Autumnal Jelly Nail Look

Years ago I saw a nail look on Pinterest and wanted to try it. If you look for nail looks on Pinterest then you’ve probably come across it. It’s with an orange jelly polish with leaves stamped in between layers. It took a while for me to source out the original link but I think it was from SaltyStyle Nails. I tried to recreate it last year stamping but I’m rubbish at it. I also tried punching out leaf shapes from strips of dried nail polish but it was a mess.

This year I decided to try again but this time with nail stickers from Ali Express! I’m happy with how it turned out, it’s not the same as the original but it’s still pretty.

The polish I used was Maybelline Color Show in Edgy Tangy, with the nail stickers between layers of polish. I’ll definitely try it again next year, I think it’ll be a staple autumn look for me every year.

Dry Brush Nail Art

I was at a wedding last month and decided to not just paint my nails for the event but to do some ~*nail art*~. It’s been a while since I’ve just done my nails, let alone tried some nail art. It’s something I’ve loved in the past but I’ve found it hard to be inspired recently. I decided to try dry brush nail art for the first time in colours that complimented my dress which had flowers of soft pink and peach with some pops of brighter pink and dark green leaves.

I bought the dress in Wallis last year, it’s so pretty! They have a lot of similiar things in this year too, they are really liking their floral prints.

 

Polishes used

Catrice LE Hollywood’s Fabulous 40ties in The Nude Scene

NYC in Lincoln Square Lavender

Maybelline Color Show in Peach Bloom

Maybelline Color Show in Vivid Rose

Catrice in Emerald Bay

I used two coats of Catrice The Nude Scene, a beautiful nude pink (limited edition, I’ll be so upset when it runs out!) as te base colour. For the dry brush technique, you dip your brush in your secondary colour, brush off most the polish onto a piece of scrap paper and then brush the almost dry brush onto your nails. Repeat with other colours! Now you can just use the brush from the nail polish to do this and it probably would be easier to do that. I used a fan brush so my colour pay off wasn’t that intense. In fact I think this might be a way to do marble nails. As it is my nails reminded me of the hallway walls my dad did in the 90s, I think he dabbed the paint on over the base coat! I would like to do this again with a black base, it make it more like the dress I wore but I like the one above. It was pretty subtle because the colours used were similiar to the base colour.

Pink Power Rangers Nail Art

When the Power Rangers first came out, it was instant love. I don’t know why but as a 7 year old I lived for it. I used to get out of bed at 7am to watch it before school. I used to pretend with my cousin we were the Power Rangers and jumped and kicked around the room while acting out scenes. I got banned from watching it for a while because I used to high kick my brother too much!

So with the new movie out today I thought I’d do some nail art. I’m excited and nervous about the movie, I’m not sure if I want to go see it in case it ruins my precious childhood memories! I went through phases of wanting to be the Pink Power Ranger and wanting to be the Yellow Power Ranger. I decided on pink for the nail art though.

Polishes Used

Pink- 17 Ultimate Shine in Miami

White- Barry M Nail Art Pen in White

Black- Barry M Hi-Shine Gelly in Black Forest

St.Patrick’s Day Nails 2017

Happy St.Patrick’s Day everyone! I bought this glitter nail polish about 11 months ago when shopping with a friend and she thought I’d completely forget about it once Paddy’s Day rolled on by. Luckily I remembered!

Green Polish- Catrice in Hugo Moss

Glitter Top Coat- Claire’s Accessories Nail Polish in Sham-Rock My Heart

The glitter top coat is lots of fun, it’s packed with gold flakies, green hex pieces and two different coloured green shamrocks. It was very awkward though to get the shamrocks, it took a lot of fishing to get them on the brush. I do like it though, next year I think I’ll try putting it over white!

PS Nail Polish in Burnt Orange

Hello! Happy New Year's Eve everyone. I should probably be posting a more sparkly New Year's Eve nail look but I'm currently in London and I wanted to continue showing some of the polishes I showed in the December Nail Polish Haul post. So far I've showed the Essence Little X-Mas Factory polishes, the Barry M 2016 A/W Superdrug Exclusives, the Essence Colour of the Year in Jeans On! and the Barry M Jingle Bells polish. Phew! Not bad for someone who is usually dreadful at showing the polishes after I've done a haul post. Today's nails are the PS Nail Polish in Burnt Orange.

I have a few PS Nail Polishes but haven't used them a lot. They are usually good though for picking up on trend colours and when I saw Burnt Orange I had to have it! Yes, it's more of an autumn colour, the reason it drew my attention is because it reminded me of Essie's Playing Koi, as well as giving me the same kind of vibes as Essence's Colour of the Year My Love Diary. While I haven't got my hands on Playing Koi to compare them, I don't think they're going to be a dupe, but close enough.

I probably won't be turning to this much now that autumn is over but it'll always be there for next year. Speaking of, I hope you have a great New Year's Eve and a Happy New Year to you!

Christmas Nails With Barry M Jingle Bells

Hello! I hope you've all had a nice week or so, whether you're celebrating Christmas or not. I get more and more excited when Christmas rolls around each other and I plan on doing things like Christmas nails. But I never give myself enough time to do so. Next year hopefully I'll be more organised but I did manage to do some nail looks. First off there was the Essence The Little X-Mas Factory collection I showed as well as the Barry M Superdrug Exclusives for this winter. I also managed to pick up one of Barry M's 2014 Superdrug exclusives, I showed it in a nail polish haul. I don't know why I didn't pick it up or some of the others I missed out on that year (I did pick up Twilight and Starlight). Jingle Bells is definitely one of my favourites this Christmas and I did three looks with it.

This is it over Meet Me Under the Mistletoe from the Essence Little X-Mas Factory collection. I don't tend to go for darker greens but I'm super glad I picked it up this. I love that you get all the traditional Christmas colours in this look and it's so fun. I will definitely be recreating this next year!

This is over Let's Take an Elfie from the Essence Little X-Mas Factory collection. If I hadn't that Essence polish I would have put it over a pure white but what I love about the Essence one is that it adds an extra bit of shimmer and sparkle to the look.

This is the above look but I've made it into a crelly look (so similar to a jelly but using a semi opaque polish to give it a milky look). I love crelly polishes but find it's more indies that make them and they're harder for me to get. So I DIYd it by adding a very sheer Essence polish I had on top of the glitter and I love how it tones down the glitter a bit but it's still sparkly and fun.

Next year I'll be more organised with more looks! Do you have a favourite polish or look for this time of the year? Leave a comment below and let me know

Essence Colour of the Year Polish in Jeans Ons!

So I’ve made two Colour of the Year posts this year. The first was my nail polish picks for the colours Rose Quartz and Serenity. The second post was the Essence Polish of the Year polish they brought out the shade Forgive Me for the Rose Quartz shade. I didn’t think they’d bring out one for Serenity but low and behold, when I was looking at the Essence stand the other I noticed that this polish, Jeans On!, had a Colour of the Year sticker on it! It would have been nice to have both Forgive Me and Jeans On! in the same post but this will have to do.

It’s a pretty shade and a good enough match for Serenity, more on the periwinkle side of blue than a baby blue which was key for a Serenity match.

While I kinda liked the idea of Rose Quartz and Serenity at the beginning of the year, half way through my interest fell. I had planned to do loads of nail looks with the colours but I just couldn’t motivate myself to do so. However the 2017 shade has been announced and it’s called Greenery. It’s a beautiful bright lushious green, I’m very excited about it. Also Butter London have brought out an official collaborative shade which is awesome! They also have 5 other Pantone shades and they’re all lovely looking. Buttercream is calling my name and Calypso Coral looks like a lovely coral shade (not that I need any more!).

Essence The Little X-Mas Factory Nail Polishes in Meet Me Under the Mistletoe and Let’s Take an Elfie

Hello! So I showed some nail polishes I’ve acquired over the last month or so in my post two days ago and I’ve actually managed to take some swatch pictures of them! I know, shocking times. I have two polishes out of the Essence The Little X-Mas Factory limited edition collection. I picked up the green and the white polishes and there’s also a bright pink one and a gold one.

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe is a beautiful pine green, it’s a lovely colour for this time of the year. It’s not a colour I typically gravitate towards but something about this really caught my attention. I used two coats here.

 

Let’s Take an Elfie is a shimmery white polish. It kinda reminded me of a sparkly version of the icing on top of a Christmas cake! It’s a beautiful polish but I found it a bit difficult to work with. The 2nd coat would start to strip off part of the 1st coat and things ended up patchy. It was worth it in the end though! I can’t remember if I used two or three coats above. If you can get it to work ok for you, then two coats will be enough. But you might need three to make sure it’s fully opaque.

These two polishes are great additions to my Christmas polish collection. There’s a hand full of polishes I have that are perfect for this time of the year and these will be added to those. Let me know below what polishes you like to use this time of the year.

December Nail Polish Haul

Hello! So I was looking at the nail polish I’ve bought recently and realised I’ve managed to pick up a nice amount of new polishes and thought I’d show them on here. I’ve picked them up in Superdrug, Boots, Penneys, Claire’s Accessories and Dealz.

The first four polishes are Superdrug exclusives for Barry M. The first two, Nutcracker (the bright pink one) and Twinkle Twinkle (the rose gold one), are the two autumn/winter Superdrug exclusives (Boots have two as well). The next two, Gingerbread (warm bronzes) and Icicle (sparkly topcoat), were a free gift once you spent a certain amount on Barry M products. The Gelly Hi Shine is Blackforest, the first black Gelly from Barry M. I picked it up in Boots when I was buying something else and I had a voucher to use. The final one is Jingle Bells. It was the Superdrug autumn/winter exclusive for 2014, which I didn’t pick up at the time (I did get one of the Boots and the Tesco one) but when I saw this one in Dealz (Poundland) I snapped it up!

 

The first two polishes are from Essence and their Little X-Mas Factory limited edition colllection. There’s four polishes and I got Meet Me Under the Mistletoe (the green) and Let’s Take an Elfie (sparkly white). The other two polishes are a gold and bright pink. The next polish is a PS Nail Polish from Penneys/Primark in Burnt Orange which also describes the type of shade it is! I picked it up as it reminded me of Playing Koi by Essie, though I don’t think it’s a dupe. The next two are from China Glaze and I picked them up in Dealz. They are Mistletoe Kisses (green glitter) and Glistening Snow (silver glitter). Mistletoe Kisses is from the 2010 Holiday Collection and Glistening Snow is from the 2012 Holiday Collection. I picked up the Claire’s Liquid Metal in Rose Gold because there was an offer on that day and it was less than half price. Of course, just after my Essence Colour of the Year post with the Rose Quartz shade, they then brought out a blue one. This is called Jeans On! and it’s their pick for Serenity. Finally this PS Metals comes in a range of shades, this is the silver one. I have previously picked up the rose gold one too.

Phew! Lots of polishes, including some good scores from Dealz! It can pay to have a good root around every now and again. I have some posts planned to show off some of these but if you have any requests for swatches let me know in the comments below.

Sinful Colors Kylie Trends Mattes in Kitty Pink

Hello! I have a few bad habits when it comes to this blog. One is buying nail polish with the intention of putting up swatches or nail art, taking the pictures but not putting tem up. The other is showing nail polish in a haul post and then never showing it in a later post. Today’s post combines both! I bought this in LA and showed it in my US Beauty Haul, got delayed in taking swatch pictures and then when I finally did forgot about posting it up!

Anyway! I wish Sinful Colors was easier to find over this side of the pond. All the Sinful Colors I have were sent to me from America, bought by myself over there or found in discount stores here. The Kylie Trends Mattes range was lovely, I especially liked Kitty Pink as it was so soft and luxurious looking. I wore it a lot recently as it was just so chic.

It can look a bit streaky because of the matte effect but with practice you can get it to look right. I’ve also heard of putting a glossy top coat over it to smooth everything out and then a matte top coat over that to get the matte effect again but that can be hard work. You can also just put a glossy top coat to a shiny effect which is also very pretty. This collection reminds me of the Essie Cashmere Matte collection, though having never tried any of the Essie polishes I can’t comment for sure on that. This polish is something I think I’ll be picking up more this winter as it’s matte finish really makes me think of cosy soft jumpers!

Cupcake and Confetti Birthday Nails

On Wednesday it was my birthday and I couldn’t resist doing some cute birthday nails. I took inspiration for the cupcake from this nail look by 25 Sweetpeas and the confetti from this nail look by With Love Karissa . Here’s my take!

 

I’m just so in LOVE with these nails! I love the ‘ice cream shades’ used (what I like to call pastel nail colours), it’s something so bright and fun especially for this time of the year. Here’s the cast of characters I used to create this look.

Background- Essence in Sweet As Candy

Yellow Confetti- No. 7 in Lemon Drop

Purple Confetti and Cupcake Base- Essence in Hello Marshmallow!

Pink Confetti and Cupcake Cherry- 17 in Miami

Mint Confetti- Essence in That’s What I Mint!

Blue Confetti- 17 in Azure Amore

Cupcake Frosting- Models Own Hyper Gel in White Light

Cupcake Base Details- Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine in Guava

I also used Barry M Nail Art Pen in Pink for the sprinkles

I might just have to do this again next year as I love it so much. Could be my go to birthday mani!

Pumpkin Nails- One Design, Three Ways

Hello! So I’ve done pumpkin nails before but I had it in my head to do pumpkin nails similiar to the strawberry and pineapple nails I did in my Tutti Fruity look. The three ways are with a shiny top coat, with a matte top coat and as an accent nail.

 

Shiny Top Coat

 

Matte Top Coat

 

Accent Nail

To do the nails, I used a small dotting tool. For each pumpkin I did two dots slightly overlapping to try and make the pumpkin shape. I then used a small brush to paint on the yellow for definition and to add stems in green. After I had done the nails with a shiny top coat I wanted to see what it was like matte, which I liked so much more! My favourite is probably the accent nail though, I loved the shiny orange polish on the other nails.

Polishes Used

White- Model’s Own Hyper Gel in White Light

Orange-Catrice Ultimate Nail Lacquer in MAN, GO Tango

Yellow- NYC Quick Dry Nail Polish in Lexington Yellow

Green- Wet N Wild Spoiled in Permission To Proceed (ES040)

Shiny Orange- Rimmel Cocktail Colour in a Flash in Shirley Temple

Shiny Top Coat- Catrice Quick Dry and High Shine Top Coat

Matte Top Coat- Wet N Wild Matte Top Coat

 

With still over a week left before Halloween I hope to have one or two more nail looks up before then. I still have loads of ideas rattling around in my head!

Autumnal Dotty Manicure

Hello! I love autumn themed nail looks. Reds, oranges, yellows are so nice together, jewel tones come back in and then there’s Halloween. So many different looks you can do. I did an Autumn Blaze look 2 years ago and I still love it. So I wanted to do something with a similar colour scheme.

 

For the base I used SoSu Nail Polish in Icing on the Cake. The yellow was by La Femme Beauty (I can’t find any name or number for it but it the bottle I’m holding), the orange is Catrice in MAN, GO Tango and the red is Revlon in Frankly Scarlet. The red has a slight shimmer to it which I really liked but couldn’t pick up on the camera.

 

Gold Glitter Nails

I follow many nail art people on YouTube but I don’t follow many on Instagram. One I do follow though is Sveta Sanders. She makes nail art look sooooo easy! Last month she posted a beautiful gold nail with a blue and purple jewel tone gradient glitter and I just fell in love with it. You can see the original by clicking here but below I have my take on the look. Well, they say imitation is a form of flattery. I just couldn’t not try it!

Products Used

Gold- Revlon in Gold Coin

Blue- Milani One Coat Glitter in Blue Flash

Purple- Essence Special Effect! Topper in Only Purple Matters

I did as Sveta did, used the gold as a base coat, sponged on the blue glitter and then the purple glitter followed by a top coat. It’s such a pretty look! I couldn’t stop looking at my nails. It’s perfect for autumn too if you don’t want to go with typical berry shades and it’ll also be great for Christmas!

If you have any nailish bloggers, YouTubers or Instagram peeps let me know below! I’m always on the look out for more inspiration. And if you haven’t seen any of Sveta Sanders yet then do yourself a favour and check her out!

Essence Colour of the Year Polish 2016 in Forgive Me

Hello! So every year there’s hype and interest over the Pantone Colour of the Year and I personally love to see nail polish in this colour. This year there was not one but two colours. Rose Quartz, a baby pink colour and Serenity, a periwinkle blue. I already blogged some of my nail polish picks for these shades a few months back, you can check those out here.

For the past few years Essence has been on this trend and releases a shade that matches the Colour of the Year. This year I’ve only seen one polish on the stands, a pink for Rose Quartz. I have no idea if they’ve released on that matches Serenity, I hope they have though.

Colours of the Year for 2013 (Emerald), 2014 (Radiant Orchid), 2015 (Marsala) and 2016 (Rose Quartz)

I have a post Purple Sugar the 2014 polish which you can see here, as well as My Love Diary the 2015 shade which you can see here. Let’s have a closer look at this years shade.

        

I think it’s a pretty good match for Rose Quartz. In my polish picks for Pantone Colour of the Year post I did I picked a different Essence shade called Sweet as Candy but it was a bit too light for my liking. This one is probably a bit darker than Rose Quartz but it’s still pretty close.

It’s a really nice shade and these polishes are always so shiny. The price ain’t bad either! I can’t remember the exact price but these polishes are always under €2. I do think I prefer last year’s colour but more because of the time of year these polishes come out.

Jelly Sandwich Nail Art with Maybelline Color Show Jelly Tints

Hello! The other day I showed my swatches of the new Maybelline Color Show collection, the Jelly Tints. I mentioned that I wanted to do some Jelly Sandwich nail art so off I went! I used the Fuchsianista shade, a lovely raspberry pink.

 

I used a macro lens for my iPhone to take the last shot, which I love! To do this Jelly Sandwich I did one layer of the Jelly Tint, one layer of Essence Effect Party Jewels in Party Never Ends, another layer of the Jelly Tint, another layer of the Essence polish and then a final layer of the Jelly Tint. Doing it in thin layers helps the multidimensional effect. I LOVED staring at my nails when I had this one and I got a few compliments too! I can’t wait to try more sandwich looks with different glitter polishes with different shapes and sizes. And to try it matte as well, glitter nails look so pretty when mattified!

Maybelline Color Show Jelly Tints Swatches

Hello! Last month I showed a beauty haul featuring the latest Color Show collections.

They’re Jelly Tints, so the polishes are sheer. I thought they were going to be like the OPI Sheer Tints but when I compared them the Sheer Tints are a lot more sheer so I think these are supposed to be more like the OPI Color Paints, sheer but buildable. From left to right above are Grapefruity, Berry Merry, Fuchsianista and Edgy Tangy.

This is Berry Merry, I love blackcurranty shade that isn’t as deep as it looks in the bottle. I used 3 coats and I can’t wait to wear this when the weather is more autumny as it’s beautiful.

Next is Fuchsianista, a gorgeous raspberry shade. I’m a sucker for raspberry shades, I have a cardigan that this colour which I love. Again I used 3 coats.

Next is Edgy Tangy, a zesty orange shade. As with the others I used 3 coats but it pretty sheer. I think this will be perfect for layering over other shades to change the colour.

Finally there’s Grapefruity, which is just like its name, a grapefruit shade. This is the perfect shade for summer, it’s like a jelly polish equivalent of neon shades. As with the 3 above this is 3 coats.

I really love this collection, I like jelly finish polishes and really want to try more ‘jelly sandwich’ nail art. I tried my first one a 3 years ago which you can find here. Then I tried it for a Valentine’s Day look this year. But other than that I haven’t really tried it, despite wanting to and saving quite a few looks on Pinterest. The only gripe I have with this collection is the colours are quite samey. Instead of 3 pinky-purpley shades, a different colour tone might have been nice like a blue or green. But I do think the 3 shades above are different enough. It seems like these jelly tint nail polishes are all the rage now as Barry M have brought out a similar range called Lolly Gloss. The magpie in me want to get them as well!