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.

Polish Party: January Blues - Cinderella Nails

Hi all,

It's nearing the end of the month again and for me that means it's Polish Party time.  This month we decided out theme would be January Blues, doing designs using blue to help cheer up what is supposed to be the most depressing month.  It actually comes in handy that I have to post this month's early as today is Blue Monday, which is supposed to be the most depressing day of the month!

Anyway, enough of that, on to something happy!  What a brilliant way to use one of my Secret Santa presents Sinful Colors in Cinderella.  If you are interested to find out more about the Secret Santa I took part in you can read about it here.

When you move it in the light it has a colour shift effect, with loads of tiny pink glitter particles in it.  You can't really see that in the picture unfortunately.  This is a really sheer colour so would be perfect over the top of another colour for some added shimmer, or if you want to wear it on it's own you will need at least three coats, like I have here.

I was inspired by the name of the polish to create a Disney Cinderella look.  This is one of those colours that really is as described, as it matches Cinderella's dress.  To add a Disney princess touch to my manicure I added silver swirly nail stickers and some simple dots to finish off the pattern.  I thought this looked a bit like the magical swirls when Cinderella's fairy godmother gets her ready for the ball.

I am really pleased with these nails and think they are simple but effective.  Also, what could be better to cheer you up in January that pretty nails combined with Disney!  I'd love to see what different things other people have done with Sinful Colors Cinderella, leave me a link in the comments so I can take a look.

You'll be able to see the other ladies taking part in this months Polish Party by clicking the links below.  Enjoy and share the love x

Purple Reverse Glitter Gradient featuring Nina Ultra Pro

Hello all,

This week I decided to use some more of my new polishes.  I got a set of three from Nina Ultra Pro and I decided to use all three to create a reverse glitter gradient.  I really loved the last glitter gradient I did, so thought I would try another one.  I have to say that I love this one even more!

I started off with a base of Royal Purple.  On it's own this is such a gorgeous colour.  It's a deep purple with a metallic blue-ish shimmer running through it.  I used two coats to give a nice even coverage over the whole nail.  I found this quite tricky at first because the brushes are so wide.  The next step was to use Boys 'n' Berries for the first staged of the glitter gradient.  I started off by removing most of the polish from the brush, dabbing what remained of the polish by my cuticle and dragging in lightly down the nail.  This meant that there was a tiny bit of glitter over the whole of the nail, but not so much as to ruin the effect.  After this I continued the same steps again, but only pulling the brush part way down the nail.  I continued this using more polish and shorter strokes the closer I got to my cuticles before just dabbing a lot of the glitter polish at the very top.  Whilst this looked lovely on it's own, I am a bit of a sucker for glitter so I also added on some of the Holographic Topcoat.  Again I wiped most of the excess polish off the brush before starting to layer this glitter up as well.

I am so pleased with the finished effect.  Boys 'n' Berries had tiny specks of purple glitter alongside slightly bigger circles of glitter in a clear base giving great dimension to the sparkle.  Holographic Topcoat is made up of tiny gold specks of glitter with larger holographic glitter particles.  The overall effect is super shimmery and sparkly and I think this is one of my favourite manicures for a while.

the only negative thing I would have to say about the Nina Ultra Pro polishes is that the brush is huge! I practically needed only one swipe of the brush over all my nails and they were covered.  Now whilst this sounds like it could be a good thing, it did make trying to be neat very tricky!  But with the colours being so amazing I really think I can forgive them the brush!

I really love all things shiny and would love to see if you have done a glitter gradient... why not leave me a link to have a nosey of?

Morgan Taylor: J'adore My Mani

Hello all,

After doing a post last week about all the goodies that I got for Christmas I couldn't wait any longer to use one of them.

I went for Morgan Taylor J'adore My Mani and isn't it just lovely!?

My boyfriend got me this one from Sally's in London which has load of exciting nail polishes that your normally can't get in the UK.

It's such a super sparkly pink and I am glad a picked this one to use first.  It's a really bright pink and just dazzles when it catches the light.  I have used two coats here.  After the first coat the base pink that the glitter sits in was quite sheer and I wanted full coverage of glitter.  If you wanted to use it over another pink or purple polish, one coat would be lovely.  What I hadn't noticed when looking at it in the bottle was that it has tiny bits of purple glitter in it as well which really adds to the depth in the colour and the sparkle overall.

When dry it's quite grainy, but adding a top coat really smooths it out.  I always use Sally Hanssen Inst-Dri as it really does speed up the drying process and add a really hi gloss finish.  The only other thing I would say about it is that the brush is quite wide so for little finger nails it makes quite a mess and with it being a glitter this makes the clean up a bit more tricky!

Who else has tried Morgan Taylor polishes? I'd love to see what some of the other colours look like, why not leave me a link below?

What I got for Christmas - Loads of Nail Goodies!

Hello all and Happy New Year,

I always love seeing haul / stash posts and having a good old nosey at what people have, so I thought I would share all the nail goodies I got for Christmas with you...

I was a very lucky girl and got 21 new polishes and lots of other bits as you can see.  This is quite a picture heavy post, but I wanted to show things in more details so keep on scrolling if you want to have a closer look!

Lets dive in shall we...