Hello!
Here are some more Valentine's nails! I've seen some fab nails from other bloggers, and the ones I've liked the most have been these by Pause for Polish. So artistic! Also, Nailasaurus posted some valentine's nail art ideas, and I really liked the ones with the 'LOVE' lettering. So I knew I wanted to spell out the word on my nails, but didn't want to directly copy either of these, or various others I've seen. I don't think I'd have been able to do anything as nice or intricate as Pause for Polish, so I got thinking about other styles of writing and nail art in general, and decided to go for lace-print-style writing.
For a base I used three of my Ciate minis, which all happen to have valentines-themed names - L-R, Boudoir, Play Date and Kiss Chase. I painted my nails in Kiss Chase, then randomly swiped the other colours on. Not sure that it looked very good, more messy, but it didn't matter very much as I was going to add the lettering over the top, which I did with my Barry M nail art pen. I finished off with a shiny topcoat to seal in the pen and finish off the look!
No flash:
flash:
From my phone:
Hello! I've done these nails today as it's nearly Valentines Day! Plus, it was a good excuse to try out the third of the three hypergels I got from the Models Own sale. This is Pink Veneer and it's my favourite of the lot, which I'd decided before I'd even put it on my nails. It certainly didn't disappoint - I love baby pink polishes and this is definitely my new favourite. I didn't have any issues with application either, although I applied it carefully as I know others haven't found it the easiest to work with.
I then used my Barry M pen to draw loveheart-shaped tips and fill them in. I've seen this style elsewhere and I've always wanted to give it a go! I would have liked the tips to be darker pink rather than black, but I'm neater with pens and only have black or white! I finished off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, my favourite topcoat ever! I wondered about adding studs or glitter, but I've held off for now - I quite like the simplicity of these.
Hello! I have a beautiful Nail Lacquer UK polish to show today. I bought this a few months ago, but hadn't got round to wearing it until this weekend. Unfortunately, Nail Lacquer UK is no longer selling polish, but that doesn't alter how gorgeous they are!
This one was from the Alice in Wonderland collection and is called We're All Mad Here (I think!) It's a beautiful mix of black hearts, clubs and circles, with big pink hexes, smaller yellow circles and glitters, and tiiiiiny black glitter with a scattering of pink, blue and yellow in a milky base. Complex, and stunning!! I love it. I actually love it and can't believe I haven't worn it until now!
I wore it over a plain white polish, and added an accent nail with a heart/club pattern I saw on a dress in New Look and immediately knew I wanted to try and recreate it on my nails, to go with this polish! This is the dress:
And I copied the design on a black base using my black and white Barry M pens. I'm really pleased with this mani! Here's a few more pics:
Hello,
These nails are not very original, but this was a manicure I came up with during the week. First of all, I wanted to try out another Hypergel, so I picked Naked Glow. This is the nude shade, and I love nude polish. It's also fab because at work, eye-catching nails aren't really encouraged, so I'm always looking for nice nude shades. Here it is before I added anything. I do think, as shown in the second pic below, that it's not as dark or as brown-y as shown in the swatch on the bottle lid. This is a bit annoying because I already have a really similar nude shade (Lychee by Barry M) and thought this one might be a bit darker. I still like it though!
I painted my nails with two steady coats of this polish, and didn't have any issues with application. Like Cerise Shine, it has such a smooth and shiny finish! The only problem with a beautiful finish like this is that any tiny imperfection, like a scuff or nick to the polish, or a tiny bubble or lump in the application really stands out - to me, anyway! Also, I can't just leave my nails plain any more- I must add something! So I picked up Southern Lights, which is another of my new Models Own goodies. I used this polish to create a glitter gradient on my nails - one of my favourite quick-and-easy looks. This polish is beaaaauuutiful, but a bit thick to use in a gradient I think. I can't wait to use it as a full mani, though! It gives such good coverage!
I also added an accent nail using some pastel-coloured studs I got from Born Pretty Store ages ago, and never actually got round to using despite them being so awesome! I picked a kind of nude/orange shade to match the polish, and a pale blue to match the glitter, and stuck them on into a wet topcoat, with a further topcoat to seal them in.
I really like these nails, and was really chuffed when Models Own posted my photo of them on twitter, after I'd posted them to Instagram yesterday. Yay for social media - I got a lot of likes and even a few more twitter followers! Very happy!
Hello! Slightly different post today. This is the first of a series (we hope!) of collab posts between myself and Naileymabob. We decided that it'd be fun to do some joint posts on the same theme. For today, we picked one polish we both had, which was Cerise Shine hypergel by Models Own. We both got this polish delivered this week from the Models Own sale, and both wanted to try it out! We decided that over the top we'd add lace print. We didn't discuss how/what we wanted the full mani to look like other than these details, because we wanted to see what each other would come up with!
I started with a base of the pink, which I posted swatches of a few days ago here. I then doodled on a lace design at the base of each nail, using the Barry M nail art pens. My inspiration was this manicure by Lucy of Lucy's Stash, which I actually came across when googling for something else ages ago, and saved it as it was so pretty. I tried to alter it a bit so it wasn't completely copied, but I do like having a design to follow when I'm doing something intricate like lace print.
Here is my manicure!
I definitely want to try this design again and try to do it neater. And maybe I could try it at the top of my nails, rather than at the bottom. I love lace-print!
Here's a link to Naileymabob's version of pink lace print! Go and look, it's stunning <3
Hello! Today I received my Models Own sale haul. I only got 5 polishes, mainly because I didn't actually need ANY polishes, but couldn't resist 50% off, and wanted to try the new hypergels!
This is what I got:
The three Hypergel shades I most liked the look of, and Northern/Southern Lights, because I've thought these were pretty for quite a while so half price was a good excuse to add them to my collection.
The first polish I decided to apply was Cerise Shine, which is the bright pink hypergel. OMGGG look how gorgeous this is!!! For those who don't know, Models Own have just brought out a new style of polish called Hypergel, which is supposed to replicate the look of a gel manicure, being really smooth and shiny.
I thought it applied well, definitely needed two coats to make it flawless, but the polish is lovely and pigmented and smooth. I've used a topcoat here, because I find bright colours like this mark my white walls (oops!) plus any pieces of paper I handle at work. But shine-wise, it didn't need the topcoat, it looked exactly the same without it. Lush!
Another polish I found difficult to photograph. Here without flash:
With flash:
Sooo pink! I've tentatively decided to wear this for work tomorrow, mainly because it looks and feels so lush that I can't bear to take it off! I hope because it's just 'one plain colour' and not nail art, I should be able to get away with it.... hopefully!
My cracked nail is still hanging on too. I altered my method of mending slightly this time, using just a small strip of teabag to cover the crack, rather than covering my whole nail. It doesn't feel as strong, but looks neater around the cuticle! Here's the repair, and how it looks polished over - sorry about the quality, phone pics!
Hello! Some nail art for today. I was hoping my Models Own order would arrive today, and was waiting to try out the Hypergels, but it didn't come. So this was something I went with as a quick second option.
The base is Guava by Barry M. This beautiful gelly shade is like a rich, bright turquoise shade. I've had it for ages, but not used it as much as I should have. It's gorgeous! My pictures have struggled to capture the correct shade - when I used the flash, the colour seemed overly bright and light, and without the flash seemed too blue. I've included both kinds of pics so you can see what I mean!
I added an outline and cross with a Barry M nail art pen (my new one, as my old one went gloopy!) and then finished each nail off with a gold stud.
