Pastel Neon Mermaid Scale Nail Art

I had a phase where I was only doing swatches, but I'm completely back into nail art now! My boss has recently allowed me to wear my nails to work so I actually have a reason to paint my nails again!

I created this pastel neon mermaid scale design and I'm obsessed with it! I used some of my favourite polishes for this: Shop Eight4 and Let It Glitter!

Although the design looks like a lot of work, it's super easy to create!

Products Used:

Barry M - Cotton

Shop Eight4 - Lasha Lavender

Shop Eighty4 - Powder Puff

Shop Eighty4 - Candy Mint

Nail Mail - Mermaid Scale Stencil

Nail Mail - Mess Free Mani

Let It Glitter! - Invincible

Primark Cosmetic Sponge

Hema - Quick Drying Top Coat

Keep reading to find out how I created this design

Neon Gradient with Nail Mail Stencils

I am a huge fan of creating gradients. I think it's the easiest nail art to create and it always looks so impressive!!

To make it even more impressive I used nail stencils from Nail Mail. Nail Mail is a UK nail stencils company to help you create difficult designs with an easy stencil!

For this design I used the Moroccan Vintage design.

To find out how I've created this design keep reading! 

Shop Eighty4 Pastel Neon Flowers Nail Art

My blog mainly focuses on swatches and reviews, however I also have an instagram (@elaine.nails) which also includes a lot of nail art!

I love nail art, but I go through phases where I take a brake and just paint my nails 1 colour. Right now.. I'm in a nail art phase!

I created this pastel neon gradient floral nail art design using Barry M and Shop Eighty4 nail polishes.

I started off creating an all black and white floral design.

I used Barry M Cotton as a white base.

This is my favourite white polish and even though it's still relatively new to my collection, you can already see a clear usage line.

With careful application this is opaque in just 1 coat! So it's great to use under nail art. If I wear the polish alone I'll usually use 2 coat, but under a gradient or other design I use 1 to save time and layers.

I then used the Barry M Nail Art Pen in Black to add some flowers. I just placed 5 dots in a circle to make a flower. Super easy.

I really liked the design but felt like it needed some colour.

I decided to add a gradient on my index and pinky finger used 3 pastel neons from Shop Eighty4.

I used Cotton Candy (pink), Lasha Lavender (purple) and Powder Puff (blue).

To create the gradient I used a white base of Barry M Cotton and applied a topcoat so the polish won't pull up with the gradient.

I applied the 3 colours onto a cosmetic sponge. I buy mine from Primark, the cheapest seem to work best for me! I then dabbed it onto my nails. I applied 2-3 "coats".

I also used a dotting tool to add colour to the centre of the flowers using the same colours as the gradient.

I finished it all off with a topcoat. I use a fast drying topcoat from Hema. It's amazing.

I really love this design, it's super easy to create and great for the spring.

xx Elaine

Shop Eighty4 Pastel Neon Collection Swatch and Review

I little while ago Shop Eighty4 posted a sneak peek preview of their new Pastel Neon collection and I instantly knew I had to have the entire collection....

So I bought the whole thing.

:)

The collection consists of 8 polishes. As a set it costs $60, and individually they are $8.50.











Let me start off with talking about the formula. All eight of these polishes are super opaque. I used 2 coats for all of the colours, however 6/8 I could have gotten away with just one coat. They can be a little tricky to apply when you first use them. They dry incredibly quick, for each coat I only used 3 brush strokes to cover the whole nail. You can't over work the polish, if you do more than 3 brush strokes the nail polish that has dried (super quick!!) will drag and it'll become a hot streaky mess. Also try and get the perfect amount of polish on your brush, not too much and definitely not too little. I wipe one side of the brush completely and dab the other side, I'll have a small bead of nail polish on the brush, just enough to cover my nails. Another thing to be aware of is that polish runs down from the stem of the brush, so make sure to wipe that too.

Phew, all that out the way. Honestly once you get the hang of how quick drying these are you'll be away to get away with just one flawless coat on most polishes. If your first coat ends up being streaky, it's not an issues since the nail polish is so opaque a second coat will easily cover all that up.

The polishes dry with a matte finish so I applied a top coat.

More info and swatches after the jump!

#ColourMeMarch Pastel Gradient

Today, March 11th, is Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Racecourse and this year it's all about colour, dressing up and being a royal for a day. When I heard about the #ColourMeMarch campaign from Etail-Pr I know I had to join in. Traditionally the campaign looks at outfit ideas, what to wear to the races. I have to be honest, I'm not very good at putting outfits together... but I can do my nails!

I've created a super festive colourful spring look, that's classy and fun at the same time!

I wanted something bright that'll pop right off the nails, but at the same time I didn't want something that was too crazy, too complicated and something that would take away from whatever outfit I'd decide to wear.

Gradients are one of my all time favourite things to do. They're easy and always look so impressive! For this gradient I used the new Neon Pastels set from Shop Eighty4. This is an American 5 free hand crafted nail polish line. I fell in love with their nail polishes on Instagram and knew I had to have them. The set comes with 8 neon pastels which arrived just in time for ColourMeMarch!

I started off with a white base using Barry M Cotton. This is one of the best white polishes I've used. I actually only used one coat!

I then applied some Bye Felicia Latex Nail Tape from Shop Eighty4 to protect my skin and for easy clean up. I finally understand the hype about these things! They're incredible!

I then used a cheap cosmetic sponge and applied First Date (pink), Creamsicle (Orange), S.O.S. (yellow), Candy Mint (green, and Power Puff (blue). I slowly dabbed it onto the nail making sure every "coat" was dry before sponging on a new one.

I pulled off the Latex Nail Tape and had hardly any clean up left to do. Perfect!

I'm so happy with how they turned out. They're really simple yet festive and they're definitely very colourful!

What do you think of my #ColourMeMarch nail art for Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Racecourse? Would you have any outfit ideas that could go with these nails?

xx Elaine