Unboxing: Nailboxuk September

Hello :)
I wasn't kidding when I said I had a back log of products to get through!  Moving on to the next I have Septembers Nailboxuk.

This months theme was creepy colours for Halloween coming up.  When I heard the choosen theme for the month I was so sure they were going to include a glow in the dark type polish, such as China Glaze Ghoulish Glow.  Though this was not the case I was still impressed with the items contained in the box.

Firstly you find a set of 6 nail brushes.  These seem good quality and give you the basic tools needed for nail art; dotting tool, short striper, long striper, fan brush, small flat headed brush and a larger flat headed brush.  You can see these in closer detail in my youtube video (Nala Nails on youtube).

Secondly there is a Toughflex Base Coat by Elegant touch.  Nailbox works closely with this company and has provided a few other items from them so far in their monthly choices.  The products I've used so far from Elegant Touch get my personal thumbs up.

First polish of the box is Taxi Cab by True Brit London.  The first thing I can't help but notice is the weight of this polish bottle!  It's very heavy for a 10ml bottle but you can see the thickness of the glass in it.  I had never heard of this brand before so did a little research on it.  I found out that they are a 6-free polish (never heard of one being 6 free before, only 5).  

 For first impressions on this brand - I'm truely impressed.  Though the bottle is heavy it does give the polish a certain feel of elegance around it.  You know that you are not just getting a cheap £1 low quality polish.  All their polish retails at £12.50 and I have to say with the quality of it, the price tag is acceptable.

True Brit London  

Secondly we have Nails Inc Queen Victoria Street.  The thing that I am finding with all the other Nails Inc polishes I've tried to date, is that they are very good one-coaters.  This one is no exception, though like always I did two coats for my pictures.  It's a beautiful emerald green

 

 The last polish is my favorite (cos it's purple!).  This is Sinful Pro Shine in the colour Show Off.  At first when I saw the name I thought it was a part of the brand Sinful Color but it's not.  I googled it to find out its actually a brand in its own right.

You can see the shimmer in the polish with this macroshot.  These polishes retail for £5.95.  It was also a very good one-coater and application was nice and smooth.  I did do a second coat though like I always do before top coat and picture taking.

Sinful Polish 

That's it for Septembers Nailboxuk.  Once again I can't wait until next months box arrives.  I am loving this product so much.  It's a must for an other nail polish lover.

Until next time!
Lyn

 

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September Coloristiq Mani Box

Hey everyone,
with it being near the end of the month, that means it's time to open and chat about mani boxes!  For September's theme Coloristiq went with "nails and the city", a very classy feel to it.  The best thing about this month is the fact that the company choose to include an indie polish!  I think it's great when you see brand companies working with smaller producers.

 The one thing that Coloristiq does fantastically each month is the packaging they send your items in.  From a cute polka dot box, a zebra print bag, to this adorable ribbon tied box, care and attention to such a small detail like this adds something special.

First up we have OPI A Great Opera-tunity.  This is a mini polish and one of four possible to be send.  This comes from the OPI Venice Collection where there is an overall total of 15 different colours.  Although a mini bottle the brush is regular sized so application is not an issue.

Application on the first coat was a little streaky but perfectly evened out on the second.  This is a beautiful shade of a peach-beige (that's my oh so technically descriptive;) )  Normally I stay away from shades like this as I am so naturally pale in skintone, but I did like this colour and can see me using it for nail art in the future.

Macroshot of Nails Inc The Mall.  This is a navy shimmer polish with a definite infusion of purple in there too.

In a different position for this shot you can see a more purple tone to it.  This was very good overage in just one coat and could have been left as such.  I do like to use two coats to ensure 100% coverage though.

Essie Fifth Avenue.  Now red is a colour I tend to dislike on myself and I can't actually give any reason for it.  This shade however is beautiful.  Its described as being an orange-red on Essie website so this is probably why I like it much more than your true reds.

I honestly never though I could love a shade of red as much as I do this one.  It had good coverage in one coat but I've done two and top coat for the picture.  This colour is certainly being used soon in a design!

Danglefoot Polish Bluedapest.  This is a beautiful sea green creme with holo sparkles and gold flakes.  Amazing coverage in just one coat but I've done two for this picture.

Danglefoot Polish is an indie brand from Norfolk in the UK.  I LOVE that an indie polish has been included in a box with mainstream brands.  This is actually my first ever indie polish I've owned and I am left wanting more!  I did make a purchase from another indie brand just after I got this box, but that will be another post.  If you'd like to find out more about this brand, check out Hayley's Etsy store page here:

Danglefootnailpolish 

Apparently a different indie brand is coming in Octobers mani box and I can't wait!  As much as I love China Glaze, OPI, Essie, etc, I feel like supporting these smaller indie polish makers is very important.  It's a bit like supporting small private owned stores instead of always shopping at your main stream, chain stores.  Huge thumbs up to Coloristiq for taking the time to support indie polish makers!  I actually feel tempted into finding out how to make my own nail polish now....

Thanks for reading guys!

Lyn





 

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Do You Need To Let Nails Breathe?

Hey everyone,
This blog is one that I've been thinking about doing for a while now.  It's a topic that comes up a lot in the nail world and I know that some people will disagree with what I'm writing.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I'm perfectly fine with people disagreeing with what I write but I'm going to stick to facts to go with what I'm saying.  I will include any links that I also find relevant also so you can check them out if you are interested.

Do your nails need to breath?

Seems like a simple enough question right?  Nail techs will often hear their clients say that they are leaving their acrylics or gels off as they "are giving my nails time to breathe"  In order for nails to "breathe" they would have to be living and if they were living then we would not be able to cut them without pain.  Now I can hear those people ready to jump on that comment and say "but in order for the nail to grow it has to be living!"  To better understand this I want to break down the make up of a nail.

Free edge:  This is the part of the nail that extends over the nail bed.
Nail Plate: This is the part of the nail you see.  It protects the nail bed and is made up of cells tightly packed together.
Lunula: This is the part of the nail that looks a bit like a semicircle.  This is where the living cells from the matrix start to transition into the dead cells through a process called keratinisation. 
Nail Bed: Your nail plate sits on top of the nail bed.  Your nail bed contains all the blood vessels and nerves.
Cuticle: This surrounds the base of the nail and protects the matrix.
Matrix: This is a very important part of the nail.  In the matrix is where the magic happens, so to speak.  This is where the health of the nail is decided.  If the matrix is deprived of its nutrients then it will effect the nail.

Ok so we've looked at the main parts of the nail to start to get an understanding of how our nails function.  The main part to take into consideration is the changes in the cells.  They are living when in the matrix but by the time they get into the lunula they start to change.  So what exactly goes on here?

Keratinisation:  This is the hardening process cells go through that changes them into dead cells.  The lunula is where you can see the transitional stage of this occurring.  By the time these cells reach the free edge they are long since dead.

Keeping this in mind, your nails technically aren't living.  We cut our nails when they are too long and it does not hurt, just like we cut our hair.  So for this reason our nails do not actually need time to "breathe"

What About Nail Polish?
I have been wearing nail polish almost consistently for the last 3 or more years (I have a terrible memory, I think its been way longer than 3)  My nails are long, strong natural nails.  I used to have issues with breakages and peeling but I kept on repainting my nails every week.  The longest my nails go without polish on in 24hours and that is really an extreme figure, its more likely to be a couple hours.

I hope this was helpful to you all and perhaps even taught you something you didn't know already!  I'm going to leave some links now to posts that I feel are good reading for anyone wanting to know more about how our nails work.

Post on NSI Website 

Bliss Kiss Post 

Until next time,
Lyn

 

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Review & Swatches: nailpolish.co.uk

Hi all,
Today I'd like to talk to you all about a fantastic UK website for quality branded nail polish. They very kindly let me pick out two polishes of my choice to swatch and share with you all and I decided to go with two Essie ones.  So let's start off with a run down of the basics!

Brands Available:

• Essie
• China Glaze
• OPI
• Rimmel
• Barry M
• Tanya Burr
• Sally Hansen
• ORLY
• Everglaze
• Invogue 
• OPI Infinite Shine 
• Gift Cards also available!

All these top name brands, but are they the real deal?!  Yes they are!  The company only sell 100% genuine product that is sourced directly from the brands.

Nailpolish Website 
Facebook 
Instagram 
Twitter 

What else can you tell me?

• You get free express tracked delivery on every order over £15
• They have a fast dispatch time; order before 2pm Monday to Friday for same day dispatch
• They have over 1000 colours and 100 treatments to choose from
• They are always adding exciting new products, brands and collections and a little birdie tells me some huge brands are coming in the next couple of months

Now on to the swatches!  As I said I decided to go with two Essie polishes.  Now those of you who follow me know how I love and often use China Glaze in my nail designs.  I wanted to pick a brand that I didn't have many/any of in order to give you a more first handed review into a brand I'm not familiar with.

Essie: Ruffles & Feathers.  How cute is this name?!  I actually let me boyfriend pick a colour for me since I'm far too indecisive when given a large choice :)  
This is a solid turquoise green and this is a standard bottle size of 13.5ml.  The current price for it is £5.95 (at the time of writing)

 A macro shot of the colour taken in my light box to give you as close a representation of the actual colour possible.

 Essie: Pinking About You.  This polish is a clear base with three different sized glitters in it, the largest being approximately 1mm.  This type of polish can be used in a few different ways.  Firstly you can use a make up sponge in order to absorb more of the clear base to help you build up a solid glitter look on the whole nails.  Second option would be to do one coat over a design to give that subtle glitter look.  Third option would be to start with a pink base to then apply this glitter over the top to help give a more opaque looking finish.

A macroshot giving you a close up look at those different sized glitters.  Pinking About You was actually one of three polishes released by Essie in 2014 for Breast cancer awareness.  Every year I do a design specifically for this cause as its something that has affected my family personally and I think this year I will aim to include this colour in my design.  This is currently retailed at £5.95 on the website.

Here is two coats of colour and seche vite top coat.  The brush is a nice shape allowing you to get a nice cuticle line.  Solid coverage with the second coat.

Macroshot showing you the colour and finish.

 

 For Pinking About You I decided to do five different nails which I will tell you about in each macro shot.  I wanted to show you the different options you have when using a glitter polish like this.

Firstly we have just one coat of the polish.  This is just to give you an idea of what kind of coverage you can get from one layer.  This type of polish is more suited to being layered onto a base colour.

So what if you wanted to wear this polish on its own?  I recommend you sponge on a few layers of polish to give the effect above.  By applying it to a sponge first, that soaks up the clear base and allows for maximum glitter application.

Next I tried a white base with one coat of Pinking About You.  Due to the pale pink shade of the glitters you end up with a very subtle effect.  

Now onto a black base.  This of course showed up the glitters much more prominently and looks very much like confetti this way.

Lastly I used Essie Status Symbol as a base for one coat of Pinking About You.  This one ended up being my favourite overall.  I think I'm going to use this combo for a breast cancer design later in the year.

Which one was your favourite?

I'd just like to thank nailpolish.co.uk for sending me these two polishes.  I hope you all enjoyed my review and swatch pictures and be sure to check out the website.

Until next time,
Lyn

 
 

 

 

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Coloristiq August Safari Manicure Box

Hi all,
I'm back again with another unboxing!  If you've read my previous blogs you'll know that I found a company called Coloristiq who do a nail polish rental option or a monthly themed nail box.  Since I loved the summer box I got from them in the sale I decided to go ahead and order the August Safari themed box.

 I'd like to take a moment to share with you all the way these items come packaged to you as I think it is very impressive.  Inside the cardboard box your package is securely surrounded by shredded paper.  You find a leaflet with an introduction to your box and a listed on the back the items included for this month.

Last months collection came in a cute polka dot box and this month to go with the safari theme it came in a zebra print bag which inside had more shredded paper to ensure no breakages of your parcel!

 So here we have what was inside the box.  There is 4 polishes and a nail file.  The brand on the file says TNBL (The Nail & Beauty Link) which I had never heard of before.  I took a look at their website and was impressed at the prices of some of there items and they also stock brand names.  The most interesting find for me was the pack of 100 nail tips to go on the plastic training hand.  I have the one from Essential nails and it cost me £100 for the hand (TNBL have a version very similar for only £30) and they are only £4 for a pack of 100 replacement tips where I was paying £20 for the refill packs off of EN!  I know where I'm buying my next refill pack from!

The first polish we have is Essie Snake It Up.  This is a magnetic effect polish and as the name suggests, gives a snakeskin finish.  It was very difficult to get a picture of this but I did do a live swatch of this polish on my review video.  You can find the video here:

Here we have Wild Cactus by Color Club.  This is the first nail polish I've owned by this brand (though I do use there black and white stripers for nail art).  The application was nice and smooth, the colour was also quite opaque on just 1 application but I like to do two to ensure perfect coverage.  For the picture this is two coats and top coat.

 

How pretty is this shade?!  China Glaze Don't Desert Me.  This is a beautiful pinky-purple shade with a very subtle shimmer undertone to it.  This is two coats and top coat.

OPI In A Holidaze.  You have got to hand it to OPI for their creative name choices for their polishes.  This is a very deep red, the camera picture has lightened it slightly.  I'm not actually a fan of red polish on myself, I don't think it suits my skin tone, but I got a lot of love for this picture on Instagram and I know red is a classic choice for many women.  The application is flawless and as usual I applied two coats and top coat.

So that's it for this post.  I'm looking forward to seeing what is coming in next months.  The only information Coloristiq have released so far is to say that September is going to include an indie polish brand and I'm so excited to hear this!  
If you'd like to find out more about the company, please see the following link:
Coloristiq Website 

 

 

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