Seventeen Rock Hard Couture Nail Effects

Greetings All!

I hope you are all having a good weekend! Yesterday I bought Animal Crossing New Leaf for the 3DS, so I've been spending a lot of time playing that. So much so, it's even distracting me from my nails!

Today I have two textured polishes, a trend that shows no sign of dying down any time soon. It seems every brand has their own take on it, not that I'm complaining! I saw these polishes in Boots a couple of weeks ago, but it was only once I saw swatches of them that I decided to get a couple. So far I've mostly stayed away from the Liquid Sand/ Pixie Dust/ glittery texture, and stuck with the 'plain' colours, but I'm starting to think that might have been a mistake! These are kind of in between - they're less glittery than the Liquid Sands, but much more sparkly than my leather effects!

Charm Bracelet is a sparkly mix of golds, with a very textured finish. This is 2 coats.

This one is so beautiful! It looks like someone has ground up precious metals, then sprinkled them on my nails. I love the colour and I love the effect, which is pretty gritty. Two coats of topcoat still left me with some texture so you could tone the effect down a bit, without losing it completely.

Celestial Pearl is very pale, just off white, with lots of iridescent textured sparkle. Again, 2 coats.

I had a couple of problems with this one. It's a little bit patchy (I maybe should have used a third coat), and although I used 2 medium coats on each nail, my index finger refused to dry! It was a lot smoother than the others. You also don't really see the iridescence in these pictures, but it's there, I promise! It's nice enough, very Wintry, and I'll probably use it for some snowy nail art. I don't think I would wear it plain though, unlike Charm Bracelet.

You can buy Seventeen polishes from Boots. The Couture Nail Effects are £3.99 each.

Spoooky Nail Haul!

Greetings All!

In case you hadn't noticed, I love Halloween. I've been planning all year to save up for Halloween polishes. Unfortunately Royal Mail must have heard of my plans, and so have decided we can't get nail polish sent from abroad!! Just in time to ruin all my plans!

Not completely though. UK Indies to the rescue! TarasTalons is already releasing Halloween polishes, so I went a little bit crazy!

Aren't these bags perfect? Ignore the £1.99 Beauty UK label - I bought a display stand from a charity shop for 10p, and I'm in the process of redecorating it!

Pumpkin glitter!!!

I'm sorry for the pictures, my camera would not co-operate with me at all! You'll be seeing swatches of all of these by Halloween though!

Tara has already released three Halloween collections (although I've snagged all the best ones!), and one collection you even get to name the polishes yourself. Points to anyone who can spot the ones I named (there are 6)!

Relaxed 31DC Week 30 - (Not) Inspired By A Tutorial

Greetings All!

I'm so close to finishing this challenge! It's been 30 weeks since I started, which feels like such a long time, but at the same time it's flown by!

I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm changing the order slightly. My nails for today turned into a epic disaster, so I'll be redoing them for next week. This week I'll be recreating my favourite instead.

I feel a bit bad for redoing my favourite, and not someone else's, but after so many weeks, I couldn't face trawling through the archives to find them all! And this manicure is my very favourite! Any guesses?

Of course it's bats from last week (inspired by the supernatural)!

I love this stamp so much, I can't even tell you! This time I went for black and red, and it's just perfect (to me)! I've really been enjoying black and red together lately (OK, always), and I was so sad to take this off!

The base is Sally Hansen Right Said Red, stamped with Konad Black and Cheeky Jumbo Plate 6, Happy Holidays.

Next week I promise I'll be inspired by a tutorial! I might have to find a new one though, because the one I used did not work for me at all! It's a shame, because this was always going to turn out brilliant, or awful.

Like A Rhinestone Peacock

Greetings All!

Today I have something a little bit different. Well, not hugely different, but a little bit unusual for me. This is one of those manicures that just sort of evolved by itself.

I started with Barry M Red Black, one of my untrieds. I seem to have quite a few blackened reds, but I like them! They combine both my favourites, black and red. I then searched for an image to stamp on it, and settled on the peacock image from Pueen09, and stamped with 2true Metallica in Areta. I though it would be fun to have peacock nails, but in un-peacock colours, if that makes sense. It was still missing something, so for the first time in a long time I decided to break out the rhinestones!

I added a small one to each finger as a little detail on the feather, but it still wasn't enough. I added one big one as an accent, and called it a day. I'm not really one for rhinestones - I'm a picker, so they never last long!  I'm also 50/50 on whether they look cute or tacky. I guess it depends on the manicure! I have however recently bought some fabulous 3D nail art bits from TarasTalons, because she doesn't just do nail polish! She also sells all kinds of nail art bits., and I got myself a fantastic selection - roses, bows, gold and silver foil, as well as little 3D food items that are so darn cute! I do want to use them soon, and rhinestones seem like a good way to ease myself into 3D nail art.

Tri Polish Challenge September 2013 - Manicure 2

Greetings All!

I think this month's colour choices are probably my favourite yet. I was originally going to use all pastels, but I've had problems before with light blue and lilac looking too similar. I'm really enjoying these three polishes together though.

Here is a reminder of the polishes I'm using to represent lilac, pink and blue.

Essie Lights, Barry M Gelly in Prickly Pear and Sally Hansen Model Behaviour.

I'm also happy with how all four manicures 'match' - I could use them all in a skittle, and it wouldn't look too weird!

I really want to practice my pinstripe nails, as I love the look of them! The technique itself is easy enough, if a bit fiddly. What I need to practice more is getting the lines all completely even and straight. These aren't perfect, but it's only the second time I've tried pinstripe, so I'm not too annoyed at myself!

I also wanted to mention that next week I'll be taking part in another challenge! The Crumpet's 33DC will be running three days a week for the next 11 weeks, starting on Monday! If you want to join in with this or the TPC, you can do so here.

Here's a little look at the challenge themes!

There are some really interesting themes, although some I'll probably struggle with!

Net Curtain Nails

Greetings All!

In my quest to get through all my untried polishes and stamping plates, I've been coming up with some slightly weird combinations! Like today's manicure, which just reminds me so much of net curtains! I'd like to say a pretty lace doily or something, but that's the image that's stuck in my head.

The base is Bourjois Beige Glamour, and I stamped with Konad White and Pueen02.

Darling Diva Polish Lucky Star

Greetings All!

It's no secret that I love star shaped glitter. I was therefore very fortunate to snag this polish from a nail sale from Facebook. It's previous owner is none other than The Crumpet! It actually has a lot of elements that I love - star shaped glitter, some of which are black, and it glows in the dark. I love glow in the dark things generally, and now I own several polishes that do too!

Although this is in a white base, it's very sheer so I definitely needed a white base. I'm also planning on experimenting with other colours, such as light pink or nude. These swatches are 2 coats over white.

I love this, it's so cute and starry! Although it's quite neon, the pale base mutes it down ever so slightly. I didn't have any trouble finding plenty of stars, which I'm very happy about! And of course I love the blue glow in the dark effect! There was no way my camera was going to let me capture that, I didn't even try! But Wishes of a Blue Eyed Girl has excellent pictures of both it's glow in the dark and black light capabilities!


What's your favourite shape of glitter?

Tri Polish Challenge September 2013 - Manicure 1

Greetings All!

It's that time of the month again already! Tri Polish Challenge time! I'm sure you all know the rules by now - to create four manicures using three polishes representing three pre-determined colours. If you would like to join in, you can do so here. This month the colours are lilac, pink and blue. Here are the polishes I will be using this month:

Essie Lights, Barry M Gelly in Prickly Pear, and Sally Hansen Model Behaviour

I do prefer it when all my polishes are from the same brand, so they 'match', but never mind!

And here is my first manicure.

I've used a lot of matte topcoat for this month's challenge. These colours together remind me of sweets, like sugared almonds, so all but one manicure has been matted (and only because I forgot to do one!).

Poundland Polka Dot

Greetings All!

I saw this polish in my local Poundland a couple of weeks ago. It's by a brand called Pretty, and it's called Polka Dot polish. Pretty have quite a big range in my local pound shops with various trends - matte polish, scented polish, little flocking  and caviar kits, nail art bits. I was intrigued by this one (and also matte polish), and you think for a Pound, it isn't the end of the world if it's totally rubbish!

This polish isn't amazing. It smells really strongly, and it's a little bit thick. However that thick base helps the glitters lie more smoothly, it dries fairly quickly, and it isn't too difficult to get the glitter on your nail, which it often can be with cheap polishes. It's a mix of black hexes and smaller black glitter.

This is 2 coats over a bright red Bourjois.

It isn't too bad at all! In fact I quite like it! It looks a little similar to Nubar Black Polka Dot, but the budget version. The hexes look a bit taco-y, but they did lie flat on the nail. I'm kicking myself that I didn't try it matte, especially as I've been mattifying a lot lately.

I do get a lot of Revlon and Sally Hansen from Poundland, so this isn't the best value polish or anything, but for a quid, I like it! I'll be trying more from their range in future (I was going to try a scented one, but it doesn't say what they are supposed to smell of, which is a little disconcerting!)

Models Own Velvet Goth Collection

Greetings All!

I've had these swatches ready for over a week, as I was very excited about this collection. It ticks so many boxes for me. Matte, glitter, jelly, dark colours, goth in the title - how could I go wrong?!

I'm aware that this post could become very long, so I'm just going to dive straight in, and try and keep the waffling to a minimum!

Stamping With 2true Metallica - Aglaia

Greetings All!

This is my last post stamping with the 2true metallics. OK, that isn't quite true. I will be using them again in the future, because they stamp really well! I have a separate area for polishes that stamp that I only use for stamping - my Konads, a few Sally Hansen Insta Dris, these, Barry M Foils, and Barry M Gelly in Plum, because it's a bit dark as a polish, but a perfect purple when stamping! All my other polishes that stamp are mixed in with the main collection in my two helmers. I guess that's why I mainly use the same few colours for stamping - easy access. I need to 'mark' my bottles in some way, so I can remember which ones stamp! It also just occurred to me that I have the Color Club Foiled collection untried (thank you TK Maxx!), and I've heard that they're quite good for stamping. A girl can never have too many polishes. That stamp.

Anyway, today I'm showing you Aglaia, a metallic tealy green.

It in't quite as vivid as in the bottle, and of the five it stamped the least well, but that may very well be my fault. I pretend to be good sometimes but I'm still quite an amateur stamper, so the slight patchiness isn't necessarily a reflection on the polish. I stamped Pueen33 over Essie Don't Sweater It. I thought that it would look more...natural, green and brown together. It's a bit washed out though.

You can buy 2true polishes in Superdrug. The Metallica range are £4 each.