Nicky Minaj Wannabe

Ever have the craving for blingy, chavvy, tacky nails? Well that's exactly what I had last week! So out came China Glaze's Shocking Pink. For the leopard dots, I blobbed 2true in Silver in random circles and then used a dotting tool to outline them in black.

They're great for a night out, as the pink glows under UV light, so in a nightclub they look AMAZING.

These are my 'night on the town' nails- I feel like Nicky Minaj and Jessie J's love child with these babies on my claws. And with the three layers of China Glaze, the silver dots, and the black outlines, and two top coats of Seche Vite on, I thought they would peel quite quickly, but they've lasted SO well with no chips or tipwear. They do feel quite bumpy though, I can't stop from compulsively running my finger over them to feel the odd texture. That probably sounds really weird and a bit pervy, haha- don't judge me! 


Catch you laterz

xXx

Raspberries and Cream

I've got a simple but pretty stamping design on today! My lovely friend Carys bought me some nail varnish to say thankyou for doing her nails (and generally being her private manicurist whenever she needs me!) and she got me this beautiful polish from Barry M. It's called Raspberry, which is perfect as it's the exact same shade of deep red as raspberries.

As with most dark Barry M colours, application was effortless- two normal coats and it was perfect.

I stamped with Konad special polish in white, using the bundle monster plate BM16. Some of the plates are so annoyingly small though! I had to double stamp my thumb and the edges of some of my nails, which was the most painstaking experience ever, especially as I get really OCD about the lines matching up properly!

I adore them, although they're so summery, I feel like I'm jinxing the slight chance we had left for good weather....!

  

Also, please excuse the random streak of red pen on my middle left finger- I accidentally swiped it with a permanent red marker in work and can NOT get it off....even acetone won't shift it!


Have a good weekend peeps,

Alice

xXx

Zig Zag Patchwork

So I've been thoroughly useless at updating my blog all week....and I've got about ten million manis to upload! Typical. I'll start with this weeks Polish-aholics Anonymous challenge- for those who don't know, there's an awesome facebook group for those of us with an, ahem, addiction to polish! Every week they do a new challenge (e.g. candy themed, or taping) and people upload their versions of it. This week is patchwork, and I thought I'd do something different using tape.

I used 2true as the silver base (it's a cheapy polish from Superdrug). I thought it would be really thin and crap as it only cost about £1.50m but I was pleasantly surprised with it's opacity! I'd already cut tape into a zig zag pattern and lined it up on my dressing table, so once I'd made sure that was secure on my nail I painted over it with Avon Vintage Blue. I put it on pretty thick, and it would have taken YONKS to dry if I didn't pop some Seche Vite over the top to speed it up. Then I got my next layer of tape, put that over the blue and painted Shocking Pink by China Glaze over  it.

A few helpful tips if you're layering tape manicures-

1) Make sure that you use one coat polishes, not ones that need several coats 

2) Whip the tape off your nail the minute the polish is down, otherwise it will drag the polish when it dries and ruin your clean lines

3) When taking off the tape, try and lift it upward off your nails simultaneously from either side, rather than peeling from one side.

4) Try to de-tack the tape before using it. Stick it on your hand a few times before going on your nail, as that way it won't leave an annoying sticky residue on your nail (which is impossible to get off!) 

5) Work out how many strips of tape you will need and cut them in advance- faffing about with scissors and a wet manicure is a recipe for smudges. Starting from scratch when you're on the last layer is never fun!

Hope you found my tips useful! Send me any links to favourite tape manis you've done, I'd love to see them.

Alice

xXx 

Purple Leopard Print

Short post today as I've got a million things to do, like tidy the house, give the puppy a bath and generally sort my life out! But first I wanted to share my first foray into the world of animal print. Pretty pumped that I've finally tried my hand at leopard spots! And as my new Art Deco nail polish arrived this week it seemed the perfect excuse to get involved. I thought it would be quite diffcult, but it was surprisingly easy to do- and weirdly my right hand is much better than my left! I often find that, maybe because I spend more time when using my left hand and concentrate more, as it's not my dominant hand.

I used Barry M Berry Ice Cream for the base coat (I know I use it constantly but it's SUCH a beautiful colour, and it applies like a dream) then randomly blobbed some white nail polish on (No. 7's Snowflake). Once that was dry I used my Art Deco Black nail polish to squiggle lines around the white, the messier the better as that makes it look more natural. Cleanup around the edges, top coat of Seche Vete to smooth it all out, done. Simples!

I'd really like to try it with the traditional leopard colours- if anyone has any suggestions for polishes that folow the colour scheme let me know, recommendations welcome!

Bye for now,

xXx



Pigment Experiments!

I've got a bit of a copycat mani for show and tell today- I saw this manicure on the lovely Helly's Nail Newbie blog and knew I had to try it! I loved her combination of dark red and gold, it looked so elegant. For mine I used green as the base- it does look very Christmassy though, so I think I'll have to remember this one for December.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be- mainly because I'm the clumsiest person in the world so anything even vaguely arts-and-craftsy causes a huge flurry of mess! And the clean up was a NIGHTMARE- anyone who knows me know how OCD I am about tidy nails and it took me about half an hour to get every last dot of powder out from my cuticles!

I had a loose bronze eyeshadow lurking about in the depths of my makeup collection (next to my purple hair mascara and blue eyeliner- errors from my teenage nineties years!). Word of advice- make sure that whatever you're using as a surface is covered in newspaper or something, as it made SUCH a mess! I got gold powder all over my desk, all over myself, and all over Lola! (my meddlesome little dog, for the uninitiated). She came to 'help' when she heard me swearing as I spilled the dust for the zillionth time, and ended up a very pretty shade of bronze. 

I used Boots No. 7 Dollar for the base, a lovely shimmery green. The first coat was a nightmare, all streaky and thin and awful. I knew it would take three coats to be opaque, so just after I applied the third coat I plopped a blob of my powder just above my cuticle, angled my finger downwards and blew the dust across. I got a lot of different effects- if you look on my right hand I found that if I held the brush above my nail and blew down I got a streakier pattern than if I put the dust on my actual finger. Topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite for shine, which it definitely needed.

 Above are close ups of my left and right hands- I think I prefer the right hand, it's a little messier and more interesting.

Below left is a picture of them in sunlight (please ignore the rain spots- the joy of Welsh weather...!) and they're a lot more subtle than when in artificial light. I liked them, and got a lot of compliments on them, but for some reason I got bored of them after a day and took them all off! Not sure if I suit elegant classy nails to be honest! Next time...leopard print!

Laterz people!

xXx

Polka Pink

Ok so I had the China Glaze Shocking Pink on already for Pink Wednesday, but I had this uncontrollable urge to add polka dots (I get that sometimes). So I whipped out my dotting tool (I got a pack of five off eBay for about £2, barganious) and used my Konad Special White polish to dot. I tend to use that for white dotting because I love how thick it is, so I don't ever have to redo any dots, therefore minimising my chances of ballsing it all up!

I love it- in fact it may be my most favourite manicure yet! So simple but eye-catching, and it would look amazing on a night out. And anything that combines pink, neon and polka dots is worthy of my lifelong love!

xXx

Shocking Pink Wednesday

Thought I'd start my Pink Wednesday blog with a bang....and there's no bigger pink bang than China Glaze's Shocking Pink! I am obsessed with this neon- I bought it off Amazon for about £8, which for me is a LOT to pay for a nail varnish. It was totally worth it though as it's the most eye-catching, intense colour. Someone actually stopped me in the street to ask where I got it from- she literally chased me across the road! 

The first picture was taken in low light- as you can see the pink lights up even more, which shows just how neon it really is!

It's opaque in three coats, and it dries quite matte- it really needs a decent top coat to make it pop. Out with my trusty Seche Vite and presto! Instant improvement.

 

This picture on the right is the best representation of the colour ---------------------------------------->>>

 Is it not the most AMAZING thing you have ever seen?!


If anyone has any good neon recommendations let me know, as I'm dying to expand my collection.

Later peeps!


xXx



A Hearty Helping of Berry Ice Cream

This mani is from a few weeks ago, but I couldn't get the pictures off my camera until yesterday! I'd been dying to use the heart stamp of my Konad M3 plate and  thought the white and lilac would look really pretty together.

I love it, it's so pretty and summery- although it may as well be winter, the weather has been so bad lately, maybe I jinxed it with such a summery manicure! More likely it's the fact that I live in Wales and therefore will always be cursed with stupid amounts of rain!

Also, gotta say I was really REALLY impressed with how long it lasted- I wore it for three days (almost unheard of in Alice land) and had no chips and barely any tipwear! My job is really manual- I'm constantly moving big, heavy harps and fixing strings etc. and even though I wear gloves, little chips and tipwear are the bane of my life. I did remember to wrap my top coat of Seche Vite, so that might have helped somewhat.
Overall uber impressed though!



It took two coats to get a decent coverage, and to be honest could have used three but I was rushed for time (I find the light Barry M colours usually take more layers, wheras the darker ones are usually opaque in one coat if you're careful). Then I used the M3 Konad plates for the hearts. The actual pattern on the plate is a line of hearts, whereas I wanted the whole nail covered- I ended up doing individual hearts to fill the gaps, which was a bit more time consuming but worth it!

Best thing about this mani? The lilac is so light and easy to apply that it didn't need any cleanup- bonus!

xXx




outdoors



Tape-a-licious

I had a very productive weekend- spending two hours on a manicure never seems like a waste of time, does it? My first attempt at a tape mani and it turned out better than I expected. I had a slight mishap when my mischievious little dog Lola decided that the bits of tape stuck on the side of the coffee table were definitely the BEST thing ever to try and steal! Took me bloody ages to cut them all to the right size as well!

I used OPI Wing It! as the glittery pink base, it took three coats to get a decent coverage. I used Avon Green With Envy as the topcoat- bit of a sham if you ask me, as you can see from the pics it's basically black, without the depth of a black polish though! And indoors it looks more grey. I did each finger one by one so I could pull the tape of instantly, minimising pulling on the varnish. I had to use masking tape as that's all I had, but apparently scotch tape is the best option. Seche Vite to give it a nice shine, and a quick two hours later it was done!

I'm not massively thrilled with it (mainly because of the colours) so I think I'll try it again soon with something that pops more!

I loved my pinky finger so I've put that in as it's the best one (and craftily edited out the crappier ones!)

xXx