats a donkey with a straw hat!

Holiday Haul

Yesterday I travelled back from North Brabant in the Netherlands where I'd enjoyed a fantastic week with our 6 children, and just a wee spot of polish shopping.....

We've been to this area a few times already so I had a good idea of what brands would be available in the Oosterhout, in the local town.  It's worth mentioning that shopping in Holland is so much more pleasurable for me than in the UK - although Oosterhout doesn't appear to be a particularly affluent area and has a few discount stores, there are no boarded up empty shops, charity shops, amusement arcades, bookmakers or take away joints on the high street.  Most of the shops are small, the only department type store is HEMA (think Woolworths in IKEA style!).
The boys aren't shoppers, so I'm able to drive into town with my daughters whilst they stay playing happily at the holiday park with Dad, leaving my daughters and I free to stroll at leisure.

In addition to a large under cover shopping centre there's a bustling high street, where I was surprised to find a small C&A which I thought bit the dust years ago.........!

 

Oosterhout on a busy Saturday afternoon

 

 

Anyway, on to the polish.

 

I shop in a small chemist in the undercover shopping centre which sells Pupa, Herome, Da, Savina and Collistar in addition to brands available in the UK such as Max Factor, Rimmel, L'oreal and the entire range of W7.

 

I also go into Douglas, which sells high end fragrance and cosmetics, and polishes such as their own brand Absolute, NYX, Anny, Collistar and Beyu.

I adore Douglas, they always offer to gift wrap your shopping (no charge) and put little samples in with your purchases.  The girls in the shop are also keen to practise their English - as this area isn't really marketed towards Brits not everyone here speaks English.

 

The Dutch equivalent of UK chain Savers is Kruidvat; they sell essence, Catrice, Rimmel, L'Oreal and Max Factor.  I also needed some deodorant (there's always one packing failure!) and found gorgeous smelling Bourjois antiperspirants in here too.

 

Here's what I came home with:

 

Essence Polish Removers: Coconut and Papaya (which smells like that first alcopop you tried when you were 14) and Strawberry and Passion Fruit which smells overwhelmingly of acetone with just a hint of strawberry. 

Essence Caring Nail Oil

Essence Nail Art Tattoo Pen

Catrice Polishes in Pimp my Shrimp, Lilactric, I Got the Flower (Limited Edition Shade from the Glamazona collection), Miss Piggy's BF, Petrolpolitan (which is hiding its gorgeous blue shimmer in the photo) and a new shade called Mermaid my Day.

Rimmel Cocktail Colour in Cutie Colada (not available in the UK for some reason) and Anny Never Can Say Goodbye

Beyu Shimmering Top Coats in 784, 787, 760 and 752

 

A close up of the glitters in 760 and 752

 

I also ventured into the nearby city of Breda as the local Kruidvat didn't have any of the peel off gel nail base, or the regular peel off base that I was looking for.  I did find the gel base but alas, none of the regular peel off was to be found.

 

Breda's an interesting city, my daughter and I walked in via the theatre and arty quarter and could have spent hours moseying around in the narrow streets.  I thought I might stumble across Sephora, but not this time.  To be perfectly honest we were quite happy taking in the scenery and architecture.

 

 

Can you blame us?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ninja Polish Chameleon

This is a polish that I was eagerly awaiting once I'd ordered it, it's from Ninja's new 'Dragon' collection http://www.ninjapolish.com/Dragon-c-359/.  I'm also the proud owner of 'Enter the Dragon' which I'll share soon.

I love Ninja's own polishes, they rarely fail to disappoint and usually offer a little something more exciting, unusual or unique; which is probably why they're rather frustratingly more often out of stock than in.

This one is a mix of fine indigo, bronze and magenta glitter, being heavy on the indigo.

 

I was expecting a tint of colour in in the base, but it's clear - I was a tad worried as I started to apply it as the coverage was looking a bit dodgy, but built up albeit a bit lumpily after three generous coats.

In the sunshine the sparkly indigo is dominant and the bronze and magenta are hiding.....

 

       

 

Indoors or in the shade however, the bronze in particular makes a comeback:

 

 



 

The magenta glitter's struggling, and makes only the briefest of appearances which is a shame, I would like to have seen a stronger presence. It's also visibly uneven despite two coats of Seche.

 

Overall, I'd say I was slightly disappointed with this polish, but that may be partly due to the fact that my expectations were possibly too high and with it being newly released there weren't a whole lot of swatches or reviews to check out prior to purchase.  It's still unique and interesting, and its glitter shades would make it a sultry autumnal polish.