Illamasqua Radium Swatches

Hello, today's swatch is a colour that won't be to everyone's tastes but is totally mine and probably yours too Lizzy ;). Radium is a bright lime/electric green with darker green shimmer throughout, this doesn't make it shimmery but it adds dimension and shine to the colour. The shimmer is visible under artificial lighting though and it looks great!  

You are probably bored of hearing me rave about Illamasqua's quality so I'll skip it ;) but just so you know, this was a perfect two coater....

This colour is real bright but not neon bright which is a nice way to enter the neon trend I think, good for spring/summer but I loved wearing it now in winter, got a few dodgey looks from people thinking I had moldy nails but meh muggles will never understand a colour like this and that's why I love Illamasqua sooooo much :). 

                                       

I love their bottles, they feel so nice to hold and are easy on the eye ;). I've been eyeing up the new collection I'mperfection and am thiiiiis close to getting two of the speckled polishes, they're just so cute but I don't think I will as I can imagine only wearing them once (look at me being all mature and reasonable! What's happened??) but yeah, they look good on shorter nails, probably wouldn't look so good on mine ;). 

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that I did do some nail art over this but I just couldn't decide and ended up disliking it and took it off within a couple of minutes of having it on :P so I didn't take a picture but you can see it in the instagram side box thing here if you wish. 

What do you think to Radium? Yay or nay? 

Simple Heart nail art with tutorial

 

Hey, this is a little later than I'd like to be posting but my boyf is suffering from glandular fever, jaundice and now a horrible rash so I've been looking after him/been at the hospital and doctors so I've finally had a chance to do my nails as he is starting to recover....we hope :)

Anywho Illamasqua Kink was such a pain to remove, it stained my cuticles as I was removing it boo for nasty cuticles! I put this pink Nails Inc on for something simple to cover up my stains but it ended up needing 4 coats!! It was very streaky :( I don't like the colour, it's too barbie pink :P.

As the Vday is round the corner (so it New York!!) I decided I could do a really simple mani before I take this colour off. I saw this nail art in this months Company magazine and it was created by the nail genius The Illustrated nail. Of course the models nails were a lot shorter than mine so I have adapted it to look good on my nails but it looks great on short nails!

 

 

1. You only need one base colour and either a red striper or a striping brush and red polish (you could use a nail art pen if you have one, I prefer the clean edges that a striper gives) Hope I'm spelling striper right.... ;)

2. Paint your base colour and let dry fully.

3. Using your striper (or whatever you're using) make a line from the tip in the centre to the edges of your nail, depending on how pointed you want the hearts tip to be (mine are quite sharp) will determine how far up your nail the lines go.

4. Above the two lines, on shorter nails (read normal non talon length) this should be just under the base of your nail, draw an upside down v.

5. Join your v to the two exisiting lines with a curved line on either side. Try to keep the inner side clean, it doesn't matter if the outer edge is a bit wobbly as you'll be covering it up.

6. Neaten the outer edge, making them the same thickness as the bottom lines or colour all the way to the base of your nail. You should now have really cute heart outline nails! Yay :)

 



 

 

I did two versions, the one on my ring finger is just a thicker version of the above. It looks great on short nails as it covers the whole nail rather than 3/4s, it's super cute for vday and it's quick and simple too :).

Sorry about my horrid ridges! Not even 4 coats of polish can tame them :(.

I've started to think of my NY nails.....eeeee

 

Let me know if you're going to give it a go! I'll pop these onto my tutorials page :) 

Illamasqua Kink swatches

Hey, tonight I have the beauty that is Illamasqua Kink from the Theatre of the Nameless collection, which was the first collection I saw from Illamasqua and I wanted these rubber finish polishes as soon as I saw them but I wasn't into spending a lot of money on make up then ;).

Kink is exactly my kind of colour, green and earthy, it reminds me a lot of Essie Going Incognito actually which is a colour I love :). As you'd expect from Illamasqua it was nearly opaque in one coat but I ended up doing three, you all know how deep my ridges are :(, but if you have nice smooth nails two would be plenty!

 



 

These are swatches without topcoat and you can see that the finish is still shiny but not glossy. I personally love the finish, I prefer it to straight matte to be honest, there's just something about the softness.

The pictures are pretty colour accurate in my opinion, forest green I believe!

 

My giveaway ended on sunday and I finally got around to picking the winner and I've already emailed her, the winner was Zsuzsa Vamosi! So congratulations to her :) yay! Thanks to everyone who entered! 

Hope you enjoyed

Simple monochrome half moons

Hey, hope everyone's well,

I will have the first Illamasqua swatch tomorrow but first I thought I'd show you what I've had on my nails since Wednesday. I've only changed tonight as my boyf has been ill all week, not getting out of bed at all :( so I've been looking after him and doing my uni work so not much time for painting my nails boo.

 

This week I had my hair cut off and it feels sooo good! I've been growing it for four years but it just looked scruffy and it was dead so I just went to the hairdressers and after an hour my hair had a new life! I love my short hair so I had to get it in the picture :P

 

Anyway the nails are nothing new but I still like them :) simple and elegant. 

 

Obviously digging the monochrome today ;)

My giveaway ends tonight!!

I'm sure you've all noticed but I now have a tutorials page which can be found on the right hand side of my blog :)

Illamasqua sale haul

My babies were delivered yesterday :D

All were £5 apart from Raindrops which I paid full price for....the RRP is £81 for all these so I think I got a good deal and free shipping yay!

Kink, Faux Pas and Vice from The Theatre of the Nameless collection (rubbers) Radium, Caress and Raindrops
I'm very happy to add these to my collection as you'll know how much I love my other Illamasquas :) I'll take an updated photo tomorrow for my stash post :)

So which would you like to see?

Nails Inc Fenchurch Street with a floral bouquet

Hey! Hope everyone's well :)
Today's post is another requested one, people wanted more swatches and more floral nail art so I have to obligue :).
I got Fenchurch Street in a three pack from TK Maxx a couple of weeks ago, I was drawn to it as it's such an unusual creamy colour. As per Nails Inc the formula was perfect, it was a one coater! But cos my canyons ain't goin' nowhere I did two coats. It dries real quick too, not matte/glitter quick but quicker than most cremes.
I've gone back to the old style of photos for this as I only had enough time to do the nail art on one hand! Sorrrry!

As you can see it's a gorgeous caramel colour, maybe a tad orangier than the photo shows, it's a tan colour like leather, either way it's yummy and very autumnal. Lavely.

The nail art was inspired by my pen lol! It looks like a bouquet to me, hence the title :P

 

I do like this but not enough to replicate it on my right hand, I think I need a new nail art pen as mine is very hard to get any polish out now :/. I don't think I should have done the big leaves in the darker green (China Glaze Westside Warrior) as it makes them look like acorn leaves :( boo.

 

OMG you guys!!! I caved and ordered from the AMAZING Illamasqua sale and got 6 polishes for under £40! Also one of them is actual Raindrops! They've re released it with the Broken Hearts collection! So excited to get it :D I won't tell you what else I get but you know I'll post pictures as soon as they arrive :D and you can tell me which you want to see :) weeehee.

It's my first crit of the year tomorrow, bit nervous, critques are always a bit scary hahah hopefully I get some good feedback :)

 

Until I see you again!

My stash (Picture heavy!)

Hello, by popular demand, I spent some time yesterday photographing my stash. Now this is only about half of it, the other half is at home so I'll have to photograph them when I get home in Easter!
As I don't have that many here with me I figured I would divide them into brands and do them like that. 

All names will go L-R and bold names are ones which I have swatched, they won't be linked but you can simply search the name in my blog to find it.

First up is my precious Dior rainbow :D

 

Forget me not, Riviera, Lucky, Bitter Orange, Gold Nugget, Waterlily, Saint Tropez, Nirvana and Amazonia

 

 Blue Boy and Graphite

 



Monogamous, Nomad and Stance I need more Illamasqua, I love all these!

Sweets Way,Pudding Lane, Baker Street, Chester Terrace, Park Crescent, Chelsea, Holland Park Avenue, Fenchurch Street and Hampstead Gardens which I intend to swatch tomorrow for you :)

Nude, Vivid Purple, Pink??, Black, Blueberry Ice cream, Blue?? and Blue Plum

Gold Foil, Boots Xmas LE (currently on my toes), Gold Glitter, Gold Mine, Yellow Topaz Glitter and Silver Diamonds

Riveting, I'm with the Lifeguard, Westside Warrior and Swimsuit....nailed it! 

Sand Tropez, Little Black Dress, Going Incognito, Gemma and Saint George

The Hungry Asian - Sea Creature, Funky Fingers - Tinsel Town and Sand and Stillettos, Androgynie, Fowl Play, Unknown (Urban Outfitters), Sneeze Breeze (Seriously need to wear this!!) and Vote for purple

Kiko 338, Kiko 332, Kiko 346, Holographic, Intense Plum and Fantasy Fire. 

Phew! Like I said this is only about half my collection, I could only bring as many could fit into my box so that's why the rest are being neglected at home :P. If you like to see a swatch of any of the colours please let me know!

And this is how I store them and my nail art stuff, not the usual way lol

I feel kind of bad for just shoving them all in there but I ain't got time to arrange them by brand and colour! Hahah. Ain't nobody got time for that ;)

So there you go my half stash! My uni stash haha, I have a hankering for Taylor by Shimmer as I saw A Polish Addict's swatch and just fell in love!

Like I said if you wish to see a colour swatched then comment :)

Foil nail art with tutorial

Hey everyone, I've read all your comments about what you'd like to see more of and I've listened! I'll be doing a stash post tomorrow for those who asked :) and today is some nail art with a tutorial. See I can be a good blogger :P. I'll try and get some more swatches in soon too!

So I got some nail art foils from ebay but I didn't quite know what I wanted to do with them so I've left them until now. The illustrated nail posted a picture on instagram last night and I was inspired so I have done my interpretation.
 Here is the finished look....

I like it, it's a bit of edge and a bit of understated bling ;)

Here's the tutorial in two parts, partly because I didn't like the layout available for the 7 pictures but also because I thought the foil one was kind of handy on its own if you wanted to know how to distress it :)

1. Colours used here are Barry M Black, Max Factor Intense Plum, Seche Vite and the foil.
2. In order to get a distressed look I took a scalpel, but you could use scissors or a sharp knife, although not if you use the knife for cooking as when you scrape away the surface bits of glitter get everywhere! Turn the foil over and gently scrape away the back.
3. This is what it should look like, don't worry if it looks like you've scraped away too much as when you put it over your nail the look isn't as visible.
4. Finally cut out your chosen shape, again I used my scalpel but scissors would do equally.

1. Paint your nail in the chosen colour.
2. Whilst the second coat it still wet, blob on your second colour using the polish's brush and swirl it around to slightly mix the two together. It's a kind of alternative to a smooth gradient, I like it ;).
3. You can either use topcoat or the base polish to stick the foil to your nail. Finish with a topcoat but be sure to blob it over the foil as to not smudge the colour.

Hope you like this nail look, it's something a bit different but still cool and more importantly it was quick and easy!! The quick thing is a rareity with my nail art nowadays but trust me it took hailf an hour to do all 10 fingers! Woohoo

Let me know if you try this :)

First Anniversary Giveaway!!

Hi!
In celebration of both the blogiversary and my lovely readers!! I am giving one lucky person a brand new WAH nails book of nail art!! Woohoo. This was the book that really helped my nail art to develop, it gave me my basic skills so make sure you enter :).

You must be a follower of my blog to enter, I'll be checking so if you aren't click that follow button! And yes, it is open internationally :)

If you choose to blog about the giveaway you may use the above photo :)

Sneaky peak inside ;)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

It's all because of my best friend that I am able to give this away, she bought it me for christmas not realising that I already had it so she said I could sell/give it away :) so thank you Nicola!!

OPEN INTERNATIONALLY :)

So get entering :)!

New blog design

I just wanted to touch base and say hi! Also I've given my blog a bit of a make over, I like it ;) I hope you all do too!
I will be hosting a giveaway tomorrow so be sure to check it out and enter :).
If I had made a new years resolution it would have been to give my blog some more love; post more often and read more blogs. I feel bad as I haven't been reading any for ages, I started reading through my lovely Lizzy's archives (posts from the past few days! Those are archives to me :P) and I envy the dedication and time that she puts into her blog, I wish  could be more like her :).

I am back at uni now and whilst I'll have loads of work to do, I'll also have my routine back; work in morning and afternoon then paint nails in evening and photograph the following day at lunch :P. If I had a lightbox then I'd be able to take photos any time but I prefer natural light which is slowly returning!

I can't believe I've only been blogging for a year at the end of jan! It feels like I've been here for ages, especially when I see how my nails have changed and nail art skills have improved.

So I hope to see some of you tomorrrrrrow :) hope everyone's had a good start to the week :)