Manicure Monday: Kylie Jenner Sinful Colors Trend Matters Collection

I've never heard of the brand Sinful Colors before. I have of course heard of Kylie Jenner, although I can't say I'm a fan as such. I've been watching the whole lip kit debacle from afar but I'm not a fan of lip products so I wasn't really interested in trying these myself, however nail polish is definitely my bag so thought I'd see how I got on.

I spotted a display of the Trend Matters Collection from Sinful Colors in among all the sickly sweet Youtuber products in Superdrug so decided to pick up two shades. I went for Haute Koffee, a dark coffee/purple shade with a hint of shimmer and the bold pink Miss Klaws. I thought these in particular looked quite pretty and would work well together as well as individually and I was not wrong.



I wasn't a huge fan of the brush on these polishes. These days I expect most brushes to be quite wide/fanned as we all know this makes applying the nail polish so much easier, but brush problems aside, the polish did apply really nicely and dried super speedily. I was interested to see that these dried matte but then I realised the name of the range Trend Matters and had a little chuckle to myself at old clever cloggs Kylie's little play on words.

The colours themselves are really pretty and I only needed two layers of polish for each nail so they weren't too thin and not too thick either.




At £3 each these are on the cheaper side of most high street nail polishes but they lasted a good four days before there was any really bad chipping. On the fourth day I did start the day with very minimal chipping but then I went swimming and this seemed to strip the polish a lot. I didn't use a top coat so this might of helped but I'm more than happy with it lasting four days, I would say that's just as good as any other high street brand.

They are really reasonable and a nice cheaper alternative to some other high street polishes. I just wish the brushes were a little wider!

Have you tried the Kylie Jenner for Sinful Colors Trend Matters collection? Let me know in the comments.

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Manicure Monday: Colour pop nails from Maybelline Color Show

Back in April I featured Maybelline's Color Show Blushed Nudes polishes and they were a huge hit with me (and you!) so this time while browsing the Maybelline stands in Boots, I decided to go for some bright, fun and funky polishes to create a bit of a 'colour pop' look on my nails. Perfect for summer, even if the sun doesn't come out!

I feel like pink and mint nail polishes always work well together so I picked up two of the Color Show 60 seconds polishes in Roof Terrace (mint green) and NY Princess (pink) and well, I hate to say I told you so but these work brilliantly together. I think the label colours are really true to how they actually come out once on the nail, they're super bright and fun and have a lovely, shiney finish to them.



The application was good, I would have liked more fanned out brushes, but I say that for all polishes without a fanned brush, and I only needed two layers or each polish to get a good coverage. They did dry super quickly. Unfortunately I didn't actually time them (I know I should have) but they were really fast drying, so no annoying hanging around waiting for your nails to dry before you can do anything. I was going about my usual business within a matter of minutes...one minute in fact.



I think these are absolutely perfect for brightening up your mood as well as your nails. I pretty much have a different polish on my nails every week and the thing I enjoy most about nail polish is when you're typing at a computer (I work on a computer all day) and you can see your coloured nails bouncing off the keys, giving you a little flash of colour every now. These are the perfect pick-me-up colours and a great little colour pop for your day.

Have you tried the Maybelline Color Show polishes? What nail polish colours brighten up your day? Let me know in the comments.

Manicure Monday: Orly Pacific Coast Highway Summer 2016

For the past week I feel like my nails have been brighter than the sun! I was recently sent a couple of polishes from the new Orly Pacific Coast Highway Summer 2016 collection, in particular the super bright, almost neon 'Road Trippin' and the pretty purple 'Scenic Route'.

The range actually consists of six polishes in total, a collection of yellow/orange/pinks and purples to reflect the summer time. The polishes come in the normal Orly Lacquer, which I was gifted and which claims to last around three to five days, the Epix Flexible Color, lasting six to 10 days and the Gel FX, which claims to last 10 to 14 days.

Orly isn't a brand I get to try very often but I am really impressed. £10.90 admitedly is a lot more than I would spend on a polish but the bottle sizes are huge and the lids long and slender to ease application. I wasn't keen on the brushes on these polishes though. I have now gotten so used to wide, fanned out brushes, which help distribute the polish more easily that I'm really not used to normal brushes anymore. I found these brushes picked up a lot of excess polish and even after wiping the brush on the rim, more excess polish would make its way down the middle of the brush, blobbing out onto the nail. The yellow in particular, which is always a tricky colour to work with. I always find yellow polishes need quite a few layers to get a good, streak free finish. I probably used around three or four layers of the Orly yellow and it did start chipping in around two days, nothing too dramatic until probably the fourth or fifth day where I was able to peel off an entire nail of polish.

The colour is fantastic though, it's a real pop against the purple as I wore them together. It's so bright and fun that I was able to forgive the extra layers needed as everytime I looked at my nails I just got a sharp hit of summer vibes.

The purple polish is definitely fun and bright too, just not as much as the yellow. It looks fab with the yellow but would also look fab on it's own if you wanted something a little less out there.

Overall I loved wearing these polishes as they really do scream summer. I was a little disappointed with the brush and excess polish but can certainly get over that thanks to the great colour pay off.

Have you tried any of the Orly Pacific Coast Highway Summer 2016 collection?

*This post contains PR samples

Manicure Monday: Rita Ora for Rimmel London 60 Seconds Super Shine Nail Polish

I can't quite believe that it was 2014 when Rita Ora teamed up with Rimmel London to launch a range of nail polishes. I loved the pretty, girly Lose Your Lingerie shade and then last year I became a big fan of the spring brights range so when I saw that three new shades had been released for spring/summer 2016 I just had to pick them up.

Included in the three new releases are 'Give It Some Welly', which is a light grey, Loosey Goosey Dancing, which is a super bright, almost neon green and Pump Up The Purple, which, you guess it...is purple. The purple and green shades have some Halloween vibes about them but as they're so bright and fun they're perfect for spring/summer too. They work really nicely with the grey too. I guess all three are perfect for any time of year!

Each polish is a base coat, colour and glossy top coat all-in-one. They all have a super shiny finish but the purple and green are a little on the thin side so probably need around three coats to get the desired finish. The one thing I really wasn't keen on was the brushes, I'd prefer them to be much more fanned out. These ones are very cube shaped so the polish runs straight down the middle, glooping onto the nails, which isn't ideal. Once the excess nail polish is removed they do apply really nicely and dry pretty quickly too.

I'm a big fan of these three new releases. They'd all be fab on their own for spring/summer or they all work really nicely worn together too like I have in the above photos. The polishes are pretty hard wearing too, they survived my washing up test and last a good couple of days.

What do you think of the three new shades? Let me know in the comments.

Manicure Monday: Spring Pinks

I was struggling to think of nails to feature this week, I didn't have any new polishes to feature and couldn't find anything new on the shelves in Boots so had to dig into my nail polish collection and pick out some old faves. For this time of year I thought I'd go pretty and pink and so here we are!

It's not often I paint my nails pink in all honesty. I'm not extremely girly but there's something very feminine that I love about having pink nails and mixing up different shades is quite a lot of fun.

I picked up the Barry M polishes pretty recently as they are part of the brand's new Speedy Spring range and Gelly Spring range and even though it's only been a couple of weeks since I first tried them, it's nice to dig them out again, especially when the bright, refreshing shades match the weather a bit better! Both polishes are wonderful to apply and dry pretty quickly too, both leaving behind a super glossy finish.

Last year Freedom Makeup released its Pro Impact Les Nudes Collection and it is still my absolute favourite range of pink shades. The packaging has a bit of a Deborah Lippmann feel to it but at a fraction of the price at just £1 each. They do take a little while to dry but once ready they provide just as good a finish as the Barry M ones so pretty impressive!

After painting my nails with these shades I've realised just how much I love the Collection Field Day shade in Peony. It's a lovely almost Barbie pink shade, which isn't usually my go-to colour but there's something about it that is definitely cheering me up!

Lastly, the Nella Milano polish is actually from an Easter range from last year. It's a really thin polish so needs a couple of coats but it's a lovely extremely light pinky/peach shade. Nella Milano is one of my favourite brands of nail polish. They have such a fab range of colours, one for most moods so I definitely need to get myself some more.

How do you feel about spring pink nails? Let me know in the comments.

Manicure Monday: L'Oreal Paris Color Riche L'Huile Polishes

After a brief break I'm back with some polishes that I've been meaning to feature on the blog for quite a while - the new L'Oreal L'Huile polishes in their new quilted effect bottles. The range includes 22 shades in total but of course I wouldn't be able to purchase them all, however much I want to, so instead I opted for three shades, Cobalt Indecent, Moka Chic and Gris Decadent. I think I must have been in a bad/gloomy mood while shopping as the shades I picked up are all quite dark but still extremely wearable. I have spied the different pink shades available too, which are extremely pretty and perfect for spring.

Cobalt Indecent is a gorgeous almost navy blue, Moka Chic is pretty much what you'd expect, a chocolatey/mocha beige and Gris Decadent is a moody grey!

I bought these three shades on 3 for 2 in Boots. They're £4.99 each, which is a pretty standard price for some of the higher end Boots/Superdrug polishes and I don't mind paying a little bit more when a polish turns out to be as fab as this. Starting from the outside the pretty quilted effect bottle is a new look for L'Oreal and a welcome change. It really gives the polish a bit more of a luxury feel.

I know we shouldn't judge a book by its cover or a nail polish by its bottle in this case but it's so pretty! But onto the important stuff...the polish itself is packed full of precious oils, which L'Oreal have apparently been researching for 10 years and they blend beautifully with intense colour pigmentation, meaning the polishes apply like a dream, dry in no time at all and have a super shiny finish and now I'm not sure if this is just me, but I've found there to be quite a pleasant, almost fizzy scent to the polish once it's dried too.

The brushes on these polishes are lovely too, as they're so wide they apply the polish quite liberally over the nail. You can cover the entire nail in one swoop! I found two coats does the trick and you can go for a top coat if you fancy it but they dry pretty shiny as they are. I found they lasted a good 3 - 4 days before slight chipping began to occur. You could limit this with the top coat I expect but 3 - 4 days wear isn't too bad, it's pretty standard and better than a lot of other polishes.

Personally I'm a big fan of the new look, L'Oreal oil nail polishes and my favourite shade of the three I picked has got to be Cobalt Indecent. I'm definitely going to be picking up a few more shades for my collection, perhaps you'll see them on the blog in the future!

Manicure Monday: Barry M Speedy Spring Collection

Back in the autumn I wrote about Barry M's Speedy Quick Dry Autumn Nail Shades and I had nothing but good things to say about them so I was thrilled when I spotted a new spring range in the same speedy drying formula.

The shades in the collection are not too far from the ones in the Gelly Spring Collection so you could buy either range and be happy, however, as a beauty blogger I just had to get both ranges and give them a thorough testing.

The Speedy Quick Dry range includes the shades 'In a Flash', which is a very pretty pink, 'Personal Best', which is a soft purple/lavender shade, 'Winning Streak', which is a creamy nude and 'Freestyle', which is a soft pink. All of them are super pretty and feminine as well as being the perfect shades for spring.

I found 'In a Flash' and 'Winning Streak' to both be a bit thin and streaky on application, which meant I needed quite a few more layers to get a good finish. This didn't effect the drying time though as all of the polishes dried in super quick time, more than living up to their namesake.

I was super impressed with these four polishes. I painted my nails on a Sunday and they were still chip free on the following Thursday and even on the Friday/Saturday there was still only very minimal chipping so they lasted really well. I thought because a couple of them needed more layers it meant they would chip easier but that definitely wasn't the case.

Have you tried the Barry M Speedy Spring Collection? Let me know what you thought in the comments.

Manicure Monday: Valentine's Day nails

So it's that time of year again. This year, as my boyfriend currently doesn't have a job and I'm trying very hard to not overspend, we're keeping the celebrations very low key. I knew I wanted to do a VDay nail look on the blog so instead of buying the latest red polishes I thought I'd just raid my stash as I was sure I had some. I was right. I had loads. So many that it was hard to choose which ones to feature, but in the end I went for some traditional reds and a pastel and a bright pink, which I think all work really well together. I also got some Christmas nail stickers last year that for some reason included the words LOVE and HATE on them so I decided the LOVE stickers would work really well for this look. I did contemplate using the HATE stickers for an alternative VDay nail look but decided against it in the end.

I'm really glad I dug these polishes out because they're so pretty. I particularly like the bright pink matte Barry M polish. It's called 'Rhossili' and I featured it on the blog way back in 2014. You can read my thoughts on it here. It's lovely to apply and because it's a matte polish it dries super quick!

The Nella Milano polish was one I received last year and is actually part of an Easter polish collection, but it's such a lovely red that it can be used for Valentine's Day and even Christmas if you wanted to!

The Nails Inc polish is absolutely ancient and one of those ones I got free with some sort of Coca Cola deal in Boots years and years ago or free in a magazine. I don't think I've actually ever bought a full-priced Nails Inc polish, just because they're so ridiculously expensive so I always make good use of magazine freebies or offers.

Lastly, the pastel pink polish is one I received last year from Freedom Makeup's Les Nudes collection. The whole range was absolutely gorgeous so again I'm super happy to have raided my stash and rediscovered this. It's still lovely to apply and not to thin that you need loads of coats either.

All in all I'm pretty happy with my Valentine's Day nail look and it's my own little way of celebrating the day without having spent any money!

Tweet me a picture of your Valentine's Day nails @cherryp13 or let me know in the comments what your fave VDay nail look is.

*This post contains some PR samples.

Manicure Monday: Barry M Nail Care Range

Last week's Manicure Monday post, featuring Barry M's new Gelly Spring Collection, went down a treat with you guys so I'm pretty pleased to be bringing you another range from the budget highstreet brand this week. If you've had your head under a rock then you might have missed the release of the new Nail Care range from Barry M. It's a collection of four polishes that aim to have your nails looking in top condition in no time.

Each polish is £3.99 each, but I'm sure they will be on sale/offer in Boots and Superdrug so you can pick up the whole collection at a more purse friendly price. Included in the range is the Super Mani 7-in-1 Treatment, which is a twice weekly basecoat and treatment that aims to encourage growth, strengthen with Keratin, nourish with Argan Oils, promote shine, hydrate with Vitamin E, smooth the nail surface and protect from breakage. If you only buy one of the polishes from the range I would encourage you to get this one because it pretty much does everything you need. I have seen great improvement in my nails since using this polish, after only two to three weeks of use my nails aren't breaking nearly as much as they were before and they definitely feel smoother, when previously they were prone to flaking a fair bit.

Also in the collection is the Iron Mani, which is a nail hardener, working to strengthen, smooth and protect nails from breakage. It does a lot of similar things to the Super Mani but is much more targetted to strengthening, so a great one if you're nails are particularly weak.

Lastly are two polishes, Mani Masks, which camouflage, colour and condition. These two polishes are perfect for when you want to give your nails a little break from vibrant colours. They come in two shades 'Bashful', which is a light pink and 'Birthday Suit', which is a more creamy nude. Using these mean you can have your nails painted without them looking painted as the finish is very natural looking. They give the nails a nice, just manicured look and they're perfect if you're not allowed nail polish at work or at school.

Overall this is a great budget nail care range. You can really pay through the nose for some nail care products but this range has pretty much everything you need. You could even pick up the Super Mani treatment and that would be more than enough to leave your nails in great shape. I have seen a great improvement in my nails so I'd really recommend giving this a try and treating your nails to some TLC every now and then!

Have you tried the new Nail Care Range from Barry M? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

*This post contains PR samples.

Manicure Monday: Barry M Gelly Spring Collection

From L to R: Pink Lemonade, Acai Smoothie, Butterscotch Sundae, Cream Soda





I've been waiting for Barry M's spring offerings to hit shelves for SO long. A few lucky bloggers received them early so I'd been seeing some good reviews and seeing how pretty they were and couldn't wait to get my hands on them. I think I'm officially ready for spring/summer now and I've had enough of the dark winter colours. My nails are well and truely ready for these pretty spring colours as well, they look fab! I just can't stop staring at my nails, the shades are so fresh and bright!

The Gelly Spring Collection is just one of the new ranges to have been released by Barry M recently. It includes four new Gelly shades, Acai Smoothie, which is a dusky pink, Pink Lemonade, which is a really pretty peach/pink, Cream Soda, which is a very pretty off-white and beige/Butterscotch Sundae, which is a gorgeous creamy butterscotch shade and by far my favourite.

As with the other polishes in the Gelly range, these have wide angled brushes to aid application of the polish. The polish also dries really fast, however as these shades are pretty light they do need a couple of coats, which can cause them to chip/smudge a lot easier. I found the Cream Soda and Butterscotch Sundae shades to be slightly thick on application, but I managed to make them work and get a nice finish.

If you've been reading my nail posts for a while now you'll now I usually really put polishes to the test with either the housework or washing up test. You can usually tell if a polish is good or not if it can hold up to potential chipping from dishes and cutlery or harsh chemical sprays. These polishes held up really well under the washing up test, with only very, very slight chipping on one or two nails so I'm super impressed. Once again Barry M have pulled out a fab range from their bag of tricks. The yummy ice-cream/sorbet shades are the perfect pick-me-up on duller days and make me really look forward to spring.

Have you tried the Barry M Gelly Spring Collection? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Manicure Monday: Seventeen Gel Colour in Dark and Stormy

While recently looking at my nail polish collection I came up with the idea of this new regular feature - not exactly original I know but a good way to rediscover nail polishes I haven't used in a while and to prove that I haven't just bought them all only to use once and also a nice way to showcase any new polishes I pick up.

As I perused the shelves of Boots recently I came across the Seventeen cosmetics counter and its 'New Year New Nail Colour', in which sat some purple and blue shades of Gel Colour. Now, I'm not exactly sure if these are new to the brand or just Boots' way of trying to make a sale but I picked up the shade 'Dark and Stormy' as the name and colour seemed to match my mood at the time.

In some lights it looks like a dark purple, in other it looks blue, kind of like a stormy sky you might say. I definitely prefer any gel polishes over normal polishes nowadays, they're just so much nicer to apply, they dry quicker and obviously last longer. This one is no different, it's lovely and thick, but not thick enough that it's gloopy. It comes with a wide brush so it applies in one lovely swoop of the nail and dries super quickly too.

It claims to last up to eight days, which is a pretty bold claim and I think only possible if you're pretty much a lady of leisure and don't have tons of housework and washing up to do that puts strain on your polish. My nails started chipping slightly on day three, on day four one of the fingers of polish had a corner missing. On day five there was still only minimal chipping, still quite impressive for a working week's wear. Being a beauty blogger I don't often have the same nail polish on for more than a week so although it may not have lasted eight days like it claims too, I'm still really impressed as I've seen many polishes look a lot worse after this amount of time.

For £3.99 the Gel Colour polishes are perfect little pick-me-ups you can pop in your basket when you're in Boots, not because you need anything in particular, but you just need to browse the beauty! I'd definitely recommend picking up a couple of shades, but keep an eye out because Seventeen is often on 3 for 2.

Have you tried Seventeen's Gel Colour polishes? Let me know what you think in the comments.

New Year's Eve Nails

Last year I wrote a post featuring some nail polishes for New Year's Eve and it went down really well, so I thought I'd give it another go this year. Of course I just had to include an Essie polish as it always releases such fab polishes in time for the party season, I picked up the new 'Fringe Factor,' which has been calling out to me for the past few weeks from its shelf in Boots. It is the perfect polish for NYE and features gunmetal and pink confetti-like pieces, perfect for partying!

Rimmel's new range of Love Glitter polishes have also been catching my eye recently. The colourful shards of glitter look great on their own or used as a top coat over a white or silver base. I love the blue/green 'A Crush on You'.

Barry M's 'Sparkling Amethyst' polish featured in my traditional Christmas nails post, but I thought it would work equally well as a NYE nail as it's super sparkly.

As per last year I'm spending NYE at Vince's parents house, stuffing myself silly with delicious food - how are you spending your NYE? Let me know in the comments. See you on the other side!