Tag Archives: nail varnish

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 – warm tones with gold French manicure

Once again, I went a bit colour crazy! I have so many lovely nail polishes, that sometimes is super hard to choose just one, so I decided to do a warm colour palette – from yellow to red.

The polishes I used were :

  • Yellow: H&M summer sunrise
  • Orange: Impala aleixo
  • Lighter pink: Impala confeti
  • Darker pink: Miss Sporty number 130
  • Red: Colorama 40 graus
  • Gold: Barry M effects foil gold

I had used the yellow and the red before, in fact, this red is one of my favourites. I found the orange a bit sheer, still with two coats; the darker and lighter pink were alright, application was smooth for all. Durability was surprisingly long, as

I tend to wear off my French manicure by typing; when I removed, seven days after applying, I felt it could’ve gone for longer! Ace!

I am really into French manis nowadays!

This is a very bold look, but I don’t think it interfered with my clothes or was too out there for eyes to pop; people usually noticed (and complimented!) after looking carefully and closer.  I absolutely love the colours combination – and I am dying to do a cold colours one… we shall see!

I had a friend at home, so she also left with a slight more demure creation of mine; a purple and lilac French manicure, using a lilac from Miss Sporty and Collection 2000’s purple rain.

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Nails of the week -blue and glitter tips

Here I come with another experimental nail creation…

I had spotted Andrea Fullerton’s Georgia Glitter Duo, a pretty set with two glitter puff dusts and a topcoat, a while back but for some reason, forgot about it. What I really liked was the holographic sheen on the gold and silver glitters that came in the set.

So we met again, and I decided to take it, at £6.99 from Superdrug. I had been dying to try this new Ana Hickmann blue nail polish, Rock, which I bought recently, and thought the blue glitter, fading from the tip to the middle of the nail would look fab.

And it does – like a mini winter wonderland! Application of the polish was good, it is quite sheer, more than I expected, but it is good enough on two coats.

The puffs are easy enough to use, although I think I need a small brush to even it out a bit; I did it with my fingers, and was very worried about ruining the polish. Obviously, they are not all the same, and that bothers me a bit, but I am sure that I will improve with practice.

Durability was kind of alright; the glitter rubbed off from my thumb, indicator and middle finger; but I gave it a re-touch five days after doing the manicure, so not too bad.  have to say it wasn’t very easy to remove, as expected from glitter! Still, I cannot wait to use the gold one!

You can get a set with five glitter puffs,in varied colours from eBay too, for only £5.

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Nails of the week: Silver holographic with black French manicure

When I prematurely removed the lovely giraffe foils, I gave my nails a rare breathing day and decided to do a silver holographic and black French I had been wanting to do for quite a while.

I used the beautiful Color Club Worth the Risque, which I wore on its own a while back. I encountered the same problems as before… which I had forgotten about: it takes ages to dry and scratches pretty easily; as I paint my nails in the evening, I had to wait a whole day before feeling safe to use the  strips to do the French mani, then I applied my reliable Barry M’s black and a topcoat (which is the saving grace for the Color Club polish).

Have to say, apart from the pain to achieve, I am very happy with it, and once it is in, it lasts; durability is great, 8 whole days in great state (a very minor re-touch to one of the black tips)!

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Nails of the week – blue/green duochrome (dazzling blue)

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Together with fantasy fire, I also bought Max Factor’s dazzling blue, which is a lovely mint green with pinkish/gold/blue hues.

I applied over Ana Hickmann’s Vibe Nova, a strong mint green, and it looked lovely. Had the same issue with application, as bottle is tiny, but it lasted really well! It ended up showing a lovely mint green to light blue, sometimes with a hint of gold, which I found very pretty.

Now, I didn’t expect much from this one, so that’s probably why I wasn’t disappointed as I was with Fantasy Fire.

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Nails of the week – Purple/green/blue (fantasy fire)

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After hearing about Max Factor’s Fantasy Fire so much and feeling the “panic” on the twittosphere about it being sold out everywhere, I didn’t even bother trying to get hold of it.

However, I went to Westfield before going on holidays and popped to Superdrug to buy some travel essentials when, doing my standard browsing through nail polishes and make up, I found said polish staring me in the face. Yes, it was a sign, so I bought it.

I used a purple underneath, as the polish is too thin to have any effect on its own (unless you do, maybe 5 coats!!!). It really needed two coats on top of the purple to look nice. The super small square bottle is a bit fiddly, but durability is good.

The colour in the bottle is stunning – purples, and pinks, with blues and greens, a plethora of changing hues…. and although you can identify them on the nails, and it does look very pretty – I got compliments on it –  it is not half as impressive as the colour in the bottle.

So, I am a bit disappointed. To me, it is not nearly as amazing as it has been blogged, twitted and facebooked about. Don’t get me wrong, it is very nice, but I think the hype made me expect so much about it, and I got too disappointed… oh well….

Have you tried Fantasy Fire? Did you use a different colour underneath and got better results?

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Nails of the week – multicoloured French manicure

Well, I have spring on my mind so this week I decided to go all out. YES, all out.

Not only I painted one nail a different colour but I also added French manicure on them, in contrasting colours.

And you know what? I really like it. It is a bit different, it is a bit out there, and a bit brave. I wasn’t sure to start with, but they grew on me and managed to stay for a whole week.

To achieve the look, I painted each nail using a H&M nail polish kit; for a mere £2.99 you get four summer proof shades – bright pink, yellow, mint green and purple. As I have five fingers (!) I added a pastel blue, the gorgeous Nails Inc in Oxford Street.

I mentioned the Nails Inc one before, so if you want to know more about it, check here. I was very surprised with the H&M ones – quality was good and 2 coats gave a great coverage, even for the lighter shade, the mint green – I encountered bad quality creamy coloured polish that offers an awful coverage, full of streaks, so this was a very pleasant surprise.

I then waited two hours and applied French manicure stickers which I bought from eBay, but had never used before. I applied a contrasting colour in the same order a applied them on my nails – and voilá!

Durability was ok. French is not the most durable type of manicure, as the attention – and all the rubbing – is at the tip. However, it lasted well for five days. On the sixth day, I re-touched the tips… and it was actually passable, until my next manicure.

I am very pleased I took the plunge and ventured into something different!

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Nails of the week – Nfu Oh Number 51

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I finally succumbed and paid an outrageous amount of money for a bottle of nail polish. Don’t get me wrong – it is worth it, but I did feel a bit sick afterwards, especially as you see the total with postage being taken from your account for one little bottle.

Price aside, I was extremely happy with my purchase. To start, the bottle is oh-so-pretty. My God, so cute! And it is HUGE! Definitely the biggest polish bottle I have.

I applied Nfu Oh’s Number 51 on a Barry M black base (just one coat) and it looked beautiful. I could definitely notice the plethora of tones, ranging from a deep burgundy to a dark forest green, with gold at some points. The glitter flakes just make the effect even more stunning, giving it depth and texture without actually being bumpy.

Application was smooth, not dodgy flakes poking out at the nail tip. Durability was outstanding, after 7 days, I really didn’t want to remove it, as it still looked pretty perfect!

So yes, I paid the price and I do not regret. And I will try it again on a purple base, as I didn’t see much of its lovely purple tones.

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Nails of the week – blue/pink duochrome

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This week I am a bit rushed off my feet – my office moved to  a brand new building and I am still a bit lost and until I get used to it, I think I will have this feeling of putting some extra effort into going to work – although, that can be easily explained by the fact I have probably paid a record number of visits to various high street shops in one day; office is near Oxford Street, in London, and the temptation is just too much!

I am  also going to Paris for a long weekend (yay), so that has also contributed to my lack of time…

However, I finally found a few minutes to show you my talons: this week I am wearing Andrea Fulerton’s Smile in a storm. Having used two or her duos in the past, and being very excited about those, I almost forgot I had this one; I bought it ages ago, so decided it was time to try it.

It consists of two polishes on a double ended brush; one is gunmetal grey, super sparkly and the other one is an iridescent topcoat. Together, they become a very pretty, although subtle, duochrome which varies from a light, grey-ish blue to darker blue and then to lilac and pink. Sometimes, depending on the light, you can get a glimpse of the grey, but maybe because I just used one coat of each. The reason for that is because the polish builds up quite thick. I had some problems with bubbles, when adding a third coat (second of topcoat), so removed it all and applied again, this time settling for less.

Apart from the bubbles, and the fact that the double ended brush makes it a bit clunky when applying, I am happy with it. Even with an extra shine topcoat, I noticed the finish is not too shiny, and someone even asked me if I had my matte topcoat on! Colour is fab and durability great!

Really like my new H&M ring, so decided to add it here too!

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