All That Jazz - Hello, Mr. Wolf!

Cool brown creme  

  

After seeing this new-to-me UK brand on another blog I picked up a couple of 4-bottle collections from ebay.

Hello, Mr Wolf! is a cool toned milky brown creme.

Application was good, swatches shown are two coats with no top coat.  And you can see it's not super shiny without one.

The bottles are a generous 15ml and this one was from The Enchanted Forest Collection.  The collections are available from the All That Jazz site for £29.98

Nails Inc November - New Oxford Street Gel Effect

Aubergine brown creme 

New Oxford Street is an aubergine/brown/mauve shade with a slightly dusky feel.

This is a Gel Effect polish, nicely self-levelling, shiny and even the flat, wide brush isn't too bad on my tiny nails.

Swatches are two coats, no top coat.

I can't keep up with Nails Inc and all their different bottle shapes and sizes but I do like these self-coloured overcaps.

SpaRitual - Can You Dig It?

Brown/burgundy shimmer  

New month, new brand - my first SpaRitual

Can You Dig It? is a warm brown/burgundy shimmer with lots of fine gold shimmer within.

The base colour is an interesting shade, sometimes a warm brown, sometimes leaning more burgundy and even heading towards purple.  Almost duo-chrome although I'd hesitate to call it so.

Swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.  This isn't necessarily a colour I'd be drawn to but it does look good on.

SpaRitual is a brand I've been aware of for a long time, it used to pop up regularly in the 'olden days' of nail blogging, but was never very easy to get hold of in the UK and pretty expensive with it.

CYDI is a classic shade that's been around since 2008 at least.

This polish came to me through the wonders of TKMaxx, I'm so much more likely to take a punt on a polish where I don't have to pay postage and it's massively reduced from RRP - pretty sure this one was £3 or £4

Vintage Valentines - Yardley - Bronzed 29

Warm brown/bronze shimmer  

Yardley definitely takes the prize for the oldest brand featured this month.  Yardley of London was established nearly 250 years ago in 1770.

Yardley have mostly been known for their perfume and toiletries like soap and talc with Lavender being the scent most associated with them.

They were big in cosmetics (in the UK) in the 60's and 70's, although I'm not sure they offered nail polish then..

In the 90's, after changing hands several times and with sales slumping they attempted a relaunch, famously appointing Helena Bonham-Carter as their 'Face' before terminating her contract after she announced she "never wore make-up and couldn't understand why they'd chosen her".

This was followed by a more radical change to the marketing with supermodel Linda Evangelista in print ads featuring handcuffs and chains (not actually as extreme as they sound!)

Sadly that didn't work either and Yardley went into administration in 1998 - which means this nail polish is at least that old!

Paint and Go - Bronzed is unsurprisingly a warm bronze shimmer.

Application was fine and the quick drying aspect didn't cause any issue.

Swatches shown are 2 coats, no top coat.

Yardley do still exist in the UK but they've gone back to their heritage of perfume and toiletries.

Does anyone else remember Yardley cosmetics?

Vintage Valentines - Sally Hansen New Lengths - Espresso Frost

Warm red/brown shimmer  

Myself and fellow UK nail blogger, Lina-Elvira from Pretty Perfect Beauty have cooked up a plan for February to show off some of our older polishes, hence Vintage Valentines.

We agreed anything older than 5 years was vintage in nail polish terms, but I don't think I'm planning to share anything newer than 10 years.

So over this gloomiest of months we'll be sharing the HTF, the VHTF and the damn near impossible to find....

I'm kicking off with one of my favourite vintage brands, Sally Hansen New Lengths.  Back in the 90's (I think) they used this name for a range of colour polishes with self coloured tops.

Let me say that again, the polish lids were made of the same colour plastic as the polish inside the bottle.  How wonderful and crazy is that?  They had to make different coloured lids for all the polish colours!  And on a drugstore polish no less.

At some point they must've realised the error of their ways as a few of this bottle shape New Lengths have plain black lids.

I have a small collection of just 7 of these polishes, 6 with self-coloured lids, one without.  I'm pretty sure I picked these up on my first holiday to the US back in 1996 - one has a CVS price label on for $2.85!

The bottles are 13.3ml/0.45 fl oz with a tall lid and the brush is long, flexible and narrow.

So on with the pics & swatches..

Espresso Frost is a warm reddish brown with lots of gold shimmer that really comes alive in the sunlight.

Application with this was great, the narrow brush didn't cause me any problems and the formula was good, if thin in texture.

Swatches shown are 2 coats with no top coat.

I didn't have to add any thinner to these polishes, whatever magical combination of chemicals is in these 20 year old babies keeps them liquid and ready to go!   You can see the ingredients label above, suffice to say they're not 5-free, the only nasty I couldn't spot was Toulene.

And if you want to see more of the collection Kaz from Pretty-Random has a great reference guide though she doesn't quite have all of them (yet).

And don't forget to check out Lina-Elvira's first Vintage Valentine

Nails Inc November - Curzon Street

Smoky brown creme  

Nails Inc Curzon Street is a smoky brown creme.  There's definitely a hint of grey and maybe green in there, this is not your standard chocolate brown.

Curzon Street was part of QVC's 5 piece Autumn/Winter collection back in 2009!

Amazing formula that is pretty much opaque in one coat

These swatches show 2 coats, out of habit, with no topcoat.

Mavala - Nabucco

Dusty red brown subtle shimmer  

Nabucco is a slightly dusty, red brown polish with a slight shimmer and a mild pearl finish.

It's a very sophisticated colour, it reminds me of the 1970s, something Joan Collins or Bianca Jagger would have worn with a white jumpsuit and a turban!

Swatch shown is 2 coats, no top coat

And Nabucco is another word for Nebuchadnezzar- who knew?!

If you want to channel your inner Joan Collins, pre-Dynasty then check out Nabucco, turban optional!

Alessandro - Belle Mademoiselle

Brown creme with gold micro-flakes

Belle Mademoiselle is a luscious chocolate brown creme with fine gold microflakes which can look greenish in some lights.  Click the pics to expand them and see the flakies

Swatch show is 2 coats with no top coat.

Formula and application were great despite this being  a mini (5ml) bottle and brush.

This one is pretty similar to Revlon French Roast - although that is a smidge lighter brown and the shimmer is multicoloured.

Surprised how much I like this, it's very rich with lots of depth....

Alessandro is a German brand.  I've bought two hauls over the last 6 months from the private sale site Vente-Privee and this polish cost me the grand sum of £1.20, well worth it!

But I do believe that Alessandro have recently launched in the UK although I'm not sure if the products are available retail.

Revlon Colorstay - French Roast

Brown creme with fine coloured glitter

Here's another of the Revlon Colorstay polishes, this time the mildly unusual French Roast

Bottle close-up

It's a dark rich brown and unusually has a fine copper, pink and blue micro-glitter scattered throughout.

To me that's an unusual combination of glittery stuff to find in a brown creme, but it works and lifts the colour out of the ordinary.


Unfortunately given the terrible Spring we're having in the UK (coldest in 50 years they're saying!) there wasn't any sun when I took these pics , so you can't see much of the glitter but it's there.

Formula was good and application pretty good, even with the wide(ish) brush.

Swatch shown is 2 coats with no top coat and it's nice and shiny.

Leighton Denny - Not Tonight

Dark chocolate brown creme

Not Tonight is a deep, very deep chocolate brown creme.  It's so deep it looks almost black in these pictures!  And apologies for the big bubble on my middle nail.

The Leighton Denny site describes it as a rich, deep charcoal brown

Application was good, swatch shown is 2 coats with no top coat.

GOSH - Boot Camp

Sludgy khaki shimmer  

Another GOSH Special Edition, Boot Camp is an interesting sludgy, brown leaning khaki shimmer.

Application was great, swatch shown is 2 coats with no top coat.

This is definitely a bit of a fugly colour but I like it and I think it's pretty unique

And apologies for the gunk on the bottle, unfortunately most of the GOSH bottles in Superdrug  get plastered with those immensely irritating  'security' stickers and this one just wouldn't come off cleanly

Boots 17 - Revenge

Purple/taupe with purple/pink secret shimmer   

That description sound familiar? Yep, Revenge was one of the many polishes in 2011 that appeared to be inspired by or outright duping Chanel's infamous Paradoxal.

Now I don't have Paradoxal to compare but you'll have to take my word for it that they're not total dupes.  Although some folk actually prefer Revenge because the shimmer is a lot less hidden.

Take that Just In! with a pinch of salt - this was released in 2011!

Revenge is a purple toned dark brown with a good amount of pink/purple fine secret-shimmer.  But not so secret you can't see it!

Application was good, swatch shown is 2 coats, no top coat.

This will be my last post for a week  - I'm off to Disney World, Florida for a conference - I'm so excited to see the sun again, it feels like it's been grey and cold here in the UK forever - it's forecast to be high teens, early 20's while we're there - hooray!.  And hopefully I'll get some time for shopping/haulage - I've made myself a Google map with the nearest Ulta, CVS, Walmart and Walgreens on!

Nails Inc November - Eagle Street

Dusky pink/brown creme   

Eagle Street is a dusky 40s looking pink/brown creme

Swatch shown is just one coat and application was great.

Good points, it's a one-coat-wonder

Bad points, I'm really not sure how flattering it is with my skintone!