Color Club The Uptown

This polish is from the Fall 2013 Girl about Town collection. 

 

It's a blurple jelly base with flakies that reflect bronze, red and green; maybe not unique (Layla Butterfly Effect and NFU Oh 51 spring to mind for starters) but jaw dropping all the same.

 

I used four coats (I do with most polishes as my nail line seems to be particularly prominent) and one of Seche. These photos were taken outdoors in the shade.

 

 

 

 

 

I was still gawping at it when I came inside so took another photo in the kitchen which shows the sparkle in the flakies well:

 

 

It was thick and fairly challenging to apply but dried quickly with the Seche.  Without it though, I think I could have been in trouble.

 

I compared it to NFU Oh 51:

 

 

They look very similar in their bottles, here are the swatches over a coat of black on the nail wheel:

 

 

 

NFU Oh on the left, and Color Club on the right.

 

The flakes in the NFU Oh are more refined, sit flatter on the nail and are smoother and slightly less dense.  The base of NFU Oh 51 leans red purple and the Color Club is a bluey purple, and is far gloopier and trickier to apply than the NFU Oh.  

 

Bearing in mind the price and availability of NFU Oh 51 I'd say The Uptown is a better buy, back up worthy if you're a flakies fanatic!

 

 

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.