Impala - Festa "Sua Noite"

Today I have a Brazilian polish to share with you guys. Impala is such a great brand because of the longevity of their polishes. I own four Impala polishes and all of them last between 5-7 days on my nails without chipping.
The colour I'm showing you today is part of the Festa Collection and is called Sua Noite, sent to me by the lovely Bia. It's a gunmetal polish with a foil finish, packed with tons of ultra-fine silver shimmer. Two coats provide complete coverage.

I've just come back from holiday and wore this polish the entire time I was there. It's the perfect holiday polish for me because it's an interesting dark colour without being plain black, yet it's not over the top glittery and it goes with all my outfits :)

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 :)

Holo Snakeskin

This was my first time using nail wraps. I spotted these somewhat holographic snakeskin ones and thought they would be a good place to start!

I've used nail foils before but the ones in rolls. The kind you have to use a base coat and top coat with, wait for them to dry, and transfer the foil onto the nail from the plastic backing. These wrap/ foil stickers weren't a pleasant experience. I must have bought the wrong ones (got these on Ebay for £2.99 so not the best quality) because I have seen other people applying these before and they don't seem to have any trouble with them. In fact, that is the whole point of wearing these! I've got a set of Nail Rock wraps which cost £5.99 so I'm going to give those a go as well to see how they compare.

The glue isn't a problem, they stick very well, however they were extremely difficult to smooth down onto the nail bed. No matter which way I applied them and with the utmost care, they would always leave air bubbles and not smooth down around the nail edges and side walls. Filing off the excess was also really difficult and I didn't manage to do it without roughing up the edges.

Golden Jaguar Print Nail Foil Transfers

Hi everyone

Today I wanted to show you my Jaguar golden print foil nails which I've had for 2 weeks but hand't had a chance to try. They are transfers, so a little different to CND's Minx, however they are much cheaper than Minx.

I found these on YouTube. "ilovemylongnails" has really great videos on how to apply these but it took me a few tries to get it right. Application is quite easy, the hardest part is getting the transfer foil adhesive to reach the right "stickey point". It can't be too wet or too dry, otherwise the transfer won't stay in place.

There are really good tips and tricks on http://www.salongeek.com/

This is how application of foils worked for me:

-  Manicure your hands as usual - base coat, 2 coats of polish (I used 1 coat  of Essie Licorice because the foil gives a lot of coverage. I didin't apply top coat as I rather put 2 coats of top coat over the applied foil. Polish must be completely dry before applying foil).

- Apply a VERY THIN layer of transfer foil adhesive making sure you cover the entire nail. It cannot be gloopy at all.

- Let it DRY COMPLETELY. This is the hard part. Most articles I read said to leave it for 2 minutes but mine took between 3-4 minutes to dry. I used a hair dryer as my lamp is broken. You will know the adhesive is dry as it turn from bluish/ lavender in colour to transparent.

- When the adhesive is transparent, place the foil over the nail and "smooth" it into the nail at first with your fingers and then by pressing all the corners in with a wood stick. I read that you should always apply firm strokes in the same direction but I sometimes didn't and the foil still transfered.

- If your adhesive was at the correct wet/ dry point, you will see that the clear backing starts to separate. Once it is all smoothed down, then remove the clear backing.

- Seal it with a foil sealer (I used the same brand as the adhesive, both Special FX Nail Art). If you don't have foil sealer, you can also use a regular top coat although I'm not sure if this would work as well. Give it a go and let me know if it works for you.



The pattern on each finger will always look different if you are using a foil that is not pre-cut and comes in a roll but I suppose this adds to the beauty of it as no leopard or jaguar in the wild ever has the same spots right? 

Thanks for visiting :-)

xoxo