31DC: Tape Mani

The prompt for day 2 is 'tape mani'.
I do love tape nail art, but very rarely have success doing them myself. However, I think today's was one of my more successful attempts and I really like how it turned out. :)

I used two Colour Couture polishes, which I got as part of a Christmas present: Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Are You Afraid of the Dark?.

I love the black polish, it has the perfect hint of gold shimmer.

12 Days of Christmas: Christmas Trees

Today's prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge is Christmas Trees.

I started out intended on a really simple mani for this one. Then I kept adding to it, though I'm not sure if I was improving it or making it worse! I took photo's at each stage anyway, so you can decide for yourself! I think my favourite is the second one.

I started with a base coat of OPI AmazON... AmazOFF on most fingers and a PS by Primark unnamed Gold polish on my ring finger and thumb. I used striping tape to create the shape of the tree on my ring finger and added a small star stud from Poundland. 

Then I decided it needed more glitter, so I added one coat of Ciaté Party Shoes and one coat of Barry M Starlight, both on my Index finger.

Next I felt the actual tree was missing some glitter/decoration. I remembered I had some caviar beads I had never used before aptly named 'Christmas Tree Caviar' by Ciaté, so went about creating a string of beads on the christmas tree. This is where I ruined it I think. It's just a bit too much!

Which is your favourite stage of this mani?


Check out the other entries to this challenge below:

An InLinkz Link-up

Autumn Days

Today I have an autumnal mani to show you.
 I have been planning this one a while but was awaiting the arrival of the leaves from the Born Pretty Store which took two months to arrive. Hence, this is not really seasonal anymore!

The above photo was taken in natural light and is a lot more colour accurate. The below photo was taken under my new LED lamp, which is a lot better than photographing under my 'normal' lights, but still not great. I am contemplating making another light box.

Anyway, I was going for a 'leaves blowing in the wind' look for this. I quite like how it came out, though it's not quite as I envisioned it would be! My pinky was supposed to be the pile of leaves, then the other fingers showing them blowing away, with the swirly lines representing the wind.

I used Jess polish in Innocence for the background. The swirls were Sinful Colors Nirvana and an unnamed gold PS by Primark polish. The gold leaves were from the Born Pretty Store.

You can get 10% off these leaves and anything else on the Born Pretty Store with my discount code: EHG10.

Firework Inspired Nails

Here is a very quick post to show you my nails for Bonfire Night.
I didn't have much time so it had to be something simple, so I opted for a bit of glitter to represent fireworks! :)

Excuse the poor quality picture from my Instagram (Follow me @nailsmustbepainted). I have been very busy!

The base colour is Nails Inc Wigmore Street, a very deep purple which was free with Glamour magazine. I then sponged On Rimmel Space Dust in Aurora, followed by Ciaté Party Shoes, for lots of glittery goodness! This looks much better than the picture!

Although this mani is super simple and took me about 5 minutes to do I really like it! The colours contrast nicely and the glitter creates a very firework-y feel.

Pretty Poppet: Review and Swatch

Last week I picked up the Ciaté Dolls House Collection in TKMaxx for the bargain price of £6.99.

I was super excited about these and wanted to try out these polishes straight away, so I started with a nice, simple mani using Poppet, a pastel lilac shape.

I love the colour of this polish. It is a pale lilac, so pastel it could almost be mistaken for white in certain lights. 

This polish is advertised as a 'porcelain finish'. Basically, it's matte. I love matte polishes, however this dries so fast that is makes application difficult as the polish has dried onto the brush before you manage to cover the whole nail. This means you have to use a really thick coat to ensure the polish doesn't dry too quickly, which then leads to a slightly streaky finish. Kind of a lose, lose situation!

I also found that this polish chipped so easily. On my left hand I wore the mani without topcoat and on my right hand I added my favourite super shiny Essence topcoat.

Considering my right hand generally gets used a lot more, after a day the right hand was still perfect, however the left hand had huge chunks of polish missing. The polish on my index finger literally peeled off in one big sheet, about 3/4 of the way down my nail.

For most polishes this would not be a big deal, as I would usually wear topcoat anyway. But what is the point in having that lovely Porcelain finish, if I then have to cover it in topcoat to make my mani last more than a few hours?!

Overall, I was not impressed with this polish at all. I love how it looks but the poor application and lasting power really let it down. I really hope the others in the collection are a bit better and this was just a bad bottle!

I was however really impressed with the studs I added. This were a bargain from Poundland. I used a blob of a cheap No.17 clear topcoat on the bottoms of them and stuck them in place with tweezers. I wore this mani for two days and managed not to lose a single stud, even on the hand without topcoat! :)

Fingerfood's Buffet: Oriental

This week's theme for the Fingerfood buffet challenge was oriental.

My boyfriend is a bit of a China enthusiast, so it had to be related as soon as I saw it! In fact, he helped me by painting the symbol on my right hand, which apparently means Cherry Blossom, hence why this is accompanied by some pink flowers on another finger.

On the other hand I had a slightly more adventurous idea... a dragon!

I'm not sure about this. My brush wasn't thin enough to get the lines as accurate or to get as much detail in as I would have liked. I still like the idea of it, and generally like how it turned out, I just wish I'd had a thinner brush. I feel this might be a mani I recreate sometime once I do have a thinner brush!

I used an unnamed Revlon polish as the base colour. In the bottle this looks like a nude colour, but on the nails it is a sort of soft gold. I used Rimmel Right Royal Red for the dragon and finished with a matte topcoat from Primark.

For the other hand I used the same base, the Chinese was done in acrylic paint and the flowers are stick on ones from Poundland.