Copper'ize Me Layered Over Red!

Hello everyone! Today is another manicure that I did a couple of weeks ago because I am putting off showing you my now massacred nails. 

Sadly after a couple more broke, I couldn’t deal with them all being different lengths and cut them all down to the length of the shortest nail. They literally couldn’t be any shorter. I hate them so much but sometimes that’s the way it goes, they will grow back! 

 

All I did was start off with a base of Revlon’s Valentine then added a couple of coats of Essence Special Effect Topper in Copper’ise Me.

 

I absolutely love this combination! I love the way that the gold shimmer stands out against the red and how the blue glitter contrasts against the base colour. It also looks great matte but I didn’t show that here because my matte top coat has started drying with white bits on for no reason. Maybe it’s just getting old.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this post and thank you for reading!

Something a little bit more Autumnal…

Hello! Here is a manicure I did a couple of days ago. I was feeling in an autumn-y mood so I wanted something dark and vampy. 

Sadly yesterday I broke my index finger nail very low down and it looks awful so I don’t know if I will have any new posts for a while. The solutions are I don’t post, I use just my last 3 fingers of my left hand or I use my right hand (EEK!). If you have any ideas or advice, pleas comment below!

 

 

I used a deep burgundy colour for the base which is actually from Marks and Spencer called Grape. I have no idea if it’s still available as it’s very old, one that my mum was throwing out but I am sure that there are lots of dupes. I then sprayed my gold Sparkler from the Body Shop over the still wet nails to give a sort of shimmery effect. It’s nice but nothing particularly special. It got me in the mood for autumn though!

 

 

 

Thank you for reading and a huge congradulations to Sarah from Try My Hand who won Makeup Savvy’s nail art competition. Also thank you to everyone who voted for me!

                                                                                                                         

Fantasy Fire Layering

Hello! These are the nails that I have been wearing for the last few days. I knew that I wanted something glittery and fun to wear on results day to cheer me up if things went wrong!

 

I used many many coats of polish to create this look but I think it was worth it. The pictures don’t quite capture how amazing it looked in real life! Barry M – Indigo was the base colour then I layered Essence – Confetti and Copper’ize Me over the top. Two coats of Max Factor Fantasy Fire added that gorgeous red/green shimmer and changed the colours of the glitter slightly. Then finally I added two coats of Sally Hansen Mega Shine.

 

 

 

I apologise that I haven’t blogged for a few days but I have been very busy and not really in the mood. I will try to blog more regularly now though! Thank you for reading.

Purple Flowers

Good afternoon, everyone! Today I have some floral nails to show you that I did yesterday. I decided that I wanted to do a design including flowers and including Orly Oui and this is the result! 

 I used NYC – Lavender Cupcake and of course Orly Oui for the centre of each flower then for the actual flowers I used a mixture of several different purples to create different shades. I love how this turned out but I feel like some nails are a bit sparse. I like how there is no uniformity to the flowers and that they are all different colours but because they all belong to the same colour family it still ties together nicely. I will have to try this with different colour combinations!

 

 

 

This design is super easy to do; all you need are several different coloured polishes and a few different sizes of dotting tool. If you don’t own any dotting tools you can use objects from around the house such as bobby pins or pencils. 

 

 

Either tomorrow or Thursday I will post my ‘celebration’ OR ‘commiseration’ nails which I will do because on Thursday I receive my GCSE results (EEEK!) so keep an eye out for them, I am thinking as much glitter as humanly possible! Also today is the last day of voting for the winner of Makeup Savvy’s Nail Challenge so please vote for me if you get the chance! Thanks for reading.

Turquoise Metallic Gradient

Hello! Today I have some nails from a couple of weeks ago to show you. Nothing too complex, just a simple gradient with two colours.

I used Barry M – Pure Turquoise for the base then sponged on Revlon – Ocean Breeze to create a gradient. Simple but effective! I like how the gradient is quite subtle and the combination of textures. I will definitely try this again with other similar colours.

 

Thank you for reading! If you haven’t already please vote for me in Makeup Savvy’s Nail Challenge final. It finishes tomorrow so please don’t forget to vote! You can do here.

Pastel Penguins!

Hello! Today I have quite a fun manicure for you, pastel penguins! I recently went to London Zoo with my boyfriend and one of my favourite animals there were the penguins. I knew I wanted to do a nail design inspired by them. Although it was veeeery loosely inspired, here is a picture of the lovely penguins at London Zoo.

 

Polishes used: Collection 2000 – Black, Color Club – White, China Glaze – Papaya Punch, Barry M – Blueberry Ice Cream, Barry M – Peach Melba, NYC – Mint Macaroon and finally NYC – Lavender Cupcake.

 

 

 

I love how these turned out, they’re very cute and it was very easy to do. I've had several compliments on them already :D

 

 

Finally, I am in the final of Makeup Savvy’s 15 Day Nail Challenge! There is still time to vote so if you would like to vote for me (I am B!) you can do here. A huge thank you to everyone who has voted thus far! Thank you for reading!

Scalloped Nails/Ruffle Nails Experiment!

I have seen the Scalloped or Ruffle nail trend everywhere recently and I really wanted to try it out for myself. I didn’t sit down with a plan, and you can tell but this was just an experiment to see what I could do with it. This is the result!

I had some slight issues with polish from the end circles flooding into the cuticle which you can see as well keeping the circles the same size but practice makes perfect! I will definitely try again. Additionally my NYC topcoat bubbled a LOT so please excuse that! I will use a different top coat until I get chance to repurchase.

 

 

I think I perfect the ruffles at an angle like on the pinkie but the middle finger is nice too. On the ring finger I think the gap between the first colour and second colour is too big and the index finger… let’s not talk about that one! It is a total fail. I think I meant to add orange as the third colour again but clearly I forgot…

 

 

I used lots of polishes, so I will quickly list. If you want to know which colour is which specifically, please ask. Barry M – Indigo, Blueberry Ice Cream, Berry Ice Cream, Pure Turquoise; Orly – Oui; OPI – Who The Shrek Are You?; China Glaze – Papaya Punch; NYC – Uptown, Greenwich Village, Price Street; Color Club – White; Revlon – Ocean Breeze, No 7 – Purple Fantasy, Lilac Chill; Miss Sporty – Teal (?) and Pop Fiction.

 

 

Finally, do you prefer plain backgrounds to photos like this or the coloured or patterned paper that I used in pervious posts? Thank you for your feedback, reading and to anyone who voted for me to win Makeup Savvy’s Nail Challenge!

Andrea Fulerton and Essence Flakies Comparison

Today I am going to be comparing Andrea Fulerton’s Gemstone Overcoat with the Essence Special Effect Topper in Night In Vegas. They are both flakies in a clear base that flash green, red, orange and blue. 

At first I thought that they were exact dupes for each other, and alike to many other flakie top coats such as Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, Gosh Rainbow, Essie Shine of the Times and Nubar 2010 and they are! The only difference being the level of coverage given. As you can see in the picture below the Andrea Fulerton polish is much more opaque than the Essence one but they give a very similar effect. I am sure that if you layered two coats of the Essence over your chosen colour it would give the same effect as using the Andrea Fulerton polish. I feel that if you have one of these polishes or any of the other dupes there isn’t much point in getting the other as they are practically the same, you just may need more coats. 

 

 

The Andrea Fulerton polish is readily available in Superdrug in the UK and online. Essence is not available in England but I believe it is in Ireland as well as most of Europe. You may also be able to purchase it on eBay or get it in a swap. It would definitely be one to pick up if you go somewhere that stocks Essence. 

 

 

The main difference between these polishes apart from the opacity is the price. The Andrea Fulerton polish costs £4.99 for 5.5ml whereas the Essence polish costs 1,79€ (£1.40 according to today’s exchange rate) for 8ml. This means that for 1ml of Andrea Fulerton you are paying £0.91 and for 1lm of Essence polish £0.17. If you can get your hands on the Essence version, I would suggest getting it over the Andrea Fulerton version purely for the price. 

 

 

So in conclusion, these polishes are dupes for each other and have very similar formulas but Andrea Fulerton is more opaque. Essence is far cheaper and gives the same effect as Andrea Fulerton with two coats but may be difficult for people to get hold of in England but easier for people in Europe! 

 

Thank you for reading!

15 Day Nail Challenge – Day 15 Anything

Today is the final day of Makeup Savvy’s 15 Day Nail Challenge! I can’t quite believe how quickly it has gone. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and it has been great to try out new things and see everyone else’s wonderful designs. A huge thank you to Fee for hosting this challenge!

Today, as the theme is anything I wanted to try something that I haven’t done before; the cling film manicure otherwise known as the saran wrap manicure! The method consists of scrunching up a bit of cling film, dipping it in polish then dabbing onto the nail. It is simple and the effect it gives is beautiful.

 

Sadly, my nails for today are a total fail. I used Barry M Silver Foil for my base colour then dabbed various duochrome colours onto the nail (W7 – Metallic Neptune, Essence – Where is the Party?, Catrice – Genius in the Bottle, Collection 2000 – Hello Sailor!). However, the result is more of a blurry mess than beautiful duochrome over silver… 

 

 

I think this may be because either I used too many colours or that I didn’t dab enough polish off the cling film before going onto the nail. Anyway, in a desperate attempt to rescue my nails I added a coat on Andrea Fulerton Gemstone Overcoat which you can see here:

 

 

I think that added a little more colour back to it but I was still not happy so I added a coat of matte topcoat. Really I should have started over again but I didn’t have time so this is what I was left with… A bit of a mess really but not a complete fail. I will definitely try the cling film method again!

 

Last but not least another huge thank you to Fee for being such a wonderful host and supporting us all with our nail art! Thank you, Fee!

15 Day Nail Challenge – Day 14 Dots

Today’s nails are inspired by Aboriginal artwork. I wanted to create something a bit different from typical girly polka dot nails and this is what I came up with! I looked up various different artworks then took inspiration from each so it isn’t based on one particular artwork, more a combination of several mixed with my imagination.

 

The base colour is Rimmel – Hard Edged which I picked up in Poundland. I like the way that the shimmer contrasts with the creme finish of the dots. Polishes used for the dots were my trusty Color Club – White, Essence – A Lovely Secret, Essence – Trust In Fashion, OPI – Fiercely Fiona, OPI – Bullish On OPI, Miss Sporty – Pop Fiction and 17 – Orange Soda.

 

 

Some of the dots did smudge a little with when I applied topcoat which is a shame but not as noticeable in real life as it is in the pictures. 

 

 

Please come back tomorrow to see the final day of the challenge! Thank you for reading!