Sonnetarium - Cucumber Salad

Hello there! I have an indie polish I want to show you today, which I got as a treat for myself when I found out I'd got my university place for September this year :)

This is the lovely Cucumber Salad by Sonnetarium:

Cucumber Salad is a lovely mint green (looks a little greener than these photos show) with white and dark green glitters plus tiny white glitters throughout. I saw the swatches by Chalkboard Nails and fell in love with this one - it's pretty unique with a glitter combination I've not seen anywhere else.

Application was fine and this is two coats plus topcoat. There's some VNL in these photos but you couldn't see it in the flesh; unfortunately I'd long since removed this by the time I noticed! It lasted a good 3-4 days before tipwear got noticeable.

Here's a close-up of that funky glitter:

Really cool, eh?

I was really impressed with this polish and I know I'll be buying more from Sonnetarium in the future. You can find the Fresh collection for Spring 2013 on their website, with the option of 9ml minis or 15ml fullsize bottles!

What do you think of this polish? Do you like unusual glitter combos? Tweet me @ExperimentNails or leave me a comment if you have any favourites!

Easter nailart!

Happy Easter everyone! I knew I'd be busy eating Easter eggs today so I had a go at some Easter nailart yesterday, and I'm really proud of it!

We have my attempt at a bunny, what's meant to be a partially unwrapped Easter egg, a daffodil and a little chicky hatching out of its egg. I actually sketched out rough plans for these beforehand because I suck at improvising, especially if it involves art! Picked the wrong type of brush and couldn't work with it, and I'm scared of striping brushes (really do need to get the hang of them) so most of it was done with a dotting tool in the end.

The little chick was my favourite! I've seen it on lots of easter nails but it's so adorable I couldn't resist!

This manicure took 15 different polishes to pull off which is easily a new record for me! The only sad point was having left it an hour before topcoating and the black still smudging on the bunny *shakes fist at topcoat*

Colours used:

Thumb - 3 coats of BarryM Matt White (would have been 2 but I knocked it on a cup of tea!) for the base, with polka dots in BarryM Strawberry Icecream, Peach Melba, Lemon Icecream and Blueberry Icecream, NYC Mint Macaroon and Model's Own Grape Juice
Index - 2 coats of Model's Own Grape Juice for the base, then BarryM Matt White, Maybelline Forever Strong Nude Rose and Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris for the bunny
Middle - 2 coats of Next own brand in Tan, with BarryM Lilac Foil for the foil (funnily enough)
Ring - 2 coats of BarryM Blueberry Icecream, then BarryM Lemon Icecream and Tangerine with OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby? and Sinful Colors Envy to create the daffodil
Pinky - 2 coats of BarryM Matt White with Maybelline Color Show Fierce N Tangy, OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby? and Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris for the chick

I'll be really sad to take this manicure off! Did you do some Easter nails? Tweet me @ExperimentNails, I'd love to see. Have a lovely chocolate-munching day!

March haul post

Hello there! Hope you're all having a good Easter break. I thought I'd show you my March polish haul before we officially hit April.

L-R: Maybelline Color Show Nabline, NYC Expert Last Mint Macaroon and Rimmel 60 Seconds Grey Matter. I was inspired by this colour scheme and didn't have a pastel mint green yet.

OPI Polka.com is one of the cutest glitters I've seen and so many people picked this at our charity nailbar for Comic Relief (post on that coming tomorrow!).

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops. I was so excited to get a bottle of this! Swatches of this and Raindrops will be up this month.

L-R: Nails Inc New Burlington Place, Wardour Mews, Clifford Street and New King's Road, got in their 75% off sale for £11 TOTAL. There's a dupes post incoming for Wardour Mews...

Model's Own Grape Juice, with scentedness!

It really does smell of fruity things on the nail, though I'm not sure it's strictly grape-scented. Not quite the purple-leaning lilac I thought it would be but more on that later.

10 polishes is a good month I think. I didn't go over my budget, even when sorely tempted, but still picked up some beauties. Hopefully April will carry on the fiscally responsible trend!

What have you picked up this month? Any special polishes that broke your wallet?

Barry M Gelly - Greenberry

Nearly the end of the week - hang in there! Earlier this week I showed you Barry M Gelly Nail Effects in Lychee, and today I'd like to show you Greenberry.

Greenberry is a bright turquoise-greeny-aqua colour that I can't really describe any better than that! I wasn't sure how I felt about this colour. Probably prefer this in nail art rather than as a plain manicure.

There were similar application issues to the ones I had with Lychee - the second coat dragged and then I needed a third. Apparently I learnt nothing from swatching Lychee! Pictures are without topcoat because these Gelly polishes dry to a high shine on their own.
(Excuse the tiny watermark, adding those is still a learning curve for me...)

Overall I liked this polish but might have preferred to swap Greenberry for a different Gelly shade, in hindsight. Ah well!

Do you have a favourite Barry M Gelly polish? Is there a shade that you think I should buy?