Drag-a-licious Pink Zebra Gradients

 I've been seeing a lot of gradient nails around with animal print stamped over them lately, and as I am a drag queen at heart I am LOVING them. I decided to go with bright, garish pink for mine (when in Rome!)

I love how simple these nails are to do- base coat, sponging, then a tad more sponging on the tips, stamping the zebra print then done! I really wanted to mattify this mani but unfortunately I don't have any mattifying polish :( Next payday it will be MINE though, I need it in my life. 

I used:

• Avon Viva Pink for the base
• sponged over that with from Sherbert Pink from George at Asda
• sponged China Glaze Shocking Pink on the tip 
• stamped fauxnad plate m57 with un-named black polish (officially the world's moat irritatingly PUNY sized full nail stamp, I had to double stamp nearly every nail on the sides!
• topped it off with Seche Vite (making it all shiny, boo, it would look so much better matte!)

Can I just mention how AWESOMELY NEON this CG Shocking Pink is- I use it in about 70% of all my manis because I love it so much and I want its little neon babies. You can see in the picture below how eye catching it is on the tips- and I took that photo on the left outside, at dusk, so there was hardly any light on it. And still it glows! Amazeballs.

Not gonna lie, the cleanup wasn't fun, as you can see from the pre-cleanup pics the sponging got a liiiiiittle bit messy......! Bit of acetone and it was all gravy though. I'm not completely thrilled with it- my top coat dragged the print slightly, and I REALLY need to get a proper black stamping polish to make the designs more opaque and less blah. But I guess practice makes perfect!

Thanks for reading, big love!

xXx



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

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 

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