Sorry for the absence! Orly Gogo and Illamasqua Harsh

OK...sorry that I've been MIA. Things have been insanely busy (I had a day off on Friday, where I did nothing, for the first time in three and a half weeks) and I've not had much time to a) do my nails and b) take pictures. On the plus side I LOVE my new job so working my socks off doesn't seem like much of a chore, but I am finding less time for, well, anything else.

BUT! I'm hoping that now that teaching has started and I'm more in the swing of things I can start posting more regularly. Fortunately the other ladies on POP have been so awesome that I'm sure you've barely noticed I was gone ;)

I think this was three of four coats of Gogo (streaky hell fest) plus glitter to make it look a bit more even. I did think this was quite pretty but I don't think I'll be reaching for Gogo again for a while.

Illamasqua Prism and GOSH glitter

I've had an obsession with ethereal shades lately. Summer has finally turned up but even so we've had storms and drizzle and my usual sunny neons haven't felt quite right. I'd been wanting Prism for ages and when it came up in the sale along with Harsh, Scorch (also shades I'd earmarked) and a base coat for £15 I had to have it.

Really pleased I snagged it - isn't it pretty? I think this was two coats with a sandwich of GOSH glitter (562, Magic Star) which is a transparent prismatic glitter. Reminds me of tinsel/ I've seen people swatch Prism with four coats to make the duochrome more obvious, so I'll definitely try that next time.

Terrible olympic nail art

I was expecting to be a total humbug about the Olympics (I think every British taxpayer has spent the last year wincing every time the word is mentioned) but I've actually really enjoyed it. It has happily coincided with two weeks off work for medical reasons where I've been stuck on the sofa, so it's been nice to watch all the sports, and in my home city. So I succumbed to the inevitable and donned some flags.

I am crap at nail art at the best of times. I am even worse at nail art when Small Naughty Cat has stolen both my clean-up and striper brushes (I tuck them into rolls of cotton wool, which she then abducts from the bathroom and hides around the house). Nonetheless, I had a go with an orange stick and regular nail polish brushes. The colours are Kiko 266 (which I got for the princely sum of £1.50), Ciate mistress and Illamasqua Scorch.

Are you all enjoying the Olympics? What's your favourite sport?

A jelly sandwich

It's been raining endlessly in the UK. I've scheduled this in advance since I'll be away for a fortnight in July toasting myself in Spain, from which I'll likely return with ravaged nails and freckles so I am trying to schedule as many posts as I can for that time.

Still, imagine this as being weather appropriate to drizzly England, not sunny Spain. This is Illamasqua raindrops sandwiched between OPI Last Friday Night which I got in a swap on MUA and am a little bit obsessed with. It is super sheer so I'm thinking of layering it over one of my other blues, maybe Illamasqua Caress or CG Frostbite. It would look amazing over a blue jelly, but I don't think I have any.

Illamasqua Stance

Finally, pictures of Illamasqua Stance! I've been meaning to take pictures of this one for ages, but I've been waiting for a sunny day to do it justice since it's a neon and I figured my camera would probably throw a fit if I didn't photograph it in 'perfect' light.

I was right! These pictures don't quite show the intensity of the colour - it's a touch more purple and less fuchsia, like an amped up neon grape. It makes me think, for reasons I can't put my fingers on, of 80s neon tubes. I think this is the sort of polish Madonna would have worn. So, with that in mind, I took loads of shots at wonky angles. You're welcome.

Application was really good. I took three coats to get it opaque, although this is actually four, due to some topcoat drama. I know I've been whinging about this at length, but I'm going to whinge some more, so bear with me. I used some of Nails Inc's 45 second topcoat (I got it in a set with their Kensington caviar basecoat, which is amazeballs, and which I credit entirely for my strong nails). Well, maybe 45 seconds if we're talking Jovian years. Half an hour later I went to get dinner out of the oven and ruined all the tips. It actually worked out OK because I put another coat of Stance on over the top, which probably shows you the character of the polish better in any case since it dries ever so slightly satin.

Here it i in the shade - this is slightly more colour accurate but it's still richer in the flesh.

This was sent to me for review, by the way.

An Illamasqua day out!

Nomad + precision ink in Scribe, Lament

I consider myself a fairly fussy and discriminating person when it comes to things I like, but I am undeniably a bit obsessive when I get my teeth into something. I never ever watch TV, for example. Instead, if there's a programme I'm interested in, I will avoid it like the plague until the series is over and a boxset is available, and then spend a weekend gorging myself in one go. (It was Game of Thrones last week, which I really enjoyed, not least for the costuming).

This full-on mentality extends itself to my nails and makeup. I own products by relatively few brands, but the few I do regularly re-purchase I tend to be pretty passionate about. Fortunately I have been quite poor this last year, otherwise I think I'd be running out of space to store all the China Glazes that have come out in the last few months (I wanted, like, ALL of the Hunger Games collection). So, one of the things I am grateful to Illamasqua for is the fact that they put out relatively few new products, but they put a lot of thought and backstory into each collection, so I find myself actively coveting and valuing a small number of products rather than greedily devouring twelve polishes I'll maybe wear once. Sad but true.

This is all a rather roundabout way of saying that I was really excited for my long-planned trip to the Illamasqua flagship store in London, and was filled with even more childish glee when I realised it coincided with the launch of the new Human Fundamentalism collection. Even more nail varnish porn! Awesome!

Lots more under the jump...

Illamasqua Lament

I wore this last summer (and took a crappy iNOTD picture of it) but I have completely changed my mind after my initial, not-so-positive reaction. Initially I was a bit taken aback by the fact that it's more pink than coral. However, I popped it on my toes and ended up loving it so much that I left it on for six weeks before finally acknowledging that its time had come. It really is the perfect pedicure colour.

Anyway, I think my initial reactions were off in another respect. I described this as 'watermelon'. I have since decided that the exact pantone is in fact 'Dr Zoidberg'. It has that kind of creamy, lobster-y undertone but it's quite neon for an almost-pastel. I'm not very good at describing colours.

Coming up tomorrow is some more Illamasqua, including a rather exciting trip to the flagship store!

Party nails!

As I type, it's my best friend's hen do today! (It's actually her *wedding* today in PoP post-world, but I scheduled this one in advance since I am not planning on being anywhere near a computer for the next 24 hours). I have to leave in two hours and am, predictably, not in the slightest bit ready, but I did do my nails last night. I wanted something to tie together the things I wanted to wear (cream, black, brown) with the things I will have to wear as part of the deal (a pink top hat). So the cream matches my outfit, one of the spot colours matches the hat, and one matches my lipstick.

These are all colours I've used before. This is three coats of Illamasqua Load, with spots in Illamasqua Obsess and OPI Conquistadorable color. Load is the only problem child in the Illamasqua family application wise (not surprising for something that is equal parts white and yellow) but it looks great on me, so I don't mind. The spots and just freehanded blobs, which was a bit tricky with the pro-wide brush but came out OK in the end. The overall effect reminds me of Emma Bridgewater pottery, which wasn't intentional but is, I think, a nice thing to be reminded of.

Finally I took a couple of shots of the OPI bottle because the last time I wore it, a commenter took issue with me including it in the pink family for a series I was doing. Which is fair enough - it's a rose red. But it does have a definite sorbet pink undertone which I tried and failed to show here. It's a lovely shade anyway.

Illamasqua Snap

This is absolutely the colour of HB pencils. The stripey yellow and black ones you use at primary school, before you're allowed to graduate to pens, with their greater potential for indelible inky disaster. This polish resulted in some serious flashbacks! (By the way, yes, those are gloves - it hasn't made it over freezing for the last week or so, and I'm feeling the cold).

One coat, plus top coat (which really didn't want to play ball, hence the giant cuticle gaps). Applied itself, practically. Plus I got it for a song (£4.50!) courtesy of the Illamasqua sale, plus clubbing together with one of my girlfriends to get over their free postage threshold, plus my loyalty discount. There are many really crappy things about living in the UK (the weather, Dale Winton, the strange compulsion to mash everything that looks like a vegetable before eating it) but cheapo Illamasqua sales is a good 'un.

What nail polish takes you back?

Illamasqua Velocity

Another one of Illamasqua's one coat wonders. This is one coat of Velocity, no top coat. It is, as a colourful local turn of phrase goes, a piece of piss to apply. Somewhere between a plum-lavender-grey, this is unique in my stash and is such a nice combination of OTT and subtle.

It looks even nicer with two coats and a topcoat, but when a lazy day manicure looks like that with so little effort, why bother?

Work appropriate glitter: Essie and Illamasqua

As you read this I will be off to an interview (for a teaching job - it seems career opportunities are like busses, where I am concerned), so it seemed appropriate to show you something very pretty, but very understated. And - we have actual sunshine, so the pictures are decent! Yay!

I sort of nicked the idea for this off kittytokaren - Essie Brooch the Subject was one of my post-Christmas 'to hell with it' polish gifts to self, and I was intending to pair it with gold polka dots. Then I decided that if I completely stole her manicure I couldn't really post it without feeling faintly plagiaristic (not the done thing on a blog run by university types, obviously), so I decided to mix it up with one of my favourite glitters (Illamasqua Spartan) instead.

I L-O-V-E this manicure. Illamasqua have a reputation as being a company with quite outlandish colours, but I really love how the nude base makes this look so subtle. The glitter itself is awesome because it is  a mix of gold and silver, and the glitter itself is irregularly shaped rather than square which makes it look almost like flakies when you move your fingers. The overall effect is quite neutral, so if yellow-golds scare you, this might be worth checking out.

Illamasqua Load

Illamasqua Load

This was a disappointment. First of all, it's more yellow than I thought it would be (though it isn't as yellow as this photo is). Second, it needs four layers to totally even out, which is really unusual in my experience with Illamasqua. (Not at all atypical of pastels though.) When I showed my SO the polish (and its name), he asked me what possessed the company to want to make a nail polish that color. I didn't know the answer to that.

In the meanwhile, I gouged a frakkin' big chunk of skin on my left index finger while sewing something for my new nephew. (Well, technically, I'm not married to my SO, so his nephew isn't really my nephew... but he kind of is: my SO and I operate as a permanent couple. We just don't care about making it a legal or religious thing.) No NOTDs for me for awhile because the crater in my finger is totally painful and not at all pretty. Luckily, I have a backlog of NOTD photos to post. :)

Illamasqua DWS

The weather here has grim. GRIM. It took me a week to photograph this mani because it's been raining non-stop. Indeed, it is still raining, which is why there are droplets of water on my nails. That's also why there's killer tip wear. I wore this during reading week and since it's been about 2 degrees C since then I've barely been outside. I seriously need a lightbox so that I can photograph manis from the lazy comfort of indoors. Fortunately I've had a massive pile of marking to keep me entertained...sigh...

DWS is what Piff would call a 'palette cleanser' polish. It's a neutral dark ish grey that's perfect in one coat (it's a touch less blue than it appears in the pictures). I love this with a holo silver glitter top coat over, but this time, I went plain and neutral. Who needs glitter when you've got rain?

One final thing I want to mention, since this is an Illamasqua polish: Illamasqua have been enthusiastic supporters of the S.O.P.H.I.E. foundation, an organisation set up by Sylvia Lancaster after her daughter Sophie was kicked to death in Bacup, a town in the north of England. She was picked on for defending her boyfriend, who had been attacked by a gang of thugs for dressing in black (Sophie herself had black and red dreadlocks). Today would have been her 25th birthday. If you feel, as I do, that prejudice has no place in a civilized society, and that something good should come out of tragedy, please do consider donating. Thank you.

Vamps for October: Illamasqua Viridian

Okay, so probably not technically vampy, but a) it's dark, b) I was really sick of burgundy and navy and c) I love it! Viridian is one of my favourite polishes. It's amazing in two coats but can be applied in one, it's hardwearing, shiny, and a stunning colour. I feel badass when I wear this polish.

I think Temptalia described this as a dark teal, and that's probably not far off the mark. Except that overall hue is comprised of a subtle blue/green/black duochrome (trichrome?) shift that brings different facets of the polish out in different light. This looks amazing under flash (although I forgot to bring my flashgun when I took the shots. Oops). I really love this polish, it's in my desert island top ten and is one of the first shades I bought that got me really raving about Illamasqua.