Nail Art Style

The base of this is MASH - White, the nude is Butter LONDON Cuppa, the red is Jacava - Crimson Crush and the black is acrylic paint.

I decided to again mix the outside and the inside into one design, but it took me quite a while to work out how. This design was actually a bit of an accident because I had originally intended to post my nails fully with Cuppa but I forgot and painted them all with white and had to improvise! Nevertheless, I'm really happy with how it came out!

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

Alice

I normally use narrow striping tape to create stripes, however this time I wanted a thicker effect. I used 'Magic Tape' (scotch tape) instead, and carefully cut it down to a thickness of about 3mm. My base is 'Mont Blanc', and it had been dry for quite a few hours, so there was no risk of smudges. To make sure the tape wasn't too sticky (sometimes fresh tape can remove even the driest of nail polishes!) I pressed it on the back of my hand a few times, then applied to my thumb nail, middle finger nail and little finger nail.

Next, using 'Chillax' and a fine paint brush, I painted small turquoise hearts on my plain white fingers. To form the hearts I applied two dots and a small triangle on top, then carefully blended the shapes together. Always start off small with hearts, and then you can build them up and neaten as you go.

I loved the turquoise hearts so I added large ones to my stripy nails. I formed these in exactly the same way as the small ones: two blobs, a triangle above, and then gradually linking them together. For all of my hearts I added two coats as I wanted them to really stand out.

I really liked the final effect, but I thought it needed something extra. So I grabbed one of my new e.l.f. glitters, 'Dream Maker', and applied it onto the large turquoise hearts and across all of the small heart nails. I didn't let any large glitters escape onto the small heart nails - it would have been too overpowering. On the large hearts though, I made sure to add quite a few big bits of glitter, which took a little bit of patience!

As always, I topped off my manicure with a good top coat. I like how they're a combination of different styles - they're a little bit romantic, a little bit nautical, a little bit sparkly, and very cute! What do you think? 

This is on a base of Models Own - Nude Beige, and I used Supreme nail art pens for the design, topped off with a coat of Seche Vite

For the blue (219)* I needed 2 coats, it's a pretty thick polish but it looks really great. For the pink (214)* I needed 4 coats, it's pretty sheer so it needed a bit of build up but I think it would work great for a jelly sandwich

The colours I have here are 219 and 214, unfortunately they dont have names but you can find them both here for $6 each

I have the beads in Neon Pink and Neon Green, and, as you can see from my camera's inability to photograph them, they are incredibly neon, and I absolutely love them. These are also nothing like any other caviar beads I've tried, they're not painted over a silver base, so when you apply a top coat to them the colour doesn't run, which is brill! 

'Pastel Pink' alone is a wonderful barbie pink and I'll definitely be using this alone! This is 2 easy coats 

I chose to do a bit of nail art with the glitter as they were so girly I thought a bit more girly-ness with some hearts wouldn't hurt! I only needed one layer of the glitter but a slight amount of glitter placement was needed, which is to be expected. 

Next up is 'Nude Jack' which is a combination of 'Nude Beige' and 'Jack Frost' from the wonderland collection. 

'Nude Beige' alone didn't really suit my skin colour and I was a bit wary of it at first, but as soon as I added the glitter I LOVED it, this was 2 easy coats just like with 'Pastel Pink'

After adding the glitter I added an easy line design to it just to give it an extra something, this glitter was one easy coat and I absolutely love the combination of the two together! 

You can purchase the Artstic Duos here on the models own website, or in Boots, for £6, and I would definitely recommend them. There are also a number of other colour combinations which look great and I think I'll be picking a couple of those up as well!

What do you think? Will you be buying any of these? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Hey everyone! Today I have a post which I'm super excited to show you, using the 4 new Barry M nail art pens. They were released in Superdrug and online today (10th April) and will be released in Boots on the 17th April. As you will see, I highly recommend getting at least one of these pens because they're awesome and completely unlike any other nail art pens I've tried before. More after the jump!

First up is the White Nail Art Pen. The design I chose to do was inspired by this Nancy Mc design, which I've wanted to do for ages but haven't had the courage to do with a brush. I started with a base of OPI - Just a Little Rosti at This and then drew a line followed by two dots on either side for the bone, then I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite. 

I also did a matte version of these nails, because you know I can never resist, which do you prefer?

As you can see the nib is unlike most nail art pens. Rather than squeezing thick nail varnish through a tiny needle (which always gets blocked) you instead push the end of this down until the nail varnish flows through it. I'm not entirely sure if this is pure nail varnish, because although it's super opaque it's a lot runnier than usual, but it's definitely better than any other nail art pen I've tried. 

This Silver Nail Art Pen was probably my least favourite of the bunch. In person the silver looked completely opaque so if you're not a nail blogger like me it shouldn't matter, but the camera made these look quite translucent. I think I may have done something wrong and I shall be trying this again to make sure because the rest of the pens are great. My only issue with this is the opacity, and another layer over this would have solved that, so overall it's still a great pen. 

For this design I painted 2 layers of Barry M - Black, and then I painted a layer of Barry M - Aqua Green over the top for the duochrome effect. I painted on the baroque print using the silver nail art pen and topped it off with a layer of Seche Vite. 

I absolutely love this Pink Nail Art Pen, and I'm so glad they chose to include it as it gives a burst of colour to the collection. I really hope they bring out more shades because my experience of these so far has been nothing but positive! (Blue perhaps?) This pink is super opaque and dries really quickly. 

Anyway, for this design I started with a base of Essence - That's What I Mint and then I painted on the hearts in pink, then I outlined them with dots and added the lines using the White Nail Art Pen. Then I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite. 

Last but not least is the Black Nail Art Pen, This and the white are my favourite of the pens, they're opaque and easy to use, as are all the pens, but I absolutely love creating nail art with black and white, so I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of these. 

For this design I started with a base colour of an unknown purple, and then added Sinful Colours - Frenzy over the top. To smooth it out I added a coat of Seche Vite before doing the rest of my design. I then drew the outline of the bow in Essence - That's What I Mint, using a MASH - medium length striper brush, and when that was dry I added the spots using the White Nail Art Pen, and then outlined it in the Black Nail Art Pen, topped off with another coat of Seche Vite.

These nails were inspired by this design by Lexi over at Finger Painted, but I'm afraid it's nowhere near as good!

Hope you like them!

Alice

I also did an interview for them which you can see here (and finally see my face!)

Hope you like it

Alice