I remember these being on some sort of offer when I bought them, maybe 3 for 2 or something along those lines. Out of five shades in the range, I picked up Honeymoon Kiss (deep, purple/red), Gossip Kiss (juicy coral, bordering on orange) and Sweet Kiss (light pink)





They smell like watermelon or bubblegum (can't make up my mind as to which, bearing in mind I consume neither) which seems to be a theme throughout all Miss Sporty lip products - read back to my review of their 'Bubblegum' lipstick and I wondered whether it was a one off to fit with the name.
None of the balms seem to taste of much though.



It was probably really unnecessary to buy these in different colours because they really are quite sheer. Observe:


...yeah.

Sweet Kiss:


Gossip Kiss:


Honeymoon Kiss:

This one was more pigmented, so got a snazzier picture.

They feel pretty soft and moisturising, and you can layer for a little more colour (not much, but the option is there). The balms don't feel like they're choc full of petroleum (cough, Mirror Shine lipsticks) and I've never felt like they're going to break or melt if I transported them in a pocket (cough COUGH, Mirror Shine lipsticks!) so for those reasons alone, I'm very happy with them. I also like the shape of the bullet which allows for a little more precision during applicaiton. Low maintenance lip balms that do the job? Yes please.

I really wanted the glittery topcoat, and during the Christmas period Superdrug did a lot of promotions on various makeup lines. I can't remember what the exact deal was on Miss Sporty but it involved a free nail polish (I think) if you bought some other items from the range? I don't know. I'd been eyeing the topcoat for some time, so this just gave me a good excuse to get it.



I bought the brown colour because it looked unusual - yes, stupid on my part, as I know how horrid their nail polishes go after not very long. Still haven't tested it.



This is my second experience with their lipstick range - the first was when I was fourteen, and bought a not-very-opaque black lipstick to vamp around in and pose for Facebook photos wearing. Yup. Don't remind me. That one wasn't scented. I don't know if all their lipsticks are now scented or they've reformulated the range or it's just this one or what. But this smells very strongly of bubble gum, just like it's name. It's quite novel, for me - I like it!

 

 The colour is halfway between sheer and opaque...highlights lines in a not very flattering way, and I don't have very 'liney' lips. Might be a bit too light, as well. I like it as a somewhat wearable way into the whole 'peach/bright lips' trend that was big last summer, though knowing my luck it won't be this summer.



Thoughts?

In this post, three polishes basically represent their entire line as from those I've tried, the quality has been quite consistent. Here we go...

MUA Polishes

For a pound, these are seriously decent! I've finished the clear one (used it as a topcoat) and not only was there not very much chipping, but it stayed nice and runny until the end. I find so many topcoats go all thick and nasty near the bottom, making them impossible to apply. If Superdrug can do this for a pound, Sally Hansen, why can't you?
Nice range of colours and good drying time. Thumbs up for MUA.

Sally Hansen Strengthening Base Coat

Thankfully, this is nothing like that disastarous topcoat. It seems to help prevent chipping and I love the green glass bottle it comes in. Makes me feel like I'm a pharmacist or something.

Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours "Metal Shine"

Unlike the yellow from this line, this is great! I've had it for about seven months and it remains nice and thin, doesn't chip easily at all and dries really nice and hard so you don't have to worry about dents if you hit your nails against something. I really like this!

ASOS Paints

Crazily opaque, really cute bottle designs and they dry quickly. What more do you really need from a polish? The cost is a bit prohibitive but if you get them on sale like I did, that's not an issue.

Barry M Nail Paint in "Raspberry"

Still one of my favourite reds, this is opaque in one coat and goes darker with the second. You get a good amount in each bottle and it has an awesome brush. It's just a lovely classic shade that everyone should consider owning, in my opinion.

EDIT: Forgot the Nails Inc! The one pictured is "Lowndes Square" but I've found the whole line to go on well, with no application problems, they have great staying power and come off easily with nail polish remover.
As they bloody well should for £10. Just sayin'.

Honoury mention - Tesco's Nail Polish Remover. While not a polish (quite obviously, lol) it really makes light work of removing nail polish and a little goes a long way. Plus it's dead cheap. I'm actually quite impressed by it!

The "Year End" series is almost over! Just a couple more posts to round it out.

There are only two offenders on this list for this year. But by God have they offended me.

Barry M Nail Paint in "Mint Green"

During the past two summers, Mint Green as a colour (not the polish) has been insanely popular, with every cosmetics company and it's dog rushing to produce a shade that would be as influential as Chanel's...whatever it was called. The overpriced green one with the sparkles they did. Anyway, one would have expected that Barry M's would be better than most, seeing as it was a brand well known for it's decent nail polish quality and it cost slightly more than the other offerings one could find in say, Superdrugs or Boots.
Pah. This streaky, nasty geseki* is just awful to work with. It needs a minimum of three coats to look anywhere near passable and each coat takes an insane amount of time to dry. It bubbles like a dodgy looking volcanic lake filled with noxious gases and once you've gone through the nightmare of that application, you go to bed and in the morning you find that the nail polish is all over your blanket because apparantly sixteen hours isn't a long enough drying time. I want my £3 back.

Consider if: You like the bottle shape? That's it, really. Even MUA have a mint green out now. I haven't tried that one, but if it's rubbish at least you've only wasted £1 and not £3.

Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours in "Yellow"

This polish is so much do not want. Right after I took this photo, I tossed it into the bin from the other side of the room, like a boss. I'm pretty sure there are a couple of laws of physics that this nail polish breaks? Perhaps I should take it to my science teacher and ask him. Ha, that'd go well.
"Lena. You're asking me about...what is this?"
"It's nail polish, sir."
"So what do you do with it?"
"You put it on your nails, sir. It makes them different colours..."
"Ah, so that's why your nails are always a weird colour compared to everyone else's."
"...."
Or maybe I should mail it to the New Scientist. The bottle claims that it dries in a minute. In exactly what nation does one minute = never? Seriously, do tell, I want to visit that country. For real. You paint this polish on (and here's the law defying bit) and as you're applying it, it's drying. The moment the brush (did I mention that the brush is horrible? Well the brush is horrible) leaves the bottle it's a race against time to keep it from drying completely in the 0.3 seconds it takes to apply it onto your fingers. Naturally this leaves the polish wonderfully streaky, uneven and disgusting on your nails. Now, you think to yourself, if it dries straight from the bottle, I shouldn't have to wait long for it to dry on my hands!
Lies. Dirty rotten lies. You can sit completely still for like twenty minutes and not have this polish dry. For some reason, once on the nail it draws on moisture from like the air or something to remain wet. Urgh.
And it sucks at stamping too. And marbling. Just to add insult to injury. Oh, and if you get a ball of this polish anywhere near the bottom of the plastic cup that you are using to marble, it will eat through the bottom in record time and then spill warm water all over your bathroom floor, which is something I'm sure you all want.

Consider if: you have a burning urge to burn your money, piss on the ashes and then douse them in petrol and then dump them into the sea.

EDIT: I forgot to put the meaning of "geseki" which you may have noticed I'd starred and italicised. It's Korean for "son of a bitch". Sums up that polish pretty well in my opinion.

 Yeah, I did another set lol. Only I did these before Halloween but posted them after like the uncool person I am. And my photo taking sucked as well because these were on my right hand and it's incredibly awkward for me to take photos of that hand without having the aforementioned hand turn into a creepy claw like appendage.
What do you think? BeautyUK's Slate, Miss Sporty Nail Polish in Black and this white one I got from a manicure set in Poundland.

Note - students, be wary of people offering you sweets. One of my friends offered me one today and I ate it and then threw it at him because he'd painted it with that Stop N Grow stuff some people put to stop themselves biting their nails. VILE. And my aim sucks so it only bounced of his jumper. Someone else that he did it to managed to get him in the head with it, and he said it hurt, though, which I found incredibly funny. So yeah. Beware, I telleth thee.

Before you see the pictures, I apologise for the lack of cleanup - I just /knew/ I'd be told to take it off at school so painted it the night before and quickly snapped it before I went to school.

So it's my alltime favourite hot pink (I only have two, but let's overlook that little fact, shall we) over BeautyUK's "Slate". I've always wanted to do a pink and grey look and will probably repeat this one at some point, but neatly.

There's a bit of bonus Konading for you on the middle finger. It's the Miss Sporty brand but I don't think they name their polishes, so it's just the black polish with the blue lid lol.

It needs improvement, but what do you guys think about the colour combination?

Lately, I've been failing so hard at water marbles, but I felt the thumb of this one was passable.

 For a base colour, I painted (from the thumb) Barry M Nail Paint in Cyan Blue, ASOS Paints in Olivia, Blue, Orange, Blue lol. I reversed the order for the other hand (not pictured).
 I also suck at photographing marbles clearly. Sorry about this, y'all.
While I was doing a water marble not so long ago (not this one, the offending marble involved the infamous Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours Yellow nail polish) something interesting happened. A ball of the yellow nail polish sank to the bottom of the plastic cup. I wouldn't have cared but about five minutes later it had actually managed to eat it's way through the cup and there was nail polish filled water /everywhere/. Messy cleanup, that was. Anyone else found anything similar?

This is a black Miss Sporty nail polish with that glitter polish applied over it. Like I mentioned earlier, the upside of dramatically shortened nails is the ability to rock dark colours with impunity. Er, when you're not at school, of course *shifty eyes* I was lucky not to get caught with this lol.
Not to say that longer nails can't wear dark colours. I personally think it looks awesome on both lengths but the general consensus seems to be no? That's what I see in the magazines, anyway. *is ignorant*. I don't know. What do you guys think?

 First, I'd just like to say thank you to Le Vernis Chocolat for the Love Your Blog award!

http://levernischocolat.blogspot.com/2010/04/love-your-blog-award.html

I'm going to tag:

Susie's Home and Hobbies
The Chain Nail
The Gloss Goss
Dr Frankenpolish
Toxic Lipstick

These are all really great blogs!

About the nail polish:

The dismal grossness of the yellow was merely a blip, thank goodness. This black has restored my trust in Miss Sporty.

You see that? This polish, if you play it right, is a one coater - yes, ladies and gentlemen, a one coater for only £2. Still, I did two on most of the fingers just out of habit, I guess. The formula is alright, I guess - could be improved. It's not as good as the Metal Shine formula but is still miles better than that disgusting yellow. It's slightly streaky but that can be gotten around.This is the sort of polish that should be a staple in every broke teenagers make up kit. Perhaps not for school, but hey, isn't black meant to be all fashiony, angsty and edgy all into one? Yeah? Urgh. I really can't stand posers. There are some kids at my school who go around wearing half a stick of eyeliner on their faces, listening to Paramore and Showaddywaddy (yeah, I hadn't heard of them either) and claiming that they're "glam rockers" or something...it's just so ridiculous. Funny, certaintly, but ridiculous. Anyway. I digress. Point is, this is a cool black colour to wear. Warning - is still prone to smudging after a large amount of time has elapsed. Once again the one minute drying thing is just bull.


Not bad, is it? Oh, by the way, this polish is surprisingly good for Konading. So yeah, all in all, I'd buy it again.

*sigh* Do you hear that? It's the collective sigh of, I don't know, a million plus British schoolchildren. School starts up again tommorow. Do you know what that means? It means NO POLISH. Or at least, very subtle polish. So, I'm taking the opportunity to try out this Sally Hansen Miracle Grow/Cure thingymagic that I've just been given, because my nails are all horrible and peely right now :( I've got loads of pictures and swatches stored up for you guys, so don't worry! But yeah, I'll see if I can go this week five days four days, maybe, with a clear polish on to try and give my nails a rest.

Love,

September Lena

What. A. Fail.

Words fail me when I'm trying to describe this disgusting, streaky mess. Urgh. This is the second colour that I bought from Superdrugs and the second one in their Clubbing Colours line that I'm reviewing. After the great things I had to say about Metal Shine I thought this would be similar. Just no.
It seems the trick to these is to do one or two thin-ish coats before a final huge dollop of polish and hope for the best. I painted a thin coat and waited sixty seconds, as promised, for it to dry. What a lie that was. I ran my thumb over it lightly and immediately ruined my manicure. It was tacky on the surface up to ten/fifteen minutes after first application. Clearly their definition of dry is, "sort of feels dry if you run your finger over it really quickly using next to no pressure."
The debate finished at 10 o clock and I went to bed at about twenty to twelve. When I woke up in the morning, there were crease marks on my nails. These were the nails that I painted at 8:30 in the evening. EIGHT. THIRTY.

Oh, and if you wear this without a base coat? Smokers hands. They will be stained the most hideous shade of yellow you have ever seen. I learnt this the hard way.

If this wasn't the only yellow I owned I would have stamped on the bottle in frustration. I should have bought the Barry M one when I had the chance. Grr.

This is a polish from their "Clubbing Colours" line. It was actually not bad to apply.

The Zoya picture is from Polishing the nails!

I think they're pretty close, don't you?
I really like this colour, even though I think it'd probably look better with a lighter skin tone (I feel gold suits me more than silver) but yeah. It did dry pretty quickly, though I don't know whether it was one minute, and only one finger smudged, which I redid. It's day three of wearing it now and it still hasn't chipped - not bad for a £2 polish! Though whether it lives up to it's seven day claim will be interesting. To be honest I don't know if I can keep the same colour seven days straight but I'll have a go :P

The formula on this was actually really good, considering the price. I did two coats and there's barely any visible nail line. It wasn't too thick and it wasn't too runny. All in all, a good buy!

OK. First, the warning -
If you guys remember my post showing my entry for the Lali Amora nail art contest, you'll know that I had Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours Yellow on my thumb. This was a total pain to apply and I got so frustrated that I removed it all and reapplied it - without a basecoat. NEVER do this. My thumb looks like I'm a smoker...not good :P It's stained very, very badly yellow. So DO NOT ever wear Miss Sporty nail polishes without a basecoat. Ever.

haha, warning over. Giveaway time!

Over at Nani's Nails, she's doing a giveaway for SmART nails. It's ending today though, so hurry!
http://nanisnails.blogspot.com/2010/03/smartnails-review-giveaway.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FayMk+%28Nani%27s+Nails%29

Design NO19  looks great!

There's a giveaway here at Emily Loves:
http://emsloves.blogspot.com/2010/04/thank-you-giveaway.html
At Katrina's Nail Blog, she's giving away China Glaze and Art Deco:
http://katrinasnailblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/first-giveaway.html

A seriously generous giveaway at Lauren's Dressing Room:
http://laurensdressingroom.blogspot.com/2010/03/100-followers-gigantic-giveaway-worth.html

At Polished Lyrics, there is Colour Club up for grabs:
http://jesserka.blogspot.com/2010/03/150-followers-giveaway.html

Win an ELF gift card over at Gaby's Beauty Blog!
http://gabysbeautyblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/2nd-giveaway-win-25-elf-gift-card.html

At Street Light Eyes, there are some gorgeous, highly pigmented eyeshadows to be won!
http://streetlight-eyes.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-mini-giveaway.html

At Awful Beautiful Disarray, there is a LOAD of NYX stuff to be had.
http://awfulbeautifuldisarray.blogspot.com/2010/04/giveaway-giveaway-giveaway-d.html

At Obsessively Opposed to the Typical (great name!) you can win around 28 make up goodies!
http://vendettaxx.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-decided-to-do-giveaway.html?showComment=1270454846459_AIe9_BGDnRvQzuo3-e8ot42XPAWs8knDzc8KMF5ckFb-MPwaLkuVOZaUCxlhL8kuwiI4R-ByjnijoArhYoqO6_QHCo9Ds-b1kNVomOLULAEEmRHVJKPh3170HHgrEa20XmgYgZJHpA70NTTN7VvgLUVqLpH8G6XoSHVpvgtYGtTt_uDw_QBDGXdgiW8x_Gta6nd_-xy1tA7RjTtR2qPVVyg-NV_1vUmWphOAur-G03l85BXpK7hCUw4#c563488899361481526

Eliza - Make Up Junkie has a great giveaway going on!
http://eliza-mclellan.blogspot.com/2010/03/following-freebies-100-followers-give.html?showComment=1270521023398_AIe9_BF1VceEiI6uOKLSmHCUh4FtMliHYhnztcb_N_qqCufJUz7fmjmU1JOunmCnm7LNmOgjQ3FvTAB89rJ-_Ei9677NhTFAcvnkWH0NryN-3fZpzf8CaQez4zxhgS2pLklk7cFWyq3XjlFXNmB3aQKvXtkEL_DfLmIjoKXYTFnFI5QbrDiaN6vjTV5ULerV7nl_DbaBXSnYZykWjH_9tng7dryqOJZb6m6gaXnMGjT9S5yt1rpdUCfS-P_IJlCOb4tfRW2po1jw#c3573445303351895970

Over at Bella Sugar Cosmetics, you can win free eyeshadow! Just say your favourite colours and enter! Hurry though - ends on Friday!
http://bellasugarcosmetics.blogspot.com/2010/04/free-eyeshadow.html

At Claire's Nail art, she's also doing a giveaway! Ends 24th of April so you have plenty of time.
http://claireruffin.blogspot.com/2010/04/50-followers-giveaway.html

And at Red Lipstick and Black Liner, you can win a Sleek pallette! Ends 30th of April.
http://redlipstickblackliner.blogspot.com/2010/04/50-follower-giveaway.htmlThat's all so far folks! I'll be back with Miss Sporty Metal Shine swatches in my next post!

I decided to swach some more nail polishes today. This was the Avon "Flash" featured in the previous haul.

I decided to open the Miss Sporty black nail polish I got yesterday and Konad with it.
I personally thought the result wasn't bad! It was a lot more pigmented than I thought it would be and all in all was quite good for stamping with.

Oh wow. So today, (Good Friday) I went to Superdrug, which is a good relatively cheap UK drugstore, similar to Boots (and it's basically the HOME of Barry M, haha). I wanted to get some new polish colours and I knew exactly what I had in mind - Barry M. Headed straight for the cosmetics aisle and scoured the shelves...there it was! All sorts of Barry M goodness. However, the polishes were £2.95 and Miss Sporty were doing a sale on their own colours - (three for two) so instead of getting the Barry M yellow, I bought the Miss Sporty yellow (they looked fairly similar, not dupes but close) and got Barry M Mint Green instead. I was in polish heaven :P The choice was truly mind boggling - there was almost every nail paint there apart from the very new Ice Cream ones for summer! Even the glitters were there! Also, there was all sorts of Rimmel, Maybelline and GOSH. I did look interestedly at the GOSH having seen it featured in some other nail polish blogs - a gorgeous holo silver - but quickly backed away when I saw it was £5. Wtf? I'm a student! Why pay £5 for a limited range of colours when I could get two or even three nice ones for that type of money?

They look so pretty all lined up!


The Miss Sporty brands claim to dry in 60 seconds. I'll have to test that claim.
The black claims to last for up to 7 days. For a cheap nail polish that's really quite good but again, I'll have to see for myself.
 My gorgeous Barry M :)
I have waited so long to own thee.

I've had bad experiences with the Miss Sporty Black in the past - one completely thickened up beyond belief and seized manically after about three years or so. I had to throw the whole bottle away. Still, they've changed the bottle design since then and if the formula has changed to allow it to stay on for 7 days...there's hope. I think it feels better knowing that your colours were cheapass. Bye for now.