Paul & Joe nail enamel 015 Venus Swatches

Boy do I lurve ebay! This is another ebay find of mine, now this wasn't a bargain as I ended up paying what you'd pay for retail however this had to be mine as it belongs to the same collection as my beloved 016 Mediterranean (swatches can be found here ). It took me all night when I was bidding on this to find out what it was called because the seller had it in the wrong box and therefore had it listed as the wrong number *sigh* but my polish detective skills worked out that it just HAD to be 015 Venus as it had a blue lid like Mediterranean and the other polishes don't have blue lids. LOL anyway I found out that these two both came from Paul & Joe's summer 2011 limited edition collection called L'Horizon Bleu hence the blue lids! Phew. 


Anyway I finally received it this week and I have literally just put it on and I am in love! Basically it is a light blue base with fine square silver glitter and fine square gold glitter with larger square glitter that changes from blue to green to purple. How perfect. 

Indirect sunlight 

Direct sunlight

I could have gotten away with one thick coat as it is a lot more opaque than you would think to look at it :). It was a perfect formula and so it glided onto my nail and the best part is how smooth it dried! And shiny, I only put a topcoat on to ensure that it lasts my trip to the seaside with my dad! This is a really unique polish in my eyes and better still is the fact that it's part of a limited edition collection. I have no idea why the person was selling this beauty, the same seller was selling Mediterranean as well! They must be mad :). 
Final thing is the fact that this smells floral once dry....I love Paul & Joe. 


Okay actual final thing, which size photo do you prefer? The smaller or larger? Because I realise that especially with this polish you can't really see what's going on in the smaller photo but it's up to you guys, if you prefer the larger I'll post all my pictures that size from now on :) 

Summer leopard print gradient

Wow 99 followers! Yay hello everyone :) 
I was going to post this last night after my sister's fashion show (which was really good, I'm very proud) but mum wanted me to do her olympic nails as I won't be able to do them tonight and she is seeing the torch on thursday hence why she wanted the nails. I might put a picture up but I'm not sure cos I'm not happy with them, they're not very good :(. 
Anyway I did this design after I did it o a set of falsies and loved it :P I started with Barry M Matte White, one coat! then I sponged Models Own Coral Reef and Kiko 358 and Matte White, it only took two sponged coats as I used the white as a base, clean up was horrible though as I didn't put vaseline around my cuticles and fingers so the red got everywhere and I couldn't get it all off without removing too much of the sponging so excuse the mess!

Yeah I don't like this gradient by itself but it only stayed like that for a few minutes whilst it dried. Onto the leopard print!

But this, I love! It looks like a iced summery drink :D again I'm just willing summer to arrive! This is a very easy and quick thing to do but it looks impressive, which is my kind of thing ;). I don't really have much else to say about it other than I neeeeed a new black nail art pen, gah you don't know how hard I had to squeeze to get a thin stream! My thumbs were killing after this haha. 

I'll be doing my BFFFFFFF's nails tonight, she's the reason I created my pandas, so can you guess what she wants ;) 

Have a good day everyone :)

Funky Fingers Sand and stilettos swatches

I was painting more false nails today and it totally ruined St-Tropez *cry cry* so I decided to do a gradient with white and it did look nice but I couldn't be bothered to clean up after spending all day painting falsies so I just took it all off ha. I wanted something that would dry fast and not need my triple base coat so obviously you choose glitter in this situation. I don't often feature glitter on this blog but I'm making up for it with this beauty!

 Would you believe that those top three photos are in the shade!! 

Blurry holographic glitter goodness 

These two are taken in direct sunlight, I couldn't capture how sparkly it actually is. It's blinding in the sunlight! This is two coats and it's fully opaque, awesome! The main colour glitter is purple and the rest are holographic, such a beautiful polish, surprisingly I don't feel blinged out wearing it. It makes me want a glitter from the China Glaze On Safari collection, uh oh!  

Here's a picture of our neighbours cat that we have named Ruby, how adorable is she?! 

:D 

Hope you all enjoyed!

Dior Saint-Tropez Swatches

Dior Saint-Tropez is a gorgeous creamy aqua shade that applies like butterrrr. It just looks like a swimming pool, I want to be on a beach with this colour on my nails, so delish! It's so smooth and shiny, everything you want from a polish :)

Gorgeous right? It's more green than these photos show, it's a true aqua :). This is two quick and easy coats. I read somewhere that someone thought this shade wouldn't look good on pale skin, I think it does :P I think this colour would look amazing on darker skin though, I think it's a universally flattering shade which is always good. I couldn't resist it any longer after I kept seeing it sat there in the shop, I HAD to get it ;). 

Sorry for the amount of pictures but it's too lovely! Haha I just wish the weather would liven up and stop being so windy :( I don't really have much else to say about it, I love it and that's that. 

Is anyone else going to be watching the England match tonight? Normally I hate football but I've been really getting into the Euros but only when England is playing ;) I'm excited about tonights game!  Ha I never thought I'd be saying...typing that :P. 

Guest blogger at Varnished Valkyrie!

I almost forgot! I'm a guest blogger at Varnished Valkyrie so go check it out :) the post can be found  here :) also you should totally follow them if you don't cos they rock! 

Nails Inc Sweets Way swatches

I GOT MY BABY BACK, BABY BACK, BABY BACK :D :D hehehehehe honestly I'm so happy, I really appreciate my camera now, the quality is a squillion times better than the loaner. So my pictures are back on form :) 

In celebration I have put my other sprinkle on, Sweets Way. I really love this polish on, it looks so much better on than in the bottle. It has a milky base with blue, white and pink circle glitter, it's so shiny and lovely. I am only wearing one coat on all my nails bar the pinky as I really like how delicate it looks at one coat. 

Look how lovely it looks!

All these were taken in natural light. It literally looks like I dipped my fingers in ice cream sprinkles! So delicate and pretty. Even with one coat you get a load of glitter and decent coverage, there is slight VNL but that's to be expected but it's barely visible. I just love this! It was so easy to apply, I didn't need to fish and place glitter which is always good. 

Like I said I prefer it with one coat but at two coats it's only a bit more intense as the base gets whiter which I personally don't like. 

Are you as happy as I am that I got my camera back ? :D I'll stop going on about it now I promise :P

Have a good day!

News news newssss

Sorry for being MIA for a couple of days I've been busy doing this 

Aka painting false nails to sell on etsy! Pow! It took a while to get into the rhythm of painting then designing but I got into the swing of it eventually. It was quite stressful as one of my pens kept blobbing etc etc but I got there in the end. Wooo I'm really pleased with them all now, I think the bananas are my favourites and the pink and white paisley are so cute! It doesn't look like these would take a long time but they did :P. 

I haven't put them up yet as I'm doing some more today and my mum wanted to take them into work to show everyone, she says they won't believe that I've done them :P. 

This has stopped me doing my own nails as there's no point, look what these two days have done to my nails! 

My other hand is worse I've got black all over my nails and yellow haha so yeah it's a messy business, when I do it at least ;).

Hopefully I will post tomorrow with a swatch/nail art as MY CAMERA IS COMING BACK!!!! I'm so happy :D it was fixed yesterday so they are sending it out today from Kent so it shall be here on friday yayayayayay! I've missed it so much lol. 

I bought Dior Gold Nugget from ebay for £3! But it didn't even have the silver lid or the box :( and I won a mysterious Paul and Joe polish that I think is Venus from 2011 L'horizon Bleu collection but I'm not sure, either way it's blue and sparkly so it's all good :D. 

Also I have a Facebook page that is lonely that needs some love! I'd love it if you could like it, it's not linked to my blog but it's about my nail art etc it's here lol. I have instagram too, I've had that for ages though, it has my fashiony photography on at the start and nail stuff now that you can check out if you want, my username is abbbzidey if you have instagram let me know in the comments!

Final thing: How much do you think I should sell the nails for? How much would you be willing to pay? 

Have a good day everyone! 

Gosh 606 Early Green swatches & a surprise!

Hey everyone (new followers yay!) 
Today I bought a polish that I've been needing for ages; lime green :D hehee so I got it from Gosh in superdrugfor £4.99 which is totally stingy seen as you only get 8ml! Anyway it is just the colour I was looking for, it's nice and bright but not neon but still in your face ;). From the bottle it looks quite subdued but don't be fooled. 

Surprise!! 

I finally did it. I finally had enough length to reshape my squovals into ovals! Eventually I want them to be skinnier almost pointed but not like scary stilettos but that won't happen until they grow some more (which should be in a couple of days ;)) I was scared to do it but I was really bored of my nails plus this way I can have them longer than I used to without them looking creepy long. LOL. I really like them now, at first I thought I'd made a mistake but not anymore, they look more elegant too :). 

Having them this shape also means I could do this design that I've wanted to do for ages but it wouldn't suit squovals and I didn't have a lime green :P. 

These are all taken in natural lighting.....obviously :P as it was nice outside for about 5 minutes ha. I freehanded the pink tips using the pink nails supreme pen, then I added the white with Barry M Matte White and did the leopard splodges. When I put seche vite on it somehow dragged the pink back onto the bottom of my nails? I saw this design in a wah nails advert and I knew I would have to recreate it one day! I love it, so fun and summery. 

What do you think to my new nail shape? 

My guide to nail art

Now I'm not sure if anyone wants this post but if it even helps one person I'll be happy :). I'm not taking my floral design off yet so I thought I'd do a post about how I do my nail art, just tips and tools I guess. It's a long one so settle down. 


Before you do any of this make sure you have been to the toilet, you have everything you need around you including a drink ;) and that you have plenty of time to create; there's nothing worse than starting a design and then realising you have to do the shopping, etc etc. 


So the first thing I do is find inspiration, now this can be from almost anywhere; other bloggers, clothing, fashion magazines are a good source for patterns, other people, nature, buildings, art etc etc. 

The next step is the most important, if I have never done the design I have in mind before I get my little blank notebook out and using fineliners I draw out the design quite big so I can get a feel for it. I recommend doing this before you even go near your nails as drawing it on paper is basically just practicing. Then I draw a nail shape that's a bit smaller than my own nails and try and fit as much detail of a design as I can into the little nail. Here's a few examples 

This was what I did for the Jil Sander paisley

This is the floral design, note the mess, I'll get onto that :P

I do this so that it's easier to draw the design when you get onto your real nail as you realise you have more space than you thought. If you don't feel confident with the design just keep drawing it over and over until you do. The more you practice the better you'll be :). 

Once you have confidence that you'll be able to do it on your nail, grab your tools and just go for it. The 'tools' that I use are Dotting tools from ebay for £2, make up sponge again £2 for however many, nail art pens - wah nails which have a striper and a nib but I only use the stripers as I find that the nib is too unreliable as the polish just flows out and I can't control it which ruins EVERYTHING. The other nail art pens I use are by Supreme nails and they are £19.99 for 10 and I love them so much, they only have a nib as the brush that comes with them are full sized so you can paint your nails with the nail art pen, I guess it's good if you are traveling as they can be joined together at the base. 

The most important thing I do before doing any nail art is to use Seche vite even if my nails are dry, I do this to ensure that there is a smooth base, if you have ever tried to do nail art on a less than smooth base you'll understand why. Also seche vite just makes sure that everything is perfectly dry, this might sound simple but never try to do nail art on wet polish, even if you think it's nearly dry, don't do it! It will drag the tacky polish off and then you'll get super stressed and messy. So just wait those couple of minutes longer. 

If you are using dotting tools you need a puddle of polish to dip into, I know a few people use a lid of something but I simply use paper, there's no reason why you shouldn't as long as you don't tip a massive great pool out you'll be fine ;). The puddle will eventually go tacky but that's inevitable. You can see all my spots of polish on the second photo, dotting tools are good for mixing polish too, that's how I made the light grey just mixed the two colours on the paper via a dotting tool. Another plus of using paper is that you can practice dotting before you go on the nail. Multi purpose indeed :). 

If you know that your non dominant hand will be shaky practice dotting etc repeatedly without polish on the tool, just go through the action slowly and then faster, this should help steady you. I think a lot of it is in your mind as well, if you think you won't be able to do it then you probably won't, so think positive and think of what movement you are doing, it really helps. Chances are if you can paint your nails with your non dominant hand then you CAN use it for nail art :)! 

Aim high but start off small otherwise it'll just knock your confidence if you find that you can't do something, you will be able to with practice. 

This time last year my left hand was shaky but constant practice has made it steady and in control (lol) you just train it to behave :P. 

I made this little book of designs sometime last year around september and I've improved sooooo much since then, so I'm proof that it  pays to practice! 

There you have it, I hope this wasn't patronising or too obvious for anyone, I just feel like I've learnt a lot over the past few months and I wish I'd knew it before. 

Hope this has helped! 

Floral nail art

Hey, so yesterday I was going to post swatches of Dior Riviera but looking back over the photos, I realised I couldn't post them as Riviera looks nothing like what my pictures were showing :( so I'm showing you the nail art I did over it instead. I'll post Riviera once I get my camera back! 
I have this top and it's really nice and summery so I thought it would make perfect nails....it did! 

Right hand - sorry about the background...didn't have time to grab my backdrop  

Left hand - natural light 

I rather like it, they feel quite oriental for some reason, I like it because it's not your usual roses/daisies not that there's anything wrong with those but I felt like having something different :). In reality the base colour is a strong orange coral not pinky! 

I created the flowers with a medium and smallest dotting tools I dotted a white circle then at the bottom of the circle I drew a curved line to make a bell shape. Then I added the dark grey and a lighter grey to act as shading. I used a dark green nail art pen to draw the stems, then I used Essie Navigate Her with the smallest dotting tool and went above the dark green lines to create light and shadow :P. That was the most time consuming point but after that it went really quickly. My left hand wasn't even shaking when I did my right hand!!

So that inspired me to practise writing with my left hand everyday until I become fully ambidextrous hahahah! Incase my right hand ever gets injured of course ;). 

There you have it! I hope everyone has a good weekend :) my sister is running 3 miles for cancer research on sunday so that's where I'll be supporting her, she's doing it with college otherwise I would have joined her! 

Part stash, part gradient

So today I did another gradient, again it was quite subtle, as I don't have my camera I couldn't capture it, IRL you can see the colour change but alas in the photos it's like looking for the lochness monster....you have to look real close for a long time to catch a glimpse ;). It's a shame though cos it looks nice in person. I did do three layers then topcoat but it was too shiny so I added a couple more layers which helped but not much lol 

Shiny, you can kind of see it

More visible without topcoat

I added Dior Nirvana over Chanel Blue Boy, like I said it looks nice IRL and super smooth, almost airbrushed :D but it just isn't coming across in pictures :(. I can't wait to wear Nirvana on it's own, it's so pretty! 

Here's the part stash...part :P this is my most favourite part of my stash...the Diors :) 

Bitter Orange (discontinued, bought off ebay the other day for a fiver!!), Waterlily (ebay), Forget-me-not (£13), Nirvana (present), Lucky (£3), Riviera (ebay £9) and Saint Tropez (full price....I couldn't resist it:P) 

I have to put the prices to show that I'm not made of money I just find bargains and collect Debenhams beauty points, they really add up :) I've only ever paid full price for one Dior polish so it's okay, aren't they so pretty?! 

Hope you enjoyed!

Chanel Blue Boy Swatches

Good evening, tonight I have my very first Chanel awwwwww given to me by my lovely boyf! I've been wanting Blue Boy for such a long time and it does not disappoint! It has the perfect formula; not too thick and very moveable and it dries so glossy on its own. Now I think I have found the perfect base coat combination, I've tried this three times and I've had no canyons! First I used Save the Nail Bridge the Ridge, let that dry and then I put Seche Vite over that. I believe it works as the Save the Nail creates a cushion that Seche Vite sits on top and fills in the ridges. Get me being all sciencey ;). On to the smooth pictures...

Natural Light

Natural Light

With flash

I'd say that the first two photos are pretty colour accurate, it's a gorgeous dusty medium blue and is perfectly creamy. It's a really sophisticated colour IMO it feels grown up despite being blue, I think this would be office appropriate too as it's a muted beautiful colour, funnily enough it does match the jeans I am wearing today so it really is like having jeans for your nails :P. The only downside to this polish is that it has given me a taste for Chanel ;) and I really don't need that as well as my addiction to Dior! 

I'm not happy with the quality of these pictures but what can you do? My camera should take 7-10 days to be fixed! It can't come soon enough, I miss it so much lol! 

What do you think to this? Worth the money? 

I have the best boyfriend!!

Just a quick post, me and the boyf have had a great day, it's been really fun! Anyway I thought I'd just show you what he got me as a gift

Chanel Blue Boy and Dior Nirvana!

:D :D :D eeeeeeee isn't he the best?!

Maybelline Pro Rose Poudre Swatches, studs and soppyness

You've been warned from the title that this is about to get soppy (only a bit I promise) but first the polish. Can you believe that this is my first nude polish! I saw this on makeupsavvy.co.uk a while ago and decided it would be a good place to start, I was right lol it looks quite dark in the bottle maybe too dark for me on first appearances however I think it's a decent match. It's quite beigey with pink undertones. 

This is only two coats that glided on so easily, a really lovely formula, it dries quite dull but obviously that's not a problem when I was going to Seche Vite it anyway :). These polishes cost £4.09 which is an odd price right? But I think this is worth it, I really like it. 
I bought some studs off ebay for £0.99 you get 75 little gold studs in a resealable bag I'd been wanting some forever but I kept forgetting to get some hahaha. To put them on I used a cuticle stick thing as for some reason they stuck to it :P and then just pushed them around until I was happy that they were lined up properly. 

I am cray about this, honestly I love this!! I think it looks so chic and sophisticated (first time for everything ;)) nude and studs are a timeless combination that everyone should try once, they look great, easy nail art :D. 
Here's where it gets soppy, tomorrow is mine and the boyfs two year anniversary, I know that it's not a very long time to some people but I like to celebrate the little things in life. So here is the final touch to my mani my fake tat ;) I used Orly Ma Cherie (which the lovely Anna sent me) and dotting tools to create the heart and my white nail art pen which as you can see is going stringy, oh noes. 

The claw....sorry about the hideous flash!

I'm really happy with this mani :) my only quarrel is the photos, I always do my nails at night for some reason lol so I am forced to use flash, I don't think they're that bad? 

Can I just say that I'm super happy that my nails look smooth for once!! No canyons!!! Woo this must be a miracle working polish!

Have a good night/day lol