Rainbow Sparkle Ladybird's

Hey space turtles! This is my final catch up blog post for now, and it's for last Wednesday's Glam Nails Challenge theme of Ladybug. I've done ladybird nails before and thought of a few ways I might do them a little differently, settling on some sparkly purple ladybirds which don't cover my whole nail. I wasn't sure whether to add eyes as they looked quite good without but glad I did as I definitely like them best that way. Pictures of both in reflective and non-reflective forms are below.

I started with a muted pink base coat which ended up looking a bit more purple after I added a tinted top coat at the end! I then painted a line on each nail where the purple point would end and then added a thick layer of sparkle underneath it. I used a small nail art brush to outline their little heads and fill them in before painting some antennae. Once dry I added lined down the middle and then used a dotting tool to add the spots and eyes, finishing with a super glossy top coat. Love how these turned out :)

Colours used: Briar Rose - Polished for Days, Rainbow Stardust - Fancy Gloss, Essential White - Uber Chic Beauty, Lady In Black - OPI

Ice Swimming Mermaids

Hey space turtles! Today's nail art is close to my heart as it's inspired by my cold water swimming which I've managed to keep up throughout this winter. I'm loving the swims and post fire chats so much that I almost feel like I don't want it to warm up! I usually swim in a lake near me and had the fortunate experience of trying an ice swim earlier in January (it's all organised with life guards etc). Last weekend I also swam in the sea with my sister who is into wild swimming too - great fun! So I wanted to do a tribute to that with some wintery mermaid nails.

I started with a peel of base coat and one coat of gorgeous reflective nail polish (colours listed below pictures). I created decals on my Uber Mat using white nail polish to stand out against the background.  While these were drying I added snowflake images to my outer nails using Mo You London's Noel 08 stamping plate. The mermaids are from their Atlantis 05 stamping plate. After placing the decals on my nails I added some smaller snowflakes around the mermaids and some little drops of snow using a dotting tool. I finished the look with a glossy top coat.

I'm undecided as to whether I should have done the outlines of the mermaids in black or white but I think white was probably the right decision. It's hard to know how well black would have shown up. Overall I'm pleased with these - the base colour is gorgeous and I love the theme! I particularly like how the mermaids are looking up at the snowflakes. I look forward to wearing these for my lake swim tomorrow!

Colours used: Tapped Out - KB Shimmer, Essential White - Uber Chic, Charlotte Street - Nails Inc, Cappuccino - Barry M, Purplicious - Mark

Back Bone's Connected to the Neck Bone

Hey space turtles! More belated Glam Nails Challenge nail art to share with you today. This time the theme is skulls. There were a good few options I had here but was really keen to use Mo You London's new apothecary themed stamping plate (Halloween 18) so thought up a simple look using that plate which I could do on holiday.

I started with a base of cream on three of my nails, black on my little fingernail and a gorgeous vampy glitter/shimmer on my ring fingernail. I then used black stamping polish to add the skull and skeleton images. I possibly should have swapped over the skull and top half of the skeleton so that I could pose my hand better to show the full skeleton image. Definitely not a big deal though, it still works. I finished the look with a glossy top coat. I think the black and white nails would have looked good matte too but I didn't have a matte top coat with me on holiday.

In conclusion I am really pleased with these. They were so simple to do and I really like how science-y and gothic they look. Also really enjoyed trying out the Barry M glitter again after a long time. It suits the look well I think.

Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Countess - Barry M, Lady In Black - OPI, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend

What's Kraken!

Yo ho! This nail art is for Sunday's Glam Nails Challenge prompt which was Octopus. I was inspired by some black socks I have with an orangey red octopus design. Initially I was planning to replicate the socks a bit more and do a matte look but as I got started I was tempted by glitter - surprise surprise! I used Uber Chic's Mermaid Life 02 stamping plate for all images in this look.

I started by applying three coats of sparkly black (very slow drying this one!) and while these were drying created some decals for the octopus/kraken tentacles on my Uber Mat. These took longer than usual as after the red and yellow I added a layer of white to go underneath and make them stand out against the black background. I made three decals and on the other nails stamped a couple of images directly onto my nails. I'm particularly pleased with the wording as it came out so clearly and with a slightly wavy effect which was happy accident!

Pleased with these overall. They are quite thick with all the layers of polish but that's fine :)

Colours used: Thunder and Lightning - Models Own, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Yellow - Barry M, Pear Drops - Models Own

Look Out! Super Reflective Nail Polish!

Hey everyone! Something a bit different to my usual stamping nail art to show you today. I have recently purchased some of these reflective nail polishes which seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment and had loads of fun playing around with them yesterday afternoon! I've got a couple more to try but I wanted to share my thoughts about the ones I tried as it's so much fun trying something new!

I've been tempted by some reflective polishes I saw from Bow Polish for a little while but when Uber Chic brought theirs out with a sparkly deep red version I just had to have it as I thought it would be so perfect for Christmas parties (if we're lucky enough to have any this year). The Uber Chic reflective polishes are gels so I wore a peel off base coat underneath. I'm not very used to gel but this is my favourite one I've tried so for, I do love how shiny they come out!

In the first picture below you can see I'll Be Fireside lit by my ring light, this is how it looks in regular daylight and when you get it under bright lights or a phone torch is does this amazing twinkling thing which I just could not capture on camera... but it's insanely beautiful! It makes me think of the red carpet and paparazzi - very glamorous! The second picture is with flash - the glitter glare is insame! It's less likely to look like this while being worn unless very directly under a bright light, but the twinkly sparkly thing it does it better - trust me! I'm so in love with this polish, it's even better than I expected and absolutely perfect for a party.

Not long after I'd ordered my Uber Chic reflective nail polish to try Fun Lacquer brought out a whole collection! This time I didn't just choose one to try but three, I was so wowed by the pictures and videos I saw! I also know silver polishes are often the most sparkly so wanted to try it out. The Fun Lacquer Flash collection has four different reflective polishes which are available in regular or gel formula. I chose Flash Platinum, Flash Diamond Flake and Flash Gold Diamond Dust. The one featured in these pictures is Flash Platinum.

So as you can see from the pictures below...wow! These pictures are of course under flash, but under any bright lights these are amazing, I love the way they look textured almost as if there's some kind of diamond dust on my nails! In regular light they are still pretty sparkly, but more of a silvery grey colour. I can't wait to see what the Flake and Gold ones are like! This was also easier than I thought it would be to remove with regular nail polish remover, I didn't need to soak it.
I feel like this post is getting a bit long, but want to share one more thing! I was keen to see what this super sparkly nail polish would look with some stamping over it with the polish shining through. I used Uber Chic's Lovely Leaves 01 plate to create the below look, and I love it! Honestly these polishes are so gorgeous and I really look forward to doing full manicures with them :)
I've chosen some of the shiniest pictures for this blog post but also have a few video's which I will put on Instagram. TTFN!

Cirque Colors Facets 2021

Hey everyone! Blogged a bit less than usual last month and I think it might be another month of the same as I'm managing to do more social stuff at the moment. Going to try and take it easy this coming weekend so may have a bit more time for nails!

Today I'm sharing my swatches of the new 2021 Cirque Colors Facets Collection polishes. I was surprised and excited to see them release new additions to the Facets collection as it is my favourite collection of all time! I did think some of these were a little similar to some polishes I already have but on receiving them I think they're totally worth it! As I have been short of time and reviewing them later than intended I have done my lazy swatches with a colour on each nail rather than each hand. I've listed my thoughts on each colour below the pictures. It's a really gorgeous collection and has all that beautiful sparkle you'd expect from Cirque Colors Facets polishes.

Champagne Diamond - On my index finger in the top left picture. This is a gorgeous champagne gold and really classy. It's one of the most sparkly in the collection too! It took 3-4 coats to get the look I have here but also looks beautiful as part of a more sheer look and would look good over other colours.

Spinel - Middle fingers in the top left picture. This gorgeous purple is a little lighter than Amethyst (previous collection) but still a gorgeous rich colour. Only a couple of coats needed though I did do a small third one just for extra depth!

Pink Diamonds - Ring finger in top left picture and bottom left. This was another fairly sheer one that needed a few coats and was super sparkly!!

Aquamarine - Little finger in top left picture and middle right. Again gloriously sparkly and fairly sheer so did need a few coats. 

Tsavorite - Middle left picture. This one is a little less sparkly than the others but the perfect shade of tree green (lighter than Emerald and darker than Peridot). I used two coats.

Fire Opal - Bottom right picture. This combined with Tsavorite make a great Christmas pair! This is a lovely rich colour (lighter than Garnet but darker than Ruby) and I think the name really suits it. It has great depth. I used two coats.

Christmas Day Nails 2017 (ft Dinosaurs!)

It's Chriiistmaaasss! Hope everyone is having a lovely day :) Today has gone really fast for me but that's to be expected. I regret forgetting to bring my colouring book to my parents house as that would have been the perfect chilled end to the day. Christmas is one of those rare occasions when there's time to do it. So on to the nails, unfortunately I was in a rush to leave and didn't have time to get pictures of these in my lightbox, or with the fancy camera, so I took them with my new phone leaning over the bath! Therefore not so happy with the picture quality, but I do rather like the nails.

I like to have classicly Christmassy colours for my Christmas day mani, usually including red, and think these fitted that. The gem wreaths are a little wobbly, but kind of work! On my little finger I used my Mo You London Festive 45 stamping plate for the Merry Christmas wording. I used the same plate for the stocking on my index finger, for which I made decals on my Uber Mat, you can see how here.

On my ring finger I used Fired Up, one of the new colours from ILNP, I really like it so look forward to using it again and getting some proper pictures! I used a holly image from the Festive 06 plate, and placed gems over the berries. I really like how those ones turned out, a little more sophisticated than the rest of my nails! Last but not least the dino's! I layered up green metallic polish behind the glitter to make them stand out a bit more, and added my own little Christmas hats to the decals using a black nail art pen. I'm glad I managed to feature dinosaurs in my Christmas nails!

I have a little bit of a back log of Christmas nails, but wanted to share the Christmas nails on Christmas Day, so hopefully there will be more tomorrow. Merry Christmas!
Colours used: Madder - Cirque Colors, Fired Up - ILNP, Primadonna - Danglefoot Polish, Midnight Mishcheif - Painted Polish, Secret - Fun Lacquer, Emerald Green - Barry M, Alpine Snow - OPI, Bright Lights - Barry M, Rain On Me - Barry M, Nail Art Pen in Black - Barry M

Stamping Sunday: Aquatic Wonderland

Hello everyone! Happy Sunday! Today I have a design I was rather fond of to show you, featuring some advanced stamping and the lovely Picture Polish. The base colour I used is Ocean by Picture Polish, and it is just so gorgeous! Is is exactly my sort of polish, blue and sparkly and sea themed! For the stamping I used the Doodles plate 07 from Mo You London. It's one of the first MYL plates I got and I still love it, the little creatures are too cute!

I stamped the images in white onto some clear polish on my Uber Mat, and then used dotting tools to carefully colour in the images (colours listed below images). Once dry I covered it all with another layer of clear polish, let it dry, and peeled the images off to stick on my nails. I find it useful to place them on dry polish as if they're not quite right I can peel it off again and move it. After trimming the edges with scissors, and then clean up brush, I finished with a top coat to stick it all together. I used Kensington Caviar from Nails Inc as it's so glossy, dries fast and lasts well.

I ended up with some spare decals which I put on my toes! I really enjoyed this look and think it's perfect for the beach!
Colours used: Ocean - Picture Polish, White Knight - Mo You London, Blueberry - Barry M, Papaya - Barry M, Seven Dials - Nails Inc, Key Lime - Barry M, Block Your Green - Rimmel

Barry M Party Season Colours: First Taste

As promised, my swatches/ reviews of Barry M's delicious new-ish party season polishes. I love them so much! These were given to me as a birthday present by my sister, and I'm very glad as I probably couldn't have found an excuse to get them otherwise!

So first up is Sparkling Amethyst, a lovely rich dark purple with a whole lot of shimmer. Both are somehow part way between a glitter and a shimmer, they don't quite have glitter chunks/pieces in them but they're a lot more sparkly than what I would normally call a shimmer polish. If that makes sense! This colour is perfect for the season, and the whole of autumn and winter, it's a lovely dark colour and catches the light just perfectly. Even better, it's a one coater! It comes out fairly thick but easy to paint with and covers evenly in one coat.


Next up is Sparkling Ruby, possibly my favourite, but that might just be because it's the one I wore second! This one is the ultimate Christmas polish, but still works for the rest of winter two. The classic red with an extra glamorousness to it. Again, it's packed with shimmer and catches the light beautifully. It's worth mentioning with both of these as well that they have the wide brush like the new Speedy polishes which makes application a dream. This one was also a one coater though very slightly less opaque that Sparkling Amethyst. I don't think there's much else I can say about these too, they are really beautiful and I love them! Barry M have done super well here.