Modest Mauve - Rimmel Winky Pinky

Quick post today!

[Bottle to nail: Rimmel Winky Pinky (2 coats)]

Just a nice basic creme - this one is Rimmel Winky Pinky from the Salon Pro range.

[2 coats: Rimmel Winky Pinky]

Winky Pinky is a dusty pink almost mauve-leaning shade. Great formula and nice wide brush. I used two coats for this. It also levels nicely and drys fairly quickly. Just an easy no fuss polish, exactly what I was after!

[2 coats: Rimmel Winky Pinky]

I don't really have too much to say about it! It's actually quite a great worksafe shade, not that I usually consider that when choosing my mani colour! =p

Twilight Waves - Born Pretty Ocean Illusion, Australis Jeanie In A Bottle, Sally Hansen Ivory Skull[

Here we have Born Pretty's Ocean Illusion from their Mermaid Series.

[Twilight Waves]

I tried it against different bases as the effect is rather different.

[Born Pretty Ocean Illusion]

Ocean Illusion comes in a neat little box, complete with a cut-out circle so you can see the colour of the nail polish.

[Base: Australis Jeanie In A Bottle, Sally Hansen Ivory Skull
Top coat: Born Pretty Ocean Illusion]

You can see that Ocean Illusion looks like a mid-blue polish in the bottle. It's very sheer though. So I had used Australis' Jeanie In A Bottle as a dark blue base for the ring finger and Sally Hansen's Ivory Skull as an off-white base for the rest of the nails. There's about two coats of Ocean Illusion against the dark blue base and about three coats of Ocean Illusion against the white base.

Ocean Illusion has a sheer blue base that I needed more coats of it against the white to build up its colour. It hasn't gained opacity and you can still see the white beneath the blue. There's also fine duochrome microglitter that colour shifts between blue and purple. You can see the sheen of blue and purple at angles. The colour shift is far more obvious against a dark base but there's something different and more delicate about the nail polish against a light base.

You can use Ocean Illusion without a base, it'll look like the shade against the white base, but you'll need to use about four to five coats instead to build up the colour.

[Base: Australis Jeanie In A Bottle, Sally Hansen Ivory Skull
Top coat: Born Pretty Ocean Illusion]

Overall, I rather like how this turned out. It's a bit sheerer than I expected but it has the colour shift I was curious about.

You can check out their Mermaid Series here at Born Pretty, and you can use our code above for a discount on full priced items!

Diagon Alley - OPI Embrace the Grey, Born Pretty M016 Lovely Princess

Hello hello! Today I have another gorgeous polish to review.

[Swish and flick]

Look at all the colours - multichrome heaven!

[Born Pretty Magical Series M016 Lovely Princess]

This polish is M016 Lovely Princess, kindly provided by Born Pretty for review. Lovely Princess is from their Magical Series range and is a multichrome flakie that shifts predominantly from green-gold-pink. At extreme angles, you get an amazing flash of blue, which you can see in the photos coming up!

[Bottle to nail: OPI Embrace the Grey (2 coats)]

My base shade from last week is OPI Embrace the Grey, a medium grey creme opaque in two coats. All ready for some flashy bling!

[Bottle to nail: Born Pretty M016 Lovely Princess;
Base: OPI Embrace the Grey (2 coats)]

Here you can see the strong greeny-gold shades at an angel, while straight on, the magenta-pink shift is very obvious. The shift is actually better in person than in the photos!

[Base: OPI Embrace the Grey (2 coats); Flakie: Born Pretty M016 Lovely Princess]

Basically, I taped off each nail diagonally and then applied Lovely Princess in the untaped portion. This is just one dabbed coat on each nail! Really dense flakies and great coverage! The flakes all laid nicely flat and I didn't have a problem topcoating. In the top photo here, you can see the blue coming through right at the edges.

[Base: OPI Embrace the Grey (2 coats); Flakie: Born Pretty M016 Lovely Princess]

Definitely a lovely strong colour shift with excellent flakie density - what more could you ask for! I have also previously reviewed M012 Destiny Fairy, a green-purple flakie from the same collection.

[Left: Born Pretty M016 Lovely Princess; Right: Emily de Molly Insipid]

I thought the colour shift was familiar, so I looked through my collection and found Insipid from Emily de Molly. Turns out that while the base shade is similar, EdM Insipid appears to have some blue flakes, whereas Lovely Princess has larger flake sizes.

Anyhoo, if you would like to check out the Magical Series collection, you can find it here at Born Pretty. As always, our code above can be used for a bit of extra discounting off full priced products! Happy shopping!

Concrete Pillars - OPI Embrace the Grey

I picked today's polish out of my box of untrieds because I've had a hankering for creme polishes. To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting too much, but I ended up quite liking it!

[Bottle to nail: OPI Embrace the Grey (2 coats)]

So here's OPI Embrace the Grey from the Fifty Shades collection, which I received as a gift from a lovely friend!

[2 coats: OPI Embrace the Grey]

Embrace the Grey is a medium grey creme polish. It applies well, especially with the wide brush, and is nice and opaque at two coats. The formula is really nice too, thin enough to flow easily and gives a sort of squishy jelly-creme look.

[2 coats: OPI Embrace the Grey]

I think this is a really nice addition to my collection and I don't have another shade quite like it, so I'm all around quite pleased with it!

Dreaming of Dawn - Covergirl Midnight Magic, Miniso Japan Purple

It's been awhile! I was very busy and left Ev to fend for herself awhile there. But I'm back now and I come bearing gradient plus decals!

[Dreaming of Dawn]

So I started with Miniso Japan Purple as my base nail polish. I reviewed the nail polish here. Then I hunted down a nail polish which would give me a subtle colour change, and ended up with Covergirl Midnight Magic, which we have reviewed before a couple times. Midnight Magic is a blue foil with gold, green and pink microglitter, and if you apply it in thin enough layers, you can build up its opacity slowly. That means it makes a pretty good nail polish to use for making gradients. I didn't use a sponge, just applied straight to the nail with the brush, but in thin layers.

[Base: Miniso Japan Purple
To the tips: Covergirl Midnight Magic]

After that, I used a decal over the lot of it. I wish I could tell you more about the decals, but they were a gift and there was no brand that I remember. It was a decal of feathers and dream catchers I believe, but most of the art couldn't be clearly seen once applied to my nails.

[Decal on top of the following:
Base: Miniso Japan Purple
To the tips: Covergirl Midnight Magic]

The end result is a cool-toned mani that looks strangely witchy to me for some reason. Anyway, it was an easy mani for a fun result!

Heart Abound - Australis Pinot-Dah, Hit the Bottle Psycho Pink, Born Pretty BP-L013

It feels like I haven't done a stamping manicure for a while so I made myself go through my plates and found a design I've been wanting to try out..

[<3 <3 <3]

Hearts! I like these scribbly heart design from Born Pretty plate BP-L013. I originally planned to stamp in a dusty pink creme but all my Mundo de Unas stamping minis are currently terribly separated and I haven't yet figured out an easy way to mix them back up together..

[Bottle to nail: Australis Pinot-Dah (1 coat)]

Just to quickly recap, my base shade from last week is Australis Pinot-Dah, a dark wine red creme.

[Bottle to nail: Hit the Bottle Psycho Pink (stamping);
Base: Australis Pinot-Dah (1 coat); Plate: Born Pretty BP-L013]

The stamping polish I ended up using was Hit the Bottle Psycho Pink, a hot pink shimmer finish stamping polish. Ahh, Hit the Bottle polishes never let me down.. <3

[Base: Australis Pinot-Dah (1 coat);
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Psycho Pink, Born Pretty BP-L013]

I think I'm a little out of practice doing stamping manicures though! Gotta swipe faster/lighter! At any rate, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. A bit less obvious than my original pastel pink stamp idea, but this is nice and subtle instead!