Fragrance Direct Friday (on Saturday) & Festive Nail Art

 Hi guys, today I have the last (for a little while anyway) instalment of Fragrance Direct Friday and my first festive mani this year.  This weekly feature will be going away for a little while, but instead, I will be posting about some fabulous budget polishes from elsewhere around the web on Saturdays.  I have some really great shades that are quite hard to find swatches for online, so I'm looking forward to sharing all those beauties with you in the weeks to come!


The first polish I have to show you today is this very Christmas appropriate green from the Revlon Top Speed line.  This is Emerald, and the formula on this beauty is divine!  The photos show 1 coat, no top coat and no clean up.  Yes, you did read that right, I didn't do clean-up.  The formula on this is so easy to control that I didn't really need to.  That has happened to me a total of 3 times now, so it's pretty big.  There were a couple of streaks when I applied it, but it self-levelled nicely.  Dry time was pretty short (not that I have much to compare, as I always use quick-dry top coat), and it dried nice and glossy.
This was 99p here, and they are still in stock, so if you need a dark green for Christmas I would absolutely recommend this.  Naturally, I was compelled to do my first Christmas mani over this base.  It would be rude not to!
The little trees were stamped from PUEEN42 with Barry M - Gold Foil, and the accent nail is 2 coats of Shimmer Polish - Candace.

The second polish I have to show you is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Lively Lilac which is available here for £1.49.  This is 2 coats with top coat, apart from the ring finger which needed 3 coats to help cover some bad staining I have on that nail.  It didn't quite do it, but never mind.  Incidentally, that staining is from Brisk Blue from the same line of polish.  It didn't stain when I wore it alone, but I used it as a base for a chunky glitter polish, and it left stains in spots under the larger pieces of glitter.  That was a couple of weeks ago, and it's still pretty bad.  Any tips on getting rid of them would be greatly appreciated : )
 In the bottle, this appears to have some silver shimmer, but I couldn't really see it on the nail which was a shame.  I picked this up because I know a lot of the Insta-Dri range are good for stamping, however I'm not so sure this one will.  I'll try it anyway, and let you guys know how I get on, but I'm not holding my breath.
 That aside, this is still a nice polish so I will still get some use from it, and I didn't spend a lot so I'm not too bummed about it.  What do you guys think of these polishes?