Nude comparisons!

It's finally here, the promised nude comparison post :P

When I first started getting into polish (all those years ago ;)) I couldn't understand the fascination with nude polishes, I was like why would I want to paint my nails in a flesh colour when there's the entire rainbow and more to use!! But now I see the attraction (this must be growing up ;P) they are good as palette cleansers in between more cray manis, they make your fingers look longer and make you look more put together and polished (sorry!).

I only used 4 polishes in this comparison as these are the 4 most similar - in terms of opacity and finish, I have Illamasqua Monogamous  and Barry M Nude too but they are too different to the others.

Lets get into it then! 

In the bottles they don't look that similar however when they are on the nail they look completely different to how they do in the bottle...

OPI - My Vampire is Buff: Two coats, my favourite as it feels cleaner than the others. £11.50
Essie - Sand Tropez: Two coats, looks more like a cement grey than a flesh tone however when worn alone it looks a lot more neutral. £7.99
Gosh - Highschool Flirt: Two coats, very similar to MVIB but slightly warmer. £3.99
Maybelline Forever Strong - Rose Poudre: Two coats, pink toned beige. £4.09

Like I said my favourite by far is MVIB with Highschool Flirt as a close second, it definitely is the closest to my skintone and looks flattering on everyone that I've seen wearing it! The only downside is the price that we pay for OPI in the UK in shops, I got mine from Sally's Salon Services, obviously you can get them cheaper online but you know I like instant gratification ;).
 
There are still some Essie nudes that I'm interested in and L'Oreal are bringing out their new nude collection with lipsticks and polishes so I'll probably get those too ;) If I was in the US I'd definitely check out RGB x HIPP nail foundations and tints because they look awesome!!

Hope you enjoyed this post :)

My 21st birthday mani

Hi, so it was my birthday this time last week, I'm 21 now :O
It was hard to decide what to do on my nails, glitter? Cake? etc so I narrowed it down to my two favourite colours at the moment (Nails Inc Baker Street and Illamasqua Stance) and then I thought I'd bring out the stars, unicorn charm, gems and of course 21! I went for an old English font for the numbers as I think it looks cooool and tones down the girlyness of the other nails :P. I've just realised that last year I used illamasqua (see last years nails here - soooo short :O)
I've got to apologise for the photos though as a few are blurred and yes...I resorted to doing the claw!

I did my right hand in low light so I thought it looked ok until I took this photo hahaha

I have to say sorry for how messy they are! They looked ok in real life ;P

 



I got this bag as a present and noticed that my nails totally matched it! Ha (again sorry that the nails are out of focus...I swear I am a photography student :P)
I think the stars look ok, I had been trying to think of a good use for them up to now!

I know I have posted in a while, in fact my birthday was two weeks ago today! I've been all over the place as it's nearly time to go back to uni so I've been doing all those important things like sorting accommodation, student finance buying new stuff etc. And I went to Ipswich for the weekend after my birthday and had a really good time which just makes me want to go back to uni even more, I'm going a bit stir crazy being at home...and I think my nails are suffering, I feel like I've got nothing to inspire me at the moment which sucks but in good news I have just written two more posts up :O so I do have something to show you soon :p.

I really need to start reading and commenting on others' blogs more frequently!

Hope everyone's been well! See ya soon :)

Recent nail looks

Hey remember me? :P
Life is just getting in the way of my nails at the moment but it's my 21st birthday next week :O so I need to think of some fitting nails!

Anyway I have amassed a small collection of photos of random nails that I've done but aren't worthy of a whole post dedicated to them so I thought I'd show you them now :)

A while ago when I had Chanel Bel - Argus on my nails I did a dry marble look with Azure and took photos but never got round to posting it!

See it's easier to see the difference when compared to Bel Argus on its own :P I thought it looked really pretty! It was super easy to do just blob both colours on and mix with a pointy stick/brush/toothpick whatever! I added some pearls and HEX charms to complete the look...

Iphone photo sorry! On my thumb I went for the water reflecting light...I'm not sure if it worked but I put a turtle swimming across it hahah

I recently acquired OPI- My vampire is Buff in the continued search for my perfect nude...

still not perfect but a really nice nude anyway! It gives that polished look that I sometimes enjoy to rock inbetween my more in your face manis :P (nude comparison post coming up!)

And I've had this very simple nail art on on for over a week now!! I cut my nails down seriously this week too, they were well over an inch long :O I'm not sure that you'll be able to tell that they have been shortened though as they are still very long :P

So I am loving the whole negative space thing that's happening at the moment! I put the polish a little beneath my natural tip as I didn't want to go for a French mani look :P

I think I am going to have a solid colour for a couple of days whilst I plan my birthday nails!!
Hope everyone is well! And thank you to those loyal readers/commenters you make this worthwhile and I love you! Especially you Lizzy!!! :)

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!

Dior Riviera gradient and ice lolly nail art

Hellooo, hope everyone's well! It's been so hot and to be honest doing my nails has not been on my mind, I've just been out and about enjoying the weather, I went to Alton Towers yesterday and went on the new ride: The Smiler, it was really fun but seriously shakey like the same kind of pain that you experienced when riding the Corkscrew! But other than the headache it was so good! The queue wasn't even that long (well it didn't feel long :P) so I definitely recommend it!

I recently painted my mums nails with Dior Riviera and it looked so summery and juicy that I had to use it on mine the other day, the best thing about it is that I only used ONE coat to get this coverage annnnnd look at my barely there ridges after one coat! Gah that's why I love Dior ;)

A juicy red based orange...ok so my ridges look a lot worse in the photo than in real life...awkward ;)

It's really easy to be inspired by a colour like this, I wanted to do a gradient, so I used Illamasqua Stance and a pink Barry M as the middle mixer colour. I haven't done a gradient in so long, I don't know why they're so gorgeous and easy!

So once I'd got that I had the idea to do something seasonally appropriate; ice lollies!

I'm not sure that they look like ice lollies but I know that they're meant to be and they still kinda look cute? Hehe well I didn't like them enough to do them on my other hand though....
I added the bee charm from Hex for a little humour, I find it a bit funny anyway :P

I bought a new nude polish a couple of days ago which I'm hoping is a closer match to my skintone than my others, I have quite a few nudes now so I might do a little comparison this week if anyone is interested in that?

Enjoy the weekend! See you soon!

Neon camo print + my weekend!

Hey!
I've got a mix of "real" photos from my camera and some from my phone for you today as me and my nails have been out and about ;).

You know that I love neons so much, I had to use them again...I know, I need to give love to some other polishes but this weather is just so amazing! Hahaha. I also love camo print so it was a no brainer really ;).
Camo is good to do as it requires little effort for good payoff, saying that I did get a bit obsessive with it, I had to redo a couple as they weren't quite right pah.

I used China Glaze - Knockout Orange, Flying Dragon and I'm with the Lifeguard and Models Own - Luis lemon and my nail art brush and then added the chains. I ventured outside to take the pictures cos well why not! I love Knockout Orange so much, it's the brightest neon I own, it's amazing!

I wore these nails for about a week and I had no chips or signs of wear!! I only took them off last night cos I started to piggle the chains off and then one thing lead to another and I'd pealed half the polish off....naughty I know but it's addictive :P. So Seche Vite is in my good books again, I was hating on it the other day because I had reached the point where it gets gloopy, ie half way through...it's so much waste! :(.

Due to the weather we went to a BBQ at a family friends which was fun and then we went to the beach and missed the hottest day so far which I'm happy about :P I've also started reading for my dissertation, which I will be doing as I found out my grades for second year today, I got a 2.1- so I passed yay!


Nomming on homemade brownies...they're motivational ;)

Nomming on piri piri chicken at the BBQ, there's a theme here ;) thanks to my sis' boyfriend for the photo ;)

Enjoyed a few of these, nails still lookin' fly ;)

I hope you all have had good weekends too! With plenty of suncream involved, I'm on the factor 50 ;) heheh I've got a very colourful mani lined up for you next :)

Junk Food nail art

Hi, so I've been mia for a while as, quite frankly, life has been in the way of blogging...you know how time just runs away with you and before you know it it's been two weeks already! My blogging has slowed down again because I just haven't been doing my nails! I've been thinking about my blog compared to others and I realise that I don't have to keep apologising for not blogging all the time, that's not what my blog is about, it's about sharing the nail art that I do with like minded people who don't care how often I post :) my blog is a platform for people to read about what the thoughts were behind the nails and to see more pictures than I give on instagram. So I am finally happy in my blogging skin, as it were ;).

Now I've got over the deep ish let's get on with the happy nail art :D
What do you do when you don't know what to put on your nails? You look around for inspiration, wallpaper, clothing, the internet or in this case your fridge ;) ok so my fridge doesn't actually contain any of the following :( but my head is full of it :p. Of course I'm on about good ol junk food. I figured it was a while since I had done any cartoon style work (if ever) so no time like the present ;).
These nails turned out the way I had in my head which is always a good thing and also a rarity ha!
My base colour is the beautiful Illamasqua Nomad, then I painted the food stuffs on with my little paint brush using various nail polishes, once they had dried I went around the edges with a black nail art pen and then to finish I went and put the all important white highlights on with the white nail pen, that white highlight turns the images from flat to living cartoony foods hahaha.

I didn't do my left hand as I smudged the polish on basically every finger and I really couldn't be bothered to fix it and then do nail art lol
My pinky is chips/fries with ketchup, then nachos with cheese, chocolate cake with caramel sauce and pepperoni pizza mmmmmm my thumb says I love junk food (I'm not sure why it's out of focus, sorry!)

Freakily my mum came home from work and said that it was world food week at the school she works at so obviously I had to do her nails according to the menu ;)

 She has from pinky inwards, pizza, fish and chips, curry (really hard to think of how to portray that ha) burger and on the thumbs a taco and a fajita.

   

She said that everyone at work loved them, especially the chips, they're my fav too, and that they thought they were transfers :p I am quite proud of them hehe.

I'm going to play catch up and comment now on all the blogs I've been neglecting! Hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather (if it's sunny where you are!) see you all soon :)