piCture pOlish - Blogger Glitter Gradient

Today I have another piCture pOlish beauty to show you - Blogger! This one was created by piCture pOlish as a dedication to all bloggers and it's basically a glitter bomb packed with multi coloured glitter in different sizes. A glitter rainbow in a bottle!

You can wear this on it's own with 2-3 coats because the glitter is so dense or you can layer it. I created a glitter gradient over Elf Desert Haze. Next time I will try layering a whole coat of Blogger over white polish, I think that would look really pretty too.

piCture pOlish can be purchased directly from their website - picturepolish.com.au. They do international shipping. You can also purchase it at various etailers throughout the world. Check out their Network page for more info. You can keep updated on any piCture pOlish news via their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

*The product featured  in this post was sent to me for review.

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some polishes I've received this week, so here is something I did a couple of months ago but just left sitting in my unpublished folder.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

Subtle Nude & Gold

Yesterday, I was sitting in front of my helmer and didn't know what colour to go for or what kind of nail art to do. Whenever this happens I usually opt for a nude polish.
I wore OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons (Germany 2012 Collection) for a day on it's own and then decided to do some subtle stamping (using Barry M Gold Foil and Cheeky plate CH14). I love nude polish and am on a quest to own them all (haha!) but the stamping was a little too subtle for me, maybe next time I should keep to white or black stamping.

Don't Pretzel My Buttons on it's own, a very flattering nude on all skin tones I've seen. It's slightly cooler toned than in the pictures above but that's simply because it was taken on a different day with different lighting.

Nude Polka Dots & Bows

So I posted this mani a few days ago on Instagram and although it's extremely simple and easy to do, I received quite a lot of positive feedback.

The base colour is Color Club Best Dressed List, a warm caramel toned nude. I've been wearing quite a lot of nude polish lately. I just love how elegant it looks. I stamped using Born Pretty plate m59 and white polish. If you would like to buy any Born Pretty products, you can use discount code VA7J61 for 10% off.

Sorry about my upside down watermark in that last picture. Just noticed I rotated it after watermarking! Lol!

Thanks for readings :)

Caramel Frappuccino Leopard

This is one of the only three Topshop polishes I own, it's called "Naked" and it's a warm caramel creme. It reminds me of caramel frappuccino! Topshop has a great choice of shades and the bottles are so cute and retro looking. However, they are quite pricey at£5 to £6 for 8ml!

The formula is good and opaque after a third coat. I did have a problem with bubbling on my pinky, I'm not sure why as it's never happened before with my regular base and top coat.
It's not so bright irl, more of a nude and not so much of the yellow undertones seen on camera. I like that it's one of those nude polishes that doesn't blend in with your skin tone so it looks like you actually have polish on!

I added a row of pink and green leopard print to the ring fingers and thumbs only as I didn't want to cover the whole hand with leopard print!

All Hail The Queen's Golden Glitter Zebra

Today's mani was inspired by Ivana. She always has the most amazing zebra and leopard pattern combos in all different colours and glitters. So when I received Butter London All Hail The Queen in the post a while back, I knew it was the perfect base colour for this mani.

I sponged Orly Glitz & Glamour onto the tips and halfway up the nail, to add that extra bit of sparkle and topped it all off with one coat of Milani Gold Jewel FX, before stamping with BM223 and Konad Black Polish. I think my camera freaked out a little bit  and created so much glare because of all the sparkle, I couldn't get a decent picture of it.

And here is All Hail The Queen on it's own. It's such a pretty brownish nude packed with tiny scattered holographic glitter. I love nude polish so this is a nice addition to my stash.

 

Nude & Peachy Gradient

Since my last "cotton candy" looking gradient, I've been trying to get that gradation of colours to smoothly blend together, just like in Sammy's tutorial. I thought that the easiest way to achieve this would be to use soft and light colours since I have such a hard time blending very contrasting colours.

So for this mani I opted for Elf Desert Haze and Collection 2000 Fruit Loop. However, after I had finished, I realised these colours are way too close to each other to get a massive contrast, but I think I got a hang of the "blending" bit without that noticeable line of where the two colours meet. Next step is trying to do this with more contrasting colours!

Apologies for the picture quality. These two colours were really hard to capture under a lamp. Even my iPhone pictures turned out better than my camera pictures.

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!

60's Red Polka Dot French

A nude and cherry red polka dot French. That's what I wanted to show you guys today! I thought it was very retro and 60's looking, hence the post title :)

Since I've been back, I've been so busy that my nails have been naked for a few days! I managed to finally paint my nails last night with a Speciallita polish I recently received in a swap and I will post that as soon as I've posted these last few manis I did before I went on holiday!

For this mani I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, a creamy nude shade with the slightest hint of rose. I use this polish very often as a base for funky Frenches! The tips and polka dots are Nails Inc Victoria, a dark cherry red which is much darker than what you can see in these pictures but as I just applied one coat over the tips, it looks lighter.

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

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.

Mavala Liberty

A few years back I would be all over a colour like this. I used to absolutely love flesh toned polishes, especially if I wanted a quick, hassle-free and pretty mani. Today, after I finished putting it on, I just thought it was so *meh*!

Liberty is a creamy nude peach, or can sometimes hint to beige tones depending on the light, but it goes on much lighter and sheer on the nail. It looks almost like I've got nothing on. There is a lot of vnl although I applied 3 coats. I usually like to look at my nails and Wham!!!... a lot of colour and a party going on!

I love nudes (a lot) but this is just a little too nude for me, if that makes sense! I probably wouldn't wear this on it's own again but I would use it as a base colour for nail art, even glitter sandwiches and I also think it makes a great polish for French Manicures.

Pastel Tips - Take your pick

I've been wanting to do this mani for a while, since I saw a girl on the train wearing something similar. She had some sort of nude polish and yellow tips! At the time I remember thinking how cool and fashion forward of her, she even had stiletto shaped nails! It's not something I see everyday at my local train station. She could have been a nail blogger?!

I couldn't decide on which colour I wanted for the tips as nude goes well with pretty much anything, so I used a different pastel for each finger. I can't pick my favourite although my least favourite combo is the pinky.

Which combo do you think is nicest?

Thanks for reading :)

Desert Haze

This is my first ever bottle of Elf Nail polish. I use some of their cosmetics and eyeshadow brushes but for some reason their polishes never grabbed my attention. So the last time I placed an order, I thought it was about time to try one. I went for a nude colour as none of the other colours were jumping out at me.

This is 2 coats of Desert Haze, a smokey kind of nude, a little gray, a little taupe?! Dunno!

Elf have said that their new polishes have an improved formula, which they may well do over the old version (which I never tried) but I still had a little trouble with the formula on this one as you can see around the cuticle area. It's a bit of a strange one, it was runny when applying which made me think it would be sheer but it was actually opaque in 2 coats! It only cost £1.50 so I suppose it was quite good for the price.

Flowery Half Moon Mani

Hello everyone. It's Wednesday but I don't have something pink today...sorry! I will dip back into the pink stash soon :-) However, taking yesterdays Color Club Best Dressed list mani, I decided to create some half moons as I hadn't done this in a very long time. In fact, my first ever post in this blog was a violet and purple half moon mani!!

I swapped the colours around on the ring finger to create a bit of a change and added some blue sticker flowers because although half moon manis are awesome, it looked too "naked" without them!

                          

In the nude: Colour Club Best Dressed List

Today I opted for a little less colour and went for a warm nude tone.
Best Dressed List from Color Club is from their Spring 2010 Rebel Debutante collection. This tone of nude is slightly darker than most of my other nudes, you can most definitely see the light brown in it but that's one of the reasons I went for it. I think it's really soft and complements my skin tone. Nudes are almost always my go-to polishes and this one is a keeper.

The formula is really good, applies evenly with no streaks. Then again I've never really had many problems with the Color Club polishes I own. So far their creme formulas are pretty consistent. This is 2 coats:

  

NOTD: Quick & Simple Monday Mani - Shattered Tips

Hi guys.
Hope you are all having a good start to your week.
Today I just quickly put together what I call a "Monday mani". I can't bring myself to do much on a Monday (although it's actually a bank holiday today) and my shatter polish had been sitting on the shelf forever!!
I'm actually not a massive fan of shatter polish (in any colour) so I can only tolerate it in small amounts like in this mani.

I applied a sort of nude base colour by Missguided, although IRL it can look more like an old rose pink:

The Barry M shatter polish applied matte onto the glossy polish. I like matte more than I care to admit but in this case it just didn't look right so I added a glossy top coat.

Here is what I used:

*Missguided Splash & Polish Range - Misscellaneous
*Barry M Nail Paint Instant Effect - Black
* Orly - Glitz & Glamour

xoxo