Category Archives: nails

Nails of the week – dark with glitter flakes

Resisting is not my forte – and I couldn’t when  saw W7 Jupiter, from their Planets collection, for £1.50 in a stall in my local market. I had to pick it up.

Have to admit I wasn’t very impressed with the effect; in the bottle, it is so colour changing that really looks like it could be something out of this planet, of curse, the Venus surface. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was just a metallic brown with a pink or blue shimmer at times.

Anyway, it served perfectly as base for a glitter flakes topcoat I wore before – Glow, by Ana Hickmann. Seriously, I wore it over red and the effect was beautiful, but over this brownish colour, it was just stunning. Golden, orange, red, to green, as it caught light; the colours and texture of this effect was formidable. I started with just the tips, as I wanted a dipped effect, but it was so lovely I decided to cover the whole nail. It did look a bit gradual, as the tips had more layers of glitter. Loved it!

Application was great for both. Two coats of the W7 polish provide a good coverage. Durability was also ace, even with the many coats I used there wasn’t a single chip in sight after a week.

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Nails of the week: blue and glitter

This week I was going to do a French and half moon manicure using two shades of blue but it didn’t turn out nice. At all. So I removed it all. Decided to stick to the blues but only in alternate colours, with a glitter topcoat – a recurring combo for this blog!

The light blue is no stranger to us; I wore Nails Inc. Oxford in several occasions, but never in more than one nail on each hand. The darker blue is Electric Blue 336 from Kiko; application was smooth, the colour is quit solid and it applies evenly.

I used two coats for both polishes. The topcoat is a pretty transparent base with some holographic coarse glitter and hexagons, that seemed to give the polish a “wet” look. The polish was easy to apply, it has a good amount of glitter in, but as I like a lot of glitter, I had to dip and stir the brush to make sure I picked up a good amount.

I liked the effect; it was very pretty in light, but with direct bright light, it looked a bit weird; it didn’t have colour and on the lighter shade of blue, it seemed something like yellow-ish glue residue (hence the out-of-focus pics, where you can actually see how it looks like). Durability was top; it was still looking great after seven days! But overall, for me, it just lacked oomph.

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Nails of the week – cold tones and silver glitter

A pretty pale mint green dress with silver sequins from Lipsy was my choice to attend a wedding, and I thought I would give myself a manicure to match.

I first thought of contrast, but then decided to go with several cold colours and a sprinkle of glitter to glam it up!

Most of the nail polishes I used are from Nails Inc;  the lilac (Cambridge), the blue (Oxford) and the lime (Wimbledon). The green is Anna Hickmann in Vibe and the pale mint green (which is a perfect match for my dress) is H&M in Pear  Ice cream.

Have to say that for being creamy colours, all of them were easy to apply and two coats were enough for the a solid finish. I had tried the blue and both greens before, and they didn’t disappoint. The lilac one bubbled a bit, that was annoying; but as it was in the corner of the nail, it didn’t bother me as much as it would normally.

The lime colour is stunning; I must wear it again soon,alone, need to come up with something interesting to use in more extensively!

Then I applied the glitter puff – I am in love with them! This time I used the silver again, but not on the tips but near the cuticles, as I used the gold a couple of weeks back. I am having to hold myself now to buy a bigger set from eBay, damn, they can glam up any manicure!

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Stylist Beauty picnic

I was lucky enough to get one of the 100 tickets to the Stylist Magazine Beauty picnic which took place in Manchester Square gardens, in central London. The picnic was part of several events hosted by the weekly free magazine in the run up to their “London edition”,  where they will give a fabulous insight into the capital we love so much.

I attended the event on my own, and I am used to going to this kind of functions solo, but I wasn’t very sure what to expect from the event, where you should take your favourite beauty product and you might be featured in the magazine.

The experience

Overall a delightful experience, just my type of event; I felt pampered, valued and special; the slogan on their massive, pretty sign, in the middle of the garden, really couldn’t sum it up better: “the art of the perfect picnic”. Indeed.

Check my pictures below!

The picnic

Manchester square is a beautiful garden in the centre of London, just behind Oxford street. Upon arrival, some extremely hospitable members of staff would welcome you, hand you a goody bag and a drink – M&S cava, Bucks fizz or juice – and offer you some picnic food: sandwiches, mini sausage rolls, quiches, cocktail sausages and later profiteroles and mini sweet tarts; all provided by Marks & Spencer.

The sight of the tent was glorious; and the fact the had a harpist playing throughout the event just made it even more special.

Treating the readers

Inside, a relaxing yet sophisticated atmosphere, created with flowers, candles, soft seating, mini manicures by Rococo, hand massages and make overs by Space NK. Everyone giving you the beauty treats was very nice and chatty, and so the Stylist magazine team – what a lovely bunch!

My first treat was a blissful hand massage with a beautiful red-head therapist who is also a ring designer (and she designs mermaid themed rings – mind you, she was the picture of a mermaid herself) and followed by a mini make over, with smokey eyes. Fell in love with a brow pencil from a brand I didn’t know, Kevyn Aucoin, so will have to check it out at Space NK.

The queue for the mini manis was quite long (can you blame the girls for going crazy over the amazing shades?),  so I decided against it to appreciate the harpist and chat with other attendees, who seemed to be enjoying the event just as much as me.

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The goods

The good bag was expensive and in-line with the event’s caliber; it contained a lipgloss from Lipstick Queen (RRP £20), a nail polish from Rococo (RRP £12) and a bath/shower gel from Beautannia (RRP £30), all available to purchase from Space NK. Sadly, the lipgloss is not my colour and I haven’t really worn lipgloss for ages; the nail polish is a lovely hot pink, but I have too many of very similar shades, if not the same. Bath/shower gels are just not my thing, I don’t get excited by them (mainly because I cannot have a bath, as my already low blood pressure plummets and I faint, but I might try, it smells great!). Having said all that, I wasn’t expecting to get a goody bag, and it was very thoughtful of the organisers and sponsors to offer one, so the fact that I might not use all the products doesn’t even count for me as a minus. Also, they could make lush gifts, as they are very nice, luxury products on their own right – just unlucky I got the colours I did.

I absolutely love this type of events and wish I attended more;  you always hear they happen, but I suppose it is just a matter of keeping our eyes peeled. And I shall.

Thank you Stylist magazine; I had a FAB time!


Nails of the week – green and pink polka dots

Recently, I bought a nail dotting tool kit from eBay; it was very cheap and I love polka dots!

I wanted to try the pastel green and pink combination for quite a while; so thought polka dots would be perfect.

The green is called Vibe, from Ana Hickmann and the pink, Candy Pink, from Kiko. Both had a good coverage and were good to apply, especially for being creamy colours; there was very little unevenness, the colours were quite solid and two coats provided a great coverage! It does “bubble” a tiny bit, but not too much to bother me!

Initially, I did all nails green with the pink accent one and put pink dots on all greens and green dots on the pink. Thought that was a bit too much, so left the spots only on the accent nail; think that was a wise decision to ease myself into the idea! Looked too busy before!

The tool was easy to use, as I expected; the dots were of the same size; just one thing I wasn’t very happy about is that I didn’t quite nail the positioning of the spots; I am a bit ocd with symmetry; but I suppose that with practice I will get to a positioning of the dots I am happy with!

Overall, quite cute. Wasn’t sure about it soon after I applied, but it grew on me. I am really enjoying trying different things on my nails at the moment!

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Nails of the week – red and gold glitter

I don’t need to go on about how much I love red nails. Think I’ve done that enough in the past, so I won’t bore you with that.

I used Colorama 40 graus – this polish is actually one of my favourites and if you have been to my blog before, you probably came across it somehow. It is a very bright red, intense, very shiny and leaning towards orange.

Jubilee nails were my intention, but, somehow, I couldn’t be bothered to paint Union Jacks and wasn’t feeling the blue (I know, very lame), so I went for red with gold.  I used the Andrea Fullerton’s Georgia Glitter Duo, and was very pleased with the result. I applied the glitter near the cuticle to still wet nails, and moved my finger downwards, with a gentle shaking motion, so it would fall towards the tips, I also had to very delicately spread a bit with the tip of my finger to get a more symmetrical effect.

Durability was good. The Colorama polish lasts really well, and the glitter at the bottom, instead of the tip kept really well for the six days I wore it.

This time was much easier to use the glitter puff  than the first time I did. The mess was the same, though. Have to admit it is well worth it; I just love the look.

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Nails of the week – blue holographic glitter

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When I made the trip to Nails Inc to get the magnetic nail polish I wore last week, something else caught my attention: the Electric Lane holographic glitter topcoat.

Lately, I have been obsessing over glitter, but I must confess that I am usually not one for glittery nails (or shoes for that matter, and I am now eating my words, as explained on this post). Another late obsession of mine has been holographic nail polish, and I was crushed when I realised I missed Gosh’s limited edition one, which cost a bargainous £5, and is now going on Ebay for £20+!!! Add “limited edition” to a glittery holo nail polish and it comes to no surprise I succumbed to this £12 topcoat.

Because it is a topcoat, it obviously requires a nail varnish to be applied under, and I chose the lovely deep blue “Blue my mind”, from Collection 2000, which I wore for the first time a few weeks back, as I thought it would look very pretty, just like a starry night. And I wasn’t too wrong – while calling it a starry night might be a bit of a stretch, it does look lovely on cobalt blue.

I found it very easy to apply, the consistency is good and the coverage is impressive for a clear glitter polish, I just used one coat (with a second added as a touch up, 5 days after first application). My only issue is with the texture once dry: the main reason I haven’t been a huge wearer of glitter nail varnish is the “rough”, bumpy-ish finish. At least this one, being medium to fine grain, doesn’t look bumpy at all, but it feels slightly rough. To minimise that,  I applied an extra clear topcoat, so my nails feel smoother to the touch. Worth noting that this observation does not apply to this varnish in particular, every glitter polish I ever tried made me slightly uncomfortable in that department – some more than others.

The holographic element is quite good, it looks like a little explosion of colours, with some depth to it,  specially when it catches the light. However, under intense direct light it can look plain grey glitter. The pictures do not make justice to this fabulous polish at all, it was quite hard to photograph it, so I took a slightly out of focus picture which captures the multi-coloured light reflection I noticed many times when moving my hands around.

Overall, I am very happy with it, got a few compliments on the colour and I am looking forward to trying it with other colours underneath – black and white are suggested, but I think it would look good with bright pink, dark grey or green.

I have been going nail varnish crazy, so have *lots* of new ones to try on, which will keep me going for a few weeks – watch this space!

Metallic red: nails of the week (22/08/11)

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red metallic nails

Now I went back to red two weeks ago, I am struggling to find the will to paint my talons another colour.  A bit pathetic, I know, and today I actually applied a berry shade (with a tint of purple on it, which I really like) just to remove it all and go back to pure scarlet.

This one is, however, a red I hadn’t worn before, bought a few weeks back . Cherry, from Miss Sporty, is a gorgeously hot metallic dark red, also on the Last Colour Pro brush range, so delivers the high shine I mentioned before and I am really counting on the durability.  My one struggle – Miss Sporty doesn’t put the name of their shades on the nail polish bottle itself, so, just a disclaimer: I think it is Cherry, based on a guessing game using their website.

I am really looking forward to trying on the grey I bought on the same occasion I got this one, just waiting for the perfect occasion – I am sure it will come soon!