Crisp White Sparkle

You know those days when you just want a really clean mani but you don't just want to throw on a nude polish? Today is one of those days for me and the colour I always go to for a clean and crisp mani is of course white!

I rarely wear white polish on it's own anymore because for some reason, I always end up using it as a base for nail art or stamping but I do love the look of a good opaque and streak free white.

This is 2 coats of Sally Hansen White On topped with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust for some pretty and understated sparkle. I wish I could sprinkle Fairy Dust over everything!

A close up of the sparkle which is quite visible in person as well:

Pink & Nude Gradient With A Sprinkle of Fairy Dust

As I'm currently testing out the durability of some polishes I've received this week, so here is something I did a couple of months ago but just left sitting in my unpublished folder.
I'm not as good at gradients as some of the other girls, I always have trouble blending the colours properly and they cause me such a headache. Not to mention that they are super messy and I spend ages cleaning up! I like the way this one turned out though! The colours I used were inspired by my Instagram friend (@cassgooner). If you have IG, check out her awesome designs!

I started off with a coat of ELF Desert Haze which I also used for the gradient along with Andreia No.109 which is actually a very vibrant pink neon but it turned into a medium pink on the nail. Probably because it's a jelly and also because it's sitting over another polish! The side positioned leopard was done with the smallest edge of a dotting tool and I topped everything off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.

I wish doing gradients wasn't so messy because they make for really pretty manicures!

Isn't Fairy Dust pretty?

Thanks for reading and commenting!

Spring Swallow with Fake Nail Tattoos

Hi Everyone!

I know it's been a very long time since I've posted anything! Life happens and I won't bore you with the details. I still won't be able to post as regularly as I'd like but I really missed doing my nails and wanted to show you the mani I did with these nail decals/ tattoos sent to me by "Fake Tattoos".

Fake Tattoos is a Scandinavian company that specialises in temporary body and nail tattoos. The tattoos come in sheets of paper backed by plastic. They apply a lot like water decals other than they don't have to be dipped in water prior to applying. You just peel the plastic backing off, apply the image to the nail and press or carefully rub with a damp paper towel. The tattoo will transfer onto the nail and voila!

I created a mix and match mani using the swallow image. I used one of my favourite greens for spring - Essie Navigate Her as well as China Glaze Polarized on the ring finger to add a bit of sparkle. For the thumb, I opted for various sized polka dots in pink and white.

You can order Fake Tattoos directly from their website. They offer free worldwide shipping!

*The product featured  in this post was sent to me for review.

Jade +Teal = Mix + Match

Can you guess which blogger today's mani is inspired by? Of course you can! She has the most perfect nails and her designs are always fantastic and inspiring - it's Amy Grace from The Polished Perfectionist.

I didn't have all the polishes or the stamping plate that Amy Grace used so I chose the following products instead. By the way, how amazing is CG Atlantis? Can't believe this is the first time I'm wearing it!

pinky and thumb: Rimmel London Misty Jade
ring: Nails Inc Electric Teal, BM221, Konad Special Nail Polish in White
middle: one coat of Nails Inc Electric Teal, two coats of China Glaze Atlantis
index: OPI Alpine Snow, Rimmel London Misty Jade, dotting tool

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Make A Spectacle With Your Nails

Hi everyone! Hope you guys had a lovely Christmas! I had a wonderful time with friends and family, a bunch of amazing presents and yummy food. Let's see what the new year will bring!

Today I have a darker colour with a bit of added sparkle to show you. It's actually an old mani lost in one of my folders. Miss Sporty 'New Black', a dark grey creme with a rainbow of micro shimmer which unfortunately cannot be captured on camera. Topped with China Glaze 'Make A Spectacle' from the Halloween 2012 Wicked Collection.

Make A Spectacle is an iridescent glitter with large hex pieces as well as smaller pieces swimming around in a shimmery base. I did a few layering experiments on a nail wheel and it looks awesome over over any polish. I was surprised I only needed one coat to achieve this much glitter load on the nail. It really transforms a plain colour and it's my favourite from the collection.

Olympia Beauty Show Haul

Today I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Olympia Beauty Exhibition. Well, depends which way you look at it, considering the damage to my credit card! If you are a nail polish hoarder or beauty junkie, this place is like heaven! There were so many pretty polish stands, I didn't know where to turn!

Everything was so clean and neat on the Essie and OPI stands, they were both packed with people browsing and grabbing bottles but the crowds and queues weren't as bad as I thought they would be. OPI had the entire Skyfall collection in stock apart from The Man With The Golden Gun which I wanted to badly but the lady said they sold out about 1 hour after the doors opened!

Here's some of the stuff I bought:

Skyfall Collection:. L-R: On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Live And Let Die, Casino Royale, You Only Live Twice.

Some other OPI's I was lemming. L-R: Hot & Spicy, Pirouette My Whistle, You Callin' Me A Lyre?, Don't Pretzel My Buttons, Every Month Is Oktoberfest.

OPI was selling for £5.80. Some of the American girls on Instagram were shocked at this "discounted" price as that is what they would usually pay normal price. However, OPI is very expensive in the UK and there are hardly any sales ever, so this is an awesome price for us.

Color Club In True Fashion and some of the Winter Affair 2012 Collection. L-R: Gift of Sparkle, Winter Affair, Glitter Wonderland, Berry And Bright, Editorial.

Some random China Glaze lemmings (Lubu Heels, Ruby Pumps, I Herd That and the only 2 that caught my eye from the Wicked Halloween 2012 collection - Cast A Spell and Make A Spectacle.

L-R: Throw Me Something Purple Please, Uptown Glamour, That's My Little Secret, BreakAway, Indescribable.
Misa was selling for £2 so I grabbed these. I really like Misa and it's really difficult to get our hands on this brand in the UK!

L-R: Night Sparkle, Hieroglyphys Purple, Stylish Peacock, Lavender, Beaute, Twlight Kiss. Nubar was 6 polishes for £20.

To be completely honest, Cuccio is a brand I have never heard of but they did have a vast array of colours on their stand. I couldn't help getting some of these nudes and pinks. The formulas look very good, we'll see.

Phew! I'd been saving up for a while when I found out I had a ticket to this event! It is well worth saving up for if you stick to a budget throughout the rest of the year! This obviously means I won't be buying anymore polish for a very long time!

Flip Flop Fantasy gets Crowned Already!

Today I have another mani from the vault to show you. I posted this one on Instagram back in July (it's inspired by Lisa Beth who I follow on IG) but as I was literally on my way to the airport, I didn't have time to write a blog post about it.

Usually summer holiday mani equals neons for me. And what better neon than China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy to relax at the beach and pool with! This is two coats (such a pain to photograph) with two coats of OPI Crown Me Already on the accent finger. I also added some loose silver hex glitter to each of the half moons and quite a bit to the accent finger to make Crown Me Already pop a little more.

Bejeweled For Audrey

I've been wearing this mani for nearly two days now and although it's quite simple, I've received a few compliments on it. I guess people like the look of manis that they would easily be able to recreate themselves, even if they don't have a lot of practise with nail art.

The base colour is the famous China Glaze For Audrey which I only acquired in a swap recently. I can see why so many people love this turquoise cream.

I then sponged some China Glaze I'm Not Lion from the On Safari collection, to the top half of the nail. I'm in love with this glitter and so glad I purchased it even when I hadn't yet seen any swatches. To add a little bit more sparkle, I randomly placed individual hex glitter pieces.

Rock Chick Barbie (Born Pretty Studs Review)

The last time the ladies at Born Pretty Store sent me some items for review, these amazing gold plated studs were also in there! Ever since I saw Sammy's "Stud Up!" week, I set my rhinestone wheel and fimo canes aside and jumped at the opportunity to try out some studs. I can't get enough of them!

Influenced in part by the studs, here is a Rock Chick Barbie look. I used China Glaze Stone Cold and Risque Pop (which is a Brazilian brand) on the accent finger. Amy Grace also did something similar to this in gunmetal and dove gray and I absolutely loved it.

These studs are the 1.5mm gold and cost $5.86. I don't know exactly how many are in a pack but it looks like there are at least 1000.
I didn't know how easy or difficult it would be to work with these but as they have a completely flat back, they stay on quite easily. I didn't use glue, I just stuck them on whilst the polish was still wet and they stayed put.

Born Pretty also sell square studs, they come in silver, gunmetal gray as well as gold and in various sizes. Click here to check out what they have on offer. You can use my discount code VA7J61 for 7% off or just click on the Born Pretty logo on my sidebar.

Mermaid Tail

If you have an Instagram account and follow a lot of the nail accounts, you'll know that there is always a contest going on. Recently, there have been so many that I've lost count and completely missed some of the closing dates. Today's mani - Mermaid inspired - is an entry for my girl Nicole's contest. She is celebrating 10,000 followers and picked this theme because as a child she was obsessed with The Little Mermaid and loves all things Ocean related.

As I'm very freehand challenged, there is no way I could ever draw a mermaid like some of the other entrants did! So I left it to the pros and went for an abstract approach using colours that reminded me of a mermaid's tail.

Other than Essence Choose Me and China Glaze Luxe and Lush, I also used Stargazer 303 for the deeper blue towards the tips and "Lost In Deep Waters" which is a teal franken I made absolutely ages ago. I stamped with BM209 and a very light silver glitter from the 99p store, to create the fish scale look.

Here is my actual entry picture:

I had a little trouble taking pictures of this mani under my lamp! The glare just wouldn't go away and let me show the detailing! My iPhone pictures came out much better in this instance and it's one of those mani's that looks so much better in natural lighting and irl!

Purple Clouds

Today I have another cloud mani to show you! It was so much fun doing a pink cloud accent a few weeks ago, that I just had to try a few more colour combos! This time a purple themed one!
One of the main reasons I really like cloud manis (other than looking cute) is because they are good "quick" manis! No lengthy drying times and no fiddling with tape!

For the base colour I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, a pinkish nude, China Glaze Senorita Bonita and for the darker cloud I used Mavala Mexico!

I'm Not Lion - China Glaze On Safari Collection

I'm Not Lion is the second polish I purchased from the "On Safari" 2012 collection.

This is a cool gold toned holographic glitter and as with all holos, it really comes alive in the sun. The holo effect is very scattered but when the sun hits it, it's like tiny fairy lights sparkling away.

The glitter is densely packed and it reminds me somewhat of the glitters in the Prismatic collection. Two coats provide full opacity. It has a slight gritty finish but I quite like gritty finishes on glitter, plus it's nothing that a thick layer of top coat can't fix.

Looking at the bottle shots, I'm Not Lion is very similar to the other glitter in this collection, I Herd That. However, I Herd That is much more golden and darker than this one. Not sure if I need them both but I'm glad I got this one.

Surfin' For Boys - China Glaze Summer Neons 2012

I received two polishes from China Glaze's Neons Collection 2012 in the post a couple of days ago - Surfin' For Boys and Love's a Beach. We've had such great weather for a last few days that I couldn't wait to try these out.

As soon as I slapped this on, it was like "Whoa!!!". In the bottle, Surfin' For Boys looks like a coral with hints of red and orange, with ultra fine magenta shimmer. On my nails however, it's the brightest most neon orange I have ever seen! This is probably because I'm wearing "undies" as I don't like to wear neons on their own.

Let me tell you! It was a PITA trying to photograph this polish! All pictures showed a different colour and none of them true to real life colour. The closest to real life colour is the first picture which I had to change the setting of my camera for and darken the whole image to be able to capture! I think neons look better in the dark anyway, that's why they always look awesome with a tan!

I don't have anything else this bright, looking at it too long even hurts my eyes and I'm sure people will be able to see 10 little dots coming a mile away! This baby is going on my toes tonight for sure :)

If I tried to take a pic under my usual craft lamp, my camera would completely spaz out:

Here is a pic in the shade:

And in direct sunlight:

Silver Glitter French Mani & Born Pretty M71 Plate Review

Today I have a review for you. The lovely ladies from the Born Pretty store offered me the chance to review their M71 stamping plate, which is most popular for the Hello Kitty image. However, for this reason I wanted to give one of the other images a go first and decided on one of the flowers and a simple french.

I used Kiko 209 for the nude pink'ish base, China Glaze Polarized for the slanted french tips and Barry M Silver Foil to stamp with.

Other than the plate, they sent me a stamper and scraper as well which can all be bought HERE for $3.49 (free shipping). The M71 plate has 9 small images consisting of various flowers/ plants, fruit, cat, dolphin, butterflies and the famous Hello Kitty.

As you can see in the picture below, the stamper is shorter than my Konad one but the diameter is only the slightest bit smaller, which shouldn't cause any issues when stamping.
The silicone bit is somewhat firmer than Konad which meant I had to apply a lot more pressure on it. I used it on a couple of nails but had to switch back to my Konad stamper because of this. I had no problems at all picking up the image, the firmness of the silicone just made it difficult to transfer onto the nail.

The scraper is also slightly smaller than the Konad one but the blades are the same. They both do damage to the plate which is the reason I often use a old credit card. 

Born Pretty plates in general, are a very good alternative to Konad as they are of good quality and at a fraction of the price.The store has an array of different plates to chose from and a whole lot of other nail art equipment and decorations. You can get 7% off if you use the discount code on my sidebar - VA7J61.

Electric Beat & Shredded Silver Micro Glitter

I know you guys have probably seen a million and one swatches of China Glaze Electric Beat but as CG is one of my favourite brands of polish (and quite pricey in the UK), I just couldn't pass up a post on it.

Electric Beat is the only polish I got from the Electropop collection. Although I loved nearly all the shades in that collection, this one was my favourite. I've got a couple of cornflower blues similar to this but this one is just so fresh and interesting. In the swatches I saw, it looked quite bright but irl it's not so much.  It's a dusty blue, muted looking compared to the rest of the collection. The formula is quite thick but applies well, two coats is all you need for opacity.

I don't have GC Techno which was re-launched for the Electropop collection so I had a look through my stash and came across this limited edition Barry M Silver Glitter which I bought a couple of months back.


I can only assume this glitter is limited edition because I haven't seen it since and it's not like their regular silver glitter. It's not hex or round, it's literally tiny irregular shredded pieces. To be honest, I only picked it up after glancing at the lid which is holographic, so for some reason I thought the glitter was holo too. Obviously there isn't anything holo about it but I still like the irregularity of the glitter pieces.

Glittery Tips On A Bed Of Roses

Orly Artificial Sweetener is such a pretty and soft colour which means I probably shouldn't have added anything to it but I couldn't help it. As the colour reminds me very much of roses, I thought that would be a good place to start.

I stamped with BM14 and Konad White Polish. The french tips are China Glaze Polarized from the Prismatic Chrome Glitters collection (I'm not ready to give up on this polish yet)! This glitter is so dense that it makes a perfect one coater for tape manis and french tips!