Ocean Glitter - NOTD

Hello everyone! I hope that you had a great holiday season this December and a happy new year too! 

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, January A2 exams are getting in the way of pretty much everything at the moment.

Today I'm sharing with you a lovely, frosty manicure. It's inspired by the sea!

I really like it when holo glitter polishes are left rough on the nail, so that they sparkle more and look like mermaid scales or ice. It's an interesting, eye catching look that also seems to not be as prone to chipping depending on the polishes that you use.

This manicure works around that idea of rough glitter finishes!

I apologise in advance for photo quality, I don't have a proper camera so I have to resort to using my iPhone instead...

Here's the finished product:

And here is what I used to achieve these effects:

From L-R: Sweet Kisses by 17, Aquatic Glitz by POP, Mermaid's Dream by Deborah Lippmann

Basically, what I did on my index to little fingers was 2 coats of Sweet Kisses, followed by 1 coat of Aquatic Glitz. The pinky - nude colour of SK gives the AG a slightly more cornflower blue appearance and gives a nice subtle colour base for the glitter. Sweet Kisses applies well but takes a little while to dry, which isn't so great for someone like me who can be very clumsy with their hands! No matter, as the glitter covers any bumps and imperfections. I've reviewed Aquatic Glitz before, which you can read about in my Early December Nail post. ♫

On my thumbs are simply 2 coats of Mermaid's Dream, which is a real favourite of mine - it's like nothing I've seen before. It gives an almost sandy effect, like a mermaid tail's scales. Small blue hex glitter mixes in with gold and silver micro glitter in a frosty, pearly, slightly duochrome aqua-gold base. It applies really easily and lasts for a long time!

Over Christmas I both bought and received some really great new polishes, which I hope to show you soon! These include the Sprinkles collection by Nails Inc, OPI Nail Envy, some holographic polishes from The Makeup Store and some other ones too!

If you have any questions about anything I used in this manicure, or any other posts I've done, please feel free to ask away!

Thank you for reading!

Amber ♫

NOTD - Essie 'Leading Lady'

Hey everyone! ♫ 

I hope life's treating you all well. The weather in England right now is evil, so bitterly cold! That's why we need lots of pretty polishes to keep us cheerful in the colder months!

Today, to celebrate getting a university offer for medicine, I went into town and grabbed some sweet new nail polishes! Yay! This includes a new Essie polish called Leading Lady.

I walked into Superdrug and literally almost squeaked a bit when I saw the new Essie winter 2012 collection! Shelling out £7.99 for this polish hurt a little, but just seeing the colour in the bottle was enough to take away the pain, haha!

Leading Lady (LL) is a berry red jelly packed with pretty pink-red glitter. It reminds me of raspberries and redcurrants, it's really juicy looking! And so sparkly too. My camera seems to be making this polish appear to be a dark burgundy, but it's so much more 3-dimensional than that, and a lot pinker too. It looks like someone mixed raspberry jam with pinky red glitter and put it on my nails! 

Here I've used two decent coats, three on some fingers. Honestly, if you're careful, 2 coats is plenty, as it transpires that LL has a really nice, semi-sheer red base to it that builds up really well. From past experiences of Essie polishes (granted, only pastel colours) I mistrusted the brand a bit after my polishes went gloopy and bubbly on me after a week of owning them! All I can say is, Essie, I forgive your for your past pastel sins, because this colour is just amazing! (* O *)

  

LL applies very evenly and smoothly, dries quickly with help from my Revlon Liquid Quick Dry, and is incredibly sparkly and pretty. I'm a sucker for jellies and glitters so it's a perfect combination of the two! I forgot to put topcoat on originally as I was in a rush and so got some tipwear after 24 hours, but I simply topped up my tips and applied topcoat as usual, remembering to seal the polish underneath my nails, and it seems to be going strong.
My personal durability test for polishes is that I go play my guitar and see what happens, and no chips / tipwear has been observed after a solid 20 minute practice! Amazing.

Overall, I give this polish a solid 4.5/5 for quality, application and durability. I'll report back later with durability updates as the week progresses! I can see myself using this all year round due to the lovely finish and quick drying time. (P.S. This looks great with just one coat if you're careful, it gives a lovely bright cherry red effect that's a little less heavy on glitter!)

I hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading! (´▽`)

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!

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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!  ♫  

Ruby Slippers Jelly Nails

Hello!
Today I have another nail tutorial for you. This time it's a kind of jelly sandwich, it's pretty simple to do.
I used Louise Gray for Topshop's 'Pinch Punch', Barry M's 'Red Wine', a glitter topcoat from Rimmel and a clear polish to finish from 17's Lasting Fix range. The steps are as follows:
1. Apply base coat as usual.
2. Apply an even coat of 'Pinch Punch'- I usually dab it on to spread the silver glitter evenly.
3. Now put a good coat of the glitter topcoat on top. This way you get to see both types of glitter at once!
3. Next apply a thin coat of 'Red Wine' on top of this- this is great because it tints the glitter underneath red, but still lets it sparkle in the light. You don't need much at all to cover your nail and it's a lovely, semi-sheer jelly red.

Below you can find a step by step photo guide to this process and some pictures of the polishes too.

Rimmel's Glitter Topcoat in 'Disco Gold', it's about £4-5 if I remember correctly.

'Red Wine' by Barry M, this was £2.99 from Superdrug.

'Pinch Punch' by Louise Gray for Topshop, this was about £5 or £6 I think.

Nail Art: Art Deco Stripes

Hello again! ☺

Today's post is a nail art post! Since the weather's getting chillier in England, I felt like some colder colours needed to make an appearance on my fingertips. I've used a variety of polishes this time around to create a really pretty, defined design. It's quite simple to do, I'll be including diagrams of my method as we go along!

What I used:

 Here we have all 6 of the polishes I used. From left to right, we have:

▲ OPI 'Just Spotted The Lizard'

▲ Barry M 'Navy'

▲ Rimmel 'French Rose'

▲ Rimmel 'Disco Ball'

▲ 17 'Fury'

▲ Deborah Lippmann 'Across The Universe'

This here is my nail striper from Andrea Fulerton. The other side has a dotting tool! It's about £4 from Superdrug.

Nail Art Photos:

Method:

That's it! Just finish off with topcoat of choice and you're done.
It's a good, versatile design that can be used with many different colours. Next I'm going to try pastels!

Thanks for reading! 

（*´▽｀*）