Konad fail

I had a nail fail today, I love the base colour, but the Konad design just didn't work out for me this time. I used a full nail design from the M57 plate and stamped with konad special polish in black. The base colour is Barry M Bright Pink.

I really like this colour from Barry M, it is bright without being harsh and in-your-face bright. The konad fail is where I didn't quite get the full stamp design over the whole nail, (this only happened on a couple of nails) so I tried to just redo the bits I missed which for me in this case were the tips. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a mess, with smudging, it doesn't look so obvious in the pictures but it seems more so in real life. Maybe I am just being picky, but I was too lazy to start over. I took pictures of my left hand, my right seems worse though. Oh well, I still like the design and polish!

Have you had a nail polish fail where no matter what you do it just doesn't go to plan?

Frosted cranberry for the bathroom

At work we have a touch sensor foam soap dispenser which is a huge improvement on the old gel soap we used to have. However, a few ladies in the office find that the foam soap is quite drying. One our our sub editors seems to get hand wash and hand lotion for Christmas and birthdays each year, so much so that she brings some in for the rest of the girls in the office. This time she brought in frosted cranberry hand soap and lotion set from Marks and Spencer.

I love this set! The soap lathers very well with very little product, it produces a bright red bubbly lather. The scent is a very strong sweet fruity smell but cranberry doesn't spring to my mind immediately. The hand lotion is lovely and creamy but light and non greasy which I prefer. In the evening I cover my hands in The Body Shop hemp intensive hand lotion, but for the day time I hate heavy lotion, but this frosted cranberry one is very light and soaks in right away. The scent lasts a long time too which I like.

I would definitely buy this for home, I don't think my boyfriend would like it because it is is a sweet smelling soap (we usually use Carex which I find is quite a fresh smell). Incase anyone is wondering I am wearing Models Own nail polish in Lilac Dream :-)

What hand soaps do you love?  

The nails are back (sort of)

I haven't blogged about any of the gorgeous new polishes I got from Nicole over at Noir Lacquer  or any of the new polishes I ordered a couple of months ago. A couple of my nails split and so I filled them all down otherwise the shorties would have looked really odd in comparison! Right now my nails are not long at all, but they are at an acceptable length. So I dusted my nail stamping kit out and a new Models Own polish called Top Turquoise. 

Here I painted two coats of Top Turquoise from Models Own then stamped from an Art Deco plate A95. Art Deco is very similar to Konad, the plates have the same amount of designs on. I then stamped with Konad's white special polish. Finally I added China Glaze non chip top coat.

A sea of blues and greens

So the last post was a purple eye shadow look and I was saying how it was a nice change from my usual blue hues I go for. Having said that I woke up this morning and really wanted to use some fresh blues and greens because it was so bright and sunny outside, feels like spring had most definitely sprung. This is look I came up with:

After applying a white base I used three Barry M dazzle dusts, mint green on the inner corner, baby blue on the middle and finally electric blue on the outer corner and blending all three colours so there was no visible line. To finish I applied black mascara. I love my blues and greens, what colours do you love and keep going back to?

These are the products I used to create this look:

Pretty Purples

I fancied dabbling with shades of purple today. After applying a white base all over the eyelids I chose a nice medium toned purple from my Sleek Acid palette on the inner corner, then silver brown dazzle dust from Barry M on the outer corner. To finish I used Urban Decay glitter eye liner in Metalhead on the upper lash line.

I think the purple makes my eyes appear more green than usual which I like and is a nice change to my normal blue shades I tend to sway towards. These are the products I used to create this look:

I hit snooze one too many times!

I love wearing eye shadow for work, but sometimes if I am running a little late, or if I don't want a full eye of colour this is what I tend to do as a quick and easy look.

I simply take one of my glitter eye liners, (or any colourful liner) and just apply it to the upper lash line and just add black mascara. This particular liner is a glitter from Urban Decay called Spandex. I love how this can jazz up a look with next to no effort needed. Ideal if you hit snooze on your alarm one too many times.

I really like this particular glitter liner from Urban Decay, it has multi coloured glitter suspended in a darkish blue base.

What is your fav quick and simply eye look?

(and here are some out of focus pictures which show the glitter more)

First time for foils (and a new Nubar polish)

I have never used nail foils before but have seen load of gorgeous manicures on various blogs and videos on utube which really made me want to try them out. I bought a bog standard nail glue from Amazon and two tubes of nail foils. One is called Silver Dots and is a silver pixilated foil and the other is called Wrapping Paper and consists of silver, yellow, red and purple foil stripes.

Silver Dots:

Wrapping Paper:

I haven't tried these out just yet, but am hoping to do a mani soon, my nails are still rather short at the moment. The foils cost £3.01 each from Amazon. 

Next up I bought a new polish from Nubar called Reclaim, a gorgeous green holographic polish. The polish is from their Going Green collection and costs about £8 from Amazon. I just love the look of this polish, the holo effects are amazing in the bottle and I really hope it is just as impressive on the nail.

I can't wait to try this one out! Have you come across this holo before? Have you ever tried foils? If so do you have an fav colours? xx

Raver Rainbow

My best friend is getting married in June and her hen do is in April, a small group of us are going down to Newquay in Cornwall for a weekend. Newquay is only about a hour and half from us in Devon, so not too far to travel.

For the Saturday night out she wants to have a raver theme as it should be easy for everyone to find bright and funky  clothing, face paints, leg warmers etc. I can't wait. I thought the Sleek Acid palette I got recently would be ideal to create a bright and colourful look for the evening. I wanted to have a trial run. I stumbled across a video on utube from xsparkage. She did some awesome rainbow eyes, so I wanted to create something similar using the colours from my Seek palette. This is the look:

For this look I used pink/red on the inner corner, then orange, yellow, green on the outer corner. To finish I used blue and purple eye liners from Gosh on the lower lash line and applied black mascara to the upper and lower lashes.

I love the way this turned out, so bright and perfect for a raver night out and will definitely use this look for the hen do. Hope you like this, would you ever dare to wear these colours?

A transatlantic friend is made and a swap

I had made a post about Models Own nail polish and the lovely Nicole from Noir Lacquer commented about how she liked the colours but wasn't able to get hold of them varnish in the USA. With that in mind I contacted her to see if she was interested in doing a transatlantic swap. I was so excited when she said she was up for doing a swap, so we e-mailed each other with a wish list. I set about going shopping in Boots and Superdrug and picked up some varnishes for her which I posted her. (I won't say which ones I bought because I want her to have a nice surprise when she opens the package)

My parcel from Nicole came through really quickly and I was so excited to open it up. I have to say she was really generous and had managed to find lots of items from my wish list. I wanted to try these particular varnishes because they are not sold in the UK. Here is what she very kindly picked up for me:

Just look at this line up! So many gorgeous polishes, here is what each looks like...

Buffey the Violet Slayer from Wet n Wild - This is a deep shiny purple which has a lovely shimmer to it. it was good to go in two coats.

Also from Wet n Wild is SaGreena The Teenage Witch - A deep forest green polish with a subtle shimmer, great Christmas/Autumn colour

Party of Five Glitters from Wet n Wild - I was so excited to see this in the package, it is just packed full of five different coloured glitters red, silver, green, turquoise and blue. I just love the look of this. When I swatched it the glitter didn't come out too thickly, so you would need a few coats to get a generous coating of glitter. This would look great layered over other polishes.

Jaded from Ulta - This is a fantastic duochrome polish which in the bottle looks green, but when the light hits it in the right place it has purple and blue in it, also like a petrol stain. It was very sheer and took three coats to make it a block colour but is still lovely.

Next up are two colours from Essence colour & go - A creamy peach shade with subtle gold shimmer called What do u think? (no 22) and a darkish pastel purple called Break Through (No 26). Both of these where quite thick polishes and only need one coat.

Milani Neon in  504 Fresh Teal - This polish is perfect in one coat and came out a lovely deep vibrant green, but I wouldn't class it as a neon. Perhaps I will try it over the top of a white polish to see if it comes out brighter.

LASplash in Pretty jellyfish and Love Crush - Pretty jellyfish is a light lilac base with lots of deep lilac and silver glitter floating in it. This needed three coats to stop my nail line showing through, but a lovely polish. Love Crush is a pinkish jelly consistancy with multicoloured glitter and red hearts, really nice though I found it hard to pick up any hearts on the brush.

Orly - in a gold metallic - This is lovely, I love the smooth metallic shine this polish has, it was great in two coats.

Sinfulcolors - 927 Nail Junkie - This is a lovely dark green glittery polish which has green and silver glitter particles in it. It was fairly sheer so I needed three coats to get it even.

Bonita in a light sheer purple called Lucious and a deep shimmery blue called Bolting Blue. I really like these, they applied very well and only two coats were needed for a nice even finish.

Confetti in 21 Pink Confetti - This is a cute and girlie polish, the formula is thick but not very noticeable on the nails until the light catches and all the multicoloured glittery particles start flashing.

Finally I got two bottles of Claire's Mood polish - Colour changing varnish! How amazing! I don't think I have ever seen anything like this in the UK which is why I was so keen to try this out. There is a light green polish which changed from green to yellow depending on whether you are hot/cold (I ran my hands under hot and cold water to see an instant colour change) and a darker green which alternated between a turquoise and dark green.

Nicole was really generous and even included Too Faced Lash Injection mascara and a Make Out lipgloss as extras. Nicole and I e-mail regularly and I hope the package I sent her arrives soon and she likes what I bought as much as I like what she sent me.
This is the first swap I have done and Nicole and I hope to do more soon. Have you ever done a swap with someone?