Red Nails; Seventeen - Dark Heart

Hi there you lot, I have a swatch today. As I say, there are only so many red polishes you need i.e. one. But My mind has been slowly swaying, like I love light orangey tone reds. But today's polish is your run-of-the-mill red, but everyone should have one. It's a nail art staple and sometimes you want to be classy. The shade is slightly different from my other reds but when it comes to red I think it makes no difference. I hope you guys have a good safe New Year's Eve, I'll probably be staying at home and despairing at how soon school is coming, trust me I'm despairing. Why are holidays never long enough???

To be honest it does look nice, I think red suits me much better than other colours but Dark Heart is still just a red creme polish. Do you agree? Do you think when you have one red you have them all?

I think Dark Heart is an interesting name for a polish that isn't a dark red, that's what I'd expect at least. But I still think Seventeen are doing a very good job with all their polishes.

The formula was very good, 2 coats and I'm pretty sure it was completely opaque and it was easy to apply. That's a better formula than some of my other reds so kudos. Lol I don't know what kudos means.

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

Robin Red Breast Nail Art

Hey there guys!! I hope you had an amazing Christmas if you celebrated :) I got the loveliest gifts from people and I appreciate it so much. So I have some Christmassy nail art but it's more winter, it's why I felt ok holding these looks back (also been knitting up a storm, everything has been deprioritised, not a word but you know what I mean). Robins are so sweet, I'm surprised I've never done Robin nail art before but I'm glad I can still paint new things after all these years.

I'm still on a complete matte kick. For these robins I wanted to do a different style for every nail and I just about did it. So different colours and patterns for the belly and different beaks. It was fun. I love the little Santa hat on my pinky. I feel like the soft glitter in the back is perfect for falling snow, gotta give all your polish love. 

For these birds I tended to start with the belly then the brown/white and then add all the details with of course toothpicks. Generally proportions were ok, except on my index finger where the head was way too small for the body but managed to fix that by bringing the legs higher weirdly enough. 

Base: Barry M - Blue Moon and OPI - Pirouette My Whistle

Brown: Paris Collection - Mauve Melody

Dark Brown: w7 - Brownie

Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl

White: Barry M - Cotton

Red: M&S - Poppy

Light Red: Barry M - Carousel

Copper: Paris Collection - Copper Topper

Light Brown: Paris Collection - Brown Beaute

Pink: Barry M - Miami

Light Pink: Barry M - Dragon Fruit

Dark Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry

Purple: Orly - Frolic and Barry M - Socialite

Silver: w7 - Silver Mirror

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

Peach Nails: Seventeen - Pink Lemonade

Hiya, I have a swatch today continuing the Seventeen polishes thing. You know what less waffle and more getting on with it.

Usual sorry about my cuticles and a fun chip I got on my index finger -_-

Pink Lemonade is a really nice pale medium jelly pink and I love this kind of mellowness. Also side note I really like Pink Lemonade cause Lemonade is one of my favourite drinks (tbh it's much better than pink lemonade).

Clearly the Seventeen shade range is pretty diverse, the jellies are really nice colours so good job to them. But the glitters are also unique to me so I think they're doing a good job.

For a jelly polish the formula is actually really good, I won't be reaching for this loads as a base but it only took 4 coats. Compared to Lime Em Up (the green jelly), the formula was far more opaque and generally built better. But a good thing about jellies is that they're easy to apply and you try to balance the bad and the good (I think the bad outweighs for me but that doesn't mean I don't like jellies).

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

Red Glam Snowflake Nails

Hey there guys, oops about the posts. It's 2 days before Christmas and we're getting our first Christmas nail art look :/ I've been busy, this is my standard thing now. I'm in charge of the Christmas ballot meaning I have to wrap nearly 50 presents and um I haven't done that yet. Also I've really taken to knitting, I've knitted 2 scarves in 4 days, I've basically binge knitted like 8 hours a day. I'm not good with balance, I've been knitting so much I haven't been playing Pokemon and trust me that's saying something . Anyway I always do snowflake nail art every year so this is what we're getting. Though I do think this is my best one yet.

So I think a red base is classy. I've also been obsessed with matte again but I'll talk about the demerits of that even though I do think matte is totally worth it. So they're just snowflakes but they're neater than ever before and ALL THE GLITTER. I think I should've done one less coat of the base glitter to let the red come through but these are minor things.
I loved wearing this look, oh yeah with matte the manicure chips a million times more easily and my index chipped clean off and I had to redo it creating the tons of bubbles cause I didn't give it enough time to dry -_- I also accidentally used a different red from the other nails, but it proves all reds are the same haha.

So after my glitter base I got my toothpick and did an uneven X then did a line through it. Add the small lines and you have snowflakes, I'm glad I did one per nail basically cause it's so much less crowded. Then I did blobs for snow then I added all the big chunky glitter for glam and glitter, you can't have enough glitter.

Red: Seventeen - Dark Heart (and M&S - Poppy for my index haha)
Gold Glitter: Seventeen - Winter Coat
White: Barry M - Cotton
Chunky Glitter: Illamasqua - Blizzard, Barry M - Hologram Hexograms and Barry M - Starlight

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a great time prepping for Christmas!!

Green Nails: Seventeen - Lime Em Up

Hey there guys, I'm finally off school meaning hopefully I can get a bunch of posts up as I haven't been doing a great job lol. Continuing with the Seventeen polishes I have a fun green, a jelly too and yeah this colour is great.

I think a darker lime green is a decent description. It's pretty bright and it's a jelly. I love green and this is a vibrant one so it's cool with me.

Lime Em Up is a pretty sweet name, the edges weren't great not helped by the fact that my cuticles are not good in this season, but I'll write more about formula in the next bit.

This took a lot of coats, you know what jellies are like. I did 5 coats but it wasn't thick at all and it did build well, just took a lot of coats. It applied easily but I don't know if I'll be using it as a base any time soon but I do want to find uses for it cause the colour's so great.

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

Purple Nails: Seventeen - Parma Violet

Hey there!! I have a pale purple today and I have to say nail blogging has made me a lover of pale purple polishes and seriously I think this is one of the nicest I've ever seen. Surely we all love pale purple at this stage.

Parma Violet is a super pink toned pale purple, and this is just gorgeous. I love it!! The pink tone makes it look fabulous.

Parma Violet is actually the perfect name, yes I've commented on the names a lot but that's because they're on point. I love Parma Violets, I don't think if they're just a British thing but I think they're so good. The colour of this isn't the same colour of parma violets at all but who cares when it's this nice.

The formula was amazing, 2 coats and it was so opaque and easy to apply. So I'm impressed, gone are the days of super sheer pastel polishes (hopefully at least).

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

Pastel Jelly Checkered Nails

Hey there guise, I have some nail art today, unfortunately while I have done Christmas nail art it might take a while before it gets here as I'm behind. This is an expected thing now. I'm happy with the Christmas nail art I've currently done so I'm excited to show you. But today's nail art is still fun, I got 2 jelly polishes and made me want to do a checkered design as jellies show through really well.

Pink and green are really cute together, and I like it all together. Checkered patterns are so easy and they look so cute, it's after I did my Kanga and Roo design I want to do more checked designs, they're a great base.

So after the base you try your best to space the lines evenly and in a straight line. I'm pleased with my attempt, sure there are some lines that aren't perfectly straight or equal, but that's the charm of it. Otherwise I think it's pretty good, this is freehand remember with the nail polish brushes so I don't think it's half bad. 

Cremes

Pink: Barry M - Dragon Fruit

Green: Etude House - No. 86

White: Barry M - Cotton

Mint Green: Barry M - Pole Position

Jellies

Pink: Seventeen - Pink Lemonade

Dark Pink: Etude House - No. 60

Green: Seventeen - Lime 'Em Up

Dark Green: China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard

Blue: Topshop - Green Room

White: No. 7 - Snowflake

Glitter: M&S - Light Mix

I love how all my jellies are becoming useful now, it's time for jelly sandwiches to come back!!

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

Gimme Glitter: Seventeen - Sparkler

Hello!! I have more glitter today cause tbh you can't have enough glitter. Ever. I have a lot of choir things coming up but I think I can deal. My exams are over and I did alright and I didn't stress myself out and uni things are going pretty good. Now just have to sort like presents and stuff. And life and stuff but it'll be sweet :)

Sparkler (another cute name) is a tinted base with little blue and purple glitter and it's quite nice. Maybe it'll look over a different base, it's not bad over dark blue (Seventeen - Midnight Sapphire) but there's probably more potential.

With this Seventeen swatch marathon I don't have much else to say. But if you can get Seventeen nail polish I think it's definitely worth it if you see a nice colour. Pricing is so reasonable and that's what you want.

Sorry picture's a lil blurry

The coverage was pretty good, I wanted a lot of glitter and so I used 3 coats, but if you don't want as much lesser coats would definitely be enough.

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

Gimme Glitter: Seventeen - Winter Coat

Hey there guys!! Christmas is coming!! I know it's a bit late for a first post in December, I haven't even been that busy but I guess I've been doing other things. It'll be swatches for the next bit but I've been very nail art focused as of late so I think it's time. This is really pretty too.

Winter Coat is a glitter topper with small gold glitter and slightly lager pieces of gold and iridescent glitter and it's so pretty!! I love how this looks over pink (Seventeen - Summer Lovin') and I already know it'll look great over loads of things.

Winter Coat is such a cute name I love it. So yes been trying all these Seventeen polishes and I think they're great. The colours have been so solid and so have the formulas.

The glitter coverage was super good, I have 2 coats here and even in 1 coat there was a ton of glitter and it was very easy to apply.

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

Blue Nails: Seventeen - Midnight Sapphire

Hello fine people!! I have another swatch today, I think this polish is very similar to Kiko 265 just as a side note. Another side note, The Hunger Games was on TV the other day and man it was amazing. It just reminded me of when it first came out and how hype that was and it reminded me of how into the book I was and how great reading too deeply into the movie is. I know the new movie is coming out (has come out? I don't know :/) but I missed the 1st part so maybe seeing the 2nd part isn't the greatest idea. Though now I want to watch them all again, Josh Hutcherson has always been my bae :P

I like this lighting as it shows the really pretty blue shimmer. The name of this was very appropriate, Midnight Sapphire is a very dark blue with blue shimmer. Like it's bordering on black, but I still like it and will use it. I think one hope I'll actually get a proper navy.

I still really liking Seventeen, it's a brand you always see in Boots and stuff but the quality is really good. Like the set I was given was gorgeous in terms of colours chosen and the presentation was really nice too. So it's a thumbs up from me.

Sorry that it's so blurry

The formula was really good, 2 coats and I was sorted. I'm glad that you don't need a high end brand for great formula, no use spending that money (unless it's an Illamasqua ;)).

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

Coral Nails: Seventeen - Summer Lovin

Hey there guys!! I hope you're doing sweet, I have exams this week but um haven't really been sweating it :/ There's still time and stuff but these exams don't count for anything and I'd rather a week off. I'm terrible, I know. One of my dearest friends got me an amazing nail polish set so that's what I'll be showing today and for the next couple of posts. It's been a while since we've had a swatch marathon here so it's time.

Sorry we're in that time of year where my lighting is a disaster, as well as my cuticles (well it's not too bad here). You would not be able to tell if this was coral at all. It's way more orange toned and lighter but it is a lovely colour. I love coral and this is just a really nice creme. 

Also Summer Lovin is a great name, who cares if it's not? I've never used Seventeen polish before but I'm impressed, already I think their shade range is great. 

Also I only have 2 pictures today cause my 3rd picture was so beyond. I know these pictures aren't colour accurate but that other one was so far gone. Seriously my lighting was just non-existent making me use another light source that did not work.
Anyway I have 4 coats here, not necessary but I wanted to remove all streakiness. Otherwise it applied very easily and was very easy to control.

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

Who's that Pokémon? Slowpoke!

Hiya guys!! I hope you're having a good life, I am, I've had this personality adjustment where I don't care about stupid things that don't matter and life becomes amazing!! My university applications have been sent off too so that's a waiting game.
So this manicure was my birthday manicure, I've become a pokémon lover (at the tender age of 17 lol) and I'm currently trying to complete the Pokedex and it's quite the challenge. Also I'm trying to do it with Wondertrade which if you've wondertraded you know it's a mixed bag. Though I've nearly got a full bow of shiny pokemon from it so I say it's worth it. Also I picked Slowpoke for this mani cause Slowpoke is so cute and I have a Slowbro now and I love it. Also side note: sorry about my cuticles!!

So I have a wee Slowpoke with a blue gradient with the big bombastic glitter. It looks better in real life trust me. My lighting is going down and my cuticles are dying lol. I'm happy with that Slowpoke but thankfully it's a pretty easy one to paint. I thought my gradient was done well too cause I did the layers and stuff and I love subtle magical glitter. And then big as glitter (leaving bubbles but you can't win everything haha).

I did the gradient with a sponge and yeah I did it layer by layer, I had the patience. Then slapped the glitter on. For Slowpoke, I started with the pink base and then the yellow mouth with some toothpicks and did the details one by one including the black outline. It was a good shape to paint, it's nice when it can look cool but still be simple to paint.

Pink: Barry M - Miami (I became unsure about this pink cause it was quite dark but it was only in certain lighting)

Yellow: Ciate - Loop the Loop

White: Barry M - Cotton

Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl

Red: Seventeen - Dark Heart

Blue: Barry M - Malibu

Light Blue: Nails Inc - The Tide is High

Subtle Glitter: OPI - Last Friday Night

Chunky Glitter: Etude House - No. 346

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a fantastic day!!

Cut-out herringbone green ombré nails

Hello there!! I apologise if in future posts the state of my cuticles goes majorly downhill. My cuticles and the winter don't go together, my cuticles seriously protest. Anyway I have nail art as herringbone is really cool. It's been a while since I've had an ombre here too (though that more because I'm not the biggest fan) but the outcome is this crazy design.

I was meant to have a colour scheme but then it didn't happen and I should've had one. Also the colours you're seeing on my thumb is the result of some weird as chemical reactions. Forgot that Rimmel Block Your Green! reacts weirdly with other polishes since I haven't used it in a while. The colours on my thumb were actually blue, pinky purple and purple. Who knows what happened?
I went for a rainbow thing on my other nails and I quite like it. Though the green was not a good base. should've ombred the whole thing at that rate. So I left out the herringbone gaps and I really like it. No regrets about the glitter.

So as usual this was all freehand, I had no way of judging the spaces but I think I did pretty good with the spacing and straightness of lines. So toothpick and trapeziums.

Green ombre (lightest to darkest): Barry M - Pole Position, Barry M - Mint Green, Barry M - Greenberry, Barry M - Kiwi and Rimmel - Block Your Green! (the culprit)
Glitter: Revlon - Belle (the other culprit) and Rimmel - Disco Ball
Thumb (left to right): Barry M - Malibu, Orly - Frolic and Illamasqua - Jo'Mina
Index: Barry M - Miami, OPI - Charged Up Cherry and M&S - Sun Glow
Middle: Rimmel - It's a Scorcher!, Essie - Fear Or Desire and Rimmel - Bee A Honey
Ring: Barry M - Guava, H&M - Blue My Mind and Barry M - Berry Ice Cream
Pinky: Orly - Frolic (cause you wouldn't be able to tell it's the middle colour on my thumb) and OPI - Plum & Get It

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

Fox Print Nail Art

Hey there guys!! I hope you're doing sweet, I'm alright just super tired lol. Was my birthday over the weekend so that was some nice gatherings and I have new polish which I've v excited about that. So I love today's design and I think it's absolutely perfect for Autumn.

It's your neutral base with a fox print but I just love the uniformity of the foxes and the colour!! And how cute they are!! Also I'm pretty proud that I managed to basically get them all the same. It's so simple but I love the way it works :3

So I started with the white beard bit and positioned them polka dot style. Then the orange bit with a different toothpick and then the positioning of eyes and nose. The white in the eyes really bring everything to life.

Beige: Nails Inc - Sao Paulo Streets (such a slick colour)
Orange: Barry M - Carousel (which is actually red)
White: Barry M - Cotton
Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl

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

Dripping Galaxy Nail Art

Hey there guys!! November time and it's nearly Christmas!! I love Christmas so much, I can't wait. It's nearly my birthday and things are nice. Until exams begin, might have to yolo that cause I'm not prepared. I don't like how schools expect you to be smart 2 months into term, it's not gonna happen.
Anyway today I have the nail art I wore for my school's formal (or "prom"), I went with this cause it was really blingy and rad. Obviously it matched my dress which was cobalt blue and one shoulder and flowy dresses are so fun. It was a fun night but not gonna lie I'm glad it's over so we can all move on with our lives hahahaha. I also did quite a few peoples' nails for it too which was a really sweet experience :)

I'm going with a different pose as the design was the other way round. I do prefer the other way as it's facing me but I thought it was the kind of situation to show off your nails. This is of course inspired by Coewless Nail Blog, her nails are totally insane. I did a colour scheme to match my dress and I love galaxy designs and the dripping thing looks so cool!! So I had fun with this design.

Ok this design took a while, my best friend came to visit me so I could do her nails and she witnessed me painting this design and she realised the commitment I have to my nails lol. So I freehanded the drips with the brush of the polish. Then the "fun" part, broke off tiny bits of sponge and dabbed colours on. There were a lot of colours and took a long time. I like with galaxies you can see the design slowly come together. I painted the stars with a toothpick and then I went mawd with the glitter. Also I had both hands matching for once and that's weird for me but I feel it took longer in a way.

I liked my thumb very much

Blue: H&M - Blue My Mind
White: Barry M - Cotton
Big Hex Glitter: Barry M - Hologram Hexograms (an old favourite)
Purples: Illamasqua - Jo'Mina, Essie - Lilacism, Illamasqua - Seance and OPI - Plum & Get It
Greens: Illamasqua - Melange and Barry M - Pole Position
Glitter Polishes: Topshop - Razzmatazz and Illamasqua - Blizzard (an essential for this)
Other Blues: OPI - Get Your Number, Essie - Bikini So Teeny and Essie - Lots Of Lux
There was maybe more and I could've been wrong, seriously I just had a ton of polish lined up ready to be dabbed.

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

Gimme Glitter: Illamasqua - Blizzard

Hi guys!! It's been a while since we've had a swatch post, just haven't bought a lot of polish which is a good thing. I didn't intend to buy this but TK Maxx has many nail polish blessings haha. Illamasqua for less than £4, you can't say no to that. Last year (it feels so much longer than that though) I bought a white glitter polish as a substitute (Claire's Fluffy btw) but I can now confirm they are not the same. Illamasqua has mad grace, not knocking Claire's though, they had one of my favourite polishes last year too.

Probably not your typical swatch but I wanted a really girly gradient and some extra glitter sprinkled in. So Blizzard has a clear base with subdued pearly white hex glitter and it's really pretty.

You know I love Illamasqua, the only high end brand that I think is worth it. The only one, nothing else is worth it. I'm loving that TK Maxx is selling them for so cheap, now I'll never buy full price again (unless another polish like Melange comes around...). Sure there are dupes and sometimes I'd go for them but the shades are amazing and the formula is flawless. Like it's quality stuff and while expensive not the worst of the high end brands (Chanel anyone?).

The formula was pretty good for this kind of glitter. There's a lot of base but if you load up the brush with glitter and do multiple nails at a time then you're sweet. While there's a lot of base there's also a lot of glitter. The gradient was done with The Body Shop A Grape Affair and Orly Basket Case, the extra glitter is Revlon Belle.

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

Neon brushstrokes + tribal nail art

Hey there guys!! We're nearing November and made it through October alive. I had my formal (or "prom") last week and that was fun and that was my last crazy event and I'm enjoying the week off school I've been blessed with. Meaning I did nothing productive lol. Need to sort that. I think November'll be nice. I know it's Halloween time but let's be real Halloween is one day of rubbishness, I have no nail art for that. Also I have nail art I'd prefer to do. Like this little design that was pretty rad, I love neons.

So I used the distressed thing but with neons and since neons are sheer it went well and contrasted that with a jet black geometric design and it's sweet if I do say so myself. It's so striking and I love that. Also I love triangles, fun fact.

So we know how brushstrokes go down with the wiping off all the polish from the brush and going with that. Then I got my toothpick and painted the black pattern, I just went with random designs there's no real correlation. I try my best to do freehand straight lines, I think I've got quite good at it over the years. Of course they're not ruler straight but we do the best we can :)

White: Barry M - Cotton

Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl

Pink: Nails Inc - Notting Hill Gate

Yellow: American Apparel - Neon Yellow

Orange: Models Own - Beach Party

Purple: Orly - Frolic

Green: China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard

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