Back from holiday NOTD: OPI "Lucerne-tainly look marvellous!"

Phew that was a mega-busy holiday! :) After getting off to a bad start with delay after delay on our day of travel out, we finished with a day of punctual travel, barr strip searching at airport security due to me wearing a knee brace as I now have severely damaged the tendons in my knee walking up a mountain in deep snow... see photos...

We had -10C and half metre of snow at the start of the holiday while hiking in the Swedish highlands, and then gloriously sunny balmy weather that made the trees glow with golds and russets. Fantastic! :) I am sad to be back, but it's also nice to rummage through my own stuff and I look forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight!

I spotted this polish in the OPI stand at Schiphol airport tax free - it was just glittering so alluringly :) Decent price too! I have not been drawn to the Swiss collection at all but this was sooo lovely. I thought for some crazed reason maybe it would be close to "Baby it's coal outside" but it's not even close. Please excuse the extreme cuticles, my hands haven't even seen any hand cream for two weeks :O This is 3 coats (3rd coat deepens the steel-y colour) and a slick of China Glaze Fast Forward top coat. Speaking of the top coat; does anyone else use it? I think it is good, but the smell is horrible! Anyone have this problem?

Back to work tomorrow... hoping I will not fall asleep at my desk... zzzzz....

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NOTD: Beauty UK "Smokey lilac"

I am very disappointed I couldn't catch this colour on camera. It looks all grey, not the lilac-grey it is in real life :( it is a spectacularly unusual colour!

Very cheap and cheerful, this is 3 coats with Megashine. I think this polish retails for £1.99 or something like that. The polish formula is ok, it easily becomes streaky if you're not careful. If you have ridged nails, put on a ridge-filling base coat!

I am eagerly awaiting a special polish in the post however I don't think it will be here before I go on holiday in a weeks time but I should have plenty time on holiday to showcase my new Isadora Grafitti Nail polishes my mum has very lovingly bought me :D

Anyway I am off to knit a special present to a dear pal of mine!

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NOTD: Barry M "Grey"

I've caught some kind of bug and under the weather, however here is a quick NOTD for you, Barry M "Grey" with and without Rimmel's new Mattifying Topcoat! This is 2 coats of Barry M and a slick of matte topcoat. It has worn well but I've not been doing much so I suppose that's the reason it's looking good! Please excuse the extreme nature of my cuticles, life has been rough to my hands lately..

Which one do you prefer, the glossy or the matte? I love both, for being a different finish to the same polish.

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NOTD: Collection 2000 Hot Looks "Wham"

I continue my foray into the my rediscovered stash of Collection 2000 Hot Looks nail polishes. I love these little guys!

"Wham" is a jelly, light concrete grey that's not chalky-looking. Being a jelly it will need more coats than a creme; this is 3 thin coats with Sally Hansen MegaShine top coat. I love this polish, it's so light but still grey! :) Not bad for £1.79!

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Recent NOTDs!

Hello here are my two most recent NOTDs, been so busy I've not had time to post these!

The bottom one is OPI "Smitten with mittens". This I am not sure about - it looks so super-glittery in the bottle with lots of gold sparkle, but on the nail it becomes a muted version of China Glaze "Ruby Pumps". Very smooth and opaque to apply though, and it lasted pretty well too!

The top one is a new love for me - Famous by Sue Moxley SuedeFX nail polish in "30". This should have been called "Awesome steeley blue-grey suede matte" or something along those lines, because that's exactly what it is :) this is ONE coat with no top coat. As most mattes, it's wearing off after a day or so, but it's totally worth it! It retails for £4.50 in Superdrug and comes in 8 shades if I remember correctly! I'm going out to get the pink one tomorrow lunchtime!!

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Happy 60th Birthday, Dad!

Today is my Dad's 60th birthday, so we gave him a killer cake - can you tell he's a keen sports fisherman?? Happy Birthday, Dad! :) A big thank you to the girl at Cake Magic for this awesome creation!

My NOTD is Depend #169 with diagonals of #173. This is 1 coat of charcoal grey creme #169 over Sally Hansen Diamond Strength base coat and then diagonals with the gunmetal grey glitter #173, topped with Sally Hansen MegaShine top coat. I love Depend nail polish, I wish they had bigger bottles :) I struggle to photograph as we have major rain storms here at the moment so I had to use my daylight lamp again.

We are off for to a nice local Mexican restaurant now for my Dad's birthday dinner, but hopefully I can give you the low-down on my new exciting Helmer tomorrow night!

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NOTD: Frankenpolish "Thundercloud"

Meet some serious chipping and my newest frankenpolish, "Thundercloud". I was actually going for a bit more of a purple finish but was a bit frisky with the charcoal creme... :) Oh well! I still like it. It's Barielle "Grape Escape" with barry M "Gray" and 17 "Smokesignal". It's coming off soon due to the DIY damage, and I broke into my stash (taped up into a cardboard box for the house move for a month now!) so expect to see some excitement tomorrow :)

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NOTD: New York Color "Chinatown"

I picked this up a while ago because I thought the colour was really cool, not grey, more of a rich, deep dove grey. They had a special offer on these when they launched so got it for a bargain.

I have nothing like this! The colour of the photo does catch a little bit of it's blue flash, but it is more purpley grey in most lights. I love it, very chic! This is 2 coats and Sally Hansen Mega Shine top coat. It dries quickly if you layer it thin. The first coat was incredibly messy and streaky and I despaired. But when you layer on the second coat it turns from painful to perfect! As with "Midtown" this formula suffer 3 Free syndrome and is a bit runny but the brush is good.

Lina-Elvira Loves It Thiiiis Much:
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ +

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NOTD: Boots 17 "Smoke Signal"

Ya know, sometime you come across gems in drugstore brands that just restores faith in attainable and budget friendly beauty :) Like this new colour from 17. This is ONE coat with Sally Hansen Mega Shine; it's really shiney in itself, I just put on Mega Shine to speed dry the mani, I've got stuff to do :P

This is a lovely colour, very soft, dark grey. It's not really a spring colour, but I like it a lot!

Lina-Elvira Loves It Thiiiis Much:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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