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!! :)

Coral Nails: Claire's - Hundreds & Thousands

Hey guys, what up? No one says what up but I felt it was appropriate because this polish is so amazing (which are two things that are just not linked but such is my mind).
Because I am so cool I had a massive debate with myself of whether to do a "______ Nails" post or a "Gimme Glitter". You can tell what I picked but just to be definitive with myself, Gimme Glitter posts are for predominantly glitter polishes and otherwise for polishes with glitter but the colour of the polish stands out then I don't do a Gimme Glitter. Or it can go either way depending on my mood, we aren't so official here at PlumeriaPainted. ANYWAY to the amazing amazing amazing polish that I'm in love with that caused such a debate with myself.

By the way this polish learns more pink than orange than my pictures suggest, it's a reason I love it

It's the most gorgeous shade of NEON coral. There's red, blue and yellow/gold glitter (i.e. my favourite colour combo ever). There's added huge white glitter and just white glitter. CAN YOU TELL WHY I LOVE THIS!! It's just combined my favourite polish things into one polish. It's just so perf.
Ok so Hundreds & Thousands (cutest name, good job Claire's) is a neon coral creme with medium blue and sheer white hexes, small red and yellow glitter and big white hexes (love love love). It's way brighter on the nail than in the bottle. The glitter is also not hidden but shows up perfectly in the base.

Claire's is just so beast right now. They've upped their game so much and I'm so impressed. Out of the polishes I've got this is by far my favourite and I really really liked the others. Course I have to get more :P They're jumping on all the trends and doing it right most of the time. So many kudos to them (I don't even know what kudos is).

I used 3 coats by itself and it built really well and the glitter spread great too. The finish was quite lumpy but topcoat sorts that easily (specially a good topcoat, I didn't use a good topcoat and I had to use quite a few coats). It seems like the kind of polish that would be thick but it's not, and it's not streaky and yeah I love it.

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

And then POP (art) goes my heart!!

Hello there you fantastic person!! I don't know if you get the title reference, it's from the movie "Music and Lyrics" that I watched AGES ago and didn't even finish. I do hope to finish it, I love a good chick flick. And on the note of chick flicks, and romance, here's my first Valentine's Day design (most awkward segue ever?). Everyone else seemed to be doing these designs last month but hahahaha as usual I'm late. Well Valentine's Day itself isn't late, but I have more Valentine's designs to come :/ But this design combines neon and pop art, 2 of my favourite things, obviously it was going to be love (see what I did there?).

Yep a pop art design with all my neons. It's a beautiful thing. My ring finger was inspired by Finger Painted then I went mental. From the pop art hearts to the explosions to the neon glitter. Neons make me unbelievably happy and all the colours... ^_^ I love those pop art dots in general and the whole design I feel comes together in a weird way.

I used my standard bobby pins, toothpicks and nail polish brushes for this look. I dabbed/brushed on Clowning Around, a bit hard to get an even distribution especially of all the glitter colours. But worth it in the end.

White: Barry M - Matt White
Neon Glitter: Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around
Yes this polish continues to bleed :'( but that can't stop it's beauty. I don't think anything can.
Pink: Nails Inc - Notting Hill Gate
Light Pink: Barry M - Superdrug Summer 2013 A
Orange: Models Own - Beach Party
Green: China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard
Blue: Nails Inc - Baker Street
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you have a lovely (;)) Valentine's day!! :)

Pink Nails: Barry M - Superdrug Limited Edition Summer 2013 A

Hey there guys!! Hope you're all well and relaxing. Yeah I need to end my procrastination soon (but knowing me I won't :P). Hard when Happy Street releases an update where you can get beach, I've got the beach and it's fab (I spent a solid 2 days getting it) But the story that they've put through is really good, I NEED MORE QUESTS (cause more quests = more story). That's what makes Happy Street special, the cute little story they put through the game.
Anyway polish, I was suckered in by the packaging and the limited edition and I liked the colour. When I put it on I knew this was a special one, and after when I put it on again I simply LOVED it. It's another limited edition though (I love the Barry M limited edition polishes) so this bottle will be treasured like the other limited editions. The colour is just so me, and it's neon, and it's pink. Like there was no way I wasn't going to love this.

When I first bought this I didn't realise it was neon, but then I was in a darkish and it was "glowing". I LOVE that!! Obviously my camera had difficulties capturing the colour (neons are hard and I think my camera is not a fan of pink, convenient as it's one of my favourite colours), so some "colour correcting" was needed. It's a coral-ly light pink and it's so beautiful. I can't be the only one who LOVES the colour.

Look how cute the lid is!! Superdrug got 2 limited editions (the other one was green with an even cuter tribal lid) and Boots got 2, a fuchsia and a yellow. I haven't seen any posts on them, the Barry M limited editions should get more coverage so everyone (really just all the gals in the UK, sad that they aren't available everywhere :() can run out and get them. I'm eyeing up one of the current Superdrug limited editions, it's holographic glitter obviously I am. I also love how frequent the limited editions are, 2 years ago it was only Christmas limited editions. I still think Superdrug get the better ones.

I used 3 thin coats over white (2 coats Barry M - Matt White), 3 coats is definitely needed to remove all streaks, but soooooooooooooo worth it.
I do not care at all that the formula is not perfect cause this colour is so lovely. You can probably see the flaws in my swatch (though I think that was my sucky topcoat's fault, not my Color Club one, it wouldn't dare mess up a manicure). This is a jelly so bubbles form easier (especially with me and my lack of patience). It also dried kind of matte-ish (which I don't mind) but I topcoated it to remove the appearance of bubbles, only for my topcoat to form more but whatevs its not that bad. But honestly there were very little bubbles before topcoat, literally one cause I was smart for once and used thin coats.

So yeah I love this polish, time to buy more Barry M limited edition polishes methinks. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!! :)

Orange Nails: Models Own - Beach Party

Hi there guys!! "Swatch" post today, I went on a trip to Boots and TK Maxx a while ago to buy some birthday presents for friends, unfortunately I didn't find anything I was interested in for them in TK Maxx so I hopped over the Boots (by the way TK Maxx sell Deborah Lippmann now o.O).
Oh man Boots is a beautiful place, I got the presents for my friends but this little polish was calling my name. I've taken Beach Party off my wishlist before, and I now I don't know why, like really what was I thinking?? I'm too in love with the colour, it's so perfect. One day I wish I could just walk around Boots and buy a crap ton of polish, but the controlled girl in me won't let that happen (as much as I want to :P).
Also by the way Boots is now selling Butter LONDON, this has been happening for a while, but this opens more possibilities for me which could be seen as a good or bad thing.

It's neon, do I even need to say more? You know I will anyway but it's orange neon. I love a good orange polish, and neons? I LOVE me a neon. The colour in real life is a hint darker but you better believe it's that bright and more. I was in a dim room and it was practically glowing, clearly this secured this polish being beyond amazing. I guess I'd describe this as a light orange neon polish (sorry it's a lame description but it's all I got) which dries to a semi-matte finish. The natural finish is showed in the pictures.

This was from the Models Own Hed Kandi collection, trust me I have no idea what Hed Kandi is and I live in the UK. I think the collection was awesome, at different points I'd have certain polishes on my wishlist. Just shame on me for waiting so long to buy this. It has convinced me that I only need 1 neon orange polish (I was thinking of getting another one, cause they're neons).

Another one of the best things about this polish is the formula, you know neons requiring their white bases (which I'm up for cause it's always worth it for me). 2 coats and NO WHITE BASE for the popping colour, 2 coats, it was a dream come true. Once again I couldn't even, seems to happen a lot.

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

31DC2013: Day 16 - Tribal

Hi there guys!! I love a good tribal, they look plain awesome. This tribal was inspired by The Nailasaurus, I've been wanting to do this design since I saw it last year (I seem to take a long time to do designs I like ;)). I thought I wouldn't be as effective due to my lack of matte glitter, but now I have matte glitter!! So I used the colour scheme of the glitter and busted out some "studs" that I've had sitting around for a while. I really love this look, so many elements of awesome (not to toot my own horn, gosh that's a weird phrase, but really so many of my favourite things).

Neon pink, matte glitter, studs, clashing colours, tribal!! This design is for me!! The red and pink matte glitter doesn't show up so well, I judged badly I thought they would show up. But I don't mind as the other types of glitter look great (and no bubbles!).
I did the matte glitter colour scheme inspired and the same ring finger and strip of studs like The Nailasaurus then went crazy with the tribal painting. I've mentioned before I'm terrible at coming up with tribal designs but I don't think this was half bad. I like the triangles on my index finger. I want to try from now on to come up with my own tribal designs even if I find it difficult and don't want to, how else am I going to learn? :P

Also my first time using stud type things and I love them, this is clearly calling for me to buy more (cheap) ones. My friend gave these jewel studs one day as she said she'd never use them and I'd appreciate them (and yes I very much appreciate them). She also gave me some gold loose glitter, I haven't really considered using it but you never know... (don't worry the glitter won't be used anytime soon. it'd end as a messy disaster).
I just love the way these studs look, I thought they were more metal but no, but I think they look great in the tribal.
To apply them, I got an older topcoat, painted on a bit, then dipped my toothpick in a little bit of topcoat and placed the jewel stud on. They were pretty solid, I put a layer of topcoat over and I thought they were really secure and I wasn't tempted to pull them off!!

Pink: Nails Inc - Notting Hill Gate with Barry M - Matt White as a base
Blue: Nails Inc - Baker Street
Green: Illamasqua - Nomad
Red: OPI - Dutch Tulips
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
Matte Glitter: The Face Shop - CMX321

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

31DC2013: Day 10 - Gradient Nails

Hi there guys! We are a 3rd of the way in of the challenge and I'm proud that I'm still here frankly, today is gradients, and I love them. They are so gorgeous, shame that I'm not so hot that them even though I make them way harder than they need to be. I'm kind of in love with this look, it's the neon gradient. Yeah I love neon, pretty sure I don't hide this. I originally had a completely different gradient idea in mind but once I got my hands on Models Own Beach Party, things were changing...

AHHHHHHHH NEON I LOVE IT!! If that wasn't clear already. It's brighter in real life and all I can do is stare, I love all things bright (lots of love today). The pink/orange/green is so pretty, I just can't (sorry for lack of a better description).
Once decided the neon gradient was going to happen, I wanted the accent to be a more dulled version (though I probably would have loved this more if it was all neon, but the accents make the neon stand out more). Black and white glitter always looks fantastic over gradients, as most glitters do.

I also did a different gradient technique, now the last time I tried this technique it failed. But that was my fault, I was a bit too cack-handed. Normally I get the sponge and do one colour at a time, I knew the paint all the colours on the sponge and press on would make my gradients look better but I fail to use good advice.
My gradient is blended, when I look close up, the parts where the pink goes into orange and orange goes into green and the blend is beautiful and I am proud. Usually that blend is not there. That's the case for my thumb and ring finger cause I was lazy haha, but I still like those gradients.

Neon polishes:
Pink: Nails Inc - Notting Hill Gate
Orange: Models Own - Beach Party
Green: China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard
I really like the colour of this but it's SO sheer, so many coats were done that day.
White base: Barry M - Matt White
Black and white glitter: L'Oreal Color Riche - Confetti
Regular polishes:
Pink: No7 - Me! Me! Me!
Orange: Essie - Tart Deco
Green: OPI - Jade Is The New Black
Rainbow glitter: OPI - Rainbow Connection
In most lighting Rainbow Connection always looks silver, also Rainbow Connection doesn't really have rainbow glitter, there's mostly pink, orange, green (see my colour scheme ;)) and silver (there's also yellow and blue). The silver bothers me, is there silver in a rainbow?? (No) But I'll always like this polish cause of the name, still searching for my perfect matte rainbow glitter polish :)

There's me and my sponge to give you an idea of what I did, I definitely had to clean up after but it's the best gradient I've done so I can't complain. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have an amazing day!! :)

Gimme Glitter: Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around

Oh hey there wonderful you, hoping your Monday was fun. Last post I mentioned I got some EXTREMELY EXCITING MAIL. I had some other posts planned before this but I could not wait to post this. I'm finding it hard to write the rest of the post in lower case cause, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! I GOT MY FIRST INDIE POLISH!!! I CAN'T EVEN!!! I've been longing for this polish since March when I saw it on Chalkboard Nails. Now I adore indie polishes and all the time I'm like "OMG so pretty, I want it now!!!", but when I saw Clowning Around it was "HOW IS SUCH BEAUTY POSSIBLE!!! WAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNT!!!". After 4 months such beauty is mine. I want to show everyone how amazing this polish is, as it exceeded my expectations (which were very high) and it needs to be shown (requiring help from my phone as my camera was having difficulties)!! Get ready for a lot of pictures, but considering I took 143 it's not that much ;)

Can you tell which is phone and which is proper camera? (Probably can)

I am not a bottle shot person but this was required!!! How nice are the bottles?? :D

Hallelujah for my phone which came in to save the day!! But my camera didn't do a half bad job (the display screen lied to me). I needed to show how BRIGHT the glitter is and colour accurately (required colour correcting but not too much), because the colours of the glitter are GORGEOUS.
Clowning Around consists of NEON hexes, small pink, medium pink, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple and some big hexes which I didn't have to fish for (the only colour I didn't get was purple). Pictures still cannot do any justice, it's still brighter and cameras just aren't meeting the mark.
ISN'T SHE A BEAUTY!! The moment I put this on I have not stopped staring O.o <--- Me all the time. When applying, from the 1st brush I was squealing, I can't get over how amazing this is. The colours go so well together, NEON GLITTER, the big hexes, the general beauty, I CAN'T GET OVER IT!!! This polish is the definition of awesome, I find awesome is such an overused word (I do not enjoy using it on this blog) even speaking as a teen it's overused but this genuinely creates awe. OH MY GOODNESS IT'S SO AMAZING I CAN'T COPE I CAN'T DEAL I CAN'T EVEN OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I cannot describe the feelings. HOW IS SUCH BEAUTY POSSIBLE???

I pretty much have to admire indies from afar, but I was planning to purchase this but what triggered the dive into indie waters was Lush Lacquer announcing the closure of international shipping. I knew that was the sign to go. I waited 29 days for the parcel to go (hey less than a month, good for international shipping). I screamed when I opened it. Cause that's what people do.
I used 1 coat and dabbing of Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around over Barry M - Matt White for the colours to "pop" over. I found the first coat spread pretty well depending on how much you had on your brush but dabbing was needed to fill gaps, unfortunately occasionally creating bubbles (be careful folks, let it dry properly too, remember I was very excited and squealing). The bubbles definitely weren't too bad, it's not completely smooth (this is glitter we're talking about) so use your nice topcoats (I didn't but I should've cause the one I used sucked).

Throwing in a left hand picture, also shows how different the mixes of glitter can be :)

As previously mentioned, it's not like I can buy indies all the time due to shipping (it's expensive and I hate waiting, it makes me anxious) but Lush Lacquer was the first indie brand I was interested in.
It was the 4th of October 2012 (yes I remember the exact date :/), and before I really didn't understand. It never clicked in my head that these people were hand mixing the polish, it was just "cool" polish, I really was blank about it all, it never crossed my mind that people could make nail polish. But that day I was stalking browsing The PolishAholic's blog (she is such an enabler) and read one of her indie Saturday spams and everything fell into place, life made sense, a new part of me appeared. Haha joking, it wasn't that dramatic but I was very much hooked. I never got the Lush Lacquer polish I really liked then, but maybe one day. I LOVE glitter (hopefully you all could tell) so indies are right up my street, I have been googly-eyed over many an indie polish.

Urgh can you even? Cause I can't even. This is too amazing, I need calm, but I can't stop staring and I'm insistent on showing EVERYONE my nails cause I am enamoured. I kind of never want to take it off ;) I really adore Lush Lacquer as their polishes are so bright, colourful and fun (i.e. me) and just appeal to me. They released part 2 of their neon collection last Friday, which are SO nice. Also they reopened international shipping for a bit (might still be open!!) due to the new collection. I won't be back in indie waters for a while (no/low buy etc.), but I can't wait to get back to all the phenomenal polishes!!
The good thing about Lush Lacquer is that they're always open (so convenient) and can be bought from their Etsy and Llarowe.

Thank you very very much for reading this special post with lots of pictures and writing, but I couldn't help it!! And I have a question for you today. What was your 1st indie polish? And if you haven't yet got it what will your future 1st indie polish be? I am very interested to hear as, come on indies are awesome!! I hope you have a spectacular day!!! :D

Neon Ikat Diamonds

Hello there wonderful people!! The long week is thankfully over. I'd love to say things are winding down but they are seriously not. This time last year all my exams were over and I was fighting with myself whether to start a blog or not. Now my exams aren't over and my blogaversary is less than a week away :O It completely crept up on me, I thought "Oh it's AGES away". That is no longer the case and May has whizzed past (as the year in general has). I cannot wait til my exams are over, I will be walking with a skip in my step and spontaneously dancing in random bursts at unpredictable moments (and I'm a great dancer :/).
I have been really liking the ikat pattern, and what could be better than combining it with neon. Nothing, cause neon is the best thing ever.

I normally do the triangle ikat shape but I wanted to switch things up and I much prefer the diamonds. They're great! I busted out my 2 neon polishes and of course added accents. Everything I do requires accents but also you don't want to over-neon or the effect won't be as prominent (or something).

My camera was struggling with how bright the neon is, an example of the brightness, is sometimes in school I'd be sitting in class and I'd say "NEON ATTACK!!" and put my nails in someone's face cause that's normal. I edited to make things BRIGHT as they are.
I also want to apologize for my cuticles, I don't know what's been happening as I've been moisturising a lot and they're still messed. Maybe it's stress, but I'm not stressed so I really don't know, also stress doesn't affect the cuticles (at least I don't think so). I genuinely don't know.

I start with the neons. I needed a white base for China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard (neon green) as I seem to be the only one with formula issues with this polish. So Models Own - Snow White (such a struggle as we have gone into mega gloopy town with this polish) and Professional Nail Care - French Manicure White Tip (which I don't like as it's just a poor white manicure white with no pigmentation). There were bubbles as nothing would dry but the ikats covered it up so all was ok.
But Snow White was good for the whites of the ikats as it was naturally rougher due to the gloopiness. And the neon pink is Nails Inc - Notting Hill Gate (LOVE), it's neon pink, love is implied.
For the accents the pink is Color Club - Wing Fling and the aqua is Topshop - Green Room. The black is Lovely Me:Ex - Black and occasionally I would fix things with Lovely Me:Ex - White.
The Color Club topcoat smoothed everything out and was generally brilliant.

I love the roughness of the ikat pattern, once again I have been really enjoying it. I like things with a bit of "edge". This has "edge". I hope you all have a lovely weekend and thank you for reading!!! :)

Combo: Barbie Girl

Yay another combo!!! I'm not going to do one combo and leave like 3 weeks in-between before the next one ;) Also since I love combinations I don't see why not. Seeing the mani it's pretty clear why I called it "Barbie Girl" (well I think anyway).

Hot pink and the flakies really make it Barbie. Ok I can't explain why, it just does, at least to me. This picture is the most true to colour out of all the pictures. The multicoloured flakies on top make it like jumbled and I thought it could be colours of purchases or something (I just made that up :L). I again used The Face Shop - PK105 (used for the pink penguins) and oh my goodness it is the most amazing hot pink.

Ok the colour did not show up correctly (I could not find good lighting in my cousins house also my camera just wouldn't co-operate) but it's way brighter. When I was looking at the pink I thought "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE??!". But I also like hot pink which also contributed to my love of the polish. I did 3 coats (it was 2 coats for opacity but did another one for luck).

The flakies were OPI - I Lily Love You. This is 3 coats (it's very thin). I broke my ban again. :L But it was on my list (obviously that justifies it)!!!! And it was either that or China Glaze - Snow Globe (Snow Globe has been rejected in my head quite a few times). Simple put I lily love this polish (:L). I love flakies I love how they are iridescent so they are different colours in the light. I love that the base is pink (even though it doesn't really matter cause it doesn't show up when layered). It's gorgeous, nuff said. 

Hehe close up of Barbie Girl. Yes without saying, I really like this combo, not a favourite (I have something else for favourites ;)) but it's lovely. And really fun :)