Glitter in the Air vs. Whimsical

Good afternoon lovelies,

Still having the back pain to end all back pain so falling a bit behind with the blogging. Luckily I had this post already saved as a draft, so I can just post it with minimal effort! Unusually efficient for me, I must say.

Today I will be comparing the greatest dupe EVER. Revlon's Whimsical, which is basically the exact same polish as Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air. GITA is a sheer milky blue jelly, with large and small pink/ blue glitter scattered throughout. It's best layered, so you build up the glitter and you get a fantastic sandwich effect as the pink and blue bits look buried in the polish. 

Revlon have released their version of this polish and it's been a massive hit- mainly as Deborah Lippman retails at around £16 ($18) and Revlon polishes are half that price! I contacted Revlon to ask if they would be releasing Whimsical in the UK but they said they weren't :( I was lucky enough to get mine from my lovely US swap buddy Kim. And I got GITA in a half price sale- pointlessly, with hindsight...but it's nice to have the original sometimes.

As they are better layered over another colour, the pictures here are two coats of OPI What's With The Catitude? and three coats of GITA/ Whimsical.

GITA is on my left hand, Whimsical is on my right.

Enough prattling- on with the picture spam! 

left - outdoors
right - indoors with flash

(HOW GORGEOUS are the outdoor pics?! Look at all that shimmery pink and blue goodness) *swoon*

GITA - indoors with flash

 

Whimsical - indoors with flash

As you can see from the pictures, they are absolutely identical. Application was exactly the same as well- the formula was great, very easy to apply. My only criticism is that I did have to 'fish' for bits of glitter as I ended up with some bald, glitter-free patches!

Sorry in advance, as the outdoor pics aren't as bright as I would like. It seems to be permanently overcast in Wales at the moment! And in the rare spots of sunshine, am I EVER at home with my camera?!





Add caption



Whimsical - outdoors

 

GITA - outdoors

And one last comparison shot:



I honestly can't tell the difference! It takes a finer polish connoisseur then myself to distinguish between these two beauties.

So there you have it. If you can get Whimsical, save yourself the monies and snatch it up quickly.

That's all from me, hopefully I'll be back to regular posting soon!

Alice

xXx



Scalloped Edges

Hi all!

Sorry for my absence this week, I've had such bad back problems :( Living off two hours of sleep a night is not good for Alice! I did manage to squeeze a quick mani in though. Really fancied having a play around with some tape, so I got my trusty craft scissors out and experimented with scalloped edges. 

artificial light

I used two coats of OPI Mermaid's Tears for the base (LOVE this polish - perfect formula, application was a dream) then put some Seche over it to make it dry faster. I then taped off half the nail and used H&M Golden Treasure. This is a great one coater, and it was only £3. Bargainous!

I love the way that the gold looks like waves against the sky. To be brutally honest, I did get bored of it after a few hours haha...think I'll add some polka dots to it, or some glitter maybe.

natural light

I just love the way tape gives you that really sharp, clean edge. I'm trying to grow out my nails a bit so I can file them more square and use tape for french tips, which will be so much easier and cleaner than freehanding. What do you guys think about tape manicures?

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Alice

xXx

 

Funky Valentines French

Happy Valentines Day!

Hope you're all being showered with flowers and chocolates. I got diddly squat this morning so I'm sure my trusty boyfriend has them all waiting at home for me for an evening of worship...ahem.

I wanted to do a pink themed one for Valentines Day, but I really didn't fancy a cheesy one, so i thought I'd mix it up a bit. I actually did this mani on Saturday, but it's still going strong. For some reason I never seem to get round to blogging on the weekend. It’s something to do in work, hehe, so technically I get paid to blog ;)

I used OPI I Pink I Love You for the base- four coats of this as it was very very sheer. Inhindsight it’s probably more of a French manicure polish, but it had the prettiest pinky blue sheen when it was in the bottle that I couldn’t resist. Sadly this blue tint didn’t really translate to my nails, which left me feeling slightly robbed. I hate it when polishes look amazing in the bottle and are just normal on your nails!

Then I thought to myself, it’s Saturday night, it’s 9pm, let’s live dangerously. So I added some leopard print with Konad plate m57 and Psyche Pink stamping polish. Look at you all, jealous of my party animal lifestyle…I can sense your envy from here.

I was going to leave it at that, but then I thought that the pink wasn’t quite popping enough (translation- it didn’t look drag queen-y enough for my liking) so I free handed some pink tips using OPI Be A Dahlia Won’t You? From the Nice Stems Collection. Have to say I am SO IN LOVE with this polish. Will be doing a full mani with this beauty soon and I will wax lyrical on it then so I’ll just shut up for now.

I always like to show both hands, as I figure I spent just as much effort on my right hand as I did on my left! Also, the nails on my right hand are better than my left...very strange as my right is my dominant hand. Usually people break more on that one because they use it more. I am an anomaly!

before the pink tips

Love this pink explosion- but it's been three days, which is a record amount of time for me to have a manicure on! 
Also, just want to add please ignore the formatting errors with my blog- for some reason it has started freaking out on me with weird page breaks, spacing,  gaps between photos and putting THESE <> <> <> little arrows of DOOM in random places! Hopefully I’ve got a friend who can fix it for me and it will go back to normal sharpish. I hate it when it looks messy L
Anway, do you guys have an exciting V-Day plans?! And if you've done any special manicures drop me a link :)

Catch you later,

Alice 

xXx

Beetlejuice, Fantasy Fire & Hidden Treasure Giveaway!

TRIPLE GIVEAWAY

 

As a thankyou to all you lovely ladies who follow me, I'm doing a giveaway with THREE prizes- that's three individual chances to win!

Up for grabs is the ENTIRE Beetlejuice Collection from Models Own, as well as Maxfactor Fantasy Fire, and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.

All polishes are brand new and bought by yours truly.

This is open INTERNATIONALLY, so it's a great chance to get your mitts on some UK polishes.

Winners will be picked using random.org and emailed - you have 48 hours to respond, if I don't hear from you in that time a new winner will be picked.

Closes 1st March 2012

The winner will have their pick of the prizes, second place chooses from the two remaining and third place gets the leftovers!

 PRIZE ONE:

Entire Beetlejuice Collection

Purple Blue

Aqua Violet

Pinky Brown

Golden Green

Emerald Black

PRIZE TWO:

Maxfactor Fantasy Fire

aka Clarins 230 Unicorn Pee dupe -
only available in the UK and a total pain to get hold of!

PRIZE THREE:

Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

This is the HTF original version - gorgeous flakie polish

Please fill out the Rafflecopter form below to enter.

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Minnie Mouse Polka Dots

Recently I have been absolutely OBSESSED with finding the perfect red. And I don't mean run-of-the-mill, slightly orangey red, or everyday pinky-red, I'm talking about va-va-voom Louboutin sex vixen red!

I've narrowed it down to the following polishes, judging from other blogs and girls' feedback:

China Glaze Phat Santa

OPI Big Apple Red

OPI Vodka & Caviar

OPI So Hot It Berns

OPI Thrill of Brazil

NOPI Kourt is Red-y For A Pedi

Zoya Sookie

Zoya Carmen





I've got OPI Vodka & Caviar and Big Apple Red on their way to me, and the rest I plan to slowly accrue from swaps etc. as OPI & China Glaze is sooooo expensive in the UK- and I've never even seen Zoya or NOPI anywhere. Pah we are useless.

BUT....I finally have one off my list! A massive thanks to Amber over at My Nail Graffiti - you all know who she is, she's one of the biggie bloggers and has a fab shop with flakies and frakens for sale. I actually bought her husband's franken Hallowe'en set last year (which was the shizzle) so I always keep an eye on what she's got cookin'. 

Anyway, Amber was my Secret Valentines and sent me Nicole by OPI Kourt is Red-y For A Pedi. SO OVER THE MOON!!! It's from the Kardashian Collection, which I'm trying to ignore as I don't want my nails endorsing that talentless trash. But Operation Red must take priority!

*Contented sigh* it's such a bright happy red, I adore it. I also dotted some white polka dots on to give it a Minnie Mouse, retro vibe. My boyfriend said I had "50s housewife" nails which I am taking as a huge compliment! Application was fantastic, it's a very smooth jelly so I used three coats as I still had VNL after two coats. The shine on it was incredible as well.

What do you guys think? I love it. It's probably slightly TOO orange hued to be that one specific red I'm lemming for, but it's just taken over as my favourite red in my collection. I'm determined to collect everything off my list and make one huge swatch post comparing them all!

natural light

Very chuffed with it, so thank you Amber! She also got me China Glaze Champagne Bubbles off my wishlist, and a gorgeous flakie Sally Hansen that I can't wait to try out as well as a few other goodies! Ooh I'm a spoilt girl. 

Also if anyone has any more polishes to suggest for my Operation Red please leave me a comment!

Love,

Alice

xXx

Busy Little Bumble Bees

My nails have been busy little bees the past few days! I am so in love with this manicure, it is possibly the cutest thing to ever adorn my claws. 



What I used:

Barry M Yellow

Konad Special Polish - Black

Wet n Wild Black Creme

Plate QA3

Sellotape

Dotting Tool



pretentious arty shot

Once my Barry M had dried, I stamped the bees on with my Konad polish and dotted on the bee trail with a tiny dotting tool. For the bee body accent I taped off sections and painted over with the Black Creme. Finished off with a top coat of Seche Vite to seal it all and make it super shiny.

I completely ballsed up two fingers by dragging the bee trail with the Seche SO badly- I ended up re-doing them as my OCD was twitching too badly. I do it with stamping a lot too and it's the quickest way to ruin your mani. I've learnt that I need to literally blob Seche over the dots, and not move the brush over my nail. Once the blobs are dry I can apply it as usual. It means you get a thick layer, but I usually do two coats anyway and it dries so fast.

QA3 plate

 I've mentioned the QA plates sold by this seller before- they're really easy to stamp with and they were pretty cheap, so if he lists more you should definitely get involved.

The plate I used is actually a Winne the Pooh themed one- I'm planning on doing a Pooh manicure soon, once I find the exact perfect yellow! I think China Glaze Happy Go Lucky might be the magical one, so once I get my hands on that I'll be good to go. It's bizarre actually- I very, very rarely wear yellow but it's a colour my eye is always drawn to and I've got quite a few different shades- neon, pale, lemon, bright yellow. And I never wear any of them! Do you guys have colours that you compulsively buy, but never actually wear?

I don't want to take them off! But I feel the time for a Valentines manicure is almost upon me. And I have no idea what I want to do! But I know it will involve Pink Friday as I've now got the whole Nicole Minaj OPI collection but haven't even swatched them....oops! Bad polish hoarder. 

Later peeps!

Love,

Alice

xXx

Purple Holo Flowers

One from the vault today! I had a different mani all planned for you, but I couldn't get the pics off my camera before I had to go to work :( So I'll postpone that til tomorrow.

This is a pretty little stamped mani I did a while back- actually way, way back! Before I had my camera, so you've got another set of dodgy iphone pics....you lucky things.

This is two coats of Color Club Fashion Addict (the holo version, booyah) stamped over with China Glaze Harmony from the Romantique Collection. The stamp was m73 from the Born Pretty fauxnads.

I just love the multicoloured holographic particles in this polish- I always think I prefer linear holos but then I see this and I prefer the scattered ones! There's so many different colours, it totally rocks out some rainbow effect.



And here's a cheeky little shot of Fashion Addict by itself. Don't you just love it when the bottle is a holo explosion?!

Fashion Addict on its lonesome

I loved this- it's not the most in your face manicure but it was so subtle and shimmery I couldn't stop looking at it. A work friendly pattern! Also, Fashion Addict gets additional love points for being holo under normal indoor lighting, not just in blazing artificial light. I live in Wales, where it rains solidly and overcast days are pretty much standard. Trying to get a decent swatch of a holo in natural light can leave you waiting months! This baby re-affirms my faith in holos.

Catch you later,

Alice

xXx

Snow days and Snowflakes

**APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR CRAPPY IPHONE PICS!**

It's been snooooowing! Words cannot express how thrilled I was on the weekend when I poked my sleepy little head out of the curtains and saw snow everywhere! I was especially excited because Lola has never seen snow before and I knew she would love it. For the uninitiated, Lola is my incredibly mischievous little Shih Tzu. She’s a fluffy little teddy bear and I adore her, but she is also the bane of my polish fanatic existence. She strongly believes that I leave polishes around purely for her chewing past time, as the lids are just so damn tasty, and that swatch wheels and my £8 Konad stamp are her personal chew toys (FURY doesn’t even begin to express the sheer rage that happened when I found it!)

Anyway I digress- a snowy day needs a snowy mani! I sponged on different blue for gradients, then used my Konad white polish to stamp on various snowflakes, before topping it with a later of glitter polish to make it extra sparkly.

Like I said in the disclaimer, sorry for the bad iphone pics! They don't pic up the sparkly glitter very much which saddens me :(



What I used:

China Glaze First Mate

No. 7 Stand Back

Barry M Blue Moon

Miss Sporty glitter top coat

Bundle Monster plate BM14

Fauxnad plate M59



And just for shits and giggless here's me and Lola enjoying the snow!

snow day!

Hope everyone had a good weekend, even if there was no snow involved!

Tomorrow I've got something cute, yellow and very busy to tempt you with.....see you then hopefully!

Alice (and Lola)

xXx

Vintage Roses, aka Cath Kidson nails

Good morning peeps!

This week, I did potentially the best nail art I've ever done! I've been wanting to do vintage roses for a loooong time, I've seen them about the place loads and always eyed them up jealously, thinking that I would make a right pigs ear out of it if I tried them. But then on the weekend I said to myself, "Self, stop being a wimp and give it a go." And it turned out really well!
Enough waffling, let the copious picture spam commence....
   

Squeeeeee! I'm so pleased with them!

I was inspired by a Cath Kidson notebook I've got at home, which is the pattern below.

For the base I used Barry M Mint Green, which is the most gorgeous pastel green ever. I then swirled OPI Party In My Cabana into white nail polish (Sally Hansen White On, just to be really specific!) and used a tiny dotting tool to paint it on my nail. For the leaves I used a tiny paintbrush and Barry M Spring Green. Topped it all off with a top coat of Seche Vite, which made ALL the difference, they looked a bit messy until Seche performed it's usual smoothing magic.

inspiration




natural light

 I was so pleasantly surprised with how easy it was! Although personally I think my right hand is much better then my left- I did my left first, and the flowers are a lot smaller and not as confident as the ones on my left. I'm loving the retro, vintage feel to them- my friend described them as 'kitsch' which I thought meant cute and a bit old school. HOWEVER, the dictionary definition is "Art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but appreciated in an ironic way" which I'm less than thrilled about, haha! I hope she had the same thought as me...either that or I have been thoroughly dissed!


favourite nails

That's all for me- it's been snowing this weekend which is very exciting! I'm planning a snowy themed manicure as I do like me some co-ordination, I'll be sharing those tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Alice

xXx





Plaid Holo

Simple little mani for you peeps today!

I had an urge to do some stamping the other night (do you guys ever get that?) and I'd been eyeing up this plaid design for a while. It's number m60 from the fauxnad plates, and I used Konad special polish in white for the stamping.

mmm...sparkly holo

The base polish is Milani 3D Cyberspace- a lovely blue scattered holo. It's very thin, and has a tendency to flood my cuticules if I'm not being careful. It took a few coats to get a decent coverage. The pics here are with three generous coats. I find that these 3D polishes wear very thin on the tip quite quickly- after a day it seemed to just wear away, and this is with two coats of wrapped Seche. I had the same problem when I wore the Hi-Res pink version from this series too. Very odd!

blurry holo

Til next time,

Alice

xXx