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
Nails Inc Pallmall – Bridal nails
I have been busy this week/weekend finally finishing my draft of my research project! Woo! I just need to have a read through and jazz it up! Quite happy for that to be almost done, it’s my last large piece of coursework for my degree. 4 more weeks, 1 presentation, 1 small piece of coursework and 3 exams and I’m done! :D
Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, my niece went into hospital and had her baby boy! He’s a month early, so they are being kept in for a couple of days. I hope to go up and visit them soon, can’t wait to see them. I’m now a great-aunt! I didn’t ever want to be a great-anything tbh, makes me feel old! Although I think my mum has it worse, she is now a great-granny! :P
After seeing so many Royal wedding posts, nail art etc I felt a little left out. I wasn’t that bothered about the whole thing, in fact I slept through it. But I was surprised to see that it seemed as if the couple actually liked each other. It was quite sweet really! To be somewhat topical and after stealing the idea for Jenni’s blog, I thought about doing a bridal type nail thing. I decided to wear the most bridal colour I owned and I found this bottle tucked at the back of my nail polish draw. I bought it as part of a mystery pick n mix offer awhile ago, but never tried it. It is a little bit boring so I can see why I left it. However, it is perfect for a neutral, veiled white, nail colour.
I forgot how lovely Nails Inc polishes are to use and wear. This was two coats, I assume it isn’t really the kind of polish you wear opaque and I didn’t fancy putting 5+ layers on to test it :P It applied really nicely and dried quickly and super shiny! It is a sheer, frosty, pearly-white colour which wasn’t at all streaky, which I was very pleased about. Most frosty polishes I own are a nightmare for streakiness. I think it’s quite a nice bridal colour, quite natural, but still polished. Really nice polish, I must try more Nails Inc, the quality is great :)
With all this wedding talk recently, I remembered I was planning a wedding. I am not good with decisions and planning so I did ignore it all for awhile. I’m going to a family wedding next weekend, so I may get back into the idea a little bit more. I just wish someone would do it all for me, and preferably pay for it! :P I probably wouldn’t wear my nails in a traditional neutral colour for my wedding day. I’ll probably go for pink glitter or something. I’ll have to think about it, start with the little decisions! :P
What would/did you wear on your nails for your wedding day/special occasions? xxxx
Principality of Sealand Nail Art
I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but I went to see Art Brut this weekend! :P It’s not like I mentioned it several times or anything and was all excitable. It was the album launch gig and it was awesome, the new album sounds great. I like getting new albums, but I find it takes me a few listens to get into it. Maybe it was because it was live, but it sounded great from the first listen. Art Brut then performed a second set of all the classics, it was a great night! I loved the Buffalo Bar too, I wish there were decent bars where I live, it’s just scummy student bars, no indie bars in sight, bah! Also, how cute is the hand stamp?! :)
Now the title of this post says what is on my nails, but it doesn’t make much sense why I would paint the flag for the Principality of Sealand on my nails to go to a gig. I shall explain! One of the new Art Brut songs is about Sealand and apparently the Prince and Princess of Sealand were at the gig on Saturday. Sealand is a former World War II sea fort, 6 miles off the coast of Suffolk and it was claimed as an independent sovereign state, you can read more on the SealandGov website or Wikipedia page.
Principality of Sealand Flag
So there you go and here are my nails! I first painted my nails with 17 Knockout Red, a great one coat red. Then due to my lack of quick drying topcoat I waved my hands around for awhile. I left it about 30 minutes to make sure it was dry. I didn’t want to tape off the ends and then to rip the tape off and take the base polish with it! It was fine luckily :) so I taped off the nails at an angle and painted the tips with Models Own Snow White, which could have done with another coat as the red does show through a little, but because it such a small section I left it. Again, there was more waiting and hand flapping. Finally I taped off a smaller chunk for the black tips for which I used Nails Inc London Nights. More flapping…than before bed I throw on a quick topcoat to make it shiny because the 3 polishes had slightly different finishes and it looked a little bit strange. At last I was done!
I did this all in the evening and I cannot take pictures without daylight due to a cheap and nasty phone camera, so theres no step by step shots unfortunately. When I have a job in the summer the first thing I intend to buy is a nice camera so I can actually take pictures at other times rather than a couple of hours around midday! :) Also, I realised I can’t take picture outside in the sunshine. All my outside pictures of London are all bleached out. A camera is definitely high on the want list!
This is possibly the most time I have ever spent on one manicure! I really like it though, it came out better than I thought it would. I must invest in another quick drying topcoat to speed up the drying time so I can do this kind of thing more often :) I’m getting better at placing the tape so I don’t get any polish bleeding under it, my last attempt at a tape manicure resulted in me having to paint over the join between the colours, so this is a great improvement! :)
I had a lovely time in London, it was just a shame I couldn’t stay for longer. I stayed in a hotel I like in Regents Park so spent the day after the gig floating around the park in the sunshine, it was lovely, I didn’t want to leave! I did get rather toasted though, so my skin is now a normal skin colour compared to the blueish tinge I normal have going on. Should have packed suncream instead of 4 pairs of socks! :P
Hope you are all enjoying this lovely weather, now to catch up on the many blog posts I’ve missed! Have a lovely week! xxxx
Accessorize Crystal Shimmer + Barry M French Polish
ARGH! I have been crazily busy the last few weeks. I can’t wait till January when this term has finished. I have a large assignment to do this weekend and even more work that needs to be finished, plus I need to actually make a start to my giant literature review! Stressful times! So I haven’t been posting or commenting on any blogs :(, I haven’t really had time to read them either, which is horrible! Even worse, I haven’t even seen the new Harry Potter! I’ve been that busy! At least I have had two pretty snowdays to look at out of the window. It’s much nicer to look at than raining and greyness. This is only the second time I have seen snow in the south of England in the 8 years I’ve lived down here and this week is the most I’ve seen. The south just doesn’t really get much snow…but I guess I can’t really say that anymore! LOOK SNOW!
I probably won’t be around properly for awhile, at least until uni work has been finished, so I hope you are all have a lovely December! :) I have a couple of unfinished posts saved up and if I have time to finish them I’ll put them up. See you all soon and I’ll leave you with a snow inspired NOTD. :)
I used Barry M French Polish as a base and put a coat of Accessorize Crystal Shimmer over the top.
I have had trouble with lighting with the winter weather, but these slightly dark pictures kinda show the glitter. It has green/blue/gold glitter, it’s quite pretty. It smells weird though! I dunno why, but it doesn’t smell like the normal nail polish smell, it’s a bit more…nasty. I doesn’t smell once it’s dry, but I thought it was a bit weird. Hope you are all wrapped up warm!
NOTD Ghostly White Halloween Nails
I was taken my polish off yesterday and wasn’t sure what to put on. My nails seem to be looking a lot less stained than I’ve seen them, in fact they look quite normal. I’ve started using the Models Own 3 in 1 as a base coat too use it up, it is a bit of a fail as a top coat…bubble city! As a base coat though, it’s not bad, especially considering I’m been wearing a lot of darker colours lately.
I was taken off the Missguided MissCellaneous Nude polish. I didn’t really wanted to, I was liking the pale nude look, but it was getting raggy. I wanted something similar, something pale…then I realised it was Halloween, so maybe something ghostly.
I got out a couple of pale-white polishes I have and toyed with white nails…didn’t fancy it. I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to paint hem all several coats of white and then hate it and have to remove and re-paint. Then I remembered I had a Barry M French Polish. I’d only used it for tips before, but it’s quite a translucent white, not as harsh. Then to make it more ghostly with a blue tinge I thought I’d add a coat of Illamasqua Prism on top.
(Barry M French Polish and Illamasqua Prism)
The Barry M looked much nicer than I thought it would. It’s white, but with a little bit of pink so it isn’t so harsh. It went on really nicely too, but definitely needed two coats, it’s quite a watery polish. Even with two coats it is still translucent and there’s definitely a nail line, but it almost looks like french tips as it makes the tips look white.
Putting Prism on top didn’t change the colour, it just introduced the blue tinge when the light hits it. It does look quite a ghostly colour with the blue sheen. I did consider drawing little ghost faces on my nails, but I didn’t have time, plus my nail art tends to be awful!
Hope everyone has a nice Halloween and everyone enjoyed their extra hour today! I always feel a bit weird whenever the time changes, but at we gained an hour rather than lost one! I recorded Bugsy Malone this morning on TV, so I’m going to enjoy cheesy film day! I know I should be watching horror films for Halloween, but never mind! Enjoy your Sunday!
Models Own Utopia and Snow White
The Models Own facebook sale started yesterday! It lasts for 7 days. Just use code FACEBOOK50 to get 50% off your order (£20 or more) on checkout. 50% is great as being a pauper, sales are the only time I can get a couple of polishes.
In a Models Own mood I decided to have a go at a couple of my ‘un-tried’ polishes. Now I bought Snow White and Utopia at the same time months ago. Snow White because I didn’t have a good white for french nail tips and Utopia as I liked the colour. However, when it arrived I thought it was a pretty unwearable colour. It’s a very light purple/grey/white colour. It’s that pale it makes my whitish/blue skin tone look healthy!
Seeing as I’ve been nursing another migraine (annoying muggy weather) and being bored at home I thought I’ll give them both a try. Sorry about the sloppy application, I thought I’d take it straight off, but I quite liked it in the end. It is one coat of Utopia with a slop of Snow White on the tips afterwards. It looked alright, but I think I stuck the topcoat on too soon and got a little bit of bubbling, silly pastels!
So, what I thought would be horrible wasn’t too bad. However, when I was taking photos it just looked bizarre because it didn’t look right being shiny, if that makes any sense. The colour are so chalky looking shiny seemed strange, so I suck my Topshop matte topcoat on. This really made the manicure for me, I think Utopia looks really good as a matte.
One more because I liked it!
Illamasqua Prism
Gah, horrible weather. I’ve been battling a migraine for the best of two days. It is quite dull. I never really get headaches, but every now and again I get hit by a migraine where I can do very little, no TV, no computer, no reading = boring!
Although I do get the fun aura stuff before the headache, yesterday I got to be blind and numb down one side, I was convinced I had a brain tumour! Bizarre! I feel really sad for people that get migraines regular, I’ve only ever had a handful, when the moon and planets line up and I walk a certain number of steps and the weather is exactly 20.4 degrees, I’m not sure, but probably some combination of random factors!
I more interesting news, I was a happy bunny who finally bought Illamasqua Prism! I’ve wanted it since it was released but could not justify the price, until sale time! It’s even more pretty than I expected. It goes on lovely, dries fast and is gorgeous on it’s own and over other colours. My new favourite polish :) I can’t wait to try it over every polish I own. Below is a picture of two coats of prism on it’s own over a base coat, no top coat, I didn’t want to make it super shiny as I like the subtle shine it has on it’s own.
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