Brown Skittle Manicure

Good evening my lovely blog readers :)

Today I have a mani for you that did take quite a bit of time and many layers of nail varnish. It also involves my favourite nail varnish at the moment which I have mentioned many times before! That's right, folks, it's my Particuliére shade by Chanel! This baby was expensive, but so worth the money.

I do believe that a 'skittle' manicure consists of a different pattern/design on each nail (apart from nail art being spired by the sweets - Skittles... That's for another day :P) So here is my take on 'skittle' nails, the nail varnishes and the brushes which I used for this design...

 

Lefty

Righty

So parts of this mani involved 3 main brushes that I tend to use and the rest of it I used my stamps and stamping kit - especially on my right hand... Wasn't the easiest free handing it, to be honest.

 

The thin brown brush at the top was used for
thin-ish lines (Cross), the middle square brush
was used for the black glitter/gold line & the
thin white brush was used for the legendary
moustache!

 

I must say, these plates have come in pretty handy - great thing to invest in!

Here are the nail varnishes I used:

 

Left to Right:
Particuliére - Chanel, Base/Top Coat - Barry M, Black - Beauty UK,
Metallic Saturn - w7, Cosmic Black - w7

I know I actually use these colours quite a lot but they're pretty basic and make really good base coats due to their versatility! I think this mani was pretty self-explanatory (hence the lack of writing..) It wasn't really inspired by anything, just random patterns and designs I felt like clumping together :)

 

 

Give it a go and let me know what you think! x

 



Surprise Swatch!

Now here's something I really didn't expect to be doing...

So I went to my very good friend's BBQ yesterday and had a lovely time catching up with everyone as well as screaming at the TV during Olympic finals, despite feeling hugely self-conscious of my natural but very stained looking nails. How could I forget to paint my nails? - I know, right. To be honest I can be pretty forgetful and clumsy a lot of the time and it just slipped my mind whilst getting ready.

Its totally true when a nail blogger says: Nail varnish has stained my nails I never want to wear it again... Wait, I need to cover up these horrible stains! :(

Eventually, I gave in and asked my friend, Emmi, for some nail varnish and she presented  me with some beauties :D Immediately, I took ... Sorry, I mean borrowed her 'Cuckoo For This Color' by OPI! I know it's a massively known brand and it's pretty damn expensive so I actually hadn't tried any of them out yet, until this very night! Now I realise why it's so loved and why it requires lots of pennies...

(Sorry for the lack of quality photos and the lack of photos themselves, I was painting them whilst watching Tom Daley dive on the absolute edge of my seat and then screamed when it was a good dive - multi-tasking to the max)

As I said, I don't enjoy reading swatch posts very much and so I keep them to a minimum in case others feel the same, but when I saw this amazing deep green/dark teal coloured nail varnish from OPI's Fall 2010 Swiss Collection, I thought it was a must blog. I really do like the versatility of this polish as it pretty much compliments whatever you're wearing.

 The thing I really liked about this polish is that the brush is a good thickness to prevent it going all horrible and clogged up when you apply it, also with one coat the colour was pretty sharp and deep alone, but I always prefer to do two coats for a neat finish and you could see a little bit of my nail.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to invest in some OPI nail varnishes!
Thank you to my good friend Emmi for this surprise swatch :)
xx

Day 8 *Black & White Challenge* - Peter Pan Collar

After a while of having a 'nail block' in terms of the Black & White Challenge, I finally came up with a bit of nail art that I thought was good enough to be in here. Although it's taken a while, I have a design for day 8 of the challenge which was to be 'inspired by fashion' and a recent fashion that has caught my eye is the 'Peter Pan Collar'. I see it everywhere and I love the look it adds to an outfit! You can look smart but quirky :) I don't have many items of clothing with this kind of collar, but I know I'll be investing in some very soon!

So here is my take on the Peter Pan Collar :)

To do this design, I used half moon stickers to create the crescent shape near my cuticles.
Nail varnishes: Base/Top Coat - Barry M, Black - Beauty UK, White - Barry M
Also a thin brush for details and to neaten up the collars.

This mani was pretty parallel in terms of style with my previous 'Tuxedo' post which you can find here.

And there you have it - essentially Peter Pan nails!
Thank you for reading :) x

Day 1:White Base With Black

Day2: Black Base With White

Day3: White/Black Inspired By A Band

Day 4: Black With Glitter

Day 5: Coloured Base With Black/White

Day 6: Gradient Base With Black
Day 7: Black/White Half Moon Manicure
Day 8: Black/White Inspired By Fashion

London 2012 Olympic Nails!

Hey guys!

So recently I've done my bit to support TEAM GB in the London Olympics 2012 and did my own design on my very own nails :D

Sadly, I don't have tickets to the event, though watching it on tv is exciting as it is. I genuinely didn't think I would be anywhere near this supportive or into the Olympics, as the prolonged build up to it was getting tedious. Though I'm fully involved and I must say I have had quite a few compliments on my nail efforts towards the Olympics :P

This is the extent that I went to... My orthodontist insisted
on team GB colours (minus the white - it turns a weird
colour when you eat) except she only did it on certain
teeth due to the straightness?!

The olympic circles did get a bit messy because I did them SO many times... But I kinda just
stuck with this attempt.

For this design, lots of various nail varnishes were used:

Sunshine - Rimmel, Jungle Fever - LA COLORS

Metallic Saturn - W7, Navy - Barry M

White - Barry M, Black - Beauty UK

Heart On Fire - Rimmel, Base/Top Coat - Barry M & studs

Was really looking forward to doing another manicure with something different on each nail and LOVE studs so had to include them on the gold pinky finger for team gb :)

I used my thin brush for the details and a dotting tool to help me apply the studs as I usually do with my studded blog posts. This one did take a while to be honest, accuracy and patience was needed! Though luckily I had a day free to just sit, paint and watch the Olympiads on my telly :)

I'm pretty impressed with Team GB and their successes, at the moment they're 4th in the table of medals!

So lets all hope that Team GB get far in the London 2012 Olympics! :)