Maychiri's Thoughts: July 2024

BEL London Nail Lacquer [03] Review

July 27, 2024

Now, the lightest of the BEL nail lacquers! This is the BEL London Nail Lacquer, shade 03!

Another nail polish that my mum bought for me for whatever reason, as I already have a ton of nail polishes. I, however, immediately took a liking to this one, as I positively adore white nail polishes! They are my guilty pleasure! Having already had great experience with white nail polish (courtesy of Catrice, of course!), I had very high hopes that this one would be just as good, if not better! Surely it will be gorgeous on longer nails! Well, let’s take a look!

Packaging: just like the other BEL nail polishes, it’s a clear glass bottle that is pretty heavy for its size. It’s elegantly thin and tall! This one, too, has a cap that almost looks like an OPI knock-off. Not that that’s bad, it’s just interesting to see! Unlike OPI’s cap, this one isn’t as textured, so it feels pretty smooth. That can be a problem when you close the cap too tight, the textured surface of the OPI caps makes you able to grip them harder, while here your fingers start to slide. Still, it’s a very elegant, tall cap! And I love the contrast of white nail polish and black cap! Look at the text... wait, you can’t see it? Right, because it’s white text on white polish. That’s a galaxy-brained idea if I ever saw one! I know that every polish in this range has white text, but couldn’t they have made it at least slightly gray for this colour? Oh well.

Ingredients: nothing nourishing and no harmful ingredients (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). The scent is like most nail polishes. The expiration date is 24 months after opening.

The colour of this polish is beautiful, although also as basic as it gets. This is a pure white nail polish. Although it definitely looks better on darker skin, it still looks utterly gorgeous on pale skin! It makes my nails look so modern and fancy and chic! Ahhh, I love it so much! Some might be mean and say that it looks like correction fluid. Don’t listen to those people.

The brush is, again, excellent! This is a large flat brush that deposits pigment wonderfully evenly. It’s way too big for my nails, but I have small nail beds anyways, it should be fine for most, though. This brush picks up so much pigment! Like, way more than you’d ever need for one nail; indeed, there’s enough for like 3 nails! So, tap it off if you don’t want to make a mess. Even though it is large, the brush is still quite precise,. It’s just so easy to use and great!

The formula is relatively thick, slightly thicker than with shade 44. It is very creamy and super easy to use and making it even is a piece of cake! It’s not at all gelly, just perfectly smooth!

One coat is pretty opaque, although not totally opaque. It’s more like 75% opaque. This shade is a bit less even with one coat compared to shade 44. It’s still pretty even, just not perfectly even. Two coats gives you 100% opacity, making the nails perfectly white! However, don’t apply more than two coats, it already starts to feel gelly with two coats, let alone more than two! It’s perfectly even and rich with two coats, very professional looking! The texture is highly glossy.

Longevity is spectacular, just like with shade 44! However, this white shade seems to be far less easy to scratch, which makes it look very glossy even 5 days in. Now, there are tiny scratches all over the polish on day 5 of wearing it, but they are far less noticeable than on shade 44. Here, you can only barely make them out even when you look up close. There was one part of the polish on my ring finger that looked like it would chip off, but it managed to stay. This nail polish stayed in perfect condition even after I was done washing my hair. The only “damage” (if you can even realistically call it that) is along the free edges of nails, but it is so minimal that you’d have to look for it with a magnifying glass. So, no matter what I do, it stays in perfect shape! Simply fantastic!

Removal: it is extremely easy to remove using the Express Nagellack Entferner from Ebelin. It is only slightly more difficult to remove using a standard nail polish remover. The first pass removes only a part of the polish, so you need to go over the polish multiple times to fully remove it. The Express Remover removes it in seconds, though.

In conclusion, I freaking love this nail polish so much! Another great pick from my mum! It’s the perfect glossy white nail polish that lasts ages with any chipping or really any damage at all! I love how it is also pretty scratch-resistant which means that the high-gloss finish stays intact for days! I already tried out a pure white nail polish before, by Catrice, and that one was amazing and it also strengthened my nails. This one is perhaps even better, but it doesn’t strengthen nails, which honestly, is a fair trade-off. It looks absolutely amazing, like, so blinding white and pure and just totally modern! Even on my pale skin! Like, it’s amazing just how good pure white nail polish can look on pale skin, it doesn’t even wash me out! The formula is a dream to use, perfectly silky and smooth, without being one bit runny. The brush, too, is phenomenal! It is very large but still precise, so it applies the polish evenly and easily. However, you will need 2 coats, one coat is a bit uneven, which, when you apply another coat on top of it, becomes perfectly even and pigmented and just luxurious looking! It really looks like a high-end nail polish! Speaking of, it gives OPI a run for its money, because it seems like it has better longevity than OPI, with absolutely no chipping even 5 days in! And it doesn’t even get scratched up too much! All that for a fraction of the money you’d pay for an OPI or Essie nail polish. Especially since OPIs tend to chip at least a little bit after 3 days, while this nail polish stays perfect, without any chipped off parts, or hairline fractures, or any other damage at all! No matter what I am doing! Hell, even washing my hair didn’t do anything to the nail polish! I cannot express hoe much I love this white nail polish! And how big of a surprise BEL nail polishes have been, so far! They cost little but perform like high-end nail polishes, or even better than them in a lot of cases! I cannot find anything to complain about, it is downright perfect! So, of you find this BEL nail polish, don’t hesitate, buy it! You will not be disappointed, I 100% guarantee that! Absolutely recommend it!

Rating: 9.5/10

Would buy again? YES, definitely

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BEL London

BEL London Nail Lacquer [23] Review

July 27, 2024

And one more nail polish that I was given – this is the BEL London Nail Lacquer, shade 23!

My mother sometimes goes and gives me a bunch of nail polishes... she doesn’t have the same style as I do (not nearly), so she usually picks colours that I would very rarely – if ever – pick. This is a very pretty colour, though! I’m no stranger to wearing bright coral or pink or even magenta nail polishes, so I’m not quite as opposed to this nail polish as I am to some of the others that she gave me. This should be a very lovely shade for spring, very cheerful and happy! Now, let’s see how good this polish truly is!

Packaging: a nice tall glass bottle; it’s got white text that looks great with the vibrant colour of the polish. The cap is black and very tall... and looks quite familiar. That’s because this is pretty much a dupe of OPI's cap, but with less texturing. This makes is more slippery to hold, so it’s a downgrade from the OPI cap. The cap closes very tightly. I like the design of this polish, it’s quite elegant!

Ingredients: nothing nourishing; 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). The scent is like most nail polish, but perhaps a tiny bit more vinegary. It’s very intense, though! The expiration date is 24 months after opening.

This is a large flat brush that is really very good. It picks up entirely too much polish, so don’t forget to tap off the excess! The brush applies nail polish professionally, with two or three swipes you can get it to look perfectly even. It’s quite large, but it is still pretty precise; it wasn’t hard to avoid making a mess around the nails. I really like this brush!

A very bright vivid rose pink. It’s super intense and looks incredibly vivid on pale skin like mine. I actually really like it! It’s most similar to bright pink and brink pink. Note how it has a good amount of red pigments in it, which gives it this nice warmness that is amazing for summer. Really, it is a superb colour for the summer, for when you’re on the beach or wearing light, breezy clothing. Beautiful! I’m not really very fond of red nail polishes but since this one has a lot of pink pigments mixed with the red, it is acceptable to me.

The formula is simply amazing! It’s just the right thickness, not too thick or too thin. It feels silky and not at all runny or too gelly. It spreads so easily across the nails, no effort needed to get it to looks fabulous!

This nail polish is already almost completely opaque with just one coat! I can just barely see my nails underneath it, and it’s perfectly even with one coat so you could leave it like this, it looks great! With two coats, it looks barely any different, maybe just a bit thicker. But I really wouldn’t apply more than 2 coats as it will become too thick. It’s perfectly even and completely opaque with two coats and it looks bright and just beautiful! The texture is very glossy.

Longevity is... not very great. Okay, it doesn’t chip very much, and that’s good, but that’s not the only thing that matters. See, it gets hideously scratched up and imprinted by everyday life activities like sleeping. The day after painting my nails it was extremely scratched up and had so many imprints from sleeping, and I don’t have a textured pillowcase or blanket. Those scratches ruin the lovely glossy shine, such a shame. It doesn’t chip a lot normally, but it was destroyed by a hair wash. Chipped all over and just in very bad condition. Shame, because it’s such a lovely colour.

Removal is relatively easy, for the most part. It doesn’t take too long to remove, which is good for my sensitive nails. But! Here’s the problem: it stains nails – a lot. My nails are visibly more red after removing this nail polish. I hate this. It’s even worse than when nail polishes stains my nails yellow... ugh.

In conclusion, yeah... this nail polish had promise but it fumbled it in the end. Listen, there’s plenty of good here, but it’s also got significant problems. The formula is stunning, it’s almost the perfect consistency! And the colour is sooo pretty! It’s such a vibrant colour that is perfectly suited for the summer! The brush is another good thing because it applies nail polish very well and it’s large enough to make things easier. But the longevity is the biggest problem. It gets horribly scratched up and imprinted, like, it’s pretty much ruined within 24 hours because it cannot handle normal day-to-day activities, even with nail polish drying drops. And it stains my nails red, which is infuriating. So... yeah. It started off good but it quickly became mid. I don’t want to say bad because it isn’t really bad, but I just feel disappointed. That’s all I feel on the end. So no, this nail polish won’t be getting a recommendation.

Rating: 5.5/10

Would buy again? NO

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BEL London

BEL London Nail Lacquer [44] Review

July 27, 2024

Hello hello!

After the BEL base coat, let’s take a look at one of the coloured nail polishes. How about we start with this lovely lavender one, hmm? This is the BEL London Nail Lacquer, shade 44.

This is one of the few colours that my mum picked that I actually liked at first sight. I loved Catrice's lavender nail polish from their Hop, Hop, Hooray! LE, and this one has a very similar colour to that one. I had wanted to buy a BEL nail polish for the longest time, a silvery glittery polish, but I just never got round to it. I wanted to see whether BEL London nail polishes are any good, so when she bought 3 of them that was my cue to try them out! So, let’s see!

Packaging: a sleek clear glass bottle. It’s actually pretty heavy for its size! I love the white text on the lavender background! It’s so elegant. The cap might seem familiar... It’s pretty much exactly like OPI's nail polish caps. So, it seems that BEL is trying to have a similar design to OPI, only with a rectangular bottle instead of a round one. The cap is very elongated, black and very slightly textured (not nearly as much as OPI). It closes very tightly, so much that it can be difficult to open.

Ingredients: nothing nourishing. 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). The scent is like any other nail polish. The expiration date is 24 months after opening.

Colour: a really lovely lavender purple, perfect for spring! It’s a really gorgeous colour! I think it looks best on pale and light skin, that’s where it pops the most! However, I am sure it would still look good on darker skin. I am not usually a huge fan of purple nail polishes, but this one is simply too beautiful! I love it! It’s quite similar to the Catrice Hop, Hop,Hooray Nail Polish, shade Lavender Bouquet, but it’s a bit more vibrant and ever so slightly more purple.

The brush is excellent! It is a large flat brush that is so lovely to use! It picks up way more polish than you’d ever need for one nail; seriously, there’s enough polish for like 3 nails if you don’t tap it off! So remember to tap off all the excess! This brush applies polish evenly, and, despite the large size, it is still pretty precise! I quite like this brush, to be honest!

The formula is absolutely wonderful! It’s super silky and just the right amount of thin. Like, it’s not too thin nor too thick. It also doesn’t feel gelly, just totally smooth and silky! It’s super easy to spread evenly across the nails since it is not at all watery.

One coat is semi-sheer, about 60%, I’d say. It actually looks quite nice like this, it’s even and is wonderfully pastel! With two coats it is totally opaque. I wouldn’t apply more than 2 coats; it already starts feeling a bit gooey with 2. It looks perfectly even and richly pigmented with two coats. The texture is very glossy.

Longevity is outstanding! Definitely in the top 5 nail polishes by how durable it is! It even beats OPI in this regard, all while costing a fraction of what an OPI would cost! First, I would like to say that this nail polish does get horribly scratched up if you don’t use a top coat. So, absolutely apply a top coat to preserve the highly glossy finish. I did not, just to see what it would look like. But even with all these scratches, it still looks amazing, not like it’s been scratched to hell. Even 4 days in, it still looks high-end and gorgeous; I literally feel a pang of guilt knowing that I will remove it soon. There was not a trace of chipping in these 4 days, not even when I used my nails to open containers or when I accidentally hit surfaces with my nails.

Literally nothing that I did made the nail polish chip, which is almost unheard of for my nails! This is spectacular! Not even a hair wash damages it! The only thing that damaged the nail polish is hand-washing clothes, so it’s the laundry detergent that damaged it. It was fairly damaged after hand-washing a dozen pieces of clothing. Still, seeing as most other nail polishes are completely destroyed by hand-washing clothes, this is still impressive!

This nail polish is extremely easy to remove! It really doesn’t require a lot of rubbing to remove, something your nails will be thankful for! The polish is completely gone in seconds! And there are no stains, either! Amazing!

In conclusion, this nail polish has no right being so fantastic! Especially at its price point! This is the best example of price ≠ quality, as this nail polish beats almost every other one in terms of longevity and overall quality, even OPIs. The brush is wonderful and super easy to use and is precise enough to avoid unwanted spillage onto the cuticles. The formula is superb; it’s a silky, super smooth formula that applies like a dream! Slightly thin, yes, but not at all watery. It’s also not gelly, well, not until you apply one coat too many, at least! Which would be 3 or more. With one coat it is semi-sheer and the colour isn’t at its true intensity. With two coats though! Man, with two coats it looks like a true high-end nail polish! Perfectly even, not very thick on nails and incredibly vibrant colour. Coincidentally, my cuticles also look probably the best they ever have with this polish. The colour is the perfect calming lavender! It looks stunning on my pale skin, even if I didn’t initially like it as much. With each day it grew on me more and more! In the end I can say that I am in love with this colour! That’s all great, but there must be some flaw, right? Maybe the longevity isn’t as good? Nope! The longevity is outstanding! Nothing that I do chips it, and believe me, I tried! Even 4 days later there are no chipped off parts at all, not even the tiniest ones! However, it does get scratched to hell, so there’s the flaw you’ve been searching for! It absolutely needs a top coat to protect it against the scratches. And to keep its highly shiny finish intact. Seriously, this nail polish looks so high-end! It might not seem like it in the photos, but in person it looks so luxurious! I actually feel sorry that u have to remove it and go to the next one, I love it so much! So I suppose thanks are in order to mum for picking this brilliant, almost perfect nail polish! Cheers! I might’ve never bought it myself, look what I’d be missing then! Seriously, if you can buy BEL nail polishes, do so! They are a worthy opponent to OPIs, even being better than them in a lot of ways and they cost a fraction of the price! So do yourself a favour and buy this spectacular nail polish! You’ll love it, I just know it! Absolutely recommend it!

Rating: 8/10

Would buy again? Absolutely YES

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Base Coat

BEL London Base & Top Coat [02] Review

July 27, 2024

The only BEL nail lacquer that isn’t coloured, this is the BEL London Base & Top Coat, shade 02!

Guess what? This is another nail polish that my mum just handed to me one day after she got home from DM. I might not have bought it on my own, but it is important to have a good base and top coat – and this is both! Very savvy of her! Now let’s see how good it is, as I’ve had many problems with other base/top coats.

Packaging: classic BEL London type of packaging, which means that it’s a large, clear glass bottle that is quite heavy for its size. The bottle is tall, which makes it look more elegant. The cap is even taller, like, it’s positively huge! It’s almost the same as what OPI use for their nail polishes, quite interesting! But it’s smooth, unlike OPI’s nail polish cap; this is actually not that good, as it’s that textured surface that makes OPI’s caps easy to grip. This one gets slippery when your fingers start to sweat (which is always a problem for me...). The black cap is a nice contrast to the clear nail polish. The text is white, which is fine here. On some other BEL nail polishes it’s almost impossible to read, but, because it’s clear, it’s still easy to read. Quite a nice bottle, I must say!

Ingredients: nothing nourishing, but also 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). The scent is like any other nail polish, although maybe a bit more plasticy. The expiration date is 24 months after opening.

Colour: completely colourless, as a base/top coat should be. It’s completely clear and colourless, not a single bit cloudy.

Brush: a large flat brush. Although, it doesn’t seem to be in the best condition... it’s slightly frayed. And it feels stiff for some reason. I don’t like this. It just doesn’t feel as good as the other BEL nail polishes. But it does apply the polish pretty well; it deposits a perfectly even, thick coat and it is precise enough not to make too much of a mess on the sides of the nails. So, while it does seem to have some problems, they don’t appear to affect its usability.

The formula is wonderfully silky and smooth. It’s maybe just a tiny bit gelly, but it feels so good to use. Although it is silky, it isn’t very thin or runny. Just a great formula overall!

It’s a base/top coat, so it’s completely transparent, no matter how many coats you apply. However, it is super glossy! Like, it’s so glossy that it looks almost like polished glass! Awesome!

Longevity is honestly not that great. While it doesn’t really chip (I think, it is hard to see), it gets all scratched up, which is the one thing a top coat should prevent from happening. Seriously, what good is a top coat if it gets all scratched up? And it’s also prone to peeling off from water exposure... this is not the first base/top coat that has this problem. Damn.

Removal: super easy to remove. Barely any rubbing necessary to fully remove it. And, of course, no stains!

In conclusion, sadly, this base/top coat is mediocre, like most base/top coats that I tried so far. I just cannot seem to find one that actually works without peeling off or getting scratched up, as this one has those problems too. Like, the formula is great; it feels silky and isn’t thick or goopy at all, and it is easy to apply evenly, but what use is it as a top coat if it doesn’t protect the polish underneath from scratches? Or if it peels off from water exposure? And I’m not talking a huge amount of water exposure, just a single shower is enough to get it to start peeling off if it isn’t perfectly painted. Although, I do really love how super glossy it is! It makes the nails so beautifully glossy and elegant when worn solo! And honestly, the damage is barely visible if you wear it by itself. But still, it doesn’t really function too well as a base or top coat, so I won’t recommend it. I’m sure there’s a better one out there... I just haven’t found it yet.

Rating: 5/10

Would buy again? Probably NO

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Coral

S.he Colour&Style Quick’n Crazy Nail Polish [323 - 808] Review

July 27, 2024

And, why not? One more S.he nail polish... this is the S.he Colour&Style Quick’n Crazy Nail Polish, in the shade 323/808!

Another nail polish that my mother just handed over to me. S.he... is not known to pick the most high quality stuff tbh, so I knew that this wouldn’t be good. Especially after trying out some other S.he nail polishes and seeing that they are really not good, quality-wise. It’s even more baffling to me why she chose this colour of all of them, because I almost never wear red nail polishes (for certain reasons), and this one is a weird light red/orange mix. Not quite coral, not quite red. Sigh. I will honour her effort to buy this and I’ll try it out... begrudgingly. Let’s see whether this nail polish continues S.he’s bad streak...

Packaging: a small rectangular glass bottle. It’s really quite simple. The text is silver metallic, which looks good on this colour, but the white text on the back looks even better. The cap is massive compared to the size of the bottle itself. It’s silver like the text, and it’s a real fingerprint magnet, let me tell you that! The cap closes quite securely, so no need to worry about this polish drying out.

Source: www.dm.hr

Ingredients: absolutely nothing harmful or nourishing. The scent is pretty much like any other nail polish. The expiration date is 36 months after opening.

The brush is small and flat, but it was damaged. It was severely frayed on one side when I first opened the bottle. This would have caused so many problems, fortunately I was able to carefully fix the frayed hairs. Still, it’s not a very good brush. It’s like it doesn’t pick up any nail polish... or this could be the formula being trash. Or both. It also doesn’t deposit the polish very evenly, but that’s also due to the formula being very tricky to use. Credit where it's due, the brush is decently precise, so at least I didn’t have a huge mess on the sides of my nails. But that doesn’t change the fact that this brush is rather bad.

Colour: even though it isn’t as intense as it should be, this is still a nice coral colour. It’s literally coral, if doesn’t have too many red or pink pigments. See, if it was intense like it should be, I would like it so much more... it’s just too pale as it is, and this colour craves intensity and vibrancy. Still, it’s a pretty nice summery colour.

Okay, so... this formula is horrendous. It’s watery and pretty runny, and so, so thin. None of the Quick'n Crazy polishes have had what I’d call a ‘good’ formula, but man, this one is so very bad. It being thin could be excused, but it’s hard to use because it’s so runny and uneven. I kinda hate it, ngl...

It looks horrible with one coat. It’s like a stain on my nails, and it’s very sheer; I can clearly see my nails underneath. And because it is uneven, it just looks ugly. No way that you can wear it out like this. Things improve with two coats, but not substantially. It is still sheer... like, I can still see my nails underneath even after two coats. It’s more even now, at least. Although I still had to apply it very carefully or it would be uneven again. I don’t know how many coats it would take until it’s opaque... 3? 4? The formula was already driving me nuts, so I just kept it at 2, whatever. I don’t have any patience anymore for this nail polish, it’s way too annoying. Anyways, the texture is another weird thing. It’s weirdly semi-matte, it looks very cheap to be completely honest. I mean, what the hell... what is this finish, even??

Longevity is, frankly, as bad as it gets. While it doesn’t seem to get scratched up easily, it starts to chip as soon as like 18 hours after applying it. Not even a full day! And it’s not just tiny chips along the free edges, those were huge flakes that fell off one by one from each nail. It already looked horrible by the end of day 2, so you can imagine how bad it was after 4 days. It was literally destroyed. Freaking fantastic... is there anything good in this nail polish? It seems like the answer is no...

If nothing else, at least it’s pretty easy to remove. It doesn’t take a lot of rubbing until it’s completely removed and it doesn’t appear to discolour my nails. I thought that it would for sure make my nails red, as anything even remotely red tends to make my nails slightly red after removing the polish. But this one seems to not do that.

All in all, a horrible, terrible, just outright bad nail polish. There’s really not a lot of good I can say about it. The only remotely good thing is the colour, and even that isn’t as good as it should be. I have no idea what went wrong with this particular nail polish, but it seems like everything that could, went wrong. The brush was frayed when I first opened the bottle, and it doesn’t apply the polish evenly. The formula is atrocious, it feels very cheap and not at all fun to use. It’s runny and watery and takes a whole lot of effort and patience to get it to be at least somewhat even. Two coats isn’t enough to get it to look opaque, and with anything more than two it would be too thick. So you’re stuck with a nail polish that’s uneven, semi-opaque, and has this weird pale coral colour. Great... oh, but there’s more bad things! Because of course there are! The longevity is rubbish; it starts to chip within 24 hours, and less than a day after painting the nails, it will already look horribly chipped and just ugly. It doesn’t get scratched up, but the chipping is a much worse problem. So, by the end of day 4, it was completely destroyed. Sheesh... like, this nail polish is a demonstration in how to be a terrible nail polish. I hate it. Now, S.he polishes have never been particularly good, but this one is by far the worst one yet. And there’s no saving it. Yeah... this will probably be the only time I wear this rubbish nail polish... no way am I going to waste any more time on it, it doesn’t deserve that. No. No recommendation. Never. It’s entirely too rubbish.

Rating: 1/10

Would buy again? Hell NO

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Newer Posts Older Posts Home

BEL London Nail Lacquer [03] Review

BEL London Nail Lacquer [23] Review

BEL London Nail Lacquer [44] Review

BEL London Base & Top Coat [02] Review

S.he Colour&Style Quick’n Crazy Nail Polish [323 - 808] Review

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