Gwen Stefani for OPI

Gwen Stefani has always been one of my style icons and ever since I saw No Doubt for the first time on television, I knew that I wanted to be like her. Unfortunately I don't have long flowing blonde hair, her amazing figure and flawless makeup, but with her new collection for OPI, I can at least inject some of her style on to my nails. 

Gwen Stefani has collaborated with world renowned nail care brand OPI to bring us 12 new shades of polish, 6 limited edition glitter top coats and one spectacular 18K gold top coat. According to OPI: "The culture of the OPI brand - offering something for all women, from conservative to edgy - appealed to Gwen an aficionado of colour herself. Known for her trademark red lips, Gwen considers lips and nails important accessorises to complete her look. Her collaboration with OPI has resulted in a palette as diverse as the life she shares."

The OPI Mini Holiday Stars giftset which I bought last week contains four of the new colours designed by Gwen Stefani, all of which are perfect for this festive season.  The set includes: 1 x Red Fingers & Mistletoes, 1 x What's Your Point-Settia?, 1 x I Carol About You and 1 x Kiss Me-or Elf!. Each nail polish is a miniature version presented in a beautiful holiday gift set.

One of my favourite colours in the collection is the Red Fingers and  Mistletoe which is pinky red glitter polish, closely followed by What's Your Point-Settia?, which is a wonderful deep red Christmassy colour. The other two colours in the gift set which are a deep purple and rich burgundy colour as equally as pretty as the other two, but slightly too dark for my skin complexion. The OPI Mini Holiday Stars box set starts from £11.99 and is available from many retailers, including Sally Express where I personally bought this from.

Have you tried any of the Gwen Stefani OPI products?

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Kiss Me I'm Brazilian OPI

The sun is warm, flowers are in bloom and I'm currently in love with everything spring. All my favourite colours are associated with this time of year - pastel pinks, pretty lilacs and baby blues, I'm such a girly girl. 

A few weeks ago I came to the conclusion I have far too much makeup and spent an entire afternoon sorting out my makeup draws. Two hours later I had two black bin bags overflowing with out of date makeup and products that I wish I had not bought. My nail polish collection was the worst hit - so many nail polishes I had have dried up and I hadn't even noticed. Luckily my nail polish collection is rather large and despite throwing a lot out, I still probably have over 100.

Throwing away some of my makeup collection was a huge accomplishment, I am somewhat of a makeup hoarder and often find myself attached to certain colours. It has become so out of hand that I have a small walk in closet dedicated to my makeup and magazines. To congratulate myself for being productive, I decided to treat myself to a new nail polish...I'm sure one wont hurt.

Kiss Me I'm Brazilian is one of my new favourite OPI polishes. The colour is bright barbie pink and the longevity of the colour amazes me. I'm one of those that chips her nails instantly after having them done, but this nail polish seems to be perfect days after I applied it. I have always been a fan of OPI - especially my James Bond nail polish collection, but this bright colour is one that I would wear everyday and I am incredibly happy it has lived up to my expectations.

An additional coat was applied after this photograph.

What do you think of OPI nail polishes?

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Nail Polish Colour Wheels

Before I start writing about the actual post topic, I'd like to pose a question to all my regular followers. In the above image, do I look different? If you answered yes, but couldn't figure out why, it's due to my ever so slight hair colouring disaster yesterday. For a start I picked the wrong colour for my roots and secondly I got so distracted by listening to my current favourite band (The Vaccines) that I left it on a whole 10 minutes longer than it should have been applied. Hence, my hair has now gone almost black. In the picture, I have my lighter hair extensions underneath the dark hair to give it a two tone colour and give the illusion of lighter locks, however without these, it's very, very dark. The change came as a bit of a shock, but now, I'm embracing the rock chick Jessica that left me long ago and has now returned. I'm loving being at the dark side. 

Despite yesterday's mishaps, I've had a really good weekend and to top it off, my nail wheels finally came from China. I bought these on Ebay for £1.37 (including shipping) in hope it would help me organise my nail polish draw. I go through phases where I buy far too much nail polish and end up with multiple polishes that are very similar colours. I've seen lots of bloggers adopting this technique for organisation and I really wanted to try it myself. 

Painting all these colour wheels made me realise that I have over 65 nail polishes - not all nail polishes have been applied to the wheels yet, I'm always buying pink or red colours and a few of my nail polishes have dried out and I didn't realise. 

I love these colour wheels, because I can show them to my friends or family if they ever need to borrow a colour and I can gaze at all the colours from my beautiful collection.

I've also organised the wheels by nail polish brand. The ones that do not have a label are a mixture of brands and my higher end polishes have a wheel to themselves. I love collecting Nail Inc and Ciate.

Crackle polishes also show up on these colour wheels and look amazing! You could also buy additional wheels and experiment mixing various colours. It's great knowing what they will look like before you put them on, if you're in a rush to go out.

Although they take quite a while being delivered, at £1.37 you really cannot go wrong. If you're a nail polish addict or simply want to experiment, I really recommend that you invest in these. They're great for demos if you're a blogger too!

How big is your nail polish collection?

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