NOTD: Expect the Unexpected

Hi Everyone,

It feels weird being back on Truly Polished, recently I've pretty much forgotten that I even have a blog! I've decided there will be no more reasons behind me not blogging, either I do it or I don't do it... At this point I'm just counting getting dressed in the mornings as a win! I'm 24 weeks pregnant today and getting round two of horrendous tiredness, plus my son is ill today so I've had the worst sleep, he came into bed with me at 4am and was so boiling hot hanging around my neck for cuddles that I didn't sleep well at all!

I was surprised, then, that when I woke up, I was itching to some nail art... When we got up this morning, my son was desperate to go to preschool, and seeing as his temperature didn't feel too high then and he seemed happy, I took him in and came home brimming with ideas!

A few weeks ago we found out we are expecting another boy, so I knew I wanted to incorporate blue into the theme, and I knew I didn't have the energy for anything but striping tape, so I set about raiding my stash and here's how it turned out...

Natural light

Flash

The polishes I used were:

Sally Hansen - Lavender Cloud, a very pale off-white purple

Models Own - Blueberry Muffin, a pale blue creme

Models Own - Champagne, a champagne gold foil

Models Own - Southern Lights, a blue toned holographic full coverage glitter in a slightly tinted purple base.

I used striping tape for all of the sections, and finished it with a coat of HK Girl top coat.

I'm really pleased with how this came out, it was very simple to do and was a great first foray back into nail art. The only thing I'd add would be a blue triangle on my middle finger nail just to balance the colours a bit better, I love he subtle difference between the blue and off-white so I'd have like to see more of that.

What do you guys think?

Picture Polish Altered State

Hi Guys,

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! Mine wasn't that interesting really, I did nothing on Saturday, yesterday was better though because I had a quick trip to the city... I had my first ever venture into Sally's for acetone, and then I took a trip to Hobbycraft for some yarn, but more on that later in the week! 

Today's post focuses on another of the Picture Polish limited editions! This time it's Altered State, a blue - purple - red multichrome with chunky holographic glass flecks. I have to say when I first got these I was the most excited for this one, but was a bit disappointed when I first put it on. That changed once I started moving my fingers and saw the different colours. I will say though that I think this is the most subtle of the collection.

For these swatches I used one coat over Cult Nails Nevermore with a coat of HK Girl top coat on top of it all.

Sunlight

Click "Read More to see the rest of the pictures.

Picture Polish Aurora

Hi Everyone,

I write to you all from my ice chamber! We ran out of oil and have been without heating and hot water since Wednesday! My fan heater is working on overdrive and we have an oil delivery due today so I should be toasty and warm this evening!

Today I have my first of the Picture Polish Limited Editions to show you! I bought this when it first came out and finally swatched it this week!

Aurora is a green - teal - blue - purple multichrome glitter polish. I hadn't originally planned on buying this, but the feeling took hold of me and I couldn't help myself and I'm so glad I did! I love how you don't have to move your fingers to see the colour shift, in my opinion this looks even better on than it does in the bottle, but I'll let you guys be the judge of that...

The photos below show one coat of Aurora over one coat of black (Cult Nails Nevermore) with a HK Girl Top Coat on top. On the brush this looks like dirty dishwater, so I was shocked to see such depth of colour, shimmer and glitter in just one coat.

This post is a little bit pic-heavy so click "Read More" to see the other pictures! 

Introducing Jacava London

Hi Guys,

It's taken me a little bit longer to come back than I had hoped! Since I got home from my Mum's just over a week ago I haven't had a single day off playdates, preschool and playgroup. My life as a stay at home Mum is a lot more stressful than the imagine of chilling out in a onesie with a cuppa! 

Anyway, today while my son was at preschool I finally swatched some samples sent to me by the lovely people at Jacava London. I had actually played about with these last week but I wasn't happy with my pictures so today it was back to the drawing board!

Jacava London is a British brand (which I love, always nice to support some good UK brands!) and all of their nail polishes are non-toxic and 8-free. This means they are free from Formaldehyde, Formaldehyde Resin, Parabens, Camphor, Toulene, DBP, Pthalates and Animal Ingredients. As I'm currently pregnant, the idea of using non-toxic nail polish is very appealing to me! They are also vegan friendly and do not test on animals, so a great brand all round!

Before I start on the colours, let me just say this... These polishes all have a great formula. With the exception of Regent Street where I used three coats, these were great two coaters with good colour payoff.

So onto the pretties!

I'll start with the polish I originally picked out, Midnight's Secrets*. If you're a long time reader of this blog, you'll know my endless love for blue nail polish. When I saw this one, I knew I had to have it! I wasn't disappointed, I let out a gasp when I painted this on and immediately sent my friend a picture (as well as posting to my Instagram - @truly_polished) declaring my love! 

This is a gorgeous blue polish with a bright blue shimmer. Today was sunny so I could really bring out the best in this polish and the flash really brought the shimmer out. It's very, very photogenic, so there are quite a few photos....

The photos below show two coats without topcoat. Honestly I could've put topcoat on this but it dried to a satiny finish and I thought it was too pretty to change! 

Natural light

Bright sunlight

Flash - LOOK AT THAT SHIMMER!!!!

Next I'll show you Regent Street*. This was actually my second choice, but luckily the very generous people at Jacava sent me a couple of extras, so I still got to try this out. It's a berry jelly base with large pieces of holographic hex glitter. I'm not 100% happy with my swatches of this, mainly because of my dry cuticles, but that's what happens when I try to swatch more than one polish a day! 

These photos show three coats with the Jacava topcoat. This was fine after two but I wanted to even out the base colour a bit.

Natural light

Sunlight

Macro shot of the bottle. I love how the base coats the holo glitter!

Thirdly I have Dance With Me* to show you. This was another one I had in mind when I was making my original pick, so I was really happy to see it in my package! It's a red toned berry shimmer polish, the kind of thing I love to wear in the Autumn/Winter. This had a great formula, went on really nicely in two coats, and the photos below are without topcoat, it definitely didn't need it, it was so glossy on its own!

Natural light

Sunlight

Lastly, Jacava kindly sent me a bottle of their topcoat* to try out. This has UV inhibitor properties to stop the colour of your polish fading while you're out in the sun. While I'm sure we'll get some proper sun in a few months, we don't really have enough right now to test this properly! Nevertheless it's glossy and dries incredibly quickly for a topcoat that isn't marketed as speedy drying!

Here's how it looks on my naked nails that are looking horribly long. Pregnancy is obviously serving them well, I'm having to file them every other day at least!!

You can see the full range of what Jacava has to offer here on their website. Their polishes retail for £11 each.

Have you tried out this brand? What do you think of what they have to offer? Let me know!

*The product(s) in this post were provided for an honest review. Please see my disclosure page for more information.

I'm back! What have I been up to?

Hi Everybody!

Wow, this feels a little bit weird, it's been a while!

First of all I'd like to say, thanks for sticking with me while I took a much needed break from all things Truly Polished. I needed some time off but I've still been checking in on Blogger every now and again and to see my page views still going up has been unexpected but lovely.

Secondly, my return begs the question of where I've been since before Christmas, so I thought I'd fill you guys in on what I've been up to!

The main reason is the most exciting... We're expecting a new addition to the Truly Polished family! We found out just before Christmas, and my energy was gone, just like that. I've been napping every day, totally unable to function without a crazy amount of sleep and generally useless. Trying to look after a nearly two and a half year old livewire, keeping my house looking like humans rather than pigs live in it, and actually having some me-time meant that blogging had to go for a while... But I'm itching to get back into it, and certainly haven't been slacking on the haul front so have plenty to show you once I get it all swatched!

Here's a little picture of Baby TP number 2 from a couple of weeks ago! We find out in just over a month what we're having so that's exciting.

So what else have I been up to?

I never watched Entourage when it was actually on, but in January I decided to start from the beginning. I'm up to Season 5 and loving it!

One of my New Year's resolutions was to learn to crochet. I've been having a good go at it, I've learned how to make a granny square, and a granny triangle to start some multicoloured bunting for Caleb's room. I've also made a flower headband for myself, as well as making some little flowers and stars. I want to take the next month to make something for Caleb, and then when I find out the sex of this baby I want to make a nice blanket for the nursery. I'm hoping (if what I make isn't too embarrassingly bad) to share some of my crochet on here! 

We went to Tenerife for 8 days the second week of February, it was so nice to get a bit of sun, the English weather makes me so miserable!

My fiance has been home for the last four weeks, he leaves tomorrow, and so we decided this was the time to potty train our son. We started on Valentine's Day, a Friday, and used the fact that he was off preschool for half term the following week to our advantage. And it's done. He picked it up really quickly and much more easily than we had expected. Obviously we're anticipating accidents still, but we had a trip to Colchester Zoo at the start of this week (2 hours each way) accident free, so I'm optimistic!

So that's what I've been up to! It's been a busy and tiring couple of months, but I'm ready to get back to blogging. If I can get some swatching done over the next few days, I'll be back next week with some pretties. I'm thinking the Limited Edition Picture Polish newbies first. I have thermals as well that I want to show you, plus some indies. Honestly I've lost interest in the mainstream recently so it's indie all the way for the time being!

Thanks again for sticking with me through this break, and you won't be disappointed next week!