NEW: Bourjois Halloween Nail Effects

Good afternoon beauty lovers!

I make no secret of the fact that I love Halloween. It's my perfect excuse to watch every gory movie I own and eat lots of sweets. It's also a very well known fact that I ADORE Bourjois nail colours and, when I was told that they had come up with three new shades in honour of this ghoulish holiday, I almost burst with joy! They have indeed come up with a haunting gel-effect 1 Seconde polish as well as two devilishly glam topcoats which work over almost any other shade. 

The Shades Are...

Ghost Lovers - A Devilishly Delightful Metallic Silver Topcoat

Dangerous Wish - A Ghoulishly Gorgeous jet black polish with holographic gold/yellow glitters running through it

and

Enchanting Potion - A Spine-tinglingly Sparkly Gold Glitter Topcoat

I was lucky enough to receive Dangerous Wish* at a recent event and gave it it's first test run last week! Sadly I do not have swatches for the two topcoats but they are easily Google-able or you can pop into your nearest stockist. 

If I'm honest, I don't think these photos do this polish any justice at all. The sheer SPARKLE of it really is so pretty and hard to capture on camera. The glitters vary in size and are predominently a slightly yellow/green shade of gold but has a brilliant holographic, multicoloured sparkle to it. 

In  this photo I'm wearing two coats of Dangerous Wish with a layer of Seche Vite topcoat. The polish was much easier to apply than some other glitter shades that I own, the brush is a really great shape and the glitter is very evenly distributed through the black. I didn't have to keep going back and filling in gaps. The other thing I would like to say is that this polish lasts for AGES! I've had it on for an entire week and it honestly hasn't budged or chipped. The 1-Seconde Gel formula really is fantastic and so durable, expecially when teamed with the mighty Seche Vite. This polish is sure to endure through whatever horrors you run into this Halloween. 

As I'm still wearing it I can't really comment as yet on whether it's a nightmare to remove or not but, to be honest, it's kind of a given with glitter polishes isn't it. The upside with this polish is that you get a good long run of it before undertaking such a task. 

These polishes launched this month and are available from all Bourjois stockists as well as online.

RRP £5.99 for 9ml

What murderous shades will you be painting your nails this Halloween?? Do you love Bourjois Polishes?? Will you be picking up these colours??

Tropical Summer Nails ft GOSH SS13

Hello lovelies!! I had intended to post this YESTERDAY as I haven't done a Monday Manicure post for a few weeks but, although i had all the photos done in time, my efforts were thwarted by a migraine and I ended up having to have an early nap instead. Boooooo! Anyways, I've been going a bit crazy for my Limecrime Velvetines in Suedeberry on my lips this week (if you still don't know what that is see my post Here) and it inspired me to pull out a couple of tropical nail colours that I received from GOSH Cosmetics new SS13 Collection and go bright on my nails as well!!

I suppose I have featured these polishes briefly on this blog before but no way did a quick swatch demonstrate them in all their glory and this is the first time I have given these two colours, in particular, their chance to truly shine!! Tropicana* is a hotter than hot orange toned coral/red shade and I chose Greed* to go along with it as an accent to add a bit of extra sunshiney SPARKLE!

I love love love these colours! It's a pity I still don't have much of a tan to set them off really (working on that). Tropicana applies very opaque from the first coat, although I did two to be on the safe side. I used my Ciate Paint Pot in Sand Dune as a base for two coats of the gold glitter polish. I might just add that I find GOSH polishes to be very thick in texture which is great in terms of colour payoff but, in my experience, each coat needs a little extra setting time before adding the next. Same before adding topcoat, or it just seems to clump and pull the polish off the edge of the nail. As always I finished with lashings of Seche Vite!

Coral and Gold are two of my favourite colours for summer. I just love warm, orangey, sunshiney hues when the sun comes out. I know it's a bit of a no no to match nail polish to lipstick these days but I just couldn't help myself. These colours set Suedeberry Velvetines off perfectly! 

I did do a post about the full shade range for the GOSH SS13 collection Here with information on all shades, prices and stockists so be sure to check out the other shades in the range!

What are your perfect Summer nail colours??

Monday Manicure #6: Ciate Paint Pot in Sand Dune

My Monday Mani is making an early appearance this week. Mainly because I got a bit overexcited at this month's Marie Claire freebies and wanted to share it with you IMMEDIATELY!! In their May issue they are offering up a choice of TWO different full size Ciate Paint Pots as well as a mini Jergen's Body Moisturiser. The only shade I could find in my local Sainsbury's was Sand Dune so I snapped it up and I thought I'd pop it up on the blog as a Monday Mani so that you lovely ladies can see it on the nails.

I LOVE the Ciate packaging! It's a big bottle at 13.5ml and the curved shape and Ciate's signature bow are very pleasing on the eye. I like that the cap is longer as well as I find it easier to control the brush that way.

This is actually my first Ciate nail polish. I seem to have missed out on previous magazine giveaways with them included and I just failed to stumble across them whilst out and about and promptly forgot they existed until I spotted them in Marie Claire today. Sand Dune looked so pretty in the bottle. I love a nice golden shade on my nails in the summer, expecially with a tan, and this one has the most beautiful sparkle to it without being overly-bling. It's very similar to Barry M's Gold Foil Nail Effects but it has more sparkle and isn't quite so metallic.

I actually found this polish to be a bit of a hassle to apply. It seems to cling to any imperfection in the nails and, on a couple, I had to redo it several times before it would look smooth (thank God for my Bourjois 1-Second Nail Polish remover). I really did get rather angry after the 3rd attempt bodged.  It's almost like the second coat is trying to pull the first coat OFF. Very strange but probably my fault for not waiting longer between coats. However, the finished effect is lovely! It's more subtle than the Barry M Foil and the sparkly effect is so pretty! Definitely worth £3.80 for an issue of Marie Claire, despite my issues.

Will you be buying Marie Claire this month?? What do you think of Ciate Paint Pots?? What nail shades will you be going for for SS13??