Going naked

My false nails are yet to arrive from feelunique.com, seems they disappeared into a black hole at the couriers (that's what the customer service person I spoke to implied), so they sent me a replacement today. However the rest of my Models Own Velvet Goth collection arrived, and as much as I want to wear all of them all at once I've resisted.

You see all this nail polish wearing is leaving my nails somewhat discoloured and they are turning a shade of yellow I'd rather they didn't. So I've decided to go naked and leave off the polish for a week, although how much difference one week is going to make I'm not sure. But letting them see the sunlight even for a wee while has to be better than never.

I've used some Nail Envy to keep them shiny and to stop them from breaking and last weekend I also scrubbed them in some water and bicarb of soda to try and brighten them up. I'd seen somewhere that this helps, and I'm sure that professionalHQ mentions something about a nail whitening product that you can use in her nail care routine video here.

Until I can get my hands on some of this I'll keep using the bicarb. I'm off to get a proper manicure this weekend as I bought a new cuticle tool and made a bit of a mess of mine. I know people say don't cut them, but I was trying to tidy them up, unsuccessfully. The tool as well as a cuticle pusher has this little pronged end with a V shaped cutter and by all accounts it's pretty sharp. 

Models Own Velvet Goth - soon to be collection

So after my purchase of Models Own Fruit Pastels collection and being fairly happy with the polishes, formula and smell! (They are scented) I started to take a little more notice of the brand and their Velvet Goth collection. 

Fortunately for me whilst perusing TK Maxx, they had one of the collection called Sardonyx, which would have been the least likely of the collection I would have been tempted with first, but hey it was £2.99 and I couldn't resist.

The polish is a little gloppy but goes on pretty well apart from a little cuticle flooding. Despite that I think you could pretty much get away with one coat, I've used two here with top coat. I top coated the polish as the finish was a little matt on it's own and I also wanted to make the glitter in the colour really pop!

Just experimenting with some different shots and settings on my camera phone to see if I can capture the polish in a better light. Please also excuse my very short nail on my ring finger on the first picture, this is the one that went awol on Saturday night. I've been hunting around for some natural false nails to use when this type of thing happens, and found some on feelunique.com. This site has nubar and spar ritual polishes too, neither of which I own any off, but I can't justify buying any more polish until I've tried all the ones I already own. 

Back to the Velvet Goth collection, I have of course now ordered the four other polishes in this collection as I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of wear out of the other colours. For a good look at the whole collection see Brit Nails Blog here. Plus I've been wearing this manicure now for two days now and no chips, so I think it's going to be a staple polish. The only thing I'm worried about is how difficult it's going to be to remove with all that glitter... 

Wedding Manicure

On Saturday my friends Steph and James got married in a lovely country pub in Cheshire. I love a good wedding I do, and this was certainly an eventful day.

The weather was a bit wet and windy, but we didn't have to venture out and it was lovely a toasty in the pub, especially after a bit of wedding dancing, looking like a fool.

Anyway down to details, I wanted something to match this amazing dress I bought from Debenhams, and although you probably can't see it from the picture the detail on the top half of the dress has green and purple in it. So I painted my nails in OPI's 'Don't Mess with OPI', a polish I hadn't used and broke out my Konad stamping polishes in White and Black Pearl.

I used Konads stamping plate M82 and alternated two of the different flower designs on each nail. I'm hiding my ring finger behind the polish as I broke this sometime Saturday night. It was already half broken, but quite far down and I'd cobbled together a fix with some nail glue and part of a tea bag, something I saw on You Tube.

You also can't see my thumb in this picture as I've just purchased the most amazing polish by Color Club called 'The Uptown' and I'd tried it on my thumb to see what it looked like. I can't describe it, I'll have to do one of my next manicures in it and show you just how amazing it is. I caught a first glimpse of it on Nail Call's Blog. The polish looks nothing like the colours on her swatches here as it does on my nails and I think that it's going to be one of polishes that changes colour depending on what you layer it over. So let's see...

Mini Haul from BeautyBay.Com

Last week I was scanning the internet for polishes on my want list and found one, China Glaze - Electrify (Hunger Games collection). It was on a site called BeautyBay.com for the very reasonable price of £4.17 with free postage and packaging too, even for one polish.

The site has a large range of beauty products, not just nail polishes, and at very good prices. Whilst browsing I picked up another two polishes pictured above. Orly's 'Masked Ceremony' and Essie's 'Hor d'Oeuvres'. All very, very sparkly. You can't see here but the Orly one has square silver glitters and purple glitters too which I really hope you can see on the nail! This was £5.13 and the most expensive was the Essie polish at £7.48 but it's a relatively new polish.

Shipping was really quick, I ordered these on Friday evening and they arrived on Wednesday the following week. I also paid £1.50 extra for a Premier order which meant I would be sent free samples too. I received a eye shadow colour (I think) in a nude colour called 'Warm Sienna' by Jane Iredale. (Around the dinner table I've have been advised to find out if it's an eye colour to put in on my lids and see if it stings!) Anyway I'll let you know how I get on... and two small bottles of skin toner and cleanser from a make called Mario Badescu who I've never heard of. The smell of them reminds me of something my Nan would use however.

Wine Shimmer

I've had my eye on a few Zoya polishes, which you CANNOT get over here in the UK. The main polish being a blue polish with a holographic glitter running through it called "Dream". It looks like the night sky! You just can't get it in the UK, even online (Tell me if you know otherwise). All Ebay sellers of this polish are overseas and you have to pay shipping too.

Zoya also do a number of other polishes that have the same effect but in various colours, to get a good look at these including Dream, check out Hannah Eve's Zoya "Color Your World" Haul video. 

So I had an idea, I have a dark red and a dark blue Zoya polish and topped with some Color Show glitter gel polish I thought I could recreate the same effect and it ain't half bad. The manicure above is one coat, yes one coat of Zoya's 'Toni' topped with Color Club's "Wine Shimmer". Not the best capture on camera, but you can see the variation in colour in the holographic glitter in the bottle, and on the nail. I just haven't captured the range of colours. In the right light you can see blue, green and gold, not just red. I bought the Zoya polish on Ebay and paid about £9, and Boots were doing 3 for 2 on all Color Show polishes so I bought "Wine Shimmer" this dark red jelly like polish with holographic glitter, "Ocean Blue" the same formula in a dark blue and the last one is a holographic glitter in a clear base called "Glitter It". 

Mermaid Manicure

Lazy mid-week manicure, I brought this GOSH 'Ocean' polish down to try and stamp with at the weekend but hadn't used it. So uninspired by my last manicure I needed a change and not having used this polish ever I thought that'll do!

Lovely shimmer and shift effect from a teal blue to a green and if that wasn't enough I thought a dash of sparkle would improve the look. So I topped with Sinful Colors 'Kissy' which is a perfect match for this polish. 'Kissy' is a blue\green jelly with gold micro glitter that shimmers and shifts this polish from blue to blue-y green and green. A perfect combination for the GOSH base polish.

I was going to use NYC's 'Green Day' Smoky Top Coat to finish off the look, but I applied it to my accent nail first and decided it was too dark and needed a different colour to compliment and define it better.

 Again 'Green Day' is another polish which I had not tried. I'd had my eye on it for sometime but never bought. NYC polishes are something like £1.99 from Superdrug and I picked up this and 'Rock Muse' another smoky top coat for £1.99 all together as it was BOGOF!!! 'Green Day' is a sheer black base nail polish with medium green circle glitters and gold and silver micro glitter. You may be able to get it opaque in 3 coats, but it's a Top Coat as it say on the bottle, so lets see what I can pair it with next. Any suggestions?

OPI Live and Let Die

Quick manicure for the start of the working week after taking off the nail stamping design I did at the weekend. I need to wear the polishes I bought before and during Christmas that I haven't tried yet. I was inspired to just go with the polish and no frills.

I bought OPI's 'Live and Let Die' from TK Maxx along with two bottles of 'Don't Mess with OPI' a green creme polish for £9.99. Not sure why there were two of the same colour in the trio, but I sold one on eBay as I didn't need two.

Anyway this polish is a really dark blackened green with gold/green shimmer, not really showing on this picture and also quite hard to pick up on the nail, unless in direct sunlight. Although this IS a one coater it may have faired better with two coats, as one just looked like a dark polish from afar.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Stamping Duty

So nail Bloggers and Vloggers tell me that Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polishes are super-amazeballs for stamping and much cheaper than the Konad polishes you can buy for the same purpose.

However these aren't readily available in UK stores, but you can source some online and of course eBay, colours are limited though if you're looking for something in particular.

I recently purchased 'Just in Lime' from eBay for £2.29 and 90p postage so still cheaper than Konad which the cheapest I've seen is £4. Actually NOT that much cheaper on reflection, but every little helps.

So I broke out the 'Blueberry Muffin' scented Polish from Models Own scented range I recently purchased and used Konad plate m83 to stamp this green leaf pattern over it. Two coats of 'Blueberry Muffin' and it does actually have a faint fruity smell that is still detectable on day two.

I've bought 3 Insta-Dri polishes in all, the other two are a light and dark purple, looking forward to stamping with those soon. Nail Art is NOT dead, not yet! Anyway I'll probably still be stamping when it's no longer cool...