Saturday 30 June 2012

Black tape mani!

Hi! These photos are from, like, a week ago, but I only just remembered they're on my laptop. So, yeah. Enjoy!


Barry M - Black
Barry M - Coral

I had no idea what to do on my nails last week, I just decided to go for something simple. I'm fairly happy with how the accent nail turned out, seeing as my tape mani's don't usually turn out perfectly neat. I know this isn't perfectly neat, but still.


Once I had finished, I noticed you could see the tip of my nail slightly on my ring finger. But oh well! It's not that terrible.

Friday 29 June 2012

Mint splatter nails

Hi! I apologize for not updating for about a week, but I've been insanely busy with college and stuff.

Barry M - Mint Green
Barry M - Matt White
Barry M - Black
OPI - Pink Friday

Seeing as I enjoyed my splatter nails so much last time, I decided to do them again. I struggled to choose which colours to use again, but I think the colours I finally chose turned out fine!


Just like my first attempt, it was very difficult to clean up when I was finished as the polish flooded the cuticles a lot. I think it's quite noticeable on some in the pictures above, but I still tried my best.



Saturday 23 June 2012

Sugar Plums.

Hi! So last night I just decided to change my nail varnish as I was going on a college trip the next day, so what I did wasn't exactly anything exciting. But here it is anyway!


China Glaze - Sugar Plums
China Glaze - Luxe and Lush



I think these two polishes look wonderful together!

I'm sorry for such a short post today, but a better one will be coming sometime tomorrow or the day after :)

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Rainbow Leopard Print

Hi! Today I decided to have an attempt at a design that somebody else had already done; mainly because I couldn't think of something to do and I just really liked this person's design anyway.


China Glaze - Ruby Deer (on the thumb)
OPI - Call Me Gwen-Ever
Barry M - Lemon
Barry M - Spring Green
Barry M - Cobalt Blue
Barry M - Black
Barry M - Matt White

The original design can be found here. All I changed was the colour arrangement, since I'm a bit weird and know the correct order of colours in the rainbow. It says how I did it in the link, but if you decided not to click that, then I'll just briefly explain here. All I used to do the leopard print was the slightly larger end of a dotting tool, but I did occasionally change which end I used. 


Also, sorry about picture quality! For some reason I found it difficult to get a decent photo of these.


Saturday 16 June 2012

Splatter nails!

Hi again! Once again, I got pretty bored of my previous nail design pretty quickly; mainly because of how I smudged the design slightly.


Barry M - Lemon
Nails Inc - Charlotte Street
Barry M - Black
OPI - Call Me Gwen-Ever

I'm actually pleased with how they turned out! It was my first attempt at a splatter design and I found it surprisingly easy! At first I struggled to decide which colours I should use, seeing as I've never been good at figuring out which colours look good together and which don't. But in the end I settled for the above :) 
Also, instead of using a normal top-coat on this, I went for a matte coat instead.


To do this design, I just used a normal drinking straw which I then cut in half. I found using this tutorial very useful. I managed to clean up around my nails as best as I could, even though there had been tape surrounding them to avoid any major clean up. I mainly had to clean up any polish that had flooded my cuticles or had just slipped over the edge of the tape. 

I'll definitely be trying this again soon with different colours!

Friday 15 June 2012

Nautical nails

Hi! I quickly got bored with my previous nails, so I decided to do something else.


Barry M - Black
Barry M - Matt White

Honestly, I'm not too pleased with how it turned out. I think I managed to paint the nails fine and draw the anchor almost perfectly, but once again I just smudged the design slightly when applying the top coat. This could have easily been avoided, but unfortunately I get really impatient, especially when it comes to waiting for a design to dry. 




Thursday 14 June 2012

Peppermint mani

Hi! For today I decided to do my nails similar to peppermints or candy canes. Well, I actually just wanted to do striped nail art using these two colours, but it just ended up resembling peppermint and candy canes.


China Glaze - Ruby Deer
Barry M - Matt White

To do the white stripes I used a normal striper brush and did them as neatly as possible. I'm not too happy with how it turned out. I just think that some of the white stripes are really uneven and it really bothers me. Some of the nails bother me, while others don't.



Sunday 10 June 2012

Gradient Lightning Bolt Mani


Barry M - Matt White
Barry M - Mint Green
Barry M - Black
OPI - Rumple's Wiggin
Model's Own - Disco Mix


Hi! This is the design I did today. I was getting pretty bored of my previous ones, and seeing as I had plenty of spare time today, I decided to change it. I'm happy with how they turned out, apart from the lightning bolt itself - I smudged it slightly when applying the top coat. But, oh well, I still think it looks decent.

For the gradient, I used this tutorial. It's my second time doing a gradient and I'm already finding it easy.

Friday 8 June 2012

New nail polish mani


OPI - Call Me Gwen-Ever
China Glaze - Luxe And Lush

As I said in my previous post, here is a photo of my new China Glaze polish in use. I'm very pleased with the outcome and I think these two polishes work well together. 

In the photo above, although it isn't that noticeable, I used a matte topcoat just to see what it would look like. I'm not sure whether I prefer it to a normal topcoat, but I still think it looks great. 


Here is what the mani looked like with a regular topcoat. 


"Call Me Gwen-Ever" and "Luxe and Lush" review.

The other day I ordered these two nail polishes, seeing as I had been wanting them since they had been released. 

"Luxe And Lush" from China Glaze:

I'm really glad I ordered this. It only cost about £5 from Amazon and it only took two days to deliver, too. 

What appealed to me most of all was the fact that it's from The Hunger Games collection by China Glaze, and seeing as I'm a huge fan I made a promise to myself that I was going to order at least one of them. I've also got a thing for glittery or similar looking top coats, and thought this one looked beautiful. 

It's fairly easy to apply to your nails. I'm sure one coat would do for most people, but I did two just in case. A picture will be included in my next post, but I tried this out properly on my coral nail polish, which I think was a very good idea. In my opinion, this polish would look best on almost any colour. 

The only downside is that it is very difficult to remove. I quickly tested it out on one nail yesterday and it proved frustrating to take off. Luckily, this is the only bad thing I have to say about this polish. 

"Call Me Gwen-Ever" from OPI:


I was happy with this one, too. I'm a huge fan of Marvel and excited for the new Spiderman movie, so I was pleased to hear that OPI were releasing a collection dedicated to it. To be honest, I  would have ordered any of the colours seeing as they're all so nice, but lately I've taken a liking to coral colours.



The formula for this was expected. It was almost opaque in one coat, but as usual I had to add a second just to finish it. In the past when I've tried paler coloured OPI's, the formula has been quite transparent or runny, and I was glad to find out that this one wasn't the same. It was also good for the price, as I got it from Amazon for around the same price as the previous China Glaze one, and it arrived just as quickly.




Thursday 7 June 2012

My current nail polish collection

Just thought it would be a good idea to show my collection so far. I'll be updating whenever I buy new ones and I'll most likely be buying a lot over the summer. 

Reds:

Left to right: Barry M - Red Glitter, OPI - An Affair In Red Square, China Glaze - Ruby Deer, OPI - Meet & Jingle, Nails Inc - In Style Beach.

Blues:

Top row, left to right: Barry M - Cobalt Blue, Miss Sporty - Coty Paris (I think), Sinful Colors - Nail Junkie, No.7 - Betty Blues, OPI - Cattitude, Nails Inc - Hanover Square, Barry M - Blue Moon.
Bottom row, left to right: Sephora by OPI - Mermaid To Order, Nails Inc - Tudor Way, OPI - Russian Navy, All About Nails - Mint Snow, Barry M - Blue Glitter.

Pinks:

Top row, left to right: OPI - Strawberry Margarita, OPI - Pink Friday, No.7 - Pink Grapefruit, Nails Inc - Paris, Sephora by OPI - Screen Test, Bourjois Paris (not sure of the name).
Bottom row, left to right:  Bourjois Paris - Fuchsia Provoc, Nails Inc - Piccadilly Circus, Bourjois Paris (no name), Barry M (no name). 

Purples:

Top row, left to right: OPI - Super Bass Shatter, OPI - Louvre Me Louvre Me Not, Bourjois Paris - Violine Chic, Nails Inc - Savile Row, No.7 - Violetta, Sephora by OPI - Iris I Was Thinner.
Bottom row, left to right: Nails Inc - Crown Court, Rimmel - Deliciously Dark, China Glaze - Sugar Plums, Nails Inc - Garrick Street, BYS - Voodoo Violet. 

Greens:

Left to right: Nails Inc - Emerald Street, OPI - Who The Shrek Are You?, No.7 - Totally Teal, Bourjois Paris (not sure of the name), Barry M - Spring Green, Barry M - Mint Green. 

Yellow and Oranges:

Left to right: Barry M - Lemon, OPI - Fiercely Fiona, Bourjois Paris (not sure of the name), Barry M - Coral, Barry M - Peach Melba, Barry M - Nude. 

Gold and Silvers:

Left to right: Collection 2000 - Shimmy Shake, Barry M - Gold Foil, Nails Inc - Charlotte Street, Nails Inc - Bond St Lights, Andrea Fulerton - Stripe & Sparkle, Barry M - Silver Foil.

Black, grey, white. (And some colours I forgot to photograph.)

Top row, left to right: Nails Inc - Victoria, MaxFactor - Boji, Technic - Jet Black, Barry M - Nails Effects Black Shatter, Andrea Fulterton (not sure of the name), MaxFactor - Onyx, Barry M - Grey, Models Own - Snow White, Barry M - Matt White, Barry M -  Pink Iridescent, Bourjois Paris (not sure of the name), OPI - Rumple's Wiggin.









Introduction!

So yeah, I've been meaning to start a blog dedicated to my nail art/designs for a while, but I decided to wait until my new camera arrived. After almost 2 weeks of waiting for it, today it finally arrived.

I'm not sure how long it will take to kick-start this blog, but I should update it roughly a few times a week, probably more if I buy new nail varnishes and have to review them etc. I know the name of this blog is pretty rubbish, but I honestly struggled to think of one, so don't be surprised if it changes any time in the future.