My Favourite Nail Products

Hello all,

A bit of a different post this week where I thought I would show you some of my favourite nail products that I use the most when I do my nails.

First things first, to take of the previous week's design or colour I use Cutex Nourishing Nail Polish Remover.

Apologies for this being a phone photograph, but I decant my remover into a bottle with a twist and pump lid so I didn't actually have a bottle any more.  This says it's for weak nails, which I don't consider myself to have, but I love the moisturising and nail whitening of this remover.  I have very flaky nails and I always find that I need added moisture and this is perfect.  I do think it does a good job of removing basic stains, although I have worn some colours recently where stains have not budged.  Having said that I don't think that's because of this remover, but just the colour of the stain.  Compared to the smell of most removers this has quite a nice smell which makes taking polish off that bit nicer.  This is £1.60 for a 100ml bottle in Boots.

Next up, it's generally time for a buff and file down or shape.  I use an Andrea Fulerton buffing block, a basic 4 sided buffing block and QVS nail files.

Gone Wild - Animal Print Nail Art

Hello all,

Well, it seems it's only too easy to change my mind.  Having done a first last week, leaving a manicure matte, there is no stopping me now.  I have only gone and done it again!  After a comment on Twitter on my nails last week I was inspired to create my design this week and I am so so SO pleased with how they turned out.

These are my gone wild animal print nails.  Aren't they fun?  These took me quite a long time to do, but only because I wanted them to be just right so I took plenty of time.

From my thumb round to my little finger I have done, zebra, leopard, tiger, giraffe and cheetah prints.  I had the first four in mind all week long before doing these but had to think a bit more to come up with cheetah.  Want to know how I did these?  Well here goes.

Zebra - I started off with two coats of Snow White from Models Own.  After this had dried I used my Barry M nail art pen in black to freehand the stripes.  I bought the nail art pen especially for this as I was quite worried about this print and trying to do it with a striper or brush.  I can tell you now that I am most definitely not a fan of zebra print.  On my other hand I ended up removing it three times before it was only ok.  I do not think I will be doing this print again.  Well not freehand anyway!

Cut the Rope Nail Art

Hello all,

As many of us do I have games on my iPhone and one of my favourites is Cut The Rope.  My design this week has been inspired by Cut The Rope, and the Om Nom toy that I got for my birthday.  I hope you like it.

 

 

 

To create Om Nom and the Cut the Rope world was fairly simple.  I started with a base coat to protect my nails, and then painted them with an orange French tip manicure, other than my middle finger.  Once this had dried I created the stars that you have to try and collect before feeding Om Nom the candy in the game.  I used a yellow polish and a dotting tool to create five small dots close to once another and then dragged the nail polish into the centre to create the star.  I added one star on my little finger and two on my thumb. 

 

I then added a brown line on my index finger for the rope using a thin brush.

 

To create the candy I added a drop of orange polish and a drop of yellow polish to a scrap of paper and swirled them together slightly.  Using a cotton bud I dipped the end into the swirled polish and then dotted this on my ring finger nail.

 

I didn't have quite the right colour green to create Om Nom, so I mixed my green with some yellow to make it a lighter shade.  I then used a normal nail polish brush to create a green circle on my middle finger.  To create Om Nom's anteni, using my dotting tool, I added a small dot of the green above the circle and dragged the polish down to meet it.

 

Before adding Om Nom's eyes, smile and teeth, I waited for the green to dry.  For his eyes I used a cotton bud dipped into white polish and simply added two white dots close together.  Then I used a black striper for his smile and added smaller black dots in the middle of his eyes and smaller white dots for his teeth.

 

I hope you like my design and maybe have a go yourself.

 

I used the following polishes:

• Maybelline - Orange Couture
• Barry M - Yellow
• Barry M - Spring Green
• Barry M - Mushroom
• E.L.F - White
• Rimmel - French Rose
• Andrea Fulerton - Black Striper