Belle Glamour Swatches and Review

Hi everyone. I hope everyone has had a good weekend so far. I have just got home from work for a well needed rest.

Today I have some swatches of a new indie brand to show you. I was contacted recently by Catriona of Belle Glamour to see if I would like to purchase some polishes to review. Now I don't need an excuse to buy more polish, so of course I said yes (although these are the only 3 polishes I have bought since I last got paid, I have been very well behaved this month). I picked out 3 to show you today.

They come in nice square bottles, the ones I got were 10ml. The brushes are good quality and easy to use. One thing that I would like is for the names of the polish to be on the bottles, if I wasn't so pedantic to have a spreadsheet listing all my polishes I would completely forget the names.

Onto the swatches..

Up first we have Belle Glamour - Purely Pumpkin.

Purely Pumpkin is a lovely shade of orange, its not too in your face which I find oranges can often be. This one was the most difficult to work with, you have to let it dry for quite a while between coats or the polish will drag. It was also quite thick, but still manageable. This needs to be applied with care as it does show up brush strokes a bit. Opacity was good, this photo shows 2 coats. Despite all this, I think the extra effort in application is worth the final outcome as this is a very pretty colour and quite a unique orange in my collection.

Up next we have Belle Glamour - Passionately Purple.

Passionately Purple is a beautiful, deep purple shade with a jelly formula. I really didn't this expect this to be a jelly looking at the bottle, it took me by surprise! It was very sheer on the first coat, but it was build-able and this photo shows 3 coats. The formula on this was nice and smooth, very easy to apply. 

Finally we have Belle Glamour - The Grass Is Always Greener.

The Grass Is Always Greener is a gorgeous spring green with a subtle shimmer. This one was by far my favourite, I love it so much! The formula was similar to Purely Pumpkin, but much better (if that makes sense). You still have to make sure each coat is dry before applying the next or it drags a bit, but much less than Purely Pumpkin. This photo shows 2 coats, although it was almost opaque in 1. 

So overall I would definitely recommend you give this brand a go. I think they are good quality and on the whole the formulas were good, Purely Pumpkin wasn't perfect but you just need to be careful with application. I was also very impressed with the customer service I received, my queries were answered within minutes which is pretty amazing.

Belle Glamour will be launching on 24th January and will be available from her website here.

Will you be trying anything from Belle Glamour? Let me know your thoughts below.

Thanks for looking.

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Day 7 - Christmas Animals

Hi lovelies. I hope you're all well. I have had a super stressful day and need a break but I still have to work tomorrow, waah!

It's day 7 of the 12 Days Of Christmas Challenge and today's prompt is Christmas animals. I thought long and hard about what animals to do, I was planning on trying to do something different. But in the end I just went with very unoriginal Rudolph nails.

You can't really go wrong with Rudolph though can you.

My base colour is OPI - Don't Burst My Bubble.

The reindeer's heads are OPI - A Taupe The Space Needle and the antlers are OPI - Warm Me Up. Although these two colours don't actually look as different as I was expecting them to.

I added the eyes with a dotting tool using Color Club - White and Rimmel - Black Cab. For the noses I used a coat of China Glaze - Hey Sailor and then a coat of OPI - Underneath The Mistletoe. I wish I had used a more bright, glittery red.

I'm not in love with these, but they are definitely not my worst effort. I probably could have made them better but I was a bit rushed whilst doing these.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for looking.

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Day 6 - Christmas Decorations

Hi everyone. Happy hump day! Although I have the day off and am working on Saturday, so its not really hump day for me.

We're at the half way point of the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge, today's theme is Christmas Decorations. 

Since this is the first Christmas I have been moved out of my parents house I had a lot of fun choosing all my own Christmas decorations for my flat. I decided to do my nails based on the decorations I have on my tree because I like them so much.

I started with a base of Color Club - White on my index, middle finger and pinky. For my thumb and ring finger I used OPI - Can't Find My Czechbook.

On my thumb I did some tinsel. I used a detail brush and Color Club - White, La Femme - Disco and Barry M - Boots C (what a creative name).

For my baubles I used OPI - Dining Al Frisco on my index finger and OPI - Tiffany Case on my middle finger. The silver is Avon - Mercury Metal and the black string is Rimmel - Black Cab.

On my ring finger I freehanded the snowflake using Avon - Mercury Metal and added a bit of Barry M - Boots C over the top for some added sparkle! On my little finger I did the star using OPI - Tiffany Case. All the round glittery bits are individually placed pieces of glitter from OPI - I Snow You Love Me.

Here's a close up shot my boyfriend took of our Christmas tree to give you an idea of what I was working from. We also have white tinsel with little iridescent sparkly bits, shiny blue baubles and glittery blue stars (in a similar style to that tree).

I really liked these, they have kind of an icy feeling which is what my tree is like also. I'm gonna be sad when I have to take my tree down this year!

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Thanks for looking. 

Pick A Polish - An Unnamed Color Club!

Hello my loves. I hope you are all well. I have a day off work tomorrow, so I am looking forward to having a day to catch up on bloggy stuff. These challenge posts keep creeping up on me too quickly!

Today I have this week's Pick A Polish post to show you, a day late since I was posting for the Christmas challenge yesterday. This week was number 157 in my stash, an unnamed Color Club. I hate having unnamed polishes, but I got this in a set from TK Maxx and I find whenever I get a set of Color Club polishes from there they never have names on.

This a a light pink jelly polish, my swatch shows 3 coats. It was very sheer on the first coat but was quite build-able. There was still a fair bit of visible nail line, more so in real life than in the photo. The formula was good and self levelled nicely. This would definitely be an appropriate polish for a french manicure, so that is what I did a twist on for my nail art...

Over my base I freehanded some french tips using a white cream (another unnamed Color Club). I haven't done proper french tips since my nails were a lot shorter, I think I definitely prefer them on shorter nails.

I freehanded the swirls using a detail brush and Rimmel - Black Cab. My thumb was my favourite.

I added some accents and dots using OPI - This Gown Needs A Crown.

I definitely pushed my freehanding skills with this mani, I'm not 100% happy with the outcome but it is always good to try something different. 

What's you opinion on french manicures? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for looking.

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Day 5 - Bells.

Hi lovelies. How are we all? I have just got home and I am about ready to go to sleep already lol.

Today is day 5 of the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge, its almost half way done. I will be sad when its over, I have been liking Christmas nails a bit too much. Today's theme was bells. I was  a bit stumped with what to do for this one, so I took to google and came across these nails. As soon as I saw them I knew I needed to steal the idea and copy them immediately, and I must say, I loved how they came out!

Here is my version..

My base colour is Essie - Like To Be Bad.

I freehanded the whole design with a detail brush. For the holly I used Barry M - Spring Green, China Glaze - Hey Sailor and Rimmel - Black Cab.

For the bells I used an Unnamed W7 Gold. The white on the ribbons is Color Club - White.

I was super proud of these, I think this is the best freehand design I have done. I spent my day at work sticking my fingers in people's faces to show them off. I didn't want to take them off for my next mani.

What are your thoughts? 

Don't forget to check what the other participants have done for their designs.