Luv polish

Another UK indie. Sorry for the swatch overload the last few posts but like I mentioned im having a bit of a nail art fail atm. Plus I've bought way too much polish recently :p.
So luv polish. This is a very new brand with some very interesting polishes. They're rather....classy colours, at least by my standards :p.
I was unusually restrained in my purchasing out of respect for a dwindling back balance. But the two polishes I did get are beautiful.
First up I went for serenity. Partly because the name appealed (I really must stop doing that!) But largely because I don't have many sensible neutrals. Not good ones anyway. And this it good. Very good. I did use three coats...I guess you could layer it but I like it this way. I did have a moment of panic after the first coat as I thought it was gonna take about ten coats on its own lol. Fortunately it seems to get more opaque as it dries. It's a lovely subtle warm stone grey and it's not quite as brown as it looks in my pictures, our house has appalling light.... everywhere. Anyway yeah, it applied nicely, well enough for three coats not to be a chore and I love the colour. Happy :).
At this point I should apologise for ask the pics being at the end, sorry but it's late and since there's just the two I figured I could get away with it lol.
Moving on to the second polish, this is snowfall. I literally wanted this the second I saw it. It's glossy, glittery and monochrome <3. I love small glitters, partly from an application point of view but mainly just because I really like how they look. I layered this over nails Inc floral Street just so I didn't have to do hundreds of coats. I'd quite like to experiment with a more off White base to see if I can get a cream colour also. Anyway I love the scattering of little black glitter in stark white and the larger iridescent glitters just add the perfect subtle nod towards winter and ice and crisp frosty mornings. This is snow on dark mountains, a scattering of soot on snowy roofs just to show that santa has been....a dalmatian on the obligatory boxing day walk, a sprinkling of snow in its coat.
Oh do shut up Katie. Night all. X

Ps. Oh and bonus pic of the pretty packaging....I remembered to take one for once!

nail lacquer UK

Sorry slight lack of inspiration in the title lol. Hopefully I can compensate with a post full of prettiness. Nail lacquer UK (available on etsy) is one of the first UK indies I bought from, in fact they were among the first polishes I bought full stop. I'm not sure quite why it's taken me so long to go back! I hopped over to etsy to check the address for the link and already my 'I need that polish' list has grown lol. Anyway, onto the polishes, I actually bought all four of these as mystery grab bags cos I got bored of my own indecisiveness!

This is dull days. I love bright glitters in neutral bases. This is a grey, slightly taupe base. I think. I couldn't quite decide lol, with lots and lots of little magenta glitter. The glitter twinkles beautifully. Again though, both my phone and I lack the ability to capture this. So imagine the pictures with an extra sprinkle of lovely. I believe this was three coats as it's reasonably sheer. But that's ok cos it's so easy to apply.

Then pretty monster. White base with a fun mix of glitters. Large black circles and bright pink hexes (Oh dear hexes will always make me think of magic lol (anyone know the ethnology? Is there a connection between the hex in hexagon and the hex in hex (hmm lol)... something do do with 6 and it's association with evil and the devil and stuff?)). That was irrelevant my brain is weird tonight. Erm there are also pink circles, small Blue-Green circles and bright yellow hexes (Let's not go there again!). It sounds so very random but it works really well. The application was good enough for me not to get fed up with it, and that's saying something Haha. I moved the bigger glitters about a bit but didn't really have to fish for them. I do kinda wish is worn it over something though cos by the time I got to the last coast the paler glitters in the first coat didn't really show. That and I'm lazy lol.

Next, winter. A chilly Blue polish with small and micro Blue glitter but also the unusual addition of pastel pink and yellow circles. I like it, makes me think of ice skating in bobble hats Haha. The abundance of Blue glitter gives it a nice depth and again it applies nicely. This was three coats but two would probably be ok. I like this a lot... I'm tempted to wear it all year round just removing the snowflakes as I go along lol.

Finally we have sprinkles. Bright! I wore it over a very plain colour to show it off (and add I mentioned neutral plus bright glitter equals love lol). I thought at first it was going to be quite sparse but after the first couple of nails I got a tonne of glitter each time. So the thumb and index are two coats the others all one. This makes it easy to apply without too much faffing...I did have to play about with the pinkie but I always do with large glitters cos it's a small nail lol. I love the colours in this and the slight translucency in the hexes. And the lime green is just such fun.

The base is actually from luv polish and I will hopefully have a post about that tomorrow so I won't say much now. X

A pointless post

I really don't have much to say today really. And I feel like I'm in danger of crashing and I'd rather that didn't happen. In light of which I was going to write a post on action plans and crisis planning and such like but now isn't the time, maybe tomorrow.
So instead a few random bits of info. - I have two more uk indies to post about this week, nail lacquer UK and nails inspire (which I keep forgetting and it's been way too long!)
- I've been working hard with the Bell ringing records trying to transfer them all into a database so I can play with them more easily. Plus filling in the forms to open a branch bank account
- I walked my doggy the other day (hence the pic) and decided I need to do more of that this year
- I'm slacking on the nail art. This is partly because a of a totally innocuous Covenham which meant my brain did it's silly flying off in spirals thing. I refuse to lose my biggest healthy coping mechanism though
- I haven't self harmed in almost four months and it's worth remembering that
- I'm having fun playing with stamping at least, even if it's a little too random to post, I'm experimenting lol
- I got boots vouchers for Christmas! I also have over twenty quid on my boots card :)
- group therapy starts on the fifteenth

I need to remember that these things matter. They're not just background noise. Tomorrow I'll be more together :). X

Magic goose

Ah magic goose. I love this company so very much Haha. If you want to buy them, and I really think you should, click here. If you want decent swatches of them leave my blog and Google cos mine are seriously not doing these polishes justice.
All of these apply nicely and give good coverage. I used two coats for all of them but probably could have gotten away with one for pink Heather and hebridean sea. There is a lovely shimmer to them, hebridean sea has beautiful gold shimmer but my poor little phone struggled to capture it lol.
All three are from the Scottish collection and, silly as it sounds they do feel Scottish. I'm aware my imagination is running away with me but there's something atmospheric and mystical about them that makes me think of dramatic panoramas and dreamy escapism and.... fairies? The proper gaelic kinda ones not the tinkerbell kind. Sídhe and stuff (or is that irish?!). I dunno where that came from. I'm getting distracted.
Erm? Shall I just move onto the polishes themselves? The deep pink-red-purple is pink Heather. It's lovely and unusual and significantly more grown up than most of the colours I own. Hebridean sea is the turquoise-Blue with the elusive gold shimmer I mentioned. And my absolute favourite of the three is the serene sea haar, which is a slightly Blue lilac. Despite my purple obsession I'm not a massive lilac fan, makes me think of elderly ladies in lavender rain macs. This one not so much, more winters skies, sun on deep water, creeping mists and magic. Oh dear I'm in a weird mood tonight sorry. Right, pictures. Sorry they're not within the text im too lazy to fight with the browser version of blogger. X

Excitement for a Friday!

Well first off I get a day off tomorrow that is exciting in itself because it means a lay in which means mode than four hours sleep!

Moving on to less mundane excitement (is that an oxymoron?). A while before Christmas I won a nails Inc 'buy or polish to be entered into a raffle' kinda competition. Then of course Christmas happened and I totally forgot about it.... until a giant box arrived today containing fifty nails Inc polishes :D. Very happy Katie!

In other exciting delivery news my magic goose order also arrived today. And they are beautiful. And I've worn two of them already :p lol. I'm definitely a little in love with this brand and not really sure why I don't own more of them.

Thirdly a brief moment of nail art based excitement. I actually got a stamp to look almost like it was intended to! :-0 lol. I've tried stamping a couple times but I'm not really fast enough and I got bored after a few attempts lol. But this year I want to try to master a few more techniques. Stamping is at the top, thanks largely to drooling over the clever things over on the crumpet. Also on the list are gradients and water marbling (though this seems a little daunting atm!) amongst others.... many others. Anyway, back to stamping, after reading about two billion tutorials (like this one at penny pinching polish and handy hints lists I thought I'd give it another go. Now it's certainly not anywhere near wearable... For a start you will notice that the first effort is only one finger and the second is only three.... and only one of them really worked I misplaced the thumb so it doesn't cover the whole nail and the two not featured are patchy. But it's improvement. So I'll keep playing.

Final little snippet of excitement is that I love prancer by tarastalons which I wore yesterday.... Just felt like sharing lol. X

belle glamour... Take two

A while back I posted about a soon to be released uk indie called belle glamour. Well the official launch is looming on the 24 th of this month and the site is already open for pre orders. Anyway I have a few more of her polishes to show you. The service and delivery times were just as good as last time I ordered, particularly given the time of year! Anyway, first we have in the barrel.

This is a sort of tarnished silver colour (the sort of silver I love in jewellery Haha)I guess maybe gunmetal is the word? It's metallic but with a scattering of fine multicoloured flecks. I like it, simple but effective...plus it applies nicely which is always a big plus in my books! And this is two coats.

Then we have a glitter topper called broken hearted.

This is it over in the barrel... mainly because that's what I was wearing and I'm lazy. Though actually I think they work quite well together. I'm kinda fussy about glitters, it has to be something special to be worth the effort of removal, and Ihate fishing! Lol. Anyway back to the polish in hand. I chose it despite the above because it sounded fun. And actually I do like it a lot. There was no real fishing so that's a huge plus lol. There are plenty of the little hearts and I love the contrast of the bright red against the black strands. My overactive imagination sees this as little 'cupid's arrow through the heart' images all smushed up. My brain is weird lol. I only used one coat, apart from one nail I went over cos I screwed it up a little lol.

Next up is lagoon.

This is actually a thermal polish though unfortunately I haven't managed to capture that very well...As well as the fact my nails are short I also have horribly cold hands and it turns out I struggle to get thermals to ever leave the cold colour lol. Aaaanyway, failures if my circulation aside, I love this colour so much! It's a squishy glittery holo-y bundle of prettiness. That's a poor description sorry lol. It's a vibrant Blue colour which gets lighter or darker depending on temperature. It catches the light beautifully. Without top coat it's slightly textured and I quite like the look of it either way. It's a fairly thick polish but easy enough to apply and I think this is just two coats.

Fourth is gold digger.

Glittery enough for you? I wore this one out for new year's actually because it seemed like the perfect party polish. This is seriously sparkly and packed with holo-y gold glitter. I love the slightly brash gold colour it's unusual and (overactive imagination alert again!) It makes me think of your stereotypical gold digger with the brassy bottle blonde hair. This is just two coats.

Then on to coven.

More teeny tiny little sparkly flecks. This time in a beautiful not quite lilac base. . This is purple so admittedly it has a head start but I do love it. It's a colour I don't really own, and that's good going for a purple! I like the delicacy of the colour and of course the sparkle. It's quite sheer so I did use three coats here. I think I might layer it in future. Sorry for my hands here btw we've been ringing a crazy amount and it's not that kindon the hands... At least you can't see the blisters :p.

This is blood Roses.

Not one of my personal favourite colours from this set I confess, but that is just an individual taste thing I think as it is pretty and my mum loves it Haha. It's metallic and quote an unusual orangey red. It comes out almost copper in the nail. And again it's easy to apply.... despite what you might think from the horrendous swatches lol. The saga of trying to swatch it may explain why it's not one of my favourites lol. Not a failure with the polish just with me Haha....first I redid the index cos I chipped it ringing. Then I smudged it, tried to repair it, redif it again..... Then spotted the hideous bubbles in the top coat, messed up redoing those, finally managed to end up with five reasonably intact nails... and still there were bubbles! So I gave up. Lol.

The penultimate one is in the navy.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I'd been remiss and failed to add a proper navy to my collection. That has been rectified. And I love it... so very much. It's deep and rich and feels luxurious. Conversely there's also a little child in the back of my mind that's reminded of school days and colouring in our nails with highlighter or tipex or fountain pen. There is a very inky quality to it. I wore this to work today and apparebtly other people agree as I got several compliments on it. This is three coats though two probably would have been enough tbh.

Lastly we have midnight

Glittery charcoal. Lovely. I love black colours with multicolored aspects to them. And this is no exception. It adults well and only took two coats.

All in all I love these polishes a lot. Although these were bought at a blogger discount I will definitely be returning to the shop once it opens... and once I've been paid lol. Don't forget to check out the website link at the start of this post. X

Mindful moment of the day

Today. Ah yes, today has not been the best of days. And tbh the main reason for that is I've been letting my brain run wild and spiral into pointlessness. It's very unproductive but it's also a very easy pattern to slip into. Something bugs you so it's on your mind, it toddles around bouncing off things and as it does it collects other nagging thoughts, which lead on to entirely different thoughts and before you know it your whole brain is buzzing, everything is hopeless and you just want to cry. All from one annoying little thought.
I've been taught several techniques to help with this over the years and one of the easiest ones is a very simple mindfulness technique. It goes like this:
- sit still and comfortably
- close your eyes
- keep your breathing relaxed and at a natural rate and rhythm there's no need to change it
- gradually start to become aware of the sounds around you
- don't judge them, you don't even need to label them, just be aware of them
- do this for as long or short a time as you wish
- if you want you can focus on on your breathing or physical sensations add you prepare to pen your eyes
- repeat on a regular basis :p

Yea that's only one very basic exercise that I happen to like and mindfulness is all very individual but if you want to know more about it there's plenty of info if you Google mindfulness. Alternatively if you have an iphone or Android there are mindfulness and meditation apps (take ten/headspace is a good one).
Here's to a better tomorrow :). X

Happy New years

:) I hope it brings everything you need.... and a few added treats you don't ;).
And for those for whom new years isn't a happy occasion, a Harry Potter quote: