NOTD - Fast Track, Gold Foil and Warm and Fozzie

I have become mildly obsessesed with glitter nails during the holiday period. This NOTD is one that I wore on the last day of work before Christmas. It is sparkly without being in your face obvious.

Firstly I put on a coat of the wonderful Fast Track by China Glaze.  It is a lovely taupe colour with gold shimmer.  It is very subtle but very pretty.  It featured in my October Beauty Chart.  The formula is really nice although it does need a 2 or 3 coats to become totally opaque.

I decided that although it is one of my favourite polishes I wanted to jazz it up a bit for the sake of being festive so I did a ring finger feature nail.

For this I used my go to easy nail polish Barry M's Gold Foil.  This stuff is amazing, one coat perfection and dries very quickly.  I often put this on if my nails are bare and I want to make it look like I've made a bit more of an effort than I have for a night out.

I drew a diagonal line across my nail freehand and then filled in the top part of my nail.  It did take a bit of concentration to make it look neat but I liked the effect it gave.  However it did make the proportions look a little off so I decided to add another colour into the mix.

I chose Warm and Fozzie by OPI (which is very similar to Barry M's Copper).  I added this, again in a diagonal to the top third of my finger nail.  The formula on this one wasn't quite as nice as I was hoping, it took quite a while to dry but that might have been because of all of the layers previously.

I finished my nails off with a coat of Sally Hansen's Maximum Growth Top Coat.  This helped blend the layers together and gave extra shine to all my nails.

Here you can see a close up of the feature nail (apologies for the state of my cuticles).  I really liked the effect of having just one extra special nail amongst a hand of fairly subtle nails.  This is definitely a look that I will do again, I may even try out the pattern in other colours as well.  The staying power on this was amazing, it didn't really chip other than a little bit of tip wear and probably would have lasted longer than a week had I not have wanted a change.

Favourite Fall (Autumn) Nails - Dupes and Alternatives

I love nail varnish, it is somewhat of an addiction for me.  Every season I like to pull out a few which I think I will be wearing more than any others.  It makes it that little bit easier to decide on a nail colour in a rush.  I thought I would show you six colours that I think will be living on my nails for the next few months.  Due to the fact that I have a ridiculous amount of nail polishes I have been able to find cheaper dupes and good alternatives to my more expensive polishes. All are shown with one coat and no top coat. 

Here we have my more expensive picks for Autumn.  L-R: China Glaze - Recycle, OPI - Gouda Gouda Two Shoes , OPI - Big Apple Red , Nails Inc - Piccadilly Circus, Nails Inc - New Burlington Place, China Glaze - Agro.  These all have an rrp of over £10 but can probably be found for less if you shop around.

These are their lower priced counterparts.  L-R: Barry M - Grey, Revlon - Endless Possibilities, Revlon - All Fired Up, Barry M - Raspberry, Models Own - Pinky Brown Beetle Juice, Models Own - Golden Green Beetle Juice.  These are all under £10, with most being around the £5 mark.

Now on to the swatches and comparisons. (Warning: Picture Heavy)

First up we have the greys.  I love grey nail polish, to me it feel like the kind of rebellion that is acceptable for work.  I love pairing grey nail polish will really girly dresses.  For the swatches you can see Barry M (grey) on the left and China Glaze (recycle) on the right.  They are different but unless you a nail polish obsessive like myself you probably don't need both.  They both had lovely formulas so on this instance I would say save your pennies and go for Barry M.

Next up is neutrals.  These are the classic nudes that every girl needs in her collection, after all the brights of summer I always crave these colours as soon as the leaves start to change.  For the swatches you can see Revlon (endless possibilities) on the left and OPI (gouda gouda two shoes) on the right.  These colours are very different in my opinion. The OPI can seem a little 'old ladyish'  but it does have a lovely subtle gold shimmer.  The Revlon is a beautiful girly pink.  So I would just go for whichever appeals more to you.

I love red nails, I know they can polarise opinion but I just think they look really sexy when done right.  for ages I have been on the hunt for the perfect red which is still not over.  I like both of these but they are both slightly too bright for me to promote them to holy grail status.  On the swatch you can see Revlon (all fired up) on the left and OPI (big apple red) on the right.  I cannot see a difference between these colours  I would go as far as to say they are dupes.  However I much prefer the Revlon formula so I would definitely go for that one.

Berry tones are a wonderful way to give your look an Autumnal feel.  The swatch colour is more accurate than the bottle colour here.  The swatch shows Nails Inc (piccadilly circus) on the left and Barry M (raspberry) on the right.  Again these both had flawless formulas and are near enough the same colour.  Another money saver from Barry M.

I love the beautiful shimmering colours.  The swatch is Models Own (pinky brown) on the left and Nails Inc (new burlington place) on the right.  The swatch doesn't do these justice, they are are both beautiful complex colours.  The Models Own is darker and more purple whereas the Nails Inc is more pink and orange.  The Nails Inc applied slightly better and is my favourite of the two, however it depends on what you prefer colour wise.   

 Lastly is the moss greens.  Another classic Autumn colour.  The swatch shows Models Own (golden green) on the left and China Glaze (agro) on the right.  I much preferred the formula of the China Glaze and like that it is darker in colour.  However the Models Own has a lovely golden shine.  They are sufficiently different to own both but if you were to pick one I would recommend the China Glaze.

NOTD - Colville Mews and Luxe and Lush

Today's NOTD is a rather girly one.  I wore this combo to a recent wedding as it was subtle but a little bit special.   I think you could probably get away with wearing this to work if they weren't too fussy about nail colours and finishes.  To do it I used Nails Inc's Colville Mews, China Glaze's Luxe and Lush and No7's Stay Perfect.

Firstly I put on a coat of Nails Inc's Colville Mews, which is a wonderful putty coloured creme.  This is one of my favourite neutrals.  It is has tinges of pink and grey in it but is nice and opaque.  Below you can see what it looks like on.  That is just one coat - in my humble opinion that is pretty amazing for a pale neutral colour.  The formula on this was great, not too runny but not too thick.

Although I liked it as it was I wanted something a little bit less 'daytime' as I was going to both the church wedding and the evening reception.  So I decided to jazz it up a little.

To do that I added China Glaze's Luxe and Lush.  This is probably my ultimate favourite sparkly topcoat.  It is a wonderful flakie which, when it catches the light, changes colour between green, gold, pink and blue.  You can see the way it looks over several different polish shades here.  It really is beautiful and photos cannot do it justice.  This polish is thicker than most due to the nature of the flakes.  One coat is enough to get a thin even coverage of shards, as seen below.  They also lie nice and flat, there is nothing worse than uneven nails.  Due to the fact that it is thicker it takes longer to dry than normal China Glaze polishes, but not a ridiculously long time.

Here you can see the final result.  I finished it off with the No7 stay Perfect top coat and it lasted an impressive 5 days.  Even then I took it off because I was getting a little bored and it was starting to show a bit of wear and tear around the tips.