UK Floam dupe!!?? (sort of)

Most of you are probably familiar with Floam by Nail-venturous / Ninja Polish, but if you're not it is an Indie polish that resembles this stuff:

And here is the nail polish:

It has a mix of yellow, green and blue matte glitter and I would definitelly say it grows on you. The first time I saw it I thought it was ugly and strange but then I came to realise thats why it works. The trouble is, it can be a pain to get hold of, it sells out fast when it is restocked and it has a price tag of £9 ish including shipping from USA. For many people, that is a bit pricey for a bottle of nail polish. Fear not, I have found an alternative, and you can get it for as little as £1.95!!

W7  Cosmic Green.

I know, its not a perfect match, there are many differences. Cosmic Green is metallic and Floam is matte neon. That said, the similarities are there and shouldn't be overlooked, and it should keep that lemming at bay for a while. I am surprised nobody else has picked up on this yet but I suspect that is because all eyes have been on the other W7 polishes lately (namely Mosaic, Lava Flow, Salt n Pepper).

Let's take a closer look:

They are not a million miles away from each other are they? So far, we have only looked at bottle shots though. How do they compare on the nail?

I applied a coat of Rimmel Pro Matte Top Coat on top of Cosmic Green to see if that would make any difference.

Conclusion: They bear more than a passing resemblance and it is my opinion that W7 may have been inspired by Floam somewhat. It is not what I would call a dupe but if you are on a budget and can't be done with waiting for Floam to be restocked, W7 Cosmic Green is for you!

Which one would you choose?

DISCLAIMER: Both of the products in this post were paid for by me, not that it changes my opinion anyway!

My (rather late) Birthday post!

Hi, it was my birthday in July and I just thought I'd show you some of the gifts I received.

Emery Board, Nail Clippers, Tweezers, Barry M Lip Gloss (from Impulse gift set)

Technic Nail Art trio (purple, white, gold)

Technic Nail Art trio (silver, pink, black)

Sinful Colors: Paris 856| Cha Cha Red 32| Hot Spot 943| Daddy's Girl 841| See You Soon 931| Aqua 104

beauty uk Glitter Brown| Astor Fash'n Studio Black| Barry M Nail Paint 122 (from Impulse gift set)

Aaaand finally, Technic Carnival x2

Oi! Oi! That's yer lot!

DISCLAIMER: All products featured in today's post were gifted to me by my lovely mother for my birthday. 

Holo comparison: GOSH old vs GOSH new vs FNUG vs M&S

My FNUG holo arrived today and so did my nfu-oh Aqua Base, so I grabbed some of my other holos and let them battle it out!

For these, I just used one coat of nfu-oh Aqua Base (it takes quite a long time to dry!), and then applied one generous coat of holo.

So which one is which?
1. GOSH Holographic Hero (the new one)
2. FNUG Psychedelic
3. GOSH Holographic (original)
4. M&S Rainbow

I think the FNUG is a clear winner on this photo but in real life there is not much between that and GOSH original holographic. In certain lighting the new GOSH holo catches up with the other 2 aswell. Sadly M&S lacks in the holo department though. Don't get me wrong, it is pretty but the other 3 are just too good!

Which is your favourite?

FNUG : more holo than Chanel holo!??

I recently came across FNUG, which is a scandanavian brand, through their Facebook page.

This photo is what drew me to them:

AQUA FIX BASE COAT - 2002 /   FUTURISTICA - 39, blue /   PSYCHEDELIC - 38, silver / FANTASTICA - 40, green

 Exciting huh?  It gets better though! There is talk that these are actually MORE holo than Chanel!! Now, unfortunately I do not own Chanel so I have had to rely on images I have seen online but... it seems to be true! I do have the original GOSH holo to compare it to though. They don't exactly come at a budget price, they are £15 and they recommend you to buy the Aqua Fix Base Coat to go with it. If they are as good as they look though I think this is a fair price to pay! I have ordered Psychedelic so I should have that this week some time, and if it is that good, I will get Futuristica later on. In the UK, you can buy these at Wild Swans , where delivery costs an extra £4.50. Have you ever heard of this brand before?

Models Own Mirrorball Collection - Metallic flakies!?

Models Own is quickly becoming my favourite nail polish brand of all time. They have had some beautiful releases and now they have come up with something even better. Earlier on today they posted an exciting announcement on their Facebook page, so exciting that I had to post about it as soon as I got home and back on my laptop.
 I present to you, Models Own Mirrorball Collection:

"NEW! The MIRRORBALL Collection, a completely unique glide-on glitter that will revitalise your entire polish collection! Wear alone or over your favourite colour polish to give a frosting finish, taking nails from boring to BLING! Each polish contains five different chunky colours of hand-cut glitter that are guaranteed to get the party started: Disco Inferno, a glittery gold disco bomb; Hot Stuff, an intoxicating mix of pink and gold sparkles; Freak Out, a crystal shimmer mi
x of bold blue and purple; Dancing Queen, fabulous flecks of emerald, blue and gold; Boogie Nights, a multicoloured mix of intriguing purple, pink and blue! The Mirrorball Collection launches (with LIMITED EDITION metallic coloured caps!) exclusively at the Models Own Bottleshop on Thursday, September 6th, on the Models Own website from Monday, September 10th and in Boots stores nationwide from Wednesday, October 3rd. x Which is your favourite? Hit the comments to let us know!"

My first thought = WOW, metal flecks/flakies/shards , whatever you wanna call them!  Then I though ohh I have to wait til September, thats ages away, before realising that its only 2 weeks away or 2 & 1/2 until the website launch! Woooooooo!

P.S I saw Xmas gifts being stocked in Superdrug today. Eeeee!

UK nail polish Facebook Group

Hi, I would like to introduce you to a new nail polish group I made on Facebook. It's called:

UK Nail Polish Freaks & Frankeners Unite!

Please come along and join us. You can share blog links, nail art photos or just have a general chit chat. As we get more members we will also be holding contests and giveaways. Another thing I would like to add is that there is a huge gap in the UK market as far as frankening is concerned. (we basically can't get hold of any of the supplies here!) I hope that in the future this will change and supplier details will be shared on the group. We have a few documents which can be edited to add UK friendly shops, holographics, flakies, indies with more being added  regularly. If you know others that might be interested in this group, invite them to come along too. Everyone is welcome. Hope to see you on there soon!

Oh. My. GOSH!

Hi everyone, I have been very quiet lately so first of all I would like to apologise for that. I have been mega busy with stuff, my son and sister went for a photo shoot at Max Spielmann, we are really pleased with what we got for the money, I won a competition with Collection (2000) for me and my friend to go to their 25th Birthday and rebranding party in London, I won another competition with Fairy, I also did a few days of interviewing customers at a big technology store which was loads of fun and did wonders for my confidence, it was my lil sister's first birthday so we all went to the zoo, the Alton Towers tickets came with the dates that I wanted (during the October Scarefest when the park is open til 9pm and they have a few extra scary things going on), and then it was Easter. So, did you have a nice Easter weekend? Thomas got spoilt rotten, I think he will still have some eggs left by Christmas!

Moving on, today I went shopping just for nail polish. 

First of all I got these:

L to R: Beauty UK - Lilac Girl (35), Beauty UK - Slate (50), Max Factor - Fantasy Fire (45),  Revlon Cuticle Remover, Technic 21129 Mermaid (looks like it MAY be a dupe for the Milani Jewel FX in Teal off my wishlist, yay!), City Chick - Sparkly Nails Black.

I wasn't gonna buy Fantasy Fire really, because of the size and I have seen it talked about loads so its not really new anymore, until I went into Superdrug and saw it. It is simply stunning so I had that as my special treat for the day. I have noticed that Meganails and Lozza Nailed It! mentioned on their blogs that there was a clearance on some GOSH makeup in their local Superdrug so I looked around for it and didn't see any :-(

So I was quite happy to buy Fantasy Fire instead:

So off I went down the toiletries aisle to get to the tills. Then, I noticed loads of makeup in a big cardboard stand, some of it was broken, opened and in a bit of a sorry state to be totally honest, but I had a closer look anyway. Then I noticed that it was all GOSH products. There were loads of eyeliners and eye dusts but I didn't really see any that took my fancy so I had a good rummage and found some nail polish.

GOSH - Magic Star 562

This stood out to me because of how sparkly it was so I popped that straight in my basket.

GOSH -Yellow Bombay 552

I didn't own any yellow nail polish at that point and this has a nice shimmer to it so I decided to buy this aswell. I think it was at this point that I started to pay more attention to what I was looking at as this one is definitely discontinued. There seemed to be a couple more bottles of Magic Star but one looked a bit different as it seemed to shine more red so I picked it up to have a look..

I nearly dropped the bottle in shock! That was GOSH - Rainbow 546 I had in my hand! My beloved flakie that has sat on my wishlist for a long time. I had given up all hope of finding this one as I hadn't even seen a trace of it on eBay so I quite literally couldn't believe my luck. I then went through all of the other nail polishes until I came to the last one. It was quite a dull silver colour in comparison to the others I had chosen, but on checking the label at the top it said 549 Holographic. I checked twice as in the bottle it didn't look holographic at all!

It doesn't look that special does it? Maybe thats because I've hunted for this for so long that I expected to have more of a presence about it, or for music to play when I held it my hand.. At this point a practically ran to the tills with a crazed grin on my face. I was in such a rush that I didn't even take any notice of the price, it wasn't until I checked my receipt afterwards that I realised they were £2 each. I nearly fainted. Just the day before, I nearly put a bid on this on eBay for £20 and now I had it for a fraction of the price!! Result!

I don't want to seem like I am bragging too much because I know there are plenty of people out there that haven't been as lucky as  have and are still on the lookout for these. I can assure you though that these ones have gone to a very good home where they will be loved and cared for and given the attention that they deserve. I am a little bit scared to try them though as I have dreamed of this day many times over the last year and I'm worried I'm expecting too much of it. Anyway, if you are looking for these polishes, get your ass down to your local Superdrug ASAP! You never know, you might get lucky! If you manage to find any bargains there, let me know. 

Sorry for the long post but I think these nail polishes deserved it!

St Patrick's Day NOTD (+ easy how-to)

Sorry that its a day late, I needed to get a tripod for my camera in order to photograph an awkward hand pose. Here is my version of a manicure inspired by St Patrick's Day.

The gold represents a pot of gold, the multi coloured glitter is supposed to resemble a rainbow and the green is *cue awkward hand pose*...

A lucky shamrock!

Here is what I used:

L.A Colors Energy Source, L.A Colors Atomic, SNB Gold 06, Saffron Gold Speckle, Technic Carnival and L.A Colors Voltage.

If you would like to recreate this look, here is how to do it:

Step 1. Paint all nails with a white base coat.
Step 2. Paint nails 1 & 3 with a green nail polish. I used 2 coats.
Step 3. Paint nails 2 & 5 with a gold colour, followed by a gold glitter.
Step 4. Paint nail 4 with a multicoloured glitter. I used about 8 coats to get it opaque.
Step 5. Finish with a clear top coat.

Please note: each coat of polish should be completely dry before doing the next coat.

Did you do a Paddy's Day mani? I would love to see your take on it.

Haul Unboxing

I had a delivery today nice and early this morning, I was expecting one package to come yesterday as I already arranged with Royal Mail for them to deliver on that day. I waited in all day and they didn't turn up. They didn't even let me know so I was a bit annoyed by that. It finally turned up today though so all is forgiven (almost). Mini rant over, phew! 

I had 3 lovely packages today, you may notice in the photo above I kinda cheated and opened the box, I wasn't gonna include that in this post but I changed my mind.

This is a set of 4 eyebrow stencils, they were 99p including delivery from eBay.

Here they are, I know the picture is bad as the stencils are clear but they have the markings on them so you can match them up easily with the angle of your natural brows.

This is what was in the box, its loads of magnets to use with magnetic nail polish. I actually sell these on but I thought you might like to see the different styles available:

They work with any magnetic nail polish so its nice to be able to do different patterns now.

Next is the package that should of arrived yesterday..

It was very well wrapped in lots of bubble wrap.

*in Aussie accent* Can you tell what it is yet?

Ta-da! L.A Colors haul!

Left to right: 

Energy Source NP402

Atomic NP420

Exotic Pink NP434

Lightning NP422

Nuclear Energy NP417

Left to right:

Electrified NP408

Live NP409

Tropical Storm NP439

Goddess NP442

Left to right:

Treasure Island NP444

Aqua Crystals NP448

Glistening Purple NP445

Left to right:

Voltage NP401 (clear)

Sparkling Diamonds NP446

Star Light NP443

Jewel Tone NP447

Sassy Sparkle NP441 

I also got Saffron Speckle in Gold and Silver (these were the closest things to the Milani Jewel FX I could find in the UK) It will be interesting to see if they perform.

Look at the shape of the bottles though, is it just me that thinks they are a bit weird different?

This is the one I am most excited about , Technic - Carnival!

The nail polishes were from http://www.themakeupbagonline.co.uk

For all 20 nail polishes & delivery, they cost me £26.40. Not bad! 

Oh , I forgot to mention, they also threw in a free gift in the shape of 5 make-up bags:

I love the way these were packaged - a bag in a bag in a bag in a bag in a bag!

That is everything that I got so as always, I would love to hear what you think of them!

DISCLAIMER: Everything included in this post was bought and paid for by myself. Except for the bags which were a free gift for spending over £20!