Candy Nails - Good Enough to Eat!

I have recently been helping a friend with a Design Project, where she was a creating a point of sale display for Topshop's Pastel Polishes - the theme was "sweeties" and I was enlisted to help with the nail art designs! One of the sets that I painted used real hundreds and thousands that were glued to the nail, just like you would with Nail Art Beads.

I started by painting each nail a different pastel shade, then adding a thin layer of nail glue to one corner of the  nail. I then licked my index finger on the opposite hand, dipped it in hundreds and thousands, then dabbed them lightly onto the wet nail glue:

I know I don't usually do Nail Art on falsies (you can see they don't fit well at ALL haha) but this project called for it! I actually find it easier to paint nails if they're attached to my fingers...who knew?! Would you ever put edible decorations on your nails for everyday wear?


Don't forget you can still vote for me in the Bundle Monster Facebook Competition! Click HERE to vote for this design! It only takes one click! :)

Leave me comments, I love to read them!

Boots 17 Juicy - Fruity Nail Art!

I have another of the Boots 17 spring polishes to show you today! It is a bright, lime green with micro-shimmer. I was tempted to do some floral nail art, but thought I would honour the name of the polish and do something Juicy!

This is 3 coats of Boots 17 Juicy - it goes on a bit sheer but the colour builds nicely and the shimmer looks lush, I don't usually like shimmer! I added some apples using Barry M red, Barry M Mushroom and Barry M Spring Green

You can click to enlarge the photos and see the shimmer!

I used a dotting tool to create the details and Claire's White Nail Art Pen to add the shine! I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

What are you tinking to the 17 Spring Collection so far? Is this BRIGHT green something you would wear? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Don't forget you can follow me on twitter for instant updates on blog post and my silly, old life.

Pin this post to your pinterest board!! :D

Easter Nail Art Tutorial - Cadbury's Mini Eggs!

This design was suggested to me by my best friend Sara - as soon as she said it, I knew it had to be done, if only as an expansion on the Cadbury's Chocolate Manicure! I worked tirelessly on a tutorial for it so you can all do it yourselves at home :D I know it's a bit early for Easter Manicures, but it's that time of year where Mini Eggs hit the shops an I love them! I don't know if you can get them in the US, but FIND THEM. THEY ARE LIKE EASTER-TIME CRACK.

This will also be part review for Boots 17 new nail polishes which I picked up last week. I chose 3 of them - Mellow Yellow, Glisten and Juicy. They're really fresh, bright spring/summer colours so I really couldn't resist. First up is Mellow Yellow, a gorgeous mid-tone yellow with gold micro-shimmer. It's beaaautiful.

The application of Mellow Yellow was lovely, this is two coats and there is no visible nail line (VNL). It's glossy and dries relatively quickly. From experience, 17 polishes go thick and unusable rather quickly so invest in a polish thinner like Seche Restore if you want to keep this bad boy for more than a few months.

The perfect yellow for a mini eggs packet, I hear you say? Yes, it is. Tutorial time!

1. Start with your yellow base and take a chocolate-brown polish like Barry M Mushroom. Draw large ovals in a sporadic pattern across the nail. This is the outline of the eggs!

                        
2. Take a selection of pastel coloured polishes. I chose American Apparel Office (green), Collection 2000 Candyfloss (pink), Natural Collection White and Collection 2000 Angel Wings (purple/grey). Paint over your brown ovals with the pastel shades, but leave a small brown outline.

3. Time to add some brown speckles to the eggs! Take a dotting tool (or a toothpick if you don't have one!) and take a small bead of your brown polish on the end. dab this gently onto your pastel eggs.

4. Take a purple polish or purple Nail Art Pen. This step is much easier to do when you have the control of a Nail Art Pen, but if you have a steady hand then go for it with a small brush. Write the words "Mini Eggs" in the Cadbury's font on your thumb. This is optional, you could always just draw more Mini Eggs!

5. Add a topcoat to protect your design from wear and tear and to make it super glossy. I used Seche Vite.

6. Stand back and admire your Cadbury's Mini Egg Easter Nail Art!

I added Claire's Matte Topcoat over the top to achieve that powdery look and feel that mini eggs have.

There you are! Cadbury's Mini Egg nails, perfect for Easter! If you've given up chocolate for lent then a) I don't know how you live b) You can enjoy chocolate in an alternative way!

As always, if you follow my tutorial I would love to see it so pleeease let me know!

I hope you have fabulous weekends!

Leighton Denny Sweetheart Nail Art - Win Your Own GlossyBox !

 This month's Glossy Box is here! If you're unfamiliar with the concept of Glossy Box, once subscribed, you receive 5 (6 this month though, due to it being an anniversary special) high end, luxury samples, with one of them being a full size product. This is for £10 a month, plus shipping, and there are other similar companies out there like Boudoir Prive, Carmine and Birchbox in the USA. This month's box contained a Leighton Denny polish, and mine was a pink, cream one called Babydoll. I'm glad of this, as the other two options were pearlescent, and you know how much I love cream finishes! I'll let you know at the end how you can WIN AN OCTOBER BOX FOR YOURSELF!

*EDIT - COMPETITION NOW CLOSED!*

I'm not sure if there's a name for this type of manicure, so I'm giving it one - the Sweetheart V-gap. A variation on V-gap pioneer Sophy Robson's original design, I made this to look like a pink heart, and added some rhinestones because - well, blue, sparkly heats just make everything a little more fabulous, don't they? I started with a white base of Natural Collection White, then freehanded in the sweetheart shape with the (very pliable) Leighton Denny brush. I then added some BundleMonster Blue, Rhinestone Hearts, and a coat of Seche Vite:

This has become my favourite pastel pink, it's beautiful in two coats, high-gloss and a really rich shade of pastel pink/rose. Here's a comparison with a few other pastel pink shades that I own:

Remember, you can click to enlarge!

As you can see, Babydoll is slightly more red-toned and deeper than the others I won. It's lovely! Also, ten points to whoever can guess which of my nails is a falsie hahaha - damn these breakages!

This is what also arrived in this month's Glossy Box. They usually have a variety of different products and it's a lucky dip which ones you get, but this month all boxes are virtually the same as it's a celebratory box for their 6 month anniversary:

• Dermalogica Age Smart Multi-vitamin Thermofoliant
• Dermalogica Age Smart Multi-vitamin Power Recover Masque
• Leighton Denny Expert Nails Colour and Care
• Stila Smudge Stick Eyeliner in Moray 
• 3 Robert Piguet perfume samples
• Dermalogica Age Smart Lip renewal Complex
• Dermalogica Beauty Bag

All in all, it's a very good box for me. I don't feel put off by the anti-aging products because I don't 'need' them, as an intense moisturiser is always good in my books! The lip gel is very small, but absolutely lush, it smells really nice and I'll definitely be using this at night time, while the winter cold creeps in on us Brits. The Stila Eyeliner deserves a post of it's own as it is really lovely and I have a lot of positive things to say - so I'll do a makeup look with it next week! Yay! I tried the Face Mask today and it really is lovely. It is a cream and doesn't dry tight on the face, leaving it soft and smooth! I have yet to try the exfoliator, but I reckon it will be just as good.

The only downside to this box is that I HATE perfume samples. I never, ever, like how they smell (even though I know it's just me being very scent-fussy). These parfums are really floral, and not up my street at all. You can't even re-use them as stocking fillers, because that would be naff - who wants tiny vials of flowery old lady perfume from Santa? Exactly. Not me. Nor from Glossy Box. I'm sure plenty of people out there would love them though.

NOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO WIN THIS MONTH'S BOX?!?!

YOU DO?!

THEN IT'S YOUR LUCKY DAY! (If you live in the UK - I can't accept international entries this time, ladies, I'm so sorry!)

*EDIT - COMPETITION NOW CLOSED!*

Glossy Box have kindly provided me with an extra box, and being the wonderful, loving, giving person that I am, I'm giving it away to one UK-based winner! All you have to do IS:

•  Make sure you live in the UK
• Make sure you are a follower on GFC or Bloglovin'
• Leave a comment below with your email address - feel free to write it in some sort of MI5 code so the spam-bots don't get it, just make sure I can understand e.g JaneDoe(at)gmail(dot com)

I will leave the competition open for 1 week, ending on the 26th OF OCTOBER - That is next Wednesday! I will pick the winner via a random number generator. Good Luck Glossy Girls!

*EDIT - COMPETITION NOW CLOSED!*
xxxx

Just Bumbling Along...

Afternoon! A freehanded, summery bumblebee manicure today - just as the weather here in good ol' England has taken a turn for the (almost) wintery. I felt daft wearing this in monsoon weather!

I started out with 3 coats of Essence Speed Of Light Blue, a lovely (and cheap!) baby blue. Using Nail Art Pens from Ebay, I painted the flowers by making 5 small coloured dots in a circle, then adding the centre dot in yellow. Using Claire's Black Nail Art Pen (which, I find, is better quality than the Ebay pens, it's more opaque), I added the small dots to make the 'bee-line' and the stripes on the Bee. After adding some Silver wings, I used a coat of Rimmel 60 Second Clear Polish, and was ready for the short-lived sunshine!

There you are! I want the sun to come back out, so I cant take some great photos of this OPI Holographic that I'm wearing! No fair, England, no fair. I hope you're enjoying the summer wherever you are!

Also, you may have noticed a Cosmopolitan Blog Awards button on my page, to the right, because the time to nominate your favourite blogs is here! It's a great way to show your favourite bloggers how much you enjoy their writing. Although my blog is now 6 months old (almost to the day!), I still fit into the New Beauty Bloggers catagory! Awesome! I've nominated my favourites, have you?

x

Daisy, Daisy.

I picked up a couple of BeautyUK polishes this week, here is shade 41, Soft Lilac

It's a lovely, muted lilac cream, maybe a little pinker than this suggests, a bit patchy in the first two coats, but it evened out really nicely with the third coat. This photograph is without topcoat - it's SO SHINY. It applies really smoothly and dried very quickly. At £1.99 for 9ml, these are good quality and well worth it - I will definitely be buying more, the colour selection is excellent!

I freehanded in some little white and gold daisies using Claire's Nail Art Pens

Using the white pen, I made 5 small dots in a circle, then added a gold dot to the middle, to make the daisies.

A nice look for Spring! The other shade I bought was Soft Green. What do you think? Have you tried Beauty UK's nail polishes?

Stars, Skulls, Swirls, Sponging and Stamping. (Giveaway Winner, too)

God, I love it when an alliterative post title comes together.

The whole shabang for you today, I went a little stamp crazy...

All photos in natural light

Please ignore the smudge-tasic index finger! After all that work, there was no way I was re-doing it haha!

I'd been wanting to use the Skull image from the new Bundle Monster Image Plate set for a while, but was in danger of utilizing it to create some kind of gross emo-dream/Pirates of the Caribbean tribute! I decided, in the end, to keep the colours light, and add some swirly pattern and some stars :D

I started with a base of Barry M Turquoise, and sponged on Models Own Blooboo in differing places on the nail. I then repeated this with Silver, from Claire's Silver Nail Art Pen. Now, I've mentioned this before, but however wonderful this silver is (and it is), it gives you the WORST glitter herpes ever. You can scrub and scrub at your silver-stained cuticles but it Just. Won't. Go. Away. So, I apologise for the sparkly cuticles haha! I also added a little bit of Rimmel Sky High to the sponged base too :)

After adding a coat of Seche Vite to smooth it out, I stamped the swirly, planty image from BM225 using Konad White Special Polish onto different parts of each nail. Then, using THIS method, I mixed my own pastel Special Stamping Polishes and stamped some pink, green and purple Skulls from plate BM211. I then did the same with the Star image from BM206, adding them sporadically to make a pattern. I added some coloured rhinestones to the Skull eyes (a later addition - I liked it without, too) that you can get from Nail Art online store Born Pretty.

If people like this look, I may do a sponging/stamping tutorial, because it looks rather busy and difficult, but it's really very simple, when you know how!

Also, I'm going to quickly announce the Giveaway winner (I know it's been a long time coming, soorrryryyyy).
I have contacted her and she's accepted, the winner is...

Lily over at Beauty's Bad Habit!

Congratulations! I'll be posting your goodies after my exams (next week :D)

I used Random.org to select a random number, then simply found that numbered entry in my spreadsheet!

(Didn't want to include your email, Lily!)

So, there we are! My first Giveaway, over and done with! As you can see I had a colossal amount of entries, so they took a while to verify - thank you for your patience, and for entering in the first place!

I hope you enjoy your prize Lily, check out her blog Beauty's Bad Habit!

I also got some great feedback from the giveaway question "What would you like to see from me in the future", so I'll be sharing some of the suggestions with you soon! 

Thanks Everyone!

Collection 2000 new shades - swatches and review

Hello everyone, I was kindly sent the new Collection 2000 "hot looks" summer pastel shades, for us to take a look at.*
Collection 2000 is a great drugstore brand, available at Boots and Superdrug, and produce affordable makeup and nail polish - I often associate them with bright colours, glitter and sweat-proof foundation!
The new pastel shades are in store now, and retail for £1.79 for 8ml - an absolute bargain if you ask me, you cant go wrong for a couple of squid!
Firstly, I was pleasantly surprised by these, as I wasn't expecting to get along with them AT ALL after THIS fiasco. My first experience of the Collection 2000 formula was abysmal, but I'm happy to say that this new collection has changed my mind, and convinced me that I had a duff bottle before.
All these swatches are 3 coats - no one-coaters here, I'm afraid. The first coat is streaky, with opacity achieved on the third coat. These dry VERY quickly, all three coats were touch dry in a couple of minutes - great! All photos are with no top-coat.

First up is Lemon Soda, a pastel yellow cream, very summery -


Natural light, no flash



For yellow, this was very opaque, but this is to be expected with a cream formula. I think you may have to be careful with an unflattering skin-tone here, with it suiting more Olive skins, and skins with richer, deeper tones. I love this shade, though, and will be wearing it a lot this summer, I'm sure.

Next, is Milkshake, a reddish brown nude - exactly like chocolate milkshake! It's a lot more sophisticated than the other shades

I found Milkshake to be slightly thinner than the others - this is 3 coats, but it is not as opaque as the others :( I still like it, but not sure why it's included as a "summer" shade - for me it's more a sophisticated shade for autumn - would be lovely for evenings out, though!

Next, Angel Wings. This is a grey-blue cream, and very cool-toned

I really like this shade. Although very cool, it's a great shade to have in your nail polish arsenal, especially for nail art - it really reminds me of a light denim jean colour.

Next, is Candy Floss - the perfect shade of bubblegum pink, in my opinion! I love how shiny this appeared, Barbie nails all round!

This one is an essential for your collection - a lovely, creamy, pastel pink.

Finally, is my favourite of the collection, Fruit Loop. It's a pinky-peachy cream, and I'm loving how it looks. This shade is on the shelves a lot at the moment, with Barry M's new Peach Melba, and Bloom's Flamingo Sands, to name a couple I've come across - a very popular colour for the summer. This Collection 2000 version, however, is by far the cheapest and holds its own quality wise.



So, the Pros?

• £1.79 for 8ml - bargain. The Hot Looks polishes have some great colours, and these new pastels are no exception.
• Candy Floss and Fruit loop especially, are what I would call an essential, every girl needs the perfect shade of pastel pink - I dare you to disagree!
• Easy to get hold of - no bloody Evilbay here, no tricky Internet buying, Paypal or waiting to collar the postman, you can just pop into the local beauty store (for us Brits!). Boots even offer a service where you can reserve polishes for pick up, online - easy peasy.
• They are amazingly fast drying, even with thick coats they didn't bubble, and you're less likely to smudge with this formula if you're a clumsy bugger, like me.
• They have restored my faith in Collection 2000 after the dreadful time I had with Spangle. Urgh. I hate thinking about it.
• The formula is, over-all, a winner.
• THE LOW PRICE, AGAIN. (Without compromising quality!)

The Cons?

• None of the shades are particularly unique, thought they do offer cheaper alternatives to colours that I have seen by other brands (as stated above, for Fruit Loop)
• Milkshake doesn't really strike me as a "summer" shade.
• Milkshake was rather thin, and I've had an unbearably thick bottle of Spangle. Inconsistant formulas, maybe?
• ALL the polishes are at least 3-coaters. You get a lot of bang for your buck with these, but with three coats every time, it may not last you as long as you think.

Right! Deep Breath! You can rest your little eyes now, it's been a long post, and crammed with info!

What do you think everyone? Do you have a favourite? Which are you dying to try, and which would you rather die than try? They're a hit with me, but I would love to know what you think, especially if you've tried them yourself!

*Polishes were provided for review by Collection 2000. I am in no way affiliated with the company, and all opinions are my own and uninfluenced by the providers. For more information please visit my Disclosure page.