NOPI - Selena Polka Dots & Bows

Today I'm sporting some polka dots and bows on my nails, a cute combo I can never resist. I used Nicole by OPI  - Selena from the Spring 2013 Selena Gomez collection as a base. It's a very pretty peachy pink, exactly the type of colour I'd go for. The only thing letting this polish down is the formula. I found it to be very streaky and I needed 3 coats to cover up patches, I don't know if that was just my bottle.

The bow is made up of black and silver loose pieces of hex glitter and for the polka dots I used Barry M Black and a doting tool.

Here are the other Selena Gomez collection polishes I received. More manis to follow:

 

Nicole by OPI polishes are now available at Superdrug stores nationwide and retail for £7.99.

For more information, visit nicolebyopi.com, follow on twitter @NicoleByOPI and become a Facebook fan.

 

Dazzle Dry - 3 Pastel Sponging Mani

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We finally have some sun in the UK, warm enough for me to actually wear dresses and sandals! Oh the little things!!!

Today I have somewhat of a random mani to show you. I say random because when I started, I really wasn't sure where I was going with it but it turned into some sort of pastel sponging affair.

I used 3 Dazzle Dry polishes, all from their Spring 2013 Afternoon Tea collection (Petit Four, Strawberry Maracon and Spearmint Tea). I have already reviewed Petit Four and their Quick Dry Nail System here if you want to read up on that. They do the most amazing quick dry top coat!
I topped everything off with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust which I would layer pretty much over anything if I could!

You can purchase Dazzle Dry directly from their US and UK websites. You can also see various swatches and manis on their Facebook page.

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

Dazzle Dry Quick Dry Nail System Review, New Favourite Top Coat and Subtle Summer Flowers

A few weeks ago, a company called Dazzle Dry contacted me to review some of their polishes. They own The Dazzle Dry Quick Dry Nail System which they say "revolutionizes nail care by slicing the time it takes for a normal manicure to dry by more than half". They are also 5 free  and cruelty free which means none of their products are tested on animals and suitable for Vegans.

Today I will show you a mani I did with one of the colours they sent me as well as the Dazzle Dry 3 Piece Nail System which consists of a Nail prep product, a base coat and a top coat.

I have been wearing this mani for 7 days today because I wanted to test the durability of both the polish and the top coat. So here is the mani and my views on the product:

Dazzle Dry - Petit Four (2 coats), stamped with BM221. Dotted gold glitter is Orly Glitz and Glamour.

What I liked:
- Polish, base coat and top coat are all extremely fast drying, just as they claim. Each coat was dry to the touch within literally a minute and rock hard in less than 5 minutes.

- Top coat has an amazingly thin consistency. This is a positive for me as one of the reasons I don't like SV is because of it's thickness. I think I found my new favourite top coat.So far, I adore it and would gladly spend my money on it.

- Top and base coat work with other polish brands and dry just as fast so you're not limited to using them only with Dazzle Dry polishes.

- The fact they are 5 free and cruelty free.

What I didn't like:
- (this only relates to the polish, NOT the top or base coat) - This particular colour was extremely streaky and chalky to apply. No matter what technique I used to apply it, the streaks were evident. Hopefully it's only this particular colour and the other bottles they sent me will be different. The following picture is 2 coats of Petit Four without a top coat. Look how uneven and streaky it is! For some reason it also dries semi matte:

Durability Test:
Judging from this "6 day old" picture, I think it's done pretty well. There is a little tip wear which I get even when I wrap my tips but no major chips other than what you can see on my thumb and pinky.
I don't think this particular polish alone would have such durability. Then again, most polishes wouldn't.

You can purchase Dazzle Dry directly from their US and UK websites. You can also see various swatches and manis on their Facebook page.

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

Vintage Rose – Scratch Nail Wraps

Hi lovelies. Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Scratch recently sent me two sets of nail wraps from their newest Kickstarter collection where they collaborated with designers to create three new sets of nail wraps.
Today I will be showing you "Vintage Rose" from The Burkatron Collection, designed by Caroline Burke.

I have previously reviewed some Scratch nail wraps here so you know how much I love working with these wraps. They are extremely easy to work with and very pliable which is usually a problem with other nail wraps. You literally just press them onto a clean and dry nail, smoothing out as you roll the wrap from the cuticle to the tip. You can file of the excess or it will easily break off at the tip as the wraps are so soft.

Here is how I wore these wraps. I paired them up in a mix and match mani with a polish that complemented the colours of the roses. You may also notice that the wraps are sparkling, that's because I added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. It makes for a really pretty spring mani.

You get a total of 16 nail wraps. Enough for a full mani and for an extra mix and match or an accent nail mani.

 

source

Check out these inspiring Scratch look books for each of the collections:

 

Burkatron lookbook

Dainty Squid lookbook 

Flat Vernacular lookbook

You can drop by the Scratch website for more information and you can also follow them on Twitter (@goscratchit), Facebook, and Instagram.

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

 

Peach & Bows

Yesterday, a few of the Instagram nail girls had a nail meet in London. It was so nice to just sit and chat about nails over coffee, without the other person's eyes glazing over with boredom. Which is what usually happens when I talk with my non-nail friends who have no interest whatsoever in having a full blown conversation about the latest OPI collection or how I achieved a gradient look!

I wore something very simple. Mainly because I was very busy to do anything elaborate but also because I've been loving these simpler looks recently. Although it's still freezing here at the moment, I'm starting to love pastels as spring is just around the corner.

I used Collection 2000 Fruit Loop which is a very pretty pastel peach but the formula was a nightmare to work with. It's extremely streaky, requires three coats and doesn't even itself out! The accent finger is Milani Jewel FX Silver over a coat of Zoya Trixie and I added the cutest little bows from the Born Pretty Store. A pack of 10 bows is $2.98 and they come in various colours. Use discount code VA7J61 for 10% off.

*Some of the products in this post were provided to me for review

Pastel, Leopard, Crosses and Studs

I want the Winter and cold to go away so much that I've already started wearing pastels. Haha! Wishful thinking! This is Illamasqua Purity. A lovely peach creme that's super pigmented and opaque for a pastel. I had some trouble with the formula but it is a pastel after all!

I've also been wanting to mix patterns and ideas on my nails so I went for a mish-mash of leopard print and gold studded crosses. I used Nails Inc Big Ben for the leopard spots and the round gold studs are from the Born Pretty Store.

You can use discount code VA7J61 to get 10% off your Born Pretty Store purchases.

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

My Guest Post Over at: Polish Chest

Check out my guest post for the wonderful Danny over at the Polish Chest.

I used one of my favourite summer polishes - Essie Tart Deco and created a white and gold chevron on the accent fingers.

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.

Fruit Loop & My Valentine Glitter

*This is s scheduled post, I am currently on holiday*

This is my latest Superdrug purchase (along with a couple more bottles...oops!). Fruit Loop by Collection 200 Hot Looks. Other than Barry M, I've been trying to stay clear of drugstore brands lately because I always either get a dodgy bottle or the formulas are so poor that they all need 4 coats which I can't deal with and always end up disappointed. However, sometimes I can't help it because they have really cute and fresh colours!

I assume Fruit Loop is part of their Spring/ Summer collection and it's a pastel peach which would look absolutely stunning with a tan. I nearly gave up after the first coat because it was so streaky but it eventually evened out after three coats.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do with this mani so I just started stamping and adding random things! Lol! I stamped with Konad m36 and sponged Kleancolor My Valentine onto the tips (I must do another mani with this glitter because it's so gorgeous!).

Illamasqua's Purity Theatre Curtains!!!

I first came across this look on this blog. The initial theme was "hearts" so as to copy the design the model had on the ad campaign for the Illamasqua Throb collection.
However, they look more like curtains to me, maybe because I can't draw hearts very well. Hence the silly post name I just made up :)

So, keeping with the theme of Illamasqua's dramatic makeup and alternative culture, I give you my Illamasqua's Purity Theatre Curtains!!! Lol!

Stargazer - Peachy Soft Creme

I bought this polish some time ago along with some other Stargazer ones whilst I was browsing their website. This was the one I wanted to try the most out of the bunch because I fell in love with the colour - a sort of nude with peachy tones. Although there are no markings on the bottle, I think this is number #504.

I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't blown away either. To be honest, this was my first time trying Stargazer so I wasn't sure what to expect. This one was quite runny so I had some trouble with flooding. If I put too much on the brush it was really hard to manage and easily flooded my cuticles, and too little would drag and cause streaks. Opacity, for me, wasn't all that great either. I needed 3 quite thick coats to get rid of vnl. I hope the other Stargazer polishes I got aren't like this.

Stargazer do have quite an extensive range of polishes, from cremes, to chromes, to opals, to crackles, to orchids. They aren't expensive either (between £2.00 to £3.00) so I may give them another go.

Thanks for reading :)