Hema London Haul & Swatches

Hema is a Dutch retail giant that has finally made its way to London! I'm Dutch and whenever I'm back in The Netherlands I visit Hema. It's a store that sells anything from food, office supplies, home decor, kitchen utensils .... pretty much everything really... and of course beauty products! I have tried Hema nail polishes before from a swap I did with a friend in Holland and I really liked everything about them. Now I finally have the change to buy my own!

Hema is an incredibly cheap store, and some have compared it to either Wilkinsons or Poundland. You can buy bags of liquorice for only £1, nail polishes from £2.50, but of course there are also some more expensive things like a set of 2 tea towels is £6. I will be reviewing my 6 nail polishes. The nail polishes start from £2.50, but for different finishes the price can go up. I believe the holographic nail polishes cost £3.75.

First up is a beautiful pale purple lilac colour with hot pink flakie shimmery glitters. The nail polishes don't have names on the bottles but they can be found online. This is number 831 called Irish Lavender. I love light purple colours but am not usually a huge fan of shimmer but this just looked so beautiful! I said it's a flakie shimmer because it's all different sizes and you can see from the macro shot below. The shimmer is very visible in real life and even more visible in the sun.

The formula is a little sheer and I used three coats for the swatch. Both photos are taken in the shade.

The second colour is number 846 called pastel grey. It is a beautiful pastel grey... figures! It also has very very subtle silver shimmer which you can only really see in the sunlight. It's a gorgeous colour on its own, I've recently really started to fall in love with greys! But the shimmer makes it incredibly unique. Unlike the shimmer in the above polish, this is very fine and all the same size as shown in the photo below.

The formula was much more opaque on this one and I applied two coats for the swatch. Both photos are taken in the shade.

The third nail polish is a colour I thought I'd NEVER go for. This is 802 Fuchsia a bright hot pink packed with shimmer making it a bit pearly. I don't like pearl or frost finishes, but for some reason this really intrigued me. Luckily Hema has testers in the store so I was able to try it before buying it and there was just something amazing about it. After doing a full swatch I'm happy I bought it.

I applied two coats for the swatch. Although it looks like you can see brush strokes, in real life it's all even and not brush stroke-y. Both photos are taken in the shade.

The final two polishes are both holographic and they are.... AMAZING. That's the second time I've used full on caps. That's how excited I am about these polishes. This is number 52 Holographic Copper. I've been looking for a nude holographic colour and this is just beautiful. My middle finger nail is quite ridged, so that's my nail not the polish! Anyway this is just the most holographic polish I've ever used. I'll let the photos do the talking.

I used two coats for the swatch. The first two photos are in the sun, the third in the shade and the macro in the sun.

Look at that holo!! This is unedited!!

Even in the shade you can see the holo goodness.

The last polish is .. just... ah... I don't even know where to begin. It's beautiful. This is 54 Holographic Pink. This is another colour I've wanted for ages and I was going to buy the colour club one but I'm so happy I picked this up instead. It's so amazing and SO holographic!!

I used two coats for the swatch. The first 2 photos are in the sun, the third and the macro are taken in the shade.

I thought the previous colour was intensely holographic, until I tried this one! Again it's unedited in the sun. Beautiful.

The holographic in the shade.

I'm so impressed with the nail polishes from Hema. They're so cheap but incredible quality. These colours are all very unique in my collection. They also have a lot of creme finishes without the shimmer and glitter top coats.

Tomorrow the new Kingston store opens and I can't wait! It's supposed to be much larger than the one at Victoria Station. Luckily it's a very cheap store because I have a feeling I'll go a bit crazy in the liquorice and nail polish sections...

Have you tried any of the Hema polishes? Which ones would you recommend?

xx Elaine