Summer Challenge, Day 8: Beach

We are halfway through the Summer Challenge! I say we, but I have missed almost half of the themes so far... Oh well, I'll do them at the end, promise! Today's theme was Beach, so the most obvious thing to do was paint a beach on my nails. So that's what I did. Here it is:

Yaaaaaaay, more freehand! And a lot of different polishes. To start, I used a base of Barbara Daly's "Lustre" for the sand. Then, I used a small paintbrush and Barry M's "Denim" to make the sea. I then swirled in some of Barry M's "Matt White" to make it look more like the sea. Then, I sponged Rimmel's "Aqua Cool" to make the sky and used the small paintbrush and white again to make clouds. I added details in with the paintbrush. From pinky to index finger we have; a beachball, a red parasol, the sun in the sky, and a palm tree. For those I used Barry M's "Bright Red", an unnamed Miss Sporty nail polish in brown, Barry M's "Yellow" and Barbara Daly's "Kiwi".

Summer Challenge, Day 6: Favourite Summer Colour

Well, this challenge is going well for me. I had to miss the last 3 challenge days because I caught a cold and really couldn't be bothered to paint my nails over this past week. Sorry about that! I'll catch up with any themes I miss at the end of the challenge, so they'll be posted eventually. Anyway, on with today's challenge. It's simple enough, just choose your favourite summer colour. I didn't want to pick a favourite, so I just watched a polish I hadn't tried yet. This is Barry M's Magnetic polish in "Burgundy". I've seen this swatched a few times, and thought it was gorgeous. So when one of my friends brought it for me for my birthday I was super excited!

It's a really gorgeous colour that I would happily wear on it's own, but the magnetic effect really makes it stand out. The only problem I have is that I always manage to knock the magnet on the polish, but hopefully I'll get better at not doing that with practise.

Birthday Nails!

Yesterday was my birthday! I turned 16, and of course nail art was necessary. I also have lots of swatching of new nail polishes I should get done soon, so two birds one stone. :)

I chose to use Ciaté's "Bonbon" as my base colour. I got this polish as a free gift from this month's issue of Marie Claire. It's a grey/beige (I think the word's greige?) with what looks like to me some purple/lilac tones to it. The application was okay, although I found it to be a little streaky on the first coat. These swatches show 2 coats.

I really like this colour, it's unlike anything I already own and that's always a good thing. But since it was my birthday I couldn't just leave them plain. I figured I would try some free handing, even though I'm not amazing at it. Free hand nail art is what I started doing (before this blog started), but I haven't done very much of it recently. I think this is mostly because I get stuck for ideas easily, and have to take inspiration from others. The inspiration for these nails came from various images when I did a image search on Google for "birthday nails".

I should have let the cake nail dry a little longer. It smudged with the top coat. Oops. :') Oh well, I still think it looks pretty cute. I like how the pink looks against Bonbon.

I used a lot of colours for this nail art, so here's a list. I like lists.

Barbara Daly's "Kiwi"

Barry M's "Pink Flamingo"

Barry M's "Yellow"

Barry M's "Bright Red"

Max Factor's "Candy Blue" 

Nails Inc's "Atomic"

Rimmel Nail Tip Whitener

What do you think? Should I try and freehand more often, or stick to other forms of nail art?

Diamond Jubilee Nails!

As you may (or may not) be aware, it's the Queen's diamond jubilee today! The celebrations are going on all through this weekend and not ending until Tuesday, to mark Queen Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne. So, I thought it would be a great time to wear some truly British nail art. Of course, this had to be the Union Jack.

Being the diamond jubilee, glitter was a must, which inspired me to create the flag using glitter. Sammy at The Nailasaurus has been using glitter a lot in her posts lately, so I've been dying to give it a try.

The blue that I used was Barry M's "Navy".

 

 The glitter that I used was some that I brought from Staples. It came from a pack of 6 different colours (blue, red, silver, purple/pink, green, gold). For all of this glitter, it cost £2.75, which I think is pretty good for the amount that you get in each pot! Each glitter flake is less than 1mm in diameter, so they're really really little (and get everywhere!).

 To do this manicure, I first painted the accent nail with Barry M's "Navy". I found that if I painted all of the nails at the start, glitter would stick to those as well. Because of this, I focused on the accent and then after cleaning the glitter up, finished the rest of my nails. After letting Navy dry, I added a layer of clear polish and sprinkled blue glitter over the whole nail. Excess glitter was knocked into a plastic container and then poured back into the pot. After this, I added another layer of clear polish to keep the glitter in place. Then, I used a toothpick with a small amount of clear polish on it to pick up silver and do the white lines of the flag. I placed the silver glitter on whilst the layer of clear over the blue was wet/tacky. To make sure the glitter stuck, I added more clear where appropriate. I then repeated this for the red glitter.

I think that this worked pretty well, but more silver (or less red) could have been used. What do you think?

Have a fun Jubilee weekend (whether you're celebrating or not) and enjoy the long weekend!

Pink and Green circle stamping

Before I start today's post, I want to apologise for  the terrible stamping on my nails. Hayfever has been killing me all weekend, and it doesn't help that I live right across the road from a field of rapeseed. Lining up the stamp with the nail isn't easy when you have streaming eyes and a running nose, y'know!

Anyway, I'll stop with the whining. The base colour I used was Barabra Daly Make Up's "Kiwi" and the stamping colour was Nails Inc's "OMP!". The stamping plate was BM206.

The pink didn't come out quite as bright as I'd have hoped, but I think the manicure still looks good. Lining up the stamp is definitely something I need to improve on... Does anyone have any tips?

Pink Spice and Indigo zebra print

I find it boring to just have a nail polish colour on my nails. Yes, it's pretty, but other than that there isn't much to look at. But that's just my opinion. SO, I've stamped some zebra print onto the same Pink Spice colour as yesterday. I call it zebra print, but I'm not really too sure what it is. It could be a tiger print I suppose, but I wouldn't know what the difference between them. I think my nails today look more like a tiger because of the orange tones to Pink Spice.

The base coat is Accessorize's "Pink Spice" (obviously) and the stamping colour is Barry M's "Indigo". The stamping plate I used was BM223.

 

I think Indigo has worked quite well as a stamping polish, although I'm not too sure how well it would do over colours other than reds/pinks/purples. I think overall my nails look so cute and sparkly! I love them.

Accessorize's "Pink Spice" swatch

Another post already?! This is madness.

Although, I think it's necessary. Yesterday, I went to a Superdrug other than my local one purely because I was walking past and was pleasently surprised to find that there were other brands that my Superdrug doesn't stock. Namely, Accessorize. I think I'd first heard of this brand from Pretty Punk UK's blog post and fell in love with "Pink Spice", so I just had to buy it.

The swatches are 4 coats and a top coat. I think you could get away with 3 coats, but I felt that the nail line was still too visible, so added another.

I love this polish! To describe it, it's a sort-of copper colour with pink/red tones to it. At some angles, it appears orange and at others it's a pink-red-purple like in the pictures. The index finger in the first picture shows most accurately the orange colour. It's just all so pretty! The only issue I have with it is that with the amount of glitter I can tell it's going to be a pain in the arse to take off. Oh well, I think it's worth it.

Yellow and Blue gradients

A trend that is sweeping the nail-world right now is gradients. I think a part of this style gaining popularity is through Sammy from The Nailasaurus posting her tutorial which makes creating gradients a hell of a lot easier. You can find that here. This is the technique I used to paint my nails.

The yellow is Barry M's "Lemon Ice Cream" and the blue is Max Factor's "Candy Blue".

I've still not decided whether or not this combination is something I like. The colours are very bright and "in-your-face", but at the same time there's something hypnotising and summer-y about them.

Thoughts?

Green-on-green stamping

Today, I have more stamping on my nails. To me, it looks as though it could be dragon skin if it were a bit darker.

The colours used were a base coat of Barry M's "Mint Green" and a stamping colour of a dark green from La Femme Beauty which doesn't have a name (picture further down). The image plate used was BM223.

The stamping colour I used didn't come out as dark as I'd hoped, it kinda blends in with the base colour. However, I think it still works and looks just as pretty. Just goes to show, even if a mani doesn't turn out how you'd wanted it to, it can still be gorgeous.

Green and silver flower stamping

I haven't posted anything in a few days! I can't say I have an excuse, other than being amazing at procrastinating, so sorry about that... Anyway, on with the design.

Today, I have a green and silver flower pattern. This was done using the Bundle Monster image plate BM221, a base coat (3 coats) of Miss Beauty UK's "Ocean" and a stamping colour of Barry M's "Silver Foil".

I'm really loving these stamping plates, it makes putting cute designs on my nails so much easier and less time-consuming. Definitely a buy I'd recommend to anyone wanting to start stamping without buying overly expensive plates and polishes.

Max Factor "Fantasy Fire" swatches

There’s one colour that EVERYONE is talking about right now. Max Factor’s “Fantasy Fire”. I first heard about it on Nailasaurus’s blog, here, and fell in love with the colour. I’ve ever seen anything like this before, but aparently it’s a lot like Clarins 230 “Unicorn Pee”. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard about Clarins until I heard about Fantasy Fire, but they’re both gorgeous colours.
When I brought the colour yesterday, I layered 2 coats of it onto 2 coats of Barry M’s “Vivid Purple” because on it’s own, Fantasy Fire is a very sheer polish. I’ve heard it needs about 7 coats to be opaque on it’s own, but I haven’t tested it.


I’m not a huge fan of darker colours, so I tried it on a lighter colour today. Miss Beauty Nail Polish’s “Amythest” was the colour I chose and used 3 coats of that with 2 coats of Fantasy Fire. I think it worked beautifully.


These photos don’t do the colour justice at all. In real life, the polish is filled with glitter particles, that reflect orange and green as your fingers move, with a sort-of holographic look to it.
Overall, Fantasy Fire is a beautiful polish and it’s completely understandable why it’s becoming harder to find. Where I am, Boots was sold out and Superdrug had 3 left. I think I should get stocked up.

Barbie Heels Stamping

Post originally from April 13th 2012, moved from Tumblr:

I think it’s fair to say I really am going to become obsessed with image plates and stamping. Instead of the usual once-a-week nail painting, it’s beginning to be every few days. Maybe it’s the boredom of Easter holidays, but at this rate I won’t be doing any revision for exams this summer… Oh well.

I used image plate BM-213 with the high heels pattern for this design. It reminds me so much of Barbie dolls, and screams “PINK!” so I just had to do it. The base colour is three coats of Barry M “Strawberry Ice Cream” and the shoes are Nails Inc “OMP!”.

 

Bundle Monster Image Plates!!

Post originally from 12th April 2012, moved from Tumblr:

 

 

I got the 25 pack Bundle Monster image plates today! I’m a very happy girl. Originally, I was going to buy the Red Angel plates after seeing them on Nailasaurus’s blog. However, they’re only avaliable in America. Boo! So, I settled for the Bundle Monster plates, and I’m super happy with them! The images they print are so crisp, even without the use of special polishes. Overall, I think they were an awesome buy. At £17 for 25 plates, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than Konad plates which are a few pounds per plate. 

 

 Sorry for the terrible photography and general painting of the nails. I was just so excited to get stamping!

Image plates brought from Amazon UK