Hello!
I was in London during the week with my boyfriend, and we had a few hours to spare which we spent browsing Oxford Street. We went into Selfridges just because its a fab shop to browse... and I spent some time in the nail polish section, which is so pretty! It's mostly quite pricey brands like Nails Inc, so I decided not to get anything. However, the Ciate Dolls House Collection had caught my eye.... still, I left it on the shelf like a good girl while we went to find the cocktail bar! One Espresso Martini later and I'd convinced myself I needed the dolls house if it was under £20. We navigated back to the polish section, and I was soon the proud owner of the £18 set - complete in a much coveted-by-me yellow Selfridges bag!!
So, this collection has 5 minis, all with a porcelain (matte) finish - which I didn't actually know until the shop lady told me! They are:
Dollface (nude/beige)
Paper Doll (white)
Baby Doll (peach)
Poppet (lilac)
Sweet Pea (mint green)
cute names! I was desperate to try these, so for my manicure today, I painted each finger with a different colour.
They take a good few coats to build up, I think these were all three coats. With the polish being matte, I found it a really tricky formula to work with - it dried quickly and you couldn't go over the same spot twice without making the polish all smeary and patchy. Luckily they built up quite well after a few coats.
I had the day free, so decided to doodle over the top of these. I picked up my Barry M white nail art pen, and doodled a paisley pattern on all my nails, except the white ones as the white pen wouldn't show up, obviously! I was a bit stumped as to what to do on the white nails as they looked too unfinished with nothing, and eventually settled on using my pastel studs from Born Pretty. I was pleased when I found studs that were of a really similar colour to three of the shades already in my mani, so stuck these on to my little finger nail using wet nail polish. I finished all my nails off with a matte topcoat (Rimmel) to keep the 'porcelain' look meant for these. (sorry about greasiness of last pic, had just applied some Lemony Flutter!) Xx
Hello!
I've decided to sell some of my little-used polishes. I'm hoping that as well as making some more space in my polish-storage boxes, it'll also make me feel less bad about buying new ones! I've listed all the polishes for sale here, along with prices and descriptions of quality etc. If you're interested or want more info on any of them, do email me at s.gabbatiss@gmail.com
There's only about 20 or so at the moment, but I may add to the list in the future and will let you know when I do!
Sarah x
Quick bit of nail art today - these nails are based on a pic of a catwalk outfit that I saw in the paper, from Milan fashion week. I'm not an avid follower of fashion, but graphic prints on clothes often make me think that I could do a nail version! Here's the outfit that inspired me:
I liked the fact that the black lines weren't neat/exact - it was more of a 'hand drawn' look than a really regimented exact grid. And this works for nail art! I'm a bit annoyed that my version was a bit TOO 'hand drawn' and messy - I could have done it neater! These nails do look really good and striking from a distance though, it's just that the imperfections are really obvious in these photos!
For these, I used a base of Snow Me White (Sinful Colors), and my Barry M black nail art pen for the grid. Topcoated with Poshe topcoat to make it shine!
Hello!
This isn't a post about nails, just a quick post about Lush! I didn't really used to be interested in Lush products, until I got into nails and heard Lemony Flutter mentioned as being a really nice cuticle butter. My hands and cuticles were often dry so I decided to get some. It smells delicious, works well and lasts forever! I bought it about 6 months ago and try to use it daily, and there's still practically the full pot left.
I then began to see bits and pieces on other beauty blogs about other Lush products, and I became interested. I asked for some bits for Christmas, and got a bottle of Snow Fairy (xmas limited edition) shower gel which smells delicious. I also got a couple of bubble bars - a penguin one from the Christmas range, and a pretty pink one called The Comforter. I broke it into about 5 pieces and used it for lots of beautiful smelling baths. This one is available all year round so I definitely want to get it again. I've also recently tried the blue version, Blue Skies and Fluffy White Clouds which was also lovely, with a really 'relaxing' scent - although I think I preferred the sweeter smell of The Comforter.
A few weeks ago, I also treated myself to a tinted lip gloss called The Kiss, which tastes delicious - like sweets! I usually don't bother to keep applying lipgloss, but this one tastes so nice I religiously put it on.
I sent Lush some positive feedback on twitter about The Comforter, The Kiss, Snow Fairy and Lemony Flutter - I genuinely love them and can't believe I've not been a fan of Lush before now. I've not usually been too bothered about what bath products I use but now I'm a full Lush convert. I was surprised and over the moon when Lush got in touch and said that in return for my lovely feedback, they'd send me a little box of surprises. It was so unexpected - I hadn't expected anything in return and hadn't said I had a blog or anything....and my treat came today! I got sent:
Space Girl bath bomb
Mmmelting Marshmallow Moment bath melt
Creamy Candy bubble bar
Here they are, my new goodies still in wrappers and my other current Lush products:
I've not tried any of them yet, but they all smell delicious - the same sweetie smell that I love so much, similar to The Comforter, Snow Fairy and The Kiss. I'm soooo pleased to have been sent these as they'll only increase my love for Lush! I hope this post has given you all inspiration to go shopping in Lush - and let me know your favourite products too for me to try, because I'm still a bit of a Lush newbie!
Xx
Hello!
Today I've got an absolute beauty of a polish to show you. This is B Mine by Tara's Talons (The Tara Emporium) and I knew I had to have it after seeing some beautiful swatches of it on Cazzy's blog, SpecialGirl Nails. This was officially a Valentine's polish, but to me, pink with hearts, stars and glitter is definitely pretty enough to be worn all year round.
The base these glitters are suspended in is pink, but quite sheer, and I don't like to have a 'visible nail line' so I decided to layer it over a block colour. I tried a bright pink (Kiss Chase by Ciate), a baby pink (Pink Veneer by Models Own) and a nude (Utopia also by Models Own). This was just meant to be an experiment to decide what it looked best over, but it looked stunning over all three so I decided to encorporate my 'practice nails' into the manicure. Looking at them now, I think my favourite is how it looks over Utopia (the nude shade) but I do like how the different colours adds an extra dimension to the mani.
This is one-two coats of B Mine, depending on how much glitter/hearts/stars came out each time. I did fish a bit for the bigger shapes and the lovely neon pink squares and placed them where there was gaps, but this was easy enough and expected for larger glitter.
I topcoated with my new bottle of Gelous, which I bought in Sally's at the weekend. I don't live near one, so was really chuffed to find one in Inverness where I spent the weekend with my boyfriend. I treated myself to two bottles and also the gold leaf OPI polish, which was in the sale. The Gelous was everything I'd expected from it- so thick and shiny, really smoothed down the glitter. I used a few coats, and then another coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri to make sure it was really dry. I loooove it! The stars and hearts are totally sealed in underneath the Gelous - usually I have problems with stars spiking out through topcoat, but that seems to be solved.
So yeah - I'm loving both B Mine and my new Gelous. <3
What I used:
And lots of pics to show off the prettiness!
And here's my left hand below - my tea-bag fix is still holding my middle nail together (needs re-doing most times I do my nails!) and my little finger nail completely broke when I caught it on something on the train to Inverness (we'd literally just got on the train on our way, and I nearly cried, luckily it didn't break lower down!)
Hello! These are the nails I've been sporting over the weekend. These were inspired by Gwen Stefani's nails from her OPI collection. I didn't actually use OPI polishes as they're a bit too pricey for me - the only one I own is Nail Envy! Here are Gwen's nails:
For my version, I used a base coat of Snow Me White by Sinful Colors. This is my new white since my Sally Hansen one ran out. I then used my Barry M nail art pen to fill in the black sections. I find this easier than faffing about with tape. A weird problem that occured that hasn't before is that when the black dried, it cracked. Here's a pic, I'm not sure whether it was the new white base that caused it? Either way - annoying!
I went over the black a few times, but it didn't really help cover the cracks. A topcoat did help smooth them out though. I toyed with the idea of adding studs, but eventually decided not to. I liked how my nails looked with them, but I was away this weekend in Inverness and I didn't want to be constantly making sure the studs hadn't pinged off, sticking them back on etc, so I left them plain. Here's a pic of how I would have added studs (on all fingers!)
A lovely compliment I got over the weekend was a barmaid asking if they were real, and when I did them myself she asked if they were wraps or stickers! Always good to know your nails look as good as false ones! These lasted really well, despite me breaking the nail on my little finger on my left hand on the train up! :-( Some more photos:
Hello! Time for BFF Friday again - myself and Naileymabob are picking a theme on some Fridays when we are both free, and both creating a manicure to that theme, to post together.
Today's theme was Gradient With A Twist. I was quite happy with this theme, as I love gradients, and have got much better at creating them with two/three colours, or with glitter. But the twist suggested I had to try something new or more unusual. I decided to take the word 'twist' literally and do a 'circular' gradient. My plan for this was to take a red, blue and yellow polish and try to make my nails like a colour-wheel - I wanted the three colours to blend together, so that between yellow and red it looked orange, and between red and blue it looked purple etc.
....but it was a fail! To be honest, I had to rush these, and didn't spend as much time on them as I should have. They look so messy, and the colours didn't really blend at all!
To create these, I started with a base of white. I then painted the three colours onto a make-up sponge. Instead of in a line like usual, I painted a third of the sponge with each colour. Then when I dabbed the colours onto the nail, I tried to rotate the sponge a bit back and forth to blend the colours together. Here's the icky results:
And here are the polishes I used and how I painted the sponge to get this horrific effect!
So, if I tried this again, I'd be more careful with the dabbing to try and blend the colours better. I'd also maybe use colours that were more similar! Can't wait to see what Naileymabob has come up with for hers!
Hello!
I'm going to show off another manicure today, again using Pink Veneer by Models Own - my new favourite polish! I already used this Hypergel polish in my 'heart tips' mani a few posts ago, but wore it again for work as it's a nice pale shade. I wore it with an accent nail of Northern Lights (also Models Own) but it got badly chipped at work after only a few hours' wear - see my Instagram for evidence! So I re-painted the damaged nails, taking out the accent nail to add to the beautiful simplicity of this polish.
First, some pics of the polish on its own...
And then with the accent nail - how I had them earlier today. Like Southern Lights, Northern Lights is difficult to capture on camera. In real life it's so sparkly and yummy! I think I do slightly prefer Southern Lights (the blue glitter) though - it seems more dense and gives better coverage.
Simple work mani! I've not jazzed these nails up with any studs or nail art, but I really, really like them plain... Not that you could call Southern Lights by Models Own plain! It's one of the prettiest mainstream polishes I own, and I can't believe I only just got it!
I started off with two coats of Dreamer by Revlon, a pastel blue I got for Christmas. Then I topped with just one coat of Southern Lights, and a topcoat of Insta-Dri. I can't get over how sparkly and glittery this is in only one coat!
The pics really haven't captured the holo sparkly gorgeousness... none of them have, and I've tried with/without flash, and in different lights :-( They are so pretty in real life though, honest! Also, sorry the pics are all different sizes - my usual photo editor kept crashing! Bit of a fail of a post really! Xx
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