Tuesday 30 June 2009

Black Sparkle

Hello!

First off, Kae asked what the tip was like on my new art pen so here's a pic for you :)




Secondly one of my friends recently gave me 3 mini polishes that she got for her birthday but had never used. They're not branded so I have no idea where they're from but I thought I'd give one of them a go tonight.


Sadly, I was not impressed! The colour in the bottle is a black with lots of different colour sparkle. I was really excited when I saw it as I thought it'd be really pretty on but.....


...as you can see from the pics, the sparkle doesn't really show up at all! So disappointing :( Plus the application was awful and I'm not keen on the finish either! Thank goodness it was free ;)




So after that disappointment I decided to try to jazz it up a bit. I was quite pleased with the results. Again a simple design but simple's as far as I've got so far ;)



The reason only 2 fingers are in the pictures is because I tried something different on the other fingers which wasn't quite as successful...to put it mildly!





That's it for today! I may give my nails a bit of a breather for a couple of days and do some tag posts that I've been meaning to do.


Hope you're all having good weeks!

Sunday 28 June 2009

BarryM Mint Green

Today's choice of nail polish was decided purely by a package I received this morning. Joyce from MarbleNails sent me a fantastic nail art pen (picture right at bottom of this post) and I wanted to wear a colour that I could use the pen on. So I thought it'd be a good opportunity to try out BarryM's Mint Green.

I've been seeing this colour on lots of other people's blogs and I almost didn't bother getting it because it's not the type of colour Iusually go for but I have to say I LOVE it!

It's such a pretty, summery colour. The application, as always with BarryM, was really good and there was hardly any clean up needed. There are 3 coats in these pictures.


So more and more I'm learning to try out things I wouldn't normally consider :)

Then I got to try out my new nail art pen. As you can see from the below pictures I didn't exactly go mad but I'm easing myself into the nail art thing gently (artistic is not my middle name!)



I think it turned out ok though. Simple but cute :)


Don't I have the wrinkliest palms?! I hate them. They've always been like that from childhood.


Below is a picture of the nail art pen Joyce sent me. Thank you so much Joyce!



As always don't forget to click on the pictures to get the full effect!
Hope you guys are all having a fab weekend!

Wednesday 24 June 2009

BarryM Blue Glitter

Hello Everybody! Hope you are all having lovely days :)

I finally had to take the lubu heels off last night because my thumb nail split! Disaster! I don't even know how it happend but it's splitting below the quick and looks horrible! I've repaired it for the time being as it would hurt to take it off and with polish on it's not obvious unless you're properly looking for it!

So I was planning on trying the other polish (Daddy's Girl) that MagicXMaid sent me next but I ended up putting on BarryM's blue glitter (such an original name) because it went with the outfit I was wearing out!

Don't forget to click on the pictures to see the full effect!


Above and below were taken in sunlight.

Below taken in shade.


Below taken in un-natural light.


I love this polish :) It's so shiny and sparkly! It looks amazing in all lights, applies really well and is chock full of glitter from the first coat! (3 coats on in these pics).
Finally here's a picture of my repaired nail, you can see a slight bump where the repair job's been done!


Luckily my nails grow very fast so it shouldn't take too long until I can sort it properly!
I haven't had time to play with my new brushes yet but hopefully next post will show some of my experiments!
Let me know what you think of this polish! Love hearing you guys thoughts!

Saturday 20 June 2009

Nail Art Brushes

A few days a go I ordered some nail art brushes from Ebay. Today they arrived and I love them! I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with them and what does what but I'm sure I'll have fun finding out!


They cost £4.00 including postage and packaging - bargain! As far as I can tell they're pretty good quality but I have no experience so I guess only time will tell.



I will do some experimenting on my nails and if the results are anywhere near decent I will show you!
Just waiting for my konad stuff now.
Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Lubu Heels!!

I've been so excited to do this post!

A few weeks a go, I fell in love with China Glaze's Lubu Heels after seeing in on MagicXMaid's Blog.

As many of you know, China Glaze isn't readily available in the UK so I was just coveting it from afar but then MagicXMaid sent me some!!! I was so excited when it arrived in the post that I squealed really loudly :) My boyfriend looked at me like I'd finally lost it!

I am so grateful to MagicXMaid for sending it to me, I am completely in lust with it! Also, to make it even more exciting, she sent Sinful Color's - Daddy's Girl which is a gorgeous purple with sparkle (I will do a blog about that as well). She couldn't have chosen a better colour for me :)

Anyway, I've put a few more pics than usual just because I took a million and wanted to show it at it's best! I put on 2 coats of base and then 3 coats of the lubu. It went on really well and there was hardly any clean up needed!

This was my first China Glaze and definitely won't be my last! (Click on the pictures to get the full effect!)












Thank you MagicXMaid! I may never take it off ;)

Monday 15 June 2009

NOTD - Lemon/Lime

Hello!
Although I absolutely loved the bronze colour I had on my fingers last week I couldn't resist changing it again last night ;)

I decided to use another new colour that I got in last weeks small haul. It's a 2true polish and is shade 26.



They don't name their colours but I think it's a kind of lemony/lime colour.
I put on 3 coats.
I'm not sure if I like it or not.... Maybe it will grow on me :)
I put on some nail stickers to make it more appealing to me!

Friday 12 June 2009

Added Sparkle!

I wanted to add something to my nails for the meal out for my boyfriend's birthday but I didn't have much time in the end so I had to keep it very simple. Just one bit of sparkle per nail!





Makeup!

I went out for dinner for my boyfriend's birthday earlier so I thought I'd show you what makeup I wore!


I always feel like such an idiot when I take pictures like these!

I don't watch a lot of makeup videos on youtube anymore but this look is inspired by a video I watched yesterday by makeupsquare. It doesn't actually look much like what she did but....well I tried!


I hate my nose ;p


The finished look. That's my boyfriend sat behind me, playing on the Wii. He got a new game for his birthday and has been on it all day!! My fault, I bought it for him!

Thursday 11 June 2009

NOTD - Bronze

Just a quickie to show you one of the polishes that I bought yesterday. It's from Asda and is just called bronze.


This was a very cheap nail polish so I wasn't expecting big things from it but I really love the colour! I think I may have to get some more browns now....
The only bad thing I'd say about it was that the brush was a bit rubbish but it was manageable.

I think tomorrow I may add some jewels to it for the night out for my boyfriend's birthday.

Nail Shiner Review

Yesterday in my haul I bought a QVS nail shiner from Superdrugs (£2.49) which claims to have the latest 'shine' technology and get rid of staining. How could I resist giving it a go?!

My nails are very stained at the moment due to me being silly and not using base coat for a while. The yellowness really drives me mad and I've tried several things to get rid of it so this was just another thing in a long list!

Below is a picture of my natural nails with nothing on them at all.


The nail file has 2 sides. One side is a low abrasive side that gently smooths ridges and removes stains and the other side buffs and shines.
Below you can see the results.

I have to say that while it didn't do much for the yellow staining it really worked on the other staining and made my nails really shiny! Not sure how well you can see it in the picture but the shine is really very good.
So I am still on the hunt for something to get rid of the yellow staining (although I suspect I may just have to wait for it to grow out) but I will definitely be using this nail shiner again!

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Small Haul!

I went shopping today to get the last bits and pieces I needed for Maz's birthday. Whilst I was there, I of course had to have a quick look at the nail polishes :)

Today's haul is a very, VERY cheap one. I didn't have much to spare as anything I spent on myself was less to spend on Maz! So I only bought cheap brands. Some of them I've tried before, some I haven't.





I got a nail shiner that claims to use the 'latest' shine technology and gets rid of any staining. I'm hoping it's going to help with some of the yellowing of my nails as they've got really bad recently due to me running out of base coat....

I also got some sparkly things to stick on my nails. They only cost a £1 so how could I not!



The above nail polishes were 3 for £5 ($8). I've got a couple of these polishes already and they are surprisingly good quality for the price so I decided to give their base coat and top coat a go because something's better than nothing! Also thought I'd try the greeny yellow colour (they don't have names, just numbers).



Finally I got a NYC polish called starry silver glitter (inspired) because I've never tried NYC and a bronze polish from my local supermarket which cost £1.88 ($3) so will be interested to see what that's like!
As you can see from the picture above and below, I had my usual little helper :)
The only other thing I got were some false eyelashes but I haven't pictured them as they are just a run of the mill pair! They also cost £1.
Tonight after I've posted this I will be soaking my nails in lemon juice (heard it helps with staining!) and then giving the nail shiner a go! If the results are any good I'll put some pics of my bare nails up.
So, yep, cheap and cheerful for me today!

Monday 8 June 2009

Experimenting with pigments


So I decided to do some experimenting tonight to see if I could make a new colour for my nails. These photos show you the result!

I used a clear nail varnish mixed with one of my many pigments and put on two coats.
I'm pretty pleased with the result to be honest! I'm not sure how well you can see it in the pictures (if you click on them the green shimmer is alot more obvious in the larg versions) but it's pretty much black with green shimmer in it. The green shows up alot more than I thought it would.




The pigment I used was asylum by theshespace.
You can can see it here theshespace . It's right at the bottom of the page.

So yeah I like it and I think there will plenty more pigment experiments to follow! I got the idea from someone elses blog but I can't for the life of me remember whose... I will try to find out.

My nails actually badly need shaping, especially my index finger in the pics as I chipped a bit of the nail off during a battle with the tv.

Also I'm going to try to make my layout a bit better because at the moment I'm not able to add things like a twitter link to it.

See, I'm making an effort to keep this up :)