Nail Art Style

Hey everyone! Finally I have some nail art for you, which isn't just part of a tutorial (although hopefully you actually like the tutorials so it's not an issue!). I've had a mixture of ideas going round my head for a while and with the help of a friend I finally put 2 designs together which I think work pretty well. I was inspired by a design I saw posted on Instagram ages ago with no logo and no credit (and I've just tried for 20 minutes to find on google but I can't find any sign of it, let me know if you know the original), and I decided to repeat these nails, which were originally based from this tutorial by Pack a Punch Nails. 

The base for these nails is Barry M - Lychee, and the black and white is acrylic paint, I used striping tape from here to create the squares, I used these brushes for the triangles, and I finished it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

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

Alice

Hey everyone! This post has been such a nightmare to get sorted. All my applications seemed to be crashing and I couldn't get anything sorted, and I almost gave up, but I wanted to get Tutorial Tuesday up on time and luckily I have! I'm going to be posting tutorials every Tuesday and Thursday before Christmas as I have quite a few to show you. I'm excited for you to see them all, and I also love to see what you do with the tutorials. Don't forget to tag me on Instagram or Twitter, or post on my Facebook, with any designs you do so I can see! The first one for this week is this sparkly christmas tree design on a base of Barry M - Crush from the Classic Matte collection. The rest of the post will be after the jump!

Step 1: Paint your nails with a base of Barry M - Crush

Step 2: Using striping tape, or normal tape cut into thin strips, make a triangle shape on your nails

Step 3: Fill in the triangle with more tape placed diagonally

Step 4: Paint over the tape using Barry M - Emerald Green

Step 5: Remove the tape

Step 6: Using a dotting tool, brush, or toothpick, paint glitter on the tree for the lights

Step 7: Paint the rest of your nails using Barry M - Silver Lights

Step 8: Finish off with a topcoat to seal in your design, and you're done!

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

Alice

Hey everyone! Just a quick post from me tonight. I've had this design done for over 3 months now but I've just not got around to posting it, so I thought it was finally time. I unfortunately can't actually remember the lighter blue colour I used for this as it's been so long and I own so many that are so similar, but the dark blue is Layla CE33.This was all done using striping tape (I dont keep normal tape to hand most of the time) and finished off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Hey everyone! Today I have a post using some nail polishes from 'Nail Girls', which is a fantastic brand that I hadn't previously heard of but I'm so glad they contacted me because I really truly loved these polishes. I was provided with 2 polishes to create some nail art with for their blogger of the month post. Alongside this they've also given YOU the opportunity to win 2 polishes of your choice from their website, as well as a topcoat. This is incredibly generous of them and I'm so happy they're willing to do this for you all. The giveaway and giveaway rules will be at the end of the post for those of you who don't want to see my AMAZING nail art ;)

First off, the boring part, the rules:

For those of you who don't win, the lovely Alice from Nail Girls has given me a code for you all to use in order to get 30% off orders over £15 on their website before the 31st August, the code is ONENAIL30

Good look everyone! 

Alice

P.S if you have a minute I would appreciate it so so much if you could vote for me for 'best new beauty blog' in the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards here

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review but my opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way

Hey everyone. Apologies for being such a rubbish blogger recently - my dissertation is taking over my life! I managed to squeeze in a little bit of nail art this morning, but I'm afraid it's nothing special. I decided to do mix-and-match nails of a few different nail art techniques, and I chose black and white polish to keep it simple. All of these designs were achieved by using basic tools, so if you fancy having a go at any of them, make sure you keep reading :)

Natural Collection 'White'

W7 'Black'

Fine nail art paint brush

Striping tape

Dotting tool

Essie 'Good To Go' top coat

So on my thumb nail I created basic stripes. To do this, I applied a base of white, and once dry I added striping tape. Then I painted black over the top, and after waiting for a few seconds, I removed the tape. I used to wait agesssss for the second coat of nail polish to dry, but then I realised that this caused it to pull and rip. Similarly, not waiting long enough causes the second coat to bleed into the first. So the best thing to do is wait until the polish is tacky rather than runny, and remove the tape very carefully. Obviously practise makes perfect, and it all depends completely on the type of striping tape and nail polish that you use!

On my index finger I added black polkadots to a white base. I used one of my largest dotting tools to do this, and tried to ensure that each dot was the same size and shape. On my middle finger I created chevrons, which I also used striping tape for (but freehanded with my fine paint brush to clean up any suspicious looking areas!) On my ring finger I added a chessboard, and finally on my little finger a curved, fan pattern. (I don't know the proper term for this sort of design?)

I finished off each of my designs with a clear top coat. Essie 'Good To Go' is my current favourite because it's rapid drying, although I've found that on top of cheap polishes (Sinful Colors, W7, for example) it tends to shrink. I think I might add a mattifying coat to these too, although that's always risky because matte polish is VERY unforgiving of mistakes! What do you think? What's your favourite simple nail art technique?

Hey everyone! Today's post is my first ever holographic polish, and I absolutely love it. I intended to post these a week ago for Digital Dozen Does Tape Manis, which I completely forgot about and therefore missed. But I promised the lovely ladies that I would do a post, and so I did, I just put off writing it for a week. 

Hey everyone! I'm back (finally) with a new then and now post. I know a lot of you said in the comments of my giveaway that you'd like to see a few more then and now posts so I thought I'd bring it back. Although, I wont be doing it every week like before, just when I feel like it. This week I'm redoing a stripes and roses combination that a few of you may remember as it was probably around a year ago that I did it, in fact you can actually see it on my blog here, but the difference in nail size is huge. I actually cut my nails a bit too short this time around, so the difference is even bigger than it should have been, but oh well! As always the 'then' picture will be after the jump. 

I completely forgot to add polka dots to the rose nails and I really wish I had because I think they really add to the design.

This time I started with a base of Barry M - Berry Ice Cream and used striping tape along with MASH - white, rather than freehanding the stripes like before. I got the idea to use tape here from The Nailasaurus. In fact I got the idea to recreate this design from her because I really wanted to try it out using tape. The roses are Barry M - Passion Fruit and Barry M - Bright Pink, with Barry M - Key Lime, all topped off with a coat of my favourite top coat in the world, Seche Vite. 

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

Alice

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick review of Butter LONDON 'Marbs'* from Butter LONDON's new Summer Holiday 2013 collection. It's a lovely gold with a hint of silver in it as you shall see. I couldnt resist creating a bit of nail art for you too using my new Orly Dotting Tool* and Orly Striping Brush* that I received from HQhair (a deceiving name considering they also sell nail products too). 

Hey everyone! Today I have a design which came from nothing. My original idea for this design was to use my new striping tape* from Born Pretty Store to create a half and half design. I really like this striping tape as it's easy to use and doesn't tear like other tape I've used, you can get it here for $1.90 with free shipping, and if you use my code KHL91 you can get 10% off! I also wanted to use my Gold Nail Art Pen* from Models Own, which I knew would be great for an intricate design as it has a thin line and is opaque, so I decided to combine the two by adding a paisley design (albeit done badly) and a line design. When that was done I decided it needed a little extra so I added some white dots using acrylic paint and a small detailing brush. But looking at it now I feel it has kind of an indian feel about it, what do you think?