Revlon Essence

Revlon Essence is a dusky blue-green from the Top Speed range.

Two coats, although it was very nearly a single-coater. I love greyed-out dusky colours, and this one is gorgeous.

China Glaze High Roller

This polish came from a friend who was clearing out her collection. The label appears to have been completely rubbed off at some stage (you can just see a couple of specks on the bottle where it was).

High Roller is from the 2004 Monte Carlo collection. A sheer-ish jelly, I applied three coats but looking at it later I probably should have gone for four as there was still a noticeable nail line.

I'm not usually a fan of red polishes, but this one is pretty awesome; a vibrant orange red so bright as to be almost neon. Love it.

Rimmel Ava-A-Bit of Jade

I love Rimmel polishes. They have a lovely range of colours at a good mid-range price, and their brushes are the very best in my opinion; flat, not too wide, and with a curved tip that fits perfectly around the cuticles. Because I have very small nails (being a very small person) many of the flat brushes are too wide for my nails and if their tips are cut straight across it can be very difficult to get a nice curve around the cuticle. The Rimmel brush is the perfect size, I can almost cover my pinky nail in one stroke.

Ava-A-Bit of Jade has a dreadful, clumsy name, but it is a gorgeous colour.

Dark teal cream formula, two coats to full coverage. Love it.

Fair warning though, this one stains when you remove it. My nails after removal looked like I had murdered a leprechaun*.

* No leprechauns were harmed in the removal of this polish.

oxx unnamed polish

I have spent more time than is reasonable trying to decide how to say "oxx". Is is like the bovine Ox, but with more emphasis on the 'x'? Or is it "Hug Kiss Kiss"? Or perhaps just "O-X-X"? I have settled on the first variant, for no other reason than that it amuses me to think that someone at KMart (oxx is a KMart own-brand) could have named a cosmetics range after a type of cow.

This polish is like no other in my collection; a pale grey that leans ever-so-slightly greenish, absolutely packed with tiny silver glitter. It's stunning enough that I can forgive the puzzling brand name, and the fact that they didn't even bother to give the polish itself a name. And I can also forgive the thick-but-sheer formula which took four coats to achieve opaqueness and even then was still slightly sheer.

ünt SYO55

ünt is a brand I had never previously heard of, until my daughter bought me a bottle of their peel-off base coat for Christmas, which came with a free bottle of polish. (Side note: peel-off base coat is the best thing ever for under glitter polishes, and is worthy of a post of its own. Which I'm sure will happen at some stage.)

Yes, I'm aware of the smoodge on my middle finger, sometimes I forget that even my trusty quick-dry Seche Vite top coat isn't instantaneous, and it's best to wait more than two or three minutes before trying to use my nails as tools!

I would call this a blackened-teal shimmer, and a close inspection of the formula reveals that it is actually a black jelly base so tightly packed with blue and green shimmer particles that the jelly base is essentially invisible. A real stunner of a colour, especially in daylight, with a shift to navy blue when viewed from the side. Love it (although it's a bit of a shame they didn't bother to give it a name, SYO55 doesn't really roll off the tongue.)

O.P.I. O Suzi Mio

O Suzi Mio is from the O.P.I Venice collection (Fall/Winter 2015). The entire collection was on sale at my local pharmacy, and it took considerable restraint to only buy one bottle.

Having said that, I'm not discounting the possibility of going back and buying another colour. There was a mint green I had my eye on too ...

I wasn't a huge fan of the formula on this one, it was quite runny and sheer (which is how I'm going to excuse my slightly crap application), and took three coats to opaque. This red-leaning deep purple is a beautiful colour though.

I have no idea what this polish is, but I do know it's black

Eccentric English Boyfriend picked this polish up for me in China, back when he was travelling there a lot. There is not a jot of English on the bottle so I have no idea of brand or colour name, but I do know that it is a fantastic true black. Many black polishes have brown undertones that muddy their colour somewhat, but this is as black as a black thing on a black night.

Fantastic formula which would have been one coat if I applied it thicker; for me it was two. The formula was let down somewhat by the brush, which is flat and cut straight across - the bristles weren't flexible enough to bend around the curves so it was difficult to get a nice even line along the sides.

Milani Hi-Res

From Milani's 3D Holographic range, Hi-Res is a subtle scattered holo in a lavender base. This was a typically thin holo formula, easy to apply, three coats for opaque coverage.

LA Girl unnamed blue

This polish came in an LA Girl nail art set. It was a bit of an impulse buy, and I ended up giving away the other three colours in the set, but kept this one. It doesn't have a name, but Mr 17 suggested it be called Steven. This is why his career as a Nail Polish Namer will probably never take off.

Steven didn't seem all that promising in the bottle but on the nail is a stunner of a sky blue. Somewhat streaky formula on the first coat, but excellent coverage by the second. Steven is a keeper.

Depend 171

Depend never fail to deliver, the formula of the polishes in these teeny bottles is always excellent in my experience. 171 is a lovely admiral blue, almost a one coater but I did two just to be sure.