NOTD - *~* Stars and Meteors *~*

Hello everyone!

Today's NOTD (that's Nails Of The Day) post is inspired by space. Retro cartoons of space, with all the little stars and planets whizzing around, have always been something I like. They're charming in that they show a futuristic landscape in an old-fashioned style!

Today, I started off with 2 coats of Sinful Colors' 'Rich In Heart'. In the bottle this is a blackened red metallic colour, but once on the nail it appears to be a deep chocolate brown. It's not what I was expecting it to be, which is unfortunate, but I can still find good uses for it despite the red shimmer only showing up in very bright sunlight. I like to think this colour lends a warmth to my fingers - black can sometimes look quite harsh unless I jazz it up once it's on my fingers.

On top of this is one coat of 'Golden Enchantment' by China Glaze and one coat of 'When Monkeys Fly!' by OPI. GE is a lovely micro glitter which contains both gold and holo particles. It works best as a  subtle shimmer over the top of dark colours. Here I've used it to create the effect of stars. WMF! is a mix of big gold hex glitter, medium round holo glitter and small round holo glitter. It's a huge favourite of mine already! The holo glitter looks like twinkly stars and planets, and the gold hex glitter looks like little shiny meteors. It's a very sparkly but interesting combination - not just your average glitter! Now that I think about it, this combination kind of reminds me of Easter eggs, what with the whole brown and gold combo....

Let's have a look at some crappy iPhone pictures:

RE the 'taco glitter' qualities of WMF! : I've heard tell all across the blogosphere that the gold hex glitter in WMF! is of the taco variety - as in it curls in on itself to the point that you can't get it to sit properly on your nail bed and it sticks up and snags on things. It basically looks like tacos on the nails.

BUT! There is a way of getting past this taco-y disaster! If you're willing to take a few extra seconds on each nail, what you can do is apply the gold glitter manually with the polish brush. The steps are as follows:

1. Fish out a gold hex glitter - I find that plenty of glitters are loaded onto the brush with each dip in the bottle. Lay it onto the rim of the bottle.
2. Make sure that your glitter is sitting so that it curves in a way that makes it look like an upside-down U shape. This way it'll curve to the shape of your nail instead of snagging on things!
3. Pick it up using the end of your brush and place it down onto the wet nail polish. 
4. Wait about 30 seconds, then take the end of a cuticle pusher/orange stick and gently press down any curved edges of the glitter to ensure that it sticks to the nail.
5. Finish off with topcoat!

This way I can easily get the gold glitter to sit flat against my nail and I have no snagging problems! It's really easy once you get the hang of it. This is how I deal with that other tricky OPI glitter of mine, 'Nothin' Mousie 'Bout It'.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this and that your Easter's been a good one!

Amber ◕‿‿◕

Holo Polish: The Makeup Store's 'Siw' and GOSH Fix Base Coat

Hello!

Today I'll be demonstrating a rather beautiful polish from The Makeup Store. I believe that this brand is quite hard to obtain in the UK unless you take a trip to Carnaby Street in London, although I've heard that a Westfield somewhere in London also has a branch. I think it's a Swedish brand if I've heard correctly. Their nail polishes are all £11, and they're also all 8ml. Expensive, yes, but this is one of the only holos I've found on the UK market, and possibly the only coloured one apart from its TMUS sister, Britta, a pink holo with a more pastel holo shine (which I coincidentally also own).

This polish is a wonderful, vibrant green-blue holo. The holo is linear and very, very bright- I suppose I would describe it as fiery more than anything, it really is that bright! I find that the effect is most visible under artificial lighting, so before I get to talking about formula and longevity etcetera, here are some photos. This is 1-2 coats depending on the finger, over GOSH Fix Base Coat, without topcoat:

Isn't it beautiful? The name is apparently said 'Seev', despite being spelt S-I-W. Interesting.
It's incredibly vibrant, and is perfect for any event where you'll be under bright lights. It's not quite as bright in daylight, but still gives a pretty, fish-scaly effect. It's a personal favourite of mine.

As far as topcoat goes, I've heard that topcoat can diminish holo polishes in terms of shine, but I used one coat of Nina Ultra Pro Wet Glaze on top of this afterwards out of curiosity and found that once it dried, it made no difference at all to the holo effect - in fact, it just smoothed out the planes of the nail and made it smoother.

As with all holo polishes, this lasts for less than a day on me without tipwear and minor chips, but this comes with the territory as far as I'm concerned, so I was far from surprised at this. Holos are notorious for chipping very quickly, but I feel like the effect is worth the minor tipwear that I've experienced. On this polish, it's not especially noticeable when there's tipwear anyway.

One thing you have to realise with holo polishes is that if you want them to apply anywhere close to easily, you must use an aqua base coat. If you don't do this, then you end up fiddling around and using close to 3 or 4 coats. A normal base coat just won't do the job, and you'll end up wasting polish trying in vain to even out the polish. 
In addition, I've tried using this without aqua base coat and the holographic effect is nowhere near as bright.
Aqua base coats multiply the holo effect by a huge amount and make application a hundred times easier, trust me!

The aqua base coat that I use is GOSH Fix Base Coat. I bought this off of Ebay for £5 including postage, which was a total bargain considering that it is now discontinued as far as I know! TMUS also make their own aqua base coat called Aqua Fix, but it is more expensive per bottle and cannot be ordered online (at least, not in the UK).

Here's a couple of photos of GOSH Fix Base Coat:

That's TMUS' Siw and GOSH Fix Base Coat in a rather wordy nutshell. I hope that this has been useful, and please contact me or comment below if you have any questions!

Thanks for reading,

Amber ♫ 

Early December Nail Roundup : 3 new nail looks

Hi everyone!

Today I have a couple of new nail looks to show you. I hope that you like them!

 Please excuse my cuticles in advance, I'm afraid the cold weather is not kind to my fingers!

First up is a glitter gradient. The purple is Fantasy Fire by Maxfactor, and the blue glitter is Aquatic Glitz by POP Beauty (more on this one later!).

I applied 3 thin coats of FF (which is very much a sheer jelly, very pretty and versatile with a cool multichrome shimmer) to begin with. Then, I dabbed AG along the tips of my nails. As you can see, I've managed to tear my ring fingernail, which is sad for me as it was getting quite long too! :(

Then, I just dabbed some more FF over the seam between the two colours to blend it all out.

Next is a lovely shimmery metallic by Models Own called 'Champagne'. It's literally a champagne-coloured metallic polish, which is completely opaque in 2 coats but looks nice with just 1, too. I love this colour but it doesn't last long in my experience, I only wore this for one day until I had major peeling and chipping! I did make a mistake in my basecoat-

topcoat routine though, so I think this might be why.

Finally, what I'm wearing today is 2 coats of POP Aquatic Glitz, as mentioned earlier. It's a beautiful mix of fine pale aqua blue, darker blue-green and silver holographic glitter. It twinkles beautifully in the light, and I chose it for today because it looks rather like all the frost and ice outside!

Thanks for reading, bye for now!

NOTD: Models' Own Peacock Green with Jewelled Index Finger

Hello!

Today I've got a really simple and effective nail art look. Accent fingers are always so much fun to do, and add a little extra interest to an otherwise run-of-the-mill manicure.

Recently I took a trip to Poundland and got some really cool bits and pieces there! I picked up 3 glitter polishes, a Revlon polish in Lilac Pastelle (I'll report back on these at a later date) and 2 wheels of nail art bits and bobs.

The first wheel contains little polymer clay cane butterflies in all different colours! They're very cute and stay on well provided you use a cuticle stick to get them to sit continuously along the curve of the nail bed.

The second wheel contains little shaped  rhinestones in every colour of the rainbow! There are hearts, round ones, squares, moons, stars...even little black triangles for when I want to create a studded effect.

Anyway, I decided to use the rhinestones to create a simple accent nail on a dark manicure. I don't actually own that many dark nail polishes, but this one that I used is a personal favourite. It's Peacock Green by Models' Own, and it's beautiful!



This is a picture of my right hand - I only did an accent nail on my left, but I think I'll do the same on my right this evening. This picture lets you see the general colour makeup of this polish. It's supposed to be a duochrome, and it's a very subtle one at that, but that's why I like it I suppose. The duochrome effect means that in some lights, it appears to be a dark bottle green verging on teal. Turn your nail the other way, and it's a shimmery forest green! The nature of the shimmer is vaguely frosty and pearly but very rich, and the overall effect of the polish is extremely shiny, even without topcoat.



I applied the gems by waiting until PG was dry (2 coats), then I put on a layer of clear topcoat. Once tacky, I used a cuticle stick to pick up gems and drop them onto the nail surface. When the topcoat was almost dry, I gently pressed the gems down to make sure they stuck properly. Then, I put on a layer of an acrylic topcoat to secure them.

Again, you can see here just how shiny the polish is! It applies evenly and is completely opaque in 2 relatively fast-drying coats, but if you wanted a slightly sheerer look I think you could get away with one coat, although this would diminish the colour a lot in my opinion.

As for chipping, I can't comment yet as I've only had this on for half a day or so, but I will report back next time I post to update you!

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this post! :)

OPI Goldeneye Review and Swatches!

Hello! :)

Today my bottle of OPI's Goldeneye got here in the post from beautycow.com! (Great website by the way - it has loads of OPI stuff for cheap, this polish came to about £10.50 with shipping which is 50p cheaper than an OPI polish from the shops, not including petrol!) I was super happy because the shipping was only 2 days, very good!

So this polish is from OPI's new Skyfall collection. It's just so gorgeous!

The polish is comprised of a clear base packed full of micro flakes of gold! The gold itself is very warm, which I personally prefer...but if you're a person for cooler toned golds then this is perhaps not for you.

Either way, it looks like someone's put gold leaf on my nails! It's a stunning colour and looks beautiful in any light - artificial, natural or even in the shade.

I can't express how shiny it is in person, even more so than these photos! The second photo in the shade is a truer representation of the shine of this polish. I could rant forever about how shiny this polish is, the flakes add to this by diffracting light all over the place and making an amazing effect of complete shimmer!

Application wise, in these photos I'm wearing a good three coats (only thin ones, mind you). Each coat was extremely quick to dry, only taking about 5 minutes. It applied very smoothly and the finished product after 3 coats isn't bumpy at all. A lick of topcoat adds a bit of extra shine and longevity. 

At RRP £11.00 it's not cheap, but totally worth the money in my opinion. It's everything I've ever wanted in a gold polish - true warmth, golden-orange tones and seriously amazing sparkle! 

Like I said, beautycow.com have this for about £7.50 not including postage. They seem to have all of the Skyfall collection on there too. I know where I'll be making my OPI purchases from now on! 

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Amber ◕ ◡ ◕

Product Roundup: Superdrug 2 in 1 Nail & Hand Cream, Models Own 'Peacock Green' Nail polish

Hello again!

It's been a while since I posted...life has been getting in the way as usual...
Over the past half a month or so I've gotten a few new bits and pieces on my travels around the shops.
I thought it might be a good idea to update with a roundup of some of what I've managed to find!

1)  Superdrug 2 in 1 Hand & Nail Cream

You may have seen me mention before that one of my very good friends works in Superdrug, so quite often we'll go there after college and she'll tell me about the new nail stuff / cosmetics that are in store. The other day we went in so that I could find something to help strengthen my paper-thin, bendy nails. Unfortunately for my nails, I paint them so much that they're bearing the brunt of damage from regular acetone use. Luckily I've switched over to an acetone free remover (also from Superdrug!) that's gentler and also smells weirdly nice for a solvent....mysterious.

Anyway, I asked her to help me find something that would help restore my nails to a stronger state without costing me too much. Lately I seem to run out of money quickly (probably due to too much time spent in places like Superdrug!) so this is really important. She ran off and found me a bottle of this  amazing stuff:

(I thought I'd include ingredients just in case.)

The cream is nice and moisturising and not too greasy at all. It smells floral but not overtly so, and best of all is only 99p! It's great if you have dry hands/cuticles, which is an especial problem in Autumn/Winter. I find it really useful if I have a cracked cuticle to use some of this to ease the damage.

The best thing about this cream is that it actually does what it says on the tin - it does help strengthen my nails immensely! As I said, my nails are very weak at the moment, and after a week of regular use (by that I mean massaging the cream into bare nails once / twice a day) my nails are holding up much better. They're peeling less and feel much much stronger and less dry! My right hand nails especially are extremely strong compared to how they were, which is rare for me as my nails have always been weak.

Overall, I love love love this cream, it smells lovely and does a great job of sorting dry cuticles, weak nails and dry hands. A great product for the colder months!

...................................................................................................................................................................

2)  Models Own nail polish in Peacock Green:

1 coat

2 moderate coats

2 coats PG, 1 coat American Apparel Meteor Shower

Again, 2 coats PG, 1 coat AA Meteor Shower

Peacock Green is a lovely, subtly shimmery green duochrome. Its main base colour is a lovely conifer green, kind of bottle green if you look at it in certain lights. In other lights, however, you can identify hints of teal and blue. This gives it the aforementioned duochrome effect.

It has a nice green shimmer going through it and applies smoothly. Drying time is pretty average. It's opaque for me in 2 moderate coats. I can't say much about chipping yet, but it appears to be holding up well!

I tried a coat of American Apparel's Meteor Shower nail polish on top, and the results were great! MS is a clear base with shards of gold foil in it. It's on the thick side but applies nicely and dries quite quickly. I have a weakness for cool topcoats as you can mix and match them with pretty much any colour, and as a big fan of all things gold this polish is a sure fire winner for me.

As always, I used my Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps as a base coat and Revlon Liquid Quick Dry to speed up drying time (this stuff is great, it smells of lychees and does the job really well!).

That's me done rambling for the minute, thanks for reading!  ♫  

OPI "Nothin Mousie Bout It" Review & Swatches!

Hello everyone!

Today I'm reviewing another limited edition OPI polish. This one is from the Vintage Minnie Mouse collection from S/S '12, and it's one I've had my eye on for a while. I tried to get a bottle in many different shops, but even Selfridge's in London were sold out by the time I had money to spare! It's a very popular polish, and it doesn't help that the display rack for this collection only has 2 or 3 spaces for bottles of this polish at one time! No matter, because this weekend I took a trip to Debenhams in Southampton (which I thoroughly recommend visiting - it's never busy and there is so much choice of stuff, they have all sorts of brands including Benefit, YSL and even some lesser known ones, and of course a biiig selection of OPI) and sitting there were the last 2 bottles in the shop of NMBI! I immediately bought one and here we have some swatches that I've done below - I've swatched 2 coats of NMBI over 1 coat of OPI's Rosy Future.

As you can see, NMBI is pretty darn sheer. It's a jellyish pink flakie (flakes are goldy-orange, pink and purple, very very pretty in the light!) with pink heart glitter. You've got to fish this out of the botte with the brush and place them yourself, but to be honest it's not too much of a bother for me and I like being able to be exact with where the hearts are. If you tip the bottle gently to the side for a second the hearts should stick to the brush and you can place them as you want.

In these two photos, I used 1 coat of a hot pink jelly polish (name has rubbed off the bottle!) by 2True. It was free with an offer, but usually retails for something like £1.99. It's not super bad quality, but even so, it's going to chip quickly because it's cheap. Oh well! :) Anyway, this is one coat of NMBI, again heart glitter placed by hand with the bottle brush, on top of the pink.

I really do love this polish. It's not exactly cheap at £11, but I adore the flakie effect and the hearts are just adorable! I can get plenty of use out of this polish and the flakies are extremely pretty even on their own! It's not great to wear on it's own but I love it over Rosy Future as you can see the bluey-pinky-purple sheen of RF underneath the flakies, which makes the most beautiful shimmery effect in the light!

Later today I'll be doing a biiiig nail look roundup post, so stay tuned and I hope you like this post! :)