Black Up - Shade 08

Aubergine shimmer  

I picked this polish up from Debenhams (UK department store) when I was on one of my 'must check out all unknown brands' kick - thankfully I've grown out of that now - mostly!

Black Up, as you'd expect, is a range of cosmetics for women of colour and I think is only sold in Debenhams in the UK.  Their branding says Black Up Paris.

Shade 08 is a lovely, if not unique, burgundy/aubergine/eggplant shimmer

This had a great formula, easy to apply, opaque and long wearing

Swatches shown are 2 coats with no top coat.

As this is another of my swatches from 2010 they've actually changed the bottles since I bought this but there's still a colour called 08 which looks similar on the online swatch.

Pure - Persian Red

This is Persian Red, a Raspberry creme with slight jelly finish.  I wore this as a full mani so this is 2 coats and  topcoat.  It's a pretty colour, good with my skintone (cool) and very shiny!

Pure is one of those brands I'd never heard of before. I spotted it while browsing on the Debenhams site. I think it's a Spanish brand - the squiggly writing on the left of the bottle says "Carlo di Roma"

I've never seen this in stores nor seen it on any other blogs.  Although I think Carlo di Roma have other brands that are more widespread - am I right in thinking they crop up in Dollar stores in the US?

New Brand Compulsion

I have a compulsion, not just for nail polish, but to buy nail polish brands I don't have or haven't seen before. No doubt close cousin to the compulsion to buy first issues of magazines and why removal men will always curse and mutter under their breath as they have to move *another* heavy box full of magazines!

So the other week I found myself browsing on the Debenhams site in the beauty section. For non-UK readers Debenhams is a mid-market department store that sells a variety of branded and own-brand goods. I don't usually shop there for beauty items, I'm not really a high-end beauty gal and the only nail polish I'd seen was Nails Inc at scary full price!

Out of habit I did a search on nail polish which threw up lots of exciting (for me!) new brands.

First up is Urban Retreat. According to their website Urban Retreat are a pioneer in luxury hair and beauty, a beauty paradise with a vast range of lavish treatments, services, and products from some of the finest brands in the world, all under one roof.

Who knew? I certainly didn't. What I did glean was that the polishes were created by Leighton Denny, probably the UK's most high profile nail technician who has his own eponymous polish brand, one I don't own, yet. I just can't get past his prices, they retail around £10 and there's never been a colour I just *had* to have.

All the Urban Retreat colours were half price at £5 for two bottles.

So I ordered up all three duos, Metallic, Glam and Classic. Each contains two 8ml bottles in complimentary colours.

I've only swatched one so far, from the Glam collection called 'UR Envied'

 


It's a bright fuchsia pink shimmer with a strong purple flash. It's a nice bright colour, not my usual style and made me feel a bit 80's.

This was two coats, application wasn't great as the brush was too long and somehow splayed at the end and combined with the slightly gloopy polish made it all quite hard work. I felt like I was fighting the polish all the time and I did a lot of muttering about the *big fat brush*.

Unfortunately this has made me less likely to invest in Leighton Denny - surely they have better brushes?