This is now officially Blog Awards Day !!!

I just wanted to say a big thank you to Laura at Clothes, cosmetics and chat for passing along the Sunshine Blog Award. Laura also gave me my first blog award when I was starting out!! Thank you so much :-)

I read lots of blogs everyday and am constantly looking at all your amazing pictures and inspiration. If I had to pass this award along, it would have to be to every single blog on my blog roll. I am sure some of you have already received this award repeatedly but I think you deserve it again!!

The second award I got was from the lovely Lyndsey at Pixie Polish . Have a look at her blog, she has some great Essie swatches.

One of the rules of this award is to list your top 10 cosmetics:

1 - Sache Vite Fast DryTop Coat (definitely can't live without this one!)

2 - Benefit Benetint

3 - Benefit Hoola Bronzer

4 - Maybelline Great Lash (I know it's ancient but it's a beauty classic)

5 - Bare Minerals Foundation

6 - China Glaze - Sugar High polish

7 – Stila Sheer Colour Tinted Moisturiser

8 - Miss Sporty Hypnotic Turquoise

9 - Lush Honey Trap Lip Balm

10 – MAC’s Fluidline in Blacktrack

Thank you so much for these. It's amazing to know someone out there is interested and can share my nail obsession :-)

xoxo
Vanessa

From the Vault: Sinful Colors Kismet Elated & BM02

Hi everyone. Hope you are all having a great weekend. After an all day rainy day yesterday, we've got.......... a little bit more rain!!! It's June!!! Stop raining!!!

Today I am showing you a mani I did a couple of weeks ago but was slightly disappointed so I didn't post it right away. Then, I was looking through the files on my laptop and decided that it's actually not all that bad, although I'm not sure what I was trying to achieve and I'm still unsure about the choice of colours!!
I do love this colour (a shimmery magenta-purple with a slight gold shimmer and a bit of a chameleon colour that changes depending on light), I had trouble with the application. As you'll see from the last picture, I applied 3 coats and there is still VNL! I was going to apply a 4th coat but as I was quite annoyed by this point, I didn't! I'm sorry to say I'm a 2 coat kinda gal!!!
I then added some white curtain tips and stamped with Konad White stamping polish and BM02.

xoxo
Vanessa

NOTD: Tribal, Avatar Inspired & New York Summer - Hot Baby Blue

I was watching some you tube videos by Meliney yesterday and came across these tribal nails which are inspired by Avatar. If you haven't checked out her youtube channel, please do. She has some amazingly cute designs. I'm so busy at the moment and to add to top it off, have also hit some sort of mental block...I can't come up with anything creative!!! Arrgghhh!!!

I used New York Summer Hot Baby Blue for the base colour. This was the first time I tried a New York polish and although I loved the colour, I wasn’t impressed with the consistency. This particular blue is so sheer that when I first started applying it, I thought I would need at lest 6 coats...no joke! I ended up painting a white base colour and laying the Hot Baby Blue over it. Much better!! This meant that I only had to end up applying 2 coats and the blue really popped to what it looks like in the bottle:

J

Pink Wednesday!!! - Buttons and Stitches

Here is this week's Pink Wednesday mani inspired by BeenaBop. This girl has some amazing nail art, check out her youtube page if you haven't already.
This mani is actually a little old. I did it about a month ago but haven't yet had the change to post it, so here it is - little buttons with side stitches.
I used Jessica Samba Parade for base colour, CND Raspberry Parfait for the darker pink and OPI Alpine Snow for the buttons and stitches:

J

NOTD: Senorita Bonita Sparkle Burst

Hi everyone! I wanted to show you a quick design I did last night on my China Glaze Senorita Bonita mani which was still intact and the colour is so pretty, I didn't really want to take it off.
I added some black diagonal french tips and lined the side of the nail with silver glitter and black stripes to give the illusion that the bullion beads are bursting out from the side:

J
xoxo

China Glaze - Senorita Bonita (Island Escape Collection) Swatch

Hi everyone. Good weekend? JToday I wanted to show you how pretty China Glaze Senorita Bonita from the Island Escape Collection is.
Senorita Bonita is a deep and passionate magenta purple with pink micro shimmer. Look at it closely and you will see red undertones and in some lights, you will also see blue shimmer. Looking at the colour in the bottle, you will also notice the smallest amount of gold duochrome. Although it was quite hard to capture on camera, I did manage to capture a few different shades.
I had to apply 3 coats as this one is a bit on the sheer side! If I hold my hand up to the light, there is still some VNL!

Orly Purple Pleather + Colour Club Covered in Diamonds!!!

Hello fellow nail polish lovers J . Yesterday I showed you how amazingly pretty Orly Purple Pleather is! Ohh, I'm in love (again!)
Well this morning before I left the house for my weekend trip, I was scheduling my posts and I just couldn't resit adding something to this mani. I didn't have a lot of time so I just topped it with ColorClub Covered in Diamonds! I wanted to see what a satin-matte finish would look like with some glossy bling!!

Covered in Diamonds would look much better in direct sunlight but unfortunately, I didn't have any!

And then guess what??!! I wanted to see what Covered in Diamonds looked like matte, so I added a couple of coats of Claire's Matt Top Coat. IMO it doesn't look as pretty as the original satin finish of Orly Purple Pleather.

xoxo

Swatch: Orly Purple Pleather - from the Orly Plastix Satin Finish Collection

Hi everyone. Are you all ready for the weekend? Hopefully the rain won’t deter me from my plans! We are going down to the countryside to meet a friend. I always love going to the country because city life can get so hectic!
Today I wanted to show you another polish I got from my haul the other day – Orly Purple Pleather.
Orly Purple Pleather is one of 4 polishes from the Orly Plastix Satin Finish Collection and unlike regular mattes, they have a glossy “plastic” finish, hence the “satin” name, so I guess they can be called a satin-matte polish?!
Purple Pleather is a blue based purple and I’ve heard that its similar to Orly’s Charged Up but with a different finish of course.
The formula on this is thin but applies really well as its manageable and I had no problem with flooding. It’s highly pigmented so I only required 2 coats (no top coat of course).

I love the satin finish, it dries fast like a matte but the finish is is so much prettier. I couldn't stop staring at it!! I’m already contemplating in getting Viridian Vinyl J

NOTD: Minty Fresh Sparkly Flowers

Today I felt that I don't devote enough time to my BM plates and to stamping. I'm not great at stamping, I always manage to make a mess of it but a good stamp can sure make a mani pop and look that little bit extra special.
I had this shimmery minty green in my stash of untrieds (not sure why because it's so pretty), the hubby got it for me a couple months ago, it's by Miss Sporty and it's called Green Lemon. I then stamped (BM03) the green flowers with Nubar Earth and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark and added some green and purple rhinestones:

Here is what the Green Lemon base colour looks like on its own:

What I used:

xoxo

Pink Wednesday!!! - 2True Rose Pink Swatch & BM03

Happy Wednesday everyone!! For this week's Pink Wednesday I wanted to show you a very light rosy pink with hints of pearl shimmer - 2True Rose Pink.
2True is an affordable British cosmetics brand which have been around since 2006. Their website says that they have also expanded into Holland, Belgium and Ireland which means that all you EU girls can also get your hands on their polish :-).

This polish is really good for the price £1.99 per bottle or 3 for £4.99.
The brush is round with slightly thick bristles which aren't as manageable as I would like but having said that, I didn't really have a problem with controlling and laying down the polish. The formula is slightly on the sheer side so I used 3 coats (but that may be just because this is a rosy shimmery pink).

I then stamped with BM03 and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark as well as adding some french tips for good measure!!

Hope you like it :-)
xoxo