Inspired by...Japanese nail art (part 1)

After a week and two days of naked nails (yeah I know right!) I have finally had the time to actually do my nails, without feeling like I should be doing uni work. Also I found great inspiration from all the talented Japanese nail artists on insta and tumblr, especially Avarice - they do awesome detail work. There's something about Japanese nail art that is so distinctive but also the clients are really creative too, which is something I admire!

So, I am splitting this post into 2 parts as these are my two favourite different styles of JNA (of course there are many more); super detail and embellished. Today I am showing you my embellished style! Y'all know I love me some embellishment...more is more, right? However I have toned it down to suit the more feminine, delicate style of JNA that I have been seeing around lately :)

I recently bought two bags of mixed coloured gems from ebay, both have 1000 gems, I got 3mm and 1mm  and they were delivered the next day...amaaaaazing!

I used 3 coats of Barry M Nude for the base colour, it's real sheer which is nice as if you only wear one coat it just looks like you have lovely healthy nails ;)

If you've been reading my blog for a while you will know of my love for Macaroons...I found some in Ipswich, they were in Patisserie Valerie all this time! So, yeah, they are featuring in the next photos just cos (I just finished eating them all...feel so sick, I'm such a glutton at times -.-')

Here are the aforementioned gems!

Honestly such good value, and such fun to sort them out into colours...I'm not even being sarcastic :| there are so many colours!

Fun! I used MUA's version of caviar beads for the gold, red, purple and green beads, they took an age to sort out though lol! That's why this took a while to do, I was just sorting through multi coloured gems and beads :P.
I love the polka dot nails (inspired by nails_by_jen) they're so cute!
I imagine I'll be keeping these for a few days at least :)

Hope you likeeeee!

Under the Sea nail art with Barry M Blue Glitter

Hi! The title of this post is by request of my mother lol! So I wanted some glitter in my life as it has been a while...Barry M is my go to glitter producing brand, just because they are cheap and produce glitter that is full coverage! The unimaginatively named Blue Glitter is exactly that a nice sparkly medium blue glittah. Which sparkles like the sea...hence the nail art ;) good eh?

These nails came about as I was in my room and saw Stance from Illamasqua sitting there and I thought hmmm that might look nice against this blue as scales?? So I went with it and just carried on from there :P I was influenced by this gorgeous Australian opal bracelet that my dad got me for my birthday last year, I love the colours that it changes between, so pretty :). I couldn't just leave it with only polish so I grabbed my pearls and nail charms and chain! And went for it ;)



Yes, the chains are back with a vengeance

Yeah, I like these nails a lot ;) back on my crazy nail game, it's the only way I mean who wants boring nails! Nails should be fun (although I get it if your work makes you dull them down :( booo for boring work!). I haven't done my thumbs as they're kind of weird at the moment, I haven't filed them in a few days and so they are growing wonky lol so I need to sort them out before I do them :P.

Everyone's first question with these nails has been...don't they get caught on things?? So I thought I'd show you the only thing they have yet been caught on....

Baha! This has happened a few times but other than that the chains are fine, they aren't rusting which is what I was worried about :P

It was funny today, we had to go check on my mum's friends tortoise as she is on holiday and it lives in the garden...it likes to chase feet and then bite your toes! It was so cute! But I thought that I've actually got an appropriate prop for a change :P so I took a quick picture heheh

Tiny enjoying my nail art ;)

 :D hope you enjoyed!

Essie Turquoise & Caicos swatches

Hi, I can't believe it's been this long! So much uni work is the cause...my project is due on monday which is probably why I'm finally posting; major procrastination ;). I actually took these photos 5 days ago, tut tut.

Anyway, the polish in question is the perfect turquoise; Essie Turquoise and Caicos. My experience was much the same as other reviews - thin, streaky formula but it's worth it, the colour is just so happy! I think I did 3 coats as I had quite a few bold patches after the second.
I decided to do an accent of Barry M Limited edition christmas gold thing, as I think turquoise and gold is the best combo yo.

A nice bit of handcream there on my pinky ;)

The ring on my index is from catbird nyc (they deliver internationally), I'm always getting asked where it's from, I neeeeeeeeeed another especially the opal drop! So cute!

In the bottle I don't think T&C looks like anything special but once it's on the nail it looks so good (IMO). I did do some nail art over the top but everyone seemed underwhelmed by it so I didn't bother taking pictures, I liked it, it was simple patterns but no one else felt the same so I just took it off. That's the problem I'm facing at the moment, people are expecting really complex/exciting nail art and when I don't do that they aren't bothered lol I'm taking about people who know me irl/facebook page. Ahh I hate to say it but it's a total firstworldproblem.......trivial.

I know I've been awful at posting since like october, ie since I started my second year, but I've also been slacking at reading and commenting on other blogs so I'm sorry, I'll try to catch up!
I suppose I should do some work now but I can't stop listening to Eminem, you can't work and listen to him, he deserves your full attention haha darn it I love him so much! Hehehe :) see you soon I hope!

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 :)

Christmas nails no.3 snowflakes

Hey! I've been looking at some lovely snowflake nailart so I have done some ;). I wanted white over a dark colour, I chose my oldest nail polish: Barry M Vivid Purple. I've said this before but it's the purple twin of Barry M Navy and y'all know how much I luuurve Navy ;). Vivid purple is a gorgeous shimmery silky cadbury purple vampy, that despite its age it's still applies perfectly!
I added my new favourite Barry M Silver Diamonds over the top, only a thin coat though....ugh it's just so nice!

Soooo pretty! After the glitter was dried I took out my ol' wah nail art pen in white and drew the snowflakes on, I tried using the striper but it's pretty awful for small work so I just pen'd it ;).

 

 

 Then I added pearls and my new multicoloured black studs (which have turned totally black as I didn't put a topcoat on so I guess the colours have rubbed off :() to finish off the look. I love the pearls they make it feel super christmassy! I tried to think of different snowflakes for each nail, to give a bit of variety ;). They were all easy to do, just a cross with two diagonal lines for the base then add smaller lines to make the shapes :) or circles in the case of my index and middle fingernails.

 

My next post should be about nail art embellishments and where to buy them as I know that it can be quite frustrating to find them if you don't know where to look or what to search for!



Snakeskin nail art

Hi,
If you've read this blog for a while you'll know that 1) I loooove Macaroons and 2) I've wanted to do snakeskin print for aaaages. Tonight's post has both of these things yay!

So all I've done here is 4 coats of Barry M Nude then I simply drew lots of little diamonds in random patterns to look like scales using a nail art pen, my fingers hurt after this one :P. I think it looks pretty cool ;).

 

My sad naked index finger :( that I had to file down, the tear is slowly moving towards the tip of the nail as it's growing but it's still so short compared to the rest! :( grow faster!

 



 

 MMMMM Pistachio and Coffee macaroons....I have included these as I can't get hold of them in Ipswich but my boyf went to London for uni and he suprised me with these went he got home!! How sweet, I wasn't expecting it at all...he's the best :) ^^

 

I have a post planned for monday/sunday so look out for that!

Have a good weekend everyone, tomorrow I'm off to the zooooo woohooooo

Houndstooth and glitter leopard

Hi, I don't know how long it's been :( I'm really sorry that I haven't been blogging or commenting lately, just really long days at uni plus too much work means I have hardly changed my nails and there's not enough daylight to take photos with either :(.
I'm trying to get back into it I swear!

For now I'm back :P
I loved my two houndstooth nails so much that I had to do a whole manicure of it, but I wanted to maximise the amount of designs I'm doing at a time so I only did one hand, the other I did glittery leopard print!

My index finger looks funny as it's not my actual nail, instead it is a kind of cast of my former nail made from layers of tea bag bandage from my rip :(. For some reason after I'd taken my cast off I decided to just cut my nail down to the rip.....worst idea ever, it's so short now :( it has grown a fair bit but when I show it you tomorrow, you'll see it's still short though. Anyway to protect my nail dignity I rebandaged my nail and then stuck the cast onto it with topcoat and then painted over the top of the old design. Soooo much effort but the cast didn't last long, it soon started to bend at the end so I took it off the next day after this photo was taken :/.
Boo.
The gold is Barry M Gold Foil topped with three coats of Barry M Gold Glitter which will never be opaque but it looked okay layered over the gold foil.

I love love love the houndstooth though!! It just looks cool y'know.
I've entered the houndstooth, my Lightning Storms and my Galaxy nail art into the Barry M nail art competition to win either £100, £50 or £35 worth of Barry M goodies!! I'm sure I won't win but it's still good to enter for exposure purposes ;).

Seeyou all again soon (if you're still here :P)

Heart tip nail art

From today I am posting from the flat at uni so my posting will either be more sporadic or more regemented LOL it depends whether the work level is higher and harder or if I get into a good routine of work then nail painting so we'll just see I guess ;).

This mani is something I've been wanting to do ever since I grew my nails out but I never had the right nude until I found Barry M Nude. Nude is a sheer....nude colour :P I thought it'd be horribly sheer but actually it was really buildable and two coats makes a good coloured wash. I used three for this mani as I wanted the extra depth of colour but you can still see my nail underneath. My mum has been wearing Nude on her short nails and it looked so nice and clean so if you can I'd definitely pick this one up.
After it had dried I got my mini orly in red and simply painted two lines and then smoothed the arches out and that was it!

Action shot ? ;) I thought it'd be nice for you to see the nails in real life instead of just posing with a bottle :P. This is so easy to do and looks so cute, it has a lana del ray feel to me, she has some great nails :).
These look a lot better in person than in the pictures, trust me!
Good news about the pixel nails, Tipsy Zine has recieved them, I saw a picture of all the nails on their instagram, I cannot wait for it to be published!!

See you all soon!

Girly camo nail art

Hi! 
Firstly how amazing was our opening ceremony ;)? I couldn't stay up to watch all the athletes entering the stadium (I went to bed before Team GB!) but I really loved every second of it :D I can't wait for gymnastics and swimming as Rebecca Adlington comes from my home town!! Woo :D. 
Anyway I wanted to do camo nails so bad ever since I saw Madeline Poole's nails that she did a while ago, they just look fun in my opinion. I know though that this won't be everyone's cup of tea and that's fine as I like them hehehe. 
They are really easy to do but like I discovered they can look really stupid if you do it wrong lol I know that's a kind of contradiction but when I first tried on paper I had no idea what I was doing, so I gave it a few practise runs then dived in and they look like camouflage so that's all good. 

 I don't know why my index nail looks so bulbous :( it's not really like that, it's slim I swear!

Sorry about the shadows! It's just too sunny here ;)

I started with OPI Stranger Tides as it's a nearly khaki shade :P plus it's nice and light and so can take other colours easily. I used the smallest and pointy dotting tools and just dipped and dragged ;) and dotted the shapes on, starting with the lime green which is Gosh Early Green, then the pink which is an unamed Barry M and finally the brown which is Essie Little Brown Dress. I had to take photos in amongst the trees as that was where the sun was annnnd it's camo y'know ;). This design looks better in real life, it's fun! 


I'm posting this early as I have my first ever paid photography job later! I'm really nervous even though it's a family friend as I'm more used to shooting fashion/fine art not weddingy stuff. I'm photographing the bride getting ready and I'm stressing about the lighting, hopefully she'll be by a big window that would be ideal otherwise the indoor lighting will just cast a horrid yellow cast on her :(. Gah stop freaking maaaan lol. Then I'm off to her wedding reception which should be fun :). 


Have a great weekend everyone!

Cray cray Leopard print Rainbow gradient

Sorry Lizzy it's not Zuza just yet :P 


I saw a design on Wahnails instagram of these rainbow leopard print nails and I thought they were so awesome so I had to recreate, mine are a bit different and very bright! I started with a white base to make all the colours pop and to save time ;) so I used Barry M Matte white, which is an okay white, I only used two coats as I didn't need full coverage. Here are all the polishes I used 

Barry M Matte White, Kiko 358 Peach Rose, Dior Riviera, Barry M Cyan Blue, Kiko 355 Canary Yellow and China Glaze I'm with the Lifeguard 

Kind of a teaser for what's to come in like 5 seconds hahahhaha 

I used the on the sponge method, I love how the colours blended together to make new colours :) I am in LOVE with Lifeguard, it's so neon hahaha. In real life this is very bright and vibrant. Next is the leopard print on top of this cray cray gradient. 

Left hand in natural light 

Right hand in natural light 

I love the way the gradient on my right hand turned out the best, it's so pretty! I wish you could see how bright this is and how fun it looks. All we need now is sunnnnnnnnnn stupid England, I swear we are never going to get summer here :(. I freehanded the leopard print using my new and improved Wah nail art pen in black, I have a much better experience with that pen now that it's changed haha.
The gradient looks so much nicer in real life not as sludgy as it looks on the first picture. I'm happy happy happy with this and my photos too. I think I'll start doing photos of both my hands when I do nail art from now on so you can see that I do it on both nails ;). 


You like how I've decided to get all fancy with my photos? I want my blog to look good and I should put my degree to use ;). I got my results and feedback through the post today and I'm very pleased with myself, I got a 2.1= overall which is good to say I never studied photography in college, it goes to show that you can do anything you want! I love this course so much, I can't wait to start my second year in september!! Wooooo. 

Red comparison post

Hey, today I decided to something I've never done; a comparison post (obviously....) I chose reds as in the bottle they can look quite similar and to try and help people who are on their search for their perfect red! 


I only have a few reds in my collection so I chose a variety dark to light 

All five in natural light, I thought it'd be nice for you to see how they look against my skin tone 

Funnily enough I didn't realise I had achieved a perfect ombre mani ;) 

Kiko Dark Crimson, Barry M Raspberry, Essie Limited Addiction, Orly Ma Cherie and Barry M Bright Red.  

The first two (Kiko and Barry M) are cremes whilst the other three are more sheer and jelly ish.

All 5 only took 2 coats to opacity and all were lovely to apply, my first Orly was a dream, my bf liked that one the best he said it was the most sluttiest....LOL but by that he means it's a classic red that is unfortunately associated with naughty ladies ;) but that means it's sexy! Waaa ha :). Anywaaaay, I did like all of them and I always find it interesting how polishes change colour when next to other colours, I always thought that Limited Addiction was a bright red until I put Orly next to it. 

I tried to mix polishes that are easy to acquire in both continents, I think that Bright Red and Ma Cherie are pretty close, I prefer the Orly though. 

I hope you found this helpful and if not then I'm sorry ;)

Which is your favourite? A classic red or a deeper classy red? 

April buying

I've been really good this month and hardly bought anything! I'm doing this post as some people asked to see more haul posts, these types of posts might not be as often as people would like as I am trying really hard to buy less nail polish lol. Here is what I have bought in April! 

Nubar White Polka Dots, Black Polka Dots and Indigo Illusion 

Color clubs

a-england Galahad and Avalon, Barry M Denim and Maybelline khaki green
Not many which is good for my bank :) 


This weekend I am going to do my first nail art tutorial as per a few requests I received so I hope you all enjoy it and find it useful! So look out for that, probably saturday as I have my final project deadline on friday so I can relax this weekend wooo!