Nail Of The Day – Essence Colour Boost 04 Instant Love & Rainbow Foils

Hi there! Today’s post is about a mani I did ages ago.

For this mani I painted my nails with Essence Colour Boost 04 Instant Love (1 coat). This polish is part of a “1 Coat & Go” collection which consists of 10 polishes. I bought them all because I thought they’d make great stamping polishes – and I was right!

But Essence discontinued the entire collection quite soon after the launch. My guess is they realised the polishes were simply too good to be sold for £1.80 a piece.

Anyhoo… for the colourful accents I used a small piece of leftover rainbow foil. I liked the mani a lot, and I can’t wait to do more foil manis soon!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Astor Perfect Stay Smooth Velvet Effect 612 Devil In Me, Essence Aquatix 04 Under The Sea & Stamping

Hi there! Here’s another Nail Of The Day post!

For this mani I painted my nails with Astor Perfect Stay Smooth Velvet Effect 612 Devil In Me (2 coats, thumbs, index and middle fingers). This polish is matte, and it does feel and look a bit like velvet. I wanted a shiny blue, so I used clear polish to get rid of the matte look.

I painted my ring fingers and pinkies with Essence Aquatix 04 Under The Sea (3 coats). This is a silver holo polish, but the holo effect isn’t very strong.

I used an unbranded Christmas-themed stamping plate (pinkies, middle fingers) as well as MoYou London‘s Hipster 22 plate (index and ring fingers, thumbs).

The polishes I stamped with are Essence Colour Boost 11 Instant Match (blue) and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Presto Pewter (silver).

This is another mani I liked. It wasn’t perfect, but it came pretty close to what I wanted it to look like.

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Hello Kitty Pink, Essence Colour Boost 10 Instant Adventure, 2True Glitterati Shade 6 & Stamping With Pueen 83

Hi there! I’ve got a Nail Of The Day post for you today. For this mani I painted my nails with Essence Colour Boots 10 Instant Adventure (1 coat, pinkies and ring fingers) and Hello Kitty Pink (2 coats, middle and index fingers, thumbs).

I love the Essence polish. It’s a dark blueberry jelly shade, and I love that it’s a one-coater! The Hello Kitty polish is of poor quality. I had tip-wear after half a day. I wore the mani for 3 days and I had to fill in the tips 6 times!

The glitter topper I used on my pinkies and ring fingers is 2True Glitterati Shade 6. This is a great glitter topper. It’s densely packed with glitter and it dries quickly.

I used Pueen‘s 83 stamping plate (which is part of Pueen‘s Buffet Leisure stamping plate collection) for the images on my thumbs, index and middle fingers. The black polish I stamped with is the wonderful Revlon Colorstay 270 Stiletto.

I did like this mani. The 2 styles wouldn’t have looked spectacular on their own, but I loved how the 2 contrasting styles looked together.

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Essence Colour Boost 07 Instant Feeling & Stamping With Pueen 76

Hi there! Today’s post is about a mani I did a little while ago. 🙂

For this mani I painted my nails with Essence Colour Boost 07 Instant Feeling. I love this colour!

I used Pueen’s 76 plate (which is part of Pueen’s Buffet Leisure stamping plate collection) and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure 419 Coat Of Arms to stamp delicate images onto my nails.

I really liked how this mani turned out! The golden images look great on the vintage rose coloured background. Do you agree? Feel free to comment. And thanks for stopping by!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Essence Colour Boost 05 Instant Summer & Stamping With Pueen 72 / A-Z Nail Art Challenge Y – Yellow Nails

Hi there! My first Nail Of The Day post of 2018 is about a mani I did for the A-Z Nail Art Challenge (Y-Yellow Nails).

For this mani I painted my nails with Essence Colour Boost 05 Instant Summer. This is the best yellow polish I’ve ever owned. Why Essence discontinued this gem (and the entire Colour Boost collection) I’ll never understand…

Anyhoo, I wanted to do Sponge Bob nails, but then I decided to stamp! I used Pueen’s 72 plate (which is part of Pueen’s Stamping Buffet collection), and Rimmel’s 60 Seconds 820 Hot Black To Go.

I really like this mani because it’s bright and happy. Do you agree? Feel free to comment. And thanks for stopping by!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Essence Colour Boost 04 Instant Love & Essence Glamaxy Top Coat 34 Glamaxy Far, Far Away / A-Z Nail Art Challenge X – X-Plain To Me Why You’re Doing Red Nails Again

Hi there! Today’s post is the last one for this week. This means that Nail Week comes to an end as well.

For this mani I painted my nails with Essence Colour Boost 04 Instant Love.

This polish is a true one-coater. Great quality! Essence was stupid to discontinue the entire Colour Boost collection.

The top coat I used is the one and only Essence Glamaxy 34 Glamaxy Far, Far Away.

This is the most beautiful flakie topper. No matter which base colour you choose, this flakie topper will always look good. Too bad that Essence discontinued this gem as well.

I’ve done this mani for the A-Z Nail Art Challenge which I’m doing on my own terms. This mani is for the X-Plain To Me Why You’re Doing Red Nails Again challenge.

Now let me explain why I’m doing red nails again… the reason is that I have too many red nail polishes. I think red is one of the most boring nail colours, and that’s why I tend to neglect the red polishes in my stash. So this challenge provided the perfect opportunity to do red nails. 🙂

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Essence Colour Boost 09 Instant Passion & Foils / A-Z Nail Art Challenge D-Diva Nails

Hi there! Since this week is Nail Week, I have another Nail Of The Day post for you today.

This mani is also my attempt at Diva Nails which is part of the A-Z Nail Art Challenge which I’m doing for no one but myself!

I just wanted to do plain dark red nails, but I was bored of the simple mani before the polish had dried. So I kept thinking… now what? Then I had an idea – foils!

So… I painted my nails with Essence Colour Boost 09 Instant Passion (1 coat). And I used some leftover gold foil to add a little sparkle to my nails. Then one coat of clear polish – job done! 🙂

I really liked this quick and easy to do mani. What do you think? Feel free to let me know your thoughts. And thanks for reading!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Halloween Nail Art Ideas / Revlon Brilliant Strength 190 Entice, Essence Colour Boost 05 Instant Summer, Rimmel I ♥ Lasting Finish 702 Marshmallow Heaven & Water Decals

Hi there! 2 weeks ago I told you that I’d be doing a couple of Halloween Nail Art Ideas posts this month. So today I’m showing you another Halloween-themed mani that I did recently. 🙂

For this mani I painted my nails with Revlon Brilliant Strength 190 Entice. This is a great quality polish. Great formula, great brush (flat, wide). Good job, Revlon!

I used a small piece of a cosmetic sponge to apply yellow (Essence Colour Boost 05 Instant Summer) and purple (Rimmel I ♥ Lasting Finish 702 Marshmallow Heaven) splashes of colour.

But the best things about this mani are the water decals (which I bought last year).

I think this mani looks really cute! It’s clearly Halloween-themed, but it’s not orange, it’s not gory, there aren’t any pumpkins or witches… I think this kind of mani would be perfect for everyone who wants to do a Halloween-themed mani that doesn’t look too standard, but that’s still easy to do.

How do you like this mani? Feel free to let me know. And thanks for reading!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Nail Of The Day – Galaxy Nails / Nail Art Challenge #31 Recreate A Favourite – Galaxies

Hi there! Today’s post is about the galaxy mani I did the other day. For this super easy mani I painted my nails with Revlon 999 Blackest Black (2 coats).

Then I used small pieces of a make-up sponge to apply different colour polishes to my nails.

I used 4 different Essence Colour Boost nail colours: Instant Friendship (pale nude pink), Instant Feeling (dusty lavender), Instant Summer (yellow), and Instant Match (blue).

I liked how my nails looked at this point. However, I knew I wanted star dust too! So I applied 1 coat of the one and only Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear 235 Supernova.

This mani is 1 of the 3 encores I’m doing for the 31 Days Nail Art Challenge. This would be challenge #31 Recreate A Favourite II.

How do you like this mani? I have to say that I love it. I can’t stop staring at my nails! 😀 Feel free to let me know if you like this mani. And thanks for reading!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde

Haul! New Products – Primark, Poundworld, Poundland, Boots, Wilko, Home Bargains, M&S

Hi there! I’ve done a little shopping this month. I haven’t gone nuts, I promise. But I picked up quite a few bargains. So let me show you what I bought!

I bought 4 PS… Facial Cleansing Sponge duo packs. That’s 8 sponges for £4. The reason I stocked up is because I’ve been using one of these sponges for a few weeks now – and I love it! I also bought 2 more PS… Konjac Sponges. That’s £3 for 2 konjac sponges.

It appears that Superdrug has given up on selling reasonably priced konjac sponges which is their loss, really. They also discontinued a few other fantastic products, so I haven’t done much Superdrug shopping lately. So yeah, it really is their loss! Anyhoo, those PS… sponges are from Primark!

I don’t think I’ve ever left my local Poundworld store empty-handed. Poundworld and Bargain Buys (which is part of the Poundworld family) have awesome nail products. I bought a cute Nails Inc. glitter topper (RRP £13), a Revlon Base Coat (RRP £6.49) and a J Lo exclusive collection L’Oréal polish (RRP £4.99). I paid £1 per polish – that’s £3 in total for these 3 polishes.

I picked up 4 new Montagne Jeunesse masks – Relaxing Spa Mud Mask, Candyfloss Scrub, Sea Splash Peel Off and Blueberry Blast Mud Masque. These masks seem to be exclusive to Primark, and they were 90p each. This adds up to £3.60 for 4 face masks.

Sukin’s Purifying Facial Masque is normally £11.95 at Boots. Thanks to a Save 1/3 offer it was £7.97. However, I didn’t spend any money, I paid with points!

I picked up 3 more Montagne Jeunesse face masks (they’re £1 each at Boots). However, these were on a 3 for 2 promotion, so I paid £2 (I paid with points for these products as well!) for these 3 face masks. I also went to Poundland where I found this Imperial Leather Foamy Banana shower cream – I paid £1 for it.

I bought these 10 Essence Colour Boost nail polishes – these are supposed to be one-coaters, so I bought them all to find out if they stamp on a black base. Well, if they stamp, they’re the cheapest quality stamping polishes out there (£1.80 each). If they don’t stamp, they don’t.

I got myself 2 more Essence Out Of Space Stories nail polishes (£2 each) and 4 Essence Glamaxy top coats (£2 each). Why 4? This is a flakie topper! All in all, I paid £30 for these 16 Essence nail polishes.

When I went to Home Bargains the other day I picked up 3 promising products. Creightons Charcoal Deep Cleansing Scrub and Creightons Charcoal Detoxifying Clay Mask were 79p each, I believe (sorry, I lost the receipt). I also picked up a strawberry-flavoured kids’ toothpaste. Yes, I bought it because of the Twilight Sparkle image!

Then I went to a different Primark store where I picked up a My Little Pony Lip Balm duo for £1.50, a My Little Pony Body Mist (100ml) for £2, and another Montagne Jeunesse Sunburst Sauna mask. On the way back home I swung by Marks & Spencer – and I bought a 100ml Monotheme Il Libro Degli Agrumi Pompelmo fragrance for £22.

Have you tried any of these products? Have you done any shopping recently? Feel free to get in touch. And thanks for stopping by!

Mrs Strawberry Blonde