Matte Black & Nude Leopard

I recently received this matte black polish from the Born Pretty Store and I've been so obsessed with it. People seem to like matte nails and I've received many compliments from people who don't usually look at my nails twice. It looks really edgy as well.
The good thing about this polish is that it's opaque in one coat and applies really smoothly. Whilst it's drying it has a rubber look to it like the Illamasqua Rubber finish or the Orly Plastix. Although it's matte, it doesn't have that chalky unattractive look.
To cut up the boldness of the matte black I added a leopard accent nail, which I also matted of course :)

The Born Pretty Store has a bunch of other matte colours. I really want to try the white one, it looks really interesting. You can get a 10% discount if you use my code VA7J61 at the checkout.

Born Pretty Store

My Dark Valentine

Today I have a Valentines Day mani to show you. It's a little bit on the dark side but I wasn't in the mood for pink. I wear pink quite often but for some reason, never feel like wearing it around Valentines!

I've always wanted to see what NYX Dorothy looks like matte so this was the perfect occasion to do so. I love this polish, a black jelly base packed with large hex and small red glitter. I'll definitely wear it again on it's own very soon! The thumb and pointer are just a regular black creme mattified with Essie Matte About You.

I stamped the ring finger with the Born Pretty lovely heart m59 stamping plate which at the time seemed like a good idea but I'm not really a fan of how it turned out. The bubbling hearts are too sweet for the look I was going for but then again, it's the only detail that keeps it withing the Valentine these! I also added some loose hex glitter pieces to the ring finger for a slight french tip.

Candy Shop Glitter and Skulls

Last week I had the chance to try out another Born Pretty stamping plate. I believe it's one of the newest additions to their plate collection, it's the QA8 and it sells for $2.99.
This plate consists of five full nail images and three smaller plant/ flower images. The reason I picked this plate was because it has three animal prints (I love animal prints), a checkered pattern which I have wanted for a long time and a skull image which I thought was so cute.

The manicure I put together involves the skull image and I tried to keep it part rock chic and part cute girly. What do you think?

Here you can see all the images the plate has:

Polishes used:
Thumb, middle and pinky - Justy Cosmetics No. 293 and Claire's Candy Shop
Pointer - Barry M Black
Ring - OPI Alpine Snow, stamped with Konad Black Polish

About the plate - If I am comparing to my BM and Cheeky plates, the image size on the QA8 is quite good (apart from that middle cow sort of pattern). They are rounded off as apposed to a full rectangle but I guess that doesn't really matter. 
I've seen some Born Pretty Store plates on other blogs that the image was too small to fit the nails, even on girls who had very short nails, but that isn't the case with this one. They are also etched really well and my stamper picks up all the polish nicely. I have no complaints about this plate thus far (I haven't yet tried the other images).

Get 10% off your Born Pretty Store purchases by using discount code VA7J61.

*Some of the products in this post were sent to me for my honest review.

Midnight Masquerade - Pretty & Polished

Pretty & Polished Midnight Masquerade was one of the first indie polishes I ever purchased. Well, the one that really got my attention was Elvis Pink Cadillac but as I made my way to the checkout, I saw this blackened base packed with magenta and green glitters so I knew I had to buy it too!

Although this polish is opaque on its own in two coats, I still layered it over a coat of black creme. I like my polish very opaque. The formula was slightly thick but not too difficult to apply. It dries quite glossy and its not even that gritty at all, considering all the hex glitter packed into it!

I wish I could have got the glitters to show up a bit more on camera but I really couldn't work around the glare on this one. However, the last picture which was taken with my iPhone in natural daylight, shows the depth of the glitter better.

What do you guys think of this polish?

You can find Pretty & Polished products (polishes, cuticle balms and oils, etc) on Etsy.

Hunt Me If You Can...Stud

When I removed my nail polish today, ready for another mani, I really felt like wearing something edgy and dark. Luckily enough I had recently received some studs from the Born Pretty Store which were perfect for what I had in mind.

I used Essence Hunt Me If You Can from the Vampire's Love Collection and matted it with Essie Matte About You. I was really hoping the silver flecks in it would show up a lot more when matte but they didn't. I really like this polish, it's a chic black (all the more so because of the silver flecks) and I can see myself wearing it often. I added square silver and round gold studs to the accent nail, both these are from the Born Pretty Store and cost around $5 depending on what shape and size you want.

This mani made a perfect pairing with today's outfit of black leather skirt and biker boots. I also received these spike metal chain earrings in the post which I think completed the whole edgy look:

On a different note, have any of you tried travel nail polish remover pads? I had never used them before because I always thought they wouldn't actually remove the polish in it's entirety but a friend of mine swears by them. I wouldn't use them regularly because they aren't great for removing glitter polish or to clean up of course, but they are certainly a good choice to take with you on holiday. Compact and lightweight. These strawberry ones from Born Pretty Store smell divine.

If you want to purchase any of these or other items from the Born Pretty Store, you can use code VA7J61 for 10% discount.

  
*The product(s) in this post was provided for review purposes

butter LONDON - The Black Knight

From soft and girly colours, I went to the complete opposite side of the spectrum today.
I am off on holiday tomorrow and Butter London The Black Knight is what I chose as my vacation mani. Well, actually my husband chose it. I couldn't decide on a dark, wintry colour so I told him to go to my stash and pick out a polish for me to wear. I'd say he made a good choice!

The Black Knight is a black based polish completely packed with tons of pink, blue, red, purple, green, silver and gold glitters. I applied 2 coats over a coat of Barry M Black for complete coverage. I found the formula to be quite thick but still manageable to work with. It's quite gritty as well so you'll need a thick top coat to smooth everything out. It's like galaxy nails for lazy people, perfect for me then! I serious can't get over how much it sparkles in the sun!

Once Upon A Time...

Today I thought I'd dig out an indie polish and voila...Once Upon A Time by Lush Lacquer. A light pink base with lots of different sized pink, purple and silver glitters.

I used one coat of Jessica Samba Parade as a base and two coats of Once Upon A Time. I loved this polish much more in the bottle than I did on my nails, so I decided to only use it on accent nails and mix it up with black. You can't really go wrong with black polish!

Liquid Leather & Sleek Silver

You have probably seen the mani I'm about to show you various time in places such as Pinterest, Instagram or Tumblr. I thought it was so sleek, I had to recreate it. I have no idea who the original creator of this mani is as none of the pictures I've seen have watermarks and I don't recognise the nails (please drop me a line if you happen to know) *Edit* - the lady who originally came up with this mani and who inspired me has come forward. Check out her original version here!

I hardly just wear black on my nails. Black is usually a base colour for some nail art or stamping but I had forgotten how much I liked the bold, striking look of it.

This is two coats of China Glaze Liquid Leather (a new black in my collection, I usually stick to Barry M Black or Sally Hansen Black Out). I then added silver striping tape to create the french tips. I "wrapped" the tape around the underside of my nails and sealed it in with a thick coat of SV. I've been wearing it for over 24 hours and so far the tape has stayed put.

Tip Top Nail Chic - Traffic Lights & Sexy Fishnet Stamping

This is the second polish sent to me for review by Tip Top Nails. If I liked the colour and formula of the first polish, this one totally blew me away.

I like reds but don't usually go out of my way to buy a dark shimmery red like this, so I couldn't believe how much I loved it on my nails. It's so vampy and mysterious, a great colour for fall. You know when we say "this polish is almost a one-coater but I used two for consistency", well, this mani is actually just one coat! The formula was a dream to work with, I'm so impressed.

I'm going to a Burlesque show tomorrow so I couldn't have received this polish at a better time! I channelled my inner Chloe's Nails and went for a sexy fishnet pattern (BM209) with some black french tips. I love how they turned out.

And here is one coat of Traffic Lights on it's own. How cool is it that it's completely opaque in one coat?!

If you want to find out more about Tip Top Nail Chic, I suggest you visit their Facebook page as the company is very active on there.

*This product was sent to me for review by the company.

Hits Speciallita - Moonbow from Phenomena Collection

Today I have a very special polish to show you - Moonbow from Hits Speciallita Phenomena collection.

Bia from Nails by Bia sent me the loveliest package in the mail which included Moonbow and Afterglow from the Phenomena collection, some amazing holo and chrome glitters, Cutie Pie from the Mari Moon collection and a couple of flakies from the Mundo De Dancas collection. Can't wait to share all of these with you, thank you so much Bia!

Hits have done it again! I can't get enough of these polishes! Moonbow is the most multichrome of the collection. Depending on the light, it shifts green, gold, purple, blue and magenta. I had a really hard time trying to capture all the colours as it's been very cloudy here recently and the lighting has been constantly terrible, thus the awkward hand positions!

This is 1 coat of Moonbow over black. Two coats would obviously give a stronger effect but the bottle is so little so I don't want it to finish too quickly! The glitter is coarse which I love so it does require a thick top coat.

Here's a bottle shot of Moonbow and Afterglow. Don't they just look yummy?

Papa-paparazzi

A while ago I was looking at "Lady Gaga nails" on You Tube and came across some really cool designs! There were quite a few clips on how to do nails like her Paparazzi outfit which I found really cute so I thought I'd give them a go!

I used Beauty UK Yellow Peril as a base colour and a dotting tool to draw the Mickey Mouse heads. The very thin gold french tips are made of striping tape.

Hunger Games Capitol Colors - Stone Cold

Stone Cold is my last polish from the China Glaze Hunger Games Capitol Colors collection! Well, I also got Luxe & Lush today but you will be seeing plenty of that one over all sorts of colour in the weeks to come!

Stone Cold (District 2 Masonry) was one of those polishes I wanted without a shadow of a doubt when I first saw swatches of the collection! I love matte and this colour is so androgynous and "badass". It reminds me of a black chalkboard! A chalkboard packed with silver shimmer - did you have those in school? Lol...only joking!

I've never really had much trouble with any of my matte formulas but this is the best formula I've worked with in a matte polish! It's so pigmented you could get away with one coat.

I stamped some silver chains (BM12 and Barry M Silver Foil), to keep with the theme of the polish. You can see how a top coat also transforms this polish and brings out all that silver shimmer.

The Crackling Girl On Fire!

All this week, running up to Friday when the much awaited Hunger Games movie is released, I will be posting a HG inspired mani and my China Glaze Capitol Colors which I got in the mail last week!

I actually did this mani a couple of weeks ago, my nails are much longer now! I was toying with the idea of doing a water marble with red, orange and yellow but I really suck and those and, well... I'm really lazy!!! So I went for the much quicker and easier option!

Cinna would totally approve of Katniss wearing crackle right? Especially matte c'mon!!! Lol!

Bad Little Kitty

Before I took Nubar Mod Aqua off this morning, I had a little play around with some nail art pens from Rio Beauty. I have a few of these pens which I bought in bulk on Ebay but the Rio ones are of a higher quality and the bristles on their brushes are much better than the ones I had.

Rio do different types of these nail art pens: neon, pastel, metallic and an original set (which is the one I received). They all include 8 colours, rhinestones, nail glitter, a design chart, application brush, instructions and a step-by-step DVD which is actually very useful. I like their dual applicator bottles, as you can use both the fine brush and the detailing pen depending on which design you want to create. These sets retail for £24.99.

One of the tutorials on their DVD is how to draw little paws and you all know how much I love cats! Plus I've been meaning to do something similar to this mani for a couple of weeks now, ever since I saw it on her blog and couldn't believe how pretty it was. Can you guess whose mani I based this on? Of course you can, it's AmyGrace's Beware of the cat mani, although I replaced the little birds with paw marks as I don't have that plate.

I drew the cat with the black fine brush and the paws with the detailing pen from the set.

And here you can see what is included in each set:

*This item was sent to me for review

All Essence Zebra

I thought Essence's Got A Secret would be a great base colour for a mani I've had in mind to do for quite some time - Zebra!!! A dove gray and black zebra is every bit as cool as black and white :) This mani was inspired by Sammy at The Nailasaurus. She did a really cool nude and black version a while ago.

I used Essence Vampire's Love TE - Hunt Me If You Can to stamp with and for the vertical lines on the left of the nails. So, this is an all Essence mani!

I really like how they turned out! You like? :)

Hearty Half Moons - Quick & Easy Valentine's Nails

And here you have it. The actual Valentine's day mani. I actually did this one last week but was waiting for 14th February to post it.

If you follow my blog you have probably seen this before, I did the same half moon variation back in October 2011 with Illamasqua Purity, just after Theatre of The Nameless was released and all because the shape of the half moon reminded me of theatre curtains! Weird I know! Well this shape also reminds me of a heart so I've had this mani in mind for quite some time and was waiting for Valentine's to do it.

I used Barry M Black over Jessica Samba Parade (my only Jessica polish) as a base colour. I've had this polish for so long that the formula has gone a bit goopy and it was hard to manage, however it's a good quality polish and they have very interesting colours. The only downside is the price, they retail at about £9.45.

Purple Kisses - Quick & Easy Valentine's Nails

I have a love/ hate relationship with festive/ seasonal manis. I usually don't have a problem stamping hearts or snowflakes on my nails throughout the year but when it's Christmas or Valentine's, I end up not managing my time properly and panicking because for some reason I get really busy and have to rush all my festive manis. They always end up a mess!

So, for this Valentines I decided to do a series (hopefully I will manage more than one mani until Tuesday) which are very quick and easy but still capture the Valentine's feel.

This mani is inspired by Erika. I spotted it on her blog last year and loved it so much that I kept it in my "to do" folder for this year. Erika added some amazing matte french tips but to keep this mani quick and not have to mess around with scotch tape, I didn't add any tips :(

Base colour is Barry M Black. I love Barry M polishes but their black is really bad to work with, it's extremely hard to control and gets goopy by the time you reach your 3rd nail. I had quite a bit of clean-up to do. I just want this bottle to finish already!!! I then stamped using BM02, GOSH Metallic Purple and an unnamed Primark polish.

It's Black, It's Gold, It's Matte!

I'm obsessed with matte again! I was really into it at one point but then sort of forgot about it, now I feel like I have to mattify everything, well... nearly everything!

After I laid the gold stamp over the black base, it just didn't look right being glossy! I had also been looking at some of Amy Grace's past matte manis and who doesn't totally fall in love with Amy Grace's manis?! I also took a page out of Finger's and Erika's book and added some french tips for good measure!

So here it is, 2 coats of Barry M Black, stamped with Barry M Gold Foil and BM201. I smudged the image a little and not all of it transferred as I had hoped but I'm getting better at stamping.  Hope you like it :)

French Twist

This morning on the train, I saw a girl wearing gold nails with black tips. I see her every now and then on my way to work and she always has impeccable nails. I wonder if she is a blogger or something?! I'm too shy to ask! Lol!

Anyway, back to my point. I'd forgotten how much I actually like french tips of various colours. It makes for a simple yet fun mani.

I used Barry M Silver as a base colour. This isn't the best silver I've tried. In fact, it's below average. On the brush, the micro glitter is plenty and quite densely packed but it doesn't translate to the nail (not the same calibre as Zoya Trixie which is my favourite silver). I used 3 coats and there was still some sheer patches.

Drying time was horrible, even with a fast dry top coat (or maybe I'm just too impatient). Because of this, I dented my ring finger and had to try and cover it up with another coat. My other Barry M polishes are much better than this so I guess it's just this particular one that's problematic. The black tips are Barry M Black.

Do you guys like french manicures of various colours as well or are you a traditional french manicure kind of person? I like both to be perfectly honest but traditional french is so unadventurous! I haven't done one in years so I might actually do one sometime soon :)