I am BAT THUMB!

I was so excited about seeing Batman over the weekend that I decided to full on GEEK OUT and having matching nails!
The film was amazeballs- I won't say anything about it because I loathe people who give out spoilers, but it's definitely worth a watch.

I used:
Color Club Almost Famous (FOUR coats because it was a total nightmare)
Konad Special Polish in Black
Bundle Monster plates 213, 13 and 305 (which I tweaked a bit)
Seche Vite
And you should check out the original Bat Thumb for shits and giggles, I absolutely cracked up when I saw this!

Alice

xXx

Tequila Sunrise Gradients

Good morrow all,
I'm jumping on the gradient bandwagon today- they've been absolutely everywhere in the blogging world lately and I am loving them!

Nearly everyone who saw these thought that they looked like a Tequila Sunrise cocktail, which is what I was going for! Any excuse to bring booze into the equation.

Tequila Sunrise...mmm!

What I used:
Leighton Denny Do Me a Flavour
Barry M Yellow
Cosmetic sponge
OPI Nail Envy
Seche Vite

Love,

Alice

xXx

Coffee Neons

Aloha!

Continuing my neon frenzy, I've got a very bright french manicure to show you today! I've just cut all my nails down as I had a few peelies (after a week of not bothering with maintenance) so am currently looking at my lovely long talons in these pics and quietly weeping over my nubbins!

What I used:

base - Sally Hansen Iced Coffee
thumb - H&M
index- Color Club Jackie Oh!
middle - China Glaze Kiwi Cool-Ada
ring - China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
pinky -  Barry M Blue



artifical light

I love the combination of the simple nude polish and the bright tips- Jackie Oh! proved to be an absolute bitch to photograph though, neons can be so temperamental. It looks quite red but in reality it was hardcore pink.

with flash

artifical light

I briefly did a similar manicure with pastel tips, but it only lasted a few hours as I did someone else's nails and they got wrecked. Once I grow out my nubbins it's first on my list!

Love,

Alice

xXx 

Aztec

Today I’ve got some guest nails- my friend Sarah, who’s made an appearance here once or twice! I’ve quite wanted to try my hand at Aztec nails for a while- they’re massive at the mo, with people like Jessie J wearing them. Sarah has short nails so I thought I could whizz them out quickly.

Well, I was totally wrong. They look FOREVER! The first hand took an hour, and the second was a bit quicker at 45 mins. My bum was killing me by the end of it!

I used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear: White On

OPI Ogre The Top Blue

Barry M Yellow

Revlon Red

Wet n Wild Black Creme

Dotting tool

Ridiculously tiny paintbrush

Can you tell which hand I did first?! I think one of them looks soooo much better than the other one....have a guess!

I actually love these, need to try them on myself. Bit scared of using my left hand though....I'm pretty good at doing art with my non-dominant hand but this is a whole new ballgame!

Til next time,

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

Holy @?!# it's Pop Art!

These are quite possibly the COOLEST nails I have ever done! Uber chuffed with myself and these bad boys.

I was inspired by the old school comics, like the picture below- all that 'crash bang wallop' jazz in the Batman cartoons.

They took a hell of a long time to do, I'm not gonna lie! And there was no way I was going to do my right hand as well- I'm pretty good at doing designs with my left hand but this was a tad ambitious. They're a tiny bit messier than I would like- a few slightly messy lines (yup I know I have OCD) but at a glance they really stand out.

I used about a bazillion polishes for this mani (well, it feels like it!) On my right hand I switched them round for a bit of variation, and just put polka dots all over rather than do the pop art. It's pretty unusual for me to have non-matching hands- I love me some symmetry- but it actually looked better that way, I think both hands would have been overkill.



<><>

<>  <>

L-R: Seche Vite, Art Deco Black, Clarins Orange Pur, No. 7 Stand Back, Miss Sporty Yellow, Barry M Spring Green, Clarins Golden Red, Art Deco White...and a dotting tool (phew!)



I actually think my nails looks pretty cool with just the white explosions on them, before the polka dots!

I put Nail Envy on as base coat, then painted my main colours over that. Seche Vite on top to speed up the drying process, before I drew on the white spikes with Art Deco. It has to be one of the most annoying polishes to use long term- if you keep the bottle open for more than two minutes it gets so gloopy and unuseable. My thumb is my favourite, and by the time I got to my ring/ pinky finger it as like trying to paint with tippex! Then I used the black Art Deco to line the spikes (again, by the time I got to the ring finger it was so gloopy I was THIS close to throwing it against the wall).
Another Seche Vite layer, before using a Sharpie to write on the exclamations. That was a nightmare- by then my nail was so thick with polish I had to write really, really lightly, and slowly build up the letters as any pressure made the polish dent and drag.

Then I used my dotting tool to paint the white....and you can probably guess what next (yup, another layer of Seche!) I had to wait about an hour to put the final top coat on thought, as any sooner than that and the Sharpie smudged something rotten.

It was all worth it in the end though!




<> 

<> <>

indoors with flash



<>  <>

right hand




favourite nail

I did my friend Sarah's nails for her and she loved them- but I always find it so much easier to do art on my own nails rather than someone elses! Definitely need to practise that


Sarah's nails

I'm definitely going to do this again, I really want to practise it and get it perfect. I just got some nail art pens, I might try it with them and see if it makes drawing the exclamation bubbles any easier.

Thanks for reading!

xXx