Winter Textured Gradient.

Hello everyone. I hope we all have exciting weekends planned. I'm having a few friends round this evening to celebrate my birthday so I am spending the day sorting out things for that. 

Today I have some simple nail art to show you. I have seen a few other people do gradients with textured polish and I wanted to have a go too. I decided to go with a wintery, icy feel to match the current weather. I made the stupid mistake of not bothering to tape my fingers up before doing the gradient.. big mistake. Clean up took hours (literally), it made me want to cry! 

I used OPI - Tiffany Case and Barry M - Lady for my gradient.

I did this by painting the two colours next to each other on a sponge and then sponging it onto my nail.

I didn't really get them to blend together very well, gradients aren't my strongest point anyway but I found it even harder with textured polish. I think sponging has made the polish look more textured also, possibly a little too textured. It ended up looking a bit lumpy in places. 

I wasn't completely happy with how these came out, but I have seen other people pull this off. So I think I may just need to practice my gradient skills a bit more. 

What are your thoughts? Have you tried anything similar?

Thanks for looking.

Liquid Sky Lacquer - Blue Daiquiri Swatches

Hello lovelies. How are you all? It's my birthday today, I'm no longer a teenager. I'm not sure I like it, I feel like I should act like a proper adult now (although I'm not sure that will ever happen!).

Recently I was browsing Rainbow Connection (which is a very dangerous pass time for my bank account) and whilst I was drooling over lots and lots of polishes, I managed to restrain myself and just buy one. Since its so pretty, I decided to share it with you today.

The polish in question is Liquid Sky Lacquer - Blue Daiquiri. 

Blue Daiquiri is a thermal polish. Above it is in it's cold state which is quite a light shimmery blue. This is what it looked like on me most of the time.

In its warm state it is a soft minty green colour. I did have to run my hands under warm water for quite a while to get it this colour. 

This is it transitioning, you can just about see it at the tips. I did find that I didn't get much of a transition, it would get to this point and then just go straight back to the cold colour.

I did really like this polish, it is really pretty. However I can't help but be a bit disappointed that it took so much effort to make it change colour! I have looked up reviews from other people, and no one else seemed to have this problem. So I think it may just be the fact that I always seem to have consistently cold hands (people do quite often tell me that). Besides all this, it really was a great quality polish so I would definitely purchase more from Liquid Sky Lacquer.

Have you tried anything from this brand? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for looking.

#BritishBloggerSelection: Favourite Make Up.. Kinda!

Hello lovelies. I hope everyone's day is going well. I have just finished work and I have the rest of the week off as it is my birthday tomorrow, its so good to just relax!

Today I have another instalment of the #BritishBloggerSelection for you. This weeks prompt was your favourite make up. Now I am no expert when it comes to make up, and I have a pretty limited collection (all my money is spent on nail polish). So since this is a nail blog I decided to show you my current favourite 10 polishes in my stash. I think a group of bloggers did a post like this last week, which I wanted to join in on, as I had just heard about it after I had done all my swatches. But it would have been the wrong week for this post so I decided to go it alone instead lol.

This post is pretty picture heavy so read on after the jump.

Pick A Polish: Loreal - Opulent Pink

Hi everyone. How are you all? I am super tired after work today.

Tonight I have this weeks Pick A Polish manicure to show you, this week Loreal - Opulent Pink was pulled out of the hat. I have had this polish for ages, my mum gave it to me a few years ago, but for some reason I have never used it. 

The colour is quite similar to last week's polish, but a bit darker.

Opulent Pink is a deep pink cream. It was sooo nearly a one coater, but I used two just to even it out completely. This photo is without topcoat, as you can see it is very shiny. 

I was feeling lazy with my nail art so wanted something quick and easy. I decided to go with the technique I used for the background on my #BritishBloggerSelection nails I did last week as it is so easy, but still looks interesting.

I got the idea from Chalkboard Nails. To do this I wiped most of the polish off the brush on the neck of the bottle and swiped the mostly dry brush over my nail. Which created this patchy effect.

The lighter colour is Miners - Marshmallow. I added a matte topcoat as I think it adds to the distressed look.

So overall I really loved this polish (I don't know why I haven't used it before) and I am pleased with the outcome of my nail art. This is definitely going to be something I do when I am short on time.

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

Thanks for looking.

Fat Puss Polish Swatches

Hello lovelies. I hope everyone is having a good Saturday, I have just finished work so I am going to spend the rest of the day relaxing.

Today I have some swatches of some new indies I bought from Fat Puss Polish. I believe that this is a fairly new indie brand, so I was not sure if there would be some formula issues that hadn't been ironed out yet. But I was very impressed with the quality of these, I shall go into more detail below.

The labels are so cute! 

First up is Furbaby which is a lovely shimmery peach colour with lots of flakies running through it. It was quite sheer, I used 4 coats for the photo above. However it was easy to apply and I think this polish is pretty enough for the extra effort in applying four coats. I reckon three coats would be sufficient if you have shorter nails.

So pretty!

The other polish I got was Mr Tabby which is a grey polish with flakies running through it also. This one was more opaque than Furbaby, I used 3 coats for these photos although I think you could probably get away with 2. Again it was very smooth and easy to apply. 

Overall I was very impressed with both of the polishes and would definitely recommend that you give them a try. I will certainly be trying more from them in the future.

Have you tried anything from Fat Puss Polish? Let me know your thoughts below.

Thanks for stopping by.

Half & Half Textured Manicure

Hi everyone. I hope you are all well. 

Today I have quite a simple design to show you which was inspired by this look by Stephanie of A Little Polish. I just loved the mixture of different finishes and the colour scheme so recreated  it on myself. I apologise that these photos are so dark, my boyfriend had been messing with settings on my camera and I couldn't figure out what he had done! He fixed it in the end though so these are the only dodgy photos.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen - Cinnasnap and added a topcoat at this point. I tested out a Color Club topcoat for this, instead of my usual Seche Vite. I have to say I was impressed.

Once this was dry I used a striping brush to draw a line across my nail with Barry M - Countess. I then filled one half of the nail in using the brush from the bottle.

I don't love my version as much as the one I was inspired by, but its still pretty. I think I needed a lighter textured polish than Countess, but that was the best I could do in my stash.

Are you still loving the textured trend?

Thanks for looking.

#BritishBloggerSelection: Favourite Clothes Shop

Hello everyone. How are you all? I have a day off work today as I am working Saturday, I feel this day off is well needed as I am feeling a bit under the weather.

Today I have this week's #BritishBloggerSelection post, this week the theme is my favourite clothes shop. I wouldn't say I have a favourite clothes shop to be honest, I have a few that I like but I'm not sure one stands out on its own for me. However I have recently been eyeing up this dress from Topshop and I do quite often find things I like in Topshop. So I decided to do a design based on that dress.

I started with a white base using my unnamed Color Club white.

Over the white I used a technique I saw by Chalkboard Nails here. To do this I used Rimmel - Black Cab and wiped most of the polish off the brush on the neck of the bottle. I swiped the brush over the nail, but as there wasn't much polish on the brush it gave a patchy effect.

Finally I freehanded the silhouettes of the flowers with a detail brush.

I was pleased with how these came out, they have made me want the dress even more now! I am hoping santa might see this post and take the hint lol.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Thanks for looking.

Pick A Polish: Leighton Denny - Plush Pink

Hello lovelies. I've got that Monday feeling today, is it the weekend yet?!

I am back with this weeks instalment of Pick A Polish, today it is the turn of Leighton Denny - Plush Pink. 

I don't own many polishes by Leighton Denny, but in my experience they are good quality and I like them.

Here is a quick swatch for you. This is two coats with topcoat, although it was shiny anyway so the topcoat didn't add to it in that way. This could possibly be a one coater if you applied a thick coat, but I applied two thinner coats. The formula was good, very easy to apply.

Onto the nail art...

For this design I was inspired by a packet of sanitary towels... yes you did read that correctly. I currently have a pink pack of sanitary towels in my bathroom that have a cute little skyline and buildings etc. around the bottom. I really liked how it looked so I decided to recreate it. This is probably my weirdest source of inspiration yet.

The base colour I used was Leighton Denny - Plush Pink.

I freehanded the skyline, the darker pink is OPI - Embarca-Dare Ya and the white is my usual Color Club.

I was happy with how these nails turned out, I think the tiny buildings are rather cute. I don't feel my photos quite do it justice however, the darker pink stood out more in real life.

Have you tried anything from Leighton Denny? What did you think of them?

Thanks for stopping by.

Argyle Print Nails

Hello lovelies. I hope we're all having great weekends so far.

Today I have some argyle print nails to show you. I had been shopping before I did these and admiring lots of wintry clothing. So when I got home I decided to go with a wintry jumper feel for my manicure.

My base colour was Leighton Denny - Coconutty.

I then freehanded the darker brown triangles using OPI - I Knead Sour Dough.

I added the white using a striping brush and a white creme.

These nails were much easier to do than I thought they would be and I got quite a lot of compliments whilst wearing them. I am not usually a massive brown polish lover, but I may have been swayed - it isn't so bad after all.

What do you think? Are you a brown polish lover or hater?

Thanks for looking.

Rockstar Studs

Hi everyone. I hope you are all well. Its almost the weekend, one more day to go!

Today I have a design to show you which I copied from Galorious here, so all credit to her for the idea. As soon as I saw this mani I dropped everything and had to put it on my nails immediately, I loved it that much! The original design used gold studs, but I didn't have any gold squares, so I had to make do with silver.

I started with a base of W7 - Black on my thumb, OPI - Don't Burst My Bubble on my index finger and pinky and OPI - My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours on my middle and ring finger.

On my thumb I freehanded the diamond with OPI - My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours, once this was dry I added the studs on with topcoat.

On my index finger and pinky I added the french tip using W7 - Black. I freehanded the half moon with OPI - My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours and added the studs round it with topcoat again.

On my middle and ring finger I freehanded the diamond using W7 - Black and secured the studs with topcoat.

I really enjoyed wearing these, its a bit more edgy than what I usually go for but its nice to change things up once in a while. 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for looking.

#BritishBloggerSelection: Q&A

Hello everyone. 

Today I have my first post for #BritishBloggerSelection, this week we are doing a Q&A post so we can find out a little more about the people taking part. So lets get straight into the questions..

1. Why do you like blogging?

I enjoy blogging as I find it a good creative outlet. Before I had my blog I still used to do my nails lots but the only people I really shared it with was my boyfriend and my family, but now I post on my blog I get to share my obsession with like minded people.

2. How did you come up with your blog name?

I don't think I did anything special, just wrote down all the names I could think of and picked the one I liked the most, although mine probably isn't the most creative name.

3. Where in the UK do you come from?

I am from Colchester in Essex (its really not as bad as Bouncers on Channel 4 last week made it out to be).

4. Favourite colour?

I am very indecisive and fickle when it comes to this kind of thing, but currently I really like purple and teal.

5. Do you like Lana Del Ray?

I don't mind her, but she isn't my favourite.

6. Hidden talents that you have?

Well I guess my talent is nail art.. but that isn't exactly hidden lol.

7. Celebrity crush?

I don't mind a bit of Channing Tatum.

8. Favourite blog of all time?

Not sure I can pick one... I read way too many. Some of my favourites have to be Chalkboard Nails, Paulina's Passions, Sincerely Stephanie and The Nailasaurus. My favourites that aren't just nail blogs have to be Miss Budget Beauty and Make Up Savvy. But there are so many talented bloggers out there, its so hard to pick a few.

9. What made you want to join #BritishBloggerSelection?

I thought it would be a good challenge to have to think up a design for a theme each week. I hope it will also introduce me to some other blogs that aren't just nail orientated, so I can broaden my blog reading horizons.

So that's it for the questions, but I couldn't leave you guys without something nail related too. After not really knowing what to do I just decided to do some nails based on my blog design. My blog has had a little bit of a spruce up lately in case you hadn't noticed, I think it looks much cleaner now.

For the base I used a white creme from Color Club.

I freehanded the whole design. The black is Rimmel - Black Cab, the turquoise/teal (I don't even know the difference between those two colours) is another unnamed Color Club and the grey is Barielle - U-Concrete-Me.

So well done if you have got this far in this post, I hope my answers didn't bore you too much!

If you are interested in joining the #BritishBloggerSelection then there is more info here.

Thanks for looking!

Pick A Polish: Avon - Rose Quartz

Hello lovelies. 

Today I have this weeks instalment of Pick A Polish, this week was the turn of Avon - Rose Quartz. This is a pretty old polish in my collection and I haven't used it for ages. To be honest I don't love it, which is probably why I haven't used it in so long.

I think the reason I have used a fair bit out of the bottle is because it needs so many coats!

I used 4 coats for this swatch, it was very sheer. In real life I still had some visible nail line, but you can't really see this in the photos. It is a pretty colour however, and has a nice shimmer when the light hits it. 

Onto the nail art...

I used Rose Quartz as my base... obviously.

I then freehanded the pattern with a detail brush and W7 - Black.

I am not 100% sure what the pattern is meant to be inside the hearts, I just kinda painted it. It sort of reminds me of roses, in an abstract kind of way.

I was fairly pleased with these. They aren't the best thing I have ever done, but I don't think they are bad. As you can probably tell I am still a bit undecided about this one!

What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for looking.