Polished by KPT Siren's Song

Now that it's cold I wanted to retry my thermal polishes when they will actually change. This one I have and have never tried and it is Polished by KPT Siren Song, a store exclusive for Rainbow Connection. I decided to compare it to Liquid Sky Lacquer Teal it Like it is to show how the glitter makes a difference to the appearance of a thermal. So the LSL is on my ring finger and Siren Song is on all the others.

I think these polishes were made using the same pigment because the colours are the same but the glitter really makes a difference to how they look in the warm phase (above). In the cold phase the dark teal doesn't really show the glitter.

What makes these two so amazing is the holographic flash contained in the polish. Just spectacular.

I don't think Sinren's Song is available any longer- sorry about that, but you could easily mimic this look with Teal it like it is and a clear based glitter topper. The polish was really changing colours all the time and it was really interesting to watch.

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Floral ruffian

I have been looking at some fashion pieces to get ideas for my nail art and this dress by Albert Ferretti inspired these off centre ruffian floral nails:

I used Nails Inc Porchester Place for the orange base then painted on the ruffian (tutorial) with Barry M Lychee, sitting it slightly off centre so I had a sweep of colour down the side of the nail. I then used a small nail art brush and Barry M Passionfruit and Key Lime, NYC Blue Sky and Nails Inc Phoenix Place to draw on the flowers. The accent nail is NYC Blue Sky with Digital Nails Ultimate Ginger. 

I love this! I'm making a really effort to come up with some unusual colour combinations and nail art choices and I just love how this came out. The off centre ruffian is very fresh and cool, and incredibly easy to do if you have steady hands. 

For my right hand instead of using a brush to draw the flowers I used my dotting tool to put on splotches of the same colours- it looks exactly the same from a normal distance but you can see the difference here:

If you are not confident using a brush I would just go in with a dotting tool- it's still very effective.  For such a simple design it looks amazing! 

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Sinful Colours Let's Talk

The second Sinful Colours polish that I picked up is Let's Talk, a gorgeous purple polish which almost has an inner glow. My camera did not like the colour of this polish and was picking up a totally different colour so I changed the settings to get a more realistic interpretation of the colour, which means that I have very yellow skin in the photo.

It is just beautiful- and I don't really wear purple polish so that's saying something. This is two coats. Again, find a Sinful Colours stand and see if there are any that catch your attention- you can get 6 of these for the price of one OPI polish (Uk prices) and by my experience you won't be disappointed. On Monday I'll have some gorgeous thermal polish nail art to show you.

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My favourite colour scheme watercolour

When I was looking at my nude nails after my interview and deciding what to paint on top of them I reverted back to one of my favourite colour combinations; grey, blue and yellow. I used the watercolour technique that I learnt from Mr. Candipants (which I used with a different colour combination here.)

 The colours I used here are Barry M Blue Grape, Mavala Berlin and NYC Lexington Yellow, I diluted them with acetone before applying them to my nail then used a brush with some more acetone on it to smudge the edges a little bit more.

This is one of those designs that looks better at arms length rather than the close ups you see on my blog. Still easy instant wow factor if you choose a striking colour scheme and do bold sections of colour.

I am currently deciding what (if any) nail art I want to do over this but trust me it doesn't need it.

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The perfect naked nails

Occasionally I need to wear very subtle nail polish (mostly for job interviews) I don't like going without because that is when my nails tend to break so I have found my perfect sheer pink colour to paint over the top. Opi Bubblebath is the 'my nails but better' shade for my skin tone (pale, very pale)

I apologise that this photo was taken on my iPhone, this is one coat of Bubblebath and a topcoat so you get a very shiny but also very natural effect. I love it and if you've ever wanted this sort of look and have my skin tone you should definitely check it out! 

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Sinful Colours Pinky Glitter

Yesterday I went to IKEA to get a free standing clothes rail. I want to make more of an effort with my wardrobe this year as I leave student life behind me and thought this would be a great way to make more informed clothing choices. While in the Boots next to IKEA I came across Sinful Colours for the first time. The bottles were so much bigger than I was expecting at 15ml and the range of colours was great. I picked up four bottles and this is one of them, Pinky Glitter:

Pinky Glitter is a sheer neon pink polish with iridescent glitter flakes through it. It takes 3-4 coats alone to be opaque but I layered it and used 2 coats here.

It's just stunning! The formula is great, the colour is really neon and the glitter flakes reflect loads of light.

For the price of £1.99 Sinful Colours Pinky Glitter is a gem and I would recommend that you try to find a stand to look at. I will be showing you the other colours that I picked up very soon but I swatted them on a nail wheel and they are also awesome :).

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Purple Holographic Waterfall

I recently picked up Barry M Blueberry and Prickly Pear as they are the perfect creamy ice cream colours for my spring palette (unfortunately minty green doesn't suit my skin tone so you won't be seeing much of that). I first decided to gradient them but should have put a coat of white then gradiented over that, as over the blue the purple came too close and the gradient did not show up on camera so I did a waterfall mani instead:

This mani did not want to photograph either! I have several very blurry shots and a few not quite so blurry photos.

I only used holo polishes for the waterfall in shade of grey, blue and purple I got this photo on my iPhone showing the effect this has.

I experienced terrible tip wear with this, overnight all of the tips were showing and I'll have to change it today. This may be because there were a few layers to this and because I forgot to wrap my tips although I would still expect better than one day wear without wrapped tips.

Waterfall is a really cool technique that was first thought up by Sammy over at The Nailasaurus and she has a tutorial on how to achieve it. It is pretty easy and looks great :)

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