Tuesday 25 February 2014

My First Tri Polish Tuesday

So a few days ago I was looking around for nail challenges to take part in, without having to do my nails quite every day! I found Crumpets Nail Tarts on Facebook and their challenges: GOT challenge and Tri Polish Tuesdays. Although I have a few old polishes, I only got really into having fancy nails in the past year so I don't have enough to use old ones regularly. But I thought the Tri Polish Tuesday Challenge sounded good, and it allows me to do whatever design I want. I know it's the last Tuesday of the month, but I decided to have a go this week, so here's my entry:





I've never done any sort of Aztec design before, but wanted to have a go. And I thought these colours lent themselves quite nicely to it. I don't like it though. Not sure if its the colours, the design, or just that I need more practice for it to look anything like, but I'm not a fan!
Anyway, the polishes I used were Revlon Stormy, as the brown/nude base colour, Sally Hansen Pinch of Punch for the pink stripes and a Boots 17 polish which is unnamed, but is a dark metallic grey/silver. I also used some black striping tape and finished it with a matte top coat.
I'm really not sure. I like the idea of aztec nails, I just can't do them!! Maybe I need a stamping plate design so the hard bit is done for me!!!

Monday 24 February 2014

Keeping it Simple

Today I have a very quick, simple post of my very quick, simple nails!


This is two coats of Rimmel Urban Purple, followed by a coat of Step 1 from the Kiss Graduating Polishes (Set EL1228), which is a mix of tiny pieces of pink and silver glitters.
I love this as a topcoat, its so sparkly! And the way this has been captured in this picture is amazing (and it's not edited to be like this!).

Friday 21 February 2014

Dandelions

So today I've got an old mani for you. This one's from the beginning of January, it was very cute but I'm afraid I only have one good picture, so it's going to be a short but sweet post today!
Here it is:



This is the Maybelline Dark Denim polish #630, then I used Barry M Matt White to stamp the dandelions, using the MoYou Pro Plate #04. The colour is much closer to the top picture in real life, but I wanted to include the zoomed version as it shows the stamping so much clearer. :)

My nails are such a perfect length on this picture, I wish they could always be this long and never snap!!

Thursday 20 February 2014

Still on a Valentines Theme!

I had some cute heart Nail Tattoos that I've had forever but hardly used so I thought I'd make the most of it still being valentines week and go for another heart themed nail!! (Excuse the upside-down picture!)


I also bought two more new polishes the other day, again from Poundland (I'm beginning to spend way too much time in there!) and wanted to try at least one of them out.

These are the latest buys. Revlon Top Speed, in Infamous which is a nice bright coral colour; and Stormy, which I haven't tried yet, but looks to be a pale brown/nude.


So I did a base of Infamous, 2 coats. Stuck on nail tattoos, one on each hand, then painted a feature nail with Barry M Black Multi Glitter. I love this black polish, the glitter just makes it a little bit less bold than a plain black and its pretty and sparkly! I then did a topcoat of Barry M Crystal Glaze, which can't really be seen on the picture. I've never used this before and thought it would add a bit of sparkle to my nails, but to be honest I could barely see it. It would deffo need a second coat and as its a pale pink polish might be better over a different coloured base. This was disappointing as I absolutely love how it looks in the bottle, it's so pretty!

I love the colour of Infamous, but to say it is called 'Top Speed' I found it didn't dry very quickly!
I did these nails in the morning right before uni and thought I wouldn't have to wait very long for them to dry, but I wouldn't say they dried and quicker than my usual Barry M! It is also an exact match in colour to the Rimmel Coralicious (I literally just painted half my thumb to test how close they are, I can't tell the difference at all.), but the Rimmel is a 60 seconds one and dries much faster!
I would say if you like the colour and are considering buying one of these, go for the Rimmel: It dries faster, only needs one coat and has one of those really nice, flat brushes!

Sunday 16 February 2014

Valentines Nails

I'm sure everyone agrees, Valentines day is the perfect time to make your nails so pretty! And there's so many cute patterns and colours you can use for that gorgeous girly look!

Here are my Valentines Nails for this year:



To do these I used Barry M, Matt White as the base coat and Rimmel's Urban Purple for the stamping. For the stamps I use MoYou's Mother Nature Landscape Plate 01 and Princess Collection 08.

I think these are really cute! It's not very often I have different patterns on each nail as I tend to think it looks too busy, but I really like this combination of patterns together.

Sunday 9 February 2014

Silk Stripes

Today I bought one of the new Barry M Silk polishes in Heather. It's such a cute colour I got excited and painted my nails straight away. Then realised I had no plans what else I was going to do with it to make my nails pretty! So I had to find something I could do after I had already painted them! And something I could do quick, as I've had so much work to do this weekend!
This is how they ended up:





I used some blue striping tape to make stripes on one nail on each hand. Then I thought, wouldn't it look better if they were actually stripes. So I used Revlons Chroma Chameleon in Aquamarine which is almost the exact same colour as the tape and filled in alternate stripes. I then painted one more finger on each hand in this colour, so it was a little less random! 

I actually really like this. Nice and simple, without being just plain boring. I really like these two colours together too.

The Silk polish is quite thin and pale. I had to use 3 coats to get a nice even coverage and it is still a really light colour. It has a nice sheen to it though.

Monday 3 February 2014

Magnetic Nails

Today I thought I'd try my new Sally Hansen magnetic polish in Cosmic Blue.


I've never used a magnetic polish before and when I was putting it on I was very disappointed to see that rather than 'Cosmic Blue', it was a boring grey colour. However, I carried on and when I put the magnet over my nails I was pleased to see they turned a lovely deep blue. All the grey moved into lines and they had quite a cool 3D effect. This was really hard to photograph well but here are a few that show the effect (Typically, the best photo to show the effect and colour is slightly blurred!).



I'm not sure about this look. It's really good considering how quick and easy it is to do, so perfect if you're in a rush but want something a bit more than just a plain colour. But I find it a bit boring compared to my usual nail art and am not sure how much use I will get from this. Maybe I just need to find a more interestingly patterned magnet!
Or it could look quite cool with some nail art over maybe. That might be something to try!

Sunday 2 February 2014

Bargain Haul!

So, for those who don't know, Poundland have had a whole load of branded nail polishes in recently. Get down there, quick! Who can resist Sally Hansen, Revlon, Rimmel and Maybelline for £1 each?!

So I made a trip to see what colours they had out today.
This is what I bought:



  • Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Sweetie, which is a textured polish. I've never used textured polishes before so am interested to use this. Not sure I'll like it, I love the feeling of nice smooth nails. Such a cute colour though!



  • Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Kiwi Bikini. I love the colour of this! I've also been looking for a nice shade of green to use as leaves when I paint flowers so this is perfect!



  • Sally Hansen Magnetic in Cosmic Blue. Again, I haven't used a magnetic polish before so am excited to see what interesting patterns can be created.



  • And last, I got a matte topcoat. I love the look of matte nails but have never tried them before, so when I saw this for £1 in Primark I had to buy it. And it doesn't matter if I hate it as it was only £1!

Such a bargain day! 4 new polishes for a grand total of £4!!

Oh and here are all the polishes I have got from Poundland in the past month!! Such a bargain I can't resist buying them! 5 Sally Hansen, 1 Maybelline and 1 Revlon! :)


Roses and dots

These are my nails at the moment...


A bit of freehand nail art.
I think I prefer how they were before I added the dots. More simple and chic. But once those dots were there it was too late! Maybe I'll try these again sometime, without the dots.


 The polishes I used were, Barry M Blueberry for the base colour, Sally Hansen Pinch of Punch (Pink) and Red Hot (Red) for the roses and Barry M Matte White for the details of the roses and the dots.


And here are a few more pictures...
(Excuse the bad light! Some of the pictures were taken when I painted them, when the light was good, others were taken just now. These are not so good 1. because its getting dark out so there is no natural light 2. my nails have been like this 6 days now and are starting to chip and wear at the edges!)




These have got to be one of my all time favourite nail designs! So pretty!

Saturday 1 February 2014

Hello!

Hello anybody who is reading this and welcome to Nails Must Be Painted!

As anyone who knows me knows, I have a slight obsession with my nails and love them to look pretty and to always be painted!
I'm forever posting pictures to Facebook of my nails, so instead of annoying everyone on there I thought I'd set up a blog for my nails instead :) That way those who want to see them can follow me and see them regularly, without me annoying the rest of my Facebook friends!

I have quite a backlog of pretty nails photo's so might be posting a few of those on here as well as new ones as I do them.

Enjoy! And Follow Me!