My Ten Friends: Carbon Based Life Form

I picked up My Ten Friends Carbon based Life Form in a sale somewhere and then didn't wear it for a while until I saw it this weekend and decided to try it out on top of Orly Country Club Khaki. This is two coats and the awesome blue reflection you can see is due to spectacular amounts of blue shimmer int his polish.

I like how holo all of the glitters in this polish are- it really sparkles, but the big hexagons were reluctant to come out and frankly I think it looks better without them.

I would wear this polish to an event where I needed less flashy nails but still wanted some glitter and I would carefully apply it to avoid the large glitter pieces entirely.

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Farewell Pocket Money Polishes

The sad news from this weekend is that Charlie is retiring Pocket Money Polishes to move forward with other parts of her life. I love my collection of glitter toppers from her and will treasure them all the more now. I thought I'd do a little mani to show off two of mine.

The background gradient here is Sinful Colours Cinderella to Blue by You, this also has an added change from pink shimmer to green shimmer which would not photograph!

The two PMPs are Firework and Yellow Submarine. I love Yellow Submarine the most :)

And mattified, gradients always look good mattified. Farewell Pocket Money Polish, you will be missed.

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Blue heart nail art

I recently made a list of polishes I want to swatch and one of them was Emily de Molly Turbulence, a gorgeous deep blue jelly polish filled with holographic glitters in different shapes. I paired it with a negative space heart design.

Using negative space is a great way to use a glitter polish which requires a few coats to form the base of a shape. The photo below shows what Turbulence looks like at three coats alone with top coat. When it was released it was fairly unusual for a polish to have those diamond shaped glitters in although they are a little bit more common now.

The polish I used to outline the heart shape is Nails Inc Abbey Road, a very dense holographic glitter. The below photo is blurred to show a little of the colours that reflect off this polish in the sun.

My ring finger has three coats of Colour Club Total Mystery to provide a contrast to the glitter polish. This is a beautiful blue jelly with pink shimmer.

If you are thinking about valentines day manicures this would be an awesome choice- it would work in so many colours and is super super easy if you have any type of nail art brush (or a small paint brush/toothpick etc.).

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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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Monkey See Monkey Do with Snowflakes

I think everyone in the blogging community who stamps has this design from Moyou but I really couldn't resist using it over Colors by Llarowe Monkey See, Monkey Do an amazing blue glitter with full linear holo- this polish is literally the most glittery thing I've ever put on my nails!

I got the Moyou plate with the smaller designs (Festive 06-I think) because otherwise I struggle to fit the patterns on my nail bed. This combination of colours is just perfect and the holo just adds a little magic :). I stamped with my Konad White.

Monkey See Monkey Do is so complex- some holo polishes look really boring in grey light but not MSMD, it just glitters away as you can see in these two pictures.

I only own two Colors by Llarowe polishes but they have both been excellent and there are definitely a few more I would love to get my hands on (or on my hands) when I have a little bit more money.

This has been a very heavily winter themed week! I promise no more snowflakes at least until Monday ;)

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My First Snowflakes

I am an avid follower of Mr. Candipants and when I saw her snowflakes design I decided to cut down one of my nail art brushes and try them out and I am so pleased with the results.

The base for this is the amazing Colors by Llarowe Moonshine a deep wine coloured jelly polish with silver micro glitter. This combination of the jelly and glitter makes the polish incredibly sparkly. I painted on the snowflakes in Konad White and paired it with an accent nail of NYC Full Metal Jacket topped with Fandom Cosmetics Rumbelle.

This is a stunning manicure and I am loving wearing it this winter season.

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NYC Full Metal Jacket and Rumbelle

It's fairly rare that I go back to a polish and just wear it on its own after my initial swatch however Fandom Cosmetics Rumbelle is one of the most perfect Christmas glitters I own. I put it over the top of NYC Full Metal Jacket a gold foil polish with two coats shown here.

Rumbelle is a mixture of gold holographic particles, blue hexagonal glitters and small white circular glitters in a  clear base. It looks amazing on gold- a proper festive combination.

I placed quite a lot of the white circles to get an even distribution on the nail but there were no problems getting them out of the bottle at all. This size is perfect for my smaller nail beds as they don't stand away from my nail.

Look at that extra glitteryness, it looks like sparkly snow falling to the ground.

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Ethereal Lacquer Swatches

I had somewhat of an Ethereal Lacquer splurge the other week, buying three that I really liked the finish of. I love this jelly finish with holographic flecks in it. Two of these are exclusive to the UK store Rainbow Connection.
Boxing Day

Boxing day has a purple base, it is opaque in two coats but dries to a slightly satin finish so you need a glossy top coat to add the shine which brings out the holographic glitter in this to its best effect.

I didn't manage to capture the sparkle in this polish but I will be trying again when I next wear it.
Oracle

Oracle is a teal jelly with teal micro glitters and some holo flecks. This is two coats and it is amazing! Bright and interesting- a lovely finish.

Wassail

I have saved my favourite of the three for last, Wassail is a deep pink holo jelly. Again two coats with a top coat for shine work perfectly.

Ethereal Lacquer is one of my favourite indie polish brands, they have some gorgeous colours and effects and I love all six that I have from them.

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Nimbus and Pahlish Half Moon

On top of Smitten Polish Nimbus I decided to do a half moon using Pahlish Prayer for Rain a blue jelly glitter. I only used one coat of the Pahlish on top of Nimbus which meant that the jelly picked up a pale blue tone matching Nimbus really well.

This is very wintery and cool toned, perfect to wear for the start of December.

Tomorrow I have some Ethereal Lacquer swatches for you.

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Smitten Polish Imperio

I recently got hold of Smitten Polish Imperio and I love the purple holographic ness of it. I am going to show you two coats because it was definitely opaque here. With this on every movement of your fingers makes them sparkle up at you.

Although this polish looks amazing on it was a little tricky to apply, coming out in very thick coats. If you get a bottle work patiently with it and leave it a while between coats to prevent dragging. It dries to a satin finish so I would definitely recommend using a glossy top coat to bring out the best in this polish.

Tomorrow I'll show you the nail art I did on top of this :)

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17 Suede and Smitten Klaatu Swatch

I have been away for a while but I'm back with a bang with two stunning polishes. Smitten Polish Klaatu Barada Nikto (KBN from now on) is a gorgeous blue jelly polish with blue and holographic glitter running through it. 17 Suede is a limited edition polish which is a charcoal grey matte finish polish. I am showing you two coats of each, with top coat on KBN but not on Suede.

I love how these look and I love the contrast of matte and high shine, plus this is the perfect base for me to do some nail art on next week :).

Tomorrow I'm going off on a makeup tangent with some new goodies from Boots. Remember if you like the 17 polish you need to go get it asap because it is limited edition and if you fancy KBN you can get it from Rainbow Connection in the UK and from Smitten Polish elsewhere.

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Nail Lacquer UK Queen B Swatch and Review

What a long title! Today I have one of Nail Lacquer UK's polishes to show you. Last week she released a few collections all at once but the one that drew my eye was the Royals collection featuring glitter mixes with gold leaf. However, AJ only released one bottle of each and by the time I got there there was only Queen B left (please make more AJ- I will buy a bottle of all of the other 3 if you do!). Also if you haven't noticed the blog has had a Christmassy facelift :)- I love it, please let me know what you think to it by leaving me a comment.

The gold leaf in this polish is just the right size and mixes perfectly with the glitters. The glitter payoff is also excellent with this being one carefully applied coat.

I decided to pair this with OPI Houston We Have A Polish a three coater purple jelly, this is actually the only polish I own that's anything like this berry colour and I really like it. I had to include the next photo even though it is a little blurry to show you the glitter that you get off this polish- just look at the index finger, stunning!

And because I can't leave you with a blurred photo- one more :)

 I love this polish and am so glad I managed to grab a bottle, if AJ makes any more I'll fight you for them ladies ;)

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33DC Art with your most used colour

The challenge today is to use the colour you have the most of to create some nail art. I have so many blue polishes- I know I have too many but I just cannot stop myself from buying them, I'm addicted! I used three different blue polishes for this; Barry M Blue Grape, My Ten Friends Space Sauce and NYC Aqua Mystic.

There are so many layers to this art but they're not really visible, I started with a base of Blue Grape topped with Space Sauce then stamped over the top with Aqua Mystic and Moyou Suki Collection Plate 09. I just chose some bits off the plate to do each nail but I like the basket weave image on this plate. I'm also super excited to use the koi image.

I then used a medium length striping brush to add in the stripes with Blue Grape. This looked so good in person, Space Sauce gave it a really nice holographic effect and it looked really complex (my boyfriend couldn't immediately work out how I had done it).

I love the complexity and simplicity of this mani :). Tomorrow I have a skittle mani to show you.

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Hidden Eye Nail Art with Crows Toes One Trick Pony

Everyone and his dog has done this nail art but I really like it and thought it would work very well on the base of Crows Toes One Trick Pony.

One Trick Pony is a purple-teal colour changing holo. Battling the english weather I managed to get a little of the holo to show in the above photo but under artificial light this one really sparkles. It applied very easily and this is three coats although two would probably have been sufficient if you're not taking macro photos.

I drew on the black spaces with my Barry M nail art pen. These dry really fast so I didn't have to wait long before I could draw on the eyes with my white nail art pen. I made them all look in different directions and I do think my hidden monsters in the dark look a little afraid themselves.

I loved this, I wore it for three days with no tip wear and I didn't stop liking it, I was very sad to eventually have to take it off. Happy Halloween!

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The colour challenged picks my polishes

So I am jumping on the bandwagon of people who have had their significant other choose a few nail polishes for them to do some nail art with and today my lovely Stuart picked out NYC Lexington Yellow, piCture pOlish Orbit, Pocket Money Polish Yellow Submarine and OPI Taylor Blue. While I'm mentioning Taylor Blue Work, Play, Polish posted today that it's going to be sold again in November so check out the link to her blog to read about that.

I really don't use ruffian nail art enough, it's really suited to the round shape that my cuticles have. I loved the look here before I added Orbit although I do like the dark contrast on the tips.

I thought I would talk you through my thought process here: I knew that the yellow would have to go on first because it is definitely a two coater and I would struggle to get it opaque over either of the blues. I then thought it would be really cool to have a bright pop of colour be painting on the OPI as a ruffian and then putting the PMP over the top tying those colours together. I meant to use Orbit to do the ruffian on my accent nail but totally forgot so the only way I could think of to include it without throwing the whole mani off was to paint on a thin tip with it but it's quite thick and difficult to manipulate.

Not too bad really :), at one point he had both of the blues and an orange very sheer jelly polish and I was worried. I had fun doing this and it was really interesting to see what my boyfriend pulled out of my collection.

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