OPI | Skyfall collection

If you guys saw my last post you'll already know my love for James Bond (more importantly - Daniel Craig! Mmm). & if you're a frequent reader you'll definitely be familiar with my love of OPI! So when the 2 collaborated I died & went to heaven! Well, maybe not.. but I was a very happy girl! 

I'm such a saddo that I was checking my local beauty warehouse on a weekly basis, waiting for these bad boys to hit the shelves! Then when they did, I didn't hesitate on chucking the majority of them in my basket. The collection contains 12 different polishes, of which I own 9. (Only 8 are pictured below, I may have bought another 1 after taking these pictures ;) ). 

L-R: You only live twice, the world is not enough, the spy who loved me, casino royale, on her majesty's secret service, the living daylights, goldeneye & live & let die. 

The additional polish is Skyfall & can be seen in a NOTD post here. 

Now, lets take a closer look at these gorgeous polishes :D

L-R: Goldeneye, Live & Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me & Casino Royale.

Goldeneye. Goldeneye can be seen swatched in a NOTD here. This polish contains gorgeous gold foil flakes. I initially thought it would work only as a topcoat, over a base colour; but actually it is fully opaque after just 2 coats. It's a really beautiful polish with a very glam finish!

Live & Let Die. A gorgeous dark emerald/green with tiny gold flecks running throughout. 

The Spy Who Loved Me. Can be seen swatched below. I love this polish! It's a really vibrant orange-toned red. It almost has a jelly affect & leaves a lovely glossy finish. Tiny gold flecks run throughout the polish, making it perfect for the Christmas season ahead :D

Casino Royale. A berry purple shade, with a creme finish. 

L-R: On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Living Daylights, You Only Live Twice & The World Is Not Enough. 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A silvery-blue base with green, blue & silver flecks running throughout. 

The Living Daylights. Can be seen swatched below. I love this polish! It makes a great top coat, but can also be layered to full opacity. It's a clear polish containing hexagonal glitters of blue, gold, bronze & silver. The glitters are flat, therefore leaving a smooth surface, unlike many other glitters. 

You Only Live Twice. This is one of my faves! It's a base of magenta pink, with gold flecks running throughout. Like The Spy Who Loved Me, it leave a lovely jelly finish. Gorgeous polish if you're a pink lover like me :) 

The World Is Not Enough. This one is quite hard to explain. It's base colour is almost a bronze/taupe shade with tiny pink, green & brown flecks running through. The colours combined gives it a kind of rose gold finish. 

As well as the 12 Skyfall polishes, OPI also created a limited edition masterpiece! The Man With The Golden Gun is a topcoat polish containing real 18K gold, can you believe?! 18K gold on your nails?! Wow. I just couldn't resist. This is going to look PERFECT during the Christmas period :D

After my massive splurge I just had to go home & try some of these bad boys out! Below is The Spy Who Loved Me with The Living Daylights on my accent nails. 

I get way too excited over OPI collections! But, the Skyfall collection is, by far, my favourite. Lemme know your opinions on the Skyfall collection & other OPI collections you'd recommend. 

NOTD | Skyfall

My lovely boyfriend took me to see Skyfall on Monday night. It was ahhhhhh-mazing! I love a bit of James Bond, me. I definitely recommend it, it's best Bond I've seen. & Daniel Craig...

Mmm, what a dream?!

Anyways! I enjoyed the film so much I couldn't resist painting my nails in Skyfall from the new OPI Skyfall collection. It's quite a nice colour for the Autumn, with it being a dark red, & now that Halloween is over I feel it's appropriate to say it's nice & Christmassy too!? Taking the Christmas theme a little further I added Goldeneye to my accent nails. Goldeneye is also a polish from the OPI Skyfall collection.

I've cut my nails fairly short just this time round, as they were just driving me crazy with peeling! They never use to be like this. If anybody has any tips to stop the pain that is peeling nails, pretty please let me know :)

I have such a love-hate relationship with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri topcoat! I love how it dries my nails soo quickly & leaves a great shine, but whyy do you keep leaving little bubbles all over my polish?! It really ruins the finish of the manicure. Everybody raves about this top coat, so I'm not sure if it's just me that experiences this? Lemme know if any of you girls use Insta-Dri & what you think!

OPI Minnie Mouse mani

I wasn't going to post this mani, but then I realised that I've never shown you guys the beautiful Minnie Mouse OPIs! This look doesn't include them all, but a couple :) Here's what I used... 

L-R: OPI I'm all ears, OPI If you moust you moust, Andrea Fullerton black striper & Models Own 3-in-1. 

This mani's real easy, so for those of you who don't have the patience, or what not, for fussy nail art, give this one a try :) You don't have to worry about the neatness of painting your nails half & half, the black striper will cover up any wobbles & bumps! 

I absolutely love these 2 pink shades, they're my fave... but I swear I write that about all my OPIs :P Howeverrr, these are so pretty. If You Moust You Moust is a really girly, Barbie pink; I love wearing this on it's own. I'm All Ears is truly gorgeous in real life; it a really sheer hot pink with shimmers of pinks, reds & purples.. My boyfriend says my nails look like jelly beans when I wear I'm All Ears :) 

I love the OPI special collections. I can't wait to get my hands on the James Bond collection!! Have you guys had any of their collections? Which are your faves? 

Jen xo

NOTD | Zebra print & lilac

I'm going to start by apologising to those of you who don't like feet! I, for one, am one of those people. So it even grosses me out a little that I'm posting a picture of my toes, but eh, we are all friends here! 

I always have nail polish on my toes, but I never ever give them much attention. I'm not a massive fan of feet, so mine are never on show.. explaining why they get no TLC. But today, I felt that this needs to change!

I decided to go for a zebra print on my big toes. It's quite simple to do with a nail striper & is really different to anything I've worn before. The other toe nails are a little small for nail art & I didn't really want to paint them all white or all black. So, I used my brand spanking new OPI, that I bought yesterday - Do You Lilac It? 

Do your toe nails get much lovin'? Or are mine just hard done to!

Jen xo

NOTD | OPI Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It

My love for OPI is probably well known by now! I get cravings for a new polish, & I just cannot resist! Although this shade was bought by my lovely boyfriend for my 21st birthday :) 

OPI are by far the best polish I have tried, closely followed by Essie & Topshop. Their colour selection is redonkulous - there are just so many! Not only this but they apply so nicely. No visible brush strokes, fast drying, opaque colours & long-lasting wear. 

This post is just a quick one but I wanted to show you this lovely colour. It's called Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It, which I think is a fab name! I love this colour, it's one of my new faves. Indoors it appears to be your average red shade, but in natural light it appears to be a bright orange. I love this about OPIs - a few of the OPI polishes I own appear different shades in different light. 

Jen xo

NOTD | Nude & half moon

Sorry I've been a little quite recently guys! I've been a bit of a busy bee... I went to London for a few days to meet some old uni mates, stayed the night in Birmingham for a friends birthday & have been working a long weekend of 4am shifts! But hopefully I'll get chance to write a little more now :) 

What's a better way to start off than with a slice of nail art! You know how I like my nail art :D

Today I'm trying out one the looks from the Wah nail art book. It's called half moon & is kind of a 60's inspired look, or so I think! 

So here is everything I used...

I started by applying the Sally Hansen miracle nail thickener... my nails have seen better days, so I'm trying to strengthen them. This also works as a base coat for your coloured polish. Then I applied 2 coats to each nail of OPIs Tickle My France-y.

It's the first time I've tried out this colour & I really like it. It's different to anything else I own... very nude! I think it would make a great base for a french manicure too :)

Now for the arty bit... Using the Sally Hansen black nail art pen (you could use a nail striper too!) I drew (or tried to!) a crescent shape coming out from my cuticle. Then I outlined just below my cuticle & coloured it all in. It's the first time I've done this so as you can see from the photos it isn't very neat. But I think this is definitely something that comes with practice. Besides, from afar you can't notice the wobbly outlines!  

I really really like this look! I think it might actually be a new favourite. It's pretty simple to do & with a little practice makes a lovely chic nail. It's also pretty versatile & could be done with so many colours.

Lemme know if you have a go & what colours you use!

I hope you've all had a great bank holiday weekend :)

Jen xox


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OPI I Don't Give A Rotterdam | NOTD

This post is a little bit boring compared to my usual NOTDs. But I figured I'm going a little over board with nail art recently & I haven't even tried out all of the new polishes I was given for my birthday. Soo, I thought I'd give OPIs I Don't Give A Rotterdam a go that my lovely boyfriend bought me :)

Here's what I used...

I received the pro white original (on the left of the picture above) in my August GlossyBox. (See my review here). It's a clear varnish that can be used to counteract any staining on your nails & make them gleaming! I thought I'd test this out whilst I had no polish on. It definitely has my vote! After you've applied the polish & it starts to dry it kinda just disappears! Leaving behind dry shiny shiny nails. The only thing is I never have bare nails. I'll save this for when I bag myself a scientist job & am not allowed to wear polish - not looking forward to these times! The picture below is of the pro white original application only.

You could probably use the pro white as a base coat, but out of habit I also applied Sally Hansen's nail thickener. OPIs I Don't Give a Rotterdam is quite a sheer colour, so I thought I'd apply a white base coat first. This makes the colour look a lot more opaque & the glitter in the polish becomes more obvious. I used Barry M's matt white. 

Love love love OPI! All of their colours I've tried are so so pretty & they apply like a dream.

What are your favourite OPI shades?

Jen xo

My 1st OPIs!

Call me sad, but I am now a very happy owner of 2 OPIs! :D

I love love love painting my nails, I've been doing it so often lately! Since creating this blog, & following many others, I have became a lot more familiar with various products & their quality. I had heard of OPI before entering the blogging world, but I was simply happy with my Rimmel & Topshop collections. I apologise Rimmel & Topy - I still love you & will use you, but you just aren't enough any more!

So I went on a hunt for OPI! They aren't sold in places like Boots or Superdrug; only salons, hairdressers etc. I found a few places that stocked OPI but, with my disappearing bank allowance, I wasn't willing to pay £10+ for a bottle of nail varnish. Then I realised my cousin has access to a local beauty warehouse (because she is a hairdresser!) & I'd heard that they sell OPI there.

With the beauty warehouse card at the ready I set off! The day I went happened to be a VAT free sale, bonus! So the OPI polishes were being sold at £4.90!! As well as this the store its self does a buy 4 get 1 free. I was in heaven. The colour range is absolutely amazing! & I love all of their random names. I picked out 6(!) nail polishes in total. My boyfriend paid for 4 of them (for my birthday) & I bought 2 - there was no way I could wait until my birthday without owning my own!

So here are the two I bought...

Just spotted the lizard & over the taupe.

I absolutely love them & I can definitely see what all the hype is about. The formula is of the best I've ever used. It's quite a thin polish, so is really easy to apply & doesn't get messy/clumpy at all. To keep the formula at its best there are 2 silver balls in each polish. I love this, because I always find my polishes get old & gloopy, so a good shake before every use will prevent this. The only down side to the thin formula, if it even is a down side, is that you need to apply 2, maybe 3 coats to cover the visible nail line. I love painting my nails though so I'm fine with this! The thinner formula also means that they dry quite quickly; in comparison to thicker polishes like Barry M, which take an age to dry! Another thing I love is the massive brush handles. Because they're quite large they are really easy to get a grip of, making application easy & more precise (no hand cramp too!).

Just spotted the lizard

 Just spotted the lizard is from OPIs amazing spiderman collection. I think it's a gorgeous, unusual colour; with undertones of gold & green. It's also a dupe of the infamous Chanel's peridot polish, but for a much cheaper price! I'm currently wearing this :)

Over the taupe

Over the taupe isn't the most exciting colour, but I've been wanting to try a brown/grey tone for a while. Also, I thought this shade would be perfect for my graduation later this month.

So there you have it, my overenthusiastic OPI post! What are you favourite OPI shades?

Jen xox