12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Day 9 - Snowmen

Hi everyone. How are you all? I am needing the weekend already!

It's day 9 of the challenge, today's prompt is snowmen. I was really looking forward to today's theme, I have seen so many cute snowmen nails and I couldn't wait to do some of my own.

I came across this design and fell in love so this is what I went with. Plus its based on The Snowman which I used to watch over and over again as a child.

Read on after the jump.

Pick A Polish: Rimmel - Show Off

Hi everyone. I hope you are all well.

It's Monday so that means its time for Pick A Polish. This week it is the turn of Rimmel - Show Off.

Read on after the jump.

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Day 8 - Holly.

Hello lovelies. Happy Sunday. I have a roast dinner in the oven which I am very much looking forward to.

Its day 8 of the 12 Days Of Christmas Challenge, just a few themes left to go. I will be sad when it is over. Today's theme is holly.

I decided to keep it simple for this manicure.

My base colour is China Glaze - Dandy Lyin' Around.

I then freehanded the holly. The red is China Glaze - Hey Sailor and the green is Barry M - Spring Green.

Finally I outlined it all with Rimmel - Black Cab and added some highlights on the berries with a white cream.

I really loved how these came out, I'm glad I left it as it was and didn't go over the top with detail. 

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Thanks for looking.

Belle Glamour Swatches and Review

Hi everyone. I hope everyone has had a good weekend so far. I have just got home from work for a well needed rest.

Today I have some swatches of a new indie brand to show you. I was contacted recently by Catriona of Belle Glamour to see if I would like to purchase some polishes to review. Now I don't need an excuse to buy more polish, so of course I said yes (although these are the only 3 polishes I have bought since I last got paid, I have been very well behaved this month). I picked out 3 to show you today.

They come in nice square bottles, the ones I got were 10ml. The brushes are good quality and easy to use. One thing that I would like is for the names of the polish to be on the bottles, if I wasn't so pedantic to have a spreadsheet listing all my polishes I would completely forget the names.

Onto the swatches..

Up first we have Belle Glamour - Purely Pumpkin.

Purely Pumpkin is a lovely shade of orange, its not too in your face which I find oranges can often be. This one was the most difficult to work with, you have to let it dry for quite a while between coats or the polish will drag. It was also quite thick, but still manageable. This needs to be applied with care as it does show up brush strokes a bit. Opacity was good, this photo shows 2 coats. Despite all this, I think the extra effort in application is worth the final outcome as this is a very pretty colour and quite a unique orange in my collection.

Up next we have Belle Glamour - Passionately Purple.

Passionately Purple is a beautiful, deep purple shade with a jelly formula. I really didn't this expect this to be a jelly looking at the bottle, it took me by surprise! It was very sheer on the first coat, but it was build-able and this photo shows 3 coats. The formula on this was nice and smooth, very easy to apply. 

Finally we have Belle Glamour - The Grass Is Always Greener.

The Grass Is Always Greener is a gorgeous spring green with a subtle shimmer. This one was by far my favourite, I love it so much! The formula was similar to Purely Pumpkin, but much better (if that makes sense). You still have to make sure each coat is dry before applying the next or it drags a bit, but much less than Purely Pumpkin. This photo shows 2 coats, although it was almost opaque in 1. 

So overall I would definitely recommend you give this brand a go. I think they are good quality and on the whole the formulas were good, Purely Pumpkin wasn't perfect but you just need to be careful with application. I was also very impressed with the customer service I received, my queries were answered within minutes which is pretty amazing.

Belle Glamour will be launching on 24th January and will be available from her website here.

Will you be trying anything from Belle Glamour? Let me know your thoughts below.

Thanks for looking.

12 Days Of Christmas Challenge: Day 7 - Christmas Animals

Hi lovelies. I hope you're all well. I have had a super stressful day and need a break but I still have to work tomorrow, waah!

It's day 7 of the 12 Days Of Christmas Challenge and today's prompt is Christmas animals. I thought long and hard about what animals to do, I was planning on trying to do something different. But in the end I just went with very unoriginal Rudolph nails.

You can't really go wrong with Rudolph though can you.

My base colour is OPI - Don't Burst My Bubble.

The reindeer's heads are OPI - A Taupe The Space Needle and the antlers are OPI - Warm Me Up. Although these two colours don't actually look as different as I was expecting them to.

I added the eyes with a dotting tool using Color Club - White and Rimmel - Black Cab. For the noses I used a coat of China Glaze - Hey Sailor and then a coat of OPI - Underneath The Mistletoe. I wish I had used a more bright, glittery red.

I'm not in love with these, but they are definitely not my worst effort. I probably could have made them better but I was a bit rushed whilst doing these.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for looking.