I only brought 2 polishes with me on holiday as I knew that the mani I was wearing would definitely chip. One of them is a franken I made a while ago. It's a dark purple jelly with blue shimmer (only visible in the bottle) and some pink glitter. I called it Electric Fairy.
I didn't bring any of my "tools" with me or even my acetone so I had to do with my mother in law's which isn't very good, and no clean up! It feels strange wearing untidy nails!
The formula was also bit of a nightmare to work with as it was extremely goopy and of course, I have no thinner with me!
I also had to take these pics outside as there's hardly any light in the house. The colour looks strange to me as I'm so used to judging the colours of my polishes under a crafts lamp.
The watch ring you see in the pic was a Xmas gift from my husband's cousin. I love rings so I thought this one was really cool :-)
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
I should have probably posted this mani before Christmas because of the colour scheme but better late than never!
I haven't done a half moon mani in a while and since I'm not very good at nail art, I really like these because they look good and are easy to do! I'm not sure about this colour combo for everyday use but around the holidays everything goes!
I used Nails Inc Magnetic Big Ben for this many because it was the closest to the shade of gold that I wanted. It also has a sort of matte finish which I thought was interesting for the half moon:
Firstly I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brings you everything you've asked for :-)
It's an early weekly synopsis as hopefully tomorrow we will be unwrapping pressies and stuffing ourselves all day! We came to Greece for the holidays this year, so my husband could spend some time with his family as well! I have my laptop with me of course! I can't live without my laptop, such a loser!
Anyway, this week I bought myself a fedora hat! Probably a bit pointless now that I have short hair but they look so trendy and mysterious, as do trilbies! I think they make a boring outfit look cool! Victoria Beckham got away with a hat and short hair so I'll try to as well!
Speaking of hair... as I mentioned in this post a couple of weeks ago, I got my hair cut again on Thursday. My haircuts get a little crazier each time and as I have to get it cut every 6 weeks, I'm constantly changing styles.
I love having short hair but I have to say I miss long hair sometimes. This is how my hair was earlier this year before I cut it:
And here is a pic from Thursday just after I left the hairdressers. I shaved all around the sides and back (No 4) and left a floppy top/ fringe:
I also got December's Glossybox this week but didn't really post about it because in all honesty, I got bored of doing those posts. There is no point me telling you what's in the glossy box when there are hundreds of blogs out there that do it better than me. Instead, I'll just tell you about the products that really stood out or "spoke" to me. In December's box, it was the Deborah Lippmann Razzle Dazzle polish (of course!) and a little sachet of Lavender polish remover. The colour is so pretty and season appropriate, hopefully I will have time to try it during the holidays!
Glitter is always a fail proof mani right? Wrong! Well, at least for me anyway! I messed up a glitter gradient mani :(
I really had high hopes for this one with a neutral base and lots of red and silver glitter to keep with the festive theme, but what you see in these pics wasn't exactly what I had in mind! It's like the glitter fairy threw up on my nails! I still had to post it though because it took me so long to do it AND remove it, that I would feel really guilty if I didn't.
I used Leighton Denny Sensual Glam as a base colour. I got this polish free with Harpers Bazaar magazine. The UK January edition is out now and they are giving away 6 different colours.
Sensual Glam is a sheer milky white with silver micro shimmer, which you can somewhat see in the bottle but it doesn't really translate onto the nail.
I'm not a fan of very sheer polishes so I had to do 3 coats to get a good level of opacity. However, I really like this colour. I used to wear pearly/ whitish polishes almost all the time a couple of years ago and now I rarely do.
This week I've been totally obsessed with tights. Yes, that's right...tights! I'm usually a trousers person but have recently bought 2 skirts and a pair of shorts. Usually I would just wear black opaque tights but I'm now in love with patterns (childish, I know!). Here are a few of the ones I've been loving this week:
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Rimmel London Lasting Finish by Kate Moss shade #02 - Bright Fuschia
This is a bright pink /fuschia lipstick. I don't have anything else this bright (yet!). When I had long hair, for some reason I couldn't get away with bold lip colours, it didn't suit me. Now I'm really into them! Excuse the bare face but if I wear bright lipsticks with lots of other make-up, I end up looking like a clown.
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Blue leather driving gloves! Again. I was meant to be Christmas shopping for others but I diverged and bought these for myself! I used to have black ones a while ago but lost them. These don't keep you warm much but I think they look really cool and as I wear a lot of black as it it, I decided to go for a bit of colour:
Lastly, I received an e-mail from Lisa Mueller from ASK Cosmetics as I know some of you have as well, asking if I and my followers would like to enter their competition to win their entire line of products worth $250.00 CAD. Click here to enter. Open until 22nd Dec '11. The company says it "specialises in healthy, safe products that put back what nature intended to be there in the first place".You can visit Lisa's blog here.
As I didn't really do any Halloween themed manis this year, I'm going to try to run with it for Christmas! Plus I have to put some of the Xmas designs on the Bundle Monster plates to good use. Here are some yummy Gingerbread Men topped with sprinkles of glitter, over CND Fireberry which I've had on since Thursday:
This is my new favourite red (for now)! It's the perfect red for the nubbins I'm sporting at the moment. I've had to file my nails right down as I've been overloading them with polish and sometimes using pure acetone remover.
Fireberry is a bright but cool toned red. I can't really see any tinge in it, it's just that - a bright red creme. I only have one other CND polish (colour) and this one is every bit as good as the other one. The formula is perfect, it applies a dream and opaque in one coat. My favourite red before this one was OPI Keys To My Karma but it's nowhere near as opaque. It now means I can do tape manis with red!
Here is an extra pic of Fireberry with a black diamante ring I bought this week. Looking at this pic now, it looks a bit big for my hand, but hey.... I like big rings. The bigger the better right? And it only cost £1.99.
To be honest, the first time I heard of Nail Girls polishes was when nihrida reviewed one of their shades a few weeks ago.
Nail Girls is a British nail colour company based in Islington, London.Their products are 4 free and their package is recyclable. You can read more about how the company was set up here and about their various products and amazing range of colours here.
Overall, I am quite impressed with this polish. It applies really well and the consistency makes it very manageable. The brush is dense and picks up a good amount of polish. It's quite long because of the bottle size but that doesn't bother me at all, it didn't make application any trickier. I actually prefer it to short, stubby lids/ brushes. It's super pigmented and you could get away with one, well-applied coat.
I like the bottle shape as well, to stash them sideways and it's the same as POP Beauty and American Apparel. These polishes retail for £10.50 which is a bit on the higher side but based on the one I've tried, I suppose the quality justifies the price. I would definitely pick up another bottle if they have a sale.
I thought the colour was quite Christmassy as well so I added some gold glitter tips and stamped snowflakes :-)
The product was sent to me for review, by the company.
I've finally decided to do a weekly sum/ round-up post. Although many other bloggers do them, I've never really felt the need to write these as I would usually document all my week's "happenings" throughout my nail polish/ nail art posts, as and when. However, I've realised a weekly round-up would be a better place to document everything I'm obsessing over throughout the week, from make-up to clothes, to jewellery, TV series, to music, books and well...just everything really. Don't be surprised by anything your read in my weekly "Chapters".
I'll also be posting links to other blogs/ posts which I've been loving throughout the week of course :-)
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Up until this past week, we've had a mild autumn/ winter in the UK. However, in the past few days the weather has turned and we were hit with some low temperatures. Well, at least for me... I can't deal with cold very well. Here are the winter "cozies" I've been loving this week:
Thick wool lined snowflake socks which I got in Primark for £3 and Spiced Apple & Alpine Glistening Snow winter candles:
Another winter essential I've been obsessing over this week - my Earmuffs. A lot of people think these are very child-like but I can't leave the house without them in the morning. None of the above matter if you don't have a proper brew waiting for you. I can't live without my trusty Yorkshire Tea, extra strong, very milky. However, this week I've also been loving Earl Grey Jasmine infused.
Even Eggbert and Lebowski have been cosying up on the sofa to keep warm :-)
If you live in the UK, you would have probably seen the following youtube video on the news. The crew of the Royal Navy assault ship HMS Ocean did an amazing job miming to Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas, after finding out they would return home after 7 months at sea. She was really delighted and even tweeted about it.
I decided to do a different take on leopard print for this one. Usually, if I'm doing leopard, I cover the whole nail but I quite like the electric blue brightness of this polish so I only put the leopard print on half the nail. I used scotch tape to cover off the top half diagonally.
Snow leopards are obviously not blue (!) but these "cold" colours remind me of them. They are such beautiful creatures!
"The snow leopard (Uncia uncia or Panthera uncia) is a moderately large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia.The total wild population of the snow leopard was estimated at only 4,080 to 6,590 individuals by McCarthy, et al., 2003. Many of these estimates are rough and outdated.There are also 600-700 snow leopards in zoos around the world." - Wikipedia
This blue looked an absolute duo chrome goodness in the bottle. You can probably see the flash of multiple colours in the bottle pics below, however, I'm afraid that multitude of colour doesn't transfer to the nail, it would be awesome if it did!
Stargazer #303 is a vibrant electric blue filled with purple and pink specks. It reminds me a little bit of Orly Cosmic FX Lunar Eclipse. It needs 3 coats for full opacity. I only applied 2 coats so there is some vnl (which isn't really visible irl). The finish is slightly "foil" like.
Overall, I still think it's a good polish. I love the colour and the formula is really good to work with. I got a lot of comments on the colour from "non-polish-lovers" or (non-believers as I like to call them) which is a sort of benchmark for me. It's a 7 but when I first saw the bottle, I really I wanted it to be a 10!
It retails for £2.50 and I bought it directly from the Stargazer website.
Today I have one of my most special flakies to show you. Nfu Oh 49! I also bought this one from Viis Ilusalong and as you may know, they went on a little trip to Greece before arriving in the UK two months later. My fault of course!
#49 is a very sheer pinkish jelly base which holds up all those awesome flakes. It really does look great over dark colours, the holographic flakies are so fiery and amazingly transition from red/orange to gold/green, with a hint of purple and even blue mixed in!
I also tried it over lighter pastel colours and orange but didn't really like the effect. It doesn't "pop" in the same way it does over darker colours.
I had to change my usual hand position slightly for the pics so I could capture the full effect of the flakes. Unsurprisingly, I didn't have any sun either but I think the full effect of the polish is still there.
I can see this one featuring in many NoTD's to come!
I then mattified it with Essie Matte About You. I prefer the matte version, you?
I've been meaning to try this mani for a while now but as usual for me, I only just got around to doing it.
I originally saw this version of the snakeskin mani on Kari's blog back in May and again in this post from Rebecca. But it was Sammy's version that made me give it a go. I thought the concept was really genius!
It's basically using plate BM215 and layering the stamp twice with different colours over your base colour to create that snakeskin effect. Other than Milani Devoted 2 U for the base, I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream and Gosh Metallic Purple.
Back in October, I posted about my only other Milani nail polish Metallic Mango.
The polish I am showing you today is a deep shimmery purple with tiny blue and red shimmer particles called Devoted 2 U. Indoors or in dim light, it just looks inky, almost black.
I bought both of these together as part of mini discount pack on Ebay! I read somewhere that Devoted 2 U is part of a spring limited edition collection but found no other info on it.
I had a bit of trouble applying this one but not sure why. The formula isn't bad at all. I think it was just me having a bad day! My nails looked terrible and stained and I needed to cover them with something but after spending most of the weekend in bed watching Vampire Diaries, I didn't have much in me to do my nails.
Speaking of Vampire Diaries. Yes, I know! It got to me to! After finishing all seasons of True Blood a while ago, I was having vampire withdrawals. So much so that I even went all the way to the cinema and actually bought a ticket to watch Breaking Dawn. It was so disappointing but I won't go into that now, I would be here all night! Can't fault the books though, they really did make for a good read.
Vampire Diaries is no True Blood but at least it's not as "PG" as Twilight! It brings something else to the table! And who can resist Stefan and Damon Salvatore? Lucky Nina Dobrev!
As most of you know, back in August, I cut my hair very short. Since then I have cut it twice more to keep it trim and styled. Short hair seems to grow must faster so I have to cut it every 6 weeks now.
It was this picture of Rihanna which ignited my love for short hair. I absolutely adored this haircut on her:
source: google images
However, I'm getting a bit tired of the way it looks now with the long fringe parting to one side. It was OK as a transition from long hair onto the short hair realm but I really need to change it up now!
I have been maniacally looking through google images to find some new "hairspiration" for my next haircut on 22nd Dec.
I was thinking of the "undercut" but don't really know how I would feel with one (or both) sides of my head shaved off. However, judging from these styles on Ginnifer Goodwin and Ruby Rose which I LOVE so much, a softer scissor styled undercut is definitely a contender in my books. Can't wait for 22nd Dec!
Today I have something a little more colourful and lively to show you. Not that the weather calls for it but I've had it on my list of manis "to do" for a while so why not do it on a super dreary, rainy day?
I first saw this mani on Mad Manis and Deniz also did an amazing version. The silver makes the look quite robotic and futuristic but the neon polka dots add a little fun to it. I had a little trouble keeping all my dots in line as I miscalculated the space still left on the nail. Random dots are so much easier to do!
Lebowski hasn't made an appearance on here in quite some time, here is a recent photo of him playing with his snake (wow...that actually sounds quite dirty!)
It seems that terracotta colour I put on yesterday was a hit after all, 2 of my friends commented on it today and they were actually positive comments!
I was racking my brain trying to think of what to add to this mani. I was going to stamp with a sort of abstract bundle monster stamp but that quickly went horribly wrong. Good thing I did my right hand first!
After all that, I just added some navy blue french tips and a double line of gold striping tape to compliment the blue. I quite like how this unusual mix of colours turned out, it looks like a "wintry" mani.
One of my friends also posted something on her facebook page today which I thought was very funny. I think you would have probably read it before, it's been making the rounds on FB and Twitter:
"There's a rumor going around that says boys are stronger then girls! Oh! Please, can you carry a 7 lb baby in your stomach for 9 months? Can you cook, clean and talk on the phone @ the same time? Can you burn your forehead with a curling iron and not complain? Can you walk all day in 5" heels? Can you cry all night then wake up the next morning like everything is okay? Remember guys, women are only helpless until their nail polish dries :)"
This was one of my first ever H&M Nail polishes. I bought it back in June but never got around to wearing it. It's one of those strange colours most people would probably consider fugly, a muted orange, sort of rusty colour! My friend who was with me at the time said it looked like the terracotta tiles in her garden. I suppose that's one way to look at it, but that is why it caught my eye, it's unusual! As is the name - "Looks Great on You!"
I was impressed with the formula. I love it when formulas are opaque, I'm not into sheer much unless I specifically pick a sheer polish.
I don't mind the shape of the bottle but I don't like the square lid, it makes application slightly more difficult because you have to hold it in a certain way.
