Kitsch Floral Nail Art

Tonight I have painted my mums nails rather than my own.
She wanted Cath Kidston style roses and dots, so that's what she got!

I very rarely paint anyone else's nails and it felt very strange, but we were both very happy with how they turned out. :)

The polishes I used were Ciate Ferris Wheel as the base colour. Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare and Sally Hansen Wine Not for the pink roses. Sally Hansen Grape Race and Sally Hansen Plum Luck for the purple roses. I then added dots with Barry M Matte White and we finished with a clear UV gel polish to make it last as long as possible!

This is very similar to one of the first pieces of nail art I did, which you can see here and I have definitely improved!

Black Swan

This weeks Llama Nails Challenge prompt is Thriller Movies/Books.

 I found this prompt really really hard! Thriller's are not my thing, at all!! After trawling through IMDB's top 100 Thriller's I finally found a film I had actually seen at number 80!! Black Swan.

Although it took a while to get there, I actually really like this mani. I tried to show the progression of the transformation from white to black swan. Not sure how well I did that, but I still really like it!

I used quite a few polishes in this mani so I'm just going to list them below:

• Sinful Colors Cool Gray
• Barry M Matt White
• Barry M Black
• Rimmel Cupcake Pink
• Rimmel Golden Hour
• Rimmel Red, Steady, Go.

The feathers on my middle finger are water decals from the Born Pretty Store.

I'm really enjoying this challenge, it always makes me think carefully about what to do and I actually spend a lot of time on the mani's for it, rather than just rushing something!

An InLinkz Link-up

Sinful Colors: Savage

Anyone who follows my Facebook or Instagram will know that a few days ago I bought a new polish... Sinful Colors in the colour Savage which is a turquoise greeny colour.

I love the colour of this in the bottle and was excited to put it on my nails!

This is two coats.

But I got a shock when I put it on to find it was a matt polish. Why would they have no indication of this on bottle?! So strange! I don't own any other matt polishes as I always think if I want it matt, I will use a matt topcoat! I do prefer the colour of the polish in matt though. When I put topcoat on it seemed much greener.

As always, I added some nail art on top of this. I really wanted to try a tribal/aztec type design as I thought the colour lent itself to this, but at the same time I really didn't as my only ever previous attempt at this type of art was horrendously bad! If you REALLY want to you can see it here. But I'd really rather you didn't!!

So I decided to have a go but to try and keep it fairly simple and this is how it turned out! I used white acrylic paint for the pattern.

I actually quite like it. My lines are fairly straight and its not too busy! My right hand is not appearing today as I discovered I can't paint straight lines left handed! Although, I still think it's better than the previous attempt!!

I did try to add some glitter  to the stripes on one nail using Pretty Scatter effect polish, which I wish I hadn't done but apart from that I am pleased with it!

A little girl at the school I work at today told me my thumb and little finger looked like they had Christmas tree's on them!! I can see where she was coming from but no, they are not christmas trees!!

Chinese Lilac Flower

A few days ago I did a mani for a challenge post, which has yet to be posted...
When I was taking it off, I loved my middle finger so much that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it, so instead I incorporated it into a new mani, which is this one:

When I first painted this nail my boyfriend didn't believe I had painted it myself! He was convinced it was a decal and refused to believe me for ages!!

For my middle finger I used a base colour of Barry M Silk in Heather. I then painted the flowers using Barry M Matt White, Sally Hansen Grape Race, Missguided Missmatch and Sally Hansen Kiwi Bikini for the leaves.

On the rest of the fingers I sponged a purple-white gradient using Sally Hansen Grape Race, Barry M Silk Heather and Barry M Matt White.

I really really liked this mani and would quite happily have kept it on much longer than I did!!

MUA Luxe: Luna

Today I bought the new MUA Luxe polish in Luna. My previous experiences with MUA have not been great, but I couldn't resist buying one to try as they looked so pretty!!

This is a glitter polish with hexagonal pieces in blue, white and lilac, glitter bars in black and white and very tiny, fine blue holographic glitter pieces.

This was the finished result. I swatched it on several different colours, to compare how it looked best and to ensure all the colour were visible on at least one of them!!

However, although the finished result was good, this is how it looked after one coat:

Not great. I applied a thin layer, but the glitter seems to stick to the brush. I found that the best way to apply was to not wipe the brush on the side of the bottle, just use it straight out. This meant that the polish was extremely thick and took an awful long time to dry. But, this is also the way to get the glitter!!

I do like the finished look of this polish but it has certainly not changed my thoughts about the quality (or lack of!) of MUA polishes.

I also took close-up photo's of the individual nails to make it easier to compare how it shows up on different coloured bases. It stands out the most on the grey and pale blue nails. The base polishes I used were: No Polish, just base coat, Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, Barry M Silk Heather, Sinful Colours Cool Grey and Barry M Matt White.

Glitter, Glitter and More Glitter!!

So, I went a little overboard on the glitter today!! Used 4 different glitter polishes!

My mani is also different on each hand, as I got a bit carried away experimenting, but nevermind! 

So this is how I started out, on my left hand. I used a base colour of Sally Hansen Fucshia Flare. On most fingers this was followed by a coat of Pretty, Pink Polka Dot, which is a clear base with pink small and large hexagonal glitter. On my Index finger I tried to create a sort of glitter jelly sandwich! I did a coat of Pretty Scatter Effect, followed by a coat of Pretty Polka Dot Effect, followed by another coat of Scatter Effect!

I love how this finger turned out! 

 I then topped the whole thing with another glitter - Barry M Diamond.
Before doing my right hand I realised how similar the Pretty Scatter Polish looks to Barry M's White Sequin Effect Polish.

So of course, I had to test them out next to each other for a proper comparison. I haven't used the Barry M polish before, so can't compare with old pics! 

Turns out they are nothing like each other!! I hadn't realised the Barry M polish was textured. It was also more opaque than I expected and the overall outcome was not very nice!!

I removed all polish from that finger and started again. This time doing just 2 coats of the Barry M, without a base colour. It looks much better like this, but I'm still not keen on the texture. I'm just not a lover of textured polish in general.

Once again, I finished with a coat of Barry M Diamond.

Here are your left to right comparisons:

I think I actually prefer my right hand. Which do you prefer?

I seem to have waffled on an awful lot in this post today. Sorry about that, and well done if you made it this far!!!

Beautiful Bows

A little while ago now I got a bit stuck for nail inspiration. As a result I joined lots of challenge groups, so I always had a theme and a starting point for my nail art.

Although I love these groups and participating each week, recently I have been feeling limited by these themes, as though they are stopping me from doing what I want! So I've decided to stop taking part in those so much, although not completely, and start doing my own thing more often! :)

This is my own thing!! Lots of pink and girly-ness!

This is 3 coats of Rimmel's Cupcake Pink which is a lovely pearl effect polish. I then painted the bow using Rimmel Urban Purple and some black acrylic paint. On my ring finger I used a Kiss pink glitter polish topcoat.

I love these!! I don't remember the last time I had such feminine nails! They remind me of being a child and candyfloss and they make me feel a little happy inside each time I look at them. I know, I'm sad!

ImPRESS Nails

I love nail art on my real nails and don't think I have ever worn false nails before.
But for Christmas last year I was given a set of imPRESS nails, which look like this except mine are a different pattern.

They have been sat around in my nail box for a while as
1. I just don't do false nails and
2. They were 'short' sized and generally my nails have been longer than them!
Also, I just expected them to be bad so I didn't want to wear them!

When I got back from Kenya, I cut all my nails right down, as they were very dirty!
So I've taken the opportunity whilst my nails are short to put them on.

I was really surprised with how good they are! The idea is that they are already sticky, so you don't need glue. This meant they literally took 2 minutes to put on, with no drying time. Although, I had a slight issue pulling the sticky back off once I had the first few nails on, I had to get my bf to do that for me!

You get 24 nails in a pack, so there are plenty to choose from to find the perfect sizes.

I expected them to only last a day or two, as I'm always busy and always using my hands. So far I have had them on for 5 days and there's no signs of them coming off anytime soon or any damage to them, they are still as there were when I put them on!

My biggest issue is that I'm having nail polish withdrawals!!! I feel like I need to paint my nails, but don't want to pull these off when they're still in such good condition! I'm just hoping that when they do come off they cause no harm to my own nails.

Feather Effect Pretty Polish

A few weeks ago I reviewed this glitter 'pretty' polish from Poundland. I was surprisingly impressed with the results and wanted to try more of their polishes.

So I bought two more:

• The first is a purple feather effect polish, with long pieces of purple, white and silver glitter.
• The second is a scatter effect polish. A white base with blue, pink and red pieces of glitter in.

First, I tried the feather effect polish. I used a Barry M Matt White base coat on the thumb, middle and little fingers. On the ring and index fingers I used Sally Hansen Grape Race. I then painted the feather effect onto just two of my nails. 

The first picture is the most true to colour. This mani was incredibly hard to photograph to get the full effect of the polish. Again, I was impressed with this polish, considering what it costs. It was easy to apply, with a nice even spread of the feather pieces. The different coloured pieces within it created a pretty effect, which seemed less flat, as they were not all the same. I used two coats to get a nice, thick coverage of the feathers, but I think this would look even better with more coats. The only downside of this polish was drying time. It took an awfully long time to dry compared with most polishes. Even once it was touch dry, it was still extremely easy to smudge for a long time afterwards. I ended up making a complete mess of my left hand!

Overall, I am again impressed with the 'pretty' polishes and will definitely consider buying more.

Pretty Poundland Nail Polish

So, for a while I have been buying the likes of Sally Hansen, Revlon and Rimmel nail polishes from Poundland. Every time I go in there I wonder what their own brand polishes are like, (which are called 'Pretty') but I never bother buying them as I would rather get ones I know will be good! So, as part of my birthday present my bf bought me this gorgeous looking pink glitter topcoat to try.

I have to admit, I didn't have high expectations but I was actually pleasantly surprised!!

It goes on reasonably easily, although a little fishing was required to find the larger pieces of glitter, and  didn't clump together. I was most impressed with the finish. I have had cheap glitters before that dry really rough, where the glitter sticks out of the polish, but this didn't happen. It dried with a nice, smooth finish, almost like a gel. Smooth enough I didn't need a topcoat (And that's something from me, who hates non-smooth nails!!). This meant it easily survived my shower and hair washing, which is always the challenge for glitter, when little strands of hair get stuck underneath!! It did take quite a while to dry though. The first hand I ended up smudging whilst trying to photograph them, and having to do again! (So excuse any pictures where it looks a bit dodgy!!)

                             

It has definitely made me want to buy some more of their polishes to try out. This is just a topcoat, so It will be more difficult to see how it lasts, but I am considering buying just one or two colour polishes to try.

The colours I used were Barry M Matt White, as a base for the glitter, and Rimmel Purple Pulse. I love this mani.. Just enough glitter to be pretty, without being OTT!

 Has anyone else tried the Poundland 'Pretty' polishes? What did you think of them?

Born Pretty Haul

A few weeks ago I first came across the Born Pretty store. I had heard of this before but never actually though to look at it. Boy, have I been missing out!!
I could not believe how cheap you can get things on there, so I went a little crazy!!

I absolutely love my MoYou stamping plates and have been thinking of getting some more for a while, but I can't afford to spend £5 on one plate at the moment. So I was amazed to see that I could get plates for approx £1!! I got a little over excited and bought 6! Hopefully they will be as good as MoYou's.

I also invested in some water decals. I have never used these before but they looked so pretty, I couldn't resist buying some, so I got 3 packs of them. Two sets of flowery ones and a set of feathers. Hopefully they will be easy to use and last well, but we'll see!

I haven't had chance to use any of these yet as they just arrived, but I'm sure they will be featuring again on my blog soon! The only downfall of this website is the time things take to come. It took exactly 4 weeks between ordering and arriving. Not that you can complain when delivery is free, but I was starting to worry they would not arrive! I will definitely be ordering from here again though, probably soon!!