Holo Taco Topper's

Heyy space turtles! A couple of random swatchy type looks to share today. I was short on time for doing nail art so decided I'd try out a couple of untried Holo Taco polishes I have instead. Hoping to find some time to do nail art this evening or tomorrow. Some thoughts on each look below.

Skittle - The first two pictures are of a skittle look I did with some darker colours as we move towards autumn. I am so pleased to finally have Holo Taco's Everything Taco. It's such a gorgeous sparkly topper. Below I've added one coat over each colour, followed by a glossy top coat. I like my toppers but particularly like the depth you get when glitters are actually included within the polish. However this is the topper of all toppers to me - I love how sparkly it is and how much there is going on! Having the different colours and flake sizes adds some depth too.

Sparkly purple - I was undecided on Holo Taco's Got Cake for ages but decided to pick it up with my last order as it's so well reviewed. I then saw 'a bit f glitz on the tips' on Instagram use it over purple and it looked amazing, so I decided that's how I'd swatch it. I added one coat on each nail over purple (thickness of the coats varies as I think the first one was too thick!). It's a very snazzy sparkly look! I'm tempted to try it out over darker colours too even if I wouldn't technically consider this one a topper.

Colours used: Skittle: Plum - Barry M, Watermelon - Barry M, Indigo Ink - Nail Paint Palette, Kensington High Street - Nails Inc, Everything Taco - Holo Taco

Purple: Disco Dress - Color Club, Got Cake - Holo Taco

Holo Taco Christmas 2021 - Lazy Swatches

Hello again! Got some lazy swatches to share today, showing off the new Christmas 2021 collection from Holo Taco. I was late to the party with their previous holographic Christmas collection but it was SO gorgeous that as soon as I saw this collection I knew I needed it! It comes out at a convenient time too as it was around the time of my Birthday! There are six colours in this collection, and as I only have five nails per hand I decided to put two of them on my thumbnail. I've included my thoughts on each colour below.

Naughty List - This is a beautiful deep read glitter in a sheer red base. Their previous pinky-red glitter was SO stunning so was super excited to see this one! Reminds me of jewels. Two coats for full coverage.

Everything Is Pine - I absolutely love the name for this one! Formula is just as above but with green, it's super sparkly too, I'm not sure I've ever seen such a sparkly green! Two coats for full coverage.

Plumb Luck - This is a stunning plum coloured polish with the same formula as the two above. Really dense glitter and great pay off. Two coats gave me full coverage. A really glamorous vampy shade!

Gold Play Button - This one is slightly different to the others in that it's in a clearer base, but the glitter pay off and formula are otherwise the same, and it is SO sparkly! Just what's needed to sit alongside their silver holo glitter, Rainbow Snow. I used two coats in the pictures here for consistency, but another would be needed for full coverage.

Choco Holo - A brown holo, sounds odd but it's lovely! A really unique shade and surprisingly sparkly. Really good coverage (same as the first few) and a gorgeous warm autumn/winter shade.

Black Holo Wish - This one is not the sort of thing I'd expect to find in a Christmas collection but it fits well and I know many people have been asking for it. It's in a black jelly/sheer base which is packed with holographic glitter. Glitter pay off is great and it covers in two coats, no need for sponges!

In conclusion - obviously I love them! I know they would be amazing and they didn't disappoint! It's hard to choose a favourite. The gold is of course super sparkly, and plumb luck is understandably popular, but I think Choco Holo and Everything Is Pine might be the stand out ones for me, it's such a gorgeous glittery green and the brown glitter is so unusual. Much like their last holographic Christmas glitter collection I really love the depth in these and the different sizes of glitter.

Colours used: Naughty List, Everything Is Pine, Plumb Luck, Gold Play Button, Choco Holo, Black Holo Wish - All Holo Taco

Menchie The Cat & Friends

Following on from my last post I have a sort of twin look I created using Holo Taco's Menchie The Cat nail polish as my base. As with the last look I applied one layer, then sponged some on then applied another layer. The thumb nail is a little different as I ruined it and had to start again, for this I added Polished For Days' Soft Focus base coat which was a great base for the glitter and meant I needed to use less to get full coverage. Unfortunately my picture below has come out blurry but I did rather like the thumb nail on this one, it reminds me of the Aristocats films!

As with the Zyler nail art I used the advanced stamping technique to create this look, you can see how here. The stamping plates I used were Mo You London's Animal 15 and Crazy Cat Lady 02. I love how ridiculously sparkly this nail polish is. I find it's often the case with holographic glitters than the pale or silver ones are the most wildly glittery - this one certainly didn't disappoint! I don't think I have much else to say on this one so miaow for now!

Colours used: Menchie The Cat - Holo Taco, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Cappuccino - Barry M, Little Bo Peep - Rimmel, Cream Soda - Barry M

Zyler The Cat & Friends

Miaow! Kitty cat nail art to share today using Holo Taco's Zyler The Cat nail polish as a base. I recently ordered this and it's partner, Menchie The Cat when ordering the new unicorn skin polishes. I have really been enjoying orange glitters lately and I love the cat theme and the glitter too so it's an all round winner! 

I started with a peel off base and then added a layer of orange glitter. Once dry I sponged on more glitter, and added one final layer on top. It dried pretty textured so I added a couple of layers of 'glitter grabber' clear polish before adding the nail art. For the images I used Mo You London's Animal 15 and Crazy Cat Lady 02 stamping plates. I created decals for the three cats, you can see how here.

In conclusion, the orange glitter was a little more textured than I expected but did eventually smooth out well after all the nail art and top coats! I really like this look but I'm still not 100% sure if orange glitter suits me - it just looks so much fun in pictures! Definitely a good one for autumn and Halloween nails when the time comes.

Colours used: Zyler The Cat - Holo Taco, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Cappuccino - Barry M, Cream Soda - Barry M, Little Bo Peep - Rimmel

A Winter Woodland Manicure

Hi everyone! Back with more advanced stamping nail art today, no surprises there! I bought Mo You London's Fall In Love 10 stamping plate way back in the Autumn but didn't get round to using it until now. I think it works well for winter and Spring looks too, not just Autumn! The base for this (ILNP Stay Hidden) is currently my last untried nail polish - let's see how long that lasts!

While the base colour was drying I made decals for this look, you can see how here. I wasn't really sure how it would come out as I picked colours as I went along. I'm pretty happy with my choices and I particularly like the blue tress on my thumbnail. I added a glossy top coat to complete this look et voila! I like it, I think it's a cute look and works well with the base colour. Also how cute is that teeny hedgehog?!

Colours used: Stay Hidden - ILNP, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Cyan - Barry M, Cappuccino - Barry M, Watermelon - Barry M, Cocoa - Barry M, Uptown Glamour - Nails Inc, Pomegranate - Barry M

Halloween Nails - It's Pumpkin Time!

Hi everyone and happy Halloween nearly a month early! I usually only do a couple of Halloween looks, and a lot closer to Halloween, but this year I'm doing the Glam Nails Challenge on Instagram, I love the prompts for this month. The first prompt is pumpkins as you may have guessed from the title. I was super excited for my latest order from Rainbow Connection to turn up just before I did these, as I wanted to use this beautiful orange Halloween shade from UberChic - which is wonderfully called If You've Got It Haunt It!

For this look I used one of my new stamping plates from Mo You London, Halloween 13. The bats were stamped onto my nail directly and for the pumpkins I used the advanced stamping technique, you can see how here. I was so pleased with how well the orange showed up over purple. This orange shade was truly delightful, it was so smooth and opaque and has a gorgeous holographic flare in the right light! I love purple and orange as a Halloween combination, it's probably not something I'd do at any other time of year!

Colours used: If You've Got It Haunt It - UberChic, Concord - Cirque Colors, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

Holo Taco Holodays Collection: Lazy Swatches

Hello all! I'm feeling sparkly on my blog today! I've been trying out the Holodays collection from Holo Taco, which were part of a large order (and my first!) from Holo Taco last month. The Holodays collection was released for Christmas 2019, and consists of five super sparkly holographic glitter polishes. I've tried them out one on each finger to start with so I could get a feel for them. I think they go well together which I do like in a nail polish collection!

I'm not going to go into detail on each shade as that's been done plenty of times now and it's not a new collection, so I'll just share my overall thoughts and some pictures. I do struggle to capture glitter polishes but I think these pictures have come out reasonably well considering. The top left one I took at the front of the holiday home we were staying in last week which is making me feel quite wistful!

So these polishes were as beautiful and sparkly as I expected! The dark blue is the least holographic and the lighter colours more so. Across the board silver holographic polishes do seem to be the sparkliest, my sister said this one was blinding her when we were out on a sunny walk! The thing I found most impressive about these is that despite being super glitter packed you can actually paint them on rather than sponge them. I think this is so much more convenient and satisfying to do as well. I've used three coats for the below pictures but I reckon the darker colours only need two. I was surprised how much I was drawn to the red as I normally lean towards blues. All of these are gorgeous though  and I can't choose a favourite!

I have some more Holo Taco polishes to try and weirdly so far the unicorn skin one I tried has impressed me the most, but that's probably because I wasn't expecting it to, I always new these Holoday ones were going to be spectacular!

Lazy Swatches: Fun Lacquer Valentines Collection 2019

Hi everyone, today I have GLITTER to show you!! Glitter is always a great source of excitement for me! Fun Lacquer released a very sparkly valentines collection at the beginning of the year and I just had to treat myself after seeing some of the lovely videos of them under bright lights. There are six colours in total and I have done what I call 'lazy swatches', where I do one colour on each nail instead of each hand. I do this to try and save time as otherwise it would probably be months before I got round to blogging it!

All six shades are fine holographic glitter densely packed in a clear base, and are show below with three coats and a top coat. Scroll down to see how I got on...
Crazy In Love (little finger) - First up is this vibrant purple with a pinkish tone in  certain lights. Lovely and holo and very girly!

Lucky Girl (ring finger) - This is a bright green leaning towards teal/turquoise and intensely sparkly.

Kiss Me (middle finger) - Classic sparkly red. Not quite as glittery as the others in some lights but super sparkly in bright sunshine or artificial light.

BFF (index finger) - Bright blue holographic. Some similarities to 'How Deep Is Your Holo' from Fun Lacquer's Simply Nailogical Collection but finer glitter and slightly less green.
Love Potion (index finger) - This is a classic bright pink glitter. A rich sparkly pink.

Precious Moment (middle finger) - Pale pink/rose glitter with a hint of champagne. Classy yet also incredibly sparkly! This one came out the most sparkly of all six.

I feel as if I've been describing a box of chocolates for some reason! I didn't go into much detail on each colour as they were very similar in terms of consistency and glitter density. I was particularly impressed that I was able to do this in three coats. Normally I would expect to be sponging on this type of polish. If wearing these out and about and not just for swatches I think I would probably add one more coat, but only because I have long nails which makes my nail line more visible in bright light.

My favourite has to be Precious Moment. Normally I am more of a blues/greens/purples sort of person but this one is just so intensely glittery! I also think it's a classy shade despite all the sparkle, and a little different to what I currently have.

Will you be trying these out this year? Let me know what you think!

A England - Return to Manderley Review

Hey everyone! Finally getting round to putting up my swatches of A England's Return to Manderley collection (insert heart eye emoji)! Disclaimer: my swatch pictures are really not the best. I suppose at least it gives you a glimpse at them in different lights. When I'm trying to decide whether to buy a polish, I quite like to look at some lovely well presented images, and a few more casual ones to try and get a fair picture. I think these still look good in all pictures though :)

So this collection is themed around the book Rebecca, by Daphne de Maurier. A England polishes tend to be themed around books, pieces of music, art or ballet. I haven't bought any for quite some time and forgot how good they were! I enjoy the classy themes of the collections as well. There are seven polishes in the collection, all have a holographic flare and a semi-matte satin sort of finish. I've written a little about each of them tomorrow.

First up and above left is Mrs de Winter, an unusual shade. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, it's a mauve/brown/grey I suppose! I like how unusual it is and how sophisticated it looks. The holographic flare really adds a lot to it as well, turning it into something gorwn up and ordinary to something a bit special. I used one coat for this and most of the other polishes, I'll let you know which one needed two. If you have long nails like me you might need two, but I was impressed with the opacity. Above right is Maxim, a sophisticated pinky burgundy with a lovely hint of rust in the holo flare. This is the most unusual of all the polishes, I thought it would be similar to things I already have but the rusty tint to it is unique.
Next up above left is Mrs Danvers... of course she would be in black! Didn't really capture the holo flare in this one unfortunately  which is a shame as it was a good one. I have another polish similar to this but this one is definitely more holo! Again one coat used and the polish has a great consistency. On the right is Manderley - makes me a little sad! Another lovely colour though, it makes me think of the posh cars they drove to and from Manderley. I can't actually remember if any of them were green but I imagine them that way! Again I didn't capture the holo very well but it does also have a good holo flare.
Above left is The Scent of Azaleas. I think this one is my favourite, despite the quirkyness of Maxim. It's a gorgeous bright and super sparkly/holo purple.  The image is a little blurry but gives you a hint of the holo! Another one coater but a little closer to needing two for this one. Above right is Je Reviens, a holographic silver with a hint of lilac. I really love this one too, not sure how well the lilac shows up in this, or it might be because I've put it next to a more purply purple - but in person it's definitely a little lilac. I would recomend using two coats for this one as it's a tad thinner than the others.

And finally, Rebecca! This one is a holographic magenta and very fitting for the character I think. It is also my name! Though pink isn't my usual colour of choice I did think my collection was missing a holographic pink - I'm sure it will come in handy! It's not too garish ether, and is quite subtle away from bright lights. I wore this one to a client meeting last week.

 So overall I am of course pleased with these! They are a lovely set of colours and I enjoy the theme. It's a great book and of course my name - so I had to have them really. I was impressed with the opacity of all of them and the holo flare was better than I thought it would be too!

Magnetic Galaxy

Good evening all! I'm going to make this a quick one as I'm sleepy from a hard weekend of eating! Tonight's nail art is the simplest way to get a galaxy themed manicure. This was my second attempt at using Fun Lacquers magnetic nail polish, after watching some videos about how to use it. I started of with one plain layer of the polish, and then another where I held the magnet diagonally in the middle for 25-30 seconds on each nail. I finished it off with another final coat with the magnet.

Holding the magnet over the nail polish for longer (last time I think I just did about ten seconds!) definitely gave a crisper more pronounced pattern which I really like. The pattern did spread a bit over time, even once the polish was dry, but it was still a good distribution of the colours. I finished off with as layer of holographic silver glitter. I made sure not to paint it on too thickly as I wanted the pattern underneath to remain visible.

This took minimal effort and I love the end result. I kept finding myself moving my nails around to look at the gorgeous colour shift, especially in bright light where the glitter would shift too!
Colours used: Incredible - Fun Lacquer, 24 Karat Diamond - Fun Lacquer

Winter Animals ft Christmas Party Cat!

Hi there! The New Year is nearly upon us, and I don't have my new year nails ready! I am still rocking these festive winter animals which I do rather like. New Year nails are being done in a bit of a last minute scramble this evening as I'm going to London tomorrow morning. This nail art turned out a little less Christmassy than anticipated, but maybe that's a good thing for some Christmas to New Year transition nails anyway.

I used a coupe of shimmery holographics from ILNP's Spring 2017 collection for the base (colours listed below the pictures). To me the blue always seemed more icy and wintery. For the outlining patterns, I used the Mo You London Festive 45 and Enchanted 05 plates and white stamping polish. I used a dortting tool to pick up the animal images before stamping as I would come back to that later.

Meanwhile (I feel like I'm writing a recipe!) on my Uber Mat, I created decals using the advanced stamping technique, and using only the animal images (I removed the surrounding patterns using a dotting tool). You can see how to do advanced stamping here.

I really like the background colours, especially the linear holo flare of Aria, and I think it adds a lovely wintery look behind the arctic animals. The green nails are a nod to the festive season I want to hold on to! The only downside is the reindeer eyes! I had some trouble stamping for some reason and the eyes didn't come out so I did them with a dotting tool, should have done them with a smaller one as it looks a bit odd.
Colours used: Aria - ILNP, Bermuda Breeze - ILNP, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Alpine Snow - OPI, Bronze Bae - Barry M

Stamping Sunday: Sparkling and Snowflakes

Good evening all, hope you had a lovely weekend. Tonight I'm showing you my fist Christmas nails of 2017! I always start in late November with some not too overtly Christmassy Nails. This time I went for snowflakes for a wintery look.

For this design I wanted a bit of sparkle so dug out my blue holo 'How Deep Is Your Holo' from Fun Lacquer. You can't really see the glitter in the pictures (I tried to capture it in the fourth image). I am working on the picture quality, they should get better from here!

For the snowflake images/patterns I used the Uber Chic Christmas-01 plate, there is a snowflake stamping image and a reverse image, which I used on my ring fingernail. The sizes of the images on the Uber Chic plates cover my nails perfectly which made things easier! Not much else to say on these, I'm very much looking forward to more Christmas nails :)
Colours used: How Deep Is Your Holo - Fun Lacquer, White Knight - Mo You London