Spirited Away Nails

Hey there!! So during my exams I got obsessed with Studio Ghibli (exam time is always a good time to get obsessed with things, tends to happen a lot...) their stories are perfect, the animation is gorgeous and everything is simply perfect. So I found this manga book that my aunt gave me a couple of Christmases ago and I thought the Studio Ghibli stuff sounded interesting. I realised I had the Spirited Away DVD and that's where it began. I can't believe I went so long in my life without Studio Ghibli, Spirited Away is now one of my favourite movies. I could go on forever about how perfect that film is, like I love the positive message and the amazing characters, like can I be Chihiro? So over Easter watched a crap ton of Studio Ghibli films cause they were on everyday on Film 4 (perfect timing right? Lol'ed at revision), and maybe I'll do the films I've watched for nail art but yeah loved all the ones I've watched and I want to watch them all.
Ok so after my declaration of love for Studio Ghibli I have nail art, and some of the best I've done if I do say so myself. Please everyone get into Studio Ghibli if you're not, but I am late to the party but thank goodness I'm here now.

So I did some of the main characters of Spirited Away and I'm so proud. Chihiro is the best person I've ever painted, I'm not good at people and this gives me hope haha. Like it's not perfect but I'm very happy with it. The red background is reflective of Chihiro's red dressing gown in the bathhouse (love that location). Whilst No Face is initially terrifying you realise how sweet he is and how the world corrupted him (the throwing up guys? A younger version of me would not have been ok with that, but I like the slightly creepy element now). I also did the bird and mouse who are so cute. And Dragon Haku, Haku is a bae. I'm glad I got the fur, again not perfect but I'm happy. Dragon Haku is unbelievably cool. We all agree right? :P

I'm glad I painted Chihiro first cause she was definitely the hardest to paint, the proportions were the end of me. See it got easier from there and if I'd done it the other way round I might have lost steam. I started with the peach and brown and added the details with toothpicks. No Face was relatively simple thankfully as were the mouse and bird. Those details were small though. Dragon Haku was also really hard. had to move the nose a lot cause it got hidden by the curve of my nail, at least you can even see it here. Did rough dry strokes with the grey. Cause sayin' the white and green is great, great colours they chose for a dragon.

Red: Barry M - Turbo Charged
Peach: w7 - Linen
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
Brown: w7 - Brownie
White: Barry M - Cotton
Pink: Per Una - Pink (no name)
Purple: The Body Shop - A Grape Affair
Yellow: Rimmel - Bee A Honey
Grey: Barry M - Chai
Pale Brown: Nails Inc - Sao Paulo Streets
Green: Barry M - Kiwi
Dark Green: OPI - Jade Is The New Black

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

Green Nails: Barry M - Pole Position

Hello there!! I have another Speedy polish, I saw another mint green in the range but I prefer the more green tone mints rather than blue. Everyone loves mint green right?

Yeah Pole Position is your pale mint green and it's very nice but nothing bank-breaking(?). It's a nice creme so will be good for nail art.

So this was the from the 1st wave of the Speedy range (they have cute checkered lids) and it has a lot of pastels. So it's a sweet collection, lots of nice colours, personally nothing that I think is insane but definitely good ones to have.

The formula was really good, like a good creme polish. Opaque and easy to apply (might as well just write this about all Barrys) and there are only bubbles here because it was a hot day in the nail room. I used 3 coats, they were thin coats so I think I could've used an extra coat for certain areas cause a little bit of streakiness.

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

Red Nails: Barry M - Turbo Charged

Hey there guys!! I'm on holiday now in Asia and it's been so nice seeing family and eating forever and shopping and general great holiday stuff. As usual I find myself busier than I expect cause I've been volunteering in a nursing home and nails as usual have been taking the backseat. Trying to catch up now but expect gaps, but that's just a standard thing we expect now. The nursing home has been a really good experience for me and I enjoyed it.
Today I have a swatch of a relatively new polish, my first one from the new Speedy range, obviously I knew when the range got released I was going to get some, this is Barry after all.

Turbo Charged is a corally red with silvery shimmer/flakes, the flakes make this gorgeous. They're so gorgeous!! I love the colour of this polish too, so it's already become a favourite. Red has become a thing for me.

The Speedy range claims to dry faster (as you would guess) but I don't really notice or care about things like that. But if it gets me more great Barry M polish then I agree. They're going for all these speed names and while I don't think they're the best I don't mind them. Turbo Charged was in the 2nd "wave" of the Speedy polishes (the shimmer ones are yes) and I have 1 from the 1st wave which I'll be showing soon.

Of course the formula was great like standard Barry, opaque and super easy to apply. I reckon this is 2 coats (uh it was a while since I did this swatch?) but 3 if you've got long nails. Not as smooth as a creme but pretty dang close.

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

Star Pattern Nails

Hi there you guys!! I love stars and this is a very uniform pattern and I think it's great. I love a bit of order sometimes.

Just all the colours, which I love. I was happy with how uniform I got the stars, that doesn't always happen for me. Yeah there's not much else to say but it's a nice design. I added the 3D stars for fun.

Got my toothpicks and freehanded all the stars, when I was a young'un (still am not gun lie) I figured out how to do nice stars without doing the lines in between which was an achievement back then. 

Yellow: Rimmel - Bee A honey

Green: Barry M - Kiwi

White: Barry M - Cotton

Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black

Red: Barry M - Carousel

Orange: Essie - Fear Or Desire

Blue: Barry M - Malibu

Purple: Illamasqua - Jo'Mina

Dark Blue: Nails Inc - Baker Street

Pink: Barry M - Miami 

Dark Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry

Light Green: Barry M - Greenberry

Dark Purple: OPI - Plum & Get It

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

Blue Nails: Nails Inc - The Tide Is High

Hello there!! I definitely have a lot of blue polish. It's my favourite colour!! So InStyle was giving free Nails Inc with the magazine and I didn't want to get the red and pink cause I have loads of them (don't say anything) but I wanted the blue. It's very pretty (yeah cause I don't have loads of colours like this...) and I think it kind of smells like chewy apple sweets, which is very nice ^_^

The Tide Is High (OBSESSED with the name, Atomic Kitten anyone? That was my childhood song) is a very pale blue with a hint of green/grey creme. See, very pretty, everyone likes colours like this.

I don't know what Nails Inc is doing. The polishes in the magazine were the original bottle but Nails Inc have got new bottles which I don't think are as nice and now they're £15!! That's too much for me, that's like just over the edge for me. Also the Victoria Beckham collaboration was expensive for generic colours, hey I'm just putting it out there. I'm just so controversial, but if you're spending that money you should get amazing unique polish that's worth the price!!

The formula was really good, very easy to apply and I think 2 coats would do. I did 3 cause that's what I do and my nails were pretty long and my coats were thin.

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

Who's that Pokémon? Spheal!

Hello nail art people(? I don't know, are you??)!! Continuing my favourite series with the Pokemon nail art, I love this so much. Pokemon are so cute. So today I have Spheal because he's the cutest puffy seal, 'nough said.
Also I recently got Pokémon X and I love it so much, it's so fun!! But I'll elaborate on that once I do some 6th generation nail art. I'm current;y at the 5th gym and I'm addicted like you don't even know haha. I picked X even though it's a bit older because it's the still the newest gen and I love the customisation of my character and I picked X because the legendary is real cute and looks like the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke. I'm infatuated guys.

Very proud of those spheals which look so cute. Like he's a ball!! I went for a distressed background to give the idea of like ice and aurora borealis. I really loved the look of it, thing is I probably went a bit too cray with the colours but I managed to save it 8) It just gives a very cool look and glitter always helps (unless its the wrong type of glitter...). I have no reason for the speech bubble, I didn't want to do a ring finger accent but then it looked very bare. So speech bubble.

So for the base I did you standard distressed thing where you wipe all the polish off the brush and go crazy with the strokes, I used all the colours. But then went overboard, sometimes you just know when you go overboard like you lose colours. I busted out the cotton bud and the nail polish remover and saved the base!! M&S Light Mix was perfect for the icy look. For the spheals I started with the colours and then did the outline, took a while to get the positioning right but worth it!!

Base: Nails Inc - The Tide Is High
Distressed colours: Models Own - Asscher Blue, Color Club - Sky High, Barry M - Socialite, w7 - Mosaic, Essie - Naughty Nautical (I think, I used so many colours I actually have no idea what I used :/), The Body Shop - A Grape Affair, OPI - Plum & Get It, Barry M - Chai (this one was a mistake, too dirty and dark), Barry M - Berry Ice Cream (or some pale purple of the like, I know no one cares but I do try to be accurate), Barry M - Dragon Fruit and probably more or less but whatever they were, they were a fierce combo.
Flakie glitter: M&S - Light Mix
Blue: Essie - Bikini So Teeny
White: Barry M - Cotton
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
Green: Barry M - Kiwi
Red: Barry M - Carousel
Dark red: Barry M - Raspberry

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

Yellow Nails: Rimmel - Bee A Honey

Hey there!! It's a swatch day and this polish surprised me. I went out looking for a darker yellow, I really only have one shade of yellow in my collection and girl needs variety. I really was surprised.

Bee A Honey (lame pun but cute name) is an orange-y very Winnie the Pooh yellow creme. It's just such a fun colour!! I was surprised at how much I liked it and how I kept staring at how fun the polish is!! I don't know if I'm a yellow convert but I really really like this one. There's the whole 60 second claim which could be true but generally I ignore that stuff.

Rimmel is very on point, the colour range is fantastic and the price is great. Also their makeup is really nice on a side note!! I got this orange-y red lipstick from them called In Love With Ginger (shoutout to Ginger Rodgers!! :P) and I love it.

For a yellow polish the formula is really really good. I used 3 coats and it was very opaque, my nails are on the longer side and at 2 coats it was only a little bit streaky. Again so easy to apply so I was impressed.

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

Blue + pink ikat nails

Hey there guys!! During exam time I wanted some nail art to tie me over so I have a basic ikat nails. I don't think I painted them that well and the polish was very thick. But tie me over it did.

The only difference is the coming out the cuticle spike thing, more dramatic ya'know. I like a bitta sparkle and while I adore the combination of pink and blue, it never works very well on nail for me :/ One day I say...

I used a combination of the toothpick and brush, I did to do so many strokes so I wouldn't have big blocks of colour. I had to do various shades of pink to add more interest but I don't think it really helped this design. I don't hate it but it's not my best design in creativity or execution. Like I've done an inverted version of this design a while ago.

Blue: Essie - Bikini So Teeny and Topshop - Razzmatazz
White: Barry M - Cotton
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
Pinks: Barry M - Dragon Fruit and Models Own - Radiant Pink 

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