I got Nails Inc's Sparkle Like A Unicorn duo for Christmas, from my wonderful brother, I LOVE them and I've warn these polishes so much since getting them.

The two polishes are packaged in a gorgeous purple box covered in holo unicorns. The bottles are each 14ml.

Rainbow Wishes

3 coats, no top coat

Rainbow Wishes is a beautiful iridescent polish, with a colour-shifting shimmer. The polish shifts between blue and purple-y pink and everything about this polish screams unicorn. Like most iridescent polishes, in quite sheer. I can just about get away with 2 coats (although I always wear 3 of this polish for maximum coverage), but I have shorter nails... If you have long nails then I'm assuming this polish is going to show a lot of your nail line. I recommend wearing a white, pink or purple base underneath (black would make for an interesting effect too).

Dream Dust

2 coats, no top coat

Dream Dust is a stunning glitter polish. This polish is packed full of gold flakes, in a pink jelly base... resulting in probably the most beautiful rose gold polish I've ever seen. This is a very unique polish and is my favourite of the two. The polish is basically opaque in 1 coat on my nails, but I prefer 2 coats to fully build up the intensity of the colour. This being a glitter polish is it a bit of a pain to remove, I recommend using a peel off base coat to remove it easily.

Both of the polishes are so pretty. They work so well as a duo, and complement each other so well. They work great together in nail art designs. I haven't gotten any new Nails Inc polishes for years, this is my first time using one of this style of bottles (which the mirror lip on the cap) and I must say that these are now my favourite brushes on any nail polish bottle. The brush is wide and makes application super easy... I will definitely be getting more Nails Inc polishes in the future.

PLUS... how beautiful is Dream Dust used as a stamping polish over black!? The polish surprised me by being a great stamping polish and I was not expecting the result to be such a pretty golden/green shade.

You can buy this duo for £15. My brother brought mine from Nail Polish Direct: https://www.nailpolishdirect.co.uk/nails-c92/sparkle-like-a-unicorn-nail-polish-duo-set-2-x-14ml-9545-p22476

P.S. Nails Inc recently posted a photo of a Mermaid Duo on their instagram (like these but blue) and... OH. MY. GOSH. They look just as beautiful as these, and as a mermaid myself... I will obviously need to get them for a swatch and review post once they're released.

I am absolutely loving Essence's Holo Rainbow nail polishes at the moment.

I first tried one back in November: Holo-Maniac, and instantly fell in love with it.

I now own 3 of the 5 shades...

Holo Maniac

This is the first shade I brought... obviously, if a collection has a teal/turquoise shade that will always be the one I buy first!!

Like I said, this is a a turquoise holographic glitter polish. The holo glitter is in a turquoise jelly base. This is my favourite of the 3, it is such a beautiful shade (plus it goes great with my hair!)

Hello Holo

Is a silver holo polish, in a clear (slightly grey looking tinted) jelly base. Hello Holo is quite similar to Holo Fever (the next shade on the list), but this is straight-up silver, no tint of any other shade in the base. If you love holo polishes then this is a must have.

Holo Fever

This polish has a slight purple tint to it, rather than being completely silver holo like Hello Holo, although it is very similar. The difference between the 2 is much easier to see in person than it is in photos. The polish has a very translucent purple/pink base.

All of the polishes cover the nail in 2 coats, the polishes are chunky glitters (rather than a linear holo polish like Barry M's Holographic Lights). Because they are glitter polish they are very top coat thirsty, and I recommend at least 2 coats of top coat, because after the 1st layer of top coat the polish will still feel very textured. Obviously because these are glitter polish they are not the easiest to remove with polish remover... I recommend using a peel off base coat with these. 

All of these polishes are so pretty, and so sparkly... I literally can not stop looking at my nail when I'm wearing them.

Hello Holo (Hipster 21 & Scandi 09 plates by Moyou London)

I don't own Holo Rocks or Holo Love, yet, but I am 100% going to get them at some point. They both look just as gorgeous and I need them in my collection!!

*contains PR samples*

I recently tried three of Essence's Colour Boost polishes:

Instant Feeling: a purple tone maroon/burgandy

Instant Happiness: a pastel sky blue

Instant Summer: a pale muted yellow

These are branded as high pigment, one coat, polishes and they truly are.

All of these swatches are one coat on clear swatch sticks. I was most surprised by Instant Summer, as it is very rare to find a one coat yellow polish.

All three polishes dry super fast and that added to them being one-coaters mean these polishes are great for doing your nails in a rush.

One of my favourite things about these polishes is; because of how pigmented they are, they make fantastic stamping polish.

Plate: Hipster 19 by Moyou London (watch my review of this plate at: youtube.com/nimynails)

I also think these particular three shades look beautiful together, in any combination.

Do you have any of the colour boost polishes? What do you think of them? Do you have any recommendations for other shades to try? Tweet me @nimynails.

I have recently gotten into (and obsessed) with nail art stamping, and I noticed that one of my favourite top coats always seems to smudge my designs... so I decided to test several top coats that I own, and this is what I've found..............

For this test I used Eat My Dust by Barry M as a base colour, and Black Forest by Barry M to stamp on the design (design is from Scandi 07 by Moyou). I then let the design dry for about 30 minutes before applying the top coats. 

The Top Coats

Good To Go - Essie

Wet Set - Barry M

Top Shine - Marks & Spencer

The Gel - Essence
Matte Top Coat - Barry M

Matt To Meet You - Essence

Before the top coats...

The Results

Essie's Good To Go

This has always been a favourite of mine, and unless about 6 months ago was my go-to top coat, it dries unbelievably fast and is super shiny, but it is the reason for this test. It really let me down when I started stamping. It seems to my stamped design, pretty much, every time I use it. So I started to think that I would need to by Moyou's Smudge Resistant Top Coat to get good results, and that if this, being the most expensive top coat I own, couldn't do the job... then surely my cheaper ones couldn't.

Essence's The Gel

This was the biggest surprise for me, this test was the first time I tried The Gel top coat on a stamped design, and I was fully expecting it to smudge. Not to say I didn't have faith in it, I love this top coat and I use it a lot, but the formula feels a tad similar to that of Essie's and being less the cheapest on this list, I was expecting there to be a lot of smudge... there wasn't!! I got a tiny (almost microscopic haha) smudge at the tip of my nail but that is it! 

Barry M's Wet Set

After it's release Wet Set quickly became my replacement for Essie's Good To Go, it is super glossy and although it dries (a tiny) bit slower, it is UNDER HALF THE PRICE, so I could deal with an extra minute of two of drying for that. This test just reinforced my love of this top coat, this was by far the best on the list, not a single smudge. 

Marks & Spencer's Top Shine

This is a random top coat that I have in my collection (which I have very rarely used) but it's a top coat all the same and I thought maybe it would surprise me... it didn't haha. It is definitely the worst on the list. It smudged almost the entire design and looked awful, I don't really know what else to say about it.

Essence's Matt To Meet You

If you follow my on Instagram you'll see that a lot of my recent stamping designs are matte, and they are using Essence's Matt To Meet You top coat, I love this top coat, just like The Gel, it is amazing value for money and there was absolutely no smudging. Is probably a better option for stamping than Barry M's.

My Final Thoughts

If you are looking for good top coats to use for nail art stamping, do not assume that the more expensive will perform the best... as this test has proven, that is not the case. 

Save your money and go with either Barry M or Essence they were all under £3!! 

Questions For You

What is your favourite top coat for nail art stamping? What are the ones you avoid?

Happy New Year!! I hope 2018 is a great year for you :)

It's the time of year for resolutions, if one of yours is to stop biting you nails... then I hope the tips and tricks in this post can help you achieve that new year's resolution. 

I stopped biting my nails 7 years ago and these are some things that helped and still help me now, to keep my nails at a nice length and in healthy condition.

These are my nails 6 days after I stopped biting them in 2010...

1. Keep your nails painted.

Having nail polish on your nails all the time is definitely something that helped me when I first started growing my nails. Not only does it add a protective later onto your nails, but I found that I was less likely to bite them if they were nicely painted. If you are interested in nail art, it helps to not bite them if the design on your nails is something that you put a lot of time and effort into (you hopefully won't want to ruin them).

2. Don't soak them.

If you are doing the washing up or having a bath, try not to let you nails soak in warm water for prolonged periods of time. Soaking your nails will make them soft and more likely to break. Wear rubber gloves if you're washing dishes, or cleaning with chemicals too.

3. Anti-bite polish.

Although I didn't use one of the polishes that has a bitter taste to stop biting my nails. My mum did use it on me when I was younger and it did taste really bad. If you keep it topped up it might be a trick to help you. 

4. Take care of your hands. 

Cuticle oil and hand cream are your new best friends. Keeping your nails moisturised will help your nails grow and be lovely and healthy. Also I doubt you'd want to bite your nails while they're cover in oils/creams. Try to apply cuticle oil at least 2 times a day.

5. Keep your hands busy.

If you're like me, then the second your hands aren't doing anything they automatically move towards your mouth. I find it helpful to keep my hands busy, fidget cubes/spinners can be a good distraction from biting your nails, but for me, just having anything in my hands to fiddle with works. This is essential for me while doing things like watching films, I can not count the amount of times that 2 hours of bored hands while watching a film has ended in very sad, bitten nails.

I hope you find my tips helpful, if you have any other tips or trick then let me know in the comments or on twitter. 

If you are in the process of fighting the biting habit, then keep going, you can do it!!

Products Used:

Peel It - Barry M

Damson - Barry M

Miami - Barry M

Cotton - Barry M

Love Is In The Air - Essence

Black Acrylic Paint - Wilko

Matt To Meet You - Essence

Swatches: