Two Tone Purple Chevrons

I really fell in love with this two-tone chevron design when I saw one of my favourite Instagramers, Rachell, doing it in blue and pink! When I'm not doing nail art on all 10 nails, I'm a one-colour-with-ring-finger-accent kind of person, so it's novelty to wear two accent nails and alternative colours on all other nails! I love it.

I used scotch tape for the not so neat chevrons. I had a little trouble with the scotch tape this time, it kept pulling off my base polish so in the end I just gave up and my chevrons ended up being different sizes. Ugghh!! A not so good nail day overall!

The polishes I used to create this look were Kiko 332 and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark, one of my favourite winter polishes. The glitter base on the accent nails is Accessorize Crystal Shimmer.  

OPI - Casino Royale (James Bond 007 Skyfall Collection 2012)

This is Casino Royale from the OPI James Bond 2012 collection. I was really excited to try this one. It's a perfect bright and rich plum creme with magenta and red undertones. A killer shade for Autumn/ Winter and I love that it's not too dark that it looks almost black. I found it to be lighter and brighter than the bottle swatches I had previously seen and love it even more for that. It's sexy and vampy yet such a classy and warm colour too.

I think this may be the base polish used in the promotional picture for Man With The Golden Gun. As it looks so well with gold (and sadly I don't have Man With The Golden Gun), I added a gold leopard accent with Orly Glitz and Glamour which as it turns out, reminds me of Golden Eye because of how saturated the gold flecks are.

I'm so glad I picked up a bottle of this after turning my nose up at it during my first browse around the OPI stand!

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?

OPI - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (James Bond 007 Skyfall Collection 2012)

Of all the goodies I got at yesterday's Olympia Beauty Show haul, the OPI James Bond Skyfall polishes were the ones I was itching to try first. So as soon as I had a little time to change my mani, I swatched On Her Majesty's Secret Service, part of "The Dangerous" shades.

It's a navy blue/ grey'ish sheer base packed with green, gold and blue shimmer and micro glitter. You can also see red and purple in some lighting. It's an interesting mix of glitters but because of the sheer base, it does need 3 coats for full opacity if not layered over any base colour.

What do you think of On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

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!

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.

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.

Erre Due - The Blues and The Brights

I've been busy swatching this weekend. I ended up swatching six polishes which is a lot for me as I can just about manage 3 a week. Lol!

The four polishes I'm about to show you are the last Erre Due polishes I have. I showed you some of the brands' pastels and neons as well as one of their Blue Jeans polishes and today I have two more brights from their summer collection, and two beautiful blues including another Blue Jeans.

First up is No182. I love these sort medium blues, it's a definite fall must have for me as I tend to wear blues all year round. This is 2 coats and the formula was amazingly smooth.

Blue Jeans Used No72. Part of the Blue Jeans duo. You can see the darker blue here. This light powder blue is packed with silver micro-shimmer and dries matte. The formula is very pigmented and creamy, you can get away with using one coat.

Erre Due Pink (these are mini 6ml bottles that have no name or number). This one is a raspberry pink creme which I loved the look of in the bottle but it gives me lobster hands :(. It's a pretty pink but it really doesn't do my skin tone any favours. The formula was good, opaque in 2 coats.

Erre Due green. A pretty medium green which unlike all other Erre Due's I've tried, this one is some sort of jelly/creme hybrid. It applied like a creme but has a jelly finish. I only used 2 coats in this swatch but 3 would be needed to completely cover vnl.

Overall, I was really impressed with the formulas and brushes on all these Erre Due polishes. It seems that relatively unknown brands don't tend to disappoint me as much as the most popular brands sometimes do. Maybe it's due to the fact that I expect quite a lot from a polish I've just dished out £11 on.

You can check out Erre Due's website here and their Facebook page here.

Aqua Flower Garden

I still have a whole load of manis I never posted throughout July and August and have been trying to crop the photos and write up the posts in a frenzy, before the weather starts to get really cold and I feel rather strange posting summer manis! Lol!

Here is a rather eccentric mani I did last month. The reason I call this mani eccentric is only because I remember a friend telling me "you've really pushed the boat out on this one", although I thought it was quite "normal" for me. My nails are the only way I get to express myself.

Anyway, here is my Aqua Flower Garden! The polish is a franken I made a very long time ago but had only ever tried it in a pedi. It turned out an unusual pearly aqua colour. I stamped with BM12 (just realised I hardly ever use the original BM plates anymore, who does?) and filled in the flowers and leaves with various polishes. What do you think? Too much?

Lovely Lacquer - Blue Gem & Fruity Pebbles

Today I have another two indie pretties to show you. These were sent to me by the lovely Lauren, the mastermind behind Lovely Lacquer.

Lets get straight onto the swatches. First up is Blue Gem. The first thing I noticed as soon as I opened the bottle was how dense the colour changing pigments were. One coat of this is all you need to get that blue/ purple duochromeness to show. I am in love with how evident the duochrome is on this one!
Lauren also has other colour shifting polishes for sale in her Etsy store, a pink/ copper called Princess Cut and a green/ gold one called Gold Rush.

Fruity Pebbles (love that name) is a multi glitter topper consisting of large hex and square as well as micro-glitter in different colours. This is one coat over white. The glitters aren't hard to work with at all, they don't curl or stick up nor do you need to fish them out.  I mattified it in the last picture as I was curious to see what it would look like matte.

Both of these and many more Lovely Lacquer polishes can be found in Lauren's Etsy shop. All full sized polishes are $8 and minis are $4.50 (plus shipping).

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.

Tip Top Nails - Creamy Orange & Complete Chaos

Hey guys!

Today I'm going to show you swatches of the last two Tip Top Nails polishes I have - Creamy Orange and Complete Chaos! You can see Traffic Lights here and Fairy Dust here.

Creamy Orange is a saturated orangey-pink, very bright and just shy of being a neon! Very pigmented and opaque in two coats.

Complete Chaos is a dark purple with fuschia shimmer which doesn't translate to the nail. I'm loving vampy/ gothic colours like this right now, especially because it makes my skin look pale. Again, the formula is really good as it was with all the Tip Top polishes I've tried.

About the company:
Tip Top Nails is a South African brand who have recently made their products available to consumers. Their polishes are the big 4 free and they don't test on animals. I'm not sure where you can buy their products as the website still doesn't have a purchasing option. If you want to find out more about Tip Top Nails, the best place is to check out their Facebook page.

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

Nautical Love

I've finally managed to cross the "Nautical" themed mani off my to do list! The Beauty Department's Nautical mani is very popular all over Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram so I've always wanted to recreate the look, and it was very fitting for the weekend I had :)

I didn't use the same method as they did on The Beauty Department, instead I used striping tape to create the thin lines! The whole thing wasn't at all difficult to do but as you know striping tape can get quite fiddly and annoying!

The white base is OPI Alpine Snow and the navy blue is CND Midnight Sapphire (I will be wearing this polish quite a lot this winter). I even used a prop for the picture!

Muted Green With a Stroke of Sparkle

Today I have another Polished by KPT pretty to show you. This is her Spectraflair top coat which is also for sale in two grades in her online shop.
This is a mini bottle but both grades also come in full size bottles. And because Katherine is a sweetheart and wants to share the luuurve, there is also a step-by-step tutorial on her instagram page on how she mixes up her Spectraflair top coats. So if you have Instagram, check it out. Her username is @kptran.

Here I layered one coat of spectraflair over OPI Thanks a Windmillion (Holland Collection) which was sent to me by the lovely Bridget from Polish oh my! I only layered one coat because I don't want this pretty baby to finish but I really like the subtle sparkle effect. If you want a stronger holo effect, more coats will be needed.

Bridget couldn't quite believe I didn't own a muted green shade like this so she immediately sent me a bottle. I love it! It has a slight pastel look to it, although probably a little too dark to qualify as a pastel! Maybe a murky pastel?!

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

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.

My Fall Polishes: Peripera - Prism Navy

I've been swatching untrieds like a mad woman this past weekend as I don't have a lot of time to paint my nails during the week. Also as an attempt to lower my stash of untrieds which now outnumbers my actual stash! I've also started putting together a little "Fall" stash. I get really excited when seasons change!

Here is a polish I've had for quite some time - Peripera Prism Navy P019.
It's a Korean cosmetics brand and I bought it on Ebay for £5.82. They have really pretty duochromes and metallics and this particular colour caught my eye. To be honest, I really loved the cute shape of the bottle!

It's supposed to be a navy/ teal duochrome polish but it doesn't quite translate onto the nail. However, it has an amazing foil finish packed with shimmer which is very dense and opaque and doesn't streak at all. I can see myself wearing this a few times throughout Autumn/ Winter and it will make an awesome stamping polish too!

And how cute is this bottle :)