Paint It Blue For Autism - Jelly Sandwich

As you may already know, April is Autism Awareness month and today is World Autism Awareness day. Many nail polish bloggers have decided to join forces and spread awareness by painting their nails blue for this day, others have decided to do a weekly blue manicure. I will be doing the latter.

I'm not usually very open about this, but the reason I decided to join this awesome initiative is because it's important to me personally. When I was very young, I was diagnosed with an autistic disorder. I wasn't an easy child and it has been a long and sometimes very difficult struggle to get where I am today, but I'm proud of myself for how far I've come, and for how much I am still improving day by day. I know what it's like to be misunderstood and mistreated and that's why this month is so important to those with autism.

So, to start it off, I have pulled out all the blue nail polishes I own (which is surprisingly not a lot!) and for the first day I decided to do a blue jelly sandwich. I'm not familiar with these, and this was only my second ever attempt.

I really wish the pictures did this manicure justice. In real life it looks a bit darker, and it has a lot of depth. The holographic square glitter looks amazing squished in between the layers of blue.

The blue polish I used to create this sandwich is a nameless and brandless blue I got together with my nameless green a while ago. I actually figured out the bottle shape is the same as Safari's bottles, but the caps are different and the only label it has on it says '145'. I bought this one because I'm looking for a TARDIS blue creme. When I tried it out for the first time I was disappointed because it's a very sheer jelly-like polish. Not exactly what I wanted, but great for this manicure.

First I painted two coats of the blue, because it's really sheer. It has a thin formula so I had to be very careful not to flood my cuticles. I let the two coats dry for a while and then I added glitter. I used Essence's glitter topper known as Julia as the glitter in the middle of the jelly sandwich and then painted another thin coat of my blue jelly on top of it. The result is pretty awesome, but it feels very thick on my nails, and it's drying very slowly, despite me waiting a long time for each coat to dry. I'm still happy with the result, though! :D

Nino Mont - 154

A while back I showed you one of the two Nino Mont polishes my boyfriend got me on his holiday to Spain.  Today I'm finally going to show you the other one!

While 142 is my favourite out of the two, this is a beauty as well. I love royal blue polishes, because it's such a great colour, but also because I love anything 'TARDIS blue'. The Doctor Who fan in me definitely approves of this nail polish. 154 is a royal blue polish with gorgeous shimmer. I keep finding myself looking at my nails when wearing it.

I also think it works with my skin tone! Don't you?

Applying 154 was a breeze. I must say the formula is pretty much perfect to me. It covered in two coats and because it was so easy to apply neatly, I barely needed any cleanup. No comments there, other than that it's amazing, and a lot better than some of the better known brands out there.

If the durability is anything like 142, I will be able to wear this for at least 4 days without chips. I can't say anything about that yet, though! I'll have to try it out.

What do you think of this nail polish? Have you ever heard of Nino Mont, and/or do you own any polishes by them? I personally wish I had more.

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Thanks for reading, and have a great day. ♥

Essence - Boho Chic

Say there's a nail polish you have been having doubts about, but you buy it anyway, and you end up loving it? Isn't that a great feeling? I love it when it happens to me, and I wish had happened with the polish I'm showing you today. :(

Boho Chic is a very interesting shade that attracted me because of the flakies in it. I've never seen a polish quite like it before, and on the swatched I'd seen it looked very pretty. But when I stood in the drug store with the bottle in my hand I had my doubts about it. This is not the type of colour I would usually wear, so I put it back in it's place. Several weeks later it was for sale with a big discount, so... why not?

It's a peachy orange colour, and a special nail polish because of the orange/golden shimmer and flakies in it. uit looks very interesting, and I love flakies, but I just didn't like the look of these. Plus, the orange tone is not  very flattering for my skin tone. Too bad!

As for application, there is nothing wrong with this polish. It applied nicely, so no comments there. I used two coats for the pictures, but it could have used another thin coat to get rid of VNL. Maybe I'll end up giving this polish away to someone who would appreciate it more, because I doubt I'll be wearing it again.

Catrice - Steel My Heart

Hello again, followers! If you have been following me for a while you might know I have shown you one of the Catrice Brushed Metal Effects before: Steel My Soul, the lighter shade. Today I will be showing swatches of the darker shade, which turned out to be my favourite.

I'll admit it. I'm not a fan of matte or satin polishes, and while it can look very pretty, it's just not for me. I was hesitan about buying these, but they looked pretty in the bottle and I figured they'd look nice with a top coat. Well, when I put Steel My Heart on my nails I was instantly in love. It's unlike anything else I have in my stash.

It's a very dark brown/purple taupe colour with a lot of tiny, multicoloured sparkles that make it a very unique polish to me.

A close up shot. The blue sparkles are so pretty!

As for the formula, it was a bit thick but it was very easy to apply and I had no issues with it. It needed two coats to be opaque, and since I enjoyed the matte/satin finish a lot I did not add a topcoat.