Blue and white accented nails

Haven't posted in a long time - I'm still here I swear! Today's nail look is a nice subtle summery look which is just a bit more than your plain colour mani. All it takes is painting on your base coat, leaving a triangle of unpainted nail and then using either a small brush or nail art pen (I used the Barry M nail art pen!) painting along the edges of the triangle and doing a little loop for a flattering and easy look!

With flash

In sunlight

Multicoloured animal print nails

Bit of a blast from the past today with these animal print nails! I tried these out previously during the 31 day challenge and decided to revisit this look as I loved it! All of the colours I used here came from Sinful Colors - man they do a good polish.

Pinstripe flower nail art!

I know it's been a horribly long wait for another post and I apologise! I've been working a lot of hours and have had very little time to really do anything with my nails - nightmare, I know! I've got a few posts lined up including another nail art look and my skincare routine which all should be up within the next week or so :)

On to todays look!

Now this was completely inspired by Sammy from The Nailasaurus from a few weeks ago! I fell in love with the look straight away and knew I had to try it. It didn't turn out anywhere near as good as hers but I was still pleased with the results anyway!

For my base coat I started off with the ever trusted OPI Natural Nail Base Coat and followed it up with two coats of Sinful Color's Snow Me White. After letting that dry a little, I took Essie's Licorice and a striping brush and carefully striped each nail with black. After that dried, I dabbed on random dots of Sinful Color's Why Not? and swirled around Snow Me White to create the "flower". After they turned out okay I drew on the leaves with MaxFactor's Cactus Green and topped it all off with a coat of Essie's Matte About You!

I do like the way this came out and it lasted literally around a week and a half - and with the work I've been doing that's impressive going!

 

Kawaii Nail Lacquer - custom order review and swatches!

Today I've got two of the four custom order polishes I asked Jamie from Kawaii Nail Lacquer to create for me and boy are they perfect! She got them exactly how I wanted and I'm so happy with the way they look!

You can check her out here and place custom orders for practically any design you could think of! (within reason, ladies) : http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KawaiiNailLacquer?ref=pr_shop_more. I've ordered three or so custom orders for several polishes and they've been super amazing every time!

Here's the first of the two I'm showing today - Confetti Party! It's millions of little glitter bars in a clear base with microfine holo glitter chucked in for good measure! I've teamed it over one coat of Sinful Color's Why Not (as seen in yesterday's post!) and I love this combo! I think I'll pair it over black or white next to really bring out the colours though it can work with literally anything!

The other polish I have to show is called Lois Lane (I'm so original with names ;)) and is to DIE for! It's a clear base again and is jam packed with blue, red and purple glitter. Sounds simple but it works hella well! I absolutely love this over black with a matte top coat on - wow! Probably my favourite colour/glitter combo ever! Mattified glitter is always good in my opinion though so I may be a little bias!!

Sinful Colors - Why Not review and swatches!

Today's post features one of my new all-time favourite nail polishes. Sinful Colors has impressed me with their colour range and polish quality in the past but this has taken the biscuit! This polish is a ONE COATER! Apart from one Essie polish, this is the second I've come across that has managed to achieve full opacity in one coat! It left no bald patches and the smile line was covered too! And here's the real kicker: you can pick it up for £1.99 at Boots! Truly, truly impressive work from Sinful Colors!

The only downside that I found was that it stained quite badly upon removal and unless you have something like ORLY's Cutique cuticle and stain remover (which worked incredibly well, by the way!) then you will be left with some ghastly blue stained nails which can be a problem if you're not planning on painting them again soon!

On to the swatches!

July purchases - haul blog!

Hey guys! Sorry for the horrendous two week gap in posting but I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks as I've got a new full-time job on top of my part time job which has also given me more hours! I've been too tired to do anything worthy of blogging about so saved up the items in this post to show you! So in the last month I went a little mad with spending apparently.. Oops! I thought I'd make a post to show all the bits and pieces I bought and what I thought of them! I've put these into two separate "hauls" according to when I purchased them too.

First up we have haul number one, item number one - a new purse from New Look! As soon as I spotted this I loved it! The stud and zip detailing is gorgeous in my opinion and it was only £8.99 so I grabbed it!

Item number two is a pair of THE NICEST sandals ever! Bonus - they're one of the comfiest pairs of footwear that I own! These were around £22 from New Look again from what I can remember and I love love love them!

Number tres is another item from New Look - a simple t-shirt with "BOOM" written on it. I love how simple this is and it's a classic fitted t-shirt which you can never really go wrong with! This was an absolute STEAL at £4 in the sale! 

Item four is a new BB cream by Maybelline, this time for oily skin! I have quite oily skin around my forehead and nose so need to control it and thought this could help! I haven't given it a go yet as I've only just run out of my previous bottle but I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

The next item is rather items.. Four nail varnishes from Sinful Colors! I've loved my experience with this brand so far and they have such an amazing colour range for only £1.99 (!!!!!!!) which is just incredible!

From l-r - Exotic Green, Mint Apple, Boogie Shoes and Snow Me White

The penultimate item from this haul is NYC's Applelicious lip balm in Big Apple Red. This was just as good as the previous Applelicious balm I've tried though it seemed slightly less pigmented which was a shame! 

The last item was Collection's Illuminating Touch Brightening Concealer in the shade Natural. This liquid concealer is absolutely fab and from what I can remember it was a steal too!

Haul number two! To start we have two products from Lush - Tea Tree Water toner and a Cupcake face mask! Unfortunately the Tea Tree Water toner seems to be a bit pants.. I'm not sure if I'm using it wrong or something but it doesn't seem to have prevented any oily skin or blemishes appearing but it does leave my face feeling slightly refreshed after use which is a plus! The cupcake face mask is to die for! Well, at least the scent of it is anyway. It smells like chocolate and looks like it too - and probably does as much good as it too.. Granted, it made my face feel slightly softer but didn't really seem to clear it as such. Maybe I just need to give it more of a chance!

Next on the list is another type of facial spray - this time from the Body Shop. It's a Vitamin C energising face spritz and true to it's word it does give my face a nice refreshing boost and the smell is lovely. It doesn't do that much in the long term but when you're tired and in need of a little wake-up this is about the equivalent of splashing some water on your face only it doesn't remove all your carefully put on mascara and eyeliner!

After this I purchased THE best item IN THE WORLD. Well, okay maybe not but holy smokes I love the Vaseline Spray and Go body moisturiser! I got it in the "cocoa radient" type and it is to die for! It comes out in a perfect constant spray which allows awesome coverage and the perfect amount on your legs. It smells incredible and moisturises incredibly well. If I were to give it a rating out of 10 it would be a solid 10!

Next we have a buffing tool that I got from fragrance direct. It has served me perfectly so far and makes my nails look really clean and healthy after using it! A bonus that it was only a few quid too!

 I've never tried any nspa products and ended up picking three up at once - all from Asda! I never even knew they did this kind of range and felt like trying a different toner to the one I'd already tried. This does seem to give my skin a cleaner look but the smell isn't that great which is a shame! I still use it daily though and will probably repurchase due to how cheap it was. I think it was only £3.99 which is much better than the tenner I paid for the Lush Tea Tree Toner!

 The other two nspa items I got were on an absolute bargain of two for £4 and boy oh boy oh BOY am I in love with them. I'm obsessed with anything vanilla and this body spray is absolutely incredible! The raspberry is a much fresher scent though and is nicer in the muggier days! The only quarrel I have is that they don't seem to last too long on my skin no matter how thoroughly I spray them on me! But yeah, I will DEFINITELY be repurchasing these babies!

More now varnish now (hehehe), the first group being from h&m. I spotted these glitter bombs and knew I had to have them! The picture really doesn't do them justice but for £2.99 each I had no worries picking up all three!

 The last item on the list (apart from two dresses, two pairs of jeans and a top which I didn't feel like including due to them photographing terribly!) are two more Sinful Colors polishes. I picked up a blue (Why Not) and a lovely neutral shade (Easy Going)!

Phew! That was a long list (and didn't actually include every single thing as I either didn't feel them important enough to include or totally forgot about!) - goodbye money! There may be a few clothing posts to come as I'm holiday shopping! I'm going to America later this year and need to get a few more bits and bobs (did I mention that HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, I'M GOING TO AMERICA ON HOLIDAY?!?! WOOP!!). Hope you enjoyed this long post! :)

Summery fishtail braid - yellow, pink and white!

I really fancied doing something super summery today so picked out some colours that were bold and warm to do a fishtail braid style. This look it quite simple to do but time consuming and can be a pain when doing it on your non-dominant hand! It turned out quite well though so I'm pleased!

Here is what I used to create this look: (from l-r) OPI - Natural Nail base coat, Sinful Colours - Unicorn, NYC - Pinstripe White, OPI - Chic From Ears To Tail, Seche Vite 

31 day challenge - Day 26 - Inspired by a Pattern

Inspired by a pattern was always going to be difficult as I'm not the best at difficult freehand stuff... I'm kinda happy with the way this turned out all things considered, though it isn't likely that I'll try it again any time soon!

Here's the pattern that inspired me!