Halloween Nail Art Stamping

Happy Halloween everyone!!! Today I have a completely Halloween dedicated post for you...

I started off with a gradient, with the hope that it would look like a firey sunset (unfortunately it looks a bit summery but hey...) I then did some Halloween stamping over the top.

The colours used in the gradient are Collection 2000 'Big Hair', a boots 17 polish (orange) which I can't find a name on and a Miss Sporty yellow shade which I also can't find the name of (I'm not being very helpful today I'm afraid!) I used MUA black for the stamping.

Overall I like the look but unfortunately it's smudged a bit as you can probably see. Anyway, definitely very festive! Have you done any Halloween manicures?

Orange Glittery Nails

I wanted to do a couple of Halloween nails (well, I actually wanted to do a lot more, but I've really not had chance!) so here is the first. I love anything festive and Halloween is one of my favourites. Unfortunately I don't think my flatmates quite share my enthusiasm for decorations! So, this isn't strictly a Halloween design, but I the the orange is quite fitting....

I used this colour previously in my swatch of Accessorize's speckle nail polish, although you can't really see it under the speckle varnish. It's one of my bargain buys from Xtras and cost around £2. I'd been scouring the shops for a more browny orange colour but I really struggled as everything seems to be brighter at the moment, so I was very impressed with the find!

The glitter is also from Xtras and is Technic 'Bedazzled', you can buy it online here. I think the colours are really seasonal, and remind me of all the fallen leaves at the moment (while the glitter blings it up a little!) What do you think?

As a bonus, here is a picture of my fireplace at the moment - pretty scary!

Blue and Silver Matte Nails

I've left it a few days before posting these nails, my reason being that it' freakishly similar to this post on Chalkboard nails - I was planning on posting it on 25th (as did Chalkboard nails) but I thought I'd hold back a few days.

I achieved the look by painting on 2 coats of Barry M 'Blueberry', followed by using the 'cling film method' to apply some silver over the top. I then finished it off with a coat of Rimmel Pro 'Matte Finish' - I'm loving the effect, it's quite discreet and makes the colour look more of a powder blue.

I finished off with some rhinestones from Ebay which are a very appropriate colour, although I think I might have been better to apply some in a contrasting colour so they stand out more 

Shimmery Blue Swirls

Afternoon all! Today I've done some shimmery blue nails with black swirls....

The base colour I used was Models Own 'Indian Ocean' and I used MUA 'Black' for the stamping... I've got to say that the varnish looked a lot less blue with the stamps, and even less so on camera (look at the colour in the bottle compared the the nails), but it still shows off the shimmery-ness!


The stamping plate is BM-201 and it's topped off with some Sally Hanson 'Hard as Wraps', rather than my Seche Vite as, in all honesty, it's the weekend, I'm supposed to be doing some work for my Masters, therefore, I'll probably take it off and do something else soon (the queen of procrastination as I am).

Red Velvet: Flocking Powder Manicure

I've been meaning to try this for a while, DIY style (as you all probably know, there is a premium kit available, for the not insignificant price of £15.) So, I purchased some flocking powder from Goldleaf Craft Supplies on ebay and away I went...

Firstly, I have to say that I'm impressed with how easy this was to do! It really did take me about 10 minutes from start to finish, and I didn't allow/need much drying time at all.

I used  Revlon Matte Suede in 'Ruby Ribbon' for the base colour. (a Poundland bargain! as I've mentioned in previous posts - hard to apply without streaks, but the colour match was perfect and it didn't matter under the flock.) I applied one coat, let it dry and then applied another and applied the powder while it was still wet - I did one nail at a time to make sure that the polish didn't dry too quickly for the powder to stick.

The verdict: I applied this last night, and I've worn it all day today. After showering and washing my hands many times  it is much more subdued and there are a few bald patches, plus the brightness really faded after I showered, it's now more of a dark maroon shade (I think the flock has lost it's pigmentation). As I couldn't apply my trusty coat of Seche Vite, there is tiny bit of tip wear after just a day as well (but do bear in mind that I'm not careful in the slightest with how I use my hands!) However, most of it is still there and I'm impressed that so much remains! I would definitely wear this again - as long as I wasn't looking for it to last more than 24 hours. 

Accessorize Nail Speckle: Bumble Bee

Today I'm wearing a new polish of mine from Accessorize's new range of speckle polishes.

I always see a lot of speckle polishes on American blogs but there isn't really anything like this on the market in the UK so I was keen to pick one up! The colour is 'Bumble Bee' and it's a lovely autumnal orange colour with speckles of  black - great for Halloween as well!

In these pictures I'm actually wearing it over a base of a clay orange/browny colour from Xtras. (Another bargain shop I love but can only frequent when I visit my mum in North Yorkshire, as they don't have any stores in the south.) The base colour  is a little darker than the Accessorize orange shade, but very similar. I found that when I applied two coats of Bumble Bee it was speckle overload, but I wanted to do 2 coats to make sure it was opaque. To be honest, you could probably get away with one coat of the Accessorize shade.

I used a couple of coats of Seche Vite to finish it off. Overall - I'm impressed - it's quite an impressive effect but not too 'in your face'. I'm keen to try some of the others in the range!

Red and Silver Lace Stamping Nail Art

Sorry I've been away for a while! I've had a crazy week or so... Anyway, here is an update with the mani I wore this weekend... 

I loved this design and unfortunately the pictures really don't do it justice...

The base colour I used was Revlon Matte Suede in 'Ruby Ribbon'. I think this is a discontinued line as I picked it up at Poundland! They had a few nice Revlon colours last time I was in, but that was a couple of weeks ago. Although the colour is lovely and the matte effect is gorgeous the polish was very hard to apply and looked quite uneven, however after a couple of shiny top coats of Seche Vite it wasn't so apparent (although it wasn't matte any more). 

The stamping  plate I used was BM-315 and I used my striping tape from Amazon. Previously I've mentioned that I've found the tape doesn't last long and gets a bit worse for wear after a day, however I think I've cracked it! I used very thick layers of Seche Vite and made sure that it completely covered the tape. I wore these nails for 3 days and the tape was still as good as new.

Golden Butterfly Nail Art

Today I decided to use one of my new polishes - Models Own 'Copper Pot' as it's a lovely autumn colour. The leaves are really falling now and I love all the golden brown colours everywhere!

The base colour looks really good with the black stamping. Alone it wasn't perhaps as good as I thought it would be, in the bottle it looked like it had a lot more dimension to the colour - with darker tones in it (as you can see in the link above). On it's own it's a bit more of a brighter glittery gold. I did like it, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

I created the effect using the BM-307 plate and used MUA 'Black', topped off with a coat of Seche Vite (a pretty thick coat - which I'm finding mitigates the chance of the stamping smudging!)

Lilac with White Stamped Stripes

Today I’ve done some fairly simple stamping which looks quite effective!

The polish I’ve used is Nails Inc ‘Primrose Hill’ which is kind of a greyish lilac colour – very beautiful and shimmery! I’ve got the limited edition jewelled bottle thanks to the lovely girls at work. It was very appropriate birthday present, especially considering that Primrose Hill is one of my most favourite places in London!

Pretty Bottle!

The stamping is done with  Konad ‘White’ and plate BM-316 and it’s finished off with a couple of coats of Seche Vite. I think I needed another coat of the polish, but you can only tell in the pictures – it wasn’t at all apparent when you just looked at them. I actually got a lot of complements for these nails – I think because they are quite striking! 

Matte Teal Chevron Nail Art

I had a couple of hours to spare today so I decided to try something more time consuming.  Well, I say I had more time, but I was actually putting off doing work for my masters degree. I am officially the queen of procrastination!

I went for some pretty chevron nails, finished off with some striping tape to make the effect more striking..

The lovely teal colour I used is Rimmel ‘Sky High’ and I did the chevrons by taping off sections with sellotape and painting them with Models Own ‘Mushroom’. The striping tape is from Amazon. I used some Rimmel ‘Matte Finish’ top coat to finish it off.

What do you think?

Deep Pink Criss Cross Nail Stamping

I really like this mani – I think the results are effective but quite discreet. The colour looks a bit red when it’s on – but it’s a deep pink colour in the bottle. 

I’ve had this polish for a while, so the name has rubbed off the label but I think it’s called ‘Foxglove’. The stamping plate used is BM-310 and the polish I used for stamping is Mua ‘Black’.

I topped it off with a couple of coats of Seche Vite. 

Change of Platform and Apologies...

Just a quick update post to let you know that I've just transitioned my post from Wordpress to Blogger/blogspot. The reason behind this is that, as many of you may know, Google stopped all non (Google-owned) Blogger and Blogspot platforms from being able to use Google Friend Connect. They are suggesting that people now use a Google + button as an alternative.

My blogging platform of choice is Wordpress but after spending a lot of time looking at the nail blogging community, Google Friend Connect appears to be the following 'weapon of choice'. Therefore, not having this network on my blog is giving me a distinct disadvantage. My feelings towards Google aren't the warmest at the moment, and now I've had to spend a significant amount of time transferring everything across to a more restrictive platform, they are becoming increasingly cold. I can see their business sense in doing this, since their mission seems to be to have complete control of the web, but from a user point of view it's pretty bad.

So, here is my blog, powered by a different platform. I'm just so grateful that I don't have an established blog with thousands of lost followers due to Google's update.

Finally - apologies to anyone who commented on my previous blog, there is no way to easily transfer them across, so I've not deleted you - I really value every comment on my blog and I'm really sad to lose the comments I had.

MUA Nail Constellation Review

I was really excited to pick up a bottle of this as the colours they have are so lovely! I’m surprised that no other cosmetic companies have tried their own version of the famed ‘Fish Egg’ manicure.

Price wise it’s very reasonable at only £3 per bottle (particularly when you compare that with Ciate’s Caviar manicure at a whooping £18 per bottle). You don’t get the polish included as you do with Ciate but MUA do a range of small polishes at £1 per bottle so the total price is only £4. I’d imagine that each bottle will do quite a few sets. The base colour I used is MUA Plum Noir.

Nail Constellation comes in 5 different colours and I picked up ‘Leo’ but they are all very pretty – it was a difficult decision! Application was easy and you can see the MUA YouTube ‘how to’ video here… The video states that you can finish the nail with a top coat, however I tried initally with Sally Hansen ‘Hard as Wraps’ but it really ruined the colour and made it look a bit dull. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has tried this with a different top coat and what success they had?

I’ve got some ‘fish-egg’ beads from ebay from Goldleaf craft supplies which were good quality and a similar price when you include postage. You get about twice the amount of beads as well. The one thing that I have preferred about MUA’s version is that the beads are much smaller – maybe even half the size, which makes the manicure look a lot ‘tidier’ in my opinion.

How does it wear? As I couldn't use top coat I found that the beads started coming loose pretty quickly. I only wore this for about half a day in the end and I’d lost quite a few. Again, if you can find a topcoat that will wear well with this product then you may have better luck!

Overall I’m happy with the result and I think it looks great, however I’d definitely recommend wearing it for a special occasion rather than expecting to get several days of wear out of it.

Silver with Black Print Nails

I decided to do a silver and black manicure, I think that the contrast looks great and the overall look of this combination is quite classy…

The silver is No.7 ‘Disco Nights’ and the black effect is done using nail foils again. This particular foil I found really easy to apply and the pattern came on really easy without any gaps.

The top coat I used was Sally Hansen ‘Hard as Wraps’ (as Seche Vite is said to ‘shrink’ the foil underneath – one day I will try this and let you know!)

I’m happy with the overall effect – what do you think?

Models Own Sale Haul

In case you didn't spot it, Models Own had a sale last week (apologies if you did miss it as it’s now over!) 50% off so an absolute bargain! I managed to order 10 bottles of polish for just £25 so you can imagine my excitement when they arrived today!

Here are some pics of the newest members of my stash:

From left to right: ‘Magenta Divine’,'Disco Heaven’, ‘Disco Mix’, ‘Silver Fox’, ‘Ibiza Mix’

From left to right: ‘Purple Blue’, ‘Mushroom’, ‘Copper Pot’, ‘Thunder & Lightening’, ‘Purple Haze’.

Expect to see a lot of Models Own nails soon!

Matte Purple and Pink Gem Nails

Good morning! Today I'm wearing a purple matte manicure, embedded with pink square jewels.

I love this colour and it’s already the second time it’s appeared on my blog – it’s Revlon ‘Violet’, topped with Rimmel Pro Matte Finish top coat. I'm really loving matte nails at the moment!

I’m really not 100% where I got the stones from. I think they were a free gift when I bought some nail foils but other than the fact that they were a freebee, I really am not sure! I think they are really pretty, the only problem is that they are all slightly different sizes, which you can tell when you look closely. I put a little too much top coat on the ring finger as well, so it looks a bit excessive where they have sunk in…

x

Glittery Pink and Mint Nail Art

I love the combination of mint green and a pretty baby pink so I decided to try putting them together to create something a bit spangle-y!

The green colour used is Barry M’s ‘Mint Green’. The sequins are from Born Pretty Store which is great source for nail-related products (and pretty cheap!) I actually got 12 different sequin colours for a few pounds….

I don’t think the pictures do it justice – there’s too much glare from the sequins, but at least it shows how shiny it is!

Butterfly and Flower Nail Art Using Foils…

Today I’ve done some blue foil print nails. They aren’t the nail sticker type foils, they are actual strips of plastic covered with a patter that you can get if you’ve not seem them. Using adhesive you can transfer the design from the pattern onto the nail.

The base coat I used is a recently picked up bottle of Sally Hansen ‘Rose Wine’. I presume this is being discontinued or re-packaged as I managed to get a couple of bottles last week from Pound Land! I really like it – it’s lovely and smooth to apply and dries fast…

The foils used are purchased from ebay. Here is the link to the collection – I used ‘Midnight Blue Foil’. I’ve purchased these from this seller twice now and I’ll happily recommend them (I have no affiliation here at all, and even if I did, I would never recommend anything I wouldn’t purchase again). When you buy the foils it doesn’t look like you get a lot, but I’d imagine you would get 3 manicures (at least) from each design supplied. I also get a good few days wear out of them.

You need to use special nail foil glue to stick them on and it needs leaving for around 6-8 minutes to allow it to get tacky enough. I’ve never tried it but apparently you can’t use Seche Vite over the nail foils as it makes them shrivel up. I did use a Sally Hansen ‘Hard as Wraps’ top coat instead, and then after it had dried I used a coat of Seche Vite to give it the ultra-shiny coat.

I do love the effect from the foils, although sometimes you do get gaps. It’s not completely apparent in the picture, but the sides of some of my nails are a bit too high.

Pink and Black Zebra Print Nail Art

Today I’ve done a very bright mani – pink zebra print and black…

I'm really impressed with the results, but I couldn't really get a picture which does it justice (I’m still very much practising with different settings etc).

The pink used is Rimmel's ‘Funtime Fuchsia’ and The plate is BM-223. I used Mua ‘Black’ for the stamping and the black sides. To achieve the look, I used the pink and stamping first then I applied some top coat to make sure that I didn’t pull the stamping off when I used sellotape to tape off the black section.

The black stones were from Ebay and I finished off with a couple of coats of Seche Vite.