Max Factor Fantasy Fire layered over W7 Purple Paradise

I got my hands on this mini marvel courtesy of a good friend (thanks deborah!) as a birthday present, how nice was that!  I haven't been able to find any near me so she snagged me one and sent me it.  When it arrived I admit, I may have drooled a little bit, it is such a pretty little jewel.  I have been reading a lot about this polish being a fairly good dupe for Clarins legendary 230 polish.  Since I don't have the wonderful 230 to compare it with (unless someone wants to send me a bottle, no, really?!  Shocker!) I will just post my pics and thoughts about the Max Factor polish in its own right.

It is a lovely blue based violet purple base, with amazing micro shimmer which changes colour with the light.  It flashes predominantly from fiery red, to orange, to green.  Turquoise and blue flashes are visible in the bottle but didn't show up on the nail for me, but I don't care, it is one gorgeous little pot of polish!  I didn't want to waste any as it is quite sheer so I went for layering it.  I searched through my stash and plucked W7 Purple Paradise out, it seemed to be the best match for a base, and I think it worked pretty well.  It is a nice polish on its own, but I will visit it again another day for its own post.

The pics are two thin coats of Purple Paradise, then 2 coats of Fantasy Fire, with a shiny top coat.  I kept this mani on for a whole week, I loved it that much!  OK I did add a flakie top coat for the last couple of days, but still, a week!  Thats a long time for me.  So, given that info, yes it wore very well too, went on without issue, and dry time was good.  Nothing left to do but bring on the pics.

W7 - Metallics Planets Collection, Cheap AND Duochrome! Oh Yes!

Well as you all know I LOVE all things duochrome and multichrome, and so on my never ending quest to find new ones I came across some new W7 polishes that I hadn't seen before.  These were six shades all called 'Metallic ......' and then a different planet for each polish.  They looked nice in the pics on the website so of course I HAD to buy some! I ordered Metallic Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter.  There was also Neptune which appears to be a dark navy blue, and Saturn, which is a green based one but I didn't order those ones this time.  Check out the bottles pic from when they arrived.

Pretty, right!  From left to right you have Metallic Mars, Metallic Venus, Metallic Mercury and Metallic Jupiter.  I couldn't wait to try them all individually so I swatched them all on one hand.  The Mars and Venus ones are the sheer type colours that need to be layered over another colour (darker colours seem to work best) so I applied two layers over black.  Mercury and Jupiter are actually sparkly shimmers in a dark base, and these can be applied on their own.

Mars is a red toned pink, to purple to gold colour shift polish, Venus is blue to purple with the occasional bronze hue flashing into view.  Mercury and Jupiter have a more subtle colour shift and are darker shades with a lovely sparkle.  Mercury shifts from a dark pink to purple to gold, and Jupiter dark blue to dark purple.  To my eye Mercury and Jupiter look like they are the darker glittery versions of the first two, but with such a different look that they totally warrant buying all four.

For my pics I applied two coats each of Mars and Venus over a black creme base, and three coats of Mercury and Jupiter without any 'underwear'.  The formula was actually quite good, it felt maybe a little thin but not really a problem, and it dried pretty quickly.  The brushes were quite nice too, providing even coverage, and these did feel like they should have cost more than the measly £1.95 (including postage!) I paid for each of them.  I am posting two pics which illustrate the colour shift in these, please forgive the sloppy application but I was so excited to try these out and show you all!  Bargain duochromes, yes please!  If you would like to buy some I don't know about my international readers (sorry!) but for the UK readers I bought mine from Nail Polish Direct where I have ordered lots of times now and always had good service, and they have pretty good prices on their polishes.  Can I just say I am not affiliated with them in any way, I just like their shop!

Right then, lets get on with it, and take a look at the pics.  With all the buzz going round at the moment about duochromes will you be buying these?  I think I discovered some little gems personally, I hope you think so too :)

Left to Right - Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter

Left to Right - Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter

Barielle Elles Spell, W7 Layering and Fiery Flame Nail Art

Today I have a new manicure for you.  I put on a base of a single coat of random red/pink I picked up from my stash (I think it was China Glaze Ahoy) just to use as a colour base over my base coat, and then got to work.

The two polishes I used were W7 Red Dazzle, and the wonderful Elles Spell by Barielle.  I applied 2 thin coats of Red Dazzle  first.  This is a bright crimson red glitter, suspended in a red base, and applied very easily.  Once this had dried, I decided that I had to apply Elles Spell over the top, just to add to the sparkly red fest I was having.  Elles Spell is a flaky and I adore flakies!  It has flakes of red which flash to gold and green, suspended in quite a sheer dark plummy red base, which ever way you look at it, it is gorgeous!  If you don't have it already get it, and a back up!  Click on the bottle pic for a close up :)

After I had layered these two, I took some pics, this was definitely a win!  I am liking reds at the moment, so I was extremely happy with this.  (I must get China Glaze Ruby Pumps and try this combination with it, I don't have it, sacrilegious I know!)  You are going to want to click on this for close ups, just look at the colour and depth.

I wore this gorgeous creation for a whole day before I found myself with some spare time and, me being me I just couldn't leave it alone so.....I decided that it reminded me of glowing embers, it was practically alive so I added some nail art flames on the tips.  I have never done flames before but I thought I would give it a go, and I think its turned out OK.  Again I think this would work in many colour combinations, but for now I am sticking with this one and I am happily keeping it on for a couple of days.  I hope you like it :)

W7 - Blue Lagoon pics and with stamp design - Is cheap always rubbish?

Hands up how many of us have seen a polish where you go, oh thats pretty but I bet its not very good, its not a professional brand or its a cheapo brand?  Or you have seen something that is blatantly a copy of a more expensive brand and given it a wide berth?  I'm sure we have all been guilty of a bit of 'polish snobbery', I know I have.  Its a balancing act though, you have to take into account how many coats you need, whether its a good formula to apply, and durability of a polish to vector into whether its good value or not.  

Take for example the Rimmel 60 seconds polishes I have.  I got three as a present (and I will post swatches at some point!).  They are lovely colours, they apply easily and the formula isn't bad.  Rimmel, whilst not a 'salon professional' brand is a well known cosmetics brand and so you would expect reasonable quality and value.  These polishes are £3.69 at Boots chemist, so you would think, ahhh thats not bad value then.  I think that would be a wrong assumption personally.  For your money, you get a bottle that is only 8ml, most 'big name' brands like China Glaze or OPI are 14ml or 15ml, or with Orly you get a whopping 18ml, so not really that cheap then.  Also I was really disappointed with the wear of these polishes.  They had shown tip wear within a day (in fact within a few hours).  The type of wear which you have to repair, so you mani looks old fast.  So, you see what I'm saying, expensive vs cheap, its not as clear cut as just brand name and cost.

IS there a point to this post you may ask, why yes, yes there is!  I was fed up and I went into a local shop and thought, what the hell, I'm buying a polish to cheer me up (as you do!).  I got a bottle of W7 Blue Lagoon.  This polish was £1.99 for 15ml and I have seen it as cheap as £1.48.  The bottle is a blatant copy of OPI, and to be fair I wasn't expecting much.  It is a deep blue/purple in the bottle with sparse glitter, but shows up as a lovely deep blue on the nail.  The glitter doesn't really make much of a difference but it still does give a subtle sparkle here and there when it catches the light.  The formula was easy to apply and went on smooth and needed only 2 coats.  So far so good, what about wear?  Well I had it on for three of days, and it did have some tip wear but nothing too bad, if it was a paler colour I probably wouldn't have even noticed.  I am not saying it is on a par with the big brands, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality.  If their other colours are the same quality as this one, then I will buy more, in fact I have :) I have a neon orange glitter to try out (boy it is BRIGHT!) and a lovely deep aqua/blue/green/teal sort of colour, and a red glitter and a purple glitter, oh and a silver shatter top coat!

So, enough of my waffle, if anyone ever actually reads it, if you did then thank you, if not, thats OK too :)  Here are the pics, YAY!

 And now pics with a stamp design :) I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I used China Glaze IDK from the OMG collection.

W7 - Orange Dazzle Neon - with W7 Earthquake Silver Crackle Top Coat

Oh dear, epic fail!  Never let your brother choose a nail varnish for you.  Mine chose this, and then had a bloody good laugh at my expense.  He IS my brother after all he pointed out, what did I expect, its his job to be mean.  Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this polish, I actually like it and it applied well with no problems, sadly though it doesn't like me.  It is screaming bright ORANGE with glitter added, its awesome but does me no favours with my skin tone.  I have a severe case of zombie hands, I look like something from Shaun of the Dead (awesome film by the way.)

These pics don't actually show the true brightness, it is unbelievably, even brighter in real life.  These pics were taken in low light, it was coming up to sundown but you definitely get the idea.  The word florescent is very  appropriate here. 

OK, I thought I have to do something with this and asked my fellow polish-a-holics and a crackle top coat was suggested so I went with W7's Earthquake Silver.  It went on easy, wasn't thick or goopy at all, and this is the first time I tried this and I am rather pleased with the result.  This top coat cost a mere £2.50, so I think I have a bargain there.  Again please excuse the quality of the pics, the light was fading fast at this point, but I will add more tomorrow if its sunny :)