2true Review- The Crystal Coutures

Hello!

I've got the last of my 2true review posts today- I'l be sharing three of the Crystal Couture polishes with you.

Let's start with my favourite from the Crystals- Rio. This golden polish is such a beautiful colour, it's very similar to OPI 'Goldeneye' from the recent Skyfall collection- a very luxurious foil effect. Two normal coats and it's totaly rich and opaque. I loved the application on this, the polish was very easy to control and looked amazing. This is with one coat of Seche Vite just to smooth it out, and stamped with my Konad Q plate. Slyly sneaking in some Christmas with the gold and white birdie combo!



Next up - Ibiza. This is a purple foil with flecks of blue. Out of all the polishes, this grabbed me the least, and is probably the only one I wouldn't buy for myself. It was quite streaky, and dragged quite badly when I painted the second coat (as you can probably see in the pictures). I built up three coats, but I would definitely layer this over a purple base polish in the future, I'm sure that would help with the dragging and the streaking. It's also not as shiny as I would like- this pics are with two coats of Seche Vite and it's still a bit too matte.

And lastly, here's St. Tropez. After struggling with Ibiza, I decided to layer this polish over 2true Soft Grey, and it made all the difference. This is two coats, and it was much easier to apply. The colour is lovely, and there's so many facets to the shimmer, you can see gold, orange, blue and brown when it catches the light. I dotted on some gold polka dots and it really brought the gold base out.

Well that's all folks! Overall, I think this is a really solid collection- good base colours with a fantastic formula, dense glitters, and a few luxurious foils. I would definitely recommend them if you're looking for something a bit different on a budget.

Til next time,

Alice

xXx 

These 2true polishes are available exclusively at Superdrug stores from December- £1.99 each or 3 for £4.99.
http://www.2true.com

Anchors Away

Ahoy there mateys!

Bit of a nautical one here, I've wanted to do a sailor manicure for a while and I've been meaning to use my anchor stamp for ages. I didn't come out very well over the blue, so I touched it up with a bit of acrylic red paint (which has freaked my camera out a bit and made it look pink)

I used Revlon White, and China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway as the blue base. The stamp is QA5 - it didn't really pick up the anchor properly as it's a cheap stamp so I pretty much just used it as a rough guide and painted over it with a tiny paintbrush and acrylic paint.

I initially wanted to do an anchor on every nail, but it literally took me an hour to do two as they were so fiddly, so there was no way I was going to waste the rest of my 20s painting the rest!

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Alice

xXx

9 Days of Shimmer - Day 9, Sophie & Roses

I've got the last of the Shimmer polishes to share today! I have a feeling you'll be seeing more Shimmer polishes from me in the future, I've loved experimenting with these beautiful pieces of polish art.

'Sophie' is a pinky glitter with purple, red and gold pieces. The glitter cocktail is very similar to Melissa, but with a pink base instead of a purple one. It's layered over OPI Be A Dahlia Won't You? which is one of my all time favourite pinks.

I've been loving the stamping over the glitter lately, so I blobbed on OPI Party in my Cabana and then used Konad Special polish to stamp the white roses. The plate is Cheeky CH13.

Tomorrow I've got a pink and grey combo!

Love,

Alice

Visit Shimmer's website here
Visit Shimmer's Etsy store here

This polish was sent for review

9 Days of Shimmer - Day 7, Melissa & Leopard

So...I've been absent for a while! Huge apologies to anyone who's noticed- I've had a really bad month, mainly with illness, my dog getting spayed, and also the traumatic death of my laptop. It's untimely death resulted in me losing ALL of my pictures....ever! It was totally soul-destroying, but I've since picked myself up and re-done most of the manicures I lost. Hopefully the rest of my pictures are salvageable somehow. And I learned my lesson- BACK UP EVERYTHING! I am an idiot.

Self- flagellation over, onto the last of my Shimmer Series. Today I'm sharing Melissa, a beautiful Christmassy colour- the main glitters are purple, pink, red and gold. I layered it over Barry M Vivid Purple.

Then I thought I'd bling it out a bit with some stamping, and used Barry M Gold Foil and my Konad plate M57 for the leopard. The gold looked soooo good with the purples and pinks! I felt like I was wearing expensive wrapping paper on my nails.

Hope you guys are all good,

Love,

Alice

xXx

Visit Shimmer' website here
Visit Shimmer's Etsy store here

This polish was sent for review

9 Days of Shimmer - Day 4, Alice & Flowers

9 Days of Shimmer - Day 4

I got so excited when I saw there was a polish called Alice (super sad, I know). I was even more excited when I saw how gorgeous it was- different sized silver holographic glitter with silver stars scattered in the mix! I've layered it over Color Club What a Drag and it was opaque in two coats. There's three coats of Poshe as well, as the stars were a bit bumpy. Application was very easy, the glitter dispersed really well and wasn't clumpy. I did have to fish for the stars quite a bit, and I wish they were a different colour as they're not obvious at all on the nail, they merge into the glitter.

I've never really been into stamping over glitter before, but my star stamp over Liana looked so lovely it's kick started a new obsession! The stamp is from the new Bundle Monster set (plate BM-323) and the white is Konad Special polish. I thought the white flowers looked like snowflakes and gave it a very winter-y vibe.

Phew, almost halfway through my epic glitter swatch-a-thon! Tomorrow I've got one of my favourites from Shimmer - Karina!

Alice

xXx

Visit Shimmer' website here
Visit Shimmer's Etsy store here

This polish was sent for review

9 Days of Shimmer - Day 2, Liana & Stars

9 Days of Shimmer - Day 2!

Today I'm sharing Liana, a dark blue glitter (which really reminds of me of denim!) There's so much going on here- the tiny iridescent glitters have a holographic quality to them that really makes this polish pop. There's gold, purple, blue, red- I find a new glitter every time I look at it. 

I used Calvin Klein Electric Blue as underwear, but the same as yesterday's polish, the glitter applies so opaque that you can't even see it. There's also two coats of Poshe to make it extra shiny. 

 

I thought that a bit of stamping would look amazing over the blue, so I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep and the star plate CH5 from Cheeky. And WOW, I am so in love with the end result, the silver brings out the tiny shimmers really well.

Thanks for reading!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post....something very glitzy and gold!

Visit Shimmer' website here
Visit Shimmer's Etsy store here

This polish was sent for review