Essie 'Apertif' Review

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I love my nail varnish. My favourite brands tend to be Barry M and China Glaze but after hearing so many great things about Essie and then seeing a counter pop up in my local Boots, I decided to give them a shot. Mistake.

I wanted to so much to like this brand! The colour choice is really good, but I just think the quality is terrible, considering one bottle will set you back £7.99. It applies quite thin and takes a long time to dry. However, the main problem is that when I apply this, it dries extremely bumpy and uneven. This is not a problem with my nails as I keep them in really good condition, and have never had this problem with any of my other polishes. I tried to get past it, but it just looked so ugly that I took it off within a few hours.

I have tried again on a few occasions, but each time I get the same horrible bumpyness on my nails. It's such a shame as this colour is beautiful and I have seen a few other colours that I would like to try also. I'm not sure if this is a defect with this bottle, but I'm a bit unwilling to pay £7.99 for another bottle, only to have the same issue.

Has anybody else had this problem with Essie nail polishes? Let me know in the comments below.

How to: Team GB Nails!

When watching the Olympics, I noticed a lot of the athletes had this sort of thing going on and I decided to recreate it! It's really easy and simple, and today I'm gonna tell you guys how to do it :)

Step 1) Locate a red, white and blue nail varnish. This should be fairly simple if you are nail varnish obsessed like me! Make sure your blue is a nice royal blue. The shades I used were: Essie* 'Apertif', Barry M 'Indigo' and Rimmel Nail Tip Whitener.

Step 2) Locate a family member or friend who is willing to hold the open bottles for you so you don't smudge your nails. Tell them it's for the Olympics and they can't refuse! 

Step 3) Paint your index and ring finger with the white colour.

Step 4) Starting from your thumb, alternate the blue and red until every nail is a lovely Union Jack medley!

Step 5) Go over each nail again (this is where your nail buddy comes in) until the colour is opaque.

Step 6) Go over with a topcoat. I used Sally Hanson Diamond Shine Topcoat.

Step 7) Go and show off your lovely British nails by cheering on Team GB!

If you try this, comment below letting me know how you got on or tweet me a pic @sian_llewelyn 

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Nails of the Day | Topshop 'Smashing Pumpkin'

Todays nails are a rather nice shade of orange from Topshop's infamous nail collection. These are extemely good for the money, retailing at around £5/6 each. Their choice is excellent as well, there really is a colour for everybody! Personally, I'm eyeing up Hidden Treasure, Blitz, Bees Knees and Pool Party as well. Two coats gives you a lovely finish and the dotty lid makes it easy to locate in a hurry :)

Nails of the Day: Barry M Nail Paint 'Indigo'

After reading in a magazine that blue was the shade to have on your nails, first thing I did was rummage through my nail varnish collection and pull out one of my favourite blue shades of all time.

I try a lot of different nail polish brands, yet I always find myself going back to Barry M. Their colour selection is great, they give a smooth finish and the lasting power is of quality you wouldn't expect from a nail varnish that costs £2.99. This is called 'Indigo' but there's really very little purple in it. It's more of a cobalt blue colour, but I love it anyway :)