Illamasqua Stance swatches

Hey so I found some time to do my nails and I chose the gorgeous Stance! Oooh it's a beauty! However it is the worst to photograph, honestly it's such a rich and vibrant colour in real life but on camera it appears duller and less juicy but at least it looks purple hahah

This picture leans too blue, the actual colour is a lot warmer, I would have shopped it buuut I don't have photoshop :( I know I know I'm studying photography and I don't own photoshop! It's just too expensive.
I love this colour so much!  It's a very me colour ;). I was a little worried as it's a jelly and so I thought there'd be horrible VNL especilly with the length of my nails but there isn't any! How can this be? I'm so glad obviously but I don't know how they made a juicy polish with no VNL.

Two coats were enough, the first coat was streaky and patchy so I thought I'd have to do three but no just two :D. The formula was lovely, at first I had a few cuticle floods but once I got used to the polish I had no more problems. I love this as well as it doesn't cling to my ridges wooohoo.

I'm hoping to do some nail art on top with my new brushes but that depends if I get inspired or not ;)

Have a good weekend everyone!

Birthday polish

Firstly, I am sorry that I've been so patchy lately it just seems that I have no time for myself: tuesday was my birthday, Wednesday I saw my best friend who I seldomly get to see anymore and then yesterday we took my nana to the Deep (underwater aquarium) for her birthday and today I'm seeing Tom but I NEED to do my nails so bad! So I'm going to make time this morning.

Until I get to do them I'll show you what I got for my birthday

 Illamasqua Stance and Nomad from my mum and Dior Amazonia from my sis

Urban Outfitters Medusa and ?(name came off) from my bfffff

I'm very happy with those :) I'm going to get Nails Inc Baker Street as a present to myself ;) as it's too prettttty not to own it.

Thanks for the happy birthdays :) I had a very nice day!

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!

Hello Kitty nail art

Hi, whilst I still have my lightning nail art on I figured I would show you my sister's nails that she requested, Hello Kitty accents. I was a bit apprehensive but I'm really pleased with how they turned out :). I used my black nail art pen, Barry M matte White, yellow nail art pen and a random no 17 polish of my sister's.  

This one is definitely my favourite, despite the yellow on her face :P. She was actually quite easy to draw as there's not a lot to the design. Btw she painted the pink nails, not me...haha. 

Yesterday we went to london for the day which was really fun but even better were the comments I got on my nails. We went to Illamasqua to get my birthday present :D :D and the lady on the till saw my nails and asked 'are they stick ons?' I explained that I did them and she was shocked and then she said.....'that's better than Wah nails!!!' I was just like :0 thank youuuuuuu then she said I should paint nails as a living. What a compliment! Also the lady in Harrods said basically the same things! It made me very happy :). 

I bought one bottle of polish myself from Illamasqua which I'm sure I will be wearing after I remove the lightning. :)  and mum bought me two for my bday which you'll be able to see in 5 days wooo! The suspense ;). 

Also I've just bought some nail art brushes (finally!) off ebay three stripers and three slim pointed brushes, I can't wait for them to arrive! I have an idea of what I want to do with them and my two bday illamasqua polishes :D. 

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my nail art, I've loved reading every single one and I shall be replying to them now, you lot make it worth while honestly, I'm touched by the kind words that everyone has!! 
*EDIT: I tried to reply to comments but blogger is having a freak out and has deleted my comment box? I can click reply but then a box with my blog comes in its place......sigh......as soon as it's fixed I will reply I promise*

Lightning Storm nail art

Hi again, 

Sorry I haven't posted since friday? I was going to post an update of my mani, show you how well it held up (which was really well!) but I just didn't have the energy or the will to take photos of my nails, you know how it is sometimes. Then I had this great idea for some nail art buuuut it went wrong so that was another day without anything to blog about. Then I sorted out my polishes and I now only have 103! Woo progress. Which meant I had about 30 good polishes to sell so I've made a blog sale page but I can't find it lolol when I do though I'll post it. 

I knew I had to make it up to all my old and new readers :) so I chose to do lightning nail art, inspired by the famous tutorial on pinterest, I'm sure you all know the one ;). So I used Nails Inc Chelsea for the base, I wore this on it's own for a couple of hours as we went out just after I'd painted my nails in Chelsea and I really liked it actually :P. My mum saw one of her work friends when we were out and she told them that I was obsessed with nail polish :( I prefer addicted ;). 

Anyway I sponged on Revlon Blue Lagoon, followed by Revlon Plum night, then Models Own Purple Poppy and finally Barry M Matte White. Then I simply drew my wiggly lines on with my white nail art pen and if I felt it needed more purple etc then I simply sponged on some more and then went back over the white. 

I'm going to be honest...I absolutely LOVE these! And they were so easy to do, I tried not to get carried away with the sponging or the extra bolts coming off the main body (?) but I'm so glad I did the little ones as I feel they really make the nails come to life :D. 

I had a really good time down in cornwall thank you everyone who asked :) we went rockpooling like everyday, swimming in a massive lido, watching seals in the harbour, trying amazing ice cream and exploring lands end :) as a special treat I'll show you a picture that I took, I think you'll like it :) 

Hehehe two little seals chilling on the rocks :). 

I'll see you soon hopefully :)

China Glaze Orange Knockout Swatches

Hey, today's the last of my scheduled posts, how'd you all like Lizzy's post? So cute :). Today I have my second Neon polish that I got the other day. I tried out the ridge filler too and oooh I was so surprised when it dried matte! It did fill out my ridges really well actually! I used two coats to make sure they were banished ha ;). I used one coat of Barry M Matte White (Matte matte matte ;)) to ensure that the colour popped, not that it needed it :P. 
I ended up using three coats of Orange Knockout and it nearly knocked me out with how insanely bright!! 

 Hehehehe surprise again! This is me and my sister's hand, look at the skin tone difference :P she's wearing China Glaze High Voltage Pink which doesn't look neon but it is! She didn't put white underneath which is probably why it looks kind of dull and the fact that the orange is literally INSANE!! 

Yeah I am in love with this!! It's my holiday mani, I intend to wear this for the whole week! I'm also hoping that it will bring sunshine and banish the rain, hahahah. Look how smooth my nails are :D it's making me happy. Oh yeah I put a topcoat on as my sis was complaining that hers had chipped off within two hours as she didn't put a topcoat on. I prefer it slightly when it's matte but I need it to last so you know. 
If you have this colour then you know that this polish is a million times brighter and waaaaay more orange, it's so obnoxious that it has to be cool ;). I love the way it looks with my rings :P. 


See you when I get back! With a fresh mani :) Hope everyone's had a great week. 

Guest post! My lovely friend Lizzy :)

Hello again! Surprise! Haha I realised I'd have no posts for this week so I called on someone who I knew I could rely on and who deserves more readers! Lizzy is a lovely lady from Texas and she fast became my online friend :) her blog has loads of personality and humour and y'all should head over to her blog after reading this obviously ;). So here you go, enjoy! 


A hearty "Hello" dear readers of AbbieNail! I'm Lizzy, the blogstress behind Lizzy's Place. OMG
 How excited was I when Abbie asked me to guest post while she's away?!  I hope I don't disappoint. I agonized for almost half an hour over what I should do. Should I blast her readers with some fabulous crackle? Naw. Display the last of the polishes she swapped to me? Good idea, but naw. OH! I know! One of my absolute favorite designs of Abbie's is her insanely cute Banana Mani! Now, I'm no Abbie and trying to attempt anything even close to this (with, say, mangos) would result in certain defeat and shame. So I decided to go another way with some banana-inspired monkeys!

What do you think? Cute? Maybe?! Yeah, I need some practice.  Still, if you like the idea or colors I'll share how I did it. Starting with a base of Ulta: Chocolate Kiss 

Now that looks just like how chocolate should taste. So yummy. I used my largest balled dotting tool to kind of spread on the mouth part with essence: Nude It!

Then I used a medium sized dotter to dot-and-drag on some eyeballs with Sinful Colors: Snow Me White

 I think that was my favorite stage. Then I used a nail polish pen to draw on the eyes, mouth and outline the head. I think my index finger turned out the best.

I finished up with a generous layer of topcoat to bring it all together and then topped that with the matte topcoat. For those of you thinking "Those look like brown frogs. You should have added noses."... My husband said the same thing. LOL Actually he said they look like monkeys, I said they look like frogs, he said I should have given them noses.  Oops. Hope you enjoyed it anyway. Thanks for humoring me and thank you, Abbie, for allowing me to ramble all over your blog. Hope you're having a fantastic time in Cornwall!! Also hope the rest of you are having a fabulous week as well. 


How cuuute! Maybe a little frog ish ;) just kidding, you did good Lizzy! Matte is your all time favourite and it looks good here! I hope everyone enjoyed this guest post as much as I did and now go check out Lizzy's blog :D