Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - December

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 Wow! The final Nails Inc diary post! I actually kept to the plan I made myself last December and have posted on the first of every month all year! Quite proud of that, really!
There have been many times I've almost forgotten to post, frantically writing it the night before... which is totally not what I am doing right now or anything! *cough*

I wish I could write a nice long post but I've just finished writing an essay so this isn't really the time to write another one!

So, to the polish! This month is Knightsbridge Road, which is kind of translucent in certain lights. On the ring finger, I painted 2 coats of the polish over last month's foil and 1 coat over the foil on the pinky in order to show the gold, blue and red glitters.

I totally get why this colour was chosen for December, it's just so festive! Looking forward to wearing this later in the month!

Well, it's been great! I hope to squeeze in another post or two before the new year!

x

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - November

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Well, hello! I'm sorry that this will be a very short post indeed! I am just exhausted and bogged down with a cold -- can't wait to go to bed, really.

This month's polish by Nails Inc is a foil called South Kensington. I really like South Kensington (the polish and the actual place!) as it really does have that foil effect. I believe I painted 2 layers of the polish (oops, I forgot) but I'd recommend using some ridge fillers before this because this polish doesn't exactly mask them.

I really don't know what else to say, I think I'm going to fall asleep.

Happy November!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - October

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 Well, hello! Ahhhh, it's October already! I can already smell the cinnamon scented candles (I love candles, even if I am essentially burning my money as I've been told a number of times!).

However, this post is all about this month's Nails Inc polish which is Belgravia Place and is part of the Fibre Optic collection.

So, here I have painted 2 coats of this lovely polish on each nail, apart from the ring finger, on which I only painted one coat onto a layer of next month's polish (South Kensington) so that you can see what it looks like over something else.

I quite like this, but I'd probably use it more towards Christmas. The colours are quite difficult to capture on a camera which is why even though the second picture is a tad blurry, I'm still using it because out of 10 photos, it showed off the glitter the best.

Like most polishes with this kind of glitter, they can be a bit annoying to paint as they just go EVERYWHERE, but I do think it can look quite nice!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - September

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 September is here! Wow, the year just seems to have passed quickly! Or at least the Summer has anyway! After this, there are only 3 more Nails Inc posts, awww! (Although I will enjoy not having to write these posts hurriedly in order to meet my personal '9am on the first of each month' deadline!)

This month is... let me check because I forgot already... Electric Lane! This is a holographic topcoat which Nails Inc recommend layering over any colour, which I have done here.

Each nail has two coats of the polish. I left the index finger with no colour, applied November's Nails Inc 'South Kensington' which is a silver foil polish, July's 'Notting Hill Gate' to the ring finger and February's 'St. Martin's Lane' to the pinky nail.

Overall, I really like this and look forward to using this later on. At first I was a little disappointed it wasn't more intense, but then I remembered that this is a topcoat and so it makes sense for it to be this way because you can glam up any colour you like!

Sparkle!

[SPECIAL] Two Year Blogiversary!

Well, HELLO! Today marks two years since I started this blog! Granted, I don't post very often, but I'm glad that I still do post and still enjoy doing nail art. Here you can see my cake efforts... Buddy Valastro, I am not, but the sentiment is there! Also, it tasted delicious.

Last year, I put together a pretty long post, including my favourite nails from the year and some other fun stuff which you can see here. Looking back, I put an awful lot of effort into that, more so than this year, but I have got quite a bit going on at the moment.

I can't really do a 'Top 5' this year because all I have really done are my Nails Inc Polish Diary posts, and no nail art ones.

However, today I'm uploading two nail designs to make up for it. The first one here is one I did last week.


I used a lovely shade by No7, 'Purple Bouquet', and I wanted to add some gold effects to some of the nails so I painted a single line of Barry M 'Treasure Chest' on the thumb nail, painted my pinky nail with a subtle gold glitter by Sally Hansen called 'Starcrossed', and my favourite - I applied 8 and a half gold coloured metal squares to my ring finger (using about 2-3 coats of Seche Vite which secured them for about a week).

Overall, I was quite happy with how these nails turned out, especially since I thought the gold squares were going to fall off within a day!

And finally, I thought I'd add some form of nail art that commemorates this blogiversary! Well done if you understand the nails within 5 seconds because it's not immediately obvious even to me, and I did them! In my defence, I did this is under 10 minutes because I decided to do this right before had to go out - always the best time to do nail art, said no one ever. I just wanted to be able to take the photo in natural light, really!

Oh, before I forget, the polished used are Barry M's Gold Foil, with two coats of Maybelline Color Show Brocades 'Knitted Gold' on top. The black is Rimmel Space Dust 'Total Eclipse', and I added a couple of blobs of Barry M 'Boots Limited Edition' glitter from Christmas.

Well, this has been fun, and I look forward to doing more nail posts eventually!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - August

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 August is here, and so is the polish of the month! This is Fleet Street, which is a leather effect polish.

I applied 2 coats for better coverage. It's a light brown shade, and it does have a texture, although I don't think I'd call it leather, but that's just me.

Personally, I wouldn't have chosen this colour for August because to me, August is still a time for summery colours and so this is the first month I've not exactly agreed with the choice but I would perhaps wear this in say October or just in Autumn in general.

Well, that is Nails Inc's polish of the month!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - July

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

Hello everyone... and hello to July! Time for Nails Inc's Polish Diary again! This month is a lovely neon pink shade called Notting Hill Gate.

(I'm not holding the bottle this month, oops!) ANYWAY, I applied 2 coats of the polish over a (very thin!) white base, to help the colour pop a bit more. It's quite transparent so I recommend using a white polish underneath, preferably fully opaque though!

I really like this colour, especially for this time of the year, it's so darn cheery! Don't apply it too thick though, because it will bubble, and you will be annoyed, haha!

Have a great day!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - June

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 Hello! It is June! Once again, it is time for Nails Inc's Nail Polish Diary!

This is going to be a short post because I am in a rush right now, oops! So this month is all about 'Chester' which, as you can see, is a kind of confetti style polish. I'm not the world's biggest fan of these kinds of polishes, but it is quite nice.

It is very similiar to Barry M's 'Dolly Mixture' confetti which I painted on my index finger. The colours are the same only the Barry M version is paler, and so for me, I kind of prefer the Nails Inc version here.

It is the sort of polish that you'd have to put a thick topcoat on to unless you don't mind your nails feeling bumpy. I do think it is a nice polish to start off the Summer!

That's all for now!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - May

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It's May Day, which means it's time for Nails Inc's polish of the month - Fulham Palace Gardens! It is a pink coloured polish with multi-coloured glitter, as you can see!

It looks very close to Barry M Pink Sequin Nail Effects which has the same colours but is textured, while Nails Inc is not. Therefore, I painted the thumb and index finger with Barry M to contrast it. I'm not the world's biggest fan of either really - I kind of think it's a bit much and just looks a bit random but that's just my thought on it.

Sorry for the short post, but I hope to write more in the Summer! :)

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - April

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It is the 1st of April, and we know what that means! No, I'm not talking about April Fools' Day, but rather the April polish from Nails Inc's Polish Diary, Sloane Avenue!

This is a lovely 'neon' coral/pink shade, perfect for Spring/Summer -- just a shame the weather doesn't reflect that. I mean really, I am so sick of rain/fog!

Anyway, I applied one coat to the thumb and index finger and 2 coats on the rest to give you an idea of the consistency. It is kind of thin as you can see, but 2 coats seems fine, and after 2 coats, it is nice and glossy (I am not using a topcoat in the pictures).

I'm rather busy so I'll just leave it there, but I definitely love this colour!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - March

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I very nearly forgot this, but March is here (yay!) and we know what that means! Yes, today is the March polish from Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary' which is called Baker St and is a lovely cobalt blue colour.
If I'm honest, I'm not the world's biggest fan of blue nail polish - it's one of the colours I'm rather picky about when buying, the reason being that many shades of blue, to me, make one look like they have a nail disorder, or only look nice from short distances.

Nails Inc's Baker Street, however, is quite a nice colour, and while I would not wear this in the summer, when I prefer lighter shades, I think it does suit this time of year and the weather it brings (promise of a cold Winter's end built up by that glimmer of sunlight and then bam - rain, does make one feel... blue).

I must admit, I didn't quite get the results that other people seem to have with regards to its finish. While others might say that it dries nice and glossy, that was not the result I observed. I thought it was a bit matte, actually, as you can see in the photos, which shows the polish with no topcoat. There is one coat on each nail apart from the pinky nail which has 2 coats (or so I believe, as it was quite a while ago that I did this, sorry!)

Have a great day!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - February

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 So February is here, and we know what that means! Nails Inc's February polish, which is St. Martin's Lane! All nails have a single coat apart from the ring finger which has 2 coats to let you see its thickness and opacity.

I love how it applies and is lovely and shiny when dry. I would recommend more than one coat though, one is a bit too thin!

The colour, as described by Nails Inc, is a deep wine shade, and I think it's very fitting to the darkness of winter I'm currently experiencing!

'V-shape' Nail Art

Sometimes it's nice to do a simple design rather than elaborate scribbles which make my eyes hurt -- although I did end up having to spend more than I had planned on this.

The reason being that this is textured nail polish which can be a little bit tricky to draw with. The base colour is done with two coats of Rimmel Space Dust 'Aurora' while the V-shape is done with Rimmel Space Dust 'Total Eclipse'.

I had the bright idea of using my usual masking tape for this design - cutting a 'V' shape into a square of masking tape and placing the two pieces a few millimetres away from each other on the nail, using the gap as a stencil for the 'V'. I realize while I am writing this that that I should have just taken a picture when I was making this but I didn't, so I really can't explain it any better unfortunately!
The problem is that obviously masking tape doesn't really stick to textured nail polish (however this concept didn't occur to me at the time - it's a bit like sticking tape to a cement wall and being surprised when it falls off instantly) so I had to paint the V in about 1.5 seconds which was a complete mess and I ended up just painting them with a nail art brush (still, the tape template provided some guideline, I guess!).
Therefore, as mentioned, I ended up taking longer than I thought, but hey-ho, you live and you learn!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - January

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 January! First of all, Happy New Year! This is perhaps not the most exciting polish to be doing at the start of the year, but it is the first in the Nail Polish Diary by Nails Inc, so here it is! 'Kensington Caviar Topcoat'!

They say it dries in 45 seconds, and I have to say, it did seem pretty quick to dry! It does leave a nice shine - I did try to capture it in daylight, in the 2 hours it was present (that's Winter for you!).

This is possibly the only time you will see my nails 'bare'. I considered painting my nails a colour first but then I figured that would defeat the purpose and you wouldn't actually see the topcoat. A couple of my nails have a few ridges which this polish seemed to fill in pretty well for the most part! Definitely a good topcoat, and made better by the large soft brush which makes it ideal for nail art as it won't drag and ruin it.

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary'

As many will know, the post-Christmas sales are one of the best times to get expensive nail polishes, and when I saw this box for half price, I just had to buy it! This 'Nail Polish Diary' has one polish for every month so that your nails will look fabulous all year, awww yeaahh! At first, I considered just using them all with no regard of the month they're assigned to (which, to be honest, will probably happen soon anyway), however I then thought this might be a good way to ensure I have at least one post per month, as I often have no posts while at uni. So, the first of every month I will be uploading a post about the month's nail polish. Below are the list of polishes in the diary - they will be clickable when the post has been published.

January: Kensington Caviar Topcoat

February: St. Martin's Lane

March: Baker Street

April: Sloane Avenue (Neon)

May: Fulham Palace Gardens (Sprinkles)

June: Chester (Feathers)

July: Notting Hill Gate (Neon)

August: Fleet Street (Leather effect)

September: Electric Lane (Holographic topcoat)

October: Belgravia Place (Fibre Optic)

November: South Kensington (Foil)

December: Knightsbridge Road (Glitter)

Obviously, you can already find many other reviews on these polishes on other blogs if you search, however I don't mind taking a year to do this, haha.

Hope you enjoy!