American Apparel nail polish in Mannequin

I'd heard good things about AA polish from the American blogs out there, so on a recent trip to Nottingham I thought I'd try them out. I was originally intending to buy some of their neon collection but there was no sign of that, so I settled for Mannequin.

I have read about the mannequin nail trend and quite fancied giving it a go; here are the results!

Application was good: this was 2 coats (OPI Natural Nail base coat, Mannequin, OPI Top Coat). The first coat was quite opaque although a little streaky, but fine with another layer. I didn't have any chipping and wore the polish for 4 days.

I did feel though that the colour wasn't for me. In the photo the skin around my nails looks red and a bit sore, but this wasn't the case in real life. I think this particular shade just didn't match my skin tone. I'm thinking of giving this another runout on my toes, maybe paired with some shatter polish.

My only concern with the polish is that it has separated in the bottle so I can't see it lasting very long; even vigorous shaking doesn't get the polish evenly dispersed.

So I will be keeping this for now, but I am not totally convinced.

OPI Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides

Thought I would kick off with my most recent purchase: the PotC mini collection by OPI, containing Sparrow Me The Drama, Planks A Lot, Skull and Glossbones and Stranger Tides.

I fancied something relatively work-safe but interesting today, so went for Stranger Tides.

I've seen this described as greige on various American blogs but I would say it's more green-grey than anything. It's not like any other polish I've ever seen.

The picture makes it look much greener than it is in real life, there's a lot more grey it in.

I found the formula quite tricky to work with. Apparently all OPI shades post-Texas collection are now 4-Free and this is the first I've tried. Maybe it's because I have the mini collection, I found it rather streaky and it tended to drag on the nail. This is base coat, 3 coats and top coat and I'm still not totally happy. It's opaque, but still has brush strokes. Also, the smell was absolutely awful! The worst polish smell I've experienced for a long time.

Despite my formula concerns, I really do like the colour: it's not like anything else in my collection. I think it's a great colour for a pirate-themed line too; very murky! I'm planning to add silver shatter later in the week and I shall be interested to see how they combine.

Welcome

Hi everyone!
I've been reading beauty blogs for about 3 months now and thought I would try and set up my own beauty corner of the internet.

I will try and update as regularly as I can, but life can get hectic!

First of all, a little about me. I'm in my late 20s and live in a village in Lincolnshire. Although life can be a bit boring, I'm lucky enough to have more high end beauty (hello, OPI!) nearby than when I lived in a city!

I'm currently looking forward to the new Sleek Mediterranean and Caribbean collections and the OPI Serena Williams French Open set with red shatter.

That's enough about me: on to the important stuff!

Thanks for stopping by!