I recently tried three of Essence's new Shine Last & Go! polish collection. The three shades I'm swatching in this post are Millennial Pink, Razzle Dazzle, and Legally Pink. All three of these polishes have a great, gel-shine and quick dry formula. 

04 MILLENNIAL PINK

A lovely pale pink shade. Two coats.

28 RAZZLE DAZZLE

A metallic, shimmer silver. Two coats.

13 LEGALLY PINK

A bright and vibrant red/pink shade. Two coats.

The formula on these polishes are great and I absolutely love both of the pink shades. I can't wait to try more shades from Essence's Shine Last & Go! range.

Essence's website has these polishes listed at £1.60 and they are definitely worth trying. Find out more about these polishes and browse all of the shades at HERE.

- N :)

Today I have another extremely summery stamping plate from Beauty Big Bang to show you, with a variety of beach and vacation themed designs. This plate is BBBXL-002, and it's definitely going to be one I used a lot this summer.

I am mostly obsessed with the anchor/captains wheel design, as well as the fish/mermaid print (how did I not already own a fish print stamping plate until now!?). This plate has 7 full nail sized designs as well as 17 smaller designs. I personally gravitate to full nail designs most of the time, but do enjoy using the smaller ones for accent nails. I really impressed with the quality of this plate (and the other plate I reviewed by Beauty Big Bang), and for only £2.69 per XL plate they are a bargain. If you are going on vacation this summer and looking for a fun stamping plate to accompany you, then look no further. 

Designs using this plate...

This plate currently retails for only £2.69...

A couple of months ago Essence released these five new polishes, part of their The Gel collection. I love Essence's The Gel polishes and these are made even better by their absolutely adorable bottle designs. Each of the polishes has a stick figure character on the bottle. When I first saw photos of these online back at the beginning on the year I assumed that they were a new collection and not just a part of The Gel line because these designs aren't on the rest of The Gel polish bottles. I've tried to find out online why these are different, but can't seem to find any information as the why these have these characters on and the rest don't (if you do, please let me know, because this will bug me for the rest of time haha).

Anyway, onto the actual polishes themselves...

(all swatches are two coats)

Pure-fection

This is a creme nude polish, and is probably my least favourite of the five. I am not the biggest fan of the application of this shade, it is very streaky on the first coat and I could still see a few streaks on the second coat (but this may be me just being fussy). This is a beautiful shade though, I am not one to usually wear subtle or natural looking shades on my nails but if you are then this might be a great addition to your collection.

Flamingold

This is a metallic brown/bronze shade packed fulled of silver glittery shimmer, this was almost a once coater for me, but I put on a second coat anyway of good measure. It's a unique shade to my collection as it's not really bronze but it's not really brown either, I love it. Although it doesn't really fit it's name in my opinion (Flamingold for some reason seems like it's would fit better with a rose gold shade or a pink with a golden shimmer - just my opinion).

My Highlighter

This is a neon yellow polish with subtle golden shimmer. This is a very bright polish, very fitting to it's 'highlighter' name, and is definitely a stand out polish on the nail. I was expecting this to be a pain for streaking (like a lot of yellows, and neons are) but the formula is fantastic and it only needed two thin coats to be fully opaque. This polish, like most neons, is incredibly hard to photography true to life, and even the second photo (with the flash) doesn't do the brightness justice.

Rockablue

This is a pale, almost grey-toned, blue polish, with a subtle silver shimmer (similar formula to My Highlighter). I love this polish, I have a few polishes close to this in shade, but none have the bonus of shimmer like this one. It makes a great base for nail art and is a lovely muted pastel shade.

Fairytale Gone Pink

Lastly is my favourite of the five polishes, this is a bright pink polish with silver shimmer (the same formula type as the last two). This is a great shade for the upcoming summer months and I am already wearing this polish a lot while enjoying the sunshine. The formula is great and is almost a one coater, I do two thin coats but you might be able to get away with one thick coat. 

I recently got sent a few stamping plates to try from Beauty Big Bang, and I've fallen instantly in love. This plate is BBBXL-001 and it is a perfect plate for summer, it's giving me so many vacation feelings! The plate has 14 designs on it, a mix between fruit and tropical themed.

Things I love about this plate...

The quality is great, the plate has a plastic backing and the designs pick up and stamp perfectly.

The designs are unique and fun.

It is a relatively cheap plate (not the cheapest, but nowhere near the cost of some brands).

The designs are a perfect size (in my opinion), they are bigger than my nail so would fix well on longer nails too, but they're not too big that I lose a tone of the designs because I have short nails.

The packaging!! I am obsessed with the cardboard sleeves om the XL Beauty Big Bangs plates. They are adorable.

A lot of the plate designs work great for reverse stamping.

Designs using this plate...

Beauty Big Bang do smaller plates as well as XL plates like this one. They currently had 10 different XL plates and I must own them all!! I can't wait to try more of them.

This plate currently retails for only £2.66...

When I saw this Born Pretty stamping plate, Sketches BP-X39, I immediately thought of Moyou's Scandi collection (which I absolutely love), so I knew I wanted to try it. This is my first square plate from Born Pretty; it is 6*6cm and has 6 designs on it.

The balloon design and the ferris wheel design are very similar to designs on Moyou's Scandi 01, so if you're looking for a cheaper alternative to that Moyou plate, then this is a great choice.

I really like the designs on this plate, they are detailed but with a simple line style, fitting to the 'sketches' name of the plate.

This plate would definitely be better for someone with longer nails. My nails are short so I lose out on a lot of the design. 

My favourite way to use this plate is to take smaller elements of the designs, rather than use it for full nail designs.

This plate retails for only £1.59.

I love Essence's Out Of Space Stories polishes, so I'm super excited that they recently added two new polishes to the collection. The two polishes based on Mermaids and Unicorns, definitely have a magically look to them, and the names fit the shade perfectly.

Guardians Of The Unicorn

This polish is a pretty purple shade, full of blue shimmer. It is very sheer on the first coat, but does become opaque on the second coat (you may need three depending on your application). This is a pretty unique shade to my collection and I think with definitely make a great base for some unicorn nail art.

Mermaid Of The Galaxy

I love this! I love this so much. This is a new favourite of mine. It's a vibrant, shimmering turquoise polish, that was almost opaque on the first coat, but I topped up with a second just for good measure. I am going to be wearing this polish A LOT!! Plus it looks stunning matte too.

Oh, and these polishes look beautiful together too...

Read my previous swatch & review of some more Out Of Space Stories polishes HERE.

You can buy these polishes for £2 at Wilko HERE.

- N :) 

I have been eyeing this stamping plate on the Born Pretty store website for a while. Fish are my favourite animal, so this plate immediately caught my attention.

This is the first stamping plate from Born Pretty that I have tried, and I am really impressed with the quality for such an affordable plate. Born Pretty sell several different shape/size plates, circle ones like this one, square ones and larger rectangle ones. This plate, like most of BP's circle plates retails for only £1.15, which is a crazy cheap price. These cheap plates are perfect for someone who is just starting out with stamping or wants to expand their plate collection without going broke. The plate comes in a cute cardboard sleeve and has a blue plastic cover (be sure to remove that). 

The plate has four main sections of repeating designs (two different fish styles, one unicorns and star, and one jellyfish), and then a large single fish design in the centre. The repeating cartoon fish on the upper-left side of the plate is my favourite design. I love that the majority of the design sections on this plate are perfect for reverse stamping too.

Designs using this plate:

If you're a wanna-be mermaid, like me, then this plate is a must have in your collection.

You can buy this plate from Born Pretty store HERE.

Oh, and remember to use code NMYX31 for 10% off your BPS purchase!!

Let me know what ocean themed stamping plates do you love? Leave a comment or tweet me @nimynails.

- N :) 

**contains PR samples**