Subtle Blue Ombre

Blue and sliver is such a pretty combination.

Base - Barry M - Rain On Me

Blue Ombre Barry M - Pacific

Stamping Plate - UberChic - 14-03

Stamping Polish - MoYou - White Knight

Models Own: Hyper Gel Pitch Purple with Reverse Glitter Gradient

Hello all,

I loved the Ebony Green HyperGel that I used last week so I just had to try one of the other new shades that I got.  I love darker shades in autumn and winter, and also it's the perfect excuse to add glitter to a manicure.  Ok, lets face it, I don't really need an excuse for that - If you read my blog regularly you'll know I'm partial to sparkly nails!

This is such a gorgeous colour purple and the gel effect is brilliant.  It's so glossy even without a top coat.  I decided add a reverse glitter gradient using Jack Frost from the Wonderland collection and Banger from the Fireworks collection.  Both these glitters go really well together and with the purple.

I started by adding Jack Frost very sparingly on all nails so I was left with only a few particles of glitter.  I then went over this again, but only at the base of my nails by the cuticles.  Because Jack Frost is an iridescent glitter it works really well for a gradient as it takes on the main colour from the base polish.  I then topped this further with Banger.  The blues and pinks in this really compliment the purple.

What are your favourite combinations for glitter gradients?

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

Manicure Swap with The Imperfect 10: Pink Butterfly Wings Nail Artwith Tutorial

Hello all,

I had such fun recreating my own design last week for the monthly Polish Party theme, that when Rachel from The Imperfect 10 asked if I'd like to do either twin nails with her, or a manicure swap I went for it.

After a bit of discussion we decided to go for a swap, so I picked a design from her blog and she picked one from mine.  Then all that was left was to paint.

So here is my take on Rachel's pink butterfly wings

I hadn't ever done butterfly wing nails before, so this was the perfect opportunity.  I have seen them about quite a bit on Pinterest and in the blogging world, so they seem to be a bit of a nail art staple, so really, it was about time!

I really liked that Rachel hadn't done the wings on all nails as I think the black details could quite easily overpower the nails otherwise.  Here are the designs side by side

My recreation on the left, Rachel's original on the right

As you can see Rachel went for a bright pink from Models Own, but I didn't have the same colour, so I chose to go for a pink gradient with two Barry M colours - Strawberry Ice Cream and Pink Flamingo.  I built up the colours in quite a few layers as I wasn't getting the coverage I wanted at first.  This meant that clean up was a nightmare though as the polish had dried on to my fingers in between.  Five cotton buds and a little nail brush later I was ready to add the details.

I used my black and white Barry M Nail Art Pens for the details as they are just so easy to work with.  For the non wing nails I added single dots of black and white down the edges as my double dots with black and white looked too messy.  Then it was on to the wings themselves.  I have put together this mini tutorial on how to create butterfly wings in 5 easy steps.  I hope you find it easy to work from - sorry it's shown on a nail wheel rather than my own nails.

1. Start with a curved line near the cuticles
2. Then add thee long lines down the nail towards the tip
3. Add tiny curved lines in between the long lines you just created
4. Fill in the tip of the nail with black
5. Once dry add tiny white dots to finish off the look

Don't forget to take a look at Rachel's recreation of my design as well, she went for my pastel rainbow ombré manicure.

Rachel's recreation on the left and my original on the right

How do you think we both did?

Thanks for stopping by
Aimée x

Models Own: Polish For Tans* - Review and Nail Art

Hello all,

I am sure you've heard about the new Polish For Tans collection from Models Own and can't wait to get your hands on them.  I have three of the colours to show you today.

From left to right I have Shades, Bikini and Sun Hat.  These are gorgeous pastel neons that dry with a slight matte finish.

*Press sample - sent to me for review

Polish Party: Chevrons

Hello all,

It's Polish Party time again and this month's theme is chevrons.  I have to say that this was not my favourite theme, as chevrons were not something that I had thought about doing before but I gave them a go.  I guess I wont like every theme that we vote on, but it's all about the challenge and trying new things!

I chose to use three different shade of purple from Models Own to create my gradient of chevrons.  I started with a base of Grape Juice from the Fruit Pastel collection, so my nails smell yummy.  Once that was dry I then painted my first chevron using Lilac Dream from the Ice Cream Sundae collection.  I created two lines in a point towards the tip of my nail.  Once this was dry I finished of my design with Pukka Purple from the Ice Neon collection.  It's really tricky to get a good picture of Pukka Purple, but this is pretty accurate!

Even though I am not a chevron fan I think these turned out ok.  Have you done chevron nails before, drop me a link so I can take a look! I always look forward to seeing what the other Polish Party girls come up with, make sure you check them out below 

An InLinkz Link-up

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?

Jacava: Raspberry Bavarois with Glitter

Hello all,

Hopefully yesterday you saw my review of Jacava Raspberry Bavarois.  I wanted to present it as just a plain colour for the review and I wanted to leave it on it's own to see how it well it lasted over a normal day (No chipping so hooray!).  But today I felt the need to add some nail art to it.  I haven't gone mad, but since I started doing nail art more and more, it seems very odd when I then don't have any!

I decided to try out a reverse glitter gradient with two Models Own colours, Magenta Divine and Hot Stuff.  I chose these two colours for my glitter gradient as they are the perfect match for Raspberry Bavarois.

I also chose these two colours as I hadn't tried a gradient like this before, so I didn't want it to be too obvious if it went a big wrong.  I started off with Magenta Divine for the base of the gradient, brushing most of the polish off the brush.  I then dabbed the polish that was left on the brush at the base of the nail by the cuticle.  Once all of the polish was on my nail I then dragged the brush from my cuticle down the nail, this spread a little bit of the glitter down the length of my nail.  I repeated this step again until I was happy with the look and then left this to dry.  To add an extra bit of sparkle I then dabbed some larger glitter pieces just by my cuticles using Hot Stuff.

I really love the effect, it almost looks like a waterfall of glitter down my nails! What do you think? Have you ever tried this before - leave a link in the comments to show me your version x 

Pastel Rainbow Ombré

Hi everyone,

I keep seeing lots of different ombré nail designs around and they are just so pretty for summer.  Normally when I do ombré nails I tend to use variations of the same colour and sponge each one on individually as you can see here, but most people seem to paint their colours on the sponge directly in stripes and then dab on the nails.  I had previously tried this design using my normal technique and failed miserably! They just looked a complete and utter mess.  So I ended up taking it off and doing something different that week.

I still wanted to try this design because I have seen a few different variations of it such as here on Pinterest and here on YouTube.  So here it is...

 

 

I started off my pastel rainbow ombré, by painting all of my nails with a pearly white base.  I chose a pearly one because for some reason whenever I paint an entirely white base, I make such a mess and this time round I really didn't want anything to go wrong before I had even really started.

 

 

After my pearl base had dried I then got my Models Own Ice Cream Sundae collection and make up sponges ready.  I lined all my colours up with the tops already unscrewed so that I was realy to paint the stripes of colour directly on to my make up sponges.  I chose to use five sponges, one for each of the different ombré combinations on each of my nails.  I don't waste the sponges though as I cut off the end when I've finished and the polish is dry.  Then I can use it again afterwards.  I made sure the sponge was slightly wet before I painted on the polish so it didn't soak in too much before I had chance to dab it on to my nails.  This is what my work station looked like when I had finished all my nails.

 

 

 

I started with my thumbs and chose yellow and green.  Yellow at the base of my thumb and green at the tip of my nail.  I then moved to my index finger and chose to continue with the green, this time at the base of the nail and I combined that with orange.  I continued using the previous nail tip colour on the base of the next nail, orange into pink, pink into blue and blue into yellow.

 

If you read my blog a lot you will know that I like glitter.  So to blend my colours and add that extra sparkle I used a coat of Rimmel Disco Ball.

 

I am really pleased with this design and it just goes to show if at first you don't succeed, try try again x



Models Own: Splash Polish Golden Shore - Summer Ombré

Hello all,

I just have a quick post this week to show the new Models Own Splash Polish in Golden Shore.  I haven't seen that many swatches of them yet, but I'm not sure people really know what to do with them.  The whole of the Splash Polish collection is gorgeous to look at in the bottle with hand cut shards of glitter in a translucent coloured polish.  I had my eye on Golden Shore right from the word go when the collection was announced, but I wasn't too sure about the others.  I resisted and just got the one in the Bottleshop when they launched with the idea that I could always go back if I wanted others.

Despite there not being too many swatches about, well not that I have seen anyway, I wasn't sure where to start, so I thought I'd test some things out on some falsies first.  I got an idea and went with that, liked how it turned out so I went with it.



 

 

I decided on a summer ombré finish to show off the shards of golden glitter.  I started off with a base of white painted over the whole nail as I really wanted my colours to pop, and I also knew that this would be covered over by Golden Shore, creating the lightest orange later on.  Using Models Own for the rest of my ombré, I sponged on Fuzzy Peach for my mid tone orange and then Pink Punch over the tips for my darkest shade.  To smooth out the sponging I added a top coat.  After this had dried I then added a coat of Golden Shore.  I would describe it as a sticky polish, it's very thick and reminded me a little bit of jam.  The glitter shards are quite tricky to evenly spread over the nail which I was a little surprised about as the Mirror Ball collection glitters are so simple to use for a great coverage in just one coat if you want.  I had to work a little bit to get the glitter to stay on my nails, dabbing the brush in places to move it around rather than a lot right at the ends or in one large patch in the middle.  I was going to add another coat, but at this stage Golden Shores had made my nails very thick with polish and I didn't really want to add anymore to them other than a top coat.

 

I ended up using two coats of top coat to stop the glitter being too bitty and sticking out all over my nails.  It seems to have done the trick, but my finished nails are very thick with varnish and I worry about it cracking and smashing on my nails with the impact of my typing and everyday wear and tare.  I will see how I go.  Does anyone else get cracking or smashing in their polish when it's thick?

 

Overall, I am not disappointed that I got Golden Shore, but I don't think I will be getting the other Splash Polishes.  This might become one that's 'perfect for toes!'.  I do like my finished neon summer ombré and I think it looks a little bit like candy corn.

 

What do you think?  I'd be interested to see what other people think about the Splash Polishes, leave a comment below to let me know x

Purple Ombré Nail Art

Hello all,

Just a quick one for today.  I had a very busy weekend so didn't have chance to spend too much time on a design this week.  As you may have guessed from other posts I am rather keen on purple, so I decided to go with purple ombré nails.

 

 

Instead of creating ombré effect on every nail like I've tried before (you can see some here and here), I chose five different shades of purple and started with the darkest on my thumb nail and worked outwards getting lighter as I went.



 

From my thumb to my little finger I have Rimmel Black Cherries, Rimmel Trend Spotting, Rimmel Purple Pulse, Models Own Lilac Dream and Models Own Grape Juice.  As they were different brands of polish they all had slightly different finishes so I finished off with a coat of Collection 2000 (although now just called Collection - that's how old my bottle must be!) glitter top coat and a coat of Sally Hansen top coat for a super glossy finish.

 

I love how the colours all work individually and together to create the effect I was going for.  I have seen this ombré design in a few different places and it was the perfect opportunity to give it a go this week.  This ombré style is a bit of a throw back from when I was younger and I would paint my toe nails in alternating shades of the same colour!

 

In other very exciting news Look Magazine contacted me and said that they would like to feature my nails in the magazine, so I am very excited and am looking forward to the issue out in the middle of May.  I'll be going down to the shops to get a copy or two!

 

Have you had a go at anything recently that has reminded you of when you were younger?  Or have you tried something that you have seen around and thought you should have a go at, but not got round too yet?  Leave a comment and let me know x



Pink, Purple and Blue Ombré Nail Art with Tutorial

Hello all,

With the weather becoming colder over the last few days and with snow hitting the UK today, my nails for the week have been inspired by the winter.  One of the things that I look forward to watching on the television in the winter is 'Dancing on Ice' and the colours that I chose for my design are based on the logo for the show.

I have included a step-by-step for the design, in case you'd like to have a go yourself - enjoy!

This is what I have used for my design, but you can create the look with any complimentary colours that you'd like. I use Models Own polishes for my design.

 

Purple Gradient Nails

This design is easier than it looks.  I used a selection of 4 purple nail varnishes and finally a black.  Paint a coat of the lightest shade of your chosen colour and leave it to dry.  Next drip a small amount of the next shade darker onto a scrap of paper. Using a make up sponge dab it on the nails leaving some of the lightest shade showing.  Repeat these steps until the very tip of your nail.

I finished this design with a coat of Nicole by OPI's 'Let's Get Star-ted'.