Ciaté ~ Love Letters

Hello!

Welcome to my first scheduled post! From now on you'll see regular Geordie Nails posts on Monday and Wednesday lunchtimes, with bonus posts if I've been doing a lot of manis. Hopefully this will give a bit more structure to the blog without being restrictive. Thanks so much to those of you who commented and gave me valuable feedback ^_^

Today's manicure shows off another of my glitter purchases from TKMaxx last week! Love Letters by Ciaté is a very warm-coloured glitter, pink with a duochrome flash of orange. It consists of very fine glitter with larger pieces mixed in. Disappointingly it doesn't quite give full coverage so I had to apply two coats over a base of pink polish (Vivacious by MeMeMe). Here it is...

I really love the look of this mani; the duochrome gives it an extra dimension and the result is warm and romantic like its name. I only wish it gave better coverage on its own!

See you on Wednesday!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

TKMaxx Glitter Manicure

Hello!

Yesterday I managed to get out and go shopping in Newcastle for the first time in a long time. As it's such a rare occasion I decided to treat myself to some new polishes, two of which I am currently wearing in a manicure!

I would thoroughly recommend checking out your local TKMaxx right now because the Newcastle Northumberland Street store had lots of VERY nice polishes for sale. Illamasqua, Essie, OPI, Models Own, Ciaté, Nails Inc... I had to put a few amazing bargains back on the shelf so I didn't spend too much, but I walked out with three glitter polishes: Love Letter by Ciaté, Swarm by Illamasqua and Stroke of Brilliance by Essie.

The latter two are what I used for this manicure. Swarm is my first Illamasqua nail polish and it's a black glitter mix; I was disappointed to open it and discover that it's a topper glitter rather than giving full coverage, but it's still a beautiful and special polish. Stroke of Brilliance is a jewel-like pale purple topper glitter. Here is a mix of both worn over Barry M Indigo:

I really like the two together ^_^ Indigo makes a lovely base and I'm sure I'll be wearing it again through the Autumn.

You may well be seeing the Ciaté glitter next!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Feather Manicure

Hello!

During my last outing to Newcastle I popped into TK Maxx, and found a Ciaté Feather Manicure kit for £2.99! Since the RRP is £20.00 that is a bargain I could not say no to. The kit includes an envelope packed with different coloured feathers, nail scissors, a full-sized top coat, a mini nail polish, nail file blocks and instructions. Again, for £2.99!!!

My first attempt was not successful at all - I ended up with a mess of feathers whose colours didn't show properly over my choice of neon pink nail polish. But today I used them as two accent nails paired with another new polish purchase, the sheer Ballet Slippers by Essie, and got a better result!

I am a lot happier this time!

Once applied, the feathers lie nice and smooth on your nails - a few layers of top coat helps! And I'm sure the feathers would look even nicer if you had longer nails to show off more of the feather. As for the Essie polish, I love a French polish and this one is lovely and sweet.

I'm going to have to keep going into town if TK Maxx are stocking bargains like this!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Vera Valenti Mirror Effect ~ Blue

Hello!

In the past week I've spotted some real bargains while I've been out and about, and so my next few blog posts will be along the theme of "Things Lisa Should Not Have Bought But Couldn't Resist". This first post shows a TK Maxx find!

I shop at the TK Maxx on Northumberland Street in Newcastle. This past week I've seen a decent lot of nail stuff, including the Vera Valenti set I have to show you today. The set costs £2.99 and is presented in a box of two polishes: a colourful one-coat creme and a mirror effect chrome. I saw purple, blue and green sets, and I settled for the blue.

The mirror effect polish is really quite lovely! It's not exactly reflective like the name or box would imply, but it's a shining blue chrome that applies extremely smoothly and looks gorgeous. The one-coat blue is a bright cheering-up colour, but I did need two coats. Both polishes have good formulas and wide brushes, which I personally love. Here are both polishes with the mirror effect stamped on the middle finger:

And here's what to look out for in store:

So the polishes aren't exactly as advertised but they are still very good indeed, especially the mirror effect polish. At £2.99 for the set it is an utter bargain. Has anyone else spotted these?

Hugs,

Lisa xx

A Newcastle Nail Polish Post!

Hello!

Today I'm writing a post to showcase the nail polish deals I spotted in Newcastle city centre today! I am absolutely categorically not supposed to be buying more nail polish right now, but at least I can do a public service by leading you astray too ;-)

Here is a pic of my little haul, and below I'll write about where I got them:

TK Maxx ~ TK Maxx have just recently opened their new store at the bottom of Northumberland Street, and the couple of times I've been in there they've had a really good selection of polishes. Today they had Color Clubs in pairs, minis and big sets, Leighton Denny minis, Nails Inc sets and a few others that included the OPI duo above that I just could not resist getting ~ Bubble Bath, I'm Not Really A Waitress and a cute keychain. The set was marked down from £19 to £12.99.

Boots ~ Boots have started stocking Sinful Colors! There are currently displays in the big Eldon Square store. They're at an introductory price of £1.99 but that's supposed to be increasing in a few weeks' time. Amongst the selection are some cool glitters, but I walked away with the white as it had been recommended by fellow polishers as a great base colour. I also bought my third bottle of Sweet Kisses for £2.99 from Boots' own 17 range; it's a slightly dusty pastel pink which I adore. The Eldon Square Boots has really stepped up their polish selection with a ton of desirable brands being given their own displays.

Making Faces ~ This is the make-up barrow that used to be found near the Northumberland Street entrance to Eldon Square but now has moved further up inside, opposite Next and where the calendar stalls used to be. Today they had a great selection of Essie polishes (not just that orange one!) and Revlons for £1.99 each. I actually settled for an unknown brand called Freshcover because its icy blue looked so promising, and I'll be swatching it soon!

Xtras ~ Again found in Eldon Square, Xtras have a range of polishes by a brand called Cairuo that they are selling for £1 each! If you go in, the range of colours is impossible to miss - bright, fresh and very tempting! I bought 3 cheerful Spring shades and will be swatching them very soon to see if they are any good. They also have lots of W7 polishes for £1.99, and I decided to get the blue Suede-effect shade that people have been rating highly.

So these were my nail adventures today! I'll be updating with swatches; hopefully they were worth breaking my no-buy for because it was seriously bad of me!

Hugs,

Lisa xx