Coral Nail Art - Monthly Challenge

This month I'm taking part in another monthly nail art challenge. I did it last month as well but kept it all to IG and YouTube. Involving my blog can get a little tricky sometimes as I don't really have much to write about!

I want my blog to be about nail art as well as swatches so I'm thinking of including some super short little posts about what nail art I've done. If I have a video tutorial I'll link it in the post, if not I'll just post a whole bunch of photos!

Not only am I doing a monthly challenge, but to make it even more challenging, I'm actually doing Bestie Twin Nails for every theme! This means that I collaborate with other great nail artists on instagram and we create the same/similar designs.

The first theme was Coral and I collaborated with Veri @verenaamp. Instead of creating corals like the Great Barrier Reef, we decided to use the colour coral instead. We both used Essie Sunday Sunday.

This design is something we've both wanted to do for ages but for some reason neither of us got round to actually doing it... The reason I love doing monthly challenges and working together with other talented nail artists is that it really pushes for to work even harder.

This design was pretty challenging. I always thought it would be super easy for some reason, but the little swirls by my cuticle were a little tricker than I thought they would be.

I used a detail brush from Born Pretty Store and acrylic paint to draw the little swirl floral design. I then used Essie Sunday Funday and painted the tips of my nails like normal. I used a dotting tool to get as close to the acrylic paint design as I could.

To make it look a little more neat I reapplied the acrylic paint. I added some polkadots and that's it!

I unfortunately don't have a tutorial for this design.

xx Elaine

CM Handmade UK Nail Art Leopard Print

CM Handmade UK is an indie brand located in the UK. They are a fairly new nail polish brand but have some amazing polishes. Anywhere from cremes to crelly's to holos.

I received a few polishes from them to review and decided to create some nail art!

I love the way leopard print mani's look, but I feel like I can never pull them off. These, I actually really love!

Products Used:

CM Handmade UK Perble

CM Handmade UK Vanilla Bean

Essie Ignite The Night

Barry M Nail Art Pen Black

Dotting Tool

I used Perble (purple) and Vanilla Bean (nude) as the base for the leopard print. I love these two colours and they really compliment each other. 

They both have a fantastic formula and only need 2-3 coats for full opacity. 

The glitter is called Ignite the night by Essie. 

This is a dark silver glitter with some coppery bits in there too in a clear base. It's a really beautiful glitter combination and it's incredibly dense. I used 2 coats.

I used a dotting to to apply some random dots on my middle and ring finger. I then used the Barry M Nail Art Pen to draw some random lines around the dots. So simple! 

xx Elaine 

My Top 5 Mani Essentials

I work as a waitress so my hands and nails are easily dried out and damaged. It's very important for me to keep them moisturised and looking at their best.. These are some of the products I'm obsessed with.

First up is cuticle oil. At the moment I'm using this Apricot Cuticle Oil from Essie. I've never been tied down to just one brand. I've used one from Avon, Hema and OPI before. They all do the same thing, they are excellent at intensely moisturising your cuticle area.

What I normally do is use a little concealer brush and apply the cuticle oil around my nails after I've finished my manicure. A little goes a long way, I've had this bottle for a couple of months and you can see how full it still is! I let it soak into my skin for maybe a minute? Then I remove any excess oil with my other hand. It soaks into my skin very quickly and it instantly makes my skin look smoother.

Any time my hands start to feel dry I use my go-to moisturising hand lotion by Crabtree & Evelyn. This is a brand that I'm very loyal to, I've been using it for over a year and have gone through a dozen of these little tubes.

The Citron honey & coriander isn't my favourite scent, but it's the one I had on hand at the time. My favourite one is actually Pomegranate argan & grapeseed. It's amazing and I have gone through too many of those alone! I like buying the small tubes of 25g as they're a lot more convenient to through in a bag and they only cost £5! There is also a new size that I've never seen before of 50g for £9, and there is the large one for £15 which is 100g.

This "hand therapy" soaks into my skin almost instantly and makes a huge difference on my skin.

Another essential for me is a nail hardener. Like I said, I work as a waitress so I'm constantly cleaning and using my hands. My nails aren't too happy with that...

I'm currently using Essie Grown Stronger. I have been using this brand on and off for over a year, but this is the brand I'll always go back to.

I used OPI Nail Envy for a while, but unfortunately that did nothing for me. I also used Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener, which was great but got very thick and gloopy too quickly so I would only be able to use about half of the bottle. Sally Hansen Miracle Cure is another one that was great, but again got really thick and unusable.

I apply this before work every single shift and I also use it as my regular base coat. Of course my nails do still break, there is no way of preventing that, but I only have very small breaks to the tips of my nails. If I forget to put this on before my shift, my nails are guaranteed to break that shift.

This also makes my nails grown incredible quick. I am lucky with quick growing nails and hair anyway, but I've seen a difference when I started using this.

I do a lot of swatching and my absolute go to product is OPI Glitter Off base coat. It is such a life saver! I apply one coat of this onto my nails and wait for it to fully dry (it goes from white to clear). I then apply whatever colour I'm swatching over the top, take a photo and I can  just peel it off! It means I don't have to use any nail polish remover so my skin won't be affected.

I also use this as a base for a lot of my nail art. I can't wear nail polish to work (apart from the strengthener), so I only tend to wear nail art for a very short amount of time. When I'm ready to remove my nail art, again I don't have to use any nail polish remover and weaken my nails.

My final mani essential is liquid nail tape. This is just a little mini bottle but as soon as I finish this one I'm purchasing the full size. This is Mess Free Mani from Nail Mail.

It basically works the same as OPI Glitter Off, but this actually goes on the skin around your nails. I'm obsessed with doing gradients, but the clean up is always very frustrating. With a liquid nail tape like this, you just apply it around you nails, wait for it to dry, sponge on the gradient, and then you can pull it right off your skin. You'll only have the tiniest bit of clean up left.

I prefer this one over other brands because it doesn't smell. My first liquid latex product was great! But the smell was just horrible and very strong. If you get right up close to it, yes it'll smell, but when I'm applying it to my nails I don't smell it at all.


I do have many more mani essentials including a clean up brush (obviously), a top coat, a nail file (amongst other things), but these are definitely right at the top and my most used products.

For my clean up brush I use a tiny angled brush I got for free in my Glossybox a few months ago. I think it's supposed to be a lip brush. My favourite top coat at the moment is the quick dry formula from Hema, a dutch store that's recently opened in Kingston.

I hope this post was helpful if you're looking for any specific products.

xx Elaine

Essie Fragrance Direct Haul

I don't normally buy more than 3 nail polishes at once. Three is the perfect amount to write a well rounded review when I'm buying new products. There are also usually 3 for 2 offers in Boots and Superdrug. So three is my usual number... Not on Fragrance Direct however.

Fragrance Direct is a discount cosmetics, beauty, fragrance etc website. I have written about Fragrance Direct before, I'm definitely not new to the site ;). I have bought a lot of nail polishes from there before including Essie (£2.49) and OPI (£3.49). 

This time I have a 100% Essie haul including 10 gorgeous retired limited addition shades. Some of them are actually pretty recent from last Christmas/Autumn! 

First up is Jump In My Jumpsuit. 

I said the same on my Instagram, sometimes I forget how beautiful a classic red looks. 

This is a slightly darker toned red, my perfect shade of red. 

I think it looks really bold and beautiful.

The formula was incredible. 

I only used 1 coat for the swatch. 

It's really creamy, super opaque and incredibly easy to work with. It dries super glossy.

The Europeans Essie polishes have a very flat wide brush, which makes application super easy.

More info and swatches after the jump!

Essie Blossom Dandy & Garden Variety Swatch & Comparison

I bought two colours of the Essie Flowerista collection for Spring 2015.

I picked up Blossom Dandy which is a gorgeous blue minty colour and Garden Variety which is a bright teal blue.

I bought them when I was visiting New York last month so these have the skinny brush, whereas the UK versions have a gorgeous wide flat brush which I much prefer.

First up is Blossom Dandy. I love Beauty Geek's description of it being an icy mint. It's very blue toned, but definitely still a mint.

I had no issues with the formula. I applied two easy creamy coats and no topcoat.

Of course, the first thing I thought of was Mint Candy Apple, also by Essie. They are SLIGHTLY different, but not really different enough to justify having both.

Blossom Dandy is a little more blue toned, whereas Mint Candy Apple is slightly more green toned. You can see a bigger difference in the bottle shot than on my actual nails.

Honestly in real life I could hardly tell the difference.

Both are absolutely stunning though, but I think I actually prefer Blossom Dandy, if I had bought it in the UK with the wide brush!

Garden Variety is a stunning bright blue teal. It's pretty tricky to get a colour accurate photo, but this is pretty close. It's a little brighter in real life.

Again the formula was fantastic. It was almost opaque in 1 coat, but I applied two for the swatch. I didn't have to apply a top coat!

This is a colour I haven't seen before from Essie, so when I saw it in store I instantly picked it up, no hesitation.

The only colour in my collection that's close is Barry M Guava. This has been a long favourite of mine. I don't wear it very often, but it's in my top 5 Barry M's.

Guava is a little lighter than Garden Variety and you could see a difference between the 2, however it wasn't very obvious at all.

I actually prefer Guava by Barry M since it's a little brighter and lighter.

Both had the same formula and the same brush, so I would recommend Guava as it's easier to get a hold of in the UK and much cheaper.




What did you think of the Essie Flowerista collection? Have you picked up any of the colours?
xx Elaine

Glossy Box September 2014 Nails

This month the Glossy Box had a Karen Miller Thee, and the box was beautiful. It was a messy painted London Skyline on an off white box. Seriously beautiful. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to recreate it on my nails....

I started off with an off white base, using Essie Urban Jungle. I'm in love with this colour and it's already visibly gone down in the bottle, which is pretty terrifying since I've had it for about 2 months! It's a super creamy polish that applies like a dream. I used two coats for full opacity.

I then used acrylic paint and a tiny brush to draw the skyline. I'm in love with how the London Eye turned out.

I created a London skyline mani 13 months ago as well which I was so proud of back then! I wonder if in 13 months time I'll do another skyline and show even more improvement!

Here's a close up of the London Eye on my pinky.

What do you think of this months Glossy Box? And did you like the goodies inside?
xx Elaine

Pastel Abstract Nail Art - Mani Swap

I asked one of my friends @annkristin0 on instagram if she wanted to do a mani swap with me and she said yes! Ann-Kristin is super talented and is one of my favourite nail artists on Instagram.

I decided to recreate her pastel abstract nail art and she recreated my Cath Kidston nails. I love her take on them, they're completely different but still obviously inspired by my design. So cute!

Glossy

This was such a difficult manicure and it look me a long time to get perfect, but I'm super happy with the result. I used Essie Go Ginza on my pinky and Barry M Sugar Apple on my ring finger. Those colours look so nice together! I used Barry M Diamond Glitter for the gradient, but that's a silver glitter and Ann-Kirstin used a silver and blue glitter. Therefore, I added some extra blue glitters and carefully placed them to create a gradient.

Matte

For the abstract design I used OPI Alpine Snow as a base. I used Essie Go Ginza, Barry M Sugar Apple and Cotton On Body Candy Floss.

I'm really happy with how these look. I think the colour combination is beautiful and the glitter gradient turned out so nice! I am in love with Ann-Kirstins' original design, and I think I did quite a good job recreating it!

What do you think of these nails?
xx Elaine

Floral Nail Art Match OOTD

The summer weather has been amazing and I've been wearing some lovely floral dresses and skirts so I decided to match my nails to my outfit!

I bought the dress in the photo to the left from Camden a few years ago. Camden is such an interesting place in London, it's literally got a bit of everything!

I used OPI Alpine Snow for the base, what else?! For the base of the flowers I used Models Own Grape Juice (purple) and Leighton Denny Blue Lagoon (blue). I used Ulta3 Spring Break for the darker purple detail and Color Club Glossy Seal for the darker blue detail. I used Essie Navigate Her for the leaves.

I really like how these turned out, the colour combination is great and not something I would traditionally use for floral nails.

The second design is recreated from a skirt I bought at Primark last year. It's another pretty spring/summer floral outfit and great for nail art!

For the base I used Models Own Coconut Cream, which is an off white and smells like sweet coconuts.. yum! I used Kester Black Peach Melba and OPI Toucan Do It If You Try for the base of the flowers. I used Coconut Cream for the detail of the dark flowers and Toucan Do It If You Try for the detail of the lighter flowers. I used Kester Black Blueberry Tart for the leaves and Barry M Damson for the detail of the leaves.

I'm also really happy with how these nails turned out. It's nice to match your nails to your outfit, but both manicures have used colours I don't ordinarily use for floral designs. It's nice to try something new!



What do you think of these floral manicures?
xx Elaine

Essie Hide And Go Chic

I have been loving the Essie collections that have come out and have surprised myself with how many Essie's I've bought recently... I bought Essie Hide And Go Chic, a gorgeous covetable azure blue - part of the Hide And Go Chic spring collection. 

This blue is so unique! I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It's a very bright and rich colour, but at the same time has a hint of teal? It's gorgeous. 

The formula was so easy! It just glided onto my nail without any problems. I used two coats for the swatch and no top coat. Look how glossy it is! 

Best of all, it didn't stain when I took it off! 

So.. the nail art is a bit of a fail, but I'll post it anyway! I decided to do a gradient using Barry M Huckleberry, Nails Inc Optic Wave and Essie Hide And Go Chic. I then covered it up with some random abstract drawings using my Barry M Nail Art pen. It didn't quite end up the way I wanted it to look, but everyone has nail fails right?? 

What do you think of Essie's new releases?

xx Elaine 

Floral & Polka Dot Nails - Mani Swap

I decided to do a mani-swap with my good friend @shakun_05 on Instagram. For a mani-swap I choose one of the other persons designs to recreate and they recreate one of mine. Then we put them into a collage and post them on Instagram! This is my first ever mani-swap and I loved it! It was really difficult to choose one of Shakun's designs as she is so talented, but I ended up going for a rose and polka dot design and she recreated my Cath Kidston nails!

I started off applying a base coat on my index finger, middle finger and pinky and my  DIY peel off base coat on my ring finger. Once that all dried, I applied OPI Alpine Snow on my three fingers and Butter London Scallywag on my ring finger. Scallywag is a very dense glitter and is easily opaque in 2-3 coats. It could be used as a topper, but since it's so dense I always just go all out and cover my whole nail. It's super sparkly and beautiful and works great for glitter gradients too!

I used H&M Serenity Now for the blue polka dots and the roses. It has a jelly finish so the dots aren't fully opaque. If I were to do it again I would use Barry M Damson as it's wouldn't leave the dots inside the dots (if that makes sense). I then used Alpine Snow again and a tiny brush to add some detail to the roses and Essie Navigate Her to apply the leaves.

Every since I started instagram (over a year ago!) I have always used Essie Navigate Her for flower leaves. It's the perfect green that isn't too in your face, but just adds a bit of subtle colour. It really completes the look!

I absolutely love how this turned out. And I'm also in love with how Shakun's mani turned out! It's beautiful.





What do you think of the mani's and recreations?
xx Elaine

Yoomoo Frozen Yogurt Competition

A few weeks ago the frozen yogurt brand YooMoo had a competition to create nail art inspired by their brand. The prize was a Nails Inc Nail Polish. There were two competitions, one by YooMoo itself and one by @thepolishlist on Instagram. I entered into the second competition and created this nail art inspired by their strawberry swirl flavour.

I watched YoungWildAndPolished's YouTube video on how to water marble. She had so many great tips and advice and thanks to her I am finally able to water marble properly!

For the water marble I used three Essie colours: Urban Jungle, Cute As A Button, and Go Ginza. For the Ombre I used Essie Urban Jungle, Leighton Denny Babydoll, Essie Cute As A Button and OPI Koala Bear-y For the Yoomoo logo I used Urban Jungle by Essie as the background and Leighton Denny Babydoll for the cow.

I am so excited... I WON! @thepolishlist chose my entry as well as @firefly5 and @lisas_nails1 to win an exclusive YooMoo Nails Inc nail polish.

The polish is called Udderly Shocking Pink, and it's this beautiful bright pink. I love Nails Inc polishes are they're always super easy to apply.

I used two easy coats for the swatch and it dried with an incredible shine.

I'm so happy and proud of myself that I won a competition!

Essie Urban Jungle Swatch & Comparison

I recently caved and bought Urban Jungle by Essie from the Haute in the Heat collection this summer. I think it's such a beautiful colour but I have so many slightly pink toned off whites.... Well.. I bought it anyway. And look at how beautiful it is!!

It's the perfect pink toned off white shade with an incredible formula. I bought mine from Superdrug, and it came with the wide brush which I much prefer over the skinny brushes. The wide brush made it super easy to apply and cover my nail in one brush stroke. The formula wasn't patchy or streaky and I only needed two coats for the swatch.

Looooook it's so pretty.

I decided to do a quick comparison of Urban Jungle. I used Essie Neo Whimsical, a darker purple toned colour, OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around, a more nude toned polish and OPI Steady As She Rose, a much darker pink toned colour. The other three colours are very similar to one another, but nothing is quite a light as Urban Jungle.

What do you think of Essie Urban Jungle?
xx Elaine

Nautical Nails

Last month I decided to take part in two monthly nail art challenges and it was a bit much and unfortunately, although I did my best, I couldn't finish them. This month I decided to do things a little differently and instead of doing an official monthly challenge I'm doing my own!

I have about 3459837 screenshot on my phone of different nail art I have wanted to do, but for some reason never had the chance to do them! I'm going to go through all the nail art screen shots and recreate them.

These gorgeous nautical nail are inspired by @annkristin0 on instagram, she's one of my favourite instagrammers, she's so sweet and even though she has 11K followers still takes the time to comment on other peoples photos and reply to questions. Her nail art is absolutely beautiful and I love all her comparison posts. If you're not following her I definitely recommend checking her out!

Anyway, she created these nails quite a while ago and I fell in love with them. It's a whole different take on traditional nautical nails.

I used Essie Urban Jungle and Penny Talk as well as Kester Black NOW and Cotton On Body Candy Floss. I used a dotting tool for my index finger and the circle of the anchor as well as nail striping tape for my middle finger and pinky and a small nail art brush for the anchor.

It's my first time drawing an anchor so it was a bit tricky, but I'm really happy with the outcome.

What do you think of these nails? Is my recreation close to the original?

xx Elaine