30 Days of Colour Challenge - Day 1 and bargain polishes!

This month I saw Knitty Nails on Instagram post the following challenge, and as I missed out on last's month challenge I thought I'd take part. Here's the prompts...

I liked the themes and also that it's every couple of days and not every day. I'm catch up with the first prompt already and did it today. Here's my gold manicure.

I saw this on Pinterest and loved the combination of the mint green with the gold, it was either that or purple and gold, that's a classic combination.

I used Revlon's 'Minted' which is a gorgeous colour, but it did take three coats for full opacity. The formula is good and it goes on smooth after the first coat, but as it's a light colour it was a bit patchy. I sponged on the glitter as I didn't want a massive amount of clear base building up on my nails, using Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in 'Crown Jewels'. Picked this one up in Poundland last week, what an absolute BARGAIN!

This polish is from Sally Hansen's 2013 Sequin OverCoat Collection, I picked up a couple more CSM glitters too, these appear to be from New York Fashion Week Designer collection from 2014. Definitely worth keeping your eyes peeled in your local Poundland, they're also selling pack's of three New York Color (NYC) for £1.

Speaking of affordable polishes, I also picked up these beauties this week as they came free with Elle (Orly) and Bazaar (Leighton Denny) magazine.

There are four to collect of the Orly and six I think for the Leighton Denny, I do like Elle magazine, however I do remember buying Bazaar magazine before for a Leighton Denny polish, it's a little bit up market for me! Also spotted Glamour magazine are including free Nails Inc polishes too this month, so more polishes to keep your eyes peeled for.

Where do you get your bargain polishes from and have you bought any magazines for free beauty products? Let me know in the comments section below.

   

Seeing Spots - Off Centre Dotticure

So as I'm on this supposed 'No Buy' and probably remain on it till the end of the year, it's time to return to my untried polish stash and see what designs I can conjure up.

 These two polishes are my favourite type, dark and vampy with a slight metallic finish to them, and I thought they'd make a pretty good pairing allowing me to tick TWO more polishes off the untried list.

These gorgeous beauties are:

No7 - Temptress (The burgundy one)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Grape Escape

Lovely colours and formulas, only two coats of Grape Escape but three coats for Temptress. I kept this manicure for a day and then decided I needed to jazz it up a little. So searched Pinterest and saw a design where the dotting was only on one side of the nail. So this is what I did. I kept the colours to gold, silver and copper, and then decided to add a few dots of the alternate base colour to finish off.

I'm now eagerly awaiting the arrival of Septembers NailBox this is the only polish I'm allowing myself, yeah right). Think this one is gonna be Halloween themed so spooky manicures coming your way soon...

Drawing Pin Inspired Mani

Fancied doing a bit of free hand painting again and this time the inspiration comes from some drawing pins. The design is of these little blue and pink abstract flowers. Here are the pins in question:

They came in a lovely little floral tin and I've used them to pin my necklaces to a cork notice board in order to restore order to my growing jewellery collection.

I painted a dark blue base and used white, pink and several shades of blue to create the flower pattern using a small nail art brush.

Great thing about doing these abstract flower designs is that the right hand looks OK too as you don't do an exact design and every nail is different! Top manicure tip for you there!

Days 27 and 28 of Challenge - Recreating one of your own manicures and non glitter topper

Closing in on that 31st day now, and a chance to recreate one of my previous manicures. I chose the Lightening Bolt manicure that I did in my very first post on this blog and using the very first OPI polishes that I ever bought!

I love the colour combinations, these OPI's are from their EURO Central Collection and are 'I can't find my Czechbook' and 'OPI... Eurso Euro' and for the silver I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Coat of Arms' a lovely £1 purchase from Pound World.

Takes a wee while to do this manicure as you need to wait for each layer of polish to dry before taping and painting the lightening bolt. I followed this tutorial from elleandish/ Janelle.

Very happy with the way this came out and I think it's neater than my first attempt.

Next was a question of topping a manicure with something other than glitter? Bit stumped on this one, considered a crackle topper or matt coat. But decided to go with this topper from W.I.P nail polish called 'All-Sorts' that I bought from Urban Outfitters.

Technically I guess it's a matt glitter, and it's much brighter than this picture shows. I tried to create a heart with this topper on my ring finger and thumb, you can kinda see it, but as I had to fish a bit for the glitter there was quite a build up of the clear base in making these shapes. I also tried to create a heart stencil with some scotch tape and that didn't quite work either and because the tape was clear it was hard to see the shape, what do you guys use?

The base for this manicure is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Pat on the Black' which is a really, really dark purple polish. GORGEOUS!

Also my Model Own's sale polishes arrived, I can't WAIT to try them, think they may be appearing in this challenge before it ends!

Day 25 & 26 of Challenge - Complement and Contrast and Fishtail Braid

I've wanted to do this combination for a while and saw this manicure on Pinterest AGES ago using Sally Hansen lustre shine polishes in Azure and Scarab. This was months and months before these polishes started appearing in Pound World, and I never thought I'd get my sticky little mitts on them.

Not contrasting so much this manicure but these polishes go VERY well together. So well in fact that I didn't in the end use the sponging technique to create the gradient, as the polish wasn't quite dry and was creating bald patches when dabbing it on.

I ended up just painting the dark blue polish on the ends of my nails and blending it in to the base colour, worked pretty well and gorgeous colours!

Next day's theme is Fish Tail Braid, not something I have ever done on my nails or on my hair before. I watched a few tutorials on YouTube which make it look easy, it was however NOT!

Apologies for appalling picture, and messy manicure. Think this would have been better if the two purples I used were much different shades, they are too similar and merge into each other. I took this off the next morning before going to work as I thought it was a bit garish.

I will attempt this again I think, and pick my colours more carefully... 5 days to go and 5 days behind!

Days 21 & 22 - Three shades of green and Blobbicure

A chance to use three shades of green from my untrieds, main colour here is Revlon in 'Minted'. I painted a white base on my ring finger and used 'Minted' to make the dots along with Rimmel 'Block your Green' and Revlon Parfumerie in 'Balsam Fir'.

I used a small and medium sized dotting tool to create the dots. 

Day 22's theme was Blobbicure and a technique I'd never tried before. I used the end of one of my nail art brushes to create the blob's but perhaps I didn't use enough polish as it came out rather like a large dotticure rather than a blobbicure.

I love the colour combination here, I used two Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polishes here, the dark purple is 'Malbec' and the gorgeous grey/lavender colour is 'Greige Gardens'. 

2015 Nail Challenge

So start as you mean to go on, especially as I neglected my Blog in December. Let's start the New Year off with a Nail Art Challenge!

I follow some amazing ladies on Facebook doing some pretty funky nail designs. One of these ladies called Debbie, otherwise known as 'The Crumpet' has devised the following 2015 Nail Art Challenge.  I love the picture she has of herself, when she was little at the top of her Blog, I have never seen a face so CHEEKY!

First up, I started my Challenge how I ended lasted years by following a tutorial by another of my favourite Bloggers 'The Nailasaurus'. This 'Nimbus Tutorial' is a technique I've wanted to try for a while. I not only followed her tutorial but also her colour scheme, not the exact polishes, but ones that were the closest colour match.

The technique here is to paint a light coloured base coat, I used a very light pastel purple from Sinful Colours in 'Mauve'. Then pick three to four complimentary colours, I used three. Starting with the lightest first, pop a splodge on a palette or bit of plastic/foil and water it down with some acetone until it's watered down but still retains some colour. A bit like painting with water colours.

You can test it on some paper first before applying to your nails, take a cotton bud, dip it in the watered down polish and randomly apply to each nail.

Then do the same with the other two colours. To tie in the whole design The Nailasaurus recommends to use your base colour as the final colour to water down and apply to your nails. You can repeat the whole process with the colours until you get the finish you want.

Polishes I used are, Salon Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Bewitched' GOSH in 'Altered Blue' and Barry M in 'Prickly Pear'. I may have used GOSH in 'Berry Me' too. I can't remember if it was too similar to the Salon Hansen polish.

Day 2 is 'Tape Mani'! I scoured the intertubes for inspiration and wanted to try something different and challenge. I found this on Google from the Sois Polish, check out the lines on their manicure.

Mine was a combination of striping tape and having a go at hand drawing the lines, which didn't work. I love the design and colours, just a bit more practise and more time I think I could tidy up the edges. Polishes users were Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White' as the base, 2true 'Nicole' and Barry M 'Prickly Pear'. 

November Untrieds

I kept my part of the bargain and bought no further polish during the month of November. The untrieds number are on a go slow though and although there has been SOME purchases in December the total untrieds that are now trieds are 28, here's some!

Having finally received my new stampers from China, I thought I'd give them a go over Revlon's ColorStay in 'Bonsai'. Worked better than my Konad circular stamper, but as you can see here, the middle of the dots are missing, but that might have been the polish and not the stamper. Thinking about it though, I'm sure I used the stamping polish I bought from Rainbow Connection, will have to try harder!

Next up, I was very excited to try one of my Models Own HyperGel polishes from this set I bought from Superdrug for £15, very good bargain for 10 polishes at 10ml (not that much smaller that a full size Models Own Polish).

First out was this lovely bright red in 'Red Lustre'. Application was smooth and I think this was two coats and was pretty shiny without Top Coat but I can't help but apply a layer of HLK Girl to protect any mani and so that is what I did. Very impressed with the formula and the colour really popped.

This is quite sad, but I created an excel spreadsheet of all my untrieds and to try and get me to use ones I've never reached for before, I got the other half to help with creating a formula to assigned random numbers to all polishes and then sort them in numerical order. So next on my list was Sally Hansen's Extreme Wear polish in 'Kiwi Bikini' which I've probably had for nearly a year and never used. It was  pound shop purchase and I have to say I really loved the colour!

I added a few gem's which I also NEVER do and topped the whole lot of with HK Girl and have to say these babies stayed put the whole time I kept this mani on! I'll be revisiting this polish again with another colour to compliment it!

Next was another Model's Own HyperGel, this time in my favourite shade purple, and a bright shade it is too, this is 'Purple Glare'. My list was now throwing up my many Glitter toppers that have never seen the light of day so chose to use Claires 'Oscar' as an accent nail on this mani. The Glitter is Rose Gold and Gold and didn't think it would match the polish, but I think it works. Again the HyperGel polish was of equal consistency as the red I tried previously and again the colour was lovely and bright!

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! 

31 Day Challenge - Animal Print and Flowers

Well after being chuffed with my last two manicures for the challenge, I really struggled with Day 13, Animal Print. 

I wanted to do something different, and when looking through my Bundle Monster stamping plates for inspiration I came across a plate that had an Octopus on it, and some rather spectacular tentacles.

I thought, this will be a great idea! I knew what base colour I wanted to use for the sea and the glitter topper I wanted to pair it with... the trouble came with the polish to use for stamping with. I was going to aim for a deep red for the octopus, and maybe something in a metallic finish. Unfortunately all polishes in this arena either didn't show up on this base colour or just didn't stamp well. So this is what I ended up with...

Stamping with the same Barry M Foil Effect polish I used for my metallic manicure on Day 7. You can just about make out the tentacles on my thumb and on the middle finger. Trust me this was the best picture I could get, the images were just not up to scratch. 

I love this deep duo-chrome polish though. It's from Sally Hansen's lustre shine line in 'Scarab'. Perfect for mermaid or peacock nails. Just ruined by my stamping efforts.

Day 14 however proved more fruitful! The challenge was flowers and I saw this post on Pinterest and I thought this is what I'll do! 

Anyway, needless to say mine, didn't quite come out as planned but overall happy with the effect.

I used Barry M's Gelly Shine in 'Blue Grape' and Sinful Colors 'Snow me White' for the accent nail. Both great polishes, particularly impressed with the white from Sinful. I created the flowers using a dotting tool and the two polishes.

31 Day Challenge - Dots and Stripes

I'm getting more behind with my challenge but persisting as much as I can, and I have to say I think the last two days have been a breakthrough in my previous dodgy attempts at striping and nail art.

Day 11 was Dots and I tried out a few colours and combinations and came up with this!

I cannot however take the credit for this idea. I was showing the other half my practises and he said, oh they look like pebbles on the beach. So I thought, that's a top notch idea, that's what I'll base my design on. I used China Glaze 'Metro Pollen-Tin' as the base for the sand. Maybe could have been a touch deeper and browner in colour, but I went with it anyways. 

I started off with a large dotting tool for the brown in Sinful Colors 'Nirvana' and did some smaller dots in the same colour. Then I alternated between the small dotting tool and large one with black, white, silver and a darker brown. I actually liked the manicure just with the base colour and brown dots. Really happy with the way it came out!

I also had a little moment in PoundWorld and picked up my first Sally Hansen Triple Shine polishes.

Seems they have a few of these brand coming through the door, alas they had no more of the Revlon Parfumerie or ColorStay polishes. These from left to right are, 'Changing Tides', 'Grape Jelly' and 'Sparkling Water'. The middle one I hear is like the OPI Sheer Tints, the name suggests it a Jelly but you can see how sheer it is from the photo as you can see the brush.

I also popped in to Boots and they were selling Barry M, buy one and get on half price, I picked up these limited edition polishes, but I think they have been out for a while. This was going to be the original colours for my dots manicure. 

Love the caps on these, left is 'Carousel' and right is 'Bikini.' I picked up Carousel as I'd seem some gorgeous swatches on-line.

 Day 12, was stripes and I think this may be my best striping work yet! Look at these badgers!

To start off the base cost is a gorgeous purple holo from Color Club called 'Eternal Beauty' and this is the business just on it's own, without any frills. I used striping ribbon to create the design on all nails and then a small nail art brush to fill in each colour. The black is Revlon Parfumerie in 'Espresso', the dark purple OPI 'Vant to Bite my Neck' and the light purple is Rimmel Pro in 'Purple Rain'. I DO NOT want to take this design off for Day 13, especially as purple is my favourite colour and I spent some time over this! Anyway I shall have to, as tomorrow I have a few days to catch up on. Really enjoying the challenge, it's really making me practise my nail art and use all these little bottles I collect.

Next up, Animal Print (Have no idea on what to do here) and Flowers!

More Gradients with Splatter Topper

I picked up Color Shows 'White Splatter' from their Street Artist collection sometime ago and been wanting to wear it ever since, but been distracted by other bottles!

So finally got round to doing a whole mani with the polish and not just an accent nail. 

I googled it first to decide what colour I wanted to layer it over, it looked good over black, maybe a purple, lots of grey and teal colours too. So not being able to decide I thought I'd layer it over at least three in a gradient type of way.

I used, for the grey; Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Dorien Grey'. For the teal; Sinful Colors 'Savage' and for the purple China Glaze 'What a Pansy' from their latest City Flourish Summer 2014 collection. (One of three I picked up on a recent and secret trip to Sallys)

I used the sponge method to layer and overall happy with the end result, although the teal colour did over power the grey and purple due to pigment and formula being much stronger than the other two polishes. Just going to show that Sinful Color polishes being the cheapest of the three are a top notch brand, and I wish they were more available over here, along with their Sinful Shine range.

Teal Ombre Manicure

After my trip to the States and reflecting on the polishes I bought, there are two clear colours that I lean to. Blue and Purple. So in the last week I've started swatching my polishes and grouping them into colour types to review where I have duplicates and also identify polishes that I can use for an ombre manicure.

The above seems to work really well, although the lighter shades are very subtly different. For this look I used:

Thumb - Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal

Index finger - Sinful Color in Savage (This dry's matt so will need topcoat)

Middle Finger - OPI in Can't Find My Czechbook

Ring Finger - Vivo in Someday

Little Finger - Essie is Where's My Chaffeur

I'm pretty sure I can also do a similar manicure in purples too. Overall I'm happy with the effect, even though the last three nails are very similar at first glance. What I'll try next time too is using the same polish only with white added as per this post I came accross on Pinterest.

  

USA Haul

So a couple of weeks ago I went to the states for the first time, and I was excited to see what polish I could pick up over there, and at a better price in the UK.

I was limited somewhat as we didn't have a car and were reliant on public transport to get around. So I was unable to visit Target or those kind of places that tend to be on retail parks.

However we spent sometime in New York and Boston, and I was able to visit a CVS, a DUANEreade pharmacy and most importantly when in New York a Sephora! 

So then, not too much excitement on the nail front. I acquire three new polishes on my first shop at Walgreens. Two Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicures polishes (above) in 'Mermaid's Tale' and 'Black and Blue'. You can get these at home, but slightly cheaper in the States and I've had my eye on 'Mermaid's Tale' for a while.

The third was a Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Polish in the colour 'Scrab' (pictures on swatches here on the left). Gorgeous Duo Chrome that shifts from Blue to Green, great for a Mermaid manicure topped with 'Mermaid's Tale'.

My next polish purchases were from Sephora and I picked up a Deborah Lippman polish from the new 80's Summer Collection called 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. An amazing bright blue polish (below). Formula fantastic and wore really well, although I didn't base coat it as I had none with me at the time, and it stained some of my nails pretty bad.

I topped it with my other purchase Nails Inc ' Floral Street Mews' on the accent nail. I've not had a great experience with Nails Inc polishes before, but this one is a glitter with light pink and white glitter and blue and white flowers. Also swatched above on the right swatch at the front.

The last four polishes I bought were from DUANEreade and were, OPI's ' Yoga-Ta Get This Blue' (Right back in the swatch picture). In the bottle looks like a duo chrome that shifts from blue to purple but this doesn't translate on to the nail unfortunately. 

Next Sally Hansen's 'Save The Date' which is a dark plum/purple metallic with very fine shimmer (Left back in the swatch picture). 

A Milani polish, which I have never seen over here in the UK, called 'Sugar High' (Left front in the swatch picture). It has gold, peach, lime green and blue glitters. It looks like sprinkles for a cake.

The last polish I bought was Sinful Color's 'Mint Apple' a cool Blue/Green polish with a slight shimmer. Perfect from Spring/Summer and I used this for the manicure below topped with a blue/green glitter from Technic.

So all in all, 9 polishes purchases and I'd say nothing really out of the ordinary and apart from some of the Sally Hansen and the Milani nothing that you can't really get over here. 

However I did spurge on some make up at Sephora, I'll do a separate post on these. My nail varnish addiction seems to be now expanding to make up in general. I also found out that Sephora ship to the UK too for not too much money, this is bad, very bad...

Sally Hansen SugarCoat

Had a mosey in the local Poundland t'other day, and picked up a couple more of the Sally Hansen SugarCoat polishes. These are matt textured polishes and I picked up this one in 'Laughie Taffy' and a light blue one called 'Royal Icing' which is a sheer pale blue polish with a pink/gold shimmer.

Much more interesting than the other colours I have in the collection. I have swatched 'Royal Icing' and will need to layer it over another colour as I think it's too sheer to build up to be completely opaque on it's own.

They had more colours and wished I'd picked up these too, so will keep my eye out. What I love about these textured polishes is, that it's such a lazy manicure. No top coat needed! The above was two coats and I always use OPI's Nail Envy Original polish as a base. 

One thing to note, it may be a lazy manicurist's polish, but it was a BUGGER to get off! 

Mini Haul and Revlon Chroma Chameleon Mani

So I mentioned previously that I bought 16 polishes in one day, and here they are in all their glory. Starting off with the three Revlon chroma chameleon polishes. The above mani was with the 'Colbalt' colour and has a slight shift from blue to purple in the bottle, however on the nail it just looks metallic blue. I topped my accent nail off with OPI's 'Polka.com' but was a bit of a rushed mani as you can see and I've taken the polish off.

The other two polishes I bought were 'Topaz' and 'Gold'. The picture above captures the colours really well in the bottles, unfortunately the effect doesn't translate on to the nail quite as much.

The next four polishes are Sally Hansen, the two on the left are from the Xtreme Wear range and are 'Kiwi Bikini' and 'Pinch of Punch'. The two on the right are from the Sugar Coat range and are both matt textured polishes, the black is call 'Lick-O-Rich and the yellow is 'Sweetie'. I've not worn any of these, but I think I'll give the yellow an outing in the Spring/Summer.

All these polishes so far were a £1 each Pound Land including the seven Sinful Color's below. Only the brown in these polishes claims to be a Matt polish however most of the colours when swatched seem to be too. Not a problem for me as I top coat everything anyway.

The Fuchsia colour at the front of each picture is called 'Dream On' and is gorgeous bright fuchsia colour, I've not captured it well on these pictures as it's much much brighter.

Left picture shows from left to right, 'Ruby Ruby', 'Timbleberry' (A lovely coral colour), 'I Miss You' (A blue, silver, and purple glitter is a purple base) and 'Dream On'.

Right picture from left to right 'Dream On', 'Savage', 'Nirvana' (The matt brown polish) and 'Cool Gray' which I used in my second geometric manicure.

Swatch above shows from left to right, 'Nirvava', 'Timbleberry', 'Dream On', 'I Miss You' and 'Savage'. The colours again aren't true to the polishes themselves and I'm starting to lose the light now, but you can see these have a matt finish.

The last two polishes I bought were GOSH in 'Berry Me' a gorgeous burgundy/purple polish and Color Show 'Nearly Black' which is a matt textured polish from their Crystallize range. (Swatch on the right). It has purple, teal and gold micro glitter in a dark brown base. Interestingly enough I thought this polish was the same as a matt glitter polish I bought from GOSH called 'Frosted Plum'. I swatched them both when doing this blog post to compare. Turns out the GOSH polish is an exact dupe of Barry M's 'Countess' from their latest textured range. I cannot tell the difference!

So that was my 16 polishes in one day adventure. Most at a bargain price, keep checking out your local Pound Shops they seem to get new polishes in all the time and both of the Sally Hansen polishes I have never seen before. The Color Show was buy one Maybelline product and get another half price at Superdrug so that cost me £2 and the only polish I paid full whack for was the GOSH. But I really wanted a polish in exactly this colour. 

All in all a successful shopping trip and I endeavour to wear them all within the next couple of months, so far I've worn 4 so not bad. I have some work to do...

Geometric Nails - Part 2

I have a confession to make. 

When shopping the other week.

 I bought 16 polishes in one day! 

However... 14 of these were from Pound Land and included the above Sinful Colors polish in 'Cool Gray'.

Pound Land have a great selection of Sinful Colors, the Boots near me who were carrying the brand seem to have discontinued them and no longer do. I bought several Sinful Colors, 3 of the Revlon Chameleon polishes, 2 Sally Hansen Sugar Coats (a textured polish) and 2 Sally Hansen Extreme Wear polishes which I've never seen anywhere in the UK before.

So work night out in Manchester and I chose the above manicure, could have spent a little more time on these as the blue was a little messy. I used scotch tape to create the triangles and Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in 'Blue Rose'. Might be why the blue is so messy, the brushes on these polishes are like shovels.

Other news, started to see people talking about the new OPI Sheer Tints polishes, these are coloured top coats that you can layer over each other and other polishes. Temped to buy the minis set to try them out which you can get at Amazon. However I came across the post on Pinterest on how to make your own Sheers Tints Polishes. 

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...

Shatter the Scales

Another purchase from Poundland, this time a green glittery Shatter polish by OPI in the colour 'Shatter the Scales'. 

I noticed that eBay now has a flood of these Shatter Glitters from OPI being sold, so it looks like stocks may be low in any stores now.

Any-hoo I layered this lovely Green Shatter over Sally Hansens complete manicure polish called 'Dorien Grey' and overall very happy with the results. Think for Christmas this would be very festive layered over a red polish.