"How Now Brown Cow!"

Today I have a beauty from Illamasqua to show you. This is Stagnate from the Toxic Nature Collection! I don't usually buy Illamasqua because of the price but this one was on sale at asos.com, along with Purity so I knew I had to grab them then!

Stagnate is a a creamy grey mauve, sort of dusty and mushroomy! Quite similar to China Glaze Channelesque (now discontinued) and Below Deck, although looking at swatches of those two, they seem to have more of a purple tinge to them than Stagnate. The formula was good to work with and opaque in two coats!

I stamped using Konad White polish and BM225. I wish I knew what I was trying to achieve with this look but I just grabbed the first BM plate from my little plate box. I hadn't used this image before so I thought "hmm, why the hell not?!".  It reminds me of a weird looking brown cow whose spots got a bit of an electric shock! Lol!

And here is 2 coats (no topcoat) of Stagnate on it's own:

Thanks for stopping by.

Sweet Cherries of Mine

Time for a little bit of nail art! I've got so much stuff to post for you guys and I wish I could post everyday but I'm so busy at the moment :( Good thing I have quite a few swatches and manis which I did over a weekend a couple of weeks ago, so I'll keep posting some of these until I run out!

I had been wanting to do a cherry manicure for ages as they are incredibly cute. However, my first attempt was so disastrous and disappointing that I had to remove it straight away! I drew cherries on all the nails and I just didn't like the look! It was a bit of an overload especially as I am really into more toned down and discreet (not too discreet) looks now!

That's when I came across a picture on Tumblr by a girl called Victoria. She did a cherry mani but only on her accent finger! I can work with that! I spent about an hour looking at all her designs! She is so talented and her stuff is seriously amazing, check out her page!

So, this is the second attempt. I like it much more! I'm even impressed that those cherries came out quite "cherry looking"! I'm so bad at freehand that I was half expecting them to come out looking like plums!

The red is Boots 17 Knockout Red and the white is OPI Alpine Snow!

Pour Me Something Tall and Strong Jelly Sandwich

I don't usually do many jelly sandwiches, mainly because I wasn't a massive fan of jelly polishes. However, that has recently changed and I'm totally hooked on these. I like the look of suspended glitter and of the depth these create as it makes a change from just having glitter sitting on top of the nail!

I did this blue jelly sandwich a couple of weeks ago when my nails were much shorter. This is Misa Pour Me Something Tall And Strong (3 coats)! I have to be honest here, I only bought this polish because of the name! I think it's so cool :) The glitter is Essence Blair (2 coats).

Pirate Skull & Angry Birds Water Decals - Review KKCenterHK

Here are the cool water decals I got the chance to review for KKCenterHK. I chose the Pirate Skull and the Angry Birds.

Both these decals come individually packed in the small packets shown in the picture below. The Pirate Skull contains 20 decals and costs $2.64 and the Angry Birds pack contains 24 decals and costs $6.

I've had bad experiences with water decals in the past but these are easy to use and of good quality! They easily lift from the backing and I didn't have a problem with tearing the image as I have had with other water decals. As long as you ensure there are no bubbles or water trapped under the image, it smooths onto the nail very well. They are not bulky at all and after a coat of top coat or clear polish, they actually look drawn onto the nail (if I had that freehand ability)! They last for as long as your polish starts to chip so durability is not an issue.

I tried to keep the manis quite simple and this is how I would usually wear decals - on an accent nail! They are a good way to spruce up a mani if you don't feel like doing freehand nail art or don't feel like messing around with scotch tape.

There is an array of water decal themes on their website and I'm really loving some of the French Nail Tips ones! I might have to go back and purchase these for some funky french looks.

*This product was sent to me for review

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.

Hunger Games Capitol Colors - Agro

The third polish I got from the China Glaze Hunger Games Capitol Colors collection is Agro.
The first ever swatch I saw of Agro was back on 1st February on Scrangie and All lacquered Up. Straight away, I knew this was a shade of green I wanted in my collection.

Agro corresponds to District 11 - Agriculture. It's a dark olive green metallic shimmer with gold undertones. The formula was excellent to work with, great opacity and no streaks whatsoever!

I added some thin gold French tips with Barry M Gold Foil and stamped the accent nails with BM04.

Hunger Games Capitol Colors - Fast Track

My second pick from the China Glaze Hunger Games Capitol Colors collection is Fast Track (which corresponds to District 6 Transportation)! I'm a sucker for nude and beige tones although I probably don't wear them as often as I would like. This one is packed with gold flecks which makes it different from all the other neutral tones I have. It doesn't go with my skin tone as much as I would like but I still think it's a very pretty and special polish.

The formula is a little sheer so I would probably wear 3 coats next time (pictures are 2 coats). And since it's quite sheer, I wonder how it would look layered over darker colours?! Maybe it will be similar to CND 24k sparkle!

I stamped with BM223 and Barry M Gold Foil for a subtle look.

Hunger Games Capitol Colors - Riveting

Kicking off my China Glaze The Hunger Games Capitol Colors week is Riveting, my favourite of the bunch! When I first saw a promo shot for this collection and of course had only seen bottle shots, I thought this polish was rather "meh", but the more swatches I came across, the more I fell in love with it! In fact, it wasn't until I saw it mattifed on Sam's blog that I thought, I need this polish in my life right now!!!

Riveting (which represents District 3 technology/ electronics) is such a bright orange jelly packed with gold shimmer flecks. It's like a flakie polish but the pieces are much smaller. What surprised me with this one is that it's super pigmented and perfectly opaque in two coats! The formula is a dream to work with, so smooth and easy to control.

In real life it's that much brighter and mesmerising, I immediately thought of glowing embers (which I love staring at when I'm sitting in front of the fireplace).

Here is Riveting mattified:

And here is Riveting in all it's original glory:

Side by side shiny and matte:

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!

Skulls and Bows

From the moment I saw this mani on Kayla Shevonne, I knew I had to recreate it! I squealed because it was just so cute! Then I beat myself up for not having thought of it before! How I have not yet done a mani with skulls, bows and black dots is beyond me, so thank you Kayla for doing this awesome mani! If you haven't yet visited Kayla's blog, do so now! She inspires a lot of my nail designs and her tutorials are really detailed and easy to follow!

I wore this many for 4 days (doesn't happen very often) and I can see myself doing it again, even with a different base colour because it's so quick and easy, yet so cute!

I used an unnamed pink as my base colour! Stamped with Konad Black polish and BM211 and added a coat of Nubar Black Polka Dot! The bow is fimo.

A Little Teal Jelly Gem!

Today I wanted to show you one of my favourite blues (Miss Sporty Pop Fiction) layered with a little unexpected gem I found in a euro store in Portugal.

In my opinion, these euro stores usually have pretty horrid polishes! Most of them have been opened and tried, the formulas are a nightmare etc, but this one was just sitting there all pretty and shimmery.
We don't have the brand "Yes Love" in the UK but from what I've seen, it's widely available in Spain and Portugal. This is one coat of Yes Love #441 (a deep teal jelly full of green, blue and gold micro shimmer) layered over two coats of Miss Sporty Pop Fiction.

I really like this polish and will definitely be layering it over other darker and lighter colours! I think it would look great over a creme mint green!

And here is a picture of Pop Fiction on it's own! It's such a stunning cool toned blue:

Speciallita - Hits No Olimpo Skittles

I've recently done a mini Brazilian swap with Bia from Nails by Bia and I am now the proud owner of some of my favourite shades from the Speciallita Hits No Olimpo collection. We had a bit of trouble with the post as my order got held up and inspected but they managed to get here in the end! Thank you Bia for all your help and concern :)

Bia sent me 5 bottles from Hits No Olimpo, a pink and silver micro-glitter Impala and a burgundy shimmer from Colorama. As the last two don't need sun to show their full effect, I will show you them in the days to come!

Today is the first time there is sun whilst I am at home and it was still really hard to take shots of these because it's so cloudy and the sun kept hiding! Here are some of the pictures I managed to capture whilst the sun was peeking through the clouds (thumb-Zeus, index-Atena, middle-Hera, ring-Dionisio, pinky-Apolo, two coats on all fingers).

I also took this picture under my lamp and I have to say I was pretty impressed that the holo effect was still present, even with no direct sunlight!

I really liked the formula on these! So easy to control, they go on like normal nail polish and don't drag or leave any bald patches like my Nfu Oh's do. They have an unnecessary wide brush for such a small bottle but I don't mind the wide brushes at all, I actually like them.
Next time I use these for a full mani, I will probably layer them over a coat of creme polish. The bottles are so small and they are so pretty, I don't want to use them up right away!

Playing with Nail Art pens

Today I have an abstract mani to show you. Remember the Rio Beauty Nail Art pens I used for my Bad Little Kitty mani? Well, I was going through the booklet and leaflet included in the package and found an abstract design which I liked and seemed easy enough for me to attempt since my freehand skills are almost non existent!

I used the blue and green pens to draw the swerving lines and for the thin french tips! I then used a thin brush to fill in between the lines with silver glitter.

And here is the leaflet I used for inspiration:

Candy Shop

When I first saw that there was a dupe to Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop floating about, I knew I had to get my hands on it! Tyne from Lovebean Girl was such a sweetie and offered to send me a bottle!

I don't own DL's Candy Shop so cannot compare them but I have read from other bloggers that Claire's is a slightly darker pink and has bigger glitter. I am very happy with this polish, it's so fun and girly! I would have tied my hair into pigtails if I could!

As you may know, I've had some problems with glitter popping off my nails recently but I am happy to report that Candy Shop has some real staying power! I wore it for 4 days and there were no chips! The 2 thick coats of SV probably helped! I'm even too lazy to use the foil method to remove glitter but this time I had no choice, it just wouldn't budge :)

Get Me Some Red Glitter Pupms!

I don't own Ruby Pumps or Ruby Slippers or any other form of Ruby footwear *hangs head in shame*! I know they are amazing polishes but although Ruby Pumps is quite easy to find as is OPI Speak for your Elf, Ruby Slippers is discontinued! Maybe I'll get it in a swap one day, from someone who has a spare bottle lying around, *hint hint*! :)

In the meantime I have Barry M Red Glitter which I'm really loving! I let out a little gasp when I first put it on, the micro glitter creates so much depth.

Apart from the silver and gold glitters, Barry M's other glitters are of really good quality. The pictures show 2 coats of Red Glitter over 1 coat of Boots 17 Knockout Pout (a poppy red creme) and a thick coat of SV. The glitter is dense enough to be applied on it's own but it would probably need 3 coats to be the way I like it!

It makes me want these red glitter Louboutin pumps! Haha!

source

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

Mod Aqua - For the love of pastels...

Although it's not very spring-like and it's raining here today, (so I can't use any of my new holo polishes, boooo), I can still wear a pastel and pretend that it's sunny! Sometimes I like rain (especially if I'm snuggling at home) but today is not one of those days :(

Here's Nubar Mod Aqua from their Polished Chic Collection Fall 2011:

It's a dusty and soft pastel blue, much like CG For Audrey but less bright! Why don't I pay that much attention to Nubar? They have some really special and lovely polishes and the price isn't bad compared to OPI and Essie!
I had a little trouble with the formula on this one, mine was rather thin and needed 3 coats for full opacity. It also applied a bit streaky but nothing too major for a pastel! It's still a gorgeous polish!

As you can see, I'm also experimenting with different hand positions for my pics. I need to find one that compliments my nails and the shape of my fingers! I love the hand positions the girls on THIS Brazilian blog have, so I've been trying some of them out!

Foil Leopard

Leopard time again!

This mani was done using two Barry M polishes - Instant Nail Effects Gold and Silver foil! It's inspired by a mani that Deniz posted on her "My365" calendar on 29th Jan! The contrast between the two foil colours isn't as obvious as a dark and light colour would create but it actually looks kind of "spacey" irl!

Dotted Tristam

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of St George and Dragon which should be here tomorrow (hurry up Royal Mail!), so in the meantime as we had an inkling of sunshine today, what better way to welcome the 2 new pretties into my collection that to adorn my hands with Tristam!

Tristam, from The Mythicals collection is a deep blue packed with a ton of holo micro-glitter! There isn't really anything I can say about this polish that hasn't been said all over the blogosphere! For many of us it was THE polish of 2011 and a must have!


Here is Tristam dotted with Zoya Trixie and on it's own! And check out the " A la Glitta Gloves" hand positions on the pics! It was the only way my hand didn't look weird in direct sunlight!

And a somewhat blurry picture showing all that holo goodness: