Pink and Purple Skittle

Inspired by Nail Polish Society

Base (pink) - Jacava - Raspberry Bavarois

Base (purple) - Jacava - Lavender Court

Base (black) - Sally Hansen - Blacky O

Base (gold) - Barry M - Gold Digger

Stamping Plate - UberChic 14-03

Sparkly New Year Dotticure

First off let me say Happy New Year everyone, I hope you've had a brilliant holiday season.  Even though Christmas is over (boo) I'm not ready to give up glitter and to be honest I always like to add a bit of sparkle to my nails.

I wanted something fairly simple to do, but looked really effective, so I decided on this sparkly dotticure gradient.

I started off two coats of Bora Bora from Models Own, it's a beautiful fine glitter that gives full coverage.  I then used different sized dotting tools and black and white polish to create the dotticure gradient.  I started with the largest dots at the tips of the nails and then filled in the gaps as I worked up towards my cuticles whilst ensuring that I left space at the cuticles to give the gradient effect.

Polka dots are my 'go to' nail art staple if I want something quick but effective.  What are yours?

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

Simple Festive Glitter Nails

Hi all,

Christmas is one of my favourite times to do nail art, oh who am I kidding?  Any time of the year is my favourite time to do nail art, and there will be some more Christmas designs coming up on my blog soon, but sometimes it's nice to go with something a bit more subtle, but still with a festive feel.

I paired Essence Roller Coaster with Nina Ultra Pro Holographic Top Coat.  This is a great green for Christmas, it has a fine glitter running through it and a nice shine.

If you want to add some extra shimmer to your festive colour then I would recommend this Nina Ultra Pro top coat.  It's jam packed with different sized glitter fleck and it really catches the light. There is a video over on my Instagram from when I used this on a glitter gradient before.

What are your favourite shades to wear over the festive period?

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

Models Own: Hyper Gel Sundress with Nail Tape Tutorial

Hello all,

I have wanted to try a more nail tape designs for a while now so I thought I'd give it a go along with a half moon manicure.  And what better way to test out my new Hyper Gel from Models Own.  Sundress is one of the new pinks from the summer Hyper Gel collection.

To create the half moons I used hole re-enforcers that you can get from stationery shops. Then to add to this and make it a bit more fancy I added some stripes using the nail art tape from my Models Own Nail Art kit. I haven't done a step by step in a while so I thought I'd give a new style picture tutorial a go.  I picked Models Own Bora Bora as my base colour for this design.

1. Paint your base colour and wait for it to dry completely
2. Add hole re-enforcers and nail tape to create your pattern
3. Paint your top colour over the tape
4. Before this coat of polish dries remove the tape
5. Clean up around the edges of your nails, add a top coat and you're done

Sundress is such a pretty deep raspberry pinky red polish.  It was opaque with just one coat making it perfect for my nail tape design.  Lots of people have had concerns about the summer Hyper Gels being similar to the other ones that came out originally, but I think it's difficult to tell from pictures what they are really like.  Here is a comparison between Sundress (on the left) and Cerise Shine (on the right).

I'd love to see more swatches of the other summer Hyper Gels, leave me a link if you have some of them and let me know what you think of my mini tutorial.

Thanks for stopping by
Aimée x

Barry M: Majesty

Hello all,

As you may know I have been doing a Barry M month this March, and as it's the last day on the month this is my last post of my self set theme.  I love Barry M and have really enjoyed using lots of my polishes that I hadn't got round to trying before now.

What better way to finish off than with the super sparkly Majesty from the Royal Glitter collection?

I think this might be my favourite of the Royal Glitters as a stand alone colour as it's so jazzy and fun!  Princess is a close second and I love pairing that one with Strawberry Ice Cream which you can see here.

Majesty is packed with champagne gold glitter.  The base is fully of tiny glitter specks and then has larger glitter particles to create a multi dimensional look to the polish and adds to the textured effect.  The polish dried to a slightly matte finish but I have added two coats of gloss topcoat over the top here.  The main reason for this is because the Royal Glitters are really textured so this helps to smooth it out slightly, whilst not losing the texture feeling completely.  I also love a bit of shine over glitter, although even when my gloss topcoat had dried the overall look isn't as shiny as you might expect.

Which is your favourite from the Royal Glitter collection? I wasn't sure about using a matte topcoat so I would love to see if you have. Leave me a link in the comments so I can see the different effect.  I hope you have enjoyed my Barry M month as much as I have! I'd love feedback to let me know your favourite post

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?

Christmas Tree Dotticure Nail Art

Hello all,

I have my last Christmas nail art of the season and more importantly it will be what I have on my nails on the big day!

This was a 'pinspired' design this week.  This year I have seen lots of Christmas trees done with striping tape, so I was looking for something different and came across this pin.  I loved it so much that I just had to have a go.  Clicking through and reading the blog post about this I found out that it was inspired by another blogger as well, so it's really going around now!

I started off with two coats of Snow White from Models Own.  This is a fab white polish.  A bit streaky of first coat, but perfect in two.  I then used Barry M Red Glitter, China Glaze Emerald Sparkle and Models Own Bora Bora to create my dots.  Using different the two different end of my dotting tool for the large and medium dots and then end of a cuticle stick for the tiny dots.  I repeated this pattern on all my nails, but left my ring finger free for my Christmas tree.  For the tree I started by dotting Emerald Sparkle in a single dot in the centre of my nail just below the cuticle.  Then two dots at the tip of my nail to create a triangle pattern.  I then filled in the rest of the tree with some extra green dots.  I then added three Red Glitter dots for baubles and three Bora Bora dots for tinsel.  The star had to be something a bit special so I added a yellow gem to sparkle away at the top of the tree.  Then came the tricky part... Top coating without causing drag on the dots over the white! And look... It worked!!!!!!! Yay!!

I love how festive this manicure is and what was even better was that it was so simple!  I also did some nail art for my mum and sister as well...

A fancy swirly tree for my mum and snowflake for my sister.

I hope you all like my Christmas tree dotticure and have a very Merry Christmas x

Models Own: Fiesta Collection Round Up*

Hello all,

I just wanted to do a quick post to sum up all of the Fiesta collection from Models Own.

The collection includes three limited edition colours in Candy Blue, Fashionista  and Hot Magenta and are initially available to people testing the new Ford Fiesta. To register your interest you need to visit the Ford Retail site www.glamitupagear.com and register your details, and then visit one of the show rooms and take one of the new cars for a spin.

* Press sample - sent to me for review

 

 

 

 

My favourites out of the collection have to be Candy Blue and Hot Magenta.  Fashionista is lovely, but just not a very me colour.  A word of warning with Candy Blue though, it caused a bit of staining on my fingers, not so much the nails, but my skin, it came off fine with a little bit of a scrub, but could have been an interesting look!

 

Kayleigh Holder, Head Manicurist of Models Own said 'The bold colours we've included in the Ford Retail 'Glam It Up' nail polish set, are in an easy way to add a touch of glamour to your look. The on-trend Magenta helps keep your nails classic, whereas the Candy Blue and Fashionista colours can help make a bolder statement, especially for the upcoming party season.'

 

I couldn't agree more.  So to sum up -

 

Candy Blue - a gorgeous dazzling blue, perfect if you want to make a bold statement.

Fashionista - a greeny gold for an elegant touch to a party outfit this Autumn/Winter season.

Hot Magenta - a very wearable classic pink that will take you from office to evening perfectly.

 

 

Will you be registering for a test drive to 'Glam it up a Gear'? Leave a comment and let me know.

 

 

 

 

Black and Gold Glitter Nail Art

Hello all,

As you may have seen yesterday I posted swatches of Models Own Fiesta Collection in Fashionista.  Even though it's a nice colour, it's not a very me colour so I decided to top it off with some nail art.

I started by using Revlon Knockout to create my diagonal black nail tips.  These diagonal lines tilt the opposite way on both hands, so when you look at my nails they all match up nicely.  Once this was dry I topped off my nails with Wet n' Wild Tonight's Going To Be A Good Night.  This is a gorgeous multi glitter with both black and gold glitter particles in it.  The black glitter is slightly smaller and gives quite good coverage.  The gold glitter is a bit trickier to place on the nail, but it's worth moving it around with the bush to get it in the right place.  I love how the opposite glitters contrast against the polishes I've used.

This would be a great manicure for a party or an occasion.  I like doing nail tips like this for a quick touch of nail art.  Have you done any nails like this?  I'd love to see... leave me a comment below x

Models Own: Fiesta Collection - Fashionista*

Hello all,

Today I have a review of the second polish in the Fiesta Collection, Fashionista.

The collection is initially available to people testing the new Ford Fiesta.  To register your interest you need to visit the Ford Retail site www.glamitupagear.com and register your details, and then visit one of the show rooms and take one of the new cars for a spin.

* Press sample - sent to me for review

Camouflage Nail Art with Tutorial

Hello all,

I was bought camouflage colours ages ago but haven't ever got round to using them so I thought it was about time.  I also haven't done a step by step for ages, so I have done one for these nails.

The colours that I have used are Mushroom by Barry M, and Becca's Brown, Grace Green and Mushroom (I will now add MO after this when referring it to it in the rest of this post) all by Models Own.

I decided that I wanted to do the camo print on my ring finger and thumb and then use the three colours that I used for the camo print on the other three fingers.

Turquoise Stone Nail Art

Hello all,

I went for a 'Pinspired' manicure this week from Pinterest.  I have been seeing lots of pretty designs and thought that I would give one a go.

I have the gorgeous For Audrey from China glaze and having done a couple of different Tiffany & Co. designs with it, I was searching for something else to use it for.  I spotted Turquoise Stone nails and they were just perfect! I saw them done a few different ways but here is the pin that I got my main idea from.

 

 

Now I don't know about you, but I hate cling film! It clings to everything that it's not meant to and nothing that it is; mainly itself which is very frustrating!  This is the perfect revenge for cling film though as you just lightly screw some up and use it to dab on the colour.  I just dabbed the cling film into black polish from Revlon and removed the excess on a scrap of paper and then dabbed it all over my nails.  You can see the steps on the pin that I followed, but I didn't copy it like for like as I wanted to add my own touch.  I also thought that painting on the thin lines might look too overdone. 

 

I had seen some other pins that did the dabbing of colour with gold polish instead, so I thought that I would add a little bit of gold as well.  After the black had dried I dabbed Models Own Bora Bora over all of my nails using the cling film as before.  This added a slight sparkle like you can see in turquoise stones.

 

Before I was lucky enough to get China Glaze For Audrey I had tried some other polishes as dupes for the colour.

 

 

Here you can see China Glaze For Audrey, Orly Gumdrop and Marks and Spencer Duck Egg.  Duck Egg was the first one that I had and whilst I love the polish as you can see from how much has been used, it's not the best dupe for For Audrey.  It's much lighter and very shimmery.  I was bought this when looking for dupes and it seemed right at the time until looking at pictures afterwards.  I must say that if you are looking for a light pretty blue/green I would recommend Duck Egg as it's just lovely.  Having then searched online for dupes I found Orly Gumdrop.  It's a really good dupe if you can't get your hands on China Glaze.  As you can see it is slightly lighter, but it's not at all bad.  Have you found any good dupes for this or other colours?

 

 

I'm really pleased with the finished effect of my turquoise stone nails.  What do you think? Are you on Pinterest? Have you tried any designs from there?



Glam Animal Print Nail Art

Hello all,

I didn't post last week because I didn't do anything fancy with my nails.  I just did a simple French manicure with a glitter accent nail.

On Saturday I got distracted by all things shiny and bought myself three new glitters, well I didn't really even buy them, they were on offer and I had a voucher so it was even better!

I have had my eye on Models Own Jack Frost (Centre) for a little while now because, well look at it, it's just so pretty! Ive also been thinking about Bora Bora from the Hed Kandi collection (right) and you can't go wrong with a pretty gold glitter!  My boyfriend spotted the other polish, so it's his fault, not mine!! It's from Miss Sporty but it doesn't seem to have a name, sorry! **Edit - It's called Amethyst Dust**

I normally paint my nails on a Sunday ready for the week, so I got all my bits together and started on a design that I had had in mind for a while now.  I had nearly finished, but I just wasn't happy, so ended up taking it all off and doing something different instead!

So as an alternative design I thought I would try out one of my new glitters seeing as they were there in my nail bag glistening away.  I have had a go at tiger stripes before and thought they were really fun, but I had never tried leopard spots.  I know that lots of other people have done them and thought it was about time for me to have a go, so I combined the two!



I used Models Own Bora Bora as a base and Barry M Mushroom for the leopard spots.  All the black was done with my Models Own Nail Art Pen.  The stripes are really easy to do, just use a striper and flick the brush towards of the centre of the nails.  For the leopard spots I dotted on the Mushroom with the larger end of my dotting tool.  Once this was dry I added a bracket of black around the spots with the smaller end and added on a few smaller black spots of good measure.

I am really pleased with how my glam animal print nails worked out!  I love the fine gold glitter contrasted with the bold spots and stripes.  How do you think I did for my first go at leopard spots?

Models Own: Pukka Purple

Hi all,

This week I decided to go neon with my nails! I have had lots of pastels on recently for Easter and spring, but I felt the need for something bright this week for a change.

I did a post a few weeks ago about Models Own Ice Neon Collection (you can see it here) and I don't really have anything extra to add about Pukka Purple that I didn't already say about Pink Punch.

 

 With the Pink Punch, I recommended two coats, but with this gorgeous Pukka Purple I have only done one coat.  The formula is so good that there aren't any streaks and I didn't feel the need for a second coat.  The colour is very difficult to photograph as it tends to come out blue in pictures, but I managed to get it in the end!

 

As you can see I have finished this off with a simple gold stripe down the middle of each nail and a top coat.  The Ice Neons dry with a matte effect finish, but as I said before, I like a bit of shine!

 

 

The gold striper is from Primark and I am actually very impressed with it.  Primark are selling two nail art pens for £2 and 3D nail art kits for £2.50.  The nail art pens are stripers and pens in one, so you can either use the thin brush for lines like mine, or if you pull the top of the cap off there is a pen nib that you can use for dots or smaller details.  At the bottom of the striper/pen, there is a clear compartment that screws on with nail gems in a co-ordinating colour to use along with the striper if you want to.  I wasn't expecting something as good for the money, and for a simple stripe down my nails what's not to like! It's gold, it's shiny, it's a stripe! What more can you ask for?

 

 

Let me know your thoughts on the Ice Neon collection; if you've tried it, if you keep yours in the fridge like Models Own suggest (I don't), if you can't get enough of the bright colours x

Easter Chick Nail Art with Tutorial

Hello all,

You might have seen last week that I did the first of two Easter designs with my Strawberry Tart Bunnies.  This week I have Easter Chicks with a sparkly speckled egg effect.

 

I have used mainly Models Own nail polishes to create my design.  The base colour is Lemon Meringue and the orange for the chick's beak is Fuzzy Peach.  Both of these are from the Ice Cream Sundae collection.  For the sparkly speckled egg effect on my other nails I have used Disco Inferno from the Mirrorball Collection.

 

I have created a step by step picture guide to show you how I created this look, and hopefully it's easy for you to follow if you want to have a go yourself.

 

 



 

 Step one - After using a base coat to protect your nails, paint them with two coats of your base colour, in my case Lemon Meringue.

 

Step two - This is where you will start to create the shell for you little chick to sit in.  Using a dotting tool create a zig-zag line across your ring finger nail in white.  You do not need to wait for this to dry before moving on to step three.

 

Step three - Fill in the rest of the shell for your chick using your white polish (I have used Sally Hansen White On)

 

Step four - Add a small orange triangle above your shell and two black dots for your chick's eyes.

 

You could finish your design here if you wanted to, add more chicks on your other nails or like me, add on some glitter to the other nails.  I used Disco Inferno because of the colours in the glitter adding to the chick theme with gold, orange and green flecks.

 

I will be putting together a step by step of my Easter Bunny nails as well, so keep an eye out for that if you are interested x

Barry M: Amethyst Glitter

Hello all,


I have a new glitter polish in my life - Barry M Amethyst Glitter.  My mum got this for me whilst she was out and thought that I needed it, as lets face it, a girl can never have too many nail polishes!!

 

 

 

As you can see this is a gorgeous glitter.  Normally with glitters you have to use quite a few coats for this amount of glitter, but this is just one coat!  That's right, just one!  There is so much sparkle jam packed into this polish it's just lovely.

 

There are tiny flecks of light blue glitter and then larger fleck of pink and turquoise glitter.  These all sparkling together give this the purple amethyst look.  But that's not all, there are also flecks of round gold glitter too.  There are just so many layers of sparkle, and if you're like me and love a bit of glitter then you can't go wrong with this colour. 

 

I have used this over an M&S polish called Duck Egg.  This is a go to polish when I want to wear a light colour, but still have something really pretty. 

 

I tried out a Rimmel glitter a few weeks ago and found it to have a rather grainy finish even after top coat, but I haven't found this to be the same.  I have used two coats of top coat over to protect and add shine, but I think Barry M have done really well to avoid that 'bitty' feel after using this.

 

I would 100% recommend this glitter and I will probably be going to look at some of the other glitter colours in the range x

Glittery Black with Pink Stripes

Hi all,

So I was a lucky girl and got some lovely presents from my mum from her holiday to America, including a nail polish!! It's a Wet n Wild Fergie Collection: Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night.  It's a clear base polish with small black glitter particles with bigger gold glitter particles.  I will do a proper review of the polish at a later date when I use it over a lighter colour... but I wanted to use it for my design this week.

If you read my blog regularly you might remember that I got some nail tapes for Christmas.  Well I hadn't actually used them, just admired them and their pretty colours, so I thought it was about time that I actually did give them a go!

I chose a black base for my nails, I used Revlon, and applied two coats.  I then painted half of my nails with a coat of the Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night.  I have seen that other people who have reviewed this polish before have said that the brush is quite big.  It is a bit bigger than other brands that I have, but I didn't really find it a problem as I got quite a lot of glitter with just one coat, but I will see what I think when I use it again over a different colour when I review it on it's own.

After this had dried I then used my pink nail tape to create a stripe down the middle of each nail.  It was quite fiddly to get the tape in the middle of the nail, but I found that it was easiest to start at the nail bed, overlapping onto my finger slightly to get the positioning right before committing to sticking my stripe down.  At the end of each nail I left a little bit of tape over the edge which I then trimmed with nail scissors and trimmers.

All that was left after this was to seal everything in with top coat.  I normally only use one layer of top coat, but this week I used two to make sure that my tape didn't peel up at the edges.

On another note, last week you will have seen that I wrote a little about Essie Nourish Me base coat.  I am pleased to say that my nails seem a little more hydrated than before.  I will keep using it and see if I think it makes a bigger impact.

Hope you like this design x