33DC Manicure with 2 Patterns

The challenge for today was to do a manicure with two patterns, I could have cheated a little and done a different pattern different nails to produce a skittle mani. I decided instead to test my stamping skills and stamp two patterns onto each nail, one half each.

I used two patterns from my Moyou Sailor plate 4 but they're a little unbalanced as the image on the left is so much busier than the one on the right.

I'm not sure that this is something I would wear again- it definitely doesn't show that I had to stamp twice.

Oops almost forgot to tell you what amazing base colour this is- it's Whimsy by piCture pOlish- the perfect blue.

Tweet

Lacquer Lust Bow Chica Wow Wow Ruffian

I am desperately trying to work my way through my pile of untrieds and am having some success but it's definitely something I have to think about other wise I do resort to using familiar polishes. The main polish in this manicure Lacquer Lust Bow Chica Wow Wow is one of my untrieds- a deep blue holographic polish I decided to pair it with the bright pink of piCture pOlish Electric Dream in my current favourite manicure style- the ruffian.

I loved this, the sun helpfully came out for a little bit while I was wearing it so I do apologise for the background of the two sun photos, I took them on the move in case the sun went back in.

Bow Chica has a really strong holo effect but it's more of a scattered holo than a linear one- although as you can see below there is some bend to it.

I love this combination, it's really fun and very simple to do. Because it is quite plain this mani is also very easy to wear and could be dressed up or down depending on the occasion.

I'll be back tomorrow with some halloween bats :).

Tweet

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.

Tweet

Enchanted Polish Wish Me Good Luck

Last week I received Enchanted Polish Wish Me Good Luck in a Llarowe Mystery grab bag (I also got Nail'd It Water and Dollish Polish Hip Hop Hippity Hop). Since Llarowe has stopped restocking EP this is probably the only one I will ever own. I don't really see what all the fuss is about anyway, there are other indie brands I would much rather support.

I paired this glitter with two different base colours OPI My vampire is buff and piCture pOlish Freya's cats. To wear this I added a small silver square stud to my ring finger but I don't have any pictures of it.

I think this is a poorly thought out glitter mix as the majority of the glitters look best over a dark base but then the black matte glitters don't show up. I love it over the dark blue, the glint of green is really pretty but you can't see the black at all in real life. 

This polish fills a gap in my collection and I will probably hang onto it for a while (or rehome it to someone else), but considering all the hype surrounding EP I'm not especially impressed. I might do a post soon on my favourite indies and where I get them from as I have now tried 27 different brands with five more brands currently on their way to me. Would anyone be interested in this?

Tweet

Electric Fish

This post is showcasing the fabulous piCture pOlish Electric Dream, a bright pink polish with gold shimmer. This polish was inspired by the coral reef in Fiji and therefore I have decided to pair it with a fish scale nail.

This polish can look anywhere between pink and coral depending on the light and your skin tone, on me it definitely looks more pink. This is two coats of the fantastic PP formula and then a top coat. I think this dries to a slightly satiny finish but I was painting in poor light so I can't be sure... 

I chose a few different polishes to complete the fish scale nail, but I wish I had chosen ones that were similar in finish- there's something about the contrast between the shimmer and the cremes that isn't working for me. I'm still running on a small collection and brought mostly cremes so I didn't have as much choice as I would in Cambridge. The polishes you're seeing are piCture pOlish Freya's Cats, Essie Naughty Nautical, Barry M Passionfruit and Orly Hook Up.

This accent nail takes a surprising amount of time for what it is, I think because you have to dot a different colour every time rather than being able to do a few dots of the same colour. 

Tweet

The Pussycat went to Sea

I got a parcel from Llarowe yesterday with my new piCture pOlish collaboration shades in it. The two I really wanted were Freya's Cats and Electric Dream. Unusually although I am a massive turquoise fan Lagoon just didn't appeal to me. I immediately put on Freya's Cats a deep blue jelly with silver flakies. It reminds me of the sea and I decided to do some nail art. 

I love this wave image from the Moyou plate but my nail beds aren't quite wide enough to show it off completely. I stamped with my Konad white polish and looks at how well all the small details of the plate came out!

This is Freya's Cats alone in all its shimmery beauty. I would call this a royal blue and you are seeing two easy to apply coats.

The glitter on my index and little fingers is Pocket Money Polishes Magic, the colours in this are perfect to represent the fish and algae in the sea. As with all of my other PMPs this had fantastic formula with this density of glitter (the perfect density in my opinion) in just one coat!

I'm going to call this a completely indie mani because the konad polish doesn't really count ;). I love how this looks on my nails and would definitely recreate it another time :).

Tweet

Water Nail Art with Whimsy

I thought I'd have a go at one stroke nail art. What I ended up with does not look like petals but more like waves on a beach. I wish I'd done the nail art over a sandy colour but I'm OK with that, waves are more my thing than flowers anyway. The base polish here is the stunning Whimsy by piCture pOlish with acrylic paint.

Tweet

Glittery lightening for the end of exams

What do 21/22 year olds do when they finish the final exam of their degrees? Party of course :). In honour of the massive amounts of partying that will occur in the next two weeks I have done glittery nails with some lightening bolts stamped over the top of them. These got soooo many compliments from my friends- it makes me feel so good when my friends notice and compliment my nails. So here they are this is Nails Inc Maida Vale, Jessica Platinum Wishes and Girly Bits Eight Crazy nights with an accent nail of piCture pOlish Paradise stamped over using Konad special black polish and a Bundle monster plate.

Tweet

Orbiting the worst is over

I decided to do some simple nail art with my swatch of Happy Hands The Worst is Over, adding piCture pOlish Orbit to form triangular flashes of the worst is over (twio) on my nails. Orbit sort of frames twio showcasing the amazing mix of glitters and colours that it is.

Tweet

Review of Revolution by piCture pOlish

I purchased Revolution by piCture pOlish a couple of weeks ago and have been putting it through it's paces with different brands of glitter in my manis and I thought I'd share my findings. piCture pOlish advise using two coats of the base and when it's dry it feels like a rubber coating on your nails (it smooths out nail ridges as well). It drys quite quickly so you don't have to wait for a long time between coats. It wears just as well as any other of my base coats (although I never wear a mani for more than three days so I can't guarantee any longer than this).

I have used Revolution under the following polishes:

• Paradise by piCture polish
• B for Butterflies by Happy Hands 
• Am I not yours by Happy Hands
• Ray of Light by Deborah Lippmann
• Confettis by L'Oreal
• Gramercy Glitz by NYC
• Abstract Canvas by Emily de Molly
• Majestic Flight by Emily de Molly

Revolution is noticeably less effective if you use only one coat however, when you use two coats it does make taking glitter off almost as easy as taking off regular polish. There is still some rubbing necessary (especially if there are large glitter pieces present as with Abstract Canvas). After the polish is off it is often possible to rub your nails and pull Revolution off (like the rubbery bits you get off erasers when you rub them on a table). It has not made my nails weaker (and they are often weak and flaky). Overall I think piCture pOlish has done a fabulous job with this base coat, it does what it says on the bottle efficiently and effectively and makes changing glitter polish less of a nuisance.

Tweet

Paradise

When I was ordering my Happy Hands polish I also got piCture pOlish Paradise. It's a gorgeous polish- pale blue green shimmer with pink glitter and it reminds me of birds of paradise. Without top coat it has a sort of burnished metal look and the pink really adds to the uniqueness of the polish.

Tweet

Emily de Molly and Norway Nails

I found a nail store I hadn't heard of before called Norway Nails and they had a few beauties I'd been hankering after in stock. In particular they have piCture pOlish Revolution the base designed to make taking glitter off easy which is sold out everywhere! I also bought two polishes by Emily de Molly; Abstract Canvas (also sold out in most stores) and Majestic Flight. I was so excited by these two polishes that I did it again and put one on each hand. The polish was dispatched within a couple of hours (on a Saturday!) and arrived by Tuesday. It came beautifully wrapped in a black gift bag with a ribbon andI also got a free sample of OPI AvoJuice hand and body lotion which is amazing! So here is my haul:

As soon as I saw Majestic Flight I fell in love. It's a sheer turquoise polish with lime, green, copper, blue and purple glitter and I'm fairly certain that there's some shimmer in there as well. It looks amazing in the bottle, it looks amazing on the nail and it is opaque in three thin coats which is what I'm about to show you.

Tweet

Nail art with Orbit

So I added to my swatch from yesterday of piCture pOlish Orbit with some glitter on my left hand and some hearts on my right hand. Left hand first, I added some Girly Bits Eight Crazy Nights on my ring finger and thumb as accents. It was perfect for Orbit.

Tweet

I'm entering Orbit

I knew piCture pOlish was going to be good, I have seen so many rave reviews for their products and as a result I had high expectations. They were exceeded by Orbit a navy blue polish with electric blue and silver glitter.

Tweet