This week I received my second box of goodies from nailbox and was very impressed with what I found inside. Apparently nailbox usually post about the content of their monthly subscription service but this month was a mystery with the teaser of a Tropical Theme.
Here's what was inside!
OPI - Kiss Me I'm Brazilian
Barry M - Need for Speed
China Glaze - White on White
Elegant Touch - Cuticle Eliminator
AND a MoYou Tropical Stamping Plate and Squishy Stamper
Here's the plate with images in full:
These images are slightly smaller that some of the ones I've seen on other MoYou plates, but plenty big enough for my little nails. I did a couple of stamping manicures with this and the squidgy stamper you also get in this box works a treat.
Here was my first go, I painted a black base and then used two MoYou stamping polishes I already had in pink and blue to stamp with and create this gradient stamping. I fancied a matt look so popped a matt top coat over the whole caboodle to finish the look.
Rather pleased with the overall effect. Then I decided to use the polishes in the box to create a new manicure with palm trees.
First I painted my nails with two coats of China Glaze 'White on White' let those dry and then sponged the Barry M and OPI polishes over the top to create the gradient. The Barry M was picking up the previous gradient layer, not sure if this was due to it being a quick dry polish or if my white base wasn't completely dry. So I sponged the gradient three times to get the colours bright. I also used a liquid latex to cover my cuticles before sponging the gradient. Much less clean up.
I topped coated with HK Girl and as it was late, left the stamping bit for the next morning.
I used all three palm tree designs from the Plate and I also wanted some birds in the design too, but didn't have any stamping plates suitable, so just painted these on free hand. Then when dry just finished off with a regular top coat as I didn't want to smudge the design.
As for the polishes the OPI and China Glaze as always were spot on. The China Glaze was a little runny so make sure you do thin coats as it will pool in your cuticle if you load the brush up with polish. Also my step daughter painted her nails with the Barry M polish and it dried super quick.
Well done nailbox I love what you sent me this month, and what I'm also super impressed with is that as I have A LOT of polish, so far not received anything I have already!
Can't wait till August's box. Have you subscribed to nailbox, and what do you think of the service and what designs have you created with this months Tropical Treat?
So I'm venturing into the scary world of water marbling once more, and this time it WORKED! I think the trick here was that I left a bottle of tap water in the house for a good few days so it was well and truly at room temperature.
I've seen quite a few Vloggers now doing watermarbling designs with clear polish as this one does. Some brands now are selling specific clear polish to water marble with but I used Essie's all in one base coat and top coat for my water marble which worked fine and I think Colette used a regular top coat too. Just don't use a quick dry top coat like Seche Vite or HK Girl as it won't work.
I copied Colette's colour scheme gradient to start off with, using the following polishes:
Purple - Orly Be Daring
Blue - Nails Inc Kensington Park Road
Yellow - Orly Glowstick
Then I did my water marble using China Glaze 'Liquid Leather' as Colette does in her manicure and the Essie All in One base and top coat and when I had cleaned up I topped with China Glaze 'Fairy Dust'.
Some nails came out better than others, but overall I'm really happy with my attempt, especially the thumb nail in the picture above. I'm also less scared of having a go at water marbling again, although it is still a bit messy!
For some reason I've become a big fan of animal print things lately. I used to really hate any thing animal printy, but it's become less tacky now especially with the interpretations and colour mixes you can now get rather that the old fashioned Bet Lynch leopard print.
Double Leopard print, this has to be a worse fashion faux par than Double Denim.
Anyway, I spotted (no pun intended) this polish in Claire's sometime ago and kept revisiting it, so last time I was in there with the 3 for 2 offer I thought I'd pick it up. I've never seen a polish with Leopard print shaped glitters in it. Here's what it looks like...
and here's the extreme close up...
The polish was a little gloopy and it took a little fishing to get the leopard shaped glitters out, but once you started they were like buses and you seemed to get two or three at once. In fact the shot above looks like I have two layered together.
Not sure I like this look so next time I'll try this over a lighter colour. Also I think I'll just pick out the leopard shaped glitters and place them on my nail leaving out the flakies. Needless to say, this was a bugger to get off the nail. Acetone and foil was required and some picking at the bigger glitters. Let's see if I can make this polish work with some thinner and nail placement.
How do you created your animal print nails? Do you stamp, free hand or use wraps, let me know what you find works best.
My Neon order has arrived and I've been trying out some bright nails. I ordered these little bottles of happiness from The Nail and Beauty Link who have the best prices I've seen for Orly polishes. All prices as shown on the website are without VAT, so these came to £6 each. From left to right these are:
Glow Stick
Risky Behaviour
Be Daring
Fireball
Strictly again you could say some of these aren't true neons, GlowStick definitely is and is described as a true highlighter yellow. I've not gotten round to wearing all of these lovely polishes yet, however as purple is my favourite colour, I chose 'Be Daring' to wear first!
Gorgeous, gorgeous bright purple, and considering that I have many, many purple polishes and is probably the colour I have most of, I don't already have this shade. As will most Orly polishes the formula and brush were up to the job and this was opaque in two coats.
I think I'll try a gradient with the other colours and maybe a go at water marbling like this amazing manicure from My Simple Little Pleasures.
Wish me luck, not had much luck with water marbling, but hopefully using just two polishes I may get away with!
Here's my other polish purchases I made last week in Manchester from Urban Outfitters, I love their W.I.P polishes and the neon yellow was only £3 in their sale, the shade is very similar to Orly's Glow Stick but this one has a shimmer running through it too.
The other two I picked up where Glitter polishes and these are 'Bits N Bobs' which is a lovely mix of all types of glitter in neon yellow, white and green. The polish at the front on the right is called 'Mardis Gras' and you can see that it's an explosion of all different colours and sizes of Hex glitter. Can't wait to try these, not sure what I'm going to do with them yet!
Last week some of my favourite nail Vloggers did a collab video on their favourite neon polishes. This is a colour and style I've never sported myself as I often opt for dark vampy shades but for some reason these videos rekindled my nail polish addiction and I hunted down some the top polishes they picked and raided my collection to see if I had anything I could sport until my new bottles arrived.
Seemed I had a few polishes that claimed to be 'Neon' but the jury seems to be out on what each person considered a neon polish to be and don't even start on Neon Pastels.
This is Nails Inc 'Kensington Park Road', it's probably not a true neon as it's a blue, but it sure is BRIGHT. I layered this over a white base too in order to make it pop. (Again the jury is out on whether you need to layer a true neon over a white base or not).
I also found a Nails Inc polish in a bright Orange Neon called 'Optic Flame' but my mani chipped quickly and my pointer finger on my left hand that I'd been patching for a week broke off very low so lovely swatching pictures weren't to be...
However some of my Neon polishes have NOW arrived, so I need to create some eye smarting manicures with them and share them with you all!
In the meantime, I took a trip to Primark and purchased some of their £1 stick on nails to cover the ruination that is my nails at, they seem to be breaking quite easily at the moment. These have lasted a day so far although my thumb nail did ping off, but was quickly stuck back on with no bother.
Love these little bright triangles, have a thing about triangles at the mo, not sure why! Let's see how long these last! Next stop NeonVille!
Do you love or loathe Neons? Let me know in the comments below and also what you think about Primark Nail products as whole? I have quite a few polishes too, and for a £1 I think their formula's and colours are really good, undecided on the stick on nails though...
In June I stumbled upon nailbox, the first nail polish subscription service in the UK. I'd missed two boxes already so was keen to sign up and see what I'd receive, this was something I'd been looking for...
Nailbox ship their boxes out in the 21st of each month and I picked up mine from the Royal Mail Depo on the 25th as it had been delivered when I was at work and I think needed to be signed for. This is what was inside...
Each box contains four full size bottles of nail varnish and a nail care item. In June the polishes were:
Essie - Roarrrange (A bright orange creme)
Seche Vite - Fast Drying Top Coat
Tanya Burr -Mischief Managed (Red Creme)
Nails Inc - Colville Mews (Nude Creme)
The nail care item was some cuticle nippers from Elegant Touch which I haven't tried yet and I do try not to cut my cuticles.
I used ALL the polishes to create a gradient starting off with the Nails Inc polish as my base and sponging on the other polishes to create the following manicure.
I'm familiar with Essie and Nails Inc as brands but hadn't tried any of Nails Inc Gel Effect polishes before, the colour was lovely. The red and the orange worked great for the gradient and blended well.
The only couple of complaints I have was that the cap on my Nails Inc bottle perhaps wasn't on tight enough and the bottle top was crusty when taking out the brush which left the polish a little on the thick side, some polish thinner sorted that out. I also wasn't keen on the brush in the Essie polish, I've not had a problem with Essie brushes before, it just seemed a little fanned out.
I was impressed with the Tanya Burr polish having never used this brand before. I topped it all off with Seche Vite which I have used many time before and a new bottle does wonders to blend and dry the gradient.
Overall, very happy with my first box, looking forward to seeing what's in Julys. Have you subscribed to nailbox? If so tell me what you thought of this month's box.
A little while ago I was nominated by The Polish Magpie for a Liebster Award! I've been a bit tardy with my Blog and only saw the nomination this week.
I've never heard of a Liebster Award and wondered what it was. Basically it's a great way way to find new blogs to follow, and to get to know the bloggers better. The idea is that you are tagged by a blogger, who asks you 11 questions that you have to answer. You then tag another 11 blogs, who should all have less than 200 followers each and ask them 11 new questions of your choice.
So thank you so much to The Polish Magpie for nominating me, here are my answers to the questions you asked!
1. What made you start a blog?
I wanted to share photo’s of the nail art I did and also write about the nail polishes and techniques that I tried. I hope that people find my blog inspirational and get some great ideas as I have from other Bloggers. Also if it helps some people choose polishes they want to buy and for a bargain price that would be great too.
2. Where do you get your nail art/make-up inspiration from?
Online mostly, from the Bloggers I follow in particular The Nailasaurus, The Crumpet and Chalkboard Nails, also I love OhMyGosh Polish on YouTube and if you want to see an expert Water Marbler check out MySimpleLittlePleasures.
Pinterest is great too and also the facebook Groups that I’m a member of, some of the designs other members do are mind boggling and what really puts us to the test is the Nail Art Challenges that some of the girls organise.
3. What polishes are at the top of your want-to-buy list?
I really want to get my hands on some ILNP bottles, their Ultra Chrome Flakies look the business. I’d also like to get my sticky little mitts on A NIght In Vegas collection from Pipe Dreams polish, as so many people say these are GREAT for water marbling. I’m currently trying to track down some Mundo De Unas polishes too which I hear are great for stamping.
4. Honesty time – How many untrieds to you have in your stash?
This year I’ve been making a concerned effort to use my untrieds and since January I have used 99 of them. However with a few new additions, at last count I still have 159 untrieds in my collection. Going through them has made me realise that many of them are glitters or effect polishes, which makes me think I NEED more cream polishes especially for nail art.
5. Indie or mainstream?
I'd have to say mainstream, I was quite late to the party with Indie polishes and many Indie polishes are hard to come by over here in the UK. Rainbow Connection though is a god send and I ordered my first few indies from here along with finding other UK polish makers such as Stellar Nails and EffieNas Nail Polish on the facebook Groups I'm a member of.
6. What’s your nail & cuticle care routine like?
Not as good as it should be. I wear nail polish ALL the time, so my nails have become a little discoloured and I’ve been trying to whiten them with all different types of techniques. I’ve used the whitening tooth paste trick, soaking my nails in lemon juice and baking soda. I bought a whitening treatment from Amazon which didn’t seem to do the trick either really and finally my local Sallys started stocking some Bubble White which is specifically for whitening nails. I think this has finally made a difference.
As often as I can I use Sally Hansens Gel Cuticle remover and pop this on all over the nail and leave for around 8-10 minutes, then I scrape this off my nail and push my cuticles back with a pusher. If the cuticles are getting too unruley I’ll go and treat myself to a manicure and colour. I’m just getting round to using more cuticle creams and oils as my cuticles are very dry, it’s just getting into the habit of using these every day.
7. Is there a nail art technique that you haven’t tried yet, that you’d really like to? Or one you’d really like to improve?
I really need to practise more WaterMarbling, I’ve not perfected this technique yet although I have tried it a few times. Also I’ve only tried to make my own Decals through stamping and reverse stamping only once, I REALLY want to be good at these. Not sure if my current stamping polishes and stamper at up the challenge or if it’s just me being crap!
8. Any brands that you would really like to try, but haven’t yet?
Yes loads, many are US Brands that aren’t easily available over here in the UK, here’s my hit list:
ILNP (US Indie Polish)
Mundo De Unas (Mexican Stamping Polishes)
Pipe Dreams Polish
Emily de Molly
Virago Varnish
9. You can take 5 polishes with you to the desert island. Which 5 do you pick?
I did a post on my blog not that long ago about my Top 5 Polishes, so I guess I’d have to pick these:
Deborah Lippmann - Video Killed The Radio Star
Barry M - Persian
Color Show - Rose Chic
OPI - Love, Peace and OPI
Orly - Oui
10. What got you started in nail art?
That question is easy, this video by Pack a Punch Nails.
11. Tell us 3 random facts about yourself.
1) They filmed a movie (I think for TV) about Frankenstein and Carrie Fisher was in it. They filmed some scenes in a little North Yorkshire village called Ripley, where I went to Primary school. All the pupils and I were used as extras in the film. Some photo’s were taken and one with me in it was used on the inside cover of TV times.
2) I used to host a alternative music show in a local Community radio station called RedShift Radio every Sunday called the Sunday Session. We had a funk feature and every week played a 90’s anthem.
3) I have run 4 marathons, two in Scotland and two in Berlin, Germany.
I’m going to nominate the following blogs, some I already love to follow and read and some I just started to follow:
Now for the next bit, here are my 11 questions for my nominated bloggers. 1. What do you love most about Blogging? 2. What is your Top Tip for creating a neat and tidy manicure? 3. Where and when do you do your manicures? 4. What are your top 5 favourite brands? 5. What manicure have you been most proud of to date? (post a picture if you want) 6. Why do you love nail varnish and painting your nails? 7. What nail or hand care treatment can you not do without? 8. If you were to create your own nail polish brand, what would you call it? 9. What is your favourite nail art technique and why? 10. How many polishes do you own? 11. What other creative things do you like to do?
I'm hoping to learn a few things and looking forward to the answers above.
Thank you so much to The Polish Magpie for her questions, I've really enjoyed answering these questions and creating my own. You can see her original post here and don't for get to visit the blogs above to check out their answers.
