Nail Art Style

Hey everyone! Apologies that it's been a few days since I've posted, I've been revising constantly, and yesterday (Friday) I passed my driving test (yay!) so I went out for a meal in the evening to celebrate and never got around to posting. I probably wouldn't have actually managed to get this up today if it hadn't been for my boyfriend, who very kindly edited all these pictures for me because I didn't have time. He's been offering to edit for a while now and I've struggled to let go of the reigns, but he didn't an awesome job so I think he's going to find himself bombarded with pictures now!

Exams aren't very far away now, so only one week and 2 days and my schedule should return to usual. I'm really sorry it's not been great for the past few weeks but hopefully you understand. I have a couple of posts in the 'vault' so to speak and I'll have a guest post from the lovely Amelia this week for you too which will be great I'm sure!

So today's post is a bit of a mix and match review with a few polishes from Nails inc. They're all from a variety of collections, but they work surprisingly well together. I love Nails inc. polishes and I'm really glad I got these to review because they're all amazing quality as usual, as you will see below! Full review will be after the jump

Chiswick Park* is a lovely purple shade created for QVC for their 20th anniversary. It's part of a duo with Kensington Caviar Topcoat*, shown below. As you can see it dries with an almost matte texture, which (unsurprisingly considering my matte obsession) I love. This was 2 coats without topcoat, although I feel perhaps 3 might have been better to equal it out

This is Chiswick Park* with 1 coat of Kensington Caviar topcoat*. It dried relatively fast and is really shiny, quite a good topcoat in comparison to a lot on the market but I'm slightly off put by the orange colour of the topcoat. Something about coloured topcoats really dishearten me for some reason! 

Next is St. James* which is from the Gel Effect collection. This polish is amazing, this was just one coat without topcoat, and it's completely opaque, super shiny and dried really fast. I don't have a bad word to say about this polish. 

And last but certainly not least is Buckingham Court* from the Galaxy collection, this polish is so cool. It definitely reminds me of a galaxy, and it looks great. This was 1 coat over St. James*, but I needed a slight amount of placement, and no topcoat.

Hi guys. Today's post is going to be quick, as I've got a rather busy day ahead of me. For some unbeknown reason, this morning saw the decision of water marbling attempt. I haven't had a go at this technique for months, mainly because it's so tricky and tends to end in disaster more often than success! I chose to incorporate my blog's design colours into the mani, as I love how pastel green and purple complement one another. Oooh, and please forgive me for the state of my cuticles/the clean up!

Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White'

Sinful Colors 'Pistache'

Butter London 'Molly Coddled'

Nail art gems

Dotting tool

Tepid water in a plastic cup

Essie 'Good To Go'

I painted all my bases white to start with, then applied two coats of 'Pistache' to my ring finger nail, and one coat of 'Molly Coddled' to my index finger nail. Then I began water marbling for my other nails: I dripped the polish colours into the water forming consecutive circles, then used my dotting tool to swirl the pattern around. Once I was happy with the pattern that was created, I dipped in my nails. As I pulled them out, I caught any excess with my dotting tool. I repeated the process for each nail, creating slightly different marble patterns. My plain green and purple nails looked a bit boring in comparison to the water marbled ones, so I added some nail art gems in opposing colours. Once dry, I topped the whole mani off with Essie 'Good To Go'. What do you think?

Ever suffered from nail artist's block? It is one of the most frustrating things in the world. You sit there, dozens (if not hundreds) of beautiful polishes smiling up at you, begging to be used. Your nails are crying out: 'Please paint me, I'm so naked/chipped/sad!'. You scroll through your Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr feeds, greeted by so many gorgeous nail art designs, and immediately feel a pang of jealousy. 

You're desperate to do your nails, but you are fresh out of ideas.

Onlookers may roll their eyes and sigh with exasperation. 'Just paint them then? You've got so many nail polishes to choose from.' The thing is, when you dedicate a large portion of your life to coming up with new ideas, trying out techniques, executing complex designs and then sharing your creations across the good old Interweb, the simple 'slapping on' of a colour just doesn't cut it. You know that plain nails will bring nothing but disappointment, both for yourself, and for the friends that regularly anticipate a gorgeous, detailed manicure. 

So how do you solve this predicament? How do you cure the dreaded condition of nail artist's block? Well, my two failsafes are leopard print and mix & match. Leopard print is the go-to pattern for many; it is simple, yet effective, and allows for the use of any colour combination. Mix & match nails are also an excellent option: the most basic designs can be brought together, making for an eye-catching mani, and enabling you to combine tricky techniques with more modest methods. 

Butter London 'Molly Coddled'

OPI 'Can't Let Go'

Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White'

Barry M black nail art pen

Nail art gems

Fine nail art paint brush

Essie 'Good To Go'

I used 'Molly Coddled' as a base for my little finger and thumb nails. This required two coats, but I could have easily got away with one. On my middle and ring finger nails I used 'Can't Let Go', which is a Liquid Sand lacquer from OPI's Mariah Carey collection. On my index finger, I used three coats of Sinful Colors 'Snow Me White'. Once all bases were dry, I started adding the details. I decided to give my thumb a full-on leopard print pattern, so dabbed on dots of 'Can't Let Go', and once dry, added extra patches with my black nail art pen. I then decided to involve love hearts in the design, and used a fine nail art brush to apply a 'Molly Coddled' one to my ring finger, and a 'Can't Let Go' one to my index finger.

Hey everyone! As halloween is starting to creep up on us a bit (see what I did there?) I thought it was time to start bringing the halloween nails around. I have 5 designs for you this year, 4 of which are tutorials so I'll be doing tutorial tuesday and tutorial thursday this week, hopefully you wont mind too much. So I'm starting my halloween nails off with these cute witch owls. These were meant to be a tutorial but they ended up a bit too long-winded so I thought I'd just keep them as a simple nail design. I got this idea from Little Miss Nail Polish, you can see her design here.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Hey everyone! I'm so excited for today's post, because I have the amazing China Glaze Monsters Ball collection to show you. This is my first time reviewing for China Glaze and the collection certainly doesn't disappoint. This a much more glitter-led halloween collection than I've seen China Glaze do before, but it works extremely well. And not only is it great for Halloween, but also for the rest of Autumn too! The rest of the pictures will be after the jump, as the post is probably going to be a long one

First up is Fang-tastic*, a purple, blue, green and pink glitter topcoat. This was 1 easy coat with no placement over 2 coats of China Glaze - Fifth Avenue

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of half the Selena Gomez NOPI collection. These have recently become available in the UK in Superdrug, so this is my first time trying any NOPI polishes and I'm definitely impressed. As you can probably tell from the title of this collection, the shades are all inspired by Selena Gomez, and as a result they're very bright and girly, but that's not a bad thing. This is definitely a collection to brighten your autumn wardrobe up. The rest of the review will be after the jump!

Next up is Hit The Lights*, inspired by Selena's song called, you guessed it, Hit The Lights. This yellow is SO bright in person, much brighter than I was expecting from the bottle. This was 2 coats

Next is Love Song*, again inspired by Selena's song of the same name. This is a gorgeous polish and it looks a lot thicker in person. This photos make it seem like a really thin and watery polish but I've no idea why. This was 2 incredibly easy coats, and it dried super fast. This has a slight sparkle to it which unfortunately doesn't show up in the pictures, but it's quite noticeable in person.

Overall, I'm really impressed by this collection, I wore a couple of the shades for more than a day and there was no wear, and they all dried incredibly quickly and shiny.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice