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of some polishes I've received this week, so here is something I did a couple of months ago but just left sitting in my unpublished folder.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!

Pastel Blue & Sparkles on a Snowy March!

Time to show you another Shimmer Polish beauty, and in yet another gradient! I really need to stop it with the glitter gradients but I like them so much! It's one of my favourite ways to wear glitter!

Although it's nearing the end of March, it's still snowing here so I guess this is the only way I can wear a pastel without getting depressed about the horrible weather! I used two coats of Erre Due No.94, a lovely pastel blue creme and brushed some Shimmer Jenny onto the tips. Shimmer polishes are perfect for glitter gradients!

You can purchase Shimmer Polish directly from Cindy's Etsy store. There are also lots of beautiful swatches and product information on their website and Facebook page.

*The products in this post were provided to me for review.

Shimmer Polish - Jennifer, Mary, Leslie

Today I have a few more Shimmer polish beauties to show you. Lets get right to it!

Jennifer is a predominantly blue glitter in a clear base. It's got other glitters mixed in there too such as gold, copper, lavender and turquoise. This is one coat of Jennifer over Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream

Mary is a cranberry tinted jelly. I love the medium sized matte black hex glitter and I bet it would look great on it's own, very jelly-like and squishy! In these pictures, I layered it over Sinful Colors Kismet Elated.

Leslie is a lavender and blue glitter polish and like the other Shimmer polishes, it's also packed with glitter. This is one coat of Leslie over Orly Purple Pleather.

You can purchase Shimmer Polish directly from Cindy's Etsy store. There are also lots of beautiful swatches and product information on their website and Facebook page.

*The products in this post were provided to me for review.

Shimmer Polish - Eva, Irene, Jasmine

Today I have a few Shimmer Polishes to share with you. Most of you have probably heard and even swatched some Shimmers yourselves but for those who haven't, Shimmer Polish make beautifully dense glitter bombs in an array of colours. The glitters are usually small to medium in size and although they are quite densely packed, they apply really smoothly. No need for careful placement, fishing or manoeuvring.

The three glitters I'm showing you today are Eva, Irene and Jasmine. I know this picture is showing four polishes but I'll be showing you the last one (Lorene) in tomorrow's post :)

Eva is a beautiful berry red jelly packed with glitters, that can be worn on it's own or layered. This is two thin coats of Eva on it's own. It's one of my favourites too!

Irene is described as a "champagne golden silver". It can also be worn on it's own. The swatches below are two coats (middle finger has two thicker coats which gives complete opacity). It sparkles so much and it reminds me of China Glaze I'm Not Lion.

Jasmine is an aquamarine glitter which consists of green, blue, gold and I can see some red glitters in there too. This is one coat over Mavala Lagoon.

You can purchase Shimmer Polish directly from Cindy's Etsy store. There are also lots of beautiful swatches and product information on their website and Facebook page.

*The products in this post were provided to me for review.

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.

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!

My Fall Polishes: Barielle Falling Star

An oldie but a goodie which is most definitely part of my favourite Fall/ Winter polishes! This polish had been a major lemming of mine for a very long time (we don't have Barielle in the UK), yet it was sitting in my untrieds stash for over a year when I finally got around to wearing it last week!

Falling Star is a medium blue packed with copper glitter which does indeed remind me of pretty stars in the evening sky. The combination of the blue and the copper is so appealing to me and it made this polish fresh and original at the time of launch.

The formula was a bit tricky. It was thick which for some reason I didn't expect it to be but not that hard to work with if that makes sense. Nothing a bit of thinner didn't fix.

What do you think of this oldie?

Autumnal Saran Wrap with Nail Girls

I was sent this Nail Girls polish sample a while back but was waiting for the weather to get slightly cooler and Autumnal to wear it.

This mini has no name or number and I can't find it on the Nail Girls website. I think it may be part of the London 2012 Medal Collection although the colour is much more copper than bronze. Two coats of this buttery metallic is all you need for full opacity. It applies very smoothly and leaves no brushmarks at all.

I tried the Saran Wrap (cling film) technique for the first time but as I used a foil and a metallic, it turned out slightly different than if I had used two creme polishes. A foil doesn't seem to spread as much when the cling film is dabbed onto it. Here's what the gold and copper look like together. I also stamped the accent nail with BM04 and added loose glitter pieces to the tip:

Nail Girls full sized polishes cost £10.50 and you can purchase an array of colors and finishes diretly from their website.
For UK girls, Nail Girls also have a salon located in Islington and have a service called "nails On The Go" where they will come to you (0ffice, home, etc) if you are pressed for time.

Some of the product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.

Purple Thursday

Today is "purple day"! Lol! Not intentionally of course, I just happen to have swatched two fantastic purple based polishes today and couldn't wait to upload the pictures.

First up is a Cult Nails beauty sent to me by the wonderful Bridget from Luxe Beauty Forever. This is one coat of Seduction, from the Divas and Dramas collection, over Milani Devoted 2 U. It's a purple jelly base polish, packed with copper and blue flakies that shift green! Awesome doesn't begin to describe this flakie. I know I'll be layering this over pretty much anything throughout winter!

The first picture is in direct lamp light and the second was taken with a white sheet partially covering the bulb. The flakies are much more evident in the second picture. That's pretty much how they show irl too!

Secondly, I have another stunner from Polished By KPT. I've posted about Katherine's other creations here and here. Midnight Kiss is a darkened grape purple jelly packed with holographic micro and medium sized round glitters. This is 3 coats on it's own. It sparkles so much, I couldn't stop staring at my nails. Check out Katherine's shop here and her Facebook page here.

Some of the product(s) in this post were provided by the manufacturer or their PR for my honest review.

Glittery French Chevrons

How about a palate cleanser? I haven't worn a typical French Manicure in at least 3 years. Before I got really into nail polish, I used to love them and would sway back and forth between typical frenchies, red and dark polishes like OPI Lincoln Park After Dark and You Don't Know Jacques.

I changed it up a little and with the chevron tips instead of regular smile lines and with a holo glitter topper, Crystal Shimmer by Accessorize. I really enjoyed wearing this, mostly because I haven't worn a french manicure in such a long time.

Super Funk(y) Pink Jelly Sandwich

I haven't done a jelly sandwich in a while. Usually I just layer glitter over a polish and leave it at that but I had Essie Sugar Daddy sitting in my stash and I think it's a perfect polish to create jelly sandwiches.

I used two Coats of Jessica Samba Parade for the pink base so I wouldn't need too many coats of Sugar Daddy. The glitter is NYX Super Funk, I bought a few NYX glitters from Beauty Joint a while back and I'm really happy with them. I've already done another jelly sandwich with NYX Enchanted Forest and I really liked liked how that turned out too.

So, the layering sequence was: Jessica Samba Parade 2 coats, NYX Super Funk 1 coat and Essie Sugar Daddy 1 coat. I really like how milky and soft Sugar Daddy looks over the fuchsia glitter pieces.

Mish-Mash of Vintage Flowers, Glitter and Rhinestones

Today I wanted to show you guys a design I did for a contest currently taking place on Instagram, hosted by the ever so talented Bedizzle. The rules were simple, just to copy a design that she had done in the past. I opted for a design that I could manage as every other mani she had done was way to complex for me to attempt!

So that it wasn't an exact copy, I changed up the colours a little and the placement of the flowers and glitter as well. So it turned out a bit of a mish-mash of vintage flowers and placed glitters:)

Polishes used - Essie Mint Candy Apple, Collection 2000 Fruit Loop and Ninja, Rimmel London Apricot Punch, Miss Sporty Gold Backstage and OPI Alpine Snow for the dots and stripes.

Remember the Mermaid Tail nails I did a while back, also for an Instagram competition? I won second place. I couldn't believe it, there were so many great entries!

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.

Can I Call This A Gradient?

Gradients are everywhere at the moment! I can't open my blog feed, my IG or my Pinterest without stumbling upon a gradient or ombre as it's often called, and I'm loving it! I've always loved gradients so I'm really glad they're everywhere!

In the past couple of weeks, I've seem some of the most beautiful gradients from Jeanette at The-swatchaholic,  from Carolina at Colores de Carol and of course Sammy's brilliant tutorial.

I had to try a gradient myself but it didn't quite turn out how I had planed! I was hoping for that smooth transition from one colour to the next, like that blended eyeshadow effect as I like to call it, without any of the grittiness but I had no such luck :( Maybe I should have used more complementing colours instead of contrasting.

I still like the way it turned out but I wasn't trying to go for the obviously clear graduation look. It's definitely something I'll try again soon, after I practice a little more.

I added a layer of Accessorize Crystal Shimmer to add a little bit of sparkle and at a last attempt of smoothing everything out.

Nude on Nude

Today's mani was inspired by one of my IG friends, Nicole. If you have an IG account, check out her amazing manicures, she is super talented and her nails are gorgeous (@nic_tchelly). Nicole also sent me a bunch of amazing goodies from Hawaii which I can't wait to share with you, Color Club Love'Em/ Leave'Em being one of them.

Love'Em/Leave'Em is such an unexpected holo because it's a nude! I don't have any other nude holo in my stash so this is a perfect addition! The holo effect is subtle which adds to how delicate and classy the polish looks. The pictures below are only one coat so I think this polish has very good coverage. It also applied like butter, no aqua base coat needed!

I took the "nude" theme all the way through to the mani as well and decided on a nude half moon mani with copper coloured loose pieces of hex glitter which I stuck along the half moon line.

Thanks for reading and commenting!

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?