To gel or not to gel?

That is the question! And a lot of people aren't sure what the answer is. Well hopefully I can sort that. My own opinion is that normal polish is fine and for extra protection and long-lastingness *mouths: not a word* add a topcoat. However I am aware that gels do last longer and are a lot more chip resistant incase some of you have a busy life and use your hands a lot.

Gels for home use usually don't require a UV lamp to dry them but this means that you do have to wait a while for your nails to dry, which is why I often don't wear gels. On a positive side though they are super glossy and shiny once finished and not smudged which is what you should expect in a good polish.

I bought two different gels. One considered a fairly cheap version (Miss Beauty London in red for £4) and the other a moderately expensive polish (Avon gel, in light baby pink for £7 ). Then I put them to the test to see whether the money difference mattered. Here are the results:

Miss Beauty London.
Price: £4 (I think!)
Glossy once dried: Yes
Time to dry: 15 minutes on a thin coat
Easy to put on: Quite gloopy but mostly alright
Coats needed for best look: 2
Finished look: Nice and smart!
Additional comments: A great look to respect those who fought in the war this remembrance day.

Avon Gel
Price: £7 (however I bought it at a discounted price)
Glossy: Quite a lot
Time to dry: 10 minutes on a thin coat
Easy to put on: Very
Coats needed for best look: 3 (however you could have got away with 2)
Finished look: Elegant and feminine
Additional comments: A really pretty polish and very smooth but I don't like the Avon bottles, although they look really nice and smart on the shelf when you go to open a stiffly screwed lid on an Avon bottle the sharp corners dig into your skin! But that is only a minute complaint :)

 Hope this has answered some of your questions about gel polish. And A Topcoat. x

Fantastic False Nails

Hi viewers/readers/people of the world!
Today is just a short post to tell you about the amazing (or fantastic as the title suggested) false nails available at Primark for a bargain price. This post came to me after I realised how many sets of them I actually owned! I don't usually wear false nails very much but I do love the quirky patterns that they come with that I probably wouldn't be able to create at home...

ITEM 1!

ITEM 1

Some monochrome stripes, what I like about the Primark nails is that they come with a varying amount of sizes and lots of them indeed. This means they actually fit without having to file away at them! Apart from the thumbs which I always seem to find tricky to find the right size, my thumb nails naturally grow quite long but the width of the nail is small so it's just... challenging.

                                      ITEM 2!

ITEM 2 

Bunnies... so cute! A complex design which I deffinitely would not be able to achieve sitting at home with a shaky hand and a couple of stripers! I am planning to stick these on at Easter time.

ITEM 3

ITEM 3!
The last item in the auction house today, a beautiful mid century art deco piece valued at around £300-£400. Sorry went a bit Dickinson's real deal there! Moving on... I mainly bought these nails because after trying and
failing to achieve the bold and effective ombre look on my natural nails I was desperate to find a solution. And yes, I cheated. Anyway I also loved the colours involved in the design and the fact that, close up, it looked quite real and genuine, so much so I'll probably tell people that it was all my own work! Not really... Although...

With that, this post is over and done! Write to you again soon, And A Topcoat. :)

Christmas Time, Mistletoe and Wine!

Well Christmas time is approaching and so I thought I'd share with you some of my Christmassy polishes and some fake nails I got from one of my uber lovely friends.

Now, the first polish depicted (ooh, fancy!) is the amazing Nails. Inc Snowflake special effect polish! Oh my Goodness this varnish is very Christmassy...think of cinnamon scents, stockings, mince pies and snowmen all in one bottle! Except... Just the snowman.

1) Anyway, this polish has thin white glitter strands and glitter hexagons in a clear polish and layered over the top of Porchester Square (also by Nails. Inc), which is a browny purple colour or the silver foil effect polish (once again by Nails. Inc) it looks really effective, especially with 2 or 3 coats.

2) The next one is the Champney's Ruby polish. I got it quite a while ago so I'm not sure whether it is still in manafacture but I really love red nails and this dark red colour makes it really cosy but classy... Honestly I even add alliteration! The polish has a slightly swirly and marbled consistency and has hints of sparkly silvery/ gold in it. Also I got this polish from my brother and so it is a lot more special than other colours to me. Another thing, which I almost forgot, was that it is really smooth and easy to put on. So, yeah. Well done Champney's!

3) Excitteeddd! This is one of my most recent polishes given to me, once again, as a gift. It is from Rimmel London and is called *thinks to herself, furrows eyebrows, looks at the ceiling*... It appears I have forgotten the name so I will get off my lazy backside and find the actual bottle!
I'm back! It's called sequin explosion- how could I forget a name like that? Back to the subject, this polish screams P-A-R-T-A-Y! It contains really shiny multicoloured glitter circles and hexagons. The colours being purple, blue, pink, silver and gold. It's so new I haven't had time to try it out but I can't wait. Maybe I'll wear it for new year?

4) The penultimate item is a set of fake nails. Bought for me by my lovely friend featured in the first paragraph. I can't wait to wear them, even though she did tell me a rather scary story about false nail glue. Rudolph and Santa... What more could you wish for this Christmas? This set comes from Elegant Touch and they have their own website filled with other cool nails so go check it out. Now! Go on! Go!

5) You came back! Last but not least, aaaw... Cute! This polish is old but has been brought back from the depths of the  nail varnish tub every Christmas and will certainly be brought back this year. It is from Claire's and is a simple red glitter topcoat but it's just so festive! Those of you who have been to Claire's in the past few months will notice that it is from the old range, as they updated the bottles, and the new ones will be featured in a 'coming soon' post if you want to keep looking out for it. I love this polish so much and because there is so much glitter in it, it usually doesn't require more than one coat if it.

Whoah, we made it. Hope you a have a nice, calm Christmas countdown. With love from And A Topcoat. x
P.s The image featured in this post does include an out-take photo of when all the polishes fell over because the stage (a make-up bag) collapsed!

Scented Polishes are Here!

Wow! After seeing the Model's Own scented polishes about 3 times now I decided I needed to actually buy one inssgndsb\a.

Ooops, sorry. That was my dog! Start again...

After seeing the Model's Own scented polishes about 3 times now I decided I needed to actually buy one instead of just gazing at them with longing eyes. Unfortunately I was lured in by the 2 for 3 deal and the whole new sweetshop scented range and ended up coming out of the shop with 3 of them!

I purchased the Apple Pie one which (as you have probably guessed) smells like apples, the Grape Juice one which (as you have probably guessed) smells like grapes and the Gum ball one, which smells like bubblegum. 

Once I'd left the shop I just walked around smelling the caps as they had the special scratch'n'sniff stickers on them. So much so that the smell has worn away on them. I really want to complete the collection of fruit ones by getting the Banana and Blueberry Muffin ones, however I'm not sure about the sweetshop range as the cola bottle one was a peculiar brown one with glitter in. Athough.... I may just be tempted! Goodbye for now, And A Topcoat. :)

Burt's Bees Cuticle Cream

This is just a tiny post to tell you about Burt's Bees Cuticle Cream. It's a cream which you massage into your cuticles and nails to make them feel soft and to give them a bit of a break from nail polish remover if you are an obsessive nail painter like me! What I really like about it is the smell (the main reason why I like it!). The scent is so lemony and refreshing. Aaah, I just love it! :)

And a Topcoat

Hello everybody, if you made it here you must have survived the maze *cough*...
Hello Earthlings, I'm a human and... so are you? *bites lip in a confused way*
Hi Contestant, you could have won a once in a lifetime trip to Florida. Press 1 to answer. Press 2 to be put on hold. Press 3 to decline. Press 4 *walks over and stamps on phone in a frustrated way*.

Hello there reader, what a delight it is to write this and hopefully what a pleasure it is for you to be reading this! I am a typical polish-a-holic who currently owns 127 (OCD is  telling me that isn't an even number) 127  126 polishes in my collection! Some of my favourites being the Model's Own scented 'Grape Juice' and Nails. Inc's 'Porchester Square'. This blog is... well.... I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this blog is. That put a rather abrupt end to that sentence. *Virtual tumble weed rolls across  screen*. Anyway, I will be posting pictures of my nail art, polishes and other potentially interesting things to do with nails (not the ones you find in D.I.Y stores!)

See you shortly,
And A Topcoat. :)