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! 

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

Pastel Gradient Lighting Bolt Nail Art

I received some nail stencils from Nail Mail, a company on Etsy selling Nail stencils in all sorts of different shapes and designs. I kind of wanted to do a bit of everything... glitter, gradient, holo, lightning bolt...

I used Inevitable by Emily de Molly as a base. This is a silver linear holographic polish that's super holographic. Of course, living in England there isn't much sun....

Once that fully dried I applied the lighting bolt nail stencils. These are super easy to use. All you need to do is stick it on your nails, cover it with nail polish and slowly pull them off. Done!

To create the gradient is a little bit more work, but still easy. Once I applied the stickers I used OPI Alpine Snow to get a white base. This way the colours would pop.

Once the white polish dried I sponged the gradient. I used (from tip to cuticle) Models Own Apple Pie, Kester Black Blueberry, Models Own Grape Juice, Strawberry Tart and Peach Melba.

As soon as I was done with the sponge-ing I slowly removed the stencil, following the shape of the lighting bolt.

Apply a top coat and you're done!

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

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 

Pastel Ombre & Stamping

Ombre/Gradients are probably my favourite style of nail art, it's so easy to do and always looks so beautiful, no matter what colours you use. For a while now I've been wanting to create a pastel gradient and here it is!

I used from the cuticle to the tip: Kester Black Bubblegum, Sambora Baby Wave, Canmake in purple, Models Own Strawberry Tart and Models Own Peach Melba. It smells amazing, and I love the way it turned out! The colours are so beautiful together.

Canmake is a brand of nail polishes that I bought while I was in Japan, the nail polishes are very cheap, around 300 Yen, which at the time was about $3 (AU) and that converted to about £1.70 at the time. They're great quality and are opaque in 2-3 coats.

Like I mentioned before, I thing gradients are super easy to do, all you need is a cosmetic sponge and your nail polish! I start off with a white base.. OPI Alpine Snow. I use super cheap primark sponges, I think it's £1.50 for 20 sponges? I find these work much better than the more expensive ones from Boots of Superdrug.

I then draw a thin line of each colour onto the sponge, I don't use a lot of nail polish. It looks better when you apply a small amount and use 3 "coats" rather than overflowing the sponge with polish and applying 1 "coat". The more "coats" you apply the more intense the colour becomes, I usually only apply 2 as I like the pale pastel look.

I dab the colours onto my nail moving up and down slightly to mix the colours.  And when I'm happy with the intensity of the colours, I just need to do a lot of clean up.... The photo to the left is just a quick snap from my phone.

After creating the gradient I really wanted to try out my new stamping plate, the Cheeky Jumbo Plate 9 Wild At Heart. I'm pretty miserable at stamping, but with the help of some of my Instagram friends I managed to get 2 of the 4 images almost perfect!

This is probably the cutest stamping plate in the whole world. It has two sections, small animal stamps at the top, and large full nail stamps which I haven't quite mastered yet!

Do you own any of the Cheeky Plates?
xx Elaine

ABC Challenge: A

I have been following Reach For The Polish for a long time and was inspired by her ABC challenge, so I decided to start my own!  I started it on my instagram already, so I've got a little catching up to do! For the challenge you choose a nail polish starting with the letter of the alphabet, for example E for Elephantastic Pink. You first swatch it and then create nail art using that nail polish!

OPI Alpine Snow

A is for Alpine Snow by OPI. Finding the perfect white is incredibly difficult, they're all streaky and need at least three coats to get even. Although Alpine Snow isn't the perfect white, it's better than anything I've tried so far. With two very careful coats, you can get full opacity. Usually on my left hand I'll apply two coats, but on my right hand I'll need three.

It's a gorgeous clean white. I don't usually just wear white nail polish on it's own because I'm way too tempted to add nail art, but it looks stunning on it's own! Especially in the summer.

OPI Alpine Snow, Kester Black Papaya, Paradise Punch, Dragon Fruit

I decided to create a neon gradient with white stripes. This is probably one of the easiest styles of nail art to create... if you can find the right sponge. I bought my sponges from Primark. I believe they were £2 for a pack of 20? I'm not sure, I bought them over a year ago! Anyway I first added some nail striping tape to my nails in different directions. After that I sponged Kester Blacks' Papaya, Paradise Punch and Dragonfruit onto the sponge and dabbed it onto my nail. I used three coats of the dabbing to get the full neon effect.