B Mine - Tara's Talons

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!)

An InLinkz Link-up

Purple Glitter Gradient

Hello, I have another UK Indie to show off today. I got this polish as part of a Nail-Secret-Santa I took part in with some awesome girls on Twitter. I was lucky enough to receive 3 Tara's Talons polishes in total. Tara's Talons is a brand I've not actually tried before - I'm still quite new to the UK Indie scene, and I tend to stick with sellers I've bought from before. There's a good few UK Indie makers now, and I've just not got round to trying them all, so I was thrilled to get three of Tara's polishes.

All three are glitter toppers, which suits me perfectly because these are always the ones I've been drawn to most when I've seen her polishes on other blogs. The one I'm going to show you today is one I've actually lusted after before, so my Secret Santa person has picked very well for me!

This is Vampire Bat, I think originally from the halloween collection, but I think can definitely be worn all year round. Vampire Bat is a purple glitter, but with lots of interest added in the form of different sized glitter, and the occasional addition of a speck of red, gold, blue and other shades. It's so so pretty! I didn't own a purple glitter until I got this, and it really is very beautiful!

I decided to apply this over Kiko 346, which is the only Kiko I own after buying one on a whim when I popped into the shop in Westfield. I adore this dark, muted teal shade, and thought it'd complement the bright purple glitter well. I forgot how much I love this polish - it's so smooth and SO SHINY - look at it without topcoat! I don't think any other brand I own has a finish quite like this, even the Barry M gellys. 

I'm going down to London at the weekend with my boyfriend and I'm quite heavily hinting at another little trip to Westfield, purely so I can get my hands on some more Kiko pretties!!

I then applied Vampire Bat from the cuticle upwards to create a gradient... I usually do my gradients from the tip down so I thought I'd mix it up a bit this time and try it the other way. I finished with a coat of Poshe topcoat to bring it all together.

Here's one more pic of the finished manicure, I struggled to photograph it well enough to capture both the correct shade of the Kiko, and the rich sparkliness of the glitter :-( The pic at the top of this post is with flash, and the one below is without.