Orly Country Club Khaki

When Cosmopolitan Magazine was giving away mini Orly nail polishes I picked up two, the gold glitter and Country Club Khaki. I thought Country Club Khaki would be good for nail art and never intended to wear it as a full manicure, however I thought I would just swatch it and see.

I am slightly undecided about this colour, it doesn't look bad on its own but I'm just not sure I would ever wear it like this. It's quite an unusual colour but I think one of the Barry M matte polishes would look exactly the same if you top coated it (and be significantly cheaper than Orly). If you had slightly darker skin than me and were looking for a neutral colour that would make your nails fade into the background this could be it, what I mean by this is if you had had a break and your nail weren't quite even I think you could use this nude polish and people wouldn't notice it, whereas if you used OPI Bubblebath (my go to nude colour) you can still see the white tips so it would be pretty obvious that they were different lengths.

If you wanted to try this colour I would go for Barry M Caramel first and see if you liked it, I think this is slightly greyer but it's also more expensive.

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On trend 2014: White Nails with Neon Ruffian

I enjoy the palette cleanser that white nails provide but find them a little stark and boring on their own so today I'm going to show you a way to add a pop of colour using a gradient ruffian.

I wanted a neon pop to this so I used Orly Hook Up and Holla and Lilypad Lacquer In Pink We Trust with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Wall. There was no particular order to where I put the neon polishes but my nail beds are only really wide enough for two colours- if you have wider nail beds you could put all three on each nail.

I have made a photo tutorial for this look so you can recreate it at home:

1) Freehand stripes of your chosen colours vertically on your nail- it does not matter what this looks like at the tip (one coat should do) but make sure you paint the whole nail to help the white polish level later on.

2) Top coat! Make sure you topcoat to prevent streaking of the colours onto the white later!

3) Paint a stripe of white up the middle of your nail leaving a small strip of the colours exposed at the cuticle

4) Paint up the sides of the nail so that the colour is seen in a crescent moon shape at the base of your nails. It will take two coats of white to make this fully opaque- have a tiny brush on hand to use with acetone incase you make a mistake (because you have a layer of top coat over the colours you can correct small mistakes without losing the colour)

Then topcoat your final design, clean up around your cuticle to get the perfect oval shape and you're good to go.

NB this design makes your nails look shorter but your fingers look longer- if you have short nails that you dislike you have been warned! This is easier if you use a white polish with a small brush (the OPI was a little too big for my tiny nails). If you use my tutorial I would love to see it :).

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33 DC Mexican Sugar Skulls

The only thing I ever really see on people's nails about Mexico are the Cinco de Mayo sugar skulls. So I used this tutorial by Pretty Squared to draw skulls onto my nails.

The polishes I used in this were Barry M Guava and Passion Fruit, Jessica Radioactive, Lilypad Lacquer In Pink we Trust, NYC Lexington Yellow, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Orly Hottie and Holla. I used NYC Matte Me Crazy to give it a satiny matte finish. The details were all drawn on with Barry M Nail Art pen.

I've added a link to my giveaway below, enter to win a bottle of my Pocket Money Polish custom Sparks and OPI Tiffany Case. UK ONLY sorry international readers :(

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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31DC Half Moon

I'm revisiting the very first design I ever posted on my blog with this post, my half moon planets. I still love this idea and am very proud of my little planets.

Obviously my thumb is Earth but the rest are just random planets.

The polishes: Lilypad Lacquer Bluebell, W7 Silver, OPI Eurso Euro, Smitten Polish The Ghost of Jupiter, Tara's Talons Envy in a Bottle, NYC High Line Green, Orly Hook Up, Jessica Goddess, Hare Polish Dauphine of Decadence, NYC Chelsea Cherry, A England Bridal Veil, Dollish Polish The Man in Black.

I'll admit that I am now doing space themed nails two days in a row but I really wanted to recreate these, so tomorrow I will be doing galaxy nails without the galaxy.

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31DC Tribal

The base for these may look slightly familiar because I drew this pattern on top of my rainbow nails gradient. I didn't really have a plan for these, I just doodled as I went along.

The colours in the gradient are NYC Chelsea Cherry, Lexington Yellow, Lavender Cupcake and Orly Blue Collar. The doodles are with my trusty Barry M black nail art pen.

I enjoyed doing this design, but I was having some issues with my matte top coat which made the pen bleed a little. I like how the gradient with the pattern makes it look like each section is over a different colour. 

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31DC Rainbow

I'm sure a lot of people will have done a gradient mani for this but I went for it anyway and I'm pretty pleased with myself because I only used four colours to make this manicure and my nails are long enough for this. The colours I used were NYC Chelsea Cherry, Lexington Yellow, Lavender Cupcake and Orly Blue Collar. This is my first time going into a gradient deliberately trying to mix different colours (green and orange).

I use a gradient technique where you put the colours on a plastic bag and mix them a little bit before picking them up with a sponge and dabbing onto your nails. I use makeup sponges from Primark (something ridiculous like 20 for £1!) I also painted my nails in white first as this reduces the amount of coats you need to get an even coverage. 

Clean up is one of the things that would put me off doing gradients so I thought I'd show you how I minimise the amount of mess created. First I tape off my fingers round the sides and across the cuticle (as close to the nail polish line as I can) then I sponge on my gradient and carefully remove the tape, you can see between 1 and 2 how much clean up this has saved. I then top coat the design and wait a few seconds for it to dry before cleaning up on my skin with a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover followed by using a clean up brush to remove the nail polish very close to my nail and to create a nice line at the cuticle.

Bright gradients are one of the easiest ways to achieve high impact nail art but without the clean up they do have a tendency to look messy and unprofessional. I would recommend that you have a go but keep your sellotape and cotton buds handy.  On an unrelated note I have been approached by the Born Pretty Store to review products for them and I have also been given a 10% discount code to pass on to my readers :). My first products won't be coming for a couple of weeks but if you want any nail art supplies you can click on the picture below to be taken to their website, remember to use the code for 10% off:

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Flame Nails

Today's post is a quick one of a flame manicure I did.

I based this on this tutorial by Honeymunchkin. If you're going to try this I recommend waiting until your base colour is dry before you start adding in colours with your striping brush.

The polishes used here are: OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest, I'm not really a waitress, A woman's prague-ative, Bourjois Sunny Sun, Orly Holla, NYC Chelsea Cherry, Digital Nails Bad Wolf and Lac Attack Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes.

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Day 29: Inspired by Fashion OMD Challenge

Hello new followers *waves* I just got my 30th follower on bloglovin and got very excited :). I appreciate all of you reading my blog greatly, let me know if there's anything you would like to see that I'm not already doing :). Now onto the post:
There are fashions in make up as there are in clothes and this look is based on an Illamasqua tutorial inspired by henna. I greatly enjoyed making this look as I have an interest in body art and enjoy painting henna on myself occasionally.

The polishes involved here are Orly Blue Collar, Essie Sunday Funday and my Barry M Nail art pens in black and white. The eyeliner I used to draw the art on my fingers is Maybelline Master Precise Liquid Eyeliner in black

Although the nail art here is so simple the eyeliner art made this look really fun and interesting, definitely something I would consider again for the right kind of event, it would be a great look for a day festival or a fancy dress party.

Only two more looks to go, check out everyone else's fashion inspired manis here.

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Day 27: Inspired by Jewellery OMD Challenge

Only four more days to go of this challenge! Today's challenge is to be inspired by a piece of jewellery and I've had these earrings for a couple of months. My first thought when I saw them was that they'd be a good thing to copy in nail art.

I used NYC Full metal jacket for the base then dotted with Essie Naughty nautical, Jessica Goddess and Orly Hottie.

Remember to look at everyone else's jewellery inspired manis here.

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Day 22: Animal Themed OMD Challenge

I struggled to decided what animal print to do, I settled on this neon leopard print extravaganza.

The base for this is OPI Bubblebath, the neons involved are Barry M Superdrug Limited Edition Green, Orly: Blue Collar, Holla, Hook Up and Hottie, the black in the leopard print is A England Bridal Veil.

Bubblebath makes your nails look so healthy, it's quite hard to tell that I'm wearing a base polish at all. I feel that the leopard print is a little small, next time I would make my dots a little bigger.

Check out everyone else's animal themed manis here.

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Day12: Dots OMD Challenge

My dots design is inspired by Roy Lichenstein Ben Day Dots, in particular this design. I had to do this on false nails because my own aren't long enough for the design. I think this is the best thing I've done in this challenge.

I decided that the eye on an accent nail was enough and I just did the magenta dots on the rest of my nails.

I gave this a neon twist using Orly Hottie and Blue Collar for the dots.

I drew on the eye with my black Barry M nail art pen, I don't know what I would do without it. The best part about these nails is that I only attached them to my nails with blu tac for this picture so I have them around for when an appropriate fancy dress party comes up :).

Check out everyone else's dots designs here

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Day 6: Neon OMD Challenge

As I've mentioned before I'm currently running off an essentials only polish collection therefore the only true neon polish I have is an Orly yellow "Hook Up" so I decided to pair it with NYC "Greenwich Village" and Essie "Sunday Funday" to make a sunrise gradient. I then stamped palm trees on top in black from a Konad Plate.

The palm trees only had outlines of the leaves but to achieve the look I wanted I filled them in with my Barry M black nail art pen. This would not photograph well, it looks so much better in real life

I love this :) the black detailing removes a little of the in your face brightness making it much more wearable and much more interesting. Check out everyone else's neon manicures here.

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Expelliarmus

My Digital Nails parcel came last week and I've been working my way through these polishes ever since, once I took off Ultimate Ginger which I will be showing you tomorrow, I put on Expelliarmus, the Martha Jones inspired nail polish. I'm not really a purple person but this polish has enough interest to make me enjoy it and whoever I end up giving it to out of my friends will probably love it. The formula is excellent, I didn't have to fish for the large circles and the glitter applied really evenly. There is an awesome bright blue shimmer to this polish so I decided to pair it with my new Orly neon blue, Blue Collar. This is my second time using the Manicurator's geometric French tip design and I think it works really well with these two polishes, I used a white underneath the blue to make it more neon.

Click on the jump to see some more photos of this and of a Cambridge event.

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Dominatrix Dotticure

Sorry for the provocative title but what else would I call a manicure combining shiny black, matte black and flakies. I really expected this to photograph poorly but it looks pretty good apart from that the matt looks really grey in the photos (it looks more black in real life.) It's a really subtle mani and I love that about it. I would never wear solid black nail polish (anymore- we all had a goth stage) but the matt and the glitter makes it less intimidating.

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