Romance // Look Fantastic Beauty Box February 2019 Nails

I'm finally doing some nails again! I've been stuck in bed for the past week thanks to a cold. Yey winter. Anyway, today is the first day I've been better and could get to my office (where I keep all my polish) and I've got so many nail designs to catch up on. I thought I'd combine the Clairestelle8 challenge with this one as well.

This isn't my favourite LF box however I'm always happy to see Erno Lazslo products in boxes as they are way out of my price range but I'm getting a little sick and tired of Phillip Kinglsey hair products. Also, eyelash curlers scare the bejeezus out of me so they're not going anywhere near my eyes lol. 

I was going to attempt my first watermarble design with this box however, I have so many other things to catch up on that I didn't have the time so instead I cheated and used a watermarble stamping plate.

How I did it:-

I started off with two coats of Vintage Tee and then stamped on various designs from the BP-L061 plate. All the designs were tripled stamped starting with Must Have Mauve, then Ella of a Girl and finally Golden Hour. Before Golden Hour though, I applied a matte top coat.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Nails Inc Fashion Fix // Vintage Tee (baby pink)

- Morgan Taylor // Must Have Mauve (...mauve)
- Morgan Taylor // Ella of a Girl (light pink)
- Ciaté // Golden Hour (rose gold)

- Barry M // Matte Top Coat
- Born Pretty Stamping Plate // BP-L061

SWATCHES: China Glaze // OMG Flashback 2018 Collection

I had been eyeing up two mini China Glaze sets and decided not to buy them but then NailPolishDirect reduced them both by 30% so I thought "ok, yeah, just take my money." I was looking forward to this set but I'm a little disappointed. I'll start of with the OMG Flashback collection and then do another post for the Shades of Paradise.

This collection, released in June 2018, is a reproduction from 2008. And if the names of the shades are anything to go by (TTLY, BFF, DV8) perhaps they should've been left in 2008. The names remind me of this god awful song that I heard whilst at summer school way back in 2009. I'm from England but went to summer school in Boston whilst at college one year and that's when I was introduced to Kidz Bop and LOL by Sinai Rose; feast your eyes on these lyrics:

TFBS, FYI, BTW, ILY.

LAS wish you could BRT.

S double K, XOXO, GTG.

Lataz!

I'm lol at you.

Can't you read it?

You say WAM.

But I don't slow down.

IDB, no time to waste.

You say GKR, WGL.

I thought we were BFF's.

It's like reading a conversation between 2004 Paris Hilton and 2004 Nicole Richie. Oh man, the Simple Life...back then my life was so much easier. Can we just take a quick trip down memory lane to one of the greatest shows ever made?

Amazing. Anyway, let's review some nail polish shall we? All of these shades have a satin finish and a 'flame' effect down the center but A-England they are not. One major thing that bothers me is the dull spot created when the light hits the nail. Instead of creating holo, there's just this boring spot of colour and then the holo spreads out around it. It kind of looks like you missed a spot when painting. You also have to apply them in thin layers, otherwise the polish just spreads about leaving bald spots. 

Swatch conditions:-

- 1 LED Spotlight

- 2 Softboxes

- Indoors at night

OMG // Linear Holo

Not my favourite pure holo. I think Tinker Thinker Winker? by OPI is much better. I just don't like the silk finish, it dulls the holo down and putting a top coat on it just doesn't look quite right. I also experienced some cracking on my ring finger as that nail curves quite a bit when I put polish on it. 

DV8 // Aquamarine Holo

This one is much better than OMG due to the pop of colour. This would be perfect for mermaid or ocean nails. I also found this much easier to apply as it's not as 'sticky' as OMG. I think it complements my skin tone nicely as well. The holo flame isn't quite as pronounced as but it still gives a nice shift effect.  In fact I've become a little obsessed with this shade after sticking a scattered holo on top. It's such an elevator Cristine look (can you hear the beeps now?).

2NITE // Periwinkle Holo

This one is nowhere near as stunning as DV8 and was much harder to apply as well; bunching together near the tips and dragging.

IDK // Iris Holo

I like how this one applies, it's almost good to go in one coat if applied carefully. The holo effect is really beautiful on this one as well, it's a lot stronger than the others.

BFF // Mulberry Holo

This is nice shade, I'm not sure which I love more, this or DV8. Although the holo flame isn't that strong, I feel the colour makes it stand out.

TTLY // Salmon Holo

I found most of these shades to apply strangely on my main hand however when I paint my "other" hand I found it very hard to apply with it dragging and creating bald spots. This was definitely true for this shade which I did wear on my other hand for a few days. After two I began to dislike this shade as the holo flame only appears in certain light and most of the time it just looks dull and boring.

// Verdict
Overall, there's really only two shades that I would wear again; those being DV8 and BFF. The other four shades just seem a little lacklustre. I'm super glad I only bought this mini collection for £6.95 though instead of buying them all full size. If you love holo polishes though I'd say give this collection a miss and go buy some A-England instead. Or, go buy some of the new holo shades added to the Barry M Molten Metal collection as the holo flame is a lot stronger.

China Glaze // OMG Flashback Collection

If you'd like to comparisons of both collections, you can check out these awesome swatches by Throwback Lacquer here.

Wedding // #Clairestelle8 Valentines Challenge

Since my last nails were ridiculously wedding-y I struggled to decide what to do for this prompt as I didn't want to incorporate lace/flowers into the design again. When pinteresting wedding nails it would appear that your nails must either be; sheer pink, pink with sparkles, rose gold, white, white lace, pink, pink with white lace, pink with white lace and rose gold sparkles or nude with rose gold sparkles....I see pink is a recurring theme here. So, I decided to do...pink nails with sparkles....so original.

To be fair though I did attempt some other blue and beige nails but I hated how they turned out so did these instead. I completely forgot I had Anne of Cleves though and it's just such a beautiful pink shimmer that I knew I had to use it for this prompt.

This design is just 1 coat of Crush in Lake Como with Anne of Cleves sponged at the tips until I was happy with the coverage, followed by top coat. I love how simple yet elegant it is. You can't see my thumb in any of the photos because I stamped some white lines on it to add some detail but it just looks weird. I think this gradient look just kinda speaks for itself.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Cuccio Colour // Crush in Lake Como (sheer pale pink)

- A-England // Anne of Cleves (rose holo)

- Avon Mark Gel Shine // Top Coat

Lace // #Clairestelle8 Valentines Challenge

Ok, I'm going to dry my best to actually complete this challenge! I'm not really bothered about the prizes; I'm more bothered about getting the nail art done #priorities lol. I decided to go simple for this prompt although now I'm looking at it, I could've used some striping tape at the ends and painted the tips in white to tie it in with the ring finger...where is Captain Hindsight when you need him?

Also, I totally effed up and smudged my middle finger when taking the top photo 😭 I'm so annoyed with myself.

How I did it:-

I started off with 1 coat of Halo Rose (I found a use for these polishes after all!) and the stamped on the lace with the white polish and the BP-02 plate. The middle finger has two layers of Cabana Fever followed by a marble print from the Explorer 33 plate in I Wonder Where. I then stamped on the little heart with Golden Hour and the BP-L002 plate. One thing I was worried about was smudging the white polish as that one from Born Pretty smudges so easily. However, my Revlon Diamond top coat came through for me. As long as you have a large amount of top coat on the brush and you don't let the brush touch the nail you should be ok.

The next prompt on the 5th is "Wedding" and well, these definitely look like wedding nails so I'm not sure what I'm going to do for those. Perhaps something soft and pink?

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Avon Nail Wear Pro+ // Halo Rose (sheer pearlescent rose)

- Born Pretty Stamping Polish // #4 (white)

- China Glaze // Cabana Fever (matte white)
- Cuccio Colour // I Wonder Where (pale grey)
- Ciaté // Golden Hour (metallic rose gold)

- Revlon // Colorstay Gel Envy Diamond Top Coat

- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Explorer 33
- Born Pretty Stamping Plate // BP-02 & BP-L002

SWATCHES: Avon True Colour Pro+ Nail Enamel // Halo Nudes Collection

So, a couple posts back I did swatches on Avon's new Cosmic Lights collection and in the same order I also bought the entire Halo series they debuted in that book as well...because nail polish.

Yeesh...a couple of posts back? The Avon Cosmic Lights collection was posted on 17th October 2018...that's how long I've had this post lying in the draft folder. And why? Well here was what I wrote near the end of October:

I'm a sucker for all things pastel and pink and well; this range is just pastel and pink. Also in the brochure they also look like they had a slight pearlescent sheen to them which is something I don't have in any pastels so I thought they'd be a good addition to the collection. Avon brochures are notorious though for swatches but when they finally arrived I was relieved to see that they are brimming with shimmery-ness.

That said, it's taken me a good month to swatch them all (blatant LIES) as these aren't the greatest formula. Due to how sheer they are I thought I could skip a few steps by applying them under a white base coat; don't do this. The white throws off the colour and makes it look dirty and real cheap. Also, they don't look great on top of black. Sure you see the shift easier but it kind of looks like a milky white substance with a colour shift applied on top of black polish; it's not great. You need to spend the time building up 4/5 layers on top of bare nails for the best result. 

Ok, so admittedly I swatched one, got annoyed and couldn't be bothered to do the rest. But now I've done them because they've been sitting in my 'to swatch' pile for months and I just want to get it over and done with. Also, they seem like a good post for February what with them being soft and pink (for the most part.)

Halo White // sheer off-white with pink shift

I've swatched this polish so many times it's not even funny anymore. The first time I stupidly did it on top of white base; this does not look good layered on anything, just lumpy. It still looks lumpy and I just can't abide it. It's not that it takes 4 layers just to even get anywhere but it takes so long to dry in between coats and even after a quick dry top coat, you can't do anything with your nails for a couple of hours or it'll smudge. Not a great polish.

Coats: 4

Halo Nude // sheer very pale peach with green shift

This is practically the same as the first shade only it has a green shift to to it. I can't see myself using this for anything because like Halo White, it takes to long to dry and I now have polishes that can achieve this look much faster and with nicer results.

Coats : 3

Halo Pink // sheer pale pink with blue/purple shimmer

This is quite a nice Princess shade...from far away. Up close it's a bit streaky and milky but not completely awful. I don't think it quite matches my skin tone  but I wouldn't rule out using it for a look as I like the shift.

Coats: 3

Halo Rose // sheer pale pink with rose shimmer

Ok, so back in November when I did the Halo Nights design, I was wondering why it took me so many layers to achieve any sort of colour pay off. Now I know why; this shade is practically non-existent. It appears to be a beautiful pastel pink in the bottle with bright rose shift, however on the nail it's almost a clear polish with a rose shimmer shift.

One coat gives the nails a nice shine with a slight shift in the sunlight. Two coats gives your nails a nice sheer pale look with the shimmer. Like the last shade, I think these would be great a Bride nails as they're extremely understated but soft and romantic.

Coats: 3

Halo Lilac // sheer pale lilac with red & blue shimmer

And the last shade in the collection is the most opaque. I like this shade, I think it suits my skin tone quite well plus, I can see myself using this for another design as it's very princess-ey. I'd say this is my favourite out of the bunch, however I may be bias because I tend to gravitate towards lilac shades anyway. The shift is quite hard to see on this one and you need to be up close but it's very pretty.

Coats: 3

//-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------//
And I'm done! I'm finally done! I only received these shades at the end of September.....I can finally put them away on my shelf (if there's room, I just made that thing and it's already almost full...)

Usually, I love Avon polishes however this collection was quite a let down and turned out nothing like the photos.

Look how pigmented those swatches are! They're so much darker than what they really are and that's what I thought I was getting. But that's what you have to put up with when ordering from Avon. I paid £3 each for them and £15 is a good price for 5 polishes but I really don't think these are worth it. Especially since I don't think I'l be using most of them again. They just take to many layers and take an age to dry.

Halo Nudes Collection

Looks done using these shades:
-Halo Nights // Pink & Nude Wanderlust Design
-Lace // Clairestelle8 Valentines Challenge