OMFGyournails

Flicks and Pouts!

2012-10-16T18:04:00.000+01:00

Just a quick little post today, and it's based around by very talented friend Kelly! She has FINALLY set up a fantastic little blog for her beautiful make up skills, and I think we should all go take a look. This lovely lady is very creative and has some wonderful Halloween make up ideas aswell as, I'm sure, some fabulous ideas for the rest of the year. So take your booty over to her page and have a look, no excuses I've made it easy for you, just click the pic! I promise you, you won't be disapointed! Xxx.

Tkmaxx haul!

2012-10-11T23:22:00.000+01:00

I have to tell you, I have had such a busy little week, I have been on major travels, mostly back and forth between Birmingham and Bristol, going between a visit to my Mom's and University, and whilst on these travels I popped into the lovely Tkmaxx at Merry Hill in search of bargains and boy did I find them! I have said before how much I love the nail polish deals you can find at Tkmaxx and absolutely nothing has changed. The price of beautiful nails can often rack up and make serious dents in a Lady's bank balance, and one of the ways I like to keep the cost down I to buy polish sets, that my be miss labelled or out of season from these kinds of discount shops. There are massive savings to be made this way and gorgeous polishes to be bought. I managed to pick up fourteen polishes by four different, quality brands and at a fraction of the RRP cost. Now the stock in every store is obviously different, and you also have to contend with those cheeky people who take advantage of the less than secure packaging on some of the brands and swap the polishes to create the perfect package for them, so the sets I've bought may not be the same as some of those that are still out there, but there are some great sets available, and I guess it's just luck of the draw really. So here's what I bought...

Being the Models Own fan that I am, I could not resist this cute little trio for £7.99 (even with the half price sale polishes I ordered online making their way to me in the post). There were other trio's available some with crackles and shimmers and whatnot but I really liked the look of this one, the reason being, the colours are so beautiful.
1. Peach Puff, A lovely dusky, pinky peach colour which looks super girlie and has that vintage feel to it.
2. Gold Digger, An almost bronzey gold shimmer polish which is ideal for the Autumn season.
3. True Blue, A bright, almost royal blue and really primary tone which stands out but can be worn anywhere.
To make these shades even more appealing, they work out at £2.66 a polish, now normally you'd be paying out £5 per polish, which means you're saving £2.34 on each bottle and £7.01 overall!

Essie is one of those brands who produce fantastic polishes, however at £7.99 per polish, if you're a fan of their work things get pricey pretty quickly. So how does four polishes for £9.99 sounds? Pretty fantastic is what I'd say! As I've said before sometimes when you buy Essie's from Tkmaxx they come in the old style packaging, with a thinner brush and often miss printed names, but with these four that's definitely not the case. They are correctly labelled and even better, they come with the fabulous, wide, flat and tapered style brush.
1. Sugar Daddy, A rich but sheer nude pink colour, perfect for French Mani's.
2. To buy or not to buy, A yummy lilac shade with tiny pink and blue shimmer specs.
3. Orange, it's Obvious, well the name says it all, a bright and true orange perfect for Halloween!
4. Navigate Her, a dusky olive green which looks gorgeous in contrast with neon shades, or as an alternative to the commonly seen mint coloured manicure.
The saving on these beauts? £5.49, each! That's right, they work out at £2.50 a bottle, can't complain with that now can we? The third set I bought was also Essie, but with these three I did, sadly, fall prey to the miss labelled, differently packaged polishes. By which I mean the old style bottle or thinner brush.

Unfortunately all three of these polishes do have that thinner brush, don't get me wrong the thin brush is not a massive tragedy it's just like a normal polish brush, but it is quite different from the newer thicker brush, which I find to be higher quality, which is why I mention it. Anyway after researching the colours I have learnt that two of the polishes in this set do have the correct label, which is a lovely surprise, it's just the white polish that is miss labelled. It's actually labelled as 472, which is a pinky colour, and this clearly is not. After hunting around I'm pretty sure this colour is actually Marshmallow, but do take this with a pinch of salt.
1. Midnight Cami, a deep navy shimmer which is really nice for this miserable darker weather.
2.Lapiz of Luxury, a pale pastel blue, very similar to Topshop's Celestial.
3. Possibly "Marshmallow", either way this is a very sheer white polish and like Sugar Daddy is great for more subtle nails like French Mani's.
These three do work out slightly more expensive at £3.33 per bottle, the set being £9.99, however compared to the RRP of £7.99, I think we can live with this, can't we?

When it comes to Nails Inc, my cheap, reluctant to spend money side comes out a little bit. At £11 per bottle this brand can become rather expensive, and sometimes I simply can not justify that sort of spend, especially when I consider that by purchasing them as Colour Collections I can make a massive saving and still get the quality I expect. On this set I spent £14.99, which does sound like a lot, but when you think about it in terms of spending £44 buying them individually, this definitely makes a lot more sense. Besides, realistically then only work out at £3.75 per bottle, for a full size, normally £11 shade. So let's run down the colours.
1. Mansfield Mews, A sheer white which is set apart from similar colours with micro specs of blue and pink shimmer.
2. Stratton Street, A rich, deep shade which boarders the line between navy blue and dark purple.
3. Great George Street, a perfect and pure navy blue.
4.Elm Park Gardens, a natural and deep green which suits the current season.

The final set I bought is one that I am particularly happy with. Orly is a brand that I really do like, but really struggle in finding on the high street. Sometimes I can find it in larger Boots Stores but more than likely I have to order then online, which of course involves paying delivery charges and worst of all waiting, which I can not cope with. So to find this mini trio really made my day. In researching the price to these little cuties I found them here for £13, but if you can find them in Tkmaxx they are only £7.99 so it's worth hunting around for them. Let's do the run down.
1. Prelude to A Kiss, the classic sheer pinky peach.
2. Jealous, Much? Another classic colour in this delicate mint mini
3. Faint of Heart, my favourite of the three, (purely because it's even so slight differently to things I've already seen) an off grey mushroom toned polish which works beautifully in the Autumn and Winter months.
I do say this alot, but mini's and sets are a great way to try out some of the more expensive brands, so I really do recommend shopping for polishes in this way, firstly it saves you money and it's means you can experiment and find the things you like without feeling terrible about your bank balance.
If you've stayed with this post the whole way, I commend you. I know, it's been a bit of an epic, but I really wanted to show all the deals in one post to emphasize how good these little sets are, so thank you for reading this far. Hope you found some deals from it. Xxx.

So So Skullicious.

2012-09-26T15:46:00.002+01:00

I know, I know, Halloween is still roughly a month away, but aw hell I just don't care. These polishes are just too cute to keep them hidden away for that long! Now I must let it be known now that I am a complete sucker for anything with a skull on it, an in particular anything sugarskull (hence my inclusion of these super cute sugarskull note holders, aren't they lovely? I just couldn't leave them out of this post, too appropriate). I just think they're the most beautiful things, and when I saw these polishes I was in an absolute frenzy! I looked high and low across the internet and the best price I came across was here, fairly reasonably I feel for these little O.P.I cuties, and they came next day. Always a bonus. I have never really been a big buyer of O.P.I, mostly because I buy most of my polishes off the high street on total shopping binges and also O.P.I's tend to be over priced and hard to come buy where I live. Having said this I needed to have these. I already have the Nicki Minaj mini collection and I found myself surprisingly impress with the gloss and finish of those I thought why not? Four cute polishes and some sugar skull decals, can't go wrong.

♥♥♥Let's start with A-Rose from the Dead, shall we? A beautiful deep pink creme, with a crazy high gloss shine. A really nice pink to add to any collection, not a truly bright Barbie pink, but not boardering on a purple shade either, so a really versatile shade. I would definitely recommend a quality base coat with this polish due to it's high pigment nature, but if you're wearing as a one off for say, a party and you're maybe in a rush, I'd say you could maybe skip a top coat, because the shine you get from the polish alone is ridiculous, from what I've seen it does last a few days before chips and peels normally begin.
♥♥♥

♥♥♥hi, Pumpkin is a delicious, rich orange with an equally lovely finish to its pink counter part. I can't say that orange is always the first colour my eye is drawn to when polish shopping, but this one is adorable. If you want to mix things up and move away from the typical peach or coral shades that are increasingly making an appearance, opting for something like this really does stand out, but in the best way! It's a little twist on a current trend and one that I really like. It looks very chic contrasting with blues, pair it with a navy polka dot dress and keep things a little more modern than the classic red nail accompaniment.♥♥♥

♥♥♥Every nail polish collection should include a high quality black varnish, and Mourning Glory is exactly that. The formulation of all of these polishes is some what thin, but they are super pigmented and this black is totally a one-coat wonder. Again I recommend a base coat, but the super shine and quality means you could maybe skip out a top-coat. Really lovely to wear on its own, or with the decals next to a colourful outfit, a floral playsuit maybe (something super girly), for contrast, or it provides a gorgeous base colour for Metallic 4 life (a black and silver glitter found in the Nicki Minaj set).♥♥♥

♥♥♥Normally a bright yellow is something I would not buy. The reason for this being that I did buy one, a cheaper polish from Claire's, and it really put me off. The cover was awful, and I have to use about three/four coats to cover the bald spots on the nail, meaning it took an age to dry. Candlelight however is lovely! Currently reforming my opinions of bright yellows this polish's formula is complete different from that awful little cheapo polish. You definitely, 100% need a base coat with this, purely because of it's colour not because of brand or quality of it. I tend to wear this one of miserable rainy, winter days to brighten up my life, and it really does make you a little happier ♥♥♥

Before I forget, a little note to the cute little sugarskull decals that come with the polishes. They're very easy to apply, soak them in water for a minute or two and remove the waxy paper back. Then slide the decal on to the nail and press down gently. Leave them to dry for a couple of seconds, if they start to curl up dab a small amount of water on them to flatten them back down. Once they have dried you can either continue with a little nail art, like I have above, (I think the few polka dots really set them off, I do love anything over the top, to do this I just used the white, black pink and yellow Models Own Wah nail pens) or topcoat them to keep the decal in place. Overall a really cute little nail set from O.P.I, that I definitely recommend. What's your favourite O.P.I mini set? Xxx.

Iridescent love.

2012-09-17T21:51:00.000+01:00

Sometimes us ladies (and maybe even some men) like to dress up our digits with a nice mint, or a cute little pink polish, and the simplicity of that one shade sets off your outfit in just the right way, and we feel like most sophisticated woman to walk into where ever since time began, but sometimes we want to feel like fancy bitches and shower ourselves in shimmer, with a sexy little polish that makes you wiggle your finger tips in another lovely's face until they notice how sick your nails look, and their face express nothing but jealousy. For this I look to duochromes and iridescents. Duochromes and iridescents are two of the easiest and cutest ways to jazz up more ordinary polishes. In this post I'll look at three of my favourite iridescents, ways to wear them and why I love them. Now I do realise that if I totted it up, the majority of my current posts would be about Models Own polishes, but there's a reason for this. I adore them. I am also aware that the Beetle Juice collection has been out for quite some time now, but I feel that the age of a polish should not stop me from posting about it if I feel that there is something to say, whether that be quality, value or new ways to rock that shade. So I have picked my favourite Beetle Juice gems, rather than posting on the whole collection, and this post is dedication to them.

Now the shades I have picked are fairly sheer when painted on a bare nail. Which I love. Quite a few of the Beetle Juice polishes are darker in colour and more densely packed with pigment on the nail, and in my book this pushes them over the boarder line into duochrome territory and when condensed in the bottle, the three polishes I'm looking at appear to cross that line too, however when worn in the way shown below I tend to class them more so as iridescent, because of the subtle nature of the colour change in them. The sheer quality to theses iridescent polishes makes them super versatile allowing us lovely ladies (and maybe men) to get more looks for our bucks! The three polishes I am looking at are the glorious Tropical Sun, Indian Ocean, and Pink Cocktail, and to demonstrate their versatility in the best way I have decided to swatch them on multiple base colours.

The first of these beauties is Tropical Sun which I bought for £5 from Boots. A wonderful warm pink with orange and peach tones running through it. To bring out the best features of this shade I have swatched it on a bright white from Essie called Blanc, a very yummy peach from Nails Inc by the name of Wellington Square and three lovely little Topshop polishes, the purple Parma Violet, a lovely baby pink called Day Dream and War paint, a fabulous coral red.

The chosen colours really do make Tropical Sun look great. To me it creates a wonderful vision of beautiful Saree fabrics. Packed with a great richness of colour that gives and gives. With each movement it hints at more colour and depth, and you can enhance this with the base colour you chose to layer it on. By choosing both complimenting and contrasting base colours you can create multiple looks for all three of these beautiful iridescents. Personally I'm a bit of a sucker for anything purple and my favourite colour combination is the contrasting lilac and orange, I feel the two polishes just transform each other and look fantastic next to say, an all black outfit.

The second polish I'm looking at is the gorgeous Indian Ocean, again £5 from Boots. Now you may notice at this point that some of the base colours I swatch against are repeated, but that's just because they're yummy on their own and look even better next to these three fab polishes.

Indian Ocean itself is a lovely pale blue with hints of lilac and green shinning through. Making it only fitting to swatch it over purples, greens and blues! Again using Essie's Blanc to showcase it polish alone, then we have another three cuties from Topshop, Easy Breezy mint, Parma Violet purple, and the delicious Celestial blue.

These swatches remind me of two things. The purple and white based swatches make me feel like a fairy princess, I don't know why, but I feel like Tinkerbell just went and sprinkled a crap load of fairy dust all over my mani and made me look super swag. The green and blue swatch though create a beautiful sense of mermaid chic, if nail polish worked under water, we all know, The Little Mermaid would be rolling with these shades.

The final polish I want to look at is the perfect Pink Cocktail. A polish so beautifully pink that it would turn Barbie into a clepto! I Acquired this little lovely in the Beetle Juice mini's set and it's rather beauts! £8 for a set of three polishes bringing its individual price down to around £2.66, bargain!

It's vibrant pink with micro pigments of lilac and pale blue hidden within it, and my favourite way to wear it means pairing it with equally girlie base colours. Keeping this in mind I've coated it over Blanc, Day Dream and Parma Violet. These pastel shades provide a lovely even base palette for the shimmer and shine of Pink Cocktail, picking out and complimenting each aspect of the shade.

I can appreciate that such a sweet candy pink polish and its variations may not be for everyone, but if you are feeling particularly femme, this is a really nice addition to your chosen outfit, I will say though, they the perfect purpose for these pink pretties is to help little girls, and girly girls at that, stop biting their nails. They see it, think "Oooh Disney princess" and immediately stop themselves from nibbling away. Mission accomplished!

All of the polishes in this post were originally bought from Boots, however you can also pick them up here! What are you fave iridescents or duochromes? Xxx.

Busy bees.

2012-09-16T09:20:00.000+01:00

I start with apologies. Lately I have been severely distracted and neglectful to my precious little blog, and for this I do apologise. I have been a very busy bee, starting up a little Etsy shop, and focusing on university again, but I'm now back on track and preparing new reviews and blog entries. Slowly I am documenting and photographing my beautiful polishes and as ever hunting for cute new ones to buy. In the next week I am hoping to post on my favourite duo-chromes and ultimate purples. So keep an eye out lovelies. Xxx.

One month on.

2012-07-29T23:29:00.000+01:00

It has been one very busy month, there's been a lot on hard working, travelling and general busy bee business, which has unfortunately meant that I haven't been able to post frequently, if at all. So now that I have a snippet of spare time here's a little update on my nail growth. It's just over a month since my last post on it, and you can definitely see some progress. The picture below shows them as they are today, but I will say as a side fact, these nails have been filed down, and some of them have snapped down, making them a lot shorter than they would be naturally.

Whilst growing my nails, I've avoided nail growth products, serums, herbal tablets, growth specific base coats etc, just to show how they grow without any interference, or "placebo nail hope" that these products provide. The only products I have been frequently been using is O.P.I Nail Envy, for a bit of strength while they were growing away, and Nfu Oh's cuticle remover to try and curb my dependence on cuticle clippers. As you can see they've grown fairly well, having doubled in length over the past few weeks, they feel strong and healthy, and the hyponychium or "quick" has starter to heal with the nail so they don't obviously look like previously bitten nails. Anyway, was just a little post today, going to post again soon with new polish reviews and growth updates and wotnot. Nighty night. Xxx.

Nail growth "journey"

2012-06-28T21:52:00.000+01:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I am having to swatch all of my polishes on fake nails, and that the reason for this would be an upcoming post. Well this is that post. When I decided to stop biting my nails I looked all over the internet for some kind of "Nail growth journey", I don't really like that term but hey, that's pretty much what it is, and really didn't find one that met what I was looking for, all I wanted to see was the rate at which my nails would reach my desired length, but unfortunately I could only really find before and after pictures. So I decided that I would start to make one. I have bitten my nails right back to their lowest point and will attempt to take a picture as regularly as possible, after each week I'm going to post that week's pictures on here, then once I have reached my desired length again I'm going make them all into a video so the growth can be seen as it happens. Here's this weeks snaps.

Hopefully we'll see a noticeable growth by next weeks post. Xxx.

Lovely but late Lilacism.

2012-06-27T14:10:00.000+01:00

I will start with apologies, this post is a little later than promised, I've just been super busy and didn't quite have enough time to post, for this I am sorry, but I make it up to you with the yummy Lilacism. The Essie is a cool toned light lilac shade, with a really nice creme finish. Now, purple and lilacs are most probably my favourite colours, so I own a ridiculous amount of different lilac or purple polishes, it's a bit of a joke really, but this one is, at the moment, my favourite. I adore the colour, but what sets it apart from several other polishes I own which are fairly similar is the quality. This wonderful little polish dries seriously fast, which I love, and covers really well. I think with this one you do need to use two coats, just to get the truest lilac shade but in saying that it doesn't affect the drying time at all. It's a really girlie shade that can be worn with any outfit and at any time of year, suiting all skin tones too. I bought mine from Boots for £7.99 and it was money well spent, but you can also find them online, maybe even for less if you go directly to a beauty supply site. I'm the sort of person who changes their nail polish every day because of either boredom or chipping, I can not stand chips in my nail polish, and with the polish I can wear it for a whole week because it barely chips and it's so pretty I don't get bored of it at all. It really is a great polish, to wear plain for with a splash of design. It looks great with some simple inverted aztec patterns or some classic leopard print. It also looks very cute faded with some Mint Candy Apple. My next Essie post will be Cute As A Button. Xxx.

Mint Candy Apple.

2012-06-21T23:11:00.000+01:00

Apologies, but it's just a quick post tonight because I'm a sleepy little thing. Anyway as far as I am aware, today's polish is one of the most frequently posted about, and popular Essie colours, I see it everywhere, and there's good reason for that. It's beautiful! It's a frosty, pale, mint green creme with a lovely gloss to it's finish. I bought mine from Boots for £7.99 and it was well spent. It's very wearable colour that goes with pretty much every outfit I own. The pale, delicate nature of the polish means that it doesn't over power and only really compliments any skin tone or outfit. Mint Candy Apple has a lovely thin quality to it and dries in seconds, even though it's packed with colour your really are best to use two coats, it just ensures the truest, most even colour across your manicure. The feminine, minty hue is really beautiful in contrast to darker colours or more rigid, masculine designs, so it really does look good on it's own or alongside nail art. Go super fem with a black flowers, or a little funkier with some aztec, which as far as I'm concerned will never go out of nail-fashion. Overall I'd say it's a really lovely addition to any collection, really durable and versatile, something you can wear every day or just for occasions, it also looks GORGEOUS if you team it with a matte top coat, the top coat I use it the E.L.F matte coat which I believe was around £1.50, it's awesome value, and really gives this colour a sharper edge. I'll be doing a pastel V neon post super soon where I'll be heavily featuring this little gem so for more of Mint Candy Apple keep checking the posts. Tomorrow, lovely Lilacism! Xxx.

Chocolate cakes

2012-06-20T22:39:00.000+01:00

Today's Essie of choice is the DELICIOUS Chocolate cakes. It's the glossiest, yummiest chocolate brown you will ever find. It's genuinely lovely, and it looks like beautiful melted dark chocolate in a cute little Essie bottle. I originally acquired mine from my beautiful friend Rebekah, who bought it at TKMAXX as part of a set of three discounted due to missing or incorrect labelling, I think the pricing was around £11.99 for three, I did recently see the shade in my local Boots for the full retail of £7.99 with the updated packaging and the newer thicker brush. The brush that came with this is a fairly standard thin, round brush as oppose to the thick, flat brush that comes with the majority of the Essie I own. It's a very deep, very rich shade of brown which I think can be used as a very versatile addition to any polish collect. Again as I find myself saying over and over, it's that same high quality Essie formula that I love and expect from such a fabulous brand. I will say with this polish you really do want to wear a proper base coat, because of its heavy pigment and brown tone it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to nail-stain. We can all imagine how that would look, not so good. I really enjoy wearing this colour, whether it's on its own, chosen for its dark tone but as an alternative to a standard black manicure, or as an accent colour within nail art, it's growing to be one of my more regularly worn polishes. I am a real fan of chocolate browns next to mint greens or baby blues well to be honest most pastel shades. They just bring out that rich brown tone, so for the nail art for this polish two of my suggestions are, using the polish on top of yummy pale colours like I have in the picture below, which slightly reminds me of Aero Bubbles or to take advantage of that melted chocolate look and add cream drips and sprinkles for a fun mani for those of us with a sweet tooth. Tomorrow is the outstanding Mint Candy Apple. Xxx.

Splash Of Grenadine

2012-06-19T11:35:00.000+01:00

Day two of my Essie collection week, just a quick little post today and I'm looking at the gorgeous Splash Of Grenadine. It's a vibrant purpley pink tone that really catches your eye. It's not too bubble gum or Barbie pink and it's not too plummy purple either it's the perfect balance between the two colours. Like I repeatedly say Essie's are amazing quality and that really is true of this polish. The brush is lovely, that same brush that I briefly review in my Watermelon swatch, and it coats wonderfully, and you really can wear this with just the one coat and a quality top coat. It genuinely is a strong contender for my favourite Essie polish, it's really easy to wear with any outfit, because it's that perfect blend between tones it's rarely too bright for a darker outfit or too deep for a more summery wardrobe choice, I tend to wear it along side dark velvet outfits for a pop of girlie, glammy colour. This colour dries in record fast time and there tend to be very few bald spots when you paint it on. This quick dry time ans bright, original colour means it's an awesome base for some cute nail art designs. Whether thats a fairly simple design or one with a little bit more going on. Below you see the simpler matte finished base of Splash Of Grenadine with a gloss racing stripe and the slight busier funky hip-hop design with black tips. Both designs are super simple and take a few minutes but looking really striking! Tomorrow I'm looking at the yummy Chocolate Cakes. Xxx.

Essie Collection.

2012-06-18T21:51:00.000+01:00

So, my polish collection is rapidly growing and the brands I am buying are becoming more and more diverse, considering this I thought I would do a brand based, collective posting session. For this I'm choosing to look at my Essie collection, so this post will be a quick swatch and review of most of my Essie's with a few nail art ideas thrown in, posted over the next few days. Some of my polishes will not be included the reasons being, either I have already posted about them individually or they were bought as part of a collection that had been discounted due to missing or incorrect labels and I am yet to find their correct names. You will also notice the swatching has been done with fake nails, normally I will paint on my nails to give the truest likeness but I have cut all of my nails down in preparation for a future post.

The seven polishes I am posting on are a fairly mixed batch in terms of colour, but with all of the Essie polishes I own and in particular these polishes you will get very consistent results. You almost always have a lovely thin polish with a high level of pigment packed into it, which takes quite a while to aerate and become gloopy. Essie generally have really quick drying times, and a very glossy shine to that dried polish. With all of these polishes you could push for a one coat finish, but I have chosen of paint on two, because the flash of my camera will shine through the thin plastic of the false nails, making the polish look thinner than it actually is.

So the first polish I'm looking at is one of the above mentioned discount Essies, I got it from TKMAXX for cheaps because of incorrect labelling. This particular bottle's label states that it's the A-List shade. This is a lie. After much hunting and colour matching I've come to the conclusion that this is actually the Really Red polish instead. It's a really pretty, almost blood red colour which is so eye-catching and vibrant. I am a firm believer that every girl should own a shockingly bright, red nail polish and this is the red for me. With this, you just can't help feeling super glammy, like a 40's or 50's starlet. The colour just reminds me of a super rich, vintage hue and looks so girlie on. This is one of my most favourite colours to wear alongside tea dresses or navy, polka dot playsuits. This formula of this polish is fantastic, really easy to paint on, the only thing I will say is that this is probably one of the thinner, more translucent Essie polishes I've come into contact with, in fact possibly the only slightly see-through colour from them that I own. This is easily remedied with an extra coat and a high quality base and top coat though. Sometimes even a base white shade beneath it just to make it really pop, you just have to make sure that the white's completely dry before adding this gorgeous Minnie Mouse-esque red, or you get a very bright pink. Nail art ideas:For super girlie go white polka dots, for something a little darker maybe try out black drips. Both looks take seconds do to, and are great to jazz things up right at the last minute.

Tomorrow I'm looking at Splash Of Grenadine, keep an eye out! Xxx.

Ciate Freebie Geebies

2012-06-15T20:16:00.001+01:00

It has been said that I love a bargain, and it is also notable that I am a sucker for bulk buying, so with this post I'm reviewing the three Ciate polishes that are pleasantly awaiting this month's Marie Claire readers. I have to say, normally I am not a regular buyer of beauty magazines at all, so these polishes actually came to my attention via a beauty blogger. The review they gave was a little bit of a meandering mess of polish lingo and actually didn't really make very much sense to me, describing the Jelly Bean polish in particular to be a Gel finish, which made me think, there is no way they Marie Claire would be giving away Gel polishes to their readers and also, do Ciate even do a Gel polish? This I am still not sure on but, they also mentioned a blue polish in the give-away, which I am yet to find, however really wanted to. So any way, whenever I find a review that makes me question things like this, I have to find the product in question, and I did, three of them... and their beautiful. Frankly I can hold my head up high and feel no shame in buying three of the same magazine, at £3.70 a pop, for the free gift because I made a massive saving, in comparison to buying three RRP'd Ciate shades. £15.90 off!

For you money you get three very different shades which are all named after sweeties and are all delicious! Purple Sherbet, is a really subtle, pastel, lilac. It's a super girlie creme polish with a super high gloss finish. I must say that each of the polishes, to me, seem to have the most wonderfully glossy look once they've dried and I think this is what the review I read was trying to convey. The Purple Sherbet shade is right on trend for the coming summer months, and makes a really nice contrast to a slightly less feminine wardrobe choice. I've never bought Ciate polishes before, but I have to say, I love the formula, they all seemed to dry within seconds and their pigments are yummy. The polish are on the thinner side, but you don't get any compromise between this and coverage, even though this is a thinner, paler colour I think if you wanted a super lucid, delicate coat you could apply one coat of shade and then a nice glossy top coat, in my pictures however I used two coats.

The second creme finish to choose from in the beautifully dusky, almost mauvey coloured Bon Bon. Again, super high gloss polish with a really lovely formula, and over all very subtle looking varnish. For me it feels like a very grown up, classy tone and because it's so neutral it compliments almost every outfit.

The last of the lovely lot is a vibrant, deep pink shade called Jelly Bean. The finish with this with has a slight pearly shimmer to it, taking it from being a standard deep pink to something a little bit more interesting. Again lovely glossy polish that dries almost straight away. This bright colour is really flattering on sunny days, really uplifting, when I've worn it I always get comments on how pretty it is.

Definitely had my eyes opened to Ciate as a brand with these, and it's a great way to try out a new brand for a fraction of the retail price. Xxx.

When life gives you lemons...

2012-06-10T20:36:00.000+01:00

I am still endeavouring to swatch all of my polishes, so it's just a quick post today, but my swatch today is Models Own Lemon Meringue. It's name says it all really, and it's exactly what you would expect, a beautifully light, refreshing, pastel yellow. I must say, it's definitely becoming one of my favourite summer shades, mainly because it's such an uplifting colour which goes with almost every outfit.

As I've said before, when it comes to paler shades you may expect a compromise between tone and coverage, but with Models Own I generally do not have this problem. When it comes to Lemon Meringue I definitely don't, the cover on this polish is amazing. It paints on really well and I very rarely find a problem with a layer balding or looking thin. The pictures here were painting with two coats, for the sake of the photographs, but in day light would have been lovely with one coat and a high quality top coat. It also dries wonderfully, very quick, very little waiting around or messing about.

One of my favourite brands, and easily my favourite yellow right now. Xxx.

One whole year after I stopped biting my nails

2012-06-09T20:43:00.000+01:00

This time last year I was on holiday with my man in beautiful Rome, and it was there were I decided to stop biting my nails, and honestly I couldn't be prouder of myself. After feeling crappy about biting my nails, thinking they looked awful and disgusting, worrying about people seeing them and dealing with the pain of severely bitten talons, I am so glad that I managed to curb a 19 year habit. I really do think that this was one of the most fantastic choices I have ever made, which may sound a little bit over dramatic but I don't really care, because it's true. If I hadn't turned this corner and sorted it out I never would have discovered the passion I have for nails and nail art. This my seem like I very shallow thing to feel passionate about but I don't mind, even if it is. When I stopped biting, and gained a little bit of length to my nails I began painting them constantly, catching up on all the learning and nail experimentations us ladies mostly do when we're little girls. I wanted to try every polish, every brand and every colour ever, all at once, because I never had the opportunity before. As I became more confident with painting block colour I started to play around with designs, most leopard print to start with as you don't need specific brushes or tools it's easy to do with just an orange stick. This is where I came to the realisation that patterns distract people from shorter nails, something I particularly loved, because when you're starting to grow your nails you can start to think that people look at your nails and think "Why would you bother to paint nails so short?" and if there's some form of nail art to look at they're more likely to think "Cool, zebra print!". Anyway, from there I started to take pictures and branch out with techniques and designs and this is turn led to the confidence to start publishing my opinions and designs on here and my Tumblr, and confidence I me. In both my ability to complete something, changing things for the better, and my ability to be creative. So I am super proud of my last year in nails, because I can now stop thinking about my nails as something to be hidden and start seeing them as ten little opportunities to feel good about myself, be creative and make people think "Wow, that's cool!".

I know this was a little bit of a self-indulgent, self aggrandising post and I'm sorry about that, it's just that when I was looking for inspiration to stop biting I saw very accomplished nail blogs and no real posts about the pride you feel when you see a difference in yourself and start to feel good about something you've done. Xxx.

Essie Watermelon Swatcheroo

2012-06-08T19:17:00.000+01:00

I went shopping, again, and picked up the most beautiful hot pink shade and I couldn't be happier. Lately I have been swinging towards cooler, bluey green hues as far as polish is concerned, but when I saw Watermelon by Essie I just had to own it! I purchased this lush little bottle at Boots for £7.99, a little bit on the pricey side, but you know you're getting a high class product, so for I treat it's money well spent. As you would expect from the name it's a delicious deep, warm, pink colour. Now normally when I see a polish close to this colour, it tends to have a pearlescent or metalic finish, and sometimes a girl just wants yummy, glossy, pink! So as you can imagine I was very happy to add this little cutie to be ever expanding collection.

There are several reasons why my Essie love is steadily growing, one of which is their brush. I find that, even with some of the more budget polishes, a high quality brush really can make the difference between loving a brand and just avoiding them all together, with most Essie polishes, you get the most fantastic brush.

It's a flat edged, tapered and thick brush, three factors that I always search for in a brush. It's thick bristles mean that it picks up and holds colour really well, which helps to avoid those heart stopping moments when you think you're going to drip paint on your newest of the new dress! The flat edge means that it's easier to clean off excess and you can also get a nice clean stroke of paint with each sweep down the nail, meaning less bubbles, less balded spots and less thick gloopy re-do sweeps. The tapered tip of the brush may well be my favourite thing about this brush. It perfectly fits the line of you cuticles, now I am an extremely lazy but extremely fussy little thing when it comes to painting my nails, Meaning that I hate clean-ups, but not quite as much a I hate polished cuticles, so when I paint my nails I will attempt to get it spot on first time round. This picture above was taken without a clean up. This brush makes it pretty much impossible to over paint your nails and hit skin. HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE NAIL PAINTING LORD!

One of the other, many, reasons I love Essie is the quality of the polish. It's always just the right consistency and loaded with pigment so you know that the finish you're going to get will be packed with colour and dry super fast. Making it my brand of choice for the "in a rush mani" I find myself frequently experiencing! Now I know that it is on the more expensive end of polishes, but you can occasionally find these on offer or even a discount store so shop around if you're just testing the water with this brand and then break the bank if you love it as much a I do, £7.99 I'm glad to have paid! Xxx.

Gone Fishing swatch.

2012-06-07T21:58:00.000+01:00

It's my second post du jour, and this one's a cheeky little Topshop swatch! Gone Fishing is a gorgeous mint green and it's yummy! It paints on really well, and it's nearly a one coat varnish, which is something that I always look for. It's a really fresh pastel green which is super summery. It's a very girlie kitschy shade which I tend to wear when I'm sporting slightly less feminine outfits, just to keep things contrasting and cute.It also works really well with contrasting colours and nail art patterns, over all beautiful shade, highly recommended!

Singing the blues.

2012-06-07T17:37:00.000+01:00

After a little bit of an absence, I've decided to spend a lovely day off post blasting, and catching up on what I've neglected to do over the past few weeks. I haven't posted in a little while because I was waiting for my nails to gain a bit more length after the tragedy of breaking all of them in the space of about three days and I've been very busy, finishing my second year of university and beginning my transformation into a skinny mini, I hope. Anyway, to kick off my day of posting I'm starting with beautiful bluey shades that I'm particularly fond of at the moment. For this post I have selected four very different polishes, in both finish and brand, but they are equally favoured by me. The first of the bunch being the Models Own Balearic Cool, from the HedKandi collection, it's a super yummy nearly neon bright blue which paints fairly well. It's a gorgeous summery colour great for sunny days or miserable, cloudy days where you want to feel a little bit brighter. I really do like this shade, the only complaint I can find with it is it's consistency. This particular polish, to me, seems a little bit thinner than what I have grown to expect from this brand, meaning that it does require a few more coats to cover up bald spots, and being as impatient as I am, I tend to favour one coat polishes, I just don't have the time or patience to wait of multiple coats to dry. However, like I said before the hue is lovely, really bright and eye catching too, so when I have the time to spend on a proper mani I always choose this polish.

The second polish of the four, is a lovely deep blue Marine Scene by Topshop. I love this polish for so many reasons, it's a gorgeous rich shade, super pigmented, which paints on beautifully and it's a one coat polish! I generally love Topshop's range of polishes anyway, even though sometimes I feel they can be a touch too thin with not enough pigment, but with this one I don't think you can go wrong. It's £5 from Topshop, as the standard shades often are, and as far as I'm concerned it's £5 well spent, a quick dryer that really stands out, not too bubblegummy blue, the darker shade has a little bit more of an edge and looks great with black tips for an alternative French mani.

Number three of my beautiful blues is a polish by Claire's, unfortunately, the polish I have is missing a name, now I don't know if this is a fault with my bottle or it just doesn't have a name. It's a very sheer polish with really tiny blue glitter flecks in it making it almost pearlescent, it's nice for a subtle glitter mani that isn't too over the top. It's also ideal over more vibrant blues to soften the harshness that comes with certain brighter tones. When I bought it the price was £2.25, so it's an absolute bargain, a really expensive looking hue but for less, leaving more money to buy more polishes, and that's what we like!

Last but certainly not least is a pale blue from Nails Inc called Albert Place. It's a very cute pastel blue, and surprisingly, with this shade you can get away with one coat. I really love the subtlety of this polish, I think it makes a really lovely base for leopard print or zebra nails, giving the designs a little bit more pop that a brown or white base. Now normally with a Nails Inc polish you'd be looking at spending around £11 per bottle, but I got this shade in a set of three from TKMAXX for £11.99, which is an absolute wonder, so I would probably recommend having a look in those types of designer brands discount prices shops, just to see if you can find a little gem like I did!

Four very different blues but all equally yummy! All recommended by me!

What are your favourite blues? Xxx.

InStyle Bluebell swatch.

2012-05-13T23:03:00.000+01:00

So I've decided to properly swatch all of my polishes, in a bid to stop myself from buying any new one until I've completed the job. So today I'm swatching the lush InStyle Bluebell shade from Nails Inc.

The polish came free with the latest InStyle magazine, which cost me around £3.80, and you can get it in pretty much any news agents.

It's a beautiful pale, dusky blue, and it paints like a dream. Usually, as I said in my post about Models Own Blooboo, I tend to expect paler tones to take two or three coats to gain a nice even coverage, however, this shade is super pigmented and could easily pass with just coat. (The picture above of my thumb is purposely painted with just the one coat, so you can compare with the picture below where the nails have been painted with two coats, also sorry about those dry looking cuticles!) Which we always love! Especially if you're like me and forget to paint your nails and always end up painting right at the last minute just before going out.

It's a beautiful thin consistency, so really easy to paint on, absolutely no gloop to it, which means the drying time is lovely and quick too! Overall I'd say this is a really great buy, at under £4 for a polish which would normally cost £11 and a magazine, you can't really lose! I would say it's a really great option if you don't own any Nails Inc at the moment and want to try out the brand without committing to a full price bottle! Serious recommendations on this one, give it a cheeky try! Xxx.

Maybe Marble Arch?

2012-05-12T23:13:00.000+01:00

So with my recent spending spree I need to help myself justify it, so here's a quick little post to review one of the polishes I've recently acquired, and for this I have chosen one of my Nails Inc collection, which is apparently called "Marble Arch". However, this may be a lie. As I briefly explained, the collections of polishes I bought were really quite cheap and part of the reason for this was some mix ups with labels on the bottom of the bottles, and unfortunately I think that may have happened with this little beaut.

Moving on from the mystery of this polish, it is very lovely. It has great formulation to it, thin, but still very pigmented, making it almost a one coat wonder, which we love! I thought perhaps that there might be some issues with the consistency of these polishes because of their low price but I was delightfully wrong, and it paints on beautifully!

It's a lovely, almost pinky lilac shade, which is nice if you want a bit of pink on the nails without feeling like it's a little too "Barbie". Overall, excluding not knowing what it's actually called, I'd say this was a very good buy, especially when you consider that the RRP for a Nail Inc polish is around £11 per polish, and the individual polish price from the collection I bought, works out at around £3.60.

If you have any idea what this polish is actually called, pop a comment below! Will review the rest over the coming days! Xxx.

Spending too much money, bargain hunting, Lemony Flutter & another new nail art pen.

2012-05-11T21:31:00.000+01:00

Oh dear! I've done it again! I think I'm developing an issue with spending all of my money on pretty things, I just can't stop myself. Anyway, this is a story of two halves, and two days of massively over spending, on lots of little lovelies, but I'll keep to the nail relating lovelies for now.

So, let's start at the very beginning, I hear it's a very good place to start. I went back to Bristol for the day to finalise some uni stuff and see my lovely friend Becka. Whilst there, the pair of us decided to pop into town and hunt for pretty things. Whilst wondering around, we decided to go to TKMAXX, as they're currently selling, Nails Inc, Essie and Colour Club at really low prices.

With some of the sets I have no idea why they're selling at such low prices but with the others, it's because the sets either don't fully match, this is more so with the Essie polishes, or the colour stickers on the polishes are mixed up or missing, but if I'm being honest I don't really mind this. I get top brand polish for a fraction of the price, and lets face it, there's a cheeky hint of mystery!

After leaving TKMAXX with seven sexy new polishes, we went forth to TopShop. We wondered around looking at the clothes for a little while, where I picked up a cute little t-shirt dress, yay, and they looked at their make-up offerings. Obviously I was drawn more to polishes than foundations etc, and it was here that I picked up the TopShop nail art pen in the "Nightrider" shade. Mainly because I have a few traditional style nail art pens, like the Models Own or Nail Star pens I've previously mentioned, and I always like to try something new and this one is completely different. It is very much a "pen", same style, really similar style nib to a pen and looks pretty promising, so I'm quite looking forward to testing it out!

The next stop on our, bank-manager upsetting, journey was to Lush. Now I have decided, if I am posting about a shop in which you need or would expect help from a member of there team, for example a Debenhams or Mac shop that sort of thing, I will drop a little note in about the service I received in store that day, because we all know that if you're entering a store like that for the first time sometimes it can be a little bit daunting. Now I have been brought up to believe that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. So, if they service I receive is less that satisfactory I will just state "No comment". In saying this however, the service I received at the Bristol Lush was amazing! I was served by the loveliest Lush assistant ever, I believe she was called Nadia, and she was really very helpful. Sometimes in these sorts of shops the assistants walk a fine line between helping and pestering, not our Nadia!

I invested in the brilliant "Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter" and it was well worth the money, it cost me £5.95, but you can tell by the consistency of the product that it will last forever. It's a beautiful, buttery texture and when you apply it takes quite a while to sink into the skin, which means that it moisturises over a longer period of time but also, you don't have to use great amounts of the product to do the job. Another plus side, it smells awesome! Which you would expect from most Lush products, but as Nadia put it, it smells so good it makes you want to spread it on toast. It's gorgeous! So far I've used it twice and I can already see a noticeable difference in my cuticles, when soft and smooth, but I'll do a full review at a later date.

To end my Bristol haul, the beautiful Becka gave me a delicious chocolate brown polish by Essie, another mystery TKMAXX buy. However, the story does not end there. After spending the day in Bristol I travelled up to my mummy's house and the spending continued, mainly because I was buying her lovely make-up for her birthday and once I'm buying cosmetics I just can't stop. However my first purchase of the day came within an InStyle magazine at a news agents. The tone of the day was set. So went to Debenhams to buy my mummy's presents, and I can't really comment on the service there because it was my boyfriend's sister who helped me. After that I returned to a different branch of the wonderful TKMAXX, just out of curiosity, just to see what colours or brands they were stocking. Poor choice on my part I will admit, but I did come out with some bargains. I bought another Nails Inc collection, it was a smaller set of three, but they're beautiful pastel shades, so right on trend, still slightly unsure on the name of each polish, but when I swatch and reviews I'll post them up. I also came away with three beauts Essie polishes, a gorgeous deep red and dark purple, perfect for when I'm feeling like a complete goth. Again mystery polishes now, but I'll do some research into their names before I swatch them up. I will say though, that all of the mystery polishes I've bought the formulation and consistency has been lovely, so there's nothing wrong with the actual polish, just a minor imperfection with the packaging, which is good to know.

Anyway that does conclude my massive overspend, I'm going to do a huge swatch/review post really soon from this and my last haul as well as full reviews on my flutter and some cute nail art tool I've recently bought.

P.S Dont judge me for this, not like my bank will! Xxx.

O.P.I Ombre.

2012-05-03T21:43:00.000+01:00

So I've been feeling terribly lazy with my nails at the moment, I just can't seem to find the motivation to spend the time hand painting pretty little designs on them, and with this I've been exploring simpler but still striking designs, more detailed posts on this are coming very soon. In my quest for cute but easy nail art I have been playing around with Ombre or Faded nails, and I think I've landed on techniques for me!

There are a few different ombre options floating around the net, many of which I've attempted or ignored. Why did I ignore some of them? Time. I am a terribly impatient and busy individual, and as therapeutic and relaxing as painting nails can be, I simply can not justify 30 something minutes on fading.

I have two favoured ways of creating the ombre effect, the first one I'm posting on is the sponging method. Sponging is great for a really dramatic fade on your nails. I think it works really nicely with some super bright shades and really catches your eye. Now I've found, in my experimentations, that there are some really key tips or rules to stick to when taking this route.

One - Let your base coat dry fully. If your get too impatient and start to stamp before everything's dried you're going to find that the polish you're stamping with pulls up the base colour, and you'll need to start again.

Two - Less is more. Apply less polish, than you think you need to your sponge, this allows you to build up your colour and means that you don't create two solid blocks of colour and no fade.

Three - Use a nice thin polish. This one goes hand in hand with number two. The thinner the polish, the easier it is to create a fade by building colour gradually, and it also means that each layer dries a little quicker, cutting down the time it takes to mani. The Nicki Minaj O.P.I's I chose for this post are just the right consistency for this.

Four - Top coat. A top coat is pretty vital to sponging, it really helps to smooth everything out, as you would expect, but it also helps to pull all the fade together merging the colour slightly, stopping it look so stamped on.

So anyway, start with your chosen base colour, after a base coat of course, and let that dry completely. After that paint your fade colour on a sponge wedge, the reason I choose to do it this way and not spread the polish on a piece of paper then dab on the sponge is simple, it just means less unwanted polish on the sponge and of course your nail, and it makes it easier to avoid your cuticles. So there's less mess to clean up, yay! Stamp your painted sponge on to the nail, and let that dry as much as possible, then use the brush to paint a very thin tip to the nail, allow this to dry fully. Now use the excess on the sponge to dab and blend the fade together. Don't worry if it starts to look or feel tacky, because your top coat will fix a multitude of sins! Apply a fairly decent top coat, to make the most of your hard work, and keep those nails looking fresh!

Tahdahhhhhhhhh ombre nails!

Keep a look out, and I'll post again soon on another quick, easy and stunning way to ombre your nails!

Oh dear...

2012-05-02T22:20:00.000+01:00

So I was left unsupervised for about an hour in a shopping centre, and the result is as follows. Wondering from shop to shop in a misguided attempt to kill time I popped briefly into Topshop. Whilst I was in there, I fully intended to, and honestly believed I would, take a playsuit back, get a refund and leave. This is not how things played out... I ended up raiding Topshop, Boots and Claire's coming out with around 17 new polishes and a very sad bank card. So ashamed/proud am I at my binge I thought I would share my new little treasures, in a bid to justify my ridiculous spend.

They're all so pretty, I really can't be blamed for my actions at all. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do some sexy swatches of them and post them up very soon!

My new toy.

2012-05-01T19:55:00.000+01:00

So I made the investment into a lovely new camera, which my wonderful boyfriend spent ages picking out for me, and I'm very excited about it! It's a Canon EOS 1000D, and I'm a tiny bit in love with it. It's basically an entry level digital SLR and for my needs, close up pictures of nails, capturing true to life colours in swatches and none nail specific photos, it's perfect. Anyway, was just a quick little post so I could be a little bit of a show off really, hehehe, hopefully will be posting some sexy, new, not instagrammed piccys soon!

Wonderful Wah.

2012-04-24T16:49:00.000+01:00

Been having a little play around with patterns and designs this week, after investing in some rather sexy Models Own "Wah nails" pens. Normally I just use some cheap nail art pens from eBay but I had some spare cash, and Boots were selling Models Own for two for eight pounds, I'm beginning to see a pattern here, so I jumped on the Wah band wagon and I must say, I don't think I'll be looking back!

They are a little bit on the pricier end of pens but it's well worth it. The quality of the striper brush is fantastic, it has a great firmness to it making designs easier to control and therefore more precise, and the nib is great too, nice and thin so you don't get too much extra unwanted polish on the nail, or polish bleeding out, again making it easier to create the perfect design! So anyway, here's a few cheeky designs I was messing around with.