Nails Inc – Porchester square and Notting Hill gate

Hi lovelies,

Are you having a good week?  At least it is a short one right?  My brain is still trying to catch up with the fact that it is Wednesday and not Tuesday.

Not long after I won the Nails Inc Christmas cracker I was sent these 2 pretty polishes from Nails Inc.  I was ridiculously excited because I have been coveting Porchester square for a while now (I only had a mini that was already half).  Notting Hill gate is pink.  Need I say more? Unfortunately it has taken me this long to show you because I did have some issues with one of these.  Let me show you each and tell you what I think.

Nails Inc – Porchester square

This is 2 coats with no topcoat.  It is the perfect nude creme with a gorgeous formula and fabulous opacity.  If you apply thickish coats you could probably get away with one coat.  Absolutely stunning and I can’t get enough of this polish.  It reminds me a bit of OPI – Don’t pretzel my buttons. Not so much in colour necessarily (I haven’t done a comparison on that) but in perfection.  Don’t pretzel my buttons has been a nude I have coveted most as I only have a mini bottle and can’t find a full size anywhere.  This one is as perfect.  If you only ever buy one nude or one Nails Inc then this is a definite winner.  I can see now why it is labeled as “Hero Shade”.  I LOVE this one.

Nails Inc – Notting Hill gate

Oh dear.  I really didn’t want to show you this.  I really struggled with this one and I really really really wanted to love it.  Here I have 4 coats on my index and middle with no topcoat.  On my pinky and ring I have 1 coat of white with 3 coats of Notting Hill gate.  Let me start with Notting Hill gate on its own.  This is labeled as a neon pink.  After 4 coats I couldn’t get it opaque and it also wasn’t all that neon.  It seemed to stay a bit of a dull pink and after 2 coats the colour didn’t improve or change and it just stayed sheer.  Once I added white underneath the colour definitely got better.  It looks way more neon over the white than on its own.  However, after 3 coats I could still very much see that it was over white undies.  It’s not a secret that I am wearing white undies or that a lot of neon polishes need white undies to really pop but usually you can’t really tell if there is white underneath or not.  In this case, it was very obvious.  Even though the colour was definitely brighter and more neon it wasn’t even or opaque.  I tried this no less than 7 times.  I swatched Notting Hill gate 7 times and could not get a different result no matter what I did.  After doing the swatches I did a bit of research.  I found a few other reviews of the very same polish and no one else had any of the problems I had.  In fact many of them used 3 coats and the swatches were beautiful, opaque and definitely more neon than my 4 coat version.  I have no problem with sheer polishes as jellies or sheer polishes that build well.  I can only assume that either my bottle is a dud or this particular formula just does not agree with me.  This does not appear to be the general result for Notting Hill gate.  You can find a perfect example here by a Polish Addict. This is definitely what I had hoped for.  Besides the issues I had with it, the formula was not that bad.  It applied well and dried well too.

If you don’t think the difference between the two versions above are very different, have a look at the art I did.  I decided to keep the different bases as above to see if it would really make a difference when used in art.  I think it does, how about you?

I started off with the base of Notting Hill gate as I swatched it above.  Once it was completely dry I added strips of striping tape on my tips at various lengths.  I then applied one coat of Porchester square making sure to remove the take as soon as I was done.  When I completely all my nails I topcoated and waited for it to dry.  Can you see how different the pink looks between my index / middle and ring / pinky?  It almost looks like 2 different pinks.

What do you think?  Do you have Notting Hill gate and have better results? I do think it will be great for glitter sandwiches so I will be trying that really soon.  I really do love Porchester square though.  I can’t wait to use it again! Thank you so much Nails Inc.  You can find or follow them on the following platforms to stay up to date with new news and inspiration.

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Thanks for reading