Fav Song Nail Art - Monthly Challenge

The theme for the 15th of September was Fav Song.

This month I'm taking part in a monthly nail art challenge. Every couple of days there is a different theme. On top of all that I am doing #bestietwinnails for every theme! For the 12th I collaborated with Gemma from @_nailgems_.

Thinking of something to do for favourite song was difficult enough, but to do something together.... no way.

So I decided to think a little (a lot) outside the box and think of children's songs... which then lead to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star... and galaxy nails.

Makes sense right?!?

I do have a tutorial of these coming up on my YouTube channel and as soon as it's ready I'll post the link here :)

I started off with a dark blue base. I used The Lacquer Lab Blue Jean Baby.

I used a liquid latex around my nails and stared sponging on random colours. I used Nail Mail's Mess Free Mani.

I wanted to have quite a bright galaxy so I used lots of brighter blues and a pink.

I started off by sponging on white, just to make the other colours pop.

Next I sponged on Barry M Guava - the polish I'm holding in the photo. This is a great bright pop of colour!

I then applied Ulta3 Fruit Tingle a bright neon pink.

This was followed by Barry M Blue Grape. This is a dark cobalt blue and I used this just to mix the other colours into the background.

At this stage, it looks pretty rubbish! But adding a glitter topper makes ALL the difference. I used Barry M Diamond Glitter and it's a stunning silver holo. This is probably my most used polish of all time.

That's it!

xx

CM Handmade UK Nail Art Gradient

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 have been obsessed with gradients recently. They're so easy to do and look so impressive!

Products used: 

Barry M Cotton: White base

Nail Mail Mess Free Mani: Liquid Latex

Primark Cosmetic Sponge

CM Handmade UK Lucite (green)

CM Handmade UK Perble (purple)

CM Handmade UK Vanilla Bean (nude)

Leighton Denny Angel Dust (silver glitter)

Ulta3 Stop The Press

Hema Fast Drying Topcoat.

More info and swatches after the jump!

OPI Nordic Collection Swatches and Comparisons

The new Autumn 2014 collection by OPI is the Nordic Collection. It consists of 12 new polishes including 1 glitter, 2 shimmer and the rest are all cremes.  I picked up the mini set which includes My Dogsled Is A Hybrid, Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm?, My Voice Is A Little Norse, How Great Is Your Dane?

The collection will be released on the 6th of August, although I purchased this set from Nail Polish Direct early.

First up is My Dogsled is a Hybrid, a bright sea foam green creme formula. It's a really nice bright pop of colour for the autumn, without being too in your face.

I used 2-3 coats for the swatch, some of my nails only needed 2 coats, whereas other needed a third coat to even out any streakiness.

When I saw the colour I immediately thought of OPI Thanks a Windmillion and Barry M Greenberry. I have MDIAH on my middle finger and pinky, Barry M Greenberry on my index finger and OPI Thanks A Windmillion on my ring finger. They're not close at all! Greenberry is much brighter and more blue toned, whereas Thanks A Windmillion is much more muted and green toned. My Dogsled Is A Hybrid is right in the middle of the two.

I also swatched My Dogsled Is A Hybrid alongside Kester Black Alimony. Alimony has a similar brightness, but is MDIAH bluer sister.

Next up is Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm. That's such a great name! And also such a great colour! Opi describes this to be an icy blue violet. It's a very bright, dark, blue toned purple.. if that makes sense?

I again used 2-3 coats for the swatch. The first coat seemed very sheer and a bit jelly-like, but the second coat covered it up beautifully. I did have an issue with a bald spot (probably not letting it dry) so I did apply a third coat on one nail. I think with the wider OPI brushes the application would be easier.

I know I don't have anything like this in my collection, but I just wanted to compare it with a few other purples that I love. I have DYHTCIS (that's long!) on my index and ring finger. I used Kester Black Deep Violet on my middle finger and Ulta3 Spring Break on my pinky. Kester Black Deep Violet is a much darker and warmer purple. Spring Break has a similar brightness, but is much more pink toned.

The third nail polish is My Voice Is A Little Norse, a holographic glitter. I love holographic nail polishes so was excited to try this one out! On my index finger I applied one coat over DYHTCIS, and on my ring finger I applied one coat over MDIAH. On my middle finger and pinky I applied 4 coats.

I think the glitter works better as a topper than on its own as you can still see my nail line underneath. The holo effect also works better over the purple than any other nail as you can see in the blurred shot.

It does have a beautiful holographic shimmer, these photos are taken in the shade.

I compared this to Kester Black Milkyway. You can immediately notice a difference in the two bottles. Milkyway is a lighter silver holographic glitter, whereas MVIALN is slightly darker and less holographic. I used one coat of MVIALN over Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm and  4 coats on its own on my middle finger. I again applied one coat of Milkyway over Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm on my ring finger and 3 coats of Milkyway on my pinky. Milkyway is more of a dense glitter as 3 coats equal to 4 coats of MVIALN. This photos are taken in the shade.

The final colour is How Great Is Your Dane? It's a dark brown 'cinnamon coffee' shade. During the Autumn in Australia I really started to get into darker brown shades like this one so I think this'll be another great colour this season. This had the easiest application out of the cremes and I only used 2 easy coats.

I compared it to OPI I Sao Paulo Over There from the Brazil Collection and OPI I Brake For Manicures. They're all very different. ISPOT is on my index finger, HGIYD is on my middle finger and pinky and IBFM is on my ring finger. ISPOT is much lighter and cooler toned, whereas IBFM is much darker and slightly more purple toned.











What do you think of the new Nordic Collection? Will you be picking up the minis or going straight to the full sized bottles?
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

Nail Art Challenge June - Picnic & Tropical & Summer

During the month of June I decided to take part in two nail art challenges. To view my other posts click here! Taking on two challenges might have been a bit too hopeful, because I'm drastically behind! As you can tell I'm trying my best to try and get them all done.... today...... So I'm a little more up to date with the challenges on Instagram, but like I mentioned in my previous post: It's about the nail art, who cares if it's a little late.. right?!

Today I am combining three different themes: Picnic and Tropical from #nailartjun and Summer from #nailartchallengejune. At the start of the month I was looking through all the themes and immediately wanted to recreate this manicure by @littletipoff and @sprangleynails on Instagram. I have seen this design floating around instagram and pinterest for a while, but I mainly looked at these two ladies.

It's a Sex and the City style picnic with tropical cocktails and how could this not resemble summer?! I have recently started rewatching Sex and the City from the start... again... and I love it! This is probably the only show I can watch and rewatch and rewatch. I used a ton of nail polishes. Each cocktail is made out of two colours.

I started off with a white base, of course OPI Alpine Snow. I used Furless Cosmetics Clouded and the bottom of the two brushes to draw the cocktail glasses. I love that grey and for a full review click here! I then used China Glaze Grass Is Lime Greener and Essie First Timer and slightly mixed them together using the thicker brush on the top. For the second cocktail I used Cotton On Body Candy Floss and Essie Camera. I love the Cotton On Body nail polish, it only cost $2.95 and it extremely opaque and neon. Camera by Essie is also a neon but requires a white base as it's a jelly formula. For the third cocktail I used Kester Black Blueberry Tart and Now, part of the Architecture in Helsinki limited edition due. And finally for the last cocktail I used Kester Black Peach Melba and Models Own Beach Bag.

I used Black Satin by Ulta3 for the straws and Mecca Cosmetica Ophelia for the cherries. Lastly I used Barry M Diamond Glitter for the glitter ice cubes. That's a lot!! Each cocktail had a bright pastel and a neon so the colours really popped.

I think these nails look really cute, what do you think?
xx Elaine

Monday Randoms

I really love nail art, but a lot of nail art doesn't go to plan or for some reason or another I decide not to post it. I thought it would be fun to have a blog series showing these nails! Since I'm going to be travelling for the next month, my posting schedule is going to be a bit all over the place, so I won't make it a weekly series yet.

The first one I did actually post on Instagram, but it never made it to my blog. I do really like the nails, but I only took one photo of it, not quite enough for a whole blog post.. I created these right after I quit my job and I finally had time to do my nails again. I worked at a fast food place for 4 months and couldn't paint my nails at all, so after 4 months of no nail art, this was the first creation I'd made. Not bad!

I used Alpine Snow for the white and a black Barry M nail art pen for the aztect print. Other than that I'm not 100% sure about the rest of the colours, but it looks like the turquoise is Barry M Greenberry, the purple Kester Black Bougainvillia and the pink... I have no idea!!

I really like the idea of these nails, mixing neutrals with neons but I was too impatient while creating these. I taped up my nail to apply the pink, but I didn't put the tape in the same place on every nail. When I pulled off the tape the neutral base on my pointer finger came off. I had to restart and couldn't be bothered with the tape again so tried to do it without, which didn't really work out.... Other than those two points, I do really like the colour combo.

I used OPI Taupe-less Beach for the neutral and Ulta3's Fruit Tingle for the neon pink.

Finally these floral nails. These are all kinds of wrong. I kind of created an ombre on my pointer and pinky using OPI's Where Did Suzi's Man-Go and Live.Love.Carnival, but that didn't work out at all. The flowers look pretty awful too, and then the hand pose is just awkward....

The base of the flowers is OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around.

That's it for my first Monday Randoms! I hope you guys like the idea of these kinds of posts and I'm sure I'll have tons more to post.

Nail Polish Tag

I found this tag on YouTube and I thought it would be perfect for my blog. The tag consist of 10 questions, but I added two extras.

Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

1. What's your favorite top coat?
My favourite top coat, like many others, is Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. I've tried many different ones but I find that Seche Vite is the only one that doesn't drag my nail art. Another top coat I quite like is Essie's Good To Go. It's great on straight nail polish, but definitely not for nail art.

Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener

2. What's your favorite treatment?
My nails are naturally very soft and break very easily so it's essential for me to use treatments, especially when I work. I started using OPI nail envy, but it didn't really do anything until I mixed it with Essie's Grow Stronger. That was a great combo, but recently I picked up Sally Hansens Miracle Nail Thickener. That stuff is amazing! My nails got so strong that I actually had a really hard time clipping them. The only thing I don't like about it is the formula... It's very stringy. Maybe I just have a bad bottle.

Revlon multi care base & top coat 

Extra: What's your favourite Base Coat?
Usually I just use whatever treatment I'm using as a base coat, but the sally hansen one makes my nails really yellow, which isn't a great look. I've been using Revlons multi care base & top coat as a base coat. It isn't really great as a top coat. For some reason it never dried on me, so I just use it as a base. It's a great formula, really watery so as a colour it would be very difficult, but as a clear coat it makes it super easy to apply the polish.

Avon lavender cuticle oil

Extra: What's your favourite cuticle oil?
My favourite cuticle oil is from Avon. It smells like lavender so really lovely and it soaks into my cuticles really quickly. I noticed a huge difference when I started using this.

3. Glitter or matte polish?
Glitter! If I answered this last year I would have said matte. Even if you asked me this last week I would have said matte, but recently I have started to fall in love with chunky glitter nail polishes. I love OPI's Pirouette My Whistle, it's such an elegant subtle glitter. I also love the black and white glitters and think they look great over anything. I especially love Ulta3's Stop the Press because it's got tiny black and white hex glitter and some larger black and white hex glitter. I also own one by 17 (UK Brand) but I'm not a fan of the bar glitter that one includes. I have also been loving matte glitter funnily enough! I own two matte glitter nail polishes by Nail It from Sportsgirl. They're so chunky and unique. I used one coat of glitter for each of the swatches below, you can click on the photo to enlarge it!

Nail it Galaxy, Ulta3 Stop the Press, OPI Pirouette My Whistle

4. What's your current love?
I'm a little late on the bandwagon but I love Mariah Carey's Pure 18k White Gold and Silver Top Coat by OPI. So beautiful!!! For the photo below I layered one coat over OPI's Taupe-less beach.

OPI Mariah Carey Pure 18K White Gold and Silver Top Coat

5. What's your favorite brand?
My favourite brand is a tie between OPI and Kester Black, but if I had to choose I'd probably say OPI, only because I have more of their nail polishes at the moment. The photo shows some of my favourites.

6. Favorite purple, pink, red & blue polish
Purple is my favourite ever nail polish colour. I just can't stop buying them!! But at the moment I'd say I'm in love with Kester Blacks French Lavender. It's a beautiful muted dusty purple. It's a very gorgeous subtle purple. The formula is fantastic and I only needed one coat!!

Kester Black French Lavender

I don't have my favourite pink with me at the moment, so I can't show you a photo of the bottle, but it's Leighton Denny's Babydoll. It's such a beautiful pink subtle elegant pink. The photo below is probably about a year old. It's Leighton Denny's Angel Dust layered over Babydoll, Babydoll is a cream shade so no glitter and I used two coats for the swatch.  Who could not love this colour??

Leighton Denny babydoll

Red is kind of an on and off colour for me. I like them, but I feel like a red is a red and you can't really get many different ones. That being said, I do have a ton... somehow... My favourite is OPI's Red Hot Rio. It's a gorgeous bright classic red with a gorgeous formula. It's a little jelly like but still opaque in 2 coats. It feels very sophisticated and sexy on my nails. Everyone needs a red like that!

OPI Red Hot Rio

My favourite blue is Kester Black's NOW, part of the Architecture in Helsinki collection. It is the brightest blue I have ever seen. I used two coats for the swatch below. 

Kester Black NOW

7. What's your favorite winter polish?
I don't really stick to the whole nail polish trends for seasons, I just wear what I'm in the mood for. It's autumn in Australia at the moment but I'm loving pastels. That could be because my brain is still in the Nothern Hemisphere... Or because the weather has been super lovely and warm and the trees are still green. Anyway, on dark rainy/snowy cold miserable winter days I either like wearing light neutrals or very dark rich colours. The first is OPI's Taupe-less beach. It's a beautiful taupe neutral that's super easy to apply. I used two coats for the swatch below, but it hardly needed the second one!  The second one is Kester Blacks Deep Violet. It's a super dark rich pigmented deep purple. I used one coat for the swatch. It's stunning. They actually look very nice together. 

OPI Taupe-less Beach, Kester Black Deep Violet

8. What's your favorite summer polish?
Again, seasons don't really make a difference, but on hot summery days I love wearing neons, especially Ulta3's Fruit Tingle. It's a bright neon pink that's opaque in two coats, no need for a white base. Ulta3 is a very popular but pretty hard to find brand in Australia. The nail polishes are $2 or $2.50 depending where you look. They are mainly sold at chemists.

Ulta3 Fruit Tingle

9. What's your favorite spring polish?
During the spring I like wearing basically the whole new Brazil collection, but also pastels. Obviously. I have been in LOVE with Blueberry muffin by models own. It's a really light pastel blue that smells of blueberries when it dries. Amazing. I love the colour, but there is something about the scented nail polishes that I prefer wearing in the spring. I actually already ordered a whole bunch more from the scented collection for when I'm back in the UK. The second colour I chose is a mint green by Kester Black called Bubblegum. It's a super pretty and opaque colour. I applied two coats as the first was slightly streaky. That could easily be fixed with careful application though!

Models Own Blueberry Muffin, Kester Black Bubblegum

10. What's your favorite fall polish?
For fall I also really like the deep rich colours. I chose OPI's Just A Little Rösti At this. It's a beautiful deep oxblood red. It's a super easy formula and is opaque in 1 coats!  It looks very sophisticated and looks great on my pale skin.

OPI Just A Little Rosti At This

Spongebob Nail Art

Here's my first nail art post on my blog! I love creating nail art. I started in April 2013 and got really into it for a couple of months, then I moved to Australia and didn't have as much time. However, now I'm back at it again and I love it. I have tons of nail art on my Instagram so follow me there @elaine210792

An IG friend and I decided to do something that's called "Bestie Twin Nails" it's where two people do the same or similar nail art together! It's super fun to do and it really challenges me. We decided to create spongebob nail art.

I'm not sure who this design is originally by, I was inspired by this pin on Pinterest.

Alongside the nail art post I wanted to also include a tutorial. Like I said, I was inspired by a pin on Pinterest and I'm obviously not sure how they created it, but this is how I did it!

Base coat - Revlon Multi Care Base + Top Coat

White - OPI Alpine Snow

Light Blue - Own Made Nail Polish

Light Pink - OPI Pink Friday

Yellow - OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana

Dark Pink - Kester Black 4EVA

Blue - OPI No Room For The Blues

Green - Essie Navigate Her

Red - Ulta3 Watermelon

Brown - Mecca Cosmetica Maria 

Top Coat - Seche Vite

Barry M Nail Art Pen

Dotting tool

Nail Art Brush

Step 1: Apply a base coat, when that dries apply two coats of white on every nail but your right finger. Apply two coats of a blue sparkly nail polish on your ring finger. Let dry.

Step 2: Use a light pink polish to create Patricks shade. I just brushed the pink on like I would normally apply any colour, but left a white gap near my cuticles and the sides of the nail. Use a yellow polish to add Spongebob. Same as with Patrick leave a white gap near the cuticle, but go all the way to the edges of the nail.

Step 3: Use a nail art pen or small brush to create the design of the burger. I started off with the top of the burger, then drew the salad leaf, then the patty and then the bottom burger bun.

Step 4: Use a darker pink nail polish and a small brush to outline Patrick. Add three dots on the top op Spongebobs head to create the sponge look. Use a black nail art pen to create a mouth for patrick and outline the Spongebobs head.

Step 5: Use a dotting tool and white nail polish to add large eyes for Spongebob and Patrick. Use a black nail art pen to create Spongebobs mouth. Patrick is now done.

Step 6: Use a small brush to outline the eyes using black. Use a black nail art pen to add Patricks pupils and eye brows. Use a medium brush to draw a pink coral on the ring finger. To get full opacity I applied to layers of the pink polish

Step 7: Using a medium dotting tool and blue nail polish to add spongebob's eyes. When that dries add black pupils and his nose. Use a green nail polish to apply the sponge holes. Use a red polish and a small nail art brush to apply Spongebob's cheeks. Spongebob is now done. Use a green polish and a large dotting tool to add Gary's eyes. Use a nail art brush and blue polish to create lines connecting to Gary's eyes.

Step 8: Use a dotting tool and brown nail polish to colour in the burger bun. Use green to dot in the salad and red or a browny colour to colour in the patty. The patty is now done.

Step 9: Use a yellow polish and a brush to add the other coral. I used two coats to get this fully opaque. Use a small brush with black nail polish to outline Gary's eyes. Use a red dotting tool to add Gary's eyes and a black tiny dotting tool to add his pupils.

Finished!!!

Wait at least half an hour before adding a top coat to avoid smudging.