Gingham nail art and tutorial

I was meant to get this out last night but I was just too tired so here it is now!
Like I said it's very unseasonal (for us in the UK at least) but it's super cute and looks really cool :). I'll show you the finished look then I'll give the tutorial.

I figured posing with a gingham bow would work ;) my sister made that bow btw....anyway here we go...

All you need is, one white polish, two of the same colour, one lighter and one darker, I used Models Own Lilac Dream and Models Own Purple Poppy. Also you will need one nail art brush either a striper or just a medium length square edged brush and some acetone/remover to keep cleaning the brush with.           
                                                                                                                                                                                 

Step One

Paint all your nails white, two coats should do it, they don't have to be perfect as most will be covered. Then use a fast drying topcoat to ensure a smooth and dry finish.

 

Step Two

Once all nails are dry, starting at either edge of your nail with a tiny bit of nail polish on the nail art brush/striper, slowly bring the brush to the tip of your nail, go over it again if it's to thin or wobbly, you need a nice edge. Repeat across the nail, depending on the width of your nail you should be able to fit three thin stripes or two medium sized stripes. Again you'll need two coats on the stripes.

 

Step Three

Once the vertical stripes are dry, you can start to do the horizontal lines, try to make them the same width as the vertical lines and space them out so that when the lines cross they make white squares, it doesn't look as good if you have rectangles :P.

 

Step Four

Once the horizontal lines are dry, take your darker shade and dap a tiny bit onto the nail art brush/striper and where both lines meet create a square out of the darker colour, this is quite easy as the lines you've already created help keep the darker colour in a sqaure shape. I've shown you here just on the one side to show you what I mean.

 

 

Step Five

Continue making the squares on all cross points on all nails. I only did one coat as I didn't think it needed a further coat as it's a darker colour. As you see my lines and squares are not perfect but it doesn't matter.

 

Step Six

Once everything is dry seal with a very glossy topcoat and you're done. The topcoat really helps to disguise any blips and uneven polish.

 

So I hope you found this tutorial helpful, I'm sure there are other ways to do this but this is the way I did it and it was pretty easy the only difficulty was creating straight lines without a proper striping brush, the only thing is that it is very time consuming and you might get a sore back :P. My right hand turned out pretty good too, the pattern is bigger on my right hand but it still looks good :)

 

 

 Let me know if you try this! I'd love to see your results, I think it'd look so cute with a different colour on each finger :)



Jil Sander inspired Paisley Nail art

Ever since I saw her new gorgeous Paisley print clothing in Elle I knew I would have to do a mani inspired by it! I love me some paisley, you an get lost when drawing it and when you add more than one colour it looks so good! I only did the paisley as accent nails as I was limited on time plus I think it would have been a bit much to have this on all 10 nails lol. 
I started with Zoya Dannii which the lovely Anna sent me :) I'm sure you've all seen Dannii before but incase you haven't it's a purple foil with silver, red and coppery shimmer which create a warm glow when under bright light. It was opaque in one coat but I did two to get the full effect. And two nails of a Sally Hansen French white, which somehow I managed to get opaque in two coats! 

Then I added a coat of my new fav Seche Vite to make sure I had a perfectly smooth and dry surface, which is the key thing when doing freehand designs with a pen, you do not want to just drag the tacky polish of the nail with the nib! I've done that before and it's not pretty. I used the pink, yellow and purple nail supreme pens, I love them! Here's the final result. 

Left hand

Showing off - my right hand ;) you can see the faults though!

The original print by Jil Sander was pink, blue and green but I chose these colours as I prefer them and my blue pen is having a serious blob attack at the moment :P. I'm pretty happy with these, everyone who has seen them asked if they were transfers/wraps so that's a good sign. The only thing I don't like is using Dannii on the rest of my nails, it looks okay in the pictures but IRL it looks less good, I wanted the purple to pick out the purple in the design but instead it makes it fade away almost lol! Or maybe I'm just being dramatic :P. 

Also if you don't follow Nails Inc on Facebook you really have to, that's how I found out about the Jubilee Lucky Dip deal; 6 randomly selected full size polishes for £15!!!!!!!! Can you believe that?! This deal is available until 5th June but only if stocks last that long, which I doubt, so if you haven't already take advantage! Sorry all my non UK readers for the jelly you will feel at this amazing deal lol 

Hope you enjoyed 

Butter London Snog Swatches and Review

Hello, now I warn you if you are a Butter London fan you might want to skip this whole chunk as you will not enjoy it...
So after my last Butter London disaster I thought I would give Snog a chance so I went into it with an open mind and yet I found myself thoroughly disappointed again. I don't know if I have two deffective bottles or everyone else is deluded but I really am not a fan of Snog. The formula was really thin and kind of watery, hard to control and then I didn't like the colour either, too garish I thought I would like it as it looks so lovely on everyone else but it's too much pink for me to handle. I honestly had a horrible time doing my nails with this polish, I only did one coat as I knew I was going to be doing Illamasqua-esque mani but even so I really didn't like it :( meh I found the whole experience of application bleurgh. 

As I said this is only one coat.....
However I had a far better time with Max Factor Intense Plum which I received as part of the free gift, I love this purple! It applied super smooth and easily, the formula was lovely much better than BL. The only problem I had was trying to hold the miniature bottle when taking pictures! Pah.

 I like this mani because for some reason it reminds me of leg warmers, like my nails have leg warmers on haha. I think that pink and purple are an age old combination for a reason, they work well together and the purple does a good job of toning down the pink. 


I just can't get over my bad Butter London experiences :( I want to get rid of them so if anyone wants to swap for them, I would be more than happy to! 
  

Triple purple glitter mani!

Hey, it's a beautiful morning here in Suffolk, I hope it's as lovely where you are :) today I have a polish feast for your eyes! I mean feast, there are going to be lots of pictures...
First I used two coats of the lovely shimmering purple goodness that is Regents Palace from Nails Inc. 

It is gorgeous, nothing new or ground breaking but I love it nonetheless I'm a sucker for these rich jewel tones. It went on really smooth and dried nice and quick. I wish I had kept this on for longer than half an hour :P. 

Next I layered one coat of Bow Street again Nails Inc as I thought the colours matched pretty perfectly so I would only need one coat, I was right but the base of Bow street is quite dark.

It dried semi matte so I had a hard time trying to capture the shine and colour, it would have looked lovely if I had put a topcoat on but I knew I still wanted one more layer so I didn't bother. The final layer is Facets of Fuchsia by Revlon, again I thought that Bow street and FoF looked to have the same colour glitter and base colour, perfect match right? 

So when I put Revlon on I thought I would have an awesome glitter party on my nails but I didn't realise that the base of Facets of Fuchsia was so dark and nearly opaque :(. It totally drowned out the other glitter even when I used the thinnest coat possible but I don't mind anymore as FoF is totally pretty :)

I only used one coat of this however I like it, on some nails (can't see it in the picture) you can definitely see the other glitters influence on the overall colour and shine, if that makes any sense?? It's like the other glitter is refusing to be dulled by the dark base of Revlon and it is shining through when the light hits it....okay lol

I topped this off with one thick coat of SH ID but some nails are still gritty but I don't mind as I know I am going to take it off soon as I have tipwear already, I only put this on 24hrs ago :(. 

I haven't worn glitter nails since christmas and just thinking of the removal is making me sad...

On another note, does anyone know if it is possible that a room diffuser that is meant to be cut grass, can set off Hayfever? This morning I woke up sneezing, itchy nose, puffy eyes and generally feeling like someone has sprayed pollen in my face :( hhaha! But seriously can they? 

Dior Forget me not Swatches and Review

Like I said yesterday I have Dior at last :). The packaging is so cool, I couldn't capture the rainbow on my camera but it's there, it feels so good hehe, I do enjoy packaging and bottles as much as the nail varnish itself so, so far so good ;). 

I got the rainbow from the lid though, lovely, could look at it all day, that's a bit sad I know but hey ho. 

So the actual polish itself is glorious, the brush is flat and rounded so it goes on super smooth and easy and it's just a tad darker than what's in the bottle of course but it's still a gorgeous dusty, elegant purple. It has tiny silver shimmery bit that you can only see if you look very carefully, which elevates this polish even more, it gives it more depth. I think this colour is one that transcends seasons, great in winter or summer, I bet the sun would catch the tiny shimmer :).Opaque in two coats, average drying time then topped off with a topcoat apart from my thumbs cos I smudged them >:(. 

The scent of roses is a bit headache inducing for me, probably because I kept sniffing them whilst the polish was still wet (duh!) but it's nicer after it has faded a touch and when I put the topcoat on it dulled it a bit so it was a far pleasanter smell for my sensitive nose. I'm on the second day of wearing it and the scent is more like a faint trace on my thumbs as I didn't put the topcoat on them but on the rest of my nails the smell has all but gone. 

I had to put this picture on as my boyfriend pointed out it's nearly the same colour as my amethyst ring, how sweet! :). I don't like the way my hand looks in this picture, maybe I can't be a hand model after all ;). 

I recommend this polish especially if you collect packaging like me hah! I really want to get Waterlily now, but my budget won't stretch for another £18 nail varnish, so I'll just have to wait :(

What do you think of this review and polish? Worth the price tag?