Category: Nail Product Swatches

llamasqua’s Bacterium nail polish. It costs £14.50 from the Illamasqua website.

Bacterium is described as ‘pearlescent ash ochre’.

I’d say that’s true. I love the pearlised shine on this. It translates nicely on to my nails from the bottle,
The brush in the bottle is a little thin for my liking, I prefer the paddle brushes that L’Oreal does but that’s a minor thing.
It’s opaque in two coats and has a nice shine. It’s not a high shine but that can be fixed with a good top coat.
It’s not particularly chip resistant but will last a day for me. It’s last a lot longer if you don’t work with coins.

So is it worth it? Yes. Don’t expect the high shine or high chip resistance. It’s a nice unique colour I’ve that I’ve not seen anywhere else. A good little number for your nails.

Caviar anyone? Don’t eat it, it really doesn’t taste very nice! However it looks good on your nails.

This particular set of nail caviar is from MakeUp Academy’s Fashionista range and the colour is Black Pearl. It’s a combination of black, white and light teal pearls. It’s costs £4.00 from Superdrug or online.

It’s not particularly hard to apply but does come off quite easily. It has a wear time of about a day. The balls themselves are only coated in the colour and it rubs of quite easily. There are a couple of tips to make it last longer.

Application

• Get a bowl, a piece of paper and your nail polish.
• Use a base coat and paint all your nails either a complimentary or contrasting colour
  
• Once dry use a top coat that’s slightly old and thicker. Paint the nail, thickly with the top coat.
• Straight away pour the nail caviar over the wet nail.
• While it’s setting push the little balls at the end of the nail down, to create a smooth edge.
• Then press down the caviar on the nail gently to anchor them into place.
• If you’re doing your other nails, repeat the above process.
• To extend the longevity, paint a little top coat on the very end of your nails.

You can if you want, put a top coat over the caviar to really keep it on but it does ruin the look.

To take it off you need to put a generous amount of nail polish remover on a cotton wool ball and hold it on the nail for a minute. The balls should slide off. If not repeat until they do.

So are these worth it? Yes. They look great for an accent nail and given the price the wear issues with these aren’t a big problem.

I <3 U is a nice neutral colour polish from MakeUp Academy.

It’s part of the Love Hearts range of polishes which have five different pastel shades.

The polish goes on nicely and needs two layers to be opaque. It’s dries in the normal time for polishes and has a good shine when dry. It’s not particularly chip resistant but it’s not expensive. It’s also on the cheap side of polish costing only £2.00 from the website or from Superdrug.

Do I recommend this? Yes, for the price it’s a perfectly good polish and great when you don’t want brightly coloured nails.

Risky Red is a high gloss polish available from 17 cosmetics in Boots stores and online across the UK. It’s costs £2.99 so is at the cheaper end of the market.

The red is the kind of pin up red, it’s more of an orange based red. It is high gloss and looks great when done. The only problem that even with two coats it’s not really quite opaque.

Is it a good polish? For the price yes. It does the job well but if you’re looking for chip resistance and coverage this is not the one to chose.

Please excuse the horrible out focus that is the swatch of this polish. I used it as a base to my Ladybird nails.