Pick and Mix - Week 2 - 2nd Prompt

Hiiiii

Well, I was feeling challenged, so I thought I would give a 3 colour gradient a go! I saw some beautiful nails over at Shamelessly Polished. I can't pull off those tones, but they inspired me to try my own version.

I used two coats of L'Oréal - Rose Bagatelle as a base, then sponged over a gradient of that plus Sinful Colors - Timbleberry and Sinful Colors - Soul Mate.

Here's my final gradient - not 100% but hopefully some more practice will make it better. I am certainly happy to have my beautiful points back anyway.

I then thought what can I add to improve this - the answer is always glitter. So I put a layer of China Glaze - Fairy Dust on it. 

What do you think? If you have any tips on gradients I'd love to hear them!

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Pick and Mix - Week 2

Hiiii!

Well I had this fantastic idea, but as per usual it involved something I am no good at - chevrons!

Practice will make perfect I hope! Anyway, this week one of the prompts is pink. I used two coats of Sinful Colors - Timbleberry, and one coat of Sinful Colors - Pinky Glitter for most of my nails.

My accent is 3 coats of China Glaze - Glistening Snow with some fairly wonky chevrons of Nails Inc - New York Noir.  I cut strips of Scotch tape and laid them over my accent nail before adding a layer of polish, but for some reason even though I removed straight away, the tape broke in two places so I had to go all surgery on them with a pair of tweezers to try and salvage it.

What do you think? If anyone has any tips for chevrons then I would love to hear them!

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

BNB Colour Me Crazy - Pink

Hey everyone!

I am going on holiday tomorrow for a week, so I thought it was a perfect time to do my pink nails!

Even though I am not a great fan of pink, I have 57 shades. It wows even me!

My favourite shades of pink are definitely neons, so I thought I would use my latest addition - China Glaze Pool Party as part of my manicure.

The other polishes I used were my trusty Models Own Hypergel - White Light, and Kate Spade for Nails Inc - New York Noir.

I freehanded the design on my middle and ring fingers over two coats of White Light using a nail art brush from Born Pretty Store. I have no idea how many coats of Pool Party I used - it is very streaky, but at least dries matte and very fast so it didnt really bother me that there were as many coats. Everything of course has a generous coat of Seche Vite on.. can't be dealing with nasty matte. Not for me!

Somehow I feel something is missing, so I may need to add some glitter somewhere before I fly tomorrow. Maybe its just how bad my freehand is.. but nevermind, they look okay from afar I think.

What do you think?

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Nimbus nails!

Have a look at these!

I followed the tutorial over at Nailasaurus and my goodness, I aren't half pleased with these! I even chose colours that I wouldn't usually.

This was so easy and I am really pleased with how they came out.

The polishes I used were:

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White (base)

Nails Inc - Marble Arch

Essie - Off the Shoulder

Ciaté - Jelly Bean

all topped with a coat of OPI Top Coat.

What do you think? Have you tried these yet? Have you tried other tutorials? Would you recommend I try some different ones? Let me know!

Rachael xxx

Pink Wednesdays for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Hey all, I have a new little wednesday installment for the next month - Pink Wednesdays for Breast Cancer Awareness month.

I know there are already a lot of reasons for wearing pink on wednesdays, so I thought why not mix the two together.

So here is my first pink mani of the month - a stamped mani using one of my new MoYou London plates - the Princess plate 14.

I am loving so many of the MoYou London plates - I still have about 10-15 (and soon to be more with the new Mother Nature release) on my wishlist. I picked up 3 in my first purchase - this was one of them. I love the flower design, as well as the swirly dots and hearts, the jigsaw puzzle pieces and the interlocking hearts and the gingerbread men. I will definitely get plenty of use from this plate!

I used the swirly hearts design for this one - I was worried it wouldnt pick up as if you run your finger over it the design is so shallow and delicate that you can barely feel the engraving. But it picked up beautifully and looked lovely over the paler pink. The two polishes I used were both Essie - We're In It Together for the base and Big Spender for stamping with.

What do you think? 

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Swatched - Cadillacquer We'll Meet Again

Hellooooo :)

Another swatch post for you today - trying to use up some of my untrieds. I picked up this beauty as part of a trio from The Nail Arcade pop up shop. 

This was the polish I picked up just because it was part of the set, not because I really wanted it. So of course I was over the moon when I popped it onto my nails and saw how beautiful it was!

This is 2 coats of We'll Meet Again with my usual  Nail Envy basecoat and SV topcoat combo. Its a beautiful soft raspberry pink with a sprinkling of small red circle glitters and holo microglitter. It applies really sheer in the first coat but goes opaque with the second. It levels beautifully and is just stunning. I've worn this all week for work and I just feel very feminine but not overly girly! Love it!

What do you think? Do you own any Cadillacquers? Want any? Which is your favourite? 

Rachael xxx

ER31DC - Day 21 Inspired by a Colour (Nail Lacquer Heart or Love review)

Day 21 - Inspired by a colour time!

I was not inspired by this at all, so asked Becca from Kittys Painted Claws to suggest something, anything for me. She then delegated the choice to her other half.. who not knowing me so well.. chose PURPLE. ARGH!

My initial thoughts.. do I OWN any purple polish? So I had a little rummage about in my unorganised helmer drawers and discovered my little untried beauty from Megan at Nail Lacquer.

When she announced this was coming soon, I just had to have it. Megan was kind enough to give me one as a present, before it was released for sale. How lovely is that?

Heart or Love is a beautiful glitter topper packed full of circle glitter. Heaven. I LOVE CIRCLE GLITTER!

Not my usual colour combination - theres some purple in there, along with pink and blue.. but omg I love it so much! Here I have it layered over Sinful Colors Black on Black. Didn't want to take it off! Perfect going out / special occasion mani! Application was great, lots of glitter and the circles came out fairly easily. It levelled nicely and dried in good time. The circles laid flat to the nail with no curling. Can't fault it!

Don't forget to check out everyone else's mani's for this week!

Rachael xxx

Dragonglass Nails - UK Indie Review and Swatches

Good morning!

Today I have for you a new UK indie brand - Dragonglass Nails by Georgia.

I stumbled across them originally on Instagram and then after stalking them for a while, finally parted with my cash in exchange for two polishes - Good Witch and Bad Witch.

I tried Good Witch first. Both polishes are described as being textured, but I found the two to be very different. Here's how Georgia describes it:

Good Witch is a pink iridescent shimmery polish. It is sheer and best used over another colour (both pictures show it over a pale nude colour, but it can be put over any colour) and layered to be more pink and glittery. It can be made opaque in 4-5 coats and gives a "jelly" appearance, but it has to be left to dry in between or it will go squidgy. Give it a coat of clear or matte top coat, and it's good to go! 

I found Good Witch to be incredibly thick, it definitely needed a drop of thinner. I dabbed it onto my nail for even coverage, over 2 coats of We're in it Together by Essie (a bright baby pink). I think it looks quite pretty, but for me I definitely need to tone down the undies as they really werent the best choice for me! Good Witch was very textured, so I decided to leave it that way - it was already very sparkly so didn't need a topcoat.

I did then see that Georgia recommends wearing it over nude. So i tested one finger with Ciate Cookies and Cream as a base. I also topcoated and you can immediately see the difference. It has a much softer, delicate look and is incredibly even more sparkly. This was 1 coat over 2 thin coats of Cookies and Cream.

And here is Bad Witch.

Bad Witch is a black polish with green sparkles that glitter in the light. It is opaque in one coat and dries to a leather-like finish, which can then be made smooth and sparkly with one coat of your favourite top coat.

 

This was pigmented enough to wear alone - I wore two coats over a base of OPI Nail Envy and with 2 coats of Seche Vite. It DRANK the first coat, so definitely needed the second to smooth everything out. This was nowhere near as textured as Good Witch. Infact, I would say it was more like regular indie polish - just in need of a good topcoat. I really liked this otherwise though - a great choice for Halloween which is scarily not that far away. Also, a great evening choice for green lovers (like myself). It was so sparkly in person, I really did struggle to capture how glittery it was on the nail. Unlike Good Witch, I could apply this like regular polish with no need for any dabbing.

What do you think? Have you tried any Dragonglass Nails polish before? 

Rachael xxx

One from the vault..

Hey all!

Never believed I would do my nails often enough to have 'a vault', but I do have one mani to show you. I was saving this for a nail art competition, but I got rejected so many times for even being in the short listing that I just gave up even trying. 

So here are my nails which I was going to enter into the Grazia and Nails Inc competition on Twitter. They were a second version of my black and white nails with a twist which were a couple of weeks ago. I loved these and wore them for several days.. I really love neon still and am gutted that summer is coming to an end and all the autumn colours are coming in.

My pointer and pinky have two black Born Pretty studs each. What do you think?

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

ER31DC - Day 10 - Gradient Nails

Hey all!

I am trying my hardest here to catch up with this challenge - everyone else I believe is on.. Day 22/23. I am on... Day 10! Yaaaaaay for Day 10 haha! Got to be positive about these things :)

So anyway. I was not looking forward to today - I am not great at gradients they always look not blended. I try my hardest - maybe its just the polish I choose. 

Today I went for something unusual for me - a mix of orange and coral orange/pink. I used Barry M Gelly Papaya and one of my new Taras Talons polishes - Orange Juice.

I've worn Papaya before - its a very bright juicy orange. Orange Juice is a corally orange, which looks a bit pinker when you put it with Papaya. I think they work well together. I used two coats of Papaya, and then sponged Orange Juice on at the tip. What do you think?

I then thought it didn't look quite finished, so I went for your typical sunset look and freehanded a palm tree silhouette onto my accent nail.

Don't forget to check out what everyone else did for gradient week!

Other posts you might like:

Swatched - OPI I'm All Ears

Good morning all!

Today I have another swatch for you of a slightly older polish - one of the Minnie Collection 2012. This one is I'm All Ears. 

I'm All Ears is deceptively red in the bottle. It does have a strong pink tint but you do think it will be red on your nails. Well its not. Its all kinds of awesome on your nails, but in a pink way. A very in your face, sparkly, awesome pink. And I don't say that about pink very often.

This was another bargain from the polish barrow in Metro Centre for £3.99 - definitely money well spent. Formula is gorgeous, its a jelly like formula which dries glossy and has beautiful micro glitter in for that extra sparkle. This is two coats over a base of Rimmel Stronger.

What do you think? Would you wear it? Do you own it / want it? Or are you not a fan?

Rachael xxx

Swatched - Seche Lumiere

Hi all! 

Today I wanted to show you a swatch of a polish I picked up in a sale and swap group. It was a steal at only £2. I really like the colour and I have worn it a couple of times for work. 

It has a satiny finish, and is slightly brush strokey but other than that I am really quite taken by the colour :) 

What do you think? x

Flowers for Mom Nail Art Challenge - Day 1 - Roses

Yeeeeeeees, I've joined ANOTHER nail challenge. This one isn't massively demanding so I am looking forward to it :)

Day 1 is Roses - I've done rose manis before, but I saw a special one I loved on Instagram a few days ago, so I tried recreating it from memory. I now have some fantastic polishes that I can use for it as well, so I'm really pleased!

The polishes I used were:

Sinful Colors - Black to Black

Ellagee polish - Lime-O-Rama and Way Orange

Essie - Off the Shoulder and Mojito

L'Oréal - Opulent Pink

What do you think? Are you a neon / roses fan? Do you think they work well together?

Don't forget to check out everyone else's rose nails today!

Cubbiful  

 Dipped in Lacquer 

  Makeup and Nails, Not War 

 Paint Those Piggies!  

 Paulina’s Passions  

Polish and Repeat 

 Tes Did It Nails