Nail Polish Discussion - Any Brand

[Anitacska]

Hiya! Thanks for sympathy, have some back you poor thing!
So sorry about your kitty, I've had a cat in the past with bladder stones, I feel you on the expensive special diet, but it did do well for mine.
I've been getting a bit stressed about HHC to be honest - I'm still waiting for my June order! I am never in a rush but with the Nailland delay and the sluggish shipping on HHC I don't know, it's been bothering me a bit.
I know there were reasons for the June delay, with first the box having a delivery failure and no card so it sat at the PO for several weeks before Fiona picked it up. Then she also has a new job which seems to mean she takes a bit of time to get round to sorting things out. Then she was ill for a couple of weeks, poor thing. All of this is not a problem, but she finally posted June shipping charges over 2 weeks ago, paid straight away but she's not been sighted since then. So no shipping yet - as I say, it's not getting the polishes that bothers me, I'm just worried the group buy might stop soon as it seems to be too much for her to handle. And of course my VV orders have also been going via HHC, which I truly appreciate them helping out but the delay is sad! I have a huge wishlist and a VV order for October, not sure how many I'll end up buying but there are about 8 on there plus 6 VVs and one I've seen swatched that isn't yet listed. I seem to have cut right back on PPU (yay!) but HHC buys are bigger so not actually buying less polish! I thought I'd been a bit more restrained lately, but I just checked my cc statement and I bought 24 polishes this month, much more than I thought! (2 HHC, 4 RC, 6 VV, 1 FF, 6 Nailland, 4 GLL, 1 PPU) It is less than recent months I guess, and I do really like most of them in theory, though none are here yet.

Thanks for the heads up about HHC. Hope the group buy doesn't stop, it's been very useful and pretty cheap. I think Fiona has 3 young children, so I'm not surprised she's swamped. Mine are all grown ups now and I'm still so busy with them (well, the younger 2 anyway). And full time work on top of it all (not sure if she works full time, but even part time with young children would be hard). Hope she ships your polishes soon, I hate waiting for stuff!

I haven't bought any polishes since June, I think, but to be fair, I really don't need any more. I'm still using my oldest polishes which is kind of fun, some of them are 10 years old, so it's good to finally get around to wearing them. I pick from brands based on usage (always have), so I wear polishes fom brands I've worn the least amount (%) of and often the ones I have the most polishes from. I've only worn less than half of my polishes, so plenty to go still!

So here are my manis from the past 2 weeks or so. First is Illyrian Sakura. It was less bring irl, but this is the only picture I have:



Next is Emily de Molly Illumine. This was lovely.





This is Femme Fatale The Secret of Secrets.





Finally this is my current mani, Polished for Days Prototype 2016. It has tiny gold sparkles, prettier than it looks. Unfortunately it did chip very quickly, true to form.

 

[PearlyQueen]

Thanks for the heads up about HHC. Hope the group buy doesn't stop, it's been very useful and pretty cheap. I think Fiona has 3 young children, so I'm not surprised she's swamped. Mine are all grown ups now and I'm still so busy with them (well, the younger 2 anyway). And full time work on top of it all (not sure if she works full time, but even part time with young children would be hard). Hope she ships your polishes soon, I hate waiting for stuff!

I haven't bought any polishes since June, I think, but to be fair, I really don't need any more. I'm still using my oldest polishes which is kind of fun, some of them are 10 years old, so it's good to finally get around to wearing them. I pick from brands based on usage (always have), so I wear polishes fom brands I've worn the least amount (%) of and often the ones I have the most polishes from. I've only worn less than half of my polishes, so plenty to go still!

So here are my manis from the past 2 weeks or so. First is Illyrian Sakura. It was less bring irl, but this is the only picture I have:

View attachment 71456

Next is Emily de Molly Illumine. This was lovely.

View attachment 71457

View attachment 71458

This is Femme Fatale The Secret of Secrets.

View attachment 71459

View attachment 71460

Finally this is my current mani, Polished for Days Prototype 2016. It has tiny gold sparkles, prettier than it looks. Unfortunately it did chip very quickly, true to form.

View attachment 71461

I remembered how antsy you used to get about waiting times, I thought you should be aware if you're thinking of buying! Funnily enough I was going to post about HHC waiting times earlier today after my last post, but decided not to bother because I truly do appreciate the group buy, especially since they're doing me the massive favour with VV (which is currently probably my favourite brand). I didn't realise she was also juggling small children, so thanks for letting me know that - there was never any chance I was going to complain about the delay though, I just hope she's not ill again.
It's interesting to see how other people choose their polishes - I have a complicated system of matching my outfit (only to a small degree eg I'm wearing purple, pink and blue today, so I'll choose a polish with at least an element of one of those colours in it for the next mani), then I have a rotating list of "categories", like oldest polish, newest polish, favourite brand, favourite polish etc - this pretty much pulls up a few polishes and I mostly wear a random one out of those, interspersed with a few I'm less keen on to get them out of the way and some new brands/colours/finishes to test them out so I don't buy more if they are not my thing.
Great to see some new manis from you - my absolute favourite out of these is the Illyrian, which I do own and have never used. I love the colour. The EdM is also a lovely shade, I think I have that one. Have to admit, I have bored myself with purples recently and am constantly taking them out of baskets these days, it was that long run of Illyrians that finally did for me. I still like the brighter ones though and I've picked up a fair few of the ones with red shimmer recently, I am still duping myself like that, but trying to be better.
I meant to mention that I got my first Wildflower direct delivery recently - it was very expensive for the two polishes I HAD to have but I love them. She did include a few free gifts with it (sticker, keyring, some glow in the dark squishy halloween toys), which was nice of her. However, I was lucky to escape customs as the value was not marked down. I really want to buy quite a few from her "rewind" shop next month but I anticipate customs if I do It's her final restock before her big rebrand, I'm still gutted she has stopped going via suppliers though. I asked if there was any chance she could hold those two and ship with the next lot, but though she was apologetic it was a firm no! I will need to figure out if it would be cheaper to ship via Stackry for the next one, but I suspect it's impossible to ship anything with nail polish in it for less than about $60 plus hazmat fee, so probably not. I did look into it for the VV Halloween advent (which was amazing value) but it was going to be about $100 to get it shipped, and it was too big to ask for it via HHC. I did end up getting all bar one of the polishes I most wanted anyway - but it cost me as much as the whole box would have done.

 

[PearlyQueen]

My lovely brights came from Nailland yesterday, I'm pleased.
Also, Fiona appeared on FB again, she said she was shipping polishes I think today, so that's good. TBH someone hadn't paid the shipping until yesterday so I'd thought that was contributory but I think she was just busy. Anyhow, I trimmed my HHC purchase to 4 items, I had about 12 in my basket originally! From something she posted, I think July & August will ship together, also good though it doesn't make shipping cheaper when it's 4 to a package!

 

[Anitacska]

My lovely brights came from Nailland yesterday, I'm pleased.
Also, Fiona appeared on FB again, she said she was shipping polishes I think today, so that's good. TBH someone hadn't paid the shipping until yesterday so I'd thought that was contributory but I think she was just busy. Anyhow, I trimmed my HHC purchase to 4 items, I had about 12 in my basket originally! From something she posted, I think July & August will ship together, also good though it doesn't make shipping cheaper when it's 4 to a package!

Yay for nail mail!

I ordered the EdM from HHC. Liked the Pahlish too, but I'm sure I have something very similar already.

Need to change my polish today, I've been wearing EdM Long Engagement for 3 days and it's badly chipped. Will post mani pictures sometime soon.

 

[PearlyQueen]

Yay for nail mail!

I ordered the EdM from HHC. Liked the Pahlish too, but I'm sure I have something very similar already.

Need to change my polish today, I've been wearing EdM Long Engagement for 3 days and it's badly chipped. Will post mani pictures sometime soon.

I did buy the Pahlish! (Plus the VV and Red-Eyed Lacquer charity polishes and Phoenix The Mirror). I had so many more in my wishlist, may or may not end up buying more but so far I've resisted!. I have a mani to share but haven't had a chance to sort the pics yet. I'm still feeling really ill, it just won't seem to shift.
I think my June HHC is due to be delivered tomorrow, not 100% sure but I had an email from RM that there will be something coming and I'm not expecting anything else. Of course it's coming on the day I'm in the office...

 

[PearlyQueen]

Yay for nail mail!

I ordered the EdM from HHC. Liked the Pahlish too, but I'm sure I have something very similar already.

Need to change my polish today, I've been wearing EdM Long Engagement for 3 days and it's badly chipped. Will post mani pictures sometime soon.

Meant to say, the EdM is beautiful, I was tempted by it too.

 

[PearlyQueen]

So that was my HHC that finally turned up, very relieved!
Here is my previous mani:

Rimmel Royal Blue
I wasn't very taken with this, I remembered it as a very shifty blue polish, as you can see it is more grey with shimmer.
I thought my current mani was also waiting to be cropped, turns out it still in the camera, so later!

 

[PearlyQueen]

Anitacska sent you a PM xxx

 

[PearlyQueen]

Polished for Days Black Friday 2023 and Prototype 7:

 

[PearlyQueen]

It looks like July, August and September orders are with Fiona at HHC, she's waiting for confirmation of the HHC costs before posting totals. That should be loads of VVs for me as well, I'm quite excited by this delivery! I also got a shipping notice from RC today for a back order that's been pending for quite a while (although where all these will go while my house is in chaos, I've no idea!). I also bought FTLOP this month (oopsie!) - Jenna agreed to hold it to ship with my Black Friday order so I don't have to open Stackry too early, so yay for that at least. Mind you, I was just looking at the PfD site to think about pre-loading my cart and there is not much there. There have been barely any collections in the last year. The NY duo, Vernal Equinox, Night Glow and the new Halloween is all I can see for the past year. I already have Night Glow and I only liked one of the Halloween ones, so it's not going to be a huge order, as anything older was released before last BF and I picked up everything I wanted up to and including the Halloween ones that year. I swear they used to release loads more! I have a base and top coat and just four polishes in my cart waiting, with one or two more I'll probably add if they get restocked by then, so let's hope there are some yet unlisted goodies on the way!