Black Nails: Ciaté - Chalkboard Paint

Hello there cool dudes(?)!! Man I haven't written in ages, I've made it through the first week of exams and not gonna lie it's been a rough week. Like really rough, exams are hard :( This is my intellectual comment I have to impart. So the backlog has been massive for ages so I'm trying to tackle it bit by bit. Starting with this swatch, this was my last polish to swatch but then I um bought more polish and those swatches will go up at some point ("some point" cause who knows when?). My best friend got me the Chalkboard manicure set for my birthday (which was another while ago) and I've done the set and it's cool, that'll go up at some point too haha :P

Chalkboard Paint is a matte black nail polish, a so-called chalkboard effect as is intended. Does what it says on the tin, black has never really been my colour. It's just so...not bright, which if you didn't know is basically my favourite things ever.

I don't know what interesting things to say about Ciaté that hasn't already been said, maybe this chalkboard manicure idea was stolen from a blogger but I don't know and don't get involved. In TK Maxx Ciaté is heavily discounted so like in the end I win :P

This chipped like nothing else, the chips were so massive and I attempted to paint those patches back but you can still kind of see it. The formula was pretty runny but pretty sure you can get full opacity with 2 coats. The chips were so horrendous though, it wasn't just tip wear like a chuck of a quarter of the polish would come off and I wasn't doing anything too crazy. See I probably won't wear this again (unless I do the chalkboard manicure again, and that is pretty cool) not only because of the colour but because of the ridiculous chips.

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

Black Nails: Topshop - Gypsy Night

Hey there guys!! I have a swatch today; this polish was actually one of the very first polishes I ever swatched. It actually wasn't too bad, but the cuticles were shameful and for that I apologise :P But this is legit a cool black polish. I'm not a black polish kind of girl (it's too gloomy) but these ones make me feel differently.

See already this isn't your typical black polish. Gypsy Night is a black polish with opalescent (red/orange/green) flakes and holographic glitter. Yeah, that's how you make black cool.

I really love Topshop polish, it's really really good stuff and I think totally underrated and under-appreciated. The colours are fab and the formulas are brill. I have said before I want to get more Topshop polish and I would but I guess generally my wishlist is very small nowadays (watch that change in 2 seconds) so I don't get anything. Yes I am a controlled lady.

I used 3 thin coats but as usual 2 thick coats would do you good. It applies very easily with no fuss. It builds very well as it may seem sheer but it's not really (really good descriptions from me as usual :/).

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

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!! :)

Black Nails: M&S - Petrol

Hello there!! This is the M&S polish that seriously blew my mind. Forget the fact they do nail polish at all, but a texture?? I was done. And it's mad gorgeous in the bottle, once I tried it on my nails oh my this is a beautiful polish, I was exciting to get a proper swatch of this. And I don't do black nails!!

Black texture with a very prominent (way more prominent than in the pictures) green shimmer THAT CHANGES TO PURPLE IN CERTAIN LIGHTING!! It was beautiful when the shimmer turned to purple and sometimes there was some green and some purple and blue perhaps even kind of yellow-ish and that was mind-blowing. Though sometimes when the polish was just black (the green was always there though) it was a bit average but in general, we have a mad pretty polish here.

Getting my way through swatching the Marks and Spencers's polishes, I probably won't swatch them all cause they aren't all my colours (e.g. brown) but I think I've done most of the ones I like. It's textured, I can't. I <3 textured polishes!!

I used 2 coats but I really should've used 3, even in pictures you can see that the polish isn't completely covering my nails. But it builds well and it easy to apply. The brush in general is pretty small though so many dips required (that sounds weird)?

Bonus topcoat pic!! This is how I mostly wore this, it darkens the black and makes the shimmer even more prominent (can't say no to that). I used 2 really thick coats of topcoat (Deborah Lippmann Addicted to Speed, it's not bad, no Color Club 3 in 1) and yet you could still feel and see the texture. I wasn't going to use more topcoat, so clearly this polish is a VERY textured one.

Haha thank you for reading this long post and I hope you have a great day!! :) 

31DC2013: Day 12 - Stripes

Hi there guys!! Stripes are not my forte, normally they're just not that great for me when there are tons of gorgeous striped manicures out there.
Over the summer my friend sent me a picture she saw on Pinterest and said it's be cool if I'd tried it. Thing was I had so many nail art things I also wanted to try so I didn't get round to it. But her picture fit the striped theme perfectly and I went and gave it a go (unfortunately I don't know where or who created the design, but theirs was snazzy).
By the way I'd love to have Pinterest but the long and short of it is that, I know if I got it my life would be spent on Pinterest, which wouldn't be so great for me right now ;)

Sorry my hand's so weirdly coloured, my lighting was being weird

The original has a very different colour scheme but I felt like I wanted some green so I did that (I don't know a less stupid way of saying that). They also used black tape, which I don't have so I freehanded the stripes, they're a bit wobbly but I like them nonetheless. The design is pretty cool, lots of colours can be used and I like the colour scheme I chose.
I showed it to my friend in school and she said she thought it was nice and was glad to provide me with inspiration ^_^ Bless her.

I painted a stripe of colour with the brush of the nail polish, then drew some thick-ish lines in black. I don't know why this reminds me of bandages. But the lines going in different directions is pretty funky.

Base: China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint and OPI - Pirouette My Whistle (subtle, but there)
Stripes:
Thumb: Nails Inc - Baker Street (blue) and OPI - Plum And Get It
Index: Barry M - Prickly Pear (purple), The Face Shop - BL601 and Revlon - Blue Lagoon (blue)
Middle: Barry M - Fuchsia (pink) and Color Club - Sky High (blue)
Ring: Color Club - Wing Fling (pink) and Illamasqua - Jo'Mina (purple)
Pinky: The Face Shop - PK105 (pink)
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black (as always)

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a fantastic day, look forward to seeing you for animal print!! :)

Pink + Black Triangles

Hi there!!! The long week is over once again, darn school for giving me a gazillion homeworks and tests but I'll freak out about that later -_- I've been in a very triangular mood (you can feel triangular too!!!), so I freehanded some triangles once again. You can't go wrong with triangles :P

They're kind of like black Doritos, or ones that are severely out of date. Sometimes the design looked really cool, other times not so much. It looks nice in the pictures so I'll take it ;)
Pink: The Face Shop - PK105 with OPI - Excuse Moi!
Black: Topshop - Gypsy Night and Rimmel - Black Pearl
I also made this matte and Excuse Moi! looks cool matte.

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

Black Snowflakes

Hello there, enjoying new year's eve's eve? I probably used really bad grammar there :/ Since it's still the winter I think snowflakes are still appropriate so making them black must be appropriate too.

Yes I know they look weird. I severely disliked this design after I finished. If I wrote this post yesterday I would've stated that I severely dislike it. But it's somewhat grown on me and I don't think it's that bad, looks interesting I guess. I actually did quite a nice gradient, they're getting better (but still bad), it's much easier to do gradients with glitter.
Base: The Face Shop - PK105, OPI - Excuse Moi! and Barry M - Amethyst 
Black snowflakes: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
Black snow: Rimmel - Black Pearl (gift from a friend for Christmas :)) and Topshop - Gypsy Night
Holographic glitter: Barry M - Hologram Hexogram
I have to say Hologram Hexogram made this design look much better, it ties things together. The Face Shop pink is really pretty, it's actually really bright but these pictures do not show that. Amethyst has little black particles of glitter and I really like that :)

Thank you for looking and have a lovely day!!!

31 Day Challenge - Day 7 - Black and White Nails

I have wanted to do this for ages O.o (and my friend has been waiting for ages for me to do this :P).

(The photo is edited a bit because the picture I took was really blurry and the colours weren't showing up well).

NINJA NAILS!!!! Ok I’m still excited that they are on my nails :O It’s so SO cute!!! Ninjas in general are awesome. But Gypsy Night makes the ninjas special, they’re sparkly ninjas!!!! I know the black to white ratio isn’t really equal, but hey I used black and white. I just wanted an excuse for ninja nails.

Black isn’t my colour, um it’s not bright :P But recently I went out and bought Topshop Gypsy Night, and I was super excited to put it on. See when black has red flakies and holographic glitter, it becomes my colour. I love Gypsy Night (I love anything with holographic glitter :P), it’s gorgeous. 

                                                    (The camera just couldn't take the glitter)

                                                                     (Look at that glitter!!!!!!)

Colours used:  

Fancy Black (couldn’t think of anything else to call it): Topshop – Gypsy Night

Light Peach: w7 – Linen

Black: Lovely Me:Ex – Black

White: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails – French White Tip