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 Black Matte Contrast Nails

The challenge for today is to choose a manicure from your pinterest board and recreate it. I choose this one from Copy That Copy Cat nails. But because my nails are shorter my shiny details are less complex.

I used my Barry M matte polish in Espresso for the base coat and then used NYC Grand Central Station to create the patterns. I much prefer this way of using the contrast between matte and shiny than just doing a french manicure, it gives it a subtle elegance. I'm not sure how long this will last because there's no top coat involved and matte nail polishes are notorious for chipping quickly. Here is Espresso alone at 2 coats:

My computer has done something really weird to the next photo but it made me giggle quite a lot so I thought I'd share it with you.

Remember to check out everyone else's pinterest inspired manis through the inkslinks below :)

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33DC South America Aztec Temple

Today's post is late because I took off my first manicure for this prompt without taking any photos. I didn't want to do the same things again so I give you the aztec temple in silhouette:

The base here is a Nelly Polish sample which she was selling off and I did the step detail in Barry M Espresso.

It's another one that looks great when your hand is in exactly the right position and weird the rest of the time...

Tomorrow I'll be sharing some exciting news so be sure to check in :).

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33 DC: Based on Pattern in home

Again this is going to be a quickie because I'm quite busy at the moment. I got some Deborah Lippmann polishes really cheaply from TK Maxx and I wanted to show you them so here is Cleopatra in New York and Nefertiti with a bundle monster splatter stamp (which I love!)

You might be asking what's the pattern- it is mess, I love having a lot of stuff out on my desk which is perfectly organised to me but messy to others. Sadly this is the last design for a while in which I will have long nails because I had to cut them down to look a bit more professional for an interview :(. I'll be back tomorrow with a pre prepared post and some awesome nail art :)

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Black Cat Lacquer Midnight City Swatch

Today I am showing you Midnight City by Black Cat Lacquer, a phenomenal black jelly glitter with holographic circles, hexagons and crescent moons in it. I layered it over a coat of Barry M Black but as I then added three coats of the polish to get the glitter distribution I wanted I could probably have just used the polish, however, with this kind of polish I would advocate using a base so that you can control the glitter density without having to worry about if the base is even.

I love that this polish is like a galaxy manicure in a bottle complete with little planets and crescent moons.

I love how rock and roll this looks on my new nail shape. If you haven't already guessed I am a total convert to the almond shaped nail- they elongate my fingers in a way that square nails never did and they look really classy. However I will be worried every time I file them that I'm going to file off the wrong bit and lose the shape!

What do you think? Black nail polish that still looks great on slightly longer nails, it's definitely a win for me. By the way you may have noticed ads popping up on my site- I'm hoping to raise a little bit of money to spend on polishes to be able to buy polishes which I love and want to share with you. 

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31DC Galaxy

I wanted to do something a little different for galaxy and try and portray the majority of space which is big and black and dusty. Forgive me for the shine on these pictures, I am going to be making a lightbox asap but I need to find a suitable box first.

I started with a layer of black and then sponged my dark effect polishes over the top. The circles came out of Smitten Polish The Ghost of Jupiter and they represent distant planets and stars. 

The polishes: A England Bridal Veil, Deborah Lippmann Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Dollish Polish The Man in Black and Smitten Polish The Ghost of Jupiter. 

I then matted this and it looks amazing matte, you can see the sparkle in the black undies and more of the colours from The Man in Black. 

Two days of space themed manis, I'll have to try and avoid them for the rest of the challenge. Tomorrow is the dreaded water marble which I am definitely not looking forward to, it's the technique that just doesn't work for me.

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31DC Metallic Nails

I was a little stuck for things to do for metallic nails so I pulled out one of my untried glitters. This is Pocket Money Polishes Heart of Glass which has shards of pink and silver glitter in it. I decided to pair this with another one of my untrieds- Crows Toes Minion and some heart nail art. I am absolutely in love with this nail art.

I started with a base of Crows Toes Minion, which is epic by the way! It's a purple to deep teal shifting duochrome with flakies in it. This is two coats:

I then used the polish brush of A England Rose Bower to create two intersecting curves on the nail then did the same slightly further up with Nails Inc Motcomb Street before sponging on Pocket Money Polishes Heart of Glass.

I love that the red frames the top of the heart, Rose Bower is the perfect colour, opaque in a single coat and with a slight holographic flash. Heart of Glass is amazing, the shards are flat on the nail and big enough for it to be obvious that the glitter pieces are irregular. Let me know if you like this as much as I do :). For a bit of whimsy here's a tower I made with all of my Pocket Money Polishes

Tomorrow is Rainbow themed  :)

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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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Pocket Money Polishes Fever Nail Art

I was totally overwhelmed by the response to my Electric Fish mani on Sunday! Thank you to everyone who commented telling me how much they liked it :). Today I am showing you some nail art featuring another Pocket Money Polish- Fever. I am an amateur singer and Fever is one of the songs I used to perform so it holds a special place in my heart. Fever is a gorgeous glitter topper with small red glitter, silver holographic square glitter and large red circle glitter. Because the bottles are so small (4ml) you only need to dip your brush in a couple of times to get the circles out which I prefer to fishing around. You are seeing one coat with placed large circle glitters.

The base colour for this is A England Bridal Veil and I stamped with Barry M Silver Foil. I chose the peacock's tail from the plate for the silver flourish

I also entered this manicure into PMP's contest for photos of their polishes with you holding weird things so here is this manicure with me holding a trilobite (a fossilised marine creature from 250 million years ago).

One of the best things about manicures with stamping and glitter accents is that it is relatively straight forward to get matching nail art on both hands. I am having a glitter topper moment right now and I can't get enough of the Pocket Money Polishes that I own (and I stocked up on a couple more at the latest restock including a one off called Harden your Heart) if you want to get hold of your own click here in the UK and here in the USA (USA is a pop up shop in September).
As a bonus end of post treat here is Peggy Lee singing Fever:

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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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The most amazing geometric french tip-Manicurator design

So I saw this post from the Manicurator and immediately knew I would copy this look. It's so classy yet stand out and could work with so many colour combinations and I just know I will return to this over and over again. At the time I already had the amazing Butter London the dark knight on my nails- the multi coloured glitter really lifts the black and you'll see in the photos it looks incredible. I used striping tape off ebay and Nail Girls gold to do the tips.

Butter London the dark knight in all it's glory. The gold tips only make it look better

 I will definitely be recreating this exact look when I go to May balls at the end of next term. I'd also love to do the style in pastels for a more subtle spring version.

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