Powder Perfect Maneater Swatched

*I found this in my drafts folder from May...? Oops. It's a great polish even if my little life update is a little out of date. Well, it's mostly still current, except I am no longer sick!*

I got Maneater from The Lady is a Vamp collection with an order and it was the perfect travel sized bottle to pack.

I finally put it on the other day and I have totally fallen in love.

I was looking for something green to do for Lyme disease awareness month. I didn't really pack a bright green or a lime colour, but I did have this gorgeous green leaning teal.

Incidentally, it must seem like I paint my nails everyday to my flatmates, because everytime I paint my nails, they see me doing them in front of the TV!

I'm home most evenings, so it gives me something to do after dinner. I haven't found a gym here yet, so I have a bit of time. My post viral cough makes the idea not very appealing and my visits to Fitness First was just an aggravating experience due to the crowds. I hate jogging, and that's probably not good until the cough subsides, but I think I need to get into the idea. Not exactly flushed with heaps of discretionary spending money anyway.

Sadly it is no longer available in the Powder Perfect store, but I did find some available through her stockists.

Celestial Cosmetics Men of Mayhem swatches

I started a temp room reception job. While everyone is really nice and the job is not st all demanding, I am keen to move onto a more intellectually engaging job. 

But for now, I'll use the ample spare time I have at work to quickly share some more nails I've done since moving here and a couple of snaps from my daily life.

Love this polish. Great formula and colour. I just think it's so sexy. Edgy and fun at the same time. I think it's been discontinued, but only recently, so some may be floating around in stockists.

Here we have my fluffy flatmate, Bicardi and the view behind my desk. It overlooks Hyde Park and everyone who visits, including me on  my first visit, says "wow". There are not many views like this in London, so I'm quite lucky. 

My guest post on Serenity Nails

I am super excited today because I have a guest post up today! Here's a sneak peek, but head on over to my post onChristine's blog, Serenity's Nails to check out the Celestial Cosmetics polishes used in this simple nail art mani. 

Kester Black Bougainvillea topped with Nebula

 I got these two as a little birthday/Christmas present. They were a tad disappointing. The purple is a lovely warm, midtone purple. Being not that light I was surprised that two coats was not quite enough and I really needed three coats. But it's a lovely colour for summer. Dried a little matte, so will need top coat. 

I actually received Suger Daddy, but went back to the shop and exchanged it for Bougainvillea, as I have a couple of dense silver glitters already. My first preference was Milky Way. In fact, I had lusted after that for months but didn't go through with it. I now get to regret it forever, as it was sold out in the store and doesn't even appear on the Kester Black website anymore. :(

Nebula has big hex holo glitters in the clear base and were, as expected, heavy and required lots of fishing. I had already used this previously to make a Christmas tree as an accent with Celestial Cosmetics Deck the Halls.

Howver, I wanted a mani to feature Nebula specifically and to use it as it appears to be intended to be used.

I ended up with super thick polish, as you can tell with the bubbling. I should have used a toothpick or something to pick and place, like I did with my Christmas mani. But the holo was fun, you can see it especially in the bottle.

 

I didn't have any quickdry top coat on and the thickness meant it didn't dry properly and I destroy them at my first attempt to fish my credit card out of my purse!

An Indie Extravaganza 2 from Powder Perfect swatches - part 1

Today I've got swatches of Secrets of Her Majesty and Flying Trapeze from An Indie Extravaganza II, by Pretty Pots Polish and Peita's Polish respectively.

This was the first time I've tried either of the brands and I was very impressed with the quality. The jelly Flying Trapeze was one of the best I have used, I didn't have my usual thick, lumpy problems and the small glitters came out readily.

Very excitingly, Jacinta from Powder Perfect has regrammed both my collection and the Flying Trapeze swatch pics on Instagram! It's a nice feeling when the pros thinks my nail photos are good! Let's have a look.

First up is Secrets of Her Majesty by Pretty Pots. I had issues adjusting the photos, so decided to leave it as is - a little dark, but most natural looking. Two coats.

This is a purple holo, which truth be told, I am building a rather big collection of. This reminds me of Birth of a Star by Celestial Cosmetics, but I will have to put them on side-by-side to properly compare. The formula was great though!

The second one I have here is Flying Trapeze by Peita's Polish. A beautiful fuchsia jelly formula, one of those fruity shades that I am rather obsessed with lately. The glitters are aqua, blue, purple, pink, with some smaller possibly orange and gold and some shimmer. The glitters are reminiscence of the glitters in OPI's polka.com. This was about 3 coats, no undies and smoothed out with 2 layers of top coat — Essence gel look top coat and then HK girl on top of that.

These are limited edition, so if you're interested, better get on it at the Powder Perfect store!

Celestial Cosmetics Inception

My mani for the last two days has been the now sold out LE Inception by Celestial Cosmetics. It's a gorgeous neon blue holo. This is the second time in as many months that I've worn this polish, and on its own to boot! I actually intended to do some nail art on it, but couldn't bear to after seeing how gorgeously blue and sparkling it was.

Funny story to go with this post. I got a reminder last Friday for a hospital appointment for yesterday. I was having a good rant about how stupid it was to give me a reminder about an appointment when they haven't sent me a letter about the sms reminder.

When I got to the hospital I saw my mum was there. I thought, "hm, that is a coincidence" and went to tell reception I had arrived. The woman tells me I'm already down. I was a bit confused, as I had just arrived, made my mum come over and demanded her letter, and it turns out that mum had gone there with my letter thinking it was her appointment and he receptionist didn't think to wonder why she is 30 years older than the patient she was expecting! Not only that, she went and changed my GP details on the system! Who does that? Not sure who I am more annoyed with, the hospital or my mother!

Anyway, another photo. The sun finally came out and I quickly tried to take a photo of its full holo goodness! Not sure what happened instead, but it looks interesting!