Coloristiq || Review/Unboxing

Firstly I want to apologise that I've been M.I.A. for a week as university well and truly got on top of me and I've been super stressed out. It was between putting up scrambled half hearted posts or taking a week off so I opted for the latter and I hope you don't mind but now I'm back. It's the first 'break' I've ever taken from my blog since starting over a year ago and I really missed it!

Now we all know by now that I'm not a massive fan of beauty boxes, aside from My Little Box no other beauty box has appealed to me as anything more than glorified samples. However, I discovered this brand Coloristiq who have quite possibly created one of the best concepts for a beauty box, ever.

If you're anything like me then you'll probably have a massive nail polish collection but not one of them is finished, in fact not one of them is even close to being finished because you constantly add new colours and brands to your collection. This is all good and well but it's also a pretty expensive habit to keep up so Coloristiq essentially offer a nail polish rental service on a monthly basis.

Every month you get sent 3 nail polishes from your wish list that you create on their website. You get to apply 2 coats per application and 3 applications per bottle which is their fair use policy. For me when I paint my nails I mostly use three coats generally unless it's a pigmented polish but of course you could do three coats and only use each bottle twice. However, with my polishes all three of the nail varnishes I received were perfectly wearable with two coats, maybe I need to up the quality of the polishes in my collection! I wear nail polish all the time and usually can get a week out of polishes when they're high quality brands like this so nine applications of nail polish a month is definitely more than necessary to get by on these polishes alone.

They also work with high quality salon brands, as much as I love my Barry M gelly's, it doesn't really compare next to Essie, China Glaze and OPI. In my box I received this stunning coral colour from China Glaze which is called 'More To Explore' a beautiful purple metallic shade by Essie in 'the lace is on and a silver metallic by OPI in 'Birthday Babe'. I have waited to post this review until I had tried every single one of the polishes and now I have and can truly say all three have made it up there on my list of favourite nail polishes.

One of the best things about this box is that I would never have picked up 'Birthday Babe' in a shop cause it doesn't strike me as my sort of colour but actually on the nails it's really beautiful. The brand gives you a chance to not only try shades you're lusting after but ones you don't want to invest in but want to try out. Coloristiq even hygienically clean the bottles so that you know that despite different people using them there aren't any germs or nasties on them.

I did intend to take pictures of all three polishes on my nails but I'm so bad at painting my nails I can't do the polishes justice. However, if you pay close attention to past and future posts you may notice these three beauties on my nails!

The only negative I have with this is one that you have to be in to get the parcel, if it was an inch or two smaller it would fit through the letter box and our post office is a nightmare to get parcels from if you work full time/student full time. I also do wish that it was a box that sent you three nail varnishes a month to keep however that would only add to my ever growing nail varnish collection so its probably a good job they don't!

The subscription costs £14.49 a month and that includes postage and packaging, once your month is up you repackage the polishes, stick on the pre-paid label and pop it in your nearest postbox. I think I will definitely be subscribing to this service as soon as I've got through some of my massive nail varnish collection.

What do you think of Coloristiq?

Lots of Love,

♥

* Post done in collaboration with Coloristiq but as always all views are my own.

Christmas Nail Polishes || Blogmas Day 22

 I love getting my nails done but after having both gels and acrylics done I've always found my nails dry, brittle and extremely weak for a long time afterwards. I didn't want to have the expense of having to continually get gel/acrylics on to hide the brittleness so I made the decision to not get them done again - for a while anyway. Therefore that means even for special occasions where previously I'd have got my nails done I just do them myself despite being absolutely awful at painting my nails.

However ramble over I have picked out my favourite polishes that I own that I think would look perfect for the Christmas season. You don't necessarily have to have these exact shades but if you just have similar shades in your collection then hopefully it will give you some inspiation.

This polish I have a love/hate relationship because I absolutely love the colour and it is perfect for Christmas time. However, Tanya Burr's polishes just don't get on with my nails they chip within a few days so if I'm wearing this for Christmas I would definitely be painting my nails on Christmas eve to make sure they were still nice. It's a gorgeous purple colour with a slight shimmer through it, if anyone knows of any better dupes for this colour then please let me know.

Another one is a bit of a random one, I got it in a nail polish set last year and it's this black shade with loads of shimmer through it. I love it on my nails because I think it looks like a starry sky albeit a really, really starry sky and I especially love this for New Year. I think it's a Champneys one which I've never really heard of before but I'm sure you can find it online somewhere.

I love a red nail polish at Christmas almost as much as I love a red lip. I just think theres something so classy about red nails and a red lip. I have quite a few red polishes but my number one favourite is OPI Big Apple Red which is basically like Russian Red by MAC in nail polish form.

If you're not big on reds a nice take on the colour is a raspberry pink shade. My favourite is Barry M's gelly polish in Pomegranate which doesn't look exactly like gel nails but it's glossier than the average nail polish. Barry M raspberry is also a really nice shade for this time of year.

Glitter, glitter, glitter. As a general rule I avoid glitter polishes on my finger nails because it's a horror to get off as anyone who has ever had glitter polish on will tell you. However, this is the time of year where I make an exception because it's so seasonal and pretty. I usually go for a gold or a silver at least on my ring finger or if I'm feeling adventurous then I'll do all fingers glittery. My favourite silver is Which is Witch by OPI from the Wizard of Oz collection and my fave gold glitter is Barry M's yellow topaz glitter.

 Another take on the glittery look is a metallic nail polish which I like to think of as the easier to remove version of glitter polish. My favourite two are the Crabtree & Evelyn ones, I have a silver one and a gold one and I think both look really pretty on their own or layered over the top of a block colour polish.

 As always I wear Orly glosser top coat over all these polishes to make them extra glossy and shiny which helps me not miss my gel nails (as much). What are your favourite nail looks/polishes for this time of year?

Lots of Love,

♥

JFK Nails

I absolutely love getting my nails done, it's one of my favourite things to do because I am terrible at painting my own nails so getting someone to do them for me is a real luxury. I also absolutely love gel nails and acrylics but they're obviously not the best thing for your nails so I'm on a break from them for the foreseeable.

 I was invited to an event at the JFK salon near the meadows in Edinburgh and the lovely nail girl there Katie did my nails for me. I went for a standard nail polish because like I say I'm on a break from gel nails and I was so surprised at how amazing they turned out.

 I wasn't sure what to go for so I let Katie do whatever colour she wanted and she said she was going to make my nails have a lovely cosmic effect. She first put a black essie polish on and then applied this lovely shimmery top coat which I must find out the name of because the two together looked incredible. It gave a lovely duo chrome effect, in some lights it looked purple and in others it looked a stunning electric blue.

 I've had so many compliments on these nails and they looked very much like gel nails even though they aren't. If you live in the Edinburgh area and want your nails done I'd 100% recommend Katie Jane from the JFK salon, the one on Bruntsfield Place, because she's such a lovely, chatty girl and does one of the best jobs I've ever had done on my nails. I get my nails done a lot and there's only two girls in Edinburgh that I've had them done by that I'd recommend! The other being the lovely Suzanne from Bo Chic in Portobello. I will definitely be back to get my nail fix again soon!

Katie Jane's facebook page

Lots of Love,

♥

Barry M Pastel Gelly's || Haul & Mini Review

Helllooo my lovelies,

I'm sure by now you'll all know that Barry M have released three new Gelly colours into their range. I absolutely love Barry M gelly polishes and I love pastel colours so when I found out these new colours were coming out I was super duper excited! I feel like I've been waiting for these polishes forever and when they were released I still couldn't find them anywhere. I went touring round all my local beauty stores and none had them and neither did Tesco so I ended up ordering them from Boots online instead. I also picked up another Gelly polish I've had my eye on called 'Guava' because they were on buy one get one half price.

 The new shades are a pastel Green, a duck egg blue and a off white pink that's similar to Essie's fiji. My ultimate favourite of the three is 'Huckleberry' which is a gorgeous name and the duck egg blue shade is absolutely beautiful especially for Spring! It goes well with a lot of clothes that I have and I love when my nails match my outfit. The formula of this was perfect, just the exact same as my other Gelly polishes and it took about 3/4 days before chipping without a top coat.

 'Sugar Apple' is the mint pastel green shade which again has an amazing name. When I wore this on my nails it came out a lot brighter than I expected and it is more of a blue-toned green but it is a lovely shade. I was less impressed with the lasting of this one as it chipped within 2 days but I'm hoping this will improve with use of a top coat and hopefully it was just a one off.

The last shade is 'Rose hip' and I haven't actually tried this yet but it looks a lovely shade in the bottle. I can already tell that it'll look amazing with a tan and it'll be a go to nail polish if I want something that'll go with every outfit or I'm not sure which nail polish colour to go for.

Have you tried any of the new Gelly polishes? Which shade is your favourite?

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Lots of Love,

A x x x