Christmas countdown: Nail look 2 - dark gems

Welcome to my second Christmas nail look! Again it is more universally winterish than full on Christmas cracker! ;)
You know that everyone loves a good old vampy polish (I haven't said that in months!) for the colder, darker months and I'm no exception. I even went to the little chemist under the accommodation and bought a little Revlon Lasting Finish in Black Cherries (for like £2!!) as I was feeling that my collection was lacking a good dark shiny shade.

Two coats and I had sexy blackened purple/red nails but they didn't remain that way for more than a day ha! I added a little bit of glittttah from the Hungry Asian - Vote for Purple and then topped that off with my favourite things in this whole world, gems!

Sorry (not sorry) in advance for the hipster shot ;)  

what can I say, I looooove Starbucks :P
That's how old these pictures are, no red cups! I might have to get another Caramel Mac in a red cup purely for blogging purposes of course ;)

Seasonally appropriate I think! Next week the nails are going to get a little bit more cray and fun ;)
Now it's back to the dissertation :( I've procrastinated enough, all I want to do is make some embroidery, it's my new favourite past time, it's so fun, easy and enjoyable! Oh and paint my nails of course ;)

Merry Thursday everyone!

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!

A selection of nail arts...

Hey, I hope everyone had a good christmas :)
I obviously did thats why I had no time to post hahaha. I did some christmas nails but I also have a couple others that don't need their own post so I thought I bung them all together in one ;).
First is my mixed christmas nails; pretzels, starbucks coffee, icicles and autumn leaves. The base colour is Barry M Blackberry?? from the Gelly collection, it's gorgeous!

Next is something a bit abstract, I was going for a night sky but it kind of just looked like colour blocking :P

Finally these are the nails I am STILL wearing since christmas eve, hence why they are so scruffy!!

I am doing my new years mani tomorrow so I'll try to post it before midnight ;). Also I'll be holding a giveaway soon :)
I seriously need to file my nails sooooon, they're freaking everybody out hahahah
Anyway see you soon!

Christmas glitter gradient

Howdy!
I know the title says christmas but this works all year long, plus the colour isn't necessarily associated with this time of year but who cares it's christmas after all ;).
I didn't realise until after I had made these that they look like effie trinkets nails from the reaping! Ha but mine are a bit more bling if that's possible??
The base colour is Illamasqua Stance, which is still my favourite purpley pink :) the gold glitter is Barry M gold glitter....imaginitive as always....which I may have said will never be an opaque glitter, in a previous post, well for this purpose it's perfect. The large glitter pieces are some loose glitter that I bought from my favourite place ;). I literally should be banned from there.

 

 

 

 I like these nails alot, they are extremely simple and easy and quick!! The loose glitter cost 99p and will last me forever. The only problem I had was that when I put topcoat on it smudged the gold colouring off so I had to blob the topcoat on but that wasn't a big deal as I'm used to having to do that with nail art anyway.

 

I bought some nail glue yesterday in order to glue those tricky silver/clear rhinestones as using topcoat to stick them makes them go misty! :( so I figured nail glue wouldn't? I'm not sure but I'll let you know how it goes. But anyway I was worried that people would think my nails are fake lolol as everyone always does, I don't blame them though, my claws are pretty long...my thumbs are an actual inch long!

 

I go home for christmas on friday so I imagine I'll squeeze in my real christmas nails on christmas eve!! And if I get any polish for it you know I'll show you guys, I can't wait to see if anyone else gets some!

 

Have a good rest of the week!

 

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!



Christmassy Glitter nails





 

Hey everyone, hello new followers too! I haven't had this many new readers in ages :) anyway carrying on from my last post, here is some more christmassy nails. This time I have used another loose glitter from the ol' craft store, pumpkin glitter ;). I dumped a load of this on each nail then I went over the top with a thin coat of Barry M Red Glitter and it created this lovely warm red-orange glitter that is amazing! So christmassssssssy I can't handle it ;). I'm going to keep using these loose glitters to show that you don't need to buy the latest glitter polishes to create gorgeous nail looks! 

 



 

You can't really get the feel of just how glittery and pretty it is in real life! I was going to add nail art over the top but it's too pretty, I can't do that to it :P.

My motto this christmas is don't buy glitter nail polish buy glitter! Yeah it'll take about three thick coats of topcoat to get smooth but it's so worth it. Most glitter only costs 99p! Woohoo. I'm in this frame of mind as I really want Models Own Northern lights but I can't justify spending £5 on a polish I'll probably ony use once so I'm going to try to recreate it with glitter hehe.

 

I might add something over the top but just not yet ;). 



Winter/Christmas nails no.1

Hey, I hope everyone is well in this cold weather!
As it is nearly december ie. CHRISTMAS I thought I'd start cracking out some wintery/christmasy nail art woohoo!

We have this little craft shop in Ipswich called Craftability and it's the most amazing place, I shouldn't really be allowed in there as I spend ages looking at all the glitters and rhinestones etc and I always end up buying things haha. At the moment I have literally zilch moola as I'm an overspending student :P yet somehow I still managed to come out of said shop with 7 tubes of glitter and one tube of blue flakes...they were all cheap though :D I had to buy them as they were perfectly wintery!

So my first official winter nail art is using one of those glitters and a new Barry M that I only just got which I should have got ages ago cos it's amazing!!
I did one coat of Barry M Silver Diamonds which I believe is a massively cheaper version of China Glaze Techno weehee, it's so gorgeous, tiny and large holo glitter mmmmm. Then I sprinkled the loose irridescent glitter over in a fade kind of way then finished off with another coat of Barry M. This was so gritty that it took 3 thick coats of topcoat to slightly smooth it out but that's because I used loose glitter. I LOOOOOVe the end result, it's so pretty and sparkly and looks like I dipped my fingers in ice :D

 

 

 



 That's the glitter in question, £1.99 for the whole pot, I only used a tiny bit for this so I imagine it'll last forever!

 

I hope the pictures feel all icy and cold, I love this time of year so much, I'm looking forward to going home for a couple of weeks over christmas. We break up on friday 21st! And we have an essay due in :(

Seeyou sooooon!

Birthday mani - Illamasqua Monogamous and The Hungry Asian Vote for Purple

Hi, today I have my first Illamasqua to show you, weeheee it's Monogamous a gorgeous rubbery finished fleshy nude...on everyone else, on me it pulls quite yellowy but not as yellow as the photos show though. It had a good formula and a decent brush and despite the finish it was no trouble to apply.

This is two coats, it was almost a one coater but there were some bald patches. This is the only photo I can use as my canyons are back :( and all the others are weird colours haha. To make it special for my birthday I added Vote for Purple by The Hungry Asian which is a gorgeous mix of purple and silver different sized and shaped glitter. It's special for me as I don't often wear glitter but I love purple and this is pretty and delicate but still sparkly :). I used one thin coat as I wanted it kind of sparse (which is hard with such a jam packed glitter)

I had to include the macaroon picture as they are my favourite treat but they are super hard to find in the UK outside of London but now a new bakery has opened up in Nottingham which makes them!! Wooo, they aren't as good as the ones from Paris but they'll do, the chocolate ones are to die for though! I only wanted to try macaroons because Blair from Gossip Girl used to order Pistachio flavour ones direct from Paris ;).

I know I'm getting at least two polishes for my birthday so I'll post them tomorrow or the next day :) have a good day/night!

Chanel Graphite Swatches

So my Chanel finally arrived from ebay, 9 days after I paid! Really bad seller, she never replied to my messages and took so long to post it :( but I have it now and I had to put it on, it's so pretty!

I'm not just saying this because it's Chanel but honestly a great formula, it just glided over the nail, also because it's kind of foily/glittery it ignores all my ridges and makes me feel like I have nice nails again ;). 

 I know why it's called Graphite....it totally looks like sparkly pencil lead ;) hahaha the above photos show what it looks like in both the SUNNNNNNNN and the shade :( yes we have sun finally! We are meant to experience a heatwave this week which is funny as my dad is off to Australia tomorrow and it'll be hotter here than there :P. Anyway Graphite is so sparkly and grown up, I'm not sure if there is glitter in there or just magical sparkly stuff ;) either way it's darn pretty. The glittery stuff is a gold ish colour like in the top photo and so it creates a warm shimmer over the grey. 

I had to do an 'action' pose, it is Chanel after all ;) I love how chic it looks here though :). In case you're wondering I'm holding my new Phone purse, I love it! One half is a phone holder and the other side has three card slots and room for a few notes so its perfect if you only want to take your phone and a bit of money also hopefully it'll protect my phone when I inevitably drop it again :P mine was £14 from Topshop, they have a wide selection I suggest you look into them if you're a bit of  clutz like me ;). 


On Monday I will be posting Zuza! :D 

The hungry Asian - Sea creature Swatches

Sorry I've not posted since friday, I've been real busy only took the Paul & Joe off this morning! I've been busy smashing my iphone :( and my laptop battery is deteriorating so I need to buy a new one which is another £100+ on broken technology....it's really not my month! 


Anyway onto the polish. I wore this when my camera was broken and I didn't want to post the pictures as they didn't do the polish justice but as I will be away for a couple of days again I figured I need to post something to keep you going ;) so imagine that the pictures are better ;)

Sorry about the quality, like I said this is off the loaner I was using. 
It's annoying because it's such a gorgeous and glowy polish but it doesn't look that good in my pictures :( 

I layered two coats over Barry M Racing Green as the base colours matched perfectly! Sea Creature is made up of lots of different sized glitter that is mainly blues and greens and small black glitter. 
For a different look that can be achieved by layering Sea Creature over a different base colour you should head over to Chelsea at the Nail Network as her swatches are amazing! 


You can tell this is an old picture as my nails are shorter and square! Haha 


Sorry for the rubbish quality but I hope you enjoyed anyway. 

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 :) 

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!

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!