Topshop Cloud and Models Own Sterling Silver
Another stubby nail post! I didn’t change my polish very often when they were short so I think this is the last super short post you will see. I quite like grey nails and I really liked it with the silver accent. The silver was super shiny so all my pictures are quite poor for seeing the silver nail, sorry! But it does show that it was shiny! Also, talking about shininess, my topcoat is very shiny, check out my window reflection! I’ve almost finished my Lumos review, so that’ll be up next, sorry to take so long writing it. :)
I used Topshop Cloud and Models Own Sterling Silver in this mani. Cloud is a great polish, it is a one coater which is always nice. I like the shade of grey too because it isn’t a washed out grey, nor too dark, it’s definitely a dark rain cloud grey. Sterling Silver is similar to all the other Models Own foil polishes, fast drying and very shiny and metallic. The Models Own foils are some of my favourite polishes. I recently bought another, Green Flash, and can’t wait to try it out :)
To stick with the cloud theme I took this picture from my office cubicle the other week, before the last week of rain/wind and hail! I thought it looked heart shaped, but when I showed my OH he said it looked like a stetson, too much Doctor Who that is! I miss Doctor Who already. Everything I’ve watched recently has either been cancelled or ended for summer. This morning I actually sat and watched 4 episodes of the 1960′s Batman with Adam West. It was awesome in a super cheesy way. I’m slightly ashamed to say I’ve series linked it to record on Sky+…Holy pun-tactual daytime TV Batman!
(from ctk86 on deviantART)
Tape Manicure Fail
I forgot about this post. It got lost in my drafts after I was in two minds of whether to include this tape manicure in a post, but then I went to the trouble of doing the hideous thing I might as well! :P
I threw out all my old top coats and bought a new one after this bubbly disaster! I saw a post a little while ago on Lipglossiping about Lumos top coat as a non-gloopy, non-shrinking alternative to Seche Vite. I ordered a mini bottle from eBay to test it out, only £3.50 including postage, bargain! I’ve been using it for a month and I really like it. In fact I’ve used half of the mini bottle already. I will definitely grab a full sized bottle next time and perhaps try their base coat too.
My previous attempt at taped tips (Principality of Sealand Nails) I really liked and it lasted over a week, so I thought I’d go for something similar.
I used Revlon Plum Seduction as a base, taped off the tips and used Models Own Snow White, taped off the tips again and used OPI Charged Up Cherry. I thought these looked ok together, kinda reminded me of candy canes! I like the white stripe separating the colours, but my application was a bit crummy this time. I have a very ridgy index finger nail and my tape refused to lie flat so my line looks rubbish. The rest of the nails weren’t too bad though. After a few hours I thought I’d add a top coat. BAD IDEA! All of my top coats have wronged me lately, either by being gloopy or shrinking my lovely polish! Only Models Own 3 in 1 had not incurred my wrath so I put that on. Moments later lumpy bubble city! I hate you crummy old top coat, to the bin I cast you all! Lumos is my only topcoat from now on :)
Have you tried Lumos top coat and base coat? What did you think? I’ve quite impressed so far with the top coat. I’m going to write a review on it now as I keep forgetting, but as my spoilers in this post suggest, I love it :P
Models Own Feeling Blue
I have just got home from finally seeing the latest Harry Potter film! It was good and didn’t verge to far from the book, I’m glad I went to see it. Now to find the time to see Tron!
It’s now Christmas Eve, wooooo! I’m going to try and get one of my assignments done when I get up tomorrow so that I can have Christmas day off without feeling guilty. I can’t believe the first week of the Christmas break has gone already! I’ve done all my Christmas food shopping, so I don’t have to leave the house for at least a week now. I raided M&S, so I’m set for a lovely Christmas dinner! Nom nom!
Anyway, a quick nail polish post! This is Models Own Feeling Blue. I bought it months ago online, but when I saw it in person I wasn’t too keen on it. It looked really sheer and when I tested it on one nail I wasn’t impressed. So into the box it went to be forgotten, until I randomly felt like blue nails the other day. I found this one and thought it deserved another chance. I put on one coat and it was horrible, all sheer and brush marks, but I persevered and put on a second coat and it suddenly turned into this!
It’s a lovely frosty/icy blue. It is still a bit on the sheer side, but another coat should fix that. I also used this as a base on my frosty patchwork manicure. Do you have some sad, lonely polishes that you have shoved in a box after a quick test? I have to stop personifying my make up…
Merry Christmas! xxxx
Patchwork nails
After seeing patchwork nails post on Karen’s blog (Frazzle and Aniploish) I thought it was fantastic! I would never of thought to put tape on my nails to section the colours, I just assumed it would ruin the polish, silly me! I followed the same tutorial as Karen from Chloe’s Nails and gave it a go! It worked out pretty well, better than I expected! I just used ordinary cellotape, I had some thin tape lying around which is about a centimetre wide, which made the sectioning quite easy. I think I would have struggled a little bit with thicker width tape. Anyhoo, this is what I ended up with!
I went for a frosty Christmas patchwork manicure. :) I used Models Own Feeling Blue as a base (2 coats) and put on a coat of Essie Good to Go. When that was dry I cut a short piece of tape, about 5 cm and stuck the tape to my palm 3 times to make it less sticky. I then placed the tape at an angle near the bottom of my nail and carefully painted a thin coat of Models Own Blue Moon and then peeled the tape off while it was still wet. I repeated this on all my nails and by the time I had done them all the first ones were dry and I could section off the tip at an angle. I did the same as before, but used Models Own Sterling Silver. I thought it worked out pretty well and I really enjoyed doing it. :)
I even managed to do both hands to a similar standard! I was imagining a disaster on the right hand, but because of the tape, no matter hope sloppily I applied it, it worked out ok! :) The only thing I found to be careful of was when you position the tape you have to make sure it is really flat to the nail. One of my thumbs and a couple of fingers were a bit…not crinkled, but not completely flat when I curved it round at an angle on my nail. When it wasn’t completely flat it was difficult to get the polish right to the edge and not have it run underneath the tape a little. All in all, a successful attempt, I will definitely use tape for sectioning again. I think of all those poor french manicures that could have took less time and looked better with a bit of tape I had in a draw! :P What do you think? Do you use tape in your manicures? Or do you think you will give it a go? I’d love to see! :D
Leopard Print Nail Art
Weekend time! I had a lovely lie in and now I’m ready to tackle my essays of d00m! I set the heating all wrong for weekends so I got roasted in bed this morning for several hours, but at least the house is warm!
Here is some nail art! *gasp* Now, I’m not all that good at nail art, in fact I’m awful, but I felt like something different on my nails. I see the leopard print pattern quite often on other blogs and it seemed quite easy from tutorials, so I gave it a go!
- First, the base – I put on a coat of Models Own Top Turquoise and waited for it to dry which didn’t take long as it was only 1 coat.
- Then, the spots – I put some tiny spots of Essie Bermuda Shorts over the nails, I went for about 4-5 spots per nail.
- Next I put a quick drying top coat over the top and let it dry to make the next stage easier.
- Then for the black outlines of the spots – I know Models Own have just released nail art pens, but there a bit pricey for how often I’d probably use them so I got out my Topshop Liner. It’s a wet felt-tip pen type eyeliner and it is ideal for this kinda thing. I drew the outline about 3/4s of the way round each spot at different angles and because I was drawing over a topcoat if I messed it up I simply just wiped it off and did it again, it made the whole thing so much easier! After doing my left hand (I’m right handed), I let the pen dry and put another coat of topcoat on and it was finished!
Doing my right hand was a bit of a disaster as I seem to have no fine motor control in my left hand my poor OH was drafted and instructed to draw them on for me. He didn’t mind and made quite a good job of it, his years of Warhammar painting as a child obviously paid off! :D
I really like it. I wore it for about 5 days and I think I’ll definitely try it again with different colours. It’s a bit more time consuming than a normal manicure, but it doesn’t take to long and I think it’s quite sweet. I’d love to try Konad, but I think I’d probably just make a mess, for now this suits me fine! :)
Have a great weekend everyone! Is anyone feeling christmas-y (not a word, but I can’t think of a better way to say it! :p) yet? I went shopping for food in West Quay yesterday and all the decorations are up (giant balls…strange) and the shops are full of christmas goodies. M&S is full of christmas food and even haggis is back on the shelves! I don’t feel christmas-y yet, it still feels like it is the start of term, I’m sure I will when I put the the lights up at home. Our place is too small for a tree, but I’m set for lights and tinsel! Does everyone else decorate their house for christmas? :)
Models Own Cherry Pie
Another from the un-tried list. I was really looking forward to this polish, but it just didn’t look as nice as on the website. It seemed a lot more deep, foil red on the website, but it’s just a shiny brown, bleurgh colour, and it wasn’t a foil as I had expected. Hence why I’ve been avoiding it. I guess it’s not too awful, but I just didn’t like it. It doesn’t look too bad in the sunshine, it brings out the red glitter.
And here it without the sunshine. It’s just brown…It’s ok, just not very interesting. With the name Cherry Pie, I was expecting something more…cherry…not burnt pie…that was an awful joke, sorry! I shall rename this polish Burnt Cherry Pie!
And so this isn’t just a boring ‘I-did-not-like-this’ post, here is a cute kitty! He doesn’t normally get on the bed, but it was quite sunny today and I think he wanted to lie in the sun. His eyes are not very dilated, so they look really green in the sunlight, soo cute! :)
Models Own 25 Caret Gold
I’m off to Bournemouth tomorrow for the day. I miss living there, so it is always nice to go back, even if it is only for the day. :) It’s meant to be quite nice weather too, I’m really looking forward to it! (and I’m sure most UK people will have seen the lovely news highlights from Southampton students this week! :/ Lovely place.)
Anyways…here is another un-tried, it’s a pretty knarly colour! I mostly bought this and a silver for nail art purposes. However, I’ve not attempted anything yet. I can guarantee this polish will be kept for nail art purposes only, it’s quite hideous and looks awful as a full manicure on me. Although, it did match the trim and buttons on the military jacket I wore out today, I’m not sure if that was a good or a bad thing though!
I don’t mind gold nail varnish, but this one is so yellow and garish! I really like the Champagne gold colour, it’s a bit more pale/subtle.
Here it is anyway…I could have done another coat, but I was planning to take it straight off. I ended up leaving it a day, to see if the colour looked better outside in daylight. It didn’t! I think on darker skin tones this would look fab though. :)
Models Own Magenta Pearl and Magenta Devine
Sorry for the many absences lately! I’ve been busy at work. On Friday I finally finished all the work I’d be set to complete by the end of my summer RA job. I’m really, really pleased I got all that my boss wanted done. Although I did receive an email about a few mini disasters! :( But it shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to fix! Then I have a whole week left to work on my third year project before term starts! It’s going to seem really strange going back to lectures and exams etc. I will be glad when it is all over and I have no more exams! This year will be better though as we all got to pick the modules we wanted to do, so looking forward to see how it all goes! :) Anyhoo…
Here is two coats of Models Own Magenta Pearl and Magenta Devine on the index and ring fingers. I really liked this colour(although it’s not really magenta coloured), but I didn’t like the formula much. It was quite thick which made it hard to apply, which is especially unforgiving when working with a dark shade such as this. I apologise for the untidy job, but this was after quite a long clean up. The colour is still pretty, but the untidiness is definitely not pretty! I really liked the magenta glitter though. I think that looked great over this colour.
I will use this again, but I think I will always layer the glitter over all the nails. I loved looking at the glitter covered nails, they were really shiny. :) The only problem was with two coats of Magenta Pearl, which were really thick and then two coats of Magenta Devine, I felt like I had false nails on! The polish was so thick! So in future definately one coat of Magenta Pearl and then one or two of the glitter would be a lot nicer.
In fun news, I received my new Urban Decay Naked palette! I love it. I’ve gone from wearing no eyeshadow, to wearing it everyday. I don’t think I can pull off any funky looks I see on other people blogs, but brown and black I can just about manage without looking like a circus act! :p
Models Own Top Turquoise and Emerald City
I cut my nails off as I needed to type quickly…don’t they look sad? :( I think I went a bit too short. :S
Here is Models Own Top Turquoise and Emerald City on ring fingers. I keep wanted to write Emerald City as Cathedral City…as in the cheese…I don’t know, it’s worrying how minds work sometimes.
I love turquoise as a colour. It reminds me of my boyfriend as he always wears bright shirts and he has lots of turquoise ones. :) ….I also think of weird things like a social influence study testing minority influence. This is pretty interesting in it’s own right, but not really related to my turquoise nail polish…or is it?
This is quite a green turquoise. I would normally label turquoise as a blueish hue colour. It’s definitely turquoise, but not like the Tiffany turquoise, this is a bit darker, more green. It’s strange, the more I look at it, the more I doubt I know the difference between green and blue! …maybe it is due to the Emerald City green sparkles making me perceive the green more.
Moving on… Emerald City is a pretty green glitter and I really like it here. This is three coats to give full coverage. It’s very sparkly and I think pairs well with the turquoise.
My apologies for the psychology/colour perception nonsense. I work with a lot of vision geeks and the psychology of perception is fun for me from a science point of view and from a more philosophical ‘do we actually see what we see’ angle. It’s fun! For example:
Did you know you only have colour vision in the centre of vision and the rest is just made up by your brain? To test grab two pens/sticks/whatever you can find that are two different colours. e.g. a big red pen and a big blue pen. Mix them up behind your back so you don’t know which pen is in which hand. Hold your arms out to your sides with a pen in each hand and keep looking straight ahead. Move your arms forward slowly until you can make out you have something in your hands from your peripheral vision. Try to tell which colour pen is in which hand while keep looking forward. If done correctly you should not be able to identify the colour as the colour receptors in your eye only exists in the centre of your vision. I love this stuff, it’s weird to think that what you see is mostly made up by your brain fudging information together.
Only two weeks to go till uni. I’m glad uni is starting again, I will be happy to learn new nonsense! :)
Models Own Mystic Mauve and Sterling Silver
More foils from my Models Own haul! This is Mystic Mauve with Sterling Silver on the tips. I actually painted is in semi darkness, it got dark while I was doing it. I was distracted as I was watching a Star Trek marathon on TV, so I pretty much did a couple of nails per advert break. :p So I wasn’t sure of how this was going to turn out!
Luckily, it turned out well and it is super shiny! It took ages to get a picture were there wasn’t a a reflection or glare.
I only used one coat because whenever I do two coats of any Models Own foils I seem to get a lot of bubbling. One coat is enough as long as you don’t miss any bits. Other people may have better luck at applying foils than me, I’m no good at thin layers of polish, gloop! :)
Also, shhh! I’m feeling guilty having just bought a Urban Decay Naked palette. I know I shouldn’t, but … ok I have no defence.
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