China Glaze Passion with Layla Graffiti Effect Top Coat in Black

China Glaze Passion is a light metallic gold. Pretty boring on its own. This, along with the rest of the Romantique collection works very well with the Konad stamping kit, by the way. It's nearly opaque in one coat, and this is why it's so good for Konad. The polish is a bit streaky.

Layla Cosmetics is an Italian company and I had not heard of them before last week, when I rekindled my interest in cracked effect polishes. Years ago, Max Factor had a polish which would dry cracked, I'm afraid I can't remember what it was called. Anyway, I found Layla's Graffiti Effect top coats on eBay and bought three: black, white and gold.

Indoors. I love my new macro tubes! I only took the pictures today so there is some tipwear.

I was heading out on Friday night and the Layla polishes arrived just that morning. Awesome! I had to test drive one, obviously. So, in my rush to get out the door, I applied once coat of CG Passion, let it dry and put on a coat of Layla's Graffiti polish. It dries very very quickly so you need to work fast. The instructions on the bottle tell you not to be precise - you shouldn't go over any areas twice. I didn't actually read the instructions until later, and I think I applied it too thickly. The polish did crack, but instead of small bits, I got more vertical splits. I let it dry for a few minutes - the polish dries matte and has very little staying power on its own, so you need a proper topcoat over it. Although I tried to be careful, Seche Vite dragged both the black and the gold a bit and you can see the streaks on the photos. But it's OK, I know what to do next time. The effect is nevertheless pretty cool.

Natural light; overcast. Drags are not that visible in real life, unless you look closely.

I can't wait to try out the gold and white Graffiti Effect polishes. Cracked nail polishes have been around for years, but they aren't very widely available. Barry M recently came out with a black one. Layla offers these in a number of different colours, but I have a feeling that black is the most versatile, followed probably by gold. You need contrast with these and black goes with everything, much more so than neon pink or light blue, for instance.

I think I'll use gold over blue next week. Can't wait!

VERDICT: Layla Graffiti Effect Top Coat - the jury is still out until the next post. It's looking good, though.

Nails Inc. - Buckingham Street

Hello and welcome to my blog. Here, I will be reviewing my already extensive collection of nail polishes, and new acquisitions. I am not a prolific poster, but I will try to post new reviews weekly.

The first review is of one of my favourites, Nails Inc.'s Buckingham Street. I love me some glitter! Too bad it's a bastard and a half to remove :)

Outdoors, overcast.

I got this polish as part of a multipack from TK Maxx, thus I have a feeling that it might be discontinued. What a shame that would be! This is a gorgeous cool fuchsia/purple miniglitter with a little bit of blue, gold and silver glitter thrown in. Most of the added glitter is silver, but I can definitely see blue and gold as well. The particles are so tiny that it's hard to tell.

The base is clear and the polish is absolutely packed with glitter. It's nearly opaque in two coats, amazingly for a glitter, but I used three for maximum opacity. The brush is nice enough, but it feels a bit too...fluffy, I guess. The bristles could be a bit more stiff. Like most glitters, the formula dries fast. As there is more glitter than base, it finish nearly matte and very grainy or rough. I used my staple Seche Vite to add shine. Seche Vite goes on thick normally leaves a very smooth and glossy finish; in this case the surface of my nails is still a bit rough, but the gloss is still present.

Indoors, tungsten bulb. White balance corrected to show the actual colour as well as possible, but the first pic is more accurate.

I absolutely adore this shade, cool purples go very well with my skin tone.

VERDICT: Nailed