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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OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls

White nails are on trend for next year and one of the most popular white polishes floating around is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls from the Spiderman collection. If you want that true white- I painted tipex on my nails look then this one will do it.

White or off-white polishes tend to be harder to apply than other colours but this one is not too bad. This is two carefully applied coats but it does not self level very well so be careful of that. I would also give it slightly longer between coats than other polishes to avoid dragging.

If you don't like this stark white but still want this sort of effect seek out a creamy off white such as Barry M Lychee and OPI My Vampire is Buff. Tomorrow I'll be showing you one way to add colour to the white nail without it over powering the white.

Oh, and Happy New Year :), may 2014 be a good one!

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Barry M Lady

A few months ago Barry M brought out a new textured collection and Lady was one of them.

It's a glorious textured polish white with hints of gold glitter in it that I just about captured in these photos.

It is perfect for nail art where you want to mimic the look of fresh snow- or just as an eye catching manicure in its own right.

The only problem I have with this polish is that even at the three coats shown here it is still a little sheer and textured nail polishes are notoriously slow drying so the more coats you have to apply the longer you have to wait to do anything. Other than that I love it.

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Textured Dots

Yesterday I was in London again interviewing and had a couple of hours to spare so I went and had dinner with a friend at the Southbank. We wandered through the Christmas market there and had a sneaky cup of mulled wine, it was great :). When I got home I wanted to play with finish and texture so I came up with these matte textured dotty nails:

The base here is two coats of Barry M Espresso which has a gorgeous satin finish- not quite as flat as some matte polishes I have seen. It applies quite easily you just have to be careful not to take too long putting it on a single nail as it starts to dry quickly.

I then added dots of Barry M Lady and OPI Alcatraz Rocks. Lady is a new acquisition and I really like it. I bought it to mimic the look of fresh snow and it definitely does that :). Alcatraz Rocks seems to have picked up the black base of Espresso but I quite like it- it makes this mani more monochrome.

I really like this :) I'm not sure how long it'll last because there's absolutely no top coat involved but I'm enjoying it immensely while it does. I thought I'd share my best picture from London just to finish off this post:

Have a great weekend!

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33DC: Chinese Pandas

This is possibly one of the most stereotypical things you could think of when it comes to China and I don't even want to guess how many people will do pandas. However I couldn't resist the opportunity to do some subtle stamped bamboo and then stamp pandas over the top.

The base for this is Ethereal Lacquer Thigh Highs which I showed you yesterday. I stamped using 2 True Arete, NYC Full Metal Jacket and Konad Black. During this I managed to knock my konad black off the table and spill it onto my clothes! Ah the casualties of nail art.

I love my little pandas sitting there munching on bamboo.

Ok so I could have done something a little bit more original but I love this and it's a very neutral direction (as opposed to the red and gold dragon I was also considering). Tomorrow's post also features a new indie polish that I love so come back to see how I wore that one :).

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Ethereal Lacquer Thigh Highs Swatch

I only got my first Ethereal Lacquer polishes this week from Rainbow Connection but I am in love already. I showed you Callisto yesterday and today I am showing you Thigh Highs a gorgeous cream polish with a golden shimmer running through it. As you can see it is very sheer- this is three coats with top coat but I don't mind because I quite like the visible nail line with neutral nail polishes. I can never explain to you how beautiful this polish is, you'll have to buy it to see (but get Callisto as well if you do!).

It can be difficult for me to find neutral polish colours which don't clash with my incredibly pale skin but this one just looks gorgeous. The golden shimmer gives it this extra life that other similar polishes I own don't have. I am going to have to try a single coat of this over a black polish to see what it looks like.

So what do you think? Will you be adding this beauty to your stash? Need one last photo to convince you?

Well there you have it, a gorgeous polish well worth a look. I will be showing you some nail art over this tomorrow but it was too lovely not to show you alone.

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31DC B&W

Let me prelude this mani by saying that this is my first attempt at a sugarspun mani and I love it! I deliberately went for very thin strings because this is the only way I can get stripes that are this thin. black and white are awesome for this because the contrast is so high.

I used my L'Oreal black and white glitter on my other three nails. Because My boyfriend scales walls is a greyish white you can still see the white glitter over the top of it.

I love the combination of this mani, the one contrast nail in black works with the freshness of the other white nails. It's a really nice palate cleanser without being dull. I taped up the sides of my finger to aid clean up as I do with all messy manicure techniques (this one, gradients etc).

I love this and you can expect to see sugarspun on my blog again very soon (possibly even tomorrow).

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