Marks and Spencer pasteltastic nail polishes

There's just no escaping the pastel nail trend this year. For me, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I adore how the colours look in the bottles, but they tend to be the polishes that languish unused in my make up box. I did however pick up a couple of bottles in Marks and Spencer recently, at a bargainous £2.50 a pop (though they only contain 8ml - most brands such as Essie or OPI contain at least 14ml, sometimes 16ml).

To be honest I don't normally purchase cheap cosmetics as I miss that thrill you get when buying something extra special and luxurious, and I'm normally quite dubious about the formulations and colour payoff etc - usually with good reason I find! But as I said, they looked so pretty in the bottles (and they're cruelty free)...

The colours were a pastel lilac colour called Pastel, and a pastel mint colour called, let's see, Mint - let's ignore the nonsensical naming for now.

I actually LOVED these colours - don't they look delicious in the pots? Sadly the formula is doo doo. Life is just too short for three coats (think that might be my new mantra). In both pics I'm wearing two coats and you can see its not quite completely opaque. Not only this but application was quite streaky and the polish took ages to dry - an hour after application I got an almighty smudge on my thumb whilst putting on my socks. After having to work quite hard to get a halfway decent coverage (I think they looked just passable in the end), that was the final straw. 

But back to the colours - they really are gorgeous. Pastel is quite retro - more pink than it looks in the tube, sugary and sixties (unfortunately it does clash horribly with my yellow toned skin). 

Mint is the M&S version of Essie's Mint Candy Apple or Chanel Jade - I actually prefer it to both those shades. Mint Candy Apple is a bit more in your face - Mint is softer somehow and very pretty (and don't get me started on the formulation of Mint Candy Apple, gloopy mess!). In fact three of my male co-workers commented on my minty nails today - apparently it's a nice change from usual nail colours! Who knew.

sorry about the claw hands!

(base and top coats by Revlon)

In summary, these are fun, on trend colours at a budget price - and basically you do get what you pay for. Someone who likes experimenting with different colours and doesn't mind a bit of faff to get an even and opaque coverage might get on well with these. But I'd advise you to apply the colour when you're fully dressed and have plenty of time on your hands to let the polish dry!

Anyway if anyone knows of any good quality dupes of these colours (other than Mint Candy Apple obviously) I'd love to hear them.

 I'm also going to review a couple of lipsticks from the same range which I bought a few weeks back too - again, quite passable and good colours but the budget price does reflect the budget formula.