Barry M Bonanza Giveaway!!

NOW CLOSED!

I have reached a milestone in the blogging world- fifty followers! Fifty people who actually care about my inane nail ramblings! I’m very grateful to those who take the time to comment and offer advice, cheers muchly.

As a thankyou I’m having a giveaway- and I decided to make my favourite Barry M’s the prizes! All polishes are brand new, never opened and bought by yours truly.


This giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY so this is a chance for you USA peeps to get your mitts on some Barry M goodness!

CLOSES SATURDAY 12TH NOVEMBER.

Enough rabbiting on.....Shall we take a look at what you'll be winning?

Some amazing Barry M goodies is what!

Instant Effects Gold Glitter: a brand new crackle effect! Their crackles are the best ever, and this is perfect for Christmas.

Blue Moon: A pale, milky blue. Such an unusal shade and contrasts really well with bright colours.

Peach Melba: This is one of my favourite polishes in the world. Gorgeous pastel salmon cremey goodness!

Red Glitter: Perfect for Dorothy pumps on your nails! Very dense and opaque in two coats.

And the Pièce de résistance.......

The brand new, only just released Silver and Gold foils! These are to die for- one coat of perfection. They work well for stamping too. 

Winner will be picked at random and emailed - you have 48 hours to respond, if I don't hear from you in that time a new winer will be picked.

I will also be giving + 1 entry as a bonus to the original 50 people who first followed my blog, thanks you guys :)

Happy Giveaway-ing!!

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.



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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!




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indoors with flash



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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



Cherries...or Boobies?

Hello all!

Hope you're well- I've been sniffling like a fluey pig and generally feeling very sorry for myself this week! Caught my boyfriend's evil cold and I've been pathetic since the weekend. I did manage to squeeze in a quick mani yesterday though and I love it, so it's cheered me up a bit!

I've wanted to do cherries for aaaaaages, and the minute I thought of cherries I knew I wanted to do them with a really rosy pink background. Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream is the softest, prettiest pink I have and it was the perfect base colour. Look at the swatches below and you'll see what I mean!

 I let the base coat dry and then used a dotting tool to paint the cherries in Clarins Golden Red- the richest, classiest red I've ever seen. I've have it since I was about twelve (I remember playing dress up with my mum's polish before I stole it!) and it's still in really good nick. I seriously need to buy a new one though- it's so hard to find a bright red that isn't tacky and cheap looking, and this one is proper fifties pin up red!

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tools of the trade

The little cherry stems were painted with a teeeeeeeny little paint brush and Barry M Spring Green- steady hand a must! Then once they were dry I used the same brush to dot the white marks on, to make the cherries look really shiny (I used a french tip whitener for the white, can't even remember what one!) Then once it was dry I covered the lot in Seche Vite. Word of advice if you're going to try this- give the cherries a good half an hour to dry before you put the SV on, I applied mine way too early and dragged my entire thumb :( I had to emergency repair with an orange stick and touch up with Strawberry Ice Cream! 

I absolutely love how sweet these are! Although my charming boyfriend did point out that some of the cherries look like 'little red boobies!' And after sulking for a bit I had to reluctantly concur that some of them did in fact resemble breasticles! I think the trick is to make sure that the white shiny dots go on the very edge of the cherry....rather than floating around in the middle somewhere!

(there's a particularly boob like pair on my left ring finger right at the top...haha!)

xXx



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



Cheater's Guide to Galaxy Nails

Fancy galaxy nails but don’t have the time to do the full mani? Follow my easy three step guide to cheat your way to them!

Step 1- apply magnetic nail polish in a dark colour (I used Nails Inc. Houses of Parliament, a deep purple) which only takes a few minutes extra than a normal mani.

Step 2- layer a glitter over the top- smaller glitters with lots of colours work best, rather than hexo chunks. I used Miss Sporty Sparkle Effects, I love the tiny rainbow glitters in it!

Step 3- add a topcoat to smooth out the glitter (in my case, Seche Vite)

VOILA! Galaxy nails :D The magnetic effect paired with the glitter makes it look like the sky at night. And to give it a funky edge, you can always jazz it up with a French tip or a crackle. For the french tip I used Miss Sporty Turquoise, as I thought it was a good colour to represent a planet! And I used Barry M Crackle Effects in Gold Glitter for my thumb and accent finger.

It might not be as good as the real deal, but I do like me a lazy option!

xXx

indoors

outdoors



Nails Inc. Magnetised

Today I’m swatching Nails Inc. Magnetic polish! My mum got it for me to say thanks for doing her nails (I don’t think I would ever drop £14 on nail varnish......Deborah Lippman glitters aside that is!) and I was so excited to try it out. There are three available colours: purple, gold and silver, and I got the purple, Houses of Parliament.

It’s surprisingly easy to do- the polish comes with an outer lid, which holds the magnet. I applied one coat of the polish, then nail by nail painted a thick second coat and quickly held the magnet over that for twenty seconds. It barely took any longer than a normal mani, and to get such different looking nails for ten minutes of work is fine by me! And you can actually see the pattern emerging as you hold the magnet over it, it’s amazing!



left hand

right hand

The pictures capture the effect really well- they look really unusual but elegant. The colour of the polish before being magnetised is lovely as well- you can see in the picture below how velvety it is. My pinky and ring finger are magnetised, and the middle and pointer finger are just one coat.

before and after

Loves it!

What do you guys think about the magnetised look?

xXx

Bows and Presents

Hello all!

Apologies for my absence- I've been in Ireland all week doing a harp exhibition. Sounds glamorous? I thought it did....initially! But after a day of lugging huge heavy boxes around, unpacking harps, loading vans and rummaging through music shelves I realised there was no glamour involved whatsoever! I was so worried about breaking a nail, as I usually have a MAJOR break every time I've done an exhibition (I'm talking one of those split to the cuticle, six months to grow out and paying for it forever breaks) but I managed to avoid any major disasters. I did take a chunk out of my middle finger, and I've filed them all down to match, but there we go.

I did my lovely friend Carys' nails for her on the weekend- she's wanted a mani that made her nails look like presents for ages so I obliged! She also bought me a brand new Seche Vite (as I've been whining about mine being on it's last legs for weeks) and Barry M Cyan Blue! Fully aware that I am totally spoilt and have the bestest besties ever :) 

 I used Barry M Blue Moon for the base colour, which needed three coats to be opaque. I stamped with Konad Red Special Polish and fauxnad plate m56. It was an absolute nightmare stamping with this- the pink stamper made the red polish practically invisible, so I had to just guess where to put the stamp! Not the easiest when you're stamping on someone else, as well as trying to place the bows in the same position on all of her nails. 

Despite the faff, they came out lovely- j'adore the colour combo of the red and the pale blue, and I'm pretty impressed I managed to get the bows fairly even! And Carys loves them, so as long as I've got a happy customer I'm pleased.

I've got LOADS of manis to update on here, so I'm going to be good and aim to post every day until I'm caught up.....a hefty challenge for a laze like me, but I am determined!


Hope you've all had a good week,


Alice
xXx