Remember when I used to get my nails done every months in awesome sparkly colours? Well, in the interests of being a grown up and trying to save money my nails became a sacrifice and now I'm stuck with do-it-yourself nail polish.
Initially this took me back to my teenage years- images of miscoloured cuticles, chipping within the hour and smudging no matter how long I waited between coats flew through my mind. Luckily though, there are stacks more options and when they say chip resistant, they actually mean it! Woohoo!
I thought I'd share with you a couple of my favourite nail varnishes at the moment. I'm right into cool colours- give me lavenders, lilacs, turquoises and aquas. I don't stick to just one colour on each hand eithr- I try to mix it up and paint different shades on different fingers. Right now I think that Rimmel is fabulous for three reasons.
Number one- the brush is all sorts of amazing. Why no other brand has a thick, flat brush I'll never know. One swipe and the whole nail is covered!
Number two- The price. I love that I can normally pick up 2-3 bottles for under $10. Yesterday when I was in Chemist Warehouse they had them for $2.50 in every shade you can imagine. I'm kicking myself that I didn't pick up any neon!
Number three- This is a great chip resistent polish. I can normally get away with two days if I'm not teaching art on those particular days. This is in conjunction with an OPI top coat though.
If my Little Lion is up, I normally have to be super quick when applying nail polish and nine times out of ten I'll have heaps of imperfections due to me rushing like a mad thing. I've found a solution for this (and a way to add a bit of glitz to my day!) and that's to crack out the Sally Hanson Gem Crush polish.
This stuff is awesome, and the colours are absolutely beautiful. Right now I have Big Money on which consists of gold glitter and teeny tiny metallic pink dots. This stuff is like cement so the drawback is that it's a little difficult to get off, but if you have any chips you can easily paint the ends and no one will know any different. I've also found that if I have a light polish on that's chipping and I need a quick fix, I run two coats of Gem Crush over the top. Not only will the base colour pop through prettily, but those chips will disappear!
My final fave- Sally Hanson Crackle Overcoat. When I want a bit of texture and a cool instant pattern, I simply put 1-2 coats of this polish over a coloured nail base. Lately I've been loving the shimmery gold over an aqua or turquoise, but I'm interested to see what some of the other colours would look like.
What nail colours are you rocking at the moment?
Love it! I've never been much into nail polish (studied outdoor education, so my nails were forever getting smashed) but these colours sound like such fun that I'm going to have to give them a go!
ReplyDeleteI love those Rimmel polishes too :) I'll have to try some of the sally hansen ones as well, I love the idea of being able to put a couple of coats on, hide chips and get away with a few extra days wear! I saw a look on pinterest the other day that I'm going to try this weekend - pink nails (my go-to colour) with matte tips in the same colour using the rimmel matte top coat. I'll let you know how they turn out!
ReplyDeleteFlat nail brushes.... LOVE. The only one of my many polishes that has a flat brush is by Dior. I may have to go to Chemist warehouse now... damn you :P
ReplyDeleteOoh Tamsyn, that sounds good. I also saw one on Pinterest that I loved- nude nails with the ring finger only in the 'big money' glitter. Looked just gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteHaha, it will be worth it :P Rimmel have so many neons now that I'm going to grab some tonight.. luckily it's on the way home from work :P
ReplyDeleteYou should Clare! Have stacks of fun with it. I never used to be into it either, but now I feel naked without some colour on my nails!
ReplyDeleteI recently invested in a UV gel nails kit because I have THE weakest nails and normal nailpolish is useless on them. It took a bit to get used to the process, but I'm really loving the results now! I'm getting up to two weeks out of one colour :)
ReplyDeleteLife etc