Holiday Nails: Dolphins & Cocktails In Tenerife

Hey everyone! On this somewhat cloudy day I'm bringing to you my holiday nails for our trip to Tenerife. I got back a week yesterday and am still adjusting to the colder weather and being back at work. I used a few new or long untouched things for this nail art. A thermal blue polish I bought on Facebook, the Uberchic Bottoms Up stamping plate, and Rainbow Reef, one of the 'dolphin glitter' polishes I bought from Ellagee when I was first discovering indie polishes.

On my index and ring fingers I am wearing Crepuscular Awakening, the thermal blue, topped with Rainbow Reef. On my middle finger I used the Tropical 07 plate from Mo You London for a citrussy gradient, and on my thumb nails I used a cocktail image from the bottoms up plate to create a summery gradient there too. On my little finger I used a few of the smaller cocktail images in a variety of colours. I think I probably should have filled them in with a bit more colour but got carried away and stamped the outer images of the layering ones first for some of them!

So all in all these aren't my favourite holiday nails, but I do rather like them, they capture the essence of the holiday I think - plus we saw dolphins! They also give me fond memories. I hadn't been to Tenerife before but would definitely recommend it for a relaxing holiday.
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Crepuscular Awakening - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Yellow - Barry M, Greenberry - Barry M, Papaya - Barry M, Rainbow Reef - Ellagee

Dinoflagellates

Good evening nail world! Today I am sharing a manicure I did based on memories and science! You may wonder what on earth the title is about, or maybe you don't. I recently watched a documentary on lights in nature, where they had these microbe/plankton like creatures that produced glowing light in the water, they are called dinoflagellates (a great word!). There was some gorgeous footage of dolphins splashing through the water with glow in the dark water spraying out behind them! Based on this and the weather getting warmer, I decided to try out the second of my Ellagee dolphin collection polishes, Rainbow Reef, I did also use a glow in the dark top coat, but unfortunately I had no idea how to photograph it! One to think about for my next glow in the dark mani!

Rainbow Reef is a top coat with dolphin and star shaped glitter, and a variety of pastel coloured hexagonal glitters. It really reminds me of a little plastic pendant I got by the sea at Weston Super Mare. We went there to visit my Gran when she was on holiday and it's one of my earliest memories. We also went on an awesome double swing and I rode a donkey! The pendant is a clear plastic bauble with clear liquid in and little pastel shells and stars etc. I like having this polish to bring back the memories as I've no idea if the pendant still exists!
Colours used: Mint Green - Barry M, Rainbow Reef - Ellagee

Monthly Indie Review: Ellagee

This months indie polish review is one I've been waiting to do for a long time! I haven't been able to justify ordering them all the way from America plus paying postage, so Christmas money was the perfect excuse! They arrived a lot quicker than I expected considering the distance, and came with some toe separators, a few sweets and a 'come to the dark side, we have glitter' fridge magnet I am rather fond of. Today I will be reviewing So Long And Thanks For All The Fish and I Refuse To Be Invisible.

First up, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, what a name! This is the polish I was most excited about, it's from the 'Dolphins! What?' collection (I also purchased Rainbow Reef from this collection but will move onto that in the summer). I love it because it's such an unusual idea, and I had never heard of dolphin shaped glitter before, let alone in nail polish! This is technically a very dark blue, but looks black when layered. it looks like a night sky with dolphins floating through! I like the way the subtly different sized of glitter shimmer, it really does give  a night sky effect.

The consistency is quite thick, being a glitter, and you have to fish (no pun intended) the dolphins out a little but, but it is so worth it! I found doing one layer with no dolphins first and then one or two on the second coat worked well. You can see the final effect below in different lights. As you can see the slitter shines a lovely rainbow of colours in the light.


Next up is I Refuse To Be Invisible, this isn't the sort of thing I usually go for but the swatches on the Ellagee website caught my eye. I like how the colours stand out against the white background. It looks like confetti or hundreds and thousands. either way, definitely reminds me of birthday parties! the consistency is nice and creamy, and I really like how it is pigmented but the colours still shine through. This is two coats, and the colours on the underneath are more muted and don't stand out as much as those on top. I think this gives it more depth.


I really like Ellagee polishes because of how original they are. There's a huge variety of different polishes that I haven't seen similar to anywhere else. Not to mention, there is a whole collection of dolphin themed nail polish! I hope you like them too, Rainbow Reef to follow in due course!