Tag Archives: Kiko

Nails of the week – blues and purples

blues and purples nails - somanylovelythings It had been quite sometime since I painted each nail one different colour, and I was certainly in the mood for this week.

I decided to go for blues and purples – I love purples on my nails, and one of the blues I used is one of my favourite nail colours ever!

I used Nails Inc Oxford (light blue), Nails Inc Cambridge (light lilac), Kiko 336 (royal blue), H&M Pale violet (purple) and Nails Inc Belgrave Place (darkest blue) and added the super pretty Nails Inc topcoat Electric Lane (another obsession of mine – so versatile and so pretty, a great investment , finishing it off with a cute star nail tattoo!

Really love the look! Application was smooth and easy, and durability is ace – 8 days, no chips.

blues and purples nails - somanylovelythings

Rating:

4_star

Nails of the week – pink gradient

pink gradient nails - somanylovelythingsOh, how I love a good gradient. Relatively simple to do (it just requires a bit of patience!), gradients deliver great “value for money”. It is pretty, different and can be done with the cheapest, plainer nail polishes around. Love it.

I am totally in love with this weeks mani – it is girly and sparkly, totally gorgeous (even if I say so myself!)

I used a light pink from Kiko, number 376 candy pink, and a dark pink from Revlon, sweet tart. As usual for my gradient, I painted all nails plain white (Natural Collection nail tip whitener) and sponged the pinks after it was dry.

To finish it off, I applied one coat of the super gorgeous electric lane from Nails Inc, which gave it sparkles and an extra dimension with its holographic goodness.

Application was a bit long. I did the white base, let it dry for most of the day and sponged in the afternoon on a Sunday, it took three rounds of sponging. All together, counting base coats and top coats, I have eight (yes, you read it right!) EIGHT coats of nail polish on! However, durability is ace: I’m on the 8th day, no chips! What annoyed me this time is that there was an awful lot of excess polish under my nails and that was a pain to remove… Having said that, it was well worth it!

pink gradient nails - somanylovelythings

You will certainly see more gradients coming soon… watch this space!

Rating:

5_star

Nails of the week – purple and glitter

Glitter. Things change but one thing remains: my love for glitter. Actually, it increases. I cannot get enough.  Sparkly sparkly – I definitely suffer from magpie syndrome.

This week I am wearing an amazing deep metallic purple nail polish from Kiko, 255, which is suspended with holographic silver glitter.

To make it even more sparkly, I added some gradual glitter – silver holographic, from Andrea Fulerton (yes, those little puffs are the gift that keep giving!).

And voilá – pretty, shiny, sparkly. Love it. Application was fine, a bit messy with glitter but not too bad. Durability was also great.

Sadly, it didn’t photograph as well as it looked; the first one is definitely the closest. I really tried and this is the best it came out… maybe next time!

purple nails with silver holographic glitter

Rating:

4_star

Nails of the week – blue and green gradient

My experimental mood is not over yet, and more than ever, I want to stay away from things I have done before…

So this week I decided to, for the first time, to try a gradient manicure. I went for blue and green – from Kiko in Electric blue and from ColorClub’s Blossoming collection, respectively.

I started by painting all  my nails white, as a base, I used Natural Collection’s Nail tip whitener.

After it was dry, I cut a make up sponge and wet it a bit, to make absorb less of the polish. So I applied the green and the blue on the sponge and applied to my nails, as if stamping it, from tone side to the other.  I then repeated the process, this time “stamping” more than once, and slightly changing the position of the sponge colours dividing line each time, to make the blending better.

Then I applied a glittery Specialittá Hits Blue Jazz at the tip and a topcoat to finish it off.

It looks great, but not perfect, which bugs me a little bit. I know it is only the first time… but… I’d like it to be flawless. The problems I found were that it was hard to fill the edges.  There also was a bit of shrinking and in a couple nails I can see some of the white near my cuticles.  The blue “leaked” over my nail so I had to remove it from the inside… a bit of a pain!

Apart from that, I love it. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and I got better effect better than I thought I would for the first time. So I will definitely be trying again!!!

Rating:

 If it was perfect, in terms of finish, it would be a 5-star mani. Next time….

Nails of the week – Pink and silver

Inspired by Chanel, I decided to use pastel pink ad silver on this weeks nails. However, I went against to trying to replicate their latest design using the colours, as it made my nails look very small…. hum….

Anyway, the combination is a winning one and I used Kiko Candy Pink and Barry M foil effects in silver.

I decided to do what a friend described as an “upside-down French”; with the strip following the cuticle line shape, a bit different from the half-moon.

Kiko’s nail polish was easy to apply (very even for being a light, creamy colour) and I used two coats. Barry M’s quality is exceptional, as I mentioned before; only one coat for the strip. Great coverage, lovely shiny silver.

Durability was top. Seriously, ten days now as I am going on holidays and waiting to do my manicure, so it will last longer when away.

I really like this one. Found it very feminine and delicate!

Rating:

What I wore

So, with the weather oscillating so much, and looking a bit grim at points to say the least, I went a bit crazy on the autumn/winter 12-13 items that can already be found in the shops. It is a sad thing; it is not even the pinnacle of summer and I am already thinking about buying warmer clothes…

I started the week with love on my mind, favouring the heart print two days in a row, with two girly dresses I love!

Then I went a bit darker, and yes, I wore trousers, a very rare occurrence; and  I closed the week with a very autumnal blouse.

This week I gave in to the big necklaces. Oh, I am loving them and cannot wait to acquire a couple more.

Monday

Navy and nude heart print dress (Little Mistress),  red patent court shoes (New Look), heart ring (Forever 21), nude round and large over the knuckle rings (H&M), above the knuckle ring (eBay), MAC lipstick in Lady Danger.

Tuesday

Black and mustard heart print ring (Primark), tricolour court shoes (Zara), rings (big heart – Forever 21, small D heart – Miss Selfridge, mustard – H&M, black bars – Primark), bracelets (mix of Topshop and New Look), Lancome lipstick in Hot stuff.

Wednesday

Black sheer shirt (Primark), black trousers (Zara), black peep-toe wedge booties (New Look), rings (skull – shop in Paris, gold knuckle – H&M, resin – Sobral, above the knuckle – Lovehearts and crosses), bracelet (New Look), earrings (News Look and ear cuff – Topshop), necklace (Primark), MAC lipstick in Odyssey.

Friday

Floral blouse (Primark), black pencil skirt (H&M), taupe gold captoe shoes (Viviana), rings (mustard H&M, star – Primark, gold knuckle – H&M, resin – Sobral, above the knuckle – Lovehearts and crosses, bars – Primark), necklace (Primark), Kiko lipstick (it was bought on their sale, has no number, or name, it is quite orange and matte, I put a little bit of Vaseline on top).

Have you started buying Autumn/Winter items yet? What trends are you going to be adopting?

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.

Rating:

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!

Rating:

Nails of the week – purple/gold

Posted in Beauty by

Kiko nail polish - Dani Dutra

This hasn’t been a good week for my nails; two days after doing my manicure, I broke a nail and had to cut them all short :(. Luckily, I had already taken the pictures for this week’s post!

I am trying a new brand this week, the Milanese brand Kiko. The have this quite impressive shop in Westfield Stratford City, with lovely make up and a huge range of varnishes.

Everytime I am there, I go in to take a look – I just cannot resist – and this time I picked up this varnish from a new range, Hologram Nail Lacquer. I chose number 354, a purple leaning towards dark mauve with very pretty gold and golden green shimmer. This polish is a duochrome, and although not as spectacular as the one I wore last week,  it is rather nice, and however subtle, you can definitely notice the colour variation.

It shimmers big time when it catches light, it is extremely glittery, but no flakes, so it has a smooth and shiny finish. Application was alright; the brush is  wide enough and the polish has a good consistency. However, it is rather sheer, one coat doesn’t do much, two is kinda ok but I needed three to realise its full potential – a little bit too much for me. It lasts well and doesn’t chip easily, and that’s a big plus for me.

Overall, I am not dazzled but pleased with my purchase, which wasn’t the cheapest around, at £5.90 a bottle (their other polishes, not from the Hologram line,  are priced at £4.90), but the quality is good and the shade pretty, and I must say I am looking forward to maybe trying make up items from Kiko Make up Milano!

Kino nail varnish - Dani Dutra