Pick N Mix Week 3 - 60s / Matte or Texture

I'm really cheesed off about this week - I did have an awesome monochrome 60s geometric mani done, I even wore it to work for a week.... then I forgot I hadn't photographed it and took it off to do my nails for a night out.

When I realised I'd not actually done any photos I could have actually kicked myself - it took ages to do all the taping and painting.

I then remembered that I'd just gotten the three new matte Silks from the BarryM winter release and I was busting to try out Forest. How could I resist?

Pick N Mix Week 1 - Teal / 2 Colour Gradient

My first post of the epic 52 week Pick N Mix challenge!

The prompts for the first week of the challenge are teal and 2 colour gradient. This being a pick and mix challenge, we get to mix up these prompts and use one or the other prompts - or both!

Swatched - China Glaze Deviantly Daring

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had no China Glaze polishes.

Then my other half went and gave me some early birthday presents, because he got so overexcited to see me get them. He's adorable.

This is China Glaze Deviantly Daring, a teal-blue duochrome foil that is super amazing on the nail.

New Brand - Elevation Polish

I'm slowly but surely managing to break in to the joyous world of indie polishes, a world filled with delightful concoctions handmade by lovely ladies around the globe. I've already shown swatches of my very first indies - KB Shimmer's Where my Peeps at and Lottie Dottie - but now I've managed to branch out in to another brand.

Elevation Polish is made in the US by hand, and are mostly named after mountains due to the creator's love of climbing. As a result I can spell but not say most of the polish names properly!

Swatched - Sinful Colors Kissy

I love teal. And blue. And green. I'm not sure if you've noticed.

When Sinful Colors launched over here I was like a kid in a candy shop - damn good polishes for only £1.99? Get in my shopping basket!

Then I spotted Kissy ... 

Swatched - Nails Inc Symons Street

I love teal - its a combination of my two favourite colours. I have never met a teal I don't like.

This polish is no exception.

Symons Street is a metallic teal which is now discontinued by Nails Inc - I managed to get it a couple of months ago when they put quite a few sets in to their 'Get it or Regret it' section of the website. This is also how I managed to get hold of a Albert Place, a polish which has rapidly become one of my favourite blues.

Swatched: Pretty & Polished Tomboyish

I'm gonna say this in advance - pardon the slightly shoddy photography on this swatch. Pretty & Polished Tomboyish is a heat sensitive colour changing polish, and my body temperature would not sit still the day I had this on my nails.

Tomboyish is part of Pretty & Polished's temperature sensitive range of polishes, which changes from forest green when cold to an incredibly pretty pastel blue (when I finally managed to warm my hands up).

Swatched: Orly Viridian Vinyl

On one of my many rambles through eBay I stumbled across a couple of Orly polishes being sold off consistently cheaper than others. Whats wrong with these polishes I asked myself.

The Answer? Not a sausage. This is Viridian Vinyl, a gorgeous teal that claims to be matte but as you can see it comes out as a more rubberized finish than truly matte.

Swatched: OPI's Austin-Tatious Turquoise

In what may be a never ending quest to swatch all of my stash, next up is OPI's Austin-tatious Turquoise. I love teal-y colours, and this is an absolutely amazing metallic teal.

There are a few problems with this polish however.

It goes on very sheer and streaky. The pictures here are just the polish itself on top of my clear base coat, but it took about five thick-ish coats to get it this opaque. Each coat went on streaky and even at five coats I still had the slightest hint of VNL.

Also it stains. After I removed this, despite my basecoat being fabulous and stopping everything else I own from staining, my nails were horribly yellowed. I only had it on for a couple of hours too! If you're aiming for this colour, I'd say either go for a super heavy duty basecoat, or go for a different polish all together. BarryM do a delightful almost dupe called (unsurprisingly) Teal - I'll swatch and compare that next week.