Winter holly + feminine distressed nails

Hello there fine people, I hope you're having a great time. Genuinely, like I was meant to be posting a bit more but I've been loving the chilling that's been happening. I guess I actually have things to do as well which is weird too. This was my Christmas manicure :/ I did this on Christmas day too though, I did my nails then frantically wrote my Christmas post (I should really manage my time better). I was inspired by Lacqueerisa's manicure which was totally gorgeous (mine does not compare at all) and good when you're in a push like I was.

I put my own PlumeriaPainted spin on it hahaha, so it's not as pretty. Though honestly I think this looked better in real life than in these photos (it's usually not this way). You've got some holly in the corners then a "distressed" background, I initially thought the pink would be a good idea but eventually I think a more related colour scheme would've worked better. But I was there for the white glitter, so much yes.

I did the whole barely any polish on the brush thing and did swipes across my nails. I did the basic holly and leaf shapes and then kind of went crazy with the colours on top but we can call that being artistic.

Base: Barry M - Prickly Pear
White glitter: Claire's - Fluffy
Pink: Models Own - Radiant Pink
Gold: M&S - Golden Sands (was so fabulous)
Purple glitter: Barry M - Fashion Icon
Berries: OPI - Plum & Get It, The Body Shop - A Grape Affair with more Barry M - Fashion Icon and w7 - Silver Mirror for shine
Leaves: Max Factor - Cool Jade, OPI - Jade Is The New Black and Illamasqua - Melange

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!! :)

Bright Fair Isle Nail Art

Hey there guys, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!! :) I suppose this nail art is winter related so it's still relevant. I love Fair Isle prints and I hope to do a really stunning one someday (like Coewless Nail Blog, seriously guys hers are incredible). But I won't knock me down yet, I still really like this design :)

Maybe this could be a crazy Christmas jumper, I had some set patterns then I mixed them up. the colours are just came from the more opaque polishes cause I didn't want to be messing around with multiple layers. I think the chaos work and looks quite nice. There's Christmas tress, diamonds, hearts, wavy lines and dots. But together I think they look pretty cool.

There were toothpicks for the little designs but the stripes on the base were all done by the brush of the polish. I was proud that I kept them straight haha. Yeah the patterns were totally random and eventually came about based on colours that hadn't been used as much. It totally didn't need glitter on top but nothing stops me when it comes to glitter (on a fun note, I nearly sent an email to my teacher signed Glitter, I managed to change that before I sent it...).

Blue: H&M - Blue My Mind
Orange: Essie - Tart Deco
Red: M&S - Poppy (which smudged, which was annoying)
Light Red: Barry M - Carousel
Green: Barry M - Kiwi
Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry
Light Blue: Barry M - Sugar Apple
Glitter: Rimmel - Disco Ball

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!! :)

Christmas Gradient Herringbone Nails

Hello there guys and MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I hope you're having the most wonderful time relaxing with your family and friends, eating a crap ton of food. That's my plan. I love potatoes and potatoes will be present. I'm trying to get this post up before heading out for the Christmas festivities, I have about 6 minutes to write this post so please excuse errors ;) I really like today's nail art and it's totally seasonally appropriate (not my actual Christmas mani though, that'll be going up soon).

I really like this look, it's so simple but looks so sweet. I love gradients in general, I'd like to think that over time I've been getting better at them (or least there are less terrible ones). I love the polishes used and obviously the glitter is my love. Shine of the Times was a perfect accompaniment cause the flakes are like red/green!!

So easy to paint and I'm proud of the straight lines!! I went with the flow for the gradient, I'm so happy with the gradient and I was so lazy with it, I just used the brush of the polish!!

Red: Body Collection - Red (no name)
Glittery red: Essie - Leading Lady
Green: Illamasqua - Melange
Dark green: OPI - Jade Is The New Black
Glitter: Essie - Shine Of The Times

Written the post in time ;) Honestly I wish you the best holiday and thank you so much for reading!! :)

Blue Nails: Ciaté - Regatta

Hello you!! Happy Christmas eve!! I'm very excited now :) It's a swatch day/night here, I do like a nice swatch day/night. My dear best friend got this for me for my birthday and I'm here to show it. She got me some other nice nail stuff so you'll be probably be seeing that in the future (who knows how long, I'm a busy gal).

With topcoat, it's nicer with topcoat

Regatta is a dark grey-ish blue with lots of silver visible shimmer, it's got a suede-ish finish which is very interesting. It's very nice, I do love a blue and this is genuinely unique in my collection.

I want to like Ciate but then their brand is totally dubious what with stealing ideas from bloggers and charging a high price for it. But then that kind of stuff doesn't really affect me cause of the small scale round here so I say it's just polish. Plus like TK Maxx sells it for a discounted price so I say I win in the end, i've never bought a full priced Ciate.

The formula is solid, I used 2 coats and it was opaque and the formula was gliding very well. I suppose this chips easier cause it's matte and stuff but topcoat it and there shouldn't be issues and it'll look nicer.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a nice day!! :)

Girly Christmas Jumper Nails

Hi there!! Oh man it's so close to Christmas!! I have not been on top of blog things (or life things) so you might be seeing some Christmas nail art after Christmas :/ I can't not, Christmas is so great anyway it'll be ok for a couple of extra days :)

As I always say, the winter is a bad time for my cuticles

I got my first Christmas jumper this year and I love it, it looks really nice. It's also a Christmas jumper that everyone has this year but next year I will be the unique one :P The unusual colour scheme is unintentional but altogether I think it works, it's a fun, cute design to have. While the reindeer are deformed, I quite liked them (they looked better in real life), the patterns aren't so great either but when they're far away they look better. As you can imagine I did this with some toothpicks and I went with the flow.

Base: Barry M - Socialite
Light Purple: Barry M - Berry Ice Cream
Thumb: Essie - Lots of Lux, Models Own - Asscher Blue, w7 - Mosaic, Barry M - Fashion Icon, Paris Collection - Mauve Melody and w7 - Brownie
Index: Barry M - Guava, H&M - Blue My Mind, Nails Inc - Sao Paulo Streets, Barry M - Carousel, Barry M - Indigo and Ciate - Regatta
Middle: OPI - Sea You In Hollywood, OPI - Charged Up Cherry, The Body Shop - A Grape Affair, OPI - My Current Crush, Barry M - Kiwi and Orly - Basket Case
Ring: OPI - Jade Is The New Black, Illamasqua - Melange, Barry M - Raspberry, OPI - Where Did Suzi's Man-go?, H&M - Blue My Mind and Barry M - Sugar Apple
Pinky: Kiko - 265, Revlon - Dreamer, OPI - My Current Crush, M&S - Poppy, Essie - Leading Lady, Topshop - Naked and w7 - Golden Sands
It's easier this way. I have a feeling a lot of these polishes are wrong but oh well. I only have artificial lighting photos cause I never made it home in time for natural lighting, I am just wild ;)

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a really nice day!! :)

Fading blue snowflakes + sparkly purple nails

Hello there guys!! I hope you're having a great day, school is over now. Oh man it's about time, though we weren't doing much in class the last week. I appreciate it. I went carolling on Thursday and that was really fun, I even busted out the Santa hat and trust me I looked stupid haha but a girl doesn't care :P I have to do snowflakes every year and I like these ones but I want to do an amazing snowflake design that I'm crazy about so maybe you'll be seeing some more snowflakes :)

So there are snowflakes of various shades of blue over purple, there's not much to be said apart from that. I think I painted the snowflakes too chunky, they need to be more delicate, it's something to work on. I think the fade was pretty solid haha.

I got my toothpicks and got to werk, I always paint an off X shape then paint the final line through the middle and add 2 small lines on either side if I could. I tried to space the snowflakes out without leaving too much of a gap between each one. Oh yeah I also dabbed some more glitter cause I didn't want to do a full on gradient though in hindsight I should've gradients are brill.

Base: Barry M - Fashion Icon
Glitter: Barry M - Ruby
Light blue: The Face Shop - BL601
Blue: Revlon - Dreamer
Dark blue: H&M - Blue My Mind

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a nice day!! :)

Facebook Sticker Series: Waddles the Penguin

Hey there guys!! Finally getting round to some Christmas nail art, it took me a while. I've been really busy. But I've had the most fabulous December, been having such good days. But been singing a lot so my totally wrecked my voice and I'm recovering now. Tripped myself up while singing and there was fire surrounding me. That's another story :P I have another instalment in the Facebook Sticker series (it's been a while) and it's a Christmas edition!!

The variation of penguins was really cute, I picked some of the designs because they were easier to paint haha. I think it's pretty cute, I like the white glitter like it's snow. Red is a great Christmassy colour too, Penguins with outfits are gonna be cute right? ;)

I started with the base of a random penguin-esque shape, did the white and added the necessary details with toothpicks. Whether it be bow ties, hats or glasses. Thankfully this design wasn't too difficult, there weren't massive positioning or proportioning issues. These are real issues.

Base: Essie - Sunday Funday
Glitter: OPI - Lights Of Emerald City
Navy: Ciate - Regatta
White: Barry M - Matt White and Lovely Me:Ex - White (the Barry M is running low)
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black and Topshop - Gypsy Night
Pink: Barry M - Superdrug Summer LE 2013 A
Orange: Essie - Fear or Desire
Red: Barry M - Raspberry
Blue: Revlon - Dreamer
Green: Barry M - Kiwi

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!! :)

Red Nails: Essie - Sunday Funday

Hi you!! It's another swatch day, and I found the elusive Sunday Funday after saying it was the one I want. As you can imagine it was a TK Maxx find. Red has been a great colour for me this year, but I think that's where this polish fell for me.

I suppose I thought this would be more coral which is the attraction for me. It's somewhat pinky but not enough. Sunday Funday is a red-y coral (mostly red) creme with a subtle green/pink shimmer (Essie uses this shimmer a lot but I really like it). It's nice don't get me wrong, but not spectacular you know.

Again from the Essie Summer 2013 collection, I've already said that I liked all the colours in that collection. They were pretty and bright, that's what I'm about polish wise. The name of this is so fun!!

Formula wasn't all that great, at 3 coats it was still streaky and I used 5 coats for some nails. It's good that the coats were thin, but they were quite runny. It meant that I got bed sheet print on my nails :/ I think the multiple coats were partially because of my long nails and it could just be my bottle.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a nice day!! :)

Gimme Glitter: Hare Polish - Neon Palm

Hey there guys!! What's this blog without glitter? My dear friend got this for me for my birthday and I adore Hare Polish, I think it's genuinely one of my favourite indie brands. The colour combinations are so unusual and I love it!! Plus lots of neon pink glitter which I'm so on board with. Neon Palm is one of these polishes.

Still obsessed with the bottle <3

Look at me with my 4 fingered swatch, Neon Palm is a green-y grey base with neon pink (squares, hexes, small glitter) and copper glitter (smaller squares and hexes) with copper shimmer. So pretty, the colours just werk. I wish the neon pink were more bright but I'll try to find a way to make it so!! Such a good mix and I want to use it as a base for anything.

Got a good spread of glitter on my left hand

Hare Polish released this ages ago, it was a summer collection The Tropics are Calling and that collection was incredible. I'd get all of them, the colours were fabulous and simply so gorgeous. It shows what Hare Polish is about, so good.

I'm interested to wear this polish by itself, I put Neon Palm over Barry M Chai, but its going to be opaque by itself. I used 2 coats over the grey so there was enough glitter. But it made me realise how this polish isn't a straight up grey, it's definitely more teal/green so it's very interesting. I'm up for layering this over a green too!!

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!! :)

Purple Nails: Barry M - Fashion Icon

Hey guys!! I hope you're having a great December, I so am. I've managed to manage my crazy (debatable) life and I'm loving it. I'm doing a Secret Santa with my maths pals (you guys now have an idea of how cool I am) and we're giving our presents really soon and I am so excited. Oh course I had to get maths related gifts and it's so perfect and I can't wait!!
Ok guys you know I love my glitter but this is something special, from promos I didn't think much of these polishes but now I need them all, this is what I get for "doubting" Barry, the best surprise. Not saying I should doubt him again, Barry always does an amazing job.

Had to use mah phone to try and get an accurate picture, it worked though

I couldn't capture the amazingness but could not stop staring at my nails for how sparkly and amazing they were. It's so sparkly. The amount of compliments on this polish too was insane, everyone was in awe of the gorgeous colour and how sparkly it is.
Fashion is a royal purple (is this a real colour?) glitter with a stunning blue/pink duochrome effect with holographic glitter. When was this not going to be a recipe for success? That shimmer is also incredible, I think I actually managed to capture the shift. Except the pictures are too blue, my friends described the purple as "Cadbury purple". I think that's accurate.

This is part of the Glitterati collection (does this not sound right up my alley?) for this Winter, again it didn't really interest me. I suppose I thought it'd be like some of the other Barry M glitters, not like I didn't like them but they were nothing to write home about. Also I thought the other glitter was iridescent and not holographic, can't be having iridescent glitter ya'know.
But not these are the most stunning glitter polishes, this is how a glitter polish should be done. It's actually so perf. The name isn't perf but for the polish I can deal. I can deal well.

As if this polish couldn't get better, it just does. I wasn't sure if this would be opaque by itself but I had to try. But still be wary. I decided to do one nail with just the polish and then layer for the other nails. After 1 coat I thought I'd made a good decision, but after 2 coats the polish was completely opaque. The base polish was totally unnecessary (it was OPI Plum & Get It by the way), and can't even be seen. This is truly how a glitter polish should be done.
The formula is a bit weird, it's quite gloopy and you have to move it around, but it's actually not troublesome at all despite the weird formula. Such a good polish guys.

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a great day!! :)

Cool-toned distressed nail art

Hello you guys!! While it's nail art it's a stinker, like really bad. I think this translates better in pictures but it's still bad. I didn't like having it on at all. I need to do better distressed nails in the future to make myself happier cause distressed nails are so cool.

I think the main issue is the colour scheme, I thought mania would work. But it didn't. The added glitter also didn't help :( But the black is great, it helped but it was a lost cause from the beginning.

With distressed nails you wipe basically all the polish off the brush and do fast strokes with the brush. Very very easy and fun to do in a time crunch (I like that phrase). I'll definitely try this again just because it's so quick and easy.

Silver base: Essie - Blue Rhapsody
Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl
Purple: OPI - Plum & Get It
Plum: OPI - My Current Crush
Blue: Essie - Lots of Lux
Orange: OPI - Where Did Suzi's Man-go?
Green: Etude House - No. 86
Teal: Barry M - Guava
Purple glitter: Orly - Ridiculously Regal
Yellow/green glitter (I tried to cover this cause it looked really bad): Barry M - Sour Apple

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!! :)

Blue Nails: Essie - Blue Rhapsody

Hi there chums!! I got this in a TK Maxx set with Naughty Nautical and its not really my kind of polish but I show all here. I remember when this came out with a bunch of metallics and they all weren't my thing. Still aren't, but maybe I'm more open to it now.

Blue Rhapsody is a silver-y blue shiny metallic polish. Like the blue is merely a suggestion, it's basically silver yet the name insists it's blue. I'm pretty meh about this, I don't hate it but I don't like it either. It'd probably be good in nail art somewhere but I have a better silver to handle that.

The collection came out alongside the summer collection with Bikini So Teeny in it (I think anyway), so you get guess where my focus was at the time of the release of this polish. The name is also so random, I don't see how it's related at all but I like rhapsodies?

The formula was really good, it's extremely opaque and it was an easy 2 coats. Maybe you could do less and get away with it. I didn't test this but I've heard about chipping issues, but that could be expected of a metallic but at least it's not streaky and the formula is good.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a nice day!! :)

Red/blue/black 3D cube nails

Hello there guys!! I wish I could be posting more in December but I have a lot of things going on. Also honestly I'd rather be doing more productive things if I can than nails right now cause I have a big piano exam coming up relatively soon and I want to rock it. Plus let's not even go into how much stuff I have on, everyday there's something mental. Plus I have to keep on top of my schoolwork, basically I'm not allowed to have fun. I'm hoping once school is over and its the holidays (YES THE HOLIDAYS), I can chill and do some nails. But it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and I'm mad excited, CHRISTMAS!!!
I felt like painting something cool and 3D cube nails are the embodiment of cool so I had to get them sorted. Especially since my last attempt was so unbelievably messy. I'm really happy with it this time.

I just tried to be really neat, also the added glitter makes it really sweet. I quite like the colour scheme too, it's serious if you know what I mean. I love that red too. I love the geometric-esque designs and this brings it to a whole new dimension (d'ya see what I did there? :P).

Again this design is easier than it looks, I began with my outline which has a certain pattern to it but once you learn it and repeat it, it's very straightforward. I randomly filled the sides in with toothpicks and whatever polish I thought was appropriate. The top of the cubes always being in sparkly black though.

Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black and M&S - Petrol (added so much to the design, tied it all together)
Red: Barry M - Carousel
Blue: Spa Ritual - Navigate and OPI - Get Your Number
Light Blue: The Face Shop - BL601

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you have a jolly day!! :)

Blue Nails: Spa Ritual - Navigate

Hey there guys!! Pals it's December, how did this happen? I feel like November went slower than the other months cause of exams for me but we're at the end of the year and it didn't feel like it was very long :/ Life is just flying by I guess. I'll try to enjoy this month despite the insanity of it.
This is the 2nd Spa Ritual polish I got, I think it's part of a duo. I don't see how these names relate to the polish but I suppose they're going with the flow, you know. I apologise for blue fingers, Essie Naughty Nautical leaked everywhere but I had to swatch so I now have to deal with blue fingers.

Cause I don't have enough blue polishes... Navigate is a shimmery/kind of metallic(?) grey-ish blue with subtle silver/gold shimmer. It's quite nice, similar to other polishes I have and it's generally a nice blue.

From the limited experience I have I think Spa Ritual is very good. The colours are legit and the formulas are extremely solid. I don't really know where to get Spa Ritual in the UK apart from TK Maxx (and at that, TK Maxx's selection is very random) but if you want to try them, they're really good!!

It's a 2 coater, a solid 2 coater. There was no need for another one, and the formula has a really good consistenc. I think the polish is only brush-strokey when you mess up like me on my thumb, basically the polish isn't brush-strokey and doesn't stain. Good things to be :)

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a really nice day!! :)

Pink + teal herringbone nails

Hey there guys!! Hope you're chilling, I'm trundling along as usual. Things seem to get more and more busy for me so I'm trying to manage and have as much fun as possible while doing so cause otherwise I'd be drained. Drained is not a good feeling guys. So positivity and that!! I have herringbone nail art today cause it was about time I tried it, plus I do love that geometric look so this had to be right up my street.

I really like this colour scheme, I think it's a pretty solid, teal and pink and the bonus silver/grey only aids it. Herringbone looks cool and it's so simple, adding glitter can only make me happier. The design is mega sweet, you'll probably be seeing it in many different colour combinations in the future haha.

Herringbone is also so easy to paint, if you're not sure I say go for it!! It's actually as simple as it looks. After glittering everywhere, I just got my toothpicks and drew some straight lines (actually straight lines can be hard not gonna lie) and then did arrow lines(?) between the columns. After that I just randomly coloured in some of the spaces, I managed to be neat enough to no have to go over the lines again. It's the small things.

Base: Essie - Naughty Nautical
Glitter: Orly - Go Deeper
Flakes: M&S - Light Mix (really nice over the teal)
Silver: w7 - Silver Mirror
Pink: Orly - Basket Case
Metallic pink: Barry M - Boots Xmas LE 2012 B (brill for this design)
Grey: Barry M - Chai

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a lovely chillin' day!! :)

Coral Nails: Spa Ritual - Wilderness

Hello!! Hope you're doing well, I suppose I am. Many things are going on, one of them being driving, still getting used to it but I think I'm ok. Today I have another TK Maxx purchase to display, my first Spa Ritual polish and there'll be more. I think this is part of a duo so I will be showing off the other half at some point, but lets get to the polish cause this one is noice.

Wilderness is a coral pink textured polish with a strong golden shimmer (like if OPI Jinx was coral). I don't know if textured polish is still a thing (brands moved on from that fast), but I still really like it. I think it's fantastic, I've always been on the textured boat, right from the beginning. But look how pretty that shade of coral is!! I adore colours like that, and add gold shimmer and I'm right there!!

Pretty much know nothing about Spa Ritual, but from this first experience they seem pretty legit. I see swatches on Lucy's Stash and again they look pretty sweet. They seem to be very unique with good formulas, that's all you can really ask for :P

I used 3 coats for full opacity, I think for my nail length 3 coats was necessary cause there was patchiness. And ain't nobody got time for that. Otherwise was formula was great, it just went on, like it should.

So thank you for reading and I hope you have a superb day!! :)

Pastel bunnies + zig zag chevron nail art

Hi fine folks!! It's another nail art day, and a pretty cute one if I do say so myself. Also animal nail art, I really like animal nail art. Whilst I've done bunny nail art before I think this design could be the best and generally the most fun.

I suppose I wanted bunnies and then I got some exciting colours to do some chevron zig zags and weirdly I think it works. The bunnies are real cute, with the little ears and the wide eyes :3 It's all very summery, but you know me, you know I'm always in summer. I think the whole look somehow ties itself together. Plus pastel bunnies look super sweet.

For the zig zags and the main head of the rabbits I just used the brush of the polish. However it was messy and I cleaned it up with some toothpicks. So all the details are done with toothpicks too. For the black I used my pen and was crazy about positioning, I think I got the purple bunny much better than the blue one, but I'm still content.

Base: Spa Ritual - Wilderness
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
White: Barry M - Matt White
Purple: Barry M - Berry Ice Cream
Dark purple: OPI - My Current Crush
Blue: Barry M - Sugar Apple
Teal: Barry M - Guava
Green: Barry M - Greenberry
Pink: Models Own - Radiant Pink and Barry M - Superdrug 50th Birthday (the glitter really added a lot, but glitter tends to do that)
Orange: OPI - Where Did Suzi's Man-go? and Rimmel - It's a Scorcher! (I thought It's a Scorcher! had a better shade of orange to work with the design)

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!! :)