31 Day Challenge - Delicate Print and Geometric Nails

Day 15 was entitled 'Delicate Print' and I didn't really know what that meant or how I was going to interpret it. Looking around Instagram and the Internet in general I got the impression it was pretty much fancy nails with a very fine or complex design... I was going to stuggle.

The only way I was going to do this was by searching through my stamping plates and finding some sort of intricate design. Inspired again by The Nailsaurus by her manicure for the theme. I went with a light colour which I normally don't wear and looked for a gold polish to stamp. And here's what I came up with...

I used Models Own in 'Peach Melba' as my base, a polish I bought a while ago and hadn't yet worn. I then tried stamping with practically every gold polish I had. The only one that really worked was Revlons Parfumerie polish in 'Italian Leather'. Both of these are scented polishes and the combination seemed to smell quite nice, although primarily of nail polish!

Stamping efforts still not great and the above took a few goes to get it to even look half decent. Still waiting for my new rectangular stamper to arrive from China, hoping it's here soon!

Day 16 is geometric and I love these type of designs, what I hate though is the lack of time I have this week to wait for each coat to dry before I can tape it up and paint the next colour and shape.

I rummaged around my polish draws looking for three untried polishes that would go together in this design I wanted to do. 

I started of with 'Loden Green' from Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure line. I've wanted to go Khaki green nails for a while, but have to say once painted on it reminded me more of diarrhoea! Or is that just me?

Once two coats were done, I'd gone to far to turn back, so I started with my design doing the grey colour first in Orlys 'Boho Bonnet'. The last shape in the dark blue is Revlons ColorStay in 'Midnight'. The Orly was a bit sheer for this type of nail art, I really needed something more opaque and the Revlon polish was perfect for the striping shapes. I used the last shape to cover up the mess I'd make with the first design where I could. 

Overall I like the design and colours, just wish I'd had more time to be careful with drying the polish before each colour. Now firmly two days behind with the challenge! 

Model's Own Scented Polish Mini Haul

I was ordering some clothes on asos last week and needed to bump up my order to qualify for free delivery, so added a few bottles of polish to my order.

I've had my eye on this Fruit Pastel collection from Models Own for a while, but saw some reviews online that didn't rate them very well, however asos were selling these for £3.50 a bottle (normally £5). I also don't have any Models Own polishes or any of these type of colours. I prefer much darker colours, but I really, really want to do an ombre manicure, I have plenty of blues and purples so I'm hoping these are going to be the perfect accompaniment for the lighter colours for the manicure. I also have been looking for the perfect pastel yellow to go with a dress I bought for wedding attendance. The two yellows I currently possess, from Barry M and Rimmel are too bright and the Barry M one in particular takes 3 to 4 coats to get perfectly opaque.

Initial playing with these polishes, seem that they cover great in two coats but they don't really smell like the fruit the colours relate to, they just smell like nail polish. So from left to right the colours are... 'Banana Split', 'Apple Pie', 'Blueberry Muffin' and 'Grape Juice'. There is another polish in this collection called 'Strawberry Tart' but asos were clean out of this one. Needless to say I shall have to source this last polish too. Quite often Boots will have Model's Own on Sale for 3 for 2, so if you're a fan of this brand, keep an eye out. I've also got my eye on their 'Velvet Goth' collection!

Dream Duo

Last week whilst doing the weekly shop in Tesco, I saw these polishes from a line called 'Along Came Betty'. The range includes make up and various beauty products such as creams and shower gels etc... but these caught my eye as a perfect colour coupling.

The set includes a purple cream polish called 'Style' and a holographic micro glitter polish in a clear base called 'Steal', as shown on my accent nail. These were retailing for £5.49 for the pair in store, but you can get them at Tesco Direct online for the bargain price of £2.75! 

I also bought the other Dream Duo set they had, which has a Gold Shimmery polish called 'Swag' and a duo-chrome shimmer polish which shifts from pink to a gold called 'Dollar'. Swatches and manicure from the other set to follow.

Flower Stamping Manicure

My friend is getting married soon and as part of the hen weekend activities I'll be showing the gals how to do nail art. So I thought I'd better practise and of course buy some more stamping plates and some proper Konad stamping polishes as I don't seem to have that many polishes that stamp very well.

Here I used (I think) Color Club's 'De-luxe-cious' as the base which is a gray/sliver with sparkle. I say I think as I bought a Color Club Set from TK Maxx and the names of the polishes are written on the back of the box and not on the bottles and I've mixed the bottles round. Also it seems that the UK versions are different to the US as these polishes look different when searching for them on the internet.

To stamp I used the 'Metal Nails' polishes I got for Christmas along with Konad Stamping Plate m65.

Some of the colours didn't work as well as others, such as the pink and gold. But the blue and green worked well and I used Color Club's 'Resort to Red' for the red flowers. I used two colours on the stamping plate so that the stalk and leaves were green and the flowers were a different colour. Seems to have worked quite well.