Black Nails: Rimmel - Black Pearl

Hi there guys, I don't know why but I've just been busting out the black nail polish, might as well get it all swatched. I want to apologise for my blog becoming so swatchy, I'd love to do more nail art but I do not have near enough time for it. I'll still have nail art but much less frequently until my blogaversary (the end of my exams oh my goodness I'm so pumped for that day), but I enjoy doing these swatch posts and really that's all that counts :)

Well Black Pearl is a black creme with a hint of silver shimmer going through (or "pearl") that sometimes looks green or purple in the light. Maybe Pirates of the Caribbean fans will like it more cause of the name.
I can't wear black nails by themselves because it's a sad colour, it's not that I don't like it but it's dull ya'know. Perfect to use for nail art and I have a look that will come in a while with this polish used in it.

A friend gave this to me for Christmas, 2 Christmases ago(?), and I see the many uses for this now, it's a good black creme. It's got the "Pro-wide" brush, if that means anything, and yeah I've converted to really liking Rimmel polish, it's very good.

2 easy coats no fuss. Maybe 1 for short nails, my nails are slightly on the long side. But it glided on and there were absolutely no formula problems.

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

Gimme Glitter: Claire's - Fluffy

Hi there guys, I was writing about how Claire's nail polish has become absolutely awesome, and this is no exception, but I am not very proud of my swatch because I got bubbles and I've worn this polish before with no bubbles. But the glitter still looks awesome, it's white glitter which is one of my FAVOURITES.

White glitter, be still my heart. I have found my white glitter polish, the day has come. Fluffy has small, medium and quite large hexes and bar glitter white matte glitter in a clear base. It's lovely, I'm so glad it's also so easy to access.

Ok my swatch did look better, so I like doing glitter gradients and I had a gradient. Not a subtle one it was blue with purple (Essie Bikini So Teeny with Models Own Indian Ocean) going into light blue (Revlon Blue Lagoon).
But I don't know what happened cause when I woke up the next day the gradient was gone and everything was cornflower blue. I kind of blame Bikini So Teeny because it causes weird reactions that I can't explain. But I guess it could've been the glitter, but nothing like that happened the last time I had it on. Well I'm sure I'll show Fluffy in a better light in the future, I shall be using it, with frequency.
And I like that Claire's is naming their polish but Fluffy kind of has negative connotations attached to it :/ But I see what they were going for.

 I used 2 coats of glitter, and apparently the base was thick because of the bubbles, but patience is a virtue. That I don't have, I could've minimised bubbles. And moving of the glitter was necessary but not unmanageable, the formula definitely does not throw me off. It's white glitter I'll happily forgive it.

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

Rainbow Paisley Nails

Hi there fine fellows, I feel like it's been way too long since I did a paisley design and I'm so glad I decided to change that cause I love this mani. I wasn't so sure how the execution would come out from the idea in my head, but I love when things work out right. That's just the best.

So we have some paisley print in all kinds of colours, rainbow colours specifically. I love all things rainbow so this was too much fun for me. The paisley is also just cute, and I actually spaced it out correctly for once. I'm always up for more colour and the little dots added that. There was no glitter, so I added glitter, so much for trying to do a design without glitter I can't do it. But I'm really happy with the outcome, glitter is always the right option.

I had my array of multi-coloured polishes laid out and for each section I painted I'd dipped my toothpick accordingly. Took a while, but so worth it. I tried to have a balance of each colour, I kind of played it by ear. I made sure I used opaque polishes so I wouldn't have to deal with white bases.

Peach: w7 - Sheer Peach
Red: Essie - E-Nuff Is E-Nuff
Orange: Essie - Fear Or Desire
Mustard Yellow: Topshop - Naked
Green: Illamasqua - Nomad
Blue: H&M - Blue My Mind
Teal: Barry M - Guava
Purple: Illamasqua - Jo'Mina
Pink: No.7 - Me! Me! Me!
Glitter: Revlon - Belle

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

Peach Nails: w7 - Sheer Peach

Hello there, another peach polish that coming quite soon after the last one. I really love peach polish, that's not highlighted enough here. But I very very very specific about shades when it comes to peach, like I LOVE shades like Chanel June (but I am NEVER getting Chanel June, I'm still looking for a dupe) but peach polishes that lean more towards skin tones I do not like, that being said I do like Sheer Peach even though it's a more skin tone peach, I think it's right in the middle so it's acceptable for me.

Sheer Peach is a skin tone peach polish that's sheer in colour not formula. I think sheer is the incorrect word for it. There's hints of the polish leaning orange, it's hard to pinpoint the exact shade, but it's a pretty shade that I don't use enough.

This is another polish from my best friend, given for me birthday like 3 years ago oh my goodness, and it's still here with me. I've already mentioned that I think w7 is a great brand and I shall be hunting for more in pound shops :)

This polish is not sheer as suggested by it's name, the formula was very flowy and went on well, 2 coats did the trick and the formula really was very good, not complaints from me at all.

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

Blue Nails: Essie - Bikini So Teeny

Hi guys, I hope you had a nice Easter if you celebrated :) I'd love to sit and complain about all the work I have but instead I should be hoping that I can get it all done and become an intelligent person, I have a month to get smart!! Nail polish might be the only thing keeping me sane. This is a pretty one here, one of my favourites actually. I included this in my 2012 favourites and yet I still haven't written a post about it crazily enough. I've fixed that though, I seriously love this polish I need to write about it more. But I'm not proud of my swatch, my cuticles are just not in good shape and I apologise.

Bikini So Teeny is such a gorgeous cornflower blue with a subtle silver shimmer which sometimes flashes green and purple. I have mad love for this polish, I've definitely used it a lot here. It leans more purple toned than most cornflower blues and it's so beautiful, it's not just me and blue polish.

This was from Essie's 2012 Summer collection, full of bright cremes which I'm always onboard with. I also have Fear Or Desire from that collection which I really like too. I got them from TK Maxx for obviously a great price, I think I was close to not buying but I had to and it was a great decision I made :P

 2 coats is sufficient, perhaps 3 if you're doing thin coats, but the formula is very good. And as I've mentioned before the Essie brush is very nice for my nails.

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

Gimme Glitter: Nails Inc - Old Street

Hello friends!! I have been enjoying all the Gimme Glitter posts I've been doing cause it means I get to wear and write about a lot of glitter. This polish was on my wishlist and I managed to persuade myself to take it off. This is the final polish I'm showing from the Best Dressed Nails set (the other one is not for me) that convinced me to buy this set. Old Street, it has my favourite colour combination of glitter, red, yellow, green and blue, can't go wrong right?

Oh but it can go wrong. Yes it looks fine in the photos (or maybe not, it's all personal preference), but I just wish the colours were brighter and less.. I don't know, metallic and dull. You know what I mean, when shiny glitter doesn't look that nice cause of the kind of "black" colour it reflects. Do you understand? Well basically I don't think Old Street looks very nice. Some shiny glitter is nice, this isn't.
It's a metallic red, gold, green and blue glitter topper with hexes, bars and small red and blue glitter. There was so much potential for awesome, but it falls flat for me. Makes me wish that this glitter was matte, then I'd love it.

Part of Nails Inc's Graffiti line, some nice polishes there but nothing spectacular. It makes me glad I convinced myself I didn't need this, and didn't spend the money on the full bottle. It makes me realise how important it is for me to persuade myself there are certain polishes I don't need (emphasis on certain). Also why Old Street? Sometimes the Nails Inc names confuse me, I know they're streets in London but why not make them fit better?

I decided to jelly sandwich and matte this so I'd have an idea about what it'd look like matte (also I didn't want to see the not pretty shiny glitter). I failed jelly sandwich 101 by using too much jelly (No.7 Snowflake), it's all about thin jelly coats -_- Anyway I learnt my lesson (except half of ring finger) and I still wasn't in love, but it was an improvement.
There was a lot of glitter in each coat (depending on how you loaded the brush but it wasn't difficult), I used 2 for an adequate amount of glitter that spread easily. But the issue I had was the bars sticking up and I couldn't even use topcoat or nail clippers to remedy that. I kind of hurt myself with the sharp bar glitter, did not appreciate :P

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

Primary Galaxy Nails

Hello there guys!! Hope life is treating you well right now, this is my 400th post!! Haha I'm swamped with work but otherwise I'm content, I've written a lot of posts too, to be scheduled :) Today's nail art is a good one, I LOVE IT!! I'm so happy when I manage to paint something like this, I feel proud. This is definitely the best galaxy manicure I've ever done (ok the competition wasn't that strong), but the great thing is I had no confidence whatsoever in this design cause things were going wrong, but it ended up awesome. Those are the best manicures.

I called this a "primary" galaxy cause of the primary colours used, my friend said it had a Nyan cat vibe (um nail art idea!!), and of course I like that!! I don't know why I love this so much but it's funky and pretty, maybe that's it. Also I do love galaxy manicures, my life needs more. Glitter makes galaxies, and I love glitter, another reason to love this. Oo and red, yellow, green and blue together is my favourite colour combination, that's probably another reason :)

I got my sponges and got to work, I started with white so the colours would show up better on top. Then I went mental with sponging on the different colours making sure no colour was overwhelming the other which is easier said than done. After I felt like I'd achieved the right balance (which required a lot of going back with certain colours and completely covering others), I dabbed on various glitter polishes with the brushes. I used a black and white glitter for the stars (which has a weird edgy feel that I love). Finally I got a toothpick and freehanded some stars to complete the look.

Dark Blues: H&M - Blue My Mind (base polish), OPI - Get Your Number, Rimmel - Azure and Essie - Lots of Lux
Blues: Revlon - Dreamer and Barry M - Blueberry Ice Cream
Green: Max Factor - Cool Jade
Dark Green: OPI - Jade Is The New Black
Yellow: Ciate - Loop The Loop
Red: OPI - Jinx
Teal glitter: Barry M - Aqua Glitter
Gold and purple glitter in blue base: w7 - Mosaic
Black and white glitter: L'Oreal Color Riche - Confetti
White: Barry M - Matt White with Barry M - Lady over it
All the glitter really added a LOT to the design, glitter was made for galaxies. I was actually really picky about which glitter polishes I was going to use, cause I knew which glitter would give what look. I sound crazy, but I got a design I love so sometimes craziness is worth it (sometimes).

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!! :D

Peach Nails: w7 - Linen

Hiya you! I do have some neutral polishes I like and this is one of them. Given to me by my best friend before I started this blog. It's been useful for various bits of nail art. It's nice by itself though I would never wear it that way.

Linen is a very light peach creme, I personally don't think it's similar to actual linen but you know that's not very important. It's a nice clean neutral, if you get me, everyone nail polish fanatic should have one.

Once again I'd like to apologise for my cuticles :/

w7 does very legit polish, I've already done many polishes of their polishes, and they are high quality and good and cheap.

I used 2 coats and perhaps I could've used another 1 but overall it covers and the formula was very good. It was opaque and not gloopy.

Thank you for reading (this less text heavy post :P) and I hope you have a great day!!

Blue Nails: H&M - Blue My Mind

Hello there chums!! I've said this a million times but here it is again I loooooooooovvvvvvvvvveeeeeee blue polish, and this one is really similar to Baker Street (<--click here for some classic PlumeriaPainted, that was one of my few actually ok swatches). Maybe you can guess what kind of post this will be (spoiler: a gushy one). But not joking I think I like this better than Baker Street (IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE??).

Whilst I think this is slightly lighter and perhaps more dull than Baker Street, I think I prefer it (and Baker Street was my favourite polish of 2012)!! Look at how mad pretty it is, cobalt blues like this are the best and yes it blue my mind. But really, it's so pretty!!! Not over it. There's not much more to say, this is just gorgeous.

I wouldn't have bought this for full price cause I have the Nails Inc (by the way the full price for the H&M is £3, not bank breaking or anything) but it was on clearance for £1 (there was no way I could say no to that) and I'm so glad I got it. I might compare this to Baker Street cause they could be almost dupes, and like it's £10 cheaper, that's a lot of dough. I did want a guilt-free Baker Street that I could use, and I have it now. H&M does have good polish, oh goodness everyone has good polish now, this means good and bad things for me :/

2 coats, no fuss, no hassle, really easy application, great formula. No complaints. I mentioned before that the formula is slightly more runny than I'm used to but it caused no problems at all, if anything I painted neater than usual so the brush must've been good for me.

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

Floral + Geometric + Zig Zag Nails

Hi there guys!! I've never had a zig zag pattern on my nails before so there's a first for everything. I found a picture with a bunch of prints and I wondered what they would look like together. I obviously made the colour combination all crazy cause that's what I do. And I'd first like to start by apologising for my cuticles, they are shocking and I'm really sorry about that, but they were not getting any better :/

More sorrys for the cuticles

As eclectic as this is I really like it, probably I like eclectic. It's a big old jumble of flowers, shapes and zig zags. I like all the crazy colours too, crazy has always been a bit me. I think it all fits together in a weird way, as do the colours. I don't know, this is just really fun. The orange ties everything together (kind of, in my mind anyway :)).

 I started with the flowers, I got the red and pinks and used my toothpicks to paint the flowers then dab little dots of the different shades. I went one shape at a time then for the zig zags (which took a long time) I painted the lines, waited for them to dry properly before adding the next lines. But it was worth it, the outcome is really cool.

Orange: Rimmel - It's a Scorcher!
Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry
Light Pink: Per Una - Pink (no name)
Red: OPI - Dutch Tulips
Teal: Barry M - Guava
Peach: w7 - Linen
Purple: OPI - My Current Crush
White: Barry M - Matt White
Blue: Nails Inc - Baker Street
Green: Barry M - Greenberry
Yellow: Topshop - Naked
Dark Purple: OPI - Plum & Get It

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

Gimme Glitter: Claire's - Dizzy

Hey there, another day another Gimme Glitter. That's the way I like it. This polish here is the very reason that I NEEDED to go into town and go shopping. I'd seen the odd Claire's nail polish swatch and had been surprised with what I'd been finding, black and white glitter, neons, pastel glitter, I was wondering if the world had gone mad. Cause I never related Claire's with nail polish, when I saw Claire's had a multi-coloured NEON GLITTER polish, I was done and out the door.

CAN YOU? CAUSE I CAN'T. WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD WHEN CLAIRE'S OF ALL PLACES IS DOING NEON GLITTER????
Ok, so yeah, it's neon glitter, as you may know from my last outing with neon glitter that I can't handle it. Dizzy is full of medium pink, light green and yellow hexes and blue NEON GLITTER in a clear base. AND IT'S MATTE SO I CAN PUT IT OVER ANYTHING. WHAT?? That is the bomb, it's so brilliant. Neon glitter is the most beautiful thing in the world and I love the mix of glitter here, so wonderful :')

My mani matched a bracelet my friend made for me, it made me happy :)

I'm sure every girl had bought some Claire's nail polish, it wasn't groundbreaking, or anything special (well sometimes it did but I never got it), I never really thought it as anything amazing. But recently Claire's must've had a complete image overhaul cause I'm overwhelmed by the incredible polish they have, there's holographic glitter, textures, neons (need to try) and MORE NEON GLITTER.
I need it all and it's a problem. Good thing it's cheap, yeah and it's cheap, this girl really can't ask for anything more from Claire's. o.O What happened to Claire's to make it so full of awesome? Maybe there's a nail blogger behind it haha. And I like the names!!!

The base was very thick, so patient was absolutely key. I was very patient though and waited ages between coats. I didn't get a ton of glitter with every coat, I only did cause I loaded the brush, but still I only needed 2 coats for this.
Unfortunately as my manicures go I got bubbles, but no where near as bad as it should've been considering how thick the base was and the bubbles could've been reduced as I put on topcoat later. Also I put extra glitter over the bubbles cause I could do that cause there weren't that many bubbles haha.
I put Dizzy over a gradient of The Face Shop BL601 and Barry M Greenberry and I am mad proud of that gradient.

Thank you very much for reading, clearly I can write a lot of neon glitter and yes I now need all the Claire's polishes, I hope you have a lovely day!! :)

Orange Nails: Rimmel - It's A Scorcher!

Hello there!! If you know me, you know I LOVE orange polish. I don't know why, it's irrational but that's ok with me. Orange polish is wonderful and yes as you guessed this Rimmel is pretty great too. I'm rocking it on my toes and I'm loving it, I think orange is my favourite colour for my toenails. Is that weird? I don't really care :)

It's a Scorcher! is a light orange with golden shimmer which sometimes flashes green. Yeah I'm not the best with descriptions but I do love the colour. I was looking for a different Rimmel polish but I couldn't find it (and so continues my search of the perfect orange-y peach polish) but this is a very welcome edition. Come on I love my orange polish and this is so pretty, it's like a sunny day haha. And honestly I don't own that much orange polish (though I love it), so it's also a unique addition.

I don't know if Rimmel does collections, if so then I really don't know what this is part of. I'm a total Rimmel convert though, really great polish with great formulas and so many colours... And cheap! Wow looking at this polish makes me happy, it's perfect for summer (/anytime of the year, I don't do colours by seasons :)). The name suggests summer too, but I don't like name very much :/

I used 3 coats and it definitely needed 3 coats, it has a kind of weird formula, definitely not bad. But weird, 3 coats to eliminate streaks but removing this felt kind of gritty even though it's smooth. It's probably the shimmer in it. Did apply easily though, there were no major issues.

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

Blue Nails: The Face Shop - BL601

Hi there guys!! I hope you're having a nice day, putting this out there now, while I'll have posts for this month for a while, but I'm going to get EXTREMELY busy and this blog will definitely have less posts. I can't believe it's April and I need to get serious about my exams so really this is a warning for myself if anything. I'd like to think I'll be back regularly by my blogaversary (the dates really do line up perfectly, my exams finish the day before my blogaversary) but until then (and that's a while away), things will be slowing down (not at first). Anyway I love my blue polish and I have one here today.

BL601 is a lovely very pale blue, like it's really pale, but I like all the blue polish. It can look quite close to white, so it'd be a good base and clearly I haven't abused that factor enough.

But BL601, why no cute name? One of my complaints with The Face Shop polishes cause otherwise they're perfect. I love the colours and the glitters. This was one of my first Face Shop polishes which I got around the time my blog started and it's still brilliant as are the other polishes I got. I'm very impressed by the brand, and like everything is so adorable, I really love when things are like that :)

The formula is brilliant too, very opaque, glides on and the brush fits my nails perfectly. I used 3 coats though 2 is already very good, it's just my nails are long and the extra coat removes all streaks. Really all The Face Shop polishes I've tried have great formulas like this.

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

Pinwheel Multicoloured Stars

Hi there guys!! I've just edited a mad amount of pictures and now it's just time to write posts. I am tired though, it's pretty late when I write this and I'm excited to chill (to an extent), really I have a ton of work to do (as usual) but let's not think about that. I had good intentions with this design but things ended badly. This goes hand in hand with yesterday'd glitter post, I don't like this design very much.

But I think the design looks much better in pictures. I like the colourful chaos in the pictures, it's fun and contrasting. But in real life it's a mess. We ignore such things though. I wanted to do stars without a black outline and of course that called for mental rainbow and monochrome(ish) stars made up of lines to go with the bar glitter. Yep and that didn't work out so great. I always like bright colours but the execution could've been much better here.

I did a base of white for the stars then got my toothpicks and drew lots of lines for the stars. I really do like some of the black and silver pinwheel stars, they are cool. I think I need to do more pinwheel nails in general, cause they're really cool in general.

Base: OPI - Sea You In Hollywood, Rimmel - Azure, Color Club - Sky High and Nails Inc - Hampstead Court
Red: Essie - E-Nuff Is E-Nuff
Orange: Essie - Fear Or Desire
Light Orange: Rimmel - It's a Scorcher!
Yellow: Rimmel - Sunshine
Mustard: Topshop - Naked
Green: Barry M - Greenberry
Light Green: China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint
Blue: Barry M - Blueberry Ice Cream
Dark Blue: Nails Inc - Baker Street
Teal: Barry M - Guava
Dark Green: OPI - Jade Is The New Black
Light Purple: Barry M - Prickly Pear 
Pink: The Face Shop - PK105
Light Pink: Barry M - Dragon Fruit
Purple: Illamasqua - Jo'Mina
Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl
Silver: w7 - Silver Mirror
Silver glitter with holographic bits: Revlon - Belle (I thought this polish would help the stars but it didn't, foolish child)
Yep I like to utilise my polishes.

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

Gimme Glitter: Nails Inc - Hampstead Court

Hi there!! Another Gimme Glitter from the Nails Inc Best Dressed Nails set. Yeah got a lot of glitter with that set and I'm always ok with that. Though I'm not the biggest fan of this one like the other ones, I think there's an extent to how much I like bar glitter.

Hampstead Court is full of medium length thick and thinner holographic bar glitter. Ok so you know I LOOOOOVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEE holographic glitter. But I'm not feeling this so much. I blame my base colour a bit , I should've gone for something darker. Yeah I don't like very much, I think I only like matte colourful bar glitter, cause that's fun. This just looks off, it doesn't look very nice basically.

This is part of the Fibre Optic range, Nails Inc has all kinds of ranges that I can't keep up. I'm looking up this Fibre Optic thing now. Ok it's really just a bunch of different coloured bar glitter. I see where this Fibre Optic thing is coming from though, clever Nails Inc, clever.

Lil' blurred holographic glitter shot

There was tons of glitter on the brush, 1 coat definitely would've been more than enough for the not glitter fanatics. It spread really really well, I used 2 coats for enough glitter. But even after topcoat the glitter was rough and had the odd bit sticking out (easy to take out though). I don't mind texture, but when it's actually rough and has the potential to hurt that's when I don't like it. I put Hampstead Court over OPI Sea You In Hollywood, Rimmel Azure and Color Club Sky High. Removal isn't easy either, putting it out there.

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