50 years of Superdrug polish!

Hello!

As you all probably know, Barry M have released a special polish to celebrate 50 years of Superdrug. This polish is a stunner - a rich pink shimmery base full of loads of glitter in varying sizes and colours. It's so unusual and not the type of polish you can usually get from mainstream brands. I love it!

In this swatch I've used two coats of the polish and a topcoat. It looks even nicer in real life - I wore it to work today, and got lots of comments from people saying how much they liked it. It shimmers and sparkles in the light so much and the colour is stunning.

This was only £2.99 and I'd definitely recommend getting it!

OPI sheer tints - quick look!

Hello! Quick pic for you today, because it's late! 

I've just removed my 'BFF Friday' manicure, as it was chipping, but before I did, I thought I'd have a play with my new purchases. Last week I treated myself to the set of minis of the OPI sheer tints, as I found them for about £8 and thought it was too good to miss! I have seen people use them over white and create some great looks, which I definitely will try when I have more time. But I also wanted to see what they'd look like over coloured polish, so I added a coat of each to my mani. Here's the results!

From L-R,
Be Magentle with me (pink)
Don't Violet me down (purple)
I'm never Amberrassed (orange)
I can Teal You Like me (blue)

I love how these colours really transformed the mani! I think the yellow/orange transformed it the most, and this is a really interesting concept - I can see myself using these a lot, especially to alter a mani after I've been wearing it a few days. Also, they dried SO quick and gave such a smooth shiny finish, just like what you'd expect from an ordinary topcoat. Impressed!

BFF Friday: Geometric Pastels

Hello! Time for another week of BFF Friday - when myself and Laura (naileymabob) pick a theme, and both create a manicure. Laura came up with this weeks' theme which is Geometric Pastels. Fab for spring!

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, although I did want to use Rosehip and Huckleberry - two of the new spring gellys by Barry M. I wasn't really sure even right up until last night when I started this mani - I was going to do a big triangle at either the base or tip of my nail, but at the last minute I came up with this. It was quite time consuming, but I did it whilst catching up with some TV so it didn't seem too bad!

I started with a base of Rosehip (the pale pink) which needed two/three coats to be fully opaque. I helped this to dry quickly with a quick coat of Insta Dri (Sally Hansen). After waiting a little while to make sure they were fully dry, I drew on the triangles using the white nail-art pen. I filled them in with Huckleberry (the pale blue) using a tiny nail-art brush - I rarely use brushes because I'm not very accurate with them and find them faffy, but in this case I needed something really tiny to get the polish into the little triangles! I went over the blue twice to make it stand out. Once this was dry (again helped with Insta-Dri!) I went over the white outlines of the triangles again to neaten them up. Then my final coat of Insta-Dri to seal it all in!

Pics using my camera washed these out a bit, as you can see in the first few pics, so I've also added some I took with my phone that show the colours and the nail-art off a little better. Sorry for the varying colour/quality!

 Naileymabob's post is here - go and check out her post and how she interpreted the theme! X

An InLinkz Link-up

Sarah Smiles - Capture An English Boy

Hello! 

Quick post today. I've been so busy over the last week I've not had time to post any of my manicures on here - I've managed a quick snap for Instagram but haven't had time to sort a blogpost. I'm writing one now though because this polish definitely deserves it <3

This is Capture An English Boy by Sarah Smiles, a new UK indie maker. You can find her Etsy shop here - as well as polishes there's a few items of jewellery available, and a kit to make your own polish. Sarah is also working on a new collection that looks really pretty, so keep an eye on her shop! This polish I'm showing you today was a one-off created especially for a giveaway, which I won (yay!).

This glitter topper is a beautiful mix of purple, teal and silver glitters in lots of different sizes. There's so much glitter in this, you only need one coat for gorgeous sparkly coverage! I applied it over a base of Utopia by Models Own. I really want to try it over black as well! I love the tiny glitter and the big silver hexes <3

To make this more interesting than a simple swatch, I added an accent nail on my little finger, using neon studs (Born Pretty) in colours similar to the glitter, and created a fun little pattern!

Thank-you Sarah for my prize!! <3 And this is definitely my favourite Sarah Smiles polish so far, I think it definitely should be available in the shop for other people to buy! X

A Pyramid of Solid Glass...

 

Hello!

I've been on an awesome adventure today. Me and my boyfriend took his little boy to one of my favourite places ever - The Forbidden Corner in Yorkshire. I've been as a child and then taken brownie packs more recently, and it's just so awesome. It's a big, sprawling garden full of pathways, tunnels, doorways and surprises. You explore, and are given a list of things to look out for - a statue of a demon that squirts water, rocks with faces, a tiny door, and a pyramid of solid glass! This last thing I always remember, because I remember thinking how awesome it was when I was younger! Here it is (looking a bit mucky, it was under a tree that was dropping stuff all over it so the white bits weren't very white!) ...and you can see it from above....

...And below when you find one of the underground passageways - seeing the colours better here <3

To recreate this on my nails, I used a base of Pepperminty (pale green) by Ciate. I then drew on the mosaic pattern with white nail art pen, and filled the gaps with other shades of green - Greenberry by Barry M, then my Kiko (the khaki kind of shade) and a Color Club (the kind of forest green). Once this was dry I went over the white lines again with my nail art pen, and sealed in with topcoat. Loved how these turned out!

Here they are with the pyramid!!

Pink Gradient with Gold Flake Topper

Hello!

Here are my nails today. Yesterday I created a pink gradient, which was inspired by my nude/pink ombre manicure. I loved the colours that I used, and baby pink polish is my favourite! So I selected two of the colours I used in my ombre mani, which were Rose Hip by Barry M (the palest pink) and Pink Veneer by Models Own (the mid-pink). I then picked Barry M's limited edition summer pink, which I won in a giveaway by the fab Nail Art Novice. I thought this was the perfect shade to blend with the other two - not too vivid or dark, but still really bright.

I started with a base of Rose hip (two coats) as this was the lightest shade. I then painted stripes of all three colours onto a make-up sponge, and dabbed them onto my nails. I repeated this a few times for each nail to build up the colour, moving the sponge up/down the nail to blend the three shades together. I finished off with a shiny topcoat to smooth it all out. I left my nails like this for today - I was going to add studs, but I've lost my favourite stud-wheel noooo! :-(

Tonight I wanted to add something, so reached for my pure 18k gold and silver topcoat by OPI. I've seen this pretty polish on other blogs and when I saw it in the sale in Sallys I picked it up, but this is the first time I've used it. I was impressed - even with the gold flakes it still lies so smooth on the nail, and is so shiny! There's a good amount of gold flake there too! Pretty :-)

Freckles Polish - Gypsy Lucky Heather

Hello!

Showing off another of my purchases from Freckles Polish today. This one is called Gypsy Lucky Heather which I think is a great name, and it's the one I knew I definitely wanted when I saw which polishes had been released. This is a lilac base with different sized glitter in red, blue and purple and big silver circles. So unique!

With the previous Freckles Polish I tried, I layered one coat over a similar shade. This time I thought I'd try just using two coats of the polish with no base. I also added a matte topcoat in these pics (forgot to take a pic of it shiny, argh!)

I still love this polish, especially the purple colour, it's gorgeous and I got some nice comments about it at work! I think if I wore it again though, I'd go back to my method of applying just one coat over a similar base shade - the purple is sooo opaque (which I like!) that a second coat completely covered up the glitters in the first coat and ended up looking a bit thick/gritty in places. I think I'd actually like this polish even more without the big circles - but that's just my personal view, and I do love big circle glitters, I just think they got a bit concealed in this polish. I loooooved the shade of purple next to the red, blue and purple little glitters though. Stunning!!