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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter nails with (mostly) OPI and Essence!



Howdy peeps!

I hope everyone is having a good long weekend, and enjoying the end of Lent and eating loads of chocolate!

In celebration, I’ve decided to decorate my nails with some Easter egg and chick and bunny art! I was thrilled to get stuck into these ones – the bright colours really cheered me up after the miserable week of snow and coldness we’ve had.



Saturday, March 30, 2013

Nerdy Nails Issue 5: Doctor Who

Happy Easter y'all!

Hope everyone's enjoying the long weekend so far. Mine has just started, as I had to work today, but I'm looking forward to enjoying my three days off!

Today's Nerdy Nails are in celebration of one of my favourite TV shows, Doctor Who! DW is back this Saturday for the second half of Series 7, and its very exciting! So I had to do my nails in tribute to everyone's favourite Time Lord. As before, I'll try to keep it short, and explain the design for each nail and the colours used.



Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Maybelline Charged And Ready & L'Oreal Confetti swatches



Hello lovelies!

Today, I have a swatch of two polishes I have recently bought for myself. The first is from Maybelline's new Color Show range, and it’s a lovely acid green shimmer called Charged and Ready.




It’s a complete unique colour in my collection, and I wouldn't usually go for a shade like this, which is why I got it! I actually really like this one, it’s nice and bright and it has cheered me up in the recent snowy weather. You would get away with two thicker coats on this one, but as far as I can remember, I used three thin coats for the photos here.




These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to wear it again, and pair it with my second polish, and just got around to doing it this week. Here I have two thick coats of Charged And Ready, with L’Oreal’s Confetti topcoat on top. 




This is an awesome clear polish with black and white glitters in two sizes, along with some subtle blue-green shimmer. You can see the shimmer in the bottle if it hits the light at the right angle, but it wasn't very evident over CAR, because that one is so shimmery on it’s own. This is one coat, but my index and middle fingers have a few bald spots dabbed on with extra glitter, but it wasn't really necessary. I topped it all with my NYC/Essence Better Than Gel Nails combo.





I really like this combo, and I wore it for a few days. I’d advise on more than one coat of base coat under this green though, I had one coat here and my nails were like smoker's nails when I removed it! I really love the glitter; it’s cool to see a drugstore brand branching out with polishes we’d be more used to seeing from an indie brand, so I hope we get more of these in the future.

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Nerdy Nails Issue 4: Star Wars


I'm really happy with how my Nerdy Nails turned out this week; after my mediocre Avengers attempt last week, I wasn't feeling too confident but I managed to pull these out of the bag. Star Wars holds a special place in my heart - it's the first thing I ever went totally nuts for, and the first fandom I fell into. I really wanted to pay a decent tribute to my first love, and I think I did a pretty good job. I'll try to keep it short, so I'll just list the character on each nail and the colours used.



Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Spring Gradient with OPI Euro Centrale

I was excited to pick up some nail mail from Parcel Motel last week - it contained some OPIs and China Glaze polishes I had ordered from some of their most recent collections, and I was dying to try them out!

I decided to crack out the OPIs first. I thought the two colours would look good together, and thought that I might as well have a stab at doing a gradient with them.





Friday, March 15, 2013

Nerdy Nails Issue 3: The Avengers!

I've come to the conclusion that drawing circle free-hand on my nails has become the bane of my nail art existence. Maybe I just wasn't in a good mind set for elaborate nail art this week, but my Nerdy Nails didn't turn out too good.




Thursday, March 14, 2013

OPI Liquid Sand Swatch & French Tipped

Howdy y'all!

I'm trying out my first texture polish today, and also have my first swatch! This is Stay the Night, one of the Liquid Sand polishes from OPI's Mariah Carey collection. This is a black base with red glitter flowing through it. I decided on this one after seeing it on some other blogs and how amazing it looks when it's top-coated. 






I decided to make it a bit more nail arty by adding some freehand chevron tips. The red I used for these is Chelsea from NYC's In A New York Minute range. I was hoping the tips would show up a bit more, but I was putting it over black, so I'm not sure why I was expecting it to stand out more (duh, Marilyn!).




I top-coated Stay The Night with two coats of Seche Vite before adding the tips, and I added one more coat after the tips were dry. These textured polishes eat top-coat though, after a few hours of drying, my nails still had a slightly rough texture to them.





I haven't worn this in its natural state for a long period yet, so I'm not sure if I'd like having the rough texture on my nails permanently, but I'll report back once I've had a chance to live with it for a while. I do love this one with topcoat though, the glitter really stands out.

I think I like this textured trend. I think the OPI and Zoya collections look best though, as they have added glitter, which I think sets these apart from other brands. The others just tend to look like your normal polish that's been slept on before it's fully dried. I do have one from 17 that I haven't tried yet though, so maybe that will change my mind. I'll post some pics of that one soon.

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Picture Fail: Swirly Floral

Hola lovelies!

My posting has started to get a bit sporadic of late. I wanted to get into a routine and post the same days every week, hopefully building up to one post a day, but I've been falling behind a bit :( Hopefully I can get back on track, and get some more art and start to get some swatches done so I can build up a backlog of posts, and get a bit more organised.

Today, I have a bit of a picture fail I'm afraid. I have a lovely stamping mani to show you, but I only noticed after I had taken it off that in most of my pics you can't see the actual stamp due to the reflection of my lamp on my nails! Such a rookie mistake, I need to get a light box sorted asap! Also, the sun needs to stick around a bit longer so I can start taking pics in the daylight after work :p

Aaanyway, here are the nails! The amazing blue colour is Bleu Fabuleaux from Bourjois' So Laque range.




I've been looking at it but walking past it for months, but I finally took the plunge after Karen at LovelyGirlieBits reviewed it here a few weeks ago. I'm so glad I did, I think it's my favourite blue at the moment!



I decided to jazz it up a little with a simple, girly, swirly, floraly stamp from a Cheeky plate CH26 and my Barry M Silver Foil. Unfortunately, my indoor pics do not show off the stamp due to reflection, but you can see it better on the couple of daylight ones I managed to get on the bus home from work one day!






I'll defo be wearing this blue a lot, and I have a fab art deco design I want to try with it. I'll be sure to take better pictures next time too!

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Nerdy Nails Issue 2: Pac-Man!






As well as being a sci-fi nerd, I’m also a big lover of video games. There’s little I love more than sitting down and spending hours being immersed in a completely new world and forget about real life for a while. 

I have quite a few ideas inspired by my favourite video games that I want to try out on my nails, but I thought I’d start out with something relatively simple, so I decided on Pac-Man! Everyone loves this little circle “wakka wakka”-ing his way around the screen collecting his pellets while being chased around by the colourful monsters, Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. It’s a classic, but one that always frustrates me! I’m ashamed to say, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been able to get passed one level on this without losing all my lives! Clearly, I just need more practice! :p

So, for my nail art, I decided to dedicate each nail to the five main characters of the game.








Thumb – Pac-Man: I was dreading doing my thumb, as I knew I had to draw a circle free-hand. It didn’t turn out too bad, but this was my second attempt, the first was awful. Colours used were: OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (base), NYC Lexington Yellow (yellow), China Glaze Liquid Leather (black)

Index – Blinky: These guys were easy enough to do – I just painted my full nail the colour for the monster, then filled in the eyes and the black bits with a dotting tool and a brush. The main colour for Blinky was China Glaze Red Satin, and his eyes were OPI MBSW again, and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream for the blue. The black is Liquid Leather.




Middle – Pinky: Next is Pinky. I followed the same method as Blinky above, the base pink is Show Off from Rimmel’s Lycra Pro range, and eyes and black bits are the same as above.

Ring – Inky after power pellet: uh-oh! Poor Inky isn’t looking too good! This is what happens to the monster when Pac-Man eats one of the power pellets, so he can eat these guys and give himself a break from the chase. Here, I used Essence The Boy Next Door for the main blue, and his eyes and mouth were done with Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream. Black is LL again.

Pinky – Clyde: I love that he has a normal name that doesn’t have any resemblance to the other guys. I’m also easily amused :p This little guys was painted with Coral from Barry M, with eyes and black bits the same as the rest of the guys above.
 






Here's a close up of ol' Pac-Man himself (I didn't notice the two random yellow spots until after I had taken the photos, I must have dented the polish doing something)



I could have done these guys a little better, but I’m happy with them for now. Pac-Man was the hardest, as I’m still getting used to free-handing art, but hopefully with more practice I’ll get there in the end.

Hope you enjoyed this issue of my Nerdy Nails. I have a great idea to assemble for next week’s edition, I just hope I can pull it off!

Thanks for reading!
Ciao for now x