Pam's Girly Bits Swatches

Disclosure: The polishes in the following post were provided to me for review.

Hi guys, I have some Pam's Girly Bits polish to show you today! Pam is a lovely lady from Canada who custom mixes her own polish for sale. She recently asked me if I would be interested in reviewing her polishes, and I was very happy that she considered me! I feel like a grown-up blogger now, haha.

If you are interested in purchasing her polishes, please check out Pam's Girly Bits for more information.


Here are the polishes Pam sent me (mostly in the mini size!):



Stormy Skies - 3 coats




Quick comp to help you get an idea of the colour


Notes - beautiful colour and pretty microglitter; reminded me a bit of some of BBC's older polishes. It dries a little satiny and needs topcoat, also like those BBCs. I found the formula on this one to be a little thicker than the others, but nothing I can't handle ;) I might add a couple drops of thinner next time I use it.

Sailors Delight - 2 coats




Comparison with MAC Imperial Flower, one of my fave oranges


Notes - DAMN. This is right up my alley. This has a gorgeous formula. It's very close to the MAC polish, except Pam's has way prettier and has larger glassflecks in it. *drooling* I don't have China Glaze Orange Marmalade, but I think this is redder. I haven't seen ChG Riveting in person yet, but it seems similar as well. I think the name is so cute, too.

Razzle Dazzle - 2 coats




Notes - Wow! I thought this would take a lot more coats! It's really pretty on the nail! I used 1 coat of SV, but as it started to dry down a bit, I noticed a bit of texture, so I would go with another coat of something to smooth it out :D

Hippity Hop - 1 coat over black




Notes - the shimmer in this polish reminds me of CND Sapphire Sparkle. Very pretty, kind of like instant galaxy nails.


Cosmic Ocean - 1 coat over CND Midnight Sapphire




with bounced flash


Notes - I believe this is the blue-green colour morphing pigment. I had a hard time getting the shift to photograph correctly, but hopefully you get the idea. The formula is very smooth and it does not dry cloudy or dull, which is nice!

January Morning - 1 coat over 3 coats Essie Marshmallow




January Morning - 1 coat over 2 coats Essie Sag Harbor




Notes - Very nice formula and very pretty. Has a very sweet meaning to Pam.

Promise Me - 3 coats




Notes - very complex pink shade, here! The base colour sort of reminds me of OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender. The formula was really nice and easy to work with. I think the colour is a tad cool for my skintone, but I really appreciate the depth in this one. DBF loves it, of course.


Hope this post helps you guys! And thanks again, Pam, for letting me try out your polishes! :)

Icing Blue-Purple Magnetic

Work has been nuts the last couple of weeks, grrr...

Anyway, just a quick post of the other magnetic polish I own. It's the blue-purple magnetic from Icing. The magnet that comes with this one is a cool wave pattern. I really love this!

Icing Blue-Purple Magnetic (no real name) - 1 coat over CND Midnight Sapphire





I have a fairly sizeable Pam's Girly Bits post that is going to go up soon; I just need to format it! :D

So glad it's FRIDAYYYY...

My first a-englands: swatches and comparisons

Yesterday was rough for me! I ended up needing to work from home for about 11 hours, which is totes not my favourite way to spend Saturday.

The one bright spot was that my a-england order from llarowe arrived yesterday!!!

These are my first a-englands. I tried desperately to avoid jumping on the bandwagon, but I still caught the bug *sigh*. You can read my general thoughts at the end.

No topcoat in these pics, but I used Barielle HRF as my base coat.

a-england Guinevere - 2 coats, a medium dusty purple.



Comparison: a-england Guinevere and Essie Bangle Jangle - both 2 coats


Comparison: a-england Guinevere and Zoya Caitlin - both 2 coats


a-england Galahad - 1 coat, very nice formula! Reminds me of SH CSM Fairy Teal, but without stainage.



Comparison: a-england Galahad and Illamasqua Muse - I prefer the colour of Muse, but both are beautiful 1-coaters


a-england Perceval - homg! 2 coats, though it was opaque at 1 (it seemed richer with two coats). I'm guessing this is pretty similar to that Kleancolor metallic red and/or BL Knees Up, but I don't have any of those. So I am happy to have a metallic red like this! Definitely a keeper for me! Reminds me of Zoya Posh with topcoat, but finer shimmer.




a-england Elaine - dark, warmish purple. 1 coater as well!



Comparison: a-england Elaine and Zoya Pinta - Zoya is 2 coats here.


a-england Dragon - 1 coat. A warmish green with holo sparkle and a pretty, golden sheen to it. I'm a little lukewarm on this polish with my skintone. This brush was a little wonky for me, so I had to give it a bit of a haircut.





a-england Saint George - omgahhh. This one is to die for. 1 coat. It's really deep, jewel-toned teal. TOTALLY UP MY ALLEY.





Comparison: a-england Saint George and Speciallita Hits Hera over CND Urban Oasis (1 coat of each) - it looks closer in normal lighting, but the Hits is definitely more holo. The colour is less deep and dreamy XD.


a-england Lady of the Lake - 2 coats. Very pretty dark, grape purple with holo sparkle. This definitely needs two coats for me, a little sheerer, and so I think the holo shows up better




(I already purged Hits Dionisio, otherwise I would have done a comparison!)

Comparison: a-england Lady of the Lake and a-england Tristam - since I tend to get these two confused with one another


a-england Tristam - 2 coats. Dark blue with holo sparkle. Similar in formula to LotL. I like this too; it reminds me of one of the OPI Suede polishes (Ink Suede, I think)






My crazy-eyes, polish-addicted opinion:

• Very lovely formula across all bottles. Of course, other brands also have polishes with great formulas (e.g., Illamasqua Muse), but it's still worth noting how consistently good these are.
• I love the bottles (square/rectangular is my favourite!) and brushes (except Dragon)
• Interesting theme, although I personally don't care much about it as long as the polish is amazing ;)

My reasonable-person opinion:

• These don't seem to have balls! It worries me, because Galahad had streaky pigmentation when I first used it. I shook it up as much as I could, but it would have been easier if these guys were not ball-less.
• The polishes don't add much variety to my stash, colourwise. Most of these don't give me that intense burning feeling I get when I absolutely LOVE a polish.
• Other than the formula, the cremes are not that special.
• If you are expecting holo-rainbows with LotL, Tristam, Dragon, or St. George, I think you will be disappointed.

Overall, I think these fall in my "nice to have", not "need to have" category. My favourites were Perceval and Saint George.

I bought mine at llarowe ($12 each), but you can also get them direct from Adina, the creator of a-england for 9GBP with free international shipping.

Have you taken the plunge and tried this brand? Am I totally missing out on one of their best shades? Tell me so I can buy more (bahahaha).

Lynnderella Love, Lace and Lilacs over OPI Let Them Eat Ricecake

Here's my NOTD going into the work week:

Lynnderella Love, Lace and Lilacs over OPI Let Them Eat Rice Cake - 2 coats of the Lynnderella over 3 coats of the OPI




(there are no black flecks in this polish, it's just the way the flash bounces off the tiny shimmer particles)

The formula on OPI LTERC is not great, but I really love the colour on my skintone, so I put up with the patchy / streakiness.

I love this mani! I originally had tried LLL over Essie Marshmallow (as in my mega swatch post), but found it to be a bit too stark for the office, so I decided to try it over my favourite nude/neutral/"worksafe" polish. I am really happy with the outcome! I can't wait to wear this Lynnderella again and again :) I think this is how you regular folks feel about Connect the Dots, haha ;)

Lynnderella Heart Strings and Liquid Valentine (♥) + blush + February shopping list!

I wasn't going to post swatches of these initially, since they were gifts from Lynn, but someone requested them so... here you go. They are not available for sale, but hopefully they will be in future collections! I know there's a bit of a bar-glitter-fan club out there!

Heart Strings over Illamasqua Collide (the name is sooo cute!)




Liquid Valentine (or ♥) over Zoya Alegra





Since it's a new year, I am trying to curb my spending on cosmetics and nail polish. January didn't start out so good, because I bought 4 blushes (and swapped for 2 more). I seem to have a growing blush obsession (do you?!).

Here is my modest (modest to some, already crazy to others) blush collection:


And some subpar swatches, because I needed to make sure I didn't have dupes (you guys know me!)



So for the month of February, I'm going to make a shopping list for cosmetics/np and STICK TO IT (at least try).

Here is what I'm allowing myself to purchase for this month:

• A-Englands: I know I am totally late on the bandwagon here, but I recently decided to take the plunge and try this brand at the insistence of my NB friends. I plan on ordering the following through llarowe's shop (once they come back in stock): St George, Dragon, Order of the Garter, Tristam, Lady of the Lake, Galahad, Elaine, Perceval, and Guinevere. Do you have any of these? What do you think of my picks?
• Layla Holographics: These are not yet available in the US, but should be ~sometime~ at aveyou.com and zappos.com. You can get them from Layla's italian site, but I lost patience trying to navigate their site in Italian (lol). I'm going to allow myself to purchase 5: Mercury Twilight (silver holo), Jade Groove, Mermaid Spell, Ocean Rush, and Flash Black (black holo). I'm skipping the nude/pink/purple ones, because let's be honest, if I'm going to wear a holo, it's gotta be blue or green :D
• Zoya True collection: I only want three: Bevin, Skylar, and Lotus. The rest seem nice, but "nice" doesn't cut it anymore in my stash!! hehe.
• Jessica Cosmetics: Disco Diva duo and Smoky Feather (the Chanel Graphite dupe)

It's going to be a pricey month (well, contingent on when the Laylas will become available), but I am so excited! It's been a while since I have been excited about polish, and I think my year-end purging and Lynns really sparked my interest again!

Are any of you sticking to budget or fixed shopping list this month? Hmmm?

(p.s. Sorry for the off-topic makeup stuff, I was too excited and wanted to share. I know when I was first into np I hated seeing makeup posts mixed in with my nail blogs, so apologies!! XD)