Hello!
Today I have some pastel tribal gradient nails to show you! I sat down to do my nails last night, but was uninspired - the few things I started off trying didn't look good or went wrong, so I fell back on my go-to nail art - gradients! I know I can do gradients, so I knew I'd at least get something decent looking!
I picked four of the new Barry M Speedy Quick Dry polishes to use, in green, blue, pink and yellow. I used my usual sponging method to create the gradient. As the polishes are quite light in colour it took quite a few coats of sponging on each nail before I was happy with the coverage. The fact they dry fast meant I had to work fast as well!
Once the gradient was finished, it looked really pretty but plain. I've often had gradients like this on my nails with pastel shades, so wanted to spice this one up a bit.
After a bit of thinking I decided to add a tribal / aztec pattern to my nails. I made each nail slightly different. I think my favourite pattern is the one on my middle finger but I think they all look quite good together! The pattern was done using a Barry M nail art pen.
I finished off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri to make them all shiny and smooth! Here's the finished product:
Hello!
As promised, I'm back with some more swatches previewing some of the polishes that will be released tomorrow to celebrate Freckles Polish's first birthday!
The first polish I have to show you is from the Collaboration Collection. This collection comprises of six polishes, three designed by nail bloggers and three by competition winners. Julieann (creator of Freckles Polish) sent me the polish designed by winner Olivia, and it's a stunner!
Olivia named her polish Coralicious, which I think describes it so well! It's a gorgeous vibrant pinky-coral shade packed full of tiny holo glitter. Here it is on my nails:
I think that this would be a gorgeous colour to wear during the summer and on holiday. It sparkles so prettily in the sun! This didn't dry competely smoothly because of all that lovely glitter. This could be solved with topcoat if you wished - no topcoat used in the above swatches though! Three coats of polish.
The next two polishes are from the Birthday Party Collection. This collection will comprise of more holographic polishes (there can never be too many!) that are all delicate, pretty shades that will be perfect for spring.
The first one is Strawberry Buttercream. This is a delicate pale purple with a subtle holo shimmer. It applies sooo smoothly and I was so impressed! As it's a pale colour I've used four coats for these swatches to make sure there was complete coverage for the photos, but you could probably get away with three. Alternatively you could layer this over a similar coloured base (like Prickly Pear by Barry M) and then just add one coat of this purple holo!
The second one is Party Dress. This is an absolute dream of a polish, and my favourite of these three. The colour is perfect - like a dusky deep pink. Ah I can't even describe it but it's beautiful. As above it applies so smoothly, and needed less coats than the one above as it's a bit more pigmented. The holo is more pronounced in this one too! I can see myself using this a lot. It's subtle enough for work but the holo sparkle makes it a bit special.
All in all, three stunning polishes. I especially recommend Party Dress, and of course Jadis that I designed (see previous post!). I'm looking forward to seeing more swatches of the rest of both of the collections.
Happy 1st Birthday Freckles Polish!
Hello!
I've been excited about this for a while now, and I can finally post about it!
I was contacted a while back by Julieann who is the creator of Freckles Polish. She sells some gorgeous bottles of handmade polish, and my personal favourites are the holographic ones. I was thrilled when Julieann asked me, as part of the celebrations for the first anniversary of Freckles Polish, to design a polish myself!
I was so excited, and began to think of what I would like my polish to be. I do love white polishes with coloured glitter, but I have a lot like that already from other indie makers and I didn't want to just re-design that kind of thing. I wanted something unique! So I had a think about the colours I like.... pink, obviously, and also minty green. I thought that a minty-green holo would look so pretty, and it wasn't something I'd seen loads of before. I own a few pink holo polishes but no mint-coloured ones! To make it a bit more individual and tailored to me, I asked Julieann to add some pink glitter.
When I saw pics of the finished polish, I loved it. I loved it even more when it arrived through my door earlier this week, and got it on my nails immediately!
The hardest thing was actually thinking of a name for the polish that would do it justice. I've always thought that if I ever designed a polish collection, I would base it on The Chronicles of Narnia, as I love how magical those books are. At first I wanted to name my polish 'Caspian' after Prince Caspian from the stories, but then I thought that this made me think of a more vibrant shade. I finally decided to go with Jadis, which is the real name of The White Witch. The polish is lovely and frosty-looking, and I think the name goes well!
Here it is!!!!
My polish will be released as part of a Collaboration Collection on 28th March. The collection consists of three polishes designed by nail artists - myself, Anna from Anna Bean's Nails and Vicky from Vicky Loves Nails. There's also three more polishes that were designed by winners of a competition that Julieann ran!
On the same date, Julieann will also be releasing another polish collection called The Birthday Party Collection. I will have swatches of two of these to show you tomorrow, as well as swatches of one of the polishes designed by a competition winner, so do check back!
Thanks so much Julieann for letting me participate in your one-year celebrations, and here's to many more successful years filled with pretty polish! <3
Hello!
As soon as I saw this design I knew I wanted to give it a go! I saw a version by a nail artist called Elaine on Instagram. When I read what she'd written about the design, it turns out she was inspired by another artist who was inspired by another artist etc! I think the original design was done by NailStorming.
Anyway, I decided to use a pink background, as it's my favourite colour. I used 'In A Heart Beat' from the new Barry M Speedy Quick Dry collection that I recently won! This is a lovely pinky-peach and I applied three coats. Regarding the quick-dry part, it does dry reasonably fast but I still used Insta-Dri over it as I needed it to be fully dry/hard before I used nail-art pens over the top.
The flower and petals were drawn using my black Barry M pen, and filled in using three other Speedy Quick Dry pastel shades, using a dotting tool. Once dry I went over the black again to neaten the shapes up.
I'm pleased with these although they look better from a distance - up close the hearts are quite uneven and I'm not 100% happy with the flower. They are fun though, and lovely for Spring!
Hello!
A few weeks ago, I won a competition ran by Superdrug/Barry M on Instagram. I was expecting to receive the new Speedy-Dry collection as my prize, but when it came I got so much more! I did receive the full speedy-dry collection (9 polishes) but I also got the three new spring gellys and the new plumpy topcoat. I was thrilled! But on top of all of these gorgeous polishes, I also got a massive range of make-up brushes (which I've passed on to my sister as I don't really wear a lot of make-up) and some make-up bits including a cheek contour kit and two gelly lip paints. I've kept the two lip paints because the colours are gorgeous, and my sister has got the other bits. All in all, a FANTASTIC prize that must have been worth quite a bit. A lot more than I was expecting and it was great to be able to share some of it with my sister as well!!
So I was eager to try the new gelly shades. I'd actually already purchased Cotton (the white) but I'm glad to have another because it's a perfect white, and I go through white polish quite a lot as I often use it in nail art. The two other shades I'd resisted buying as I thought they were quite similar to gelly shades I already had. But they're absolutely beautiful and I'm so glad I now own them - they are actually quite unique and not too similar to any colours I already own.
The pink is called Fondant (love that name) and it's kind of a muted pastel pink, with a bit of a purple tone to it. Much more dusky and pigmented than the other pale pink gelly I have, Rosehip. The blue is called Sky Blue (not as imaginative a name!) and I'd thought it was going to be like Huckleberry and Elderberry, but it's not. It's much brighter and a really gorgeous shade of blue, lovely for spring.
I created these nails as I'd not done flowers for a while and they're easy to create with a dotting tool. I added a stud to one flower-middle per nail to make them more interesting. I also added a gradient on the other nails as I wanted to see how these colours would look blended together. I'm really pleased with this mani, I think it looks really Spring-like!
Hello!
I posted this to Instagram and Twitter yesterday but have only just had time to write up the blogpost today. Myself and Rebecca from Lane's Lacquers planned to do a Mani Swap recently, where we both decided to pick a manicure done by each other, and then recreate it. Rebecca does a ton of gorgeous, bright designs and I always find myself thinking; 'I want to try that!' every time I see her new creations.
It took me a while to decide which manicure to recreate, but in the end I chose one with a mint/pink colour-scheme (my favourite!) and a brilliant bold Leopard Print design. I've done leopard print a lot before, but usually I keep the print really tiny, so I wanted to try this bolder design.
I began with a base of Sugar Apple by Barry M, two coats. Once this was fully dry (it needs to be or the nail art pens will pull/dent the polish) I used the pink and black nail art pens by Barry M to doodle on the design. I worked with a copy of Rebecca's nails in front of me and tried to copy the print from each nail to make sure I achieved a 'random' look like she had. I finished with a topcoat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.
I loved the bold outcome of these nails, and got loads of nice comments about them. Several people even asked if they were transfers or stickers as they loved the pattern so much! Here's a photo of the design on each hand, and a bonus one I took with my new phone case!!
You can view Rebecca's blogpost here where she shows the Cath Kidston-esque rose print mani of mine that she recreated. I think she's done a perfect job!
Hello!
Since I saw a photo of these trainers in a magazine I knew I wanted to recreate the pattern on my nails as it was so bright and vibrant! I found out that the trainers were designed by Gola/Cath Kidston and sell for £65 - a bit pricey for me so I will just have to be content with having the pattern on my nails!
I used a base of Malibu by Barry M. I loooove this blue! I then drew the clouds and the outline around my cuticle using my white Barry M pen. Once dry I filled in the outline with a yellow polish (limited edition Barry M) and then outlined in black to neaten it up.
I like these from a distance but they're a bit too messy for my liking- I think it was a bit too detailed for me to attempt!
Hello!
I've just come back from 5 days in Benidorm! It was so much fun, and nice to just relax, eat and drink rather than be at work.
I got my toenails done at Pastille in Leeds by the amazing Liv! I got them done with gel so they'd last and picked a pretty summery pattern! I don't like getting gels on my fingers as I like to change them often, so I just painted my nails with two of the Models Own Polish For Tans collection - the peach is Beach Bag and the pink is Sun Hat.
Here's a few photos!
.jpg)
