Laser (Disco, Moonbeam?) Nail Art Tutorial

Today I have a tutorial for the 'Strobe Lights' part of my Disco Mani from earlier in the week. I suppose you could also call them Lasers or Moonbeams. Ooh, I like Moonbeams - the Moonbeam Mani has kind of a ring to it, don't you think? Although I don't think Moonbeams come with a neon option! Can you tell I'm just typing as I think tonight?!

You Will Need

Bright colours for the 'lasers'. I'm using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Brisk Blue.

Black nail polish. I use W7 Black.

Clear top coat that's fast drying. This one is Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Striping tape which you can get on eBay or from online nail art supply stores.

Tweezers. These are optional but I find they come in handy at a few points in this technique.

The Fun Part!

Step 1

Paint on your bright base colour and make sure it is completely dry before moving on to the next step. I normally use a thin coat of quick drying top coat at this point to speed up the process. If your base coat isn't dry, it will peel off with striping tape later on.

You can stick with one colour for every nail or be a bit adventurous by mixing and matching!

Disco Nails with 'Glequins'

When I showed a friend [this] manicure from a few days ago and mentioned that I placed each piece of 'glitter' individually, he said it's a bit big to be glitter. I never thought about it too much before but I think he's completely right, but then again; they're too small to be sequins! So I ended up mashing the two words together and I will now call these little hexagonal pieces of shiny plastic GLEQUINS (glee-kwins)!

Today's nail art idea comes from Lucy on Facebook. She had the idea of a mirror ball accent nail and I happen to have the perfect glequins for a mirror ball look. I really can't stop staring at that accent nail and wiggling it around in the light. I think the pictures do quite a good job of showing the holographic effect but it's even more mesmerizing in person.

Born Pretty Glitters!

When I spotted these glitters in the Born Pretty Store, I knew I had to try them out right here, right now, oh my god, as soon as possible! I already have some hexagonal glitter in royal blue but I really wanted to add some more colours to my collection and Born Pretty are stocking a great range.

These pieces are just over 1mm in diameter and as close to flat as you can get so once there's a top coat over them, they don't snag on anything or tempt you to pick away until they've all somehow disappeared!

I Call It The Whale Tail Nail!

It would seem I have THE worst luck (or lack thereof) when it comes to camcorders. So I had trouble with the first one I was using which lead to me finally sucking it up and buying a new one a few months ago. Well as I was filming the answers for the Q and A today, the battery died and refused to recharge. When I took the cable out of the camera, the jack came with it so I now have a hole in the side of my camera! Hopefully I can return it to the store I got it from since it's faulty and I'll be back in the video business. Until then, you can watch the 'outtakes' from the 10 minutes of footage I managed to film before the camera's untimely death on YouTube here.

This manicure is very similar to the V-Gap manicure but I put a little twist on it (literally), turned it upside down and named it the Whale Tail Nail because rhyming words just sing to me like I'm 10 years old!

I used W7 Black as a base colour and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue which I inexplicably found in a bargain bucket in my local Original Factory Shop. The studs are the 2mm gold squares from Born Pretty Store here. Don't forget to use my code, SA5X31, for 10% off any order at BornPrettyStore.com!

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Mish Mash

I mentioned my lack of inspiration yesterday and straight after I published that post I decided to just go for it! I sat there and just did the first things that came to my head so I ended up with a mish mash of designs.

My base colour is NYC Flat Iron Green and the freehand stuff is Barry M Gold Foil and GOSH Metallic Green. The chain is stuck on with clear polish and the gold striping tape is from eBay (here). I finished it all off with a top coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

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Purple Gradient

It would seem that I'm hell-bent on trying every possible colour combination for gradient nails and I may even venture in to 3 colours soon. I've been insanely uninspired when it comes to nail art recently, despite having plenty of new tools and colours to play with. It's almost like I'm so overwhelmed with choice that my brain just frizzles every time I think about it! So I'm sorry for the simple/boring nail art I've been sporting recently and hopefully things will pick up soon!

Gradient Nails using A-England Guinevere and Revlon Plum Night. Tutorial here.

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Sun Kissed Tips

Summer weather has returned to Britain, but probably for a few days at most, so I thought I'd feature this sunny shade today. I pretty much detest extreme heat, even when it's caused by sunshine so I've opted out of every exotic family holiday since 2007! I really only look forward to Summer because it means I get to rock a pair of Aviators every day. I've been less of a summer grinch the last few years and always try my best to join in with everyone's excitement whenever the sun is shining.

I think tips are quite boring but I always get cravings to wear them so I try to work in another element that will spice it up a bit. I was kind of stuck for spicy elements today so I just added an extra line. It's very simple but quite sophisticated and I like it!

The base colour is Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and I used Barry M Gold Foil and a striper brush to paint on the tips and the extra little line.

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Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2012

The Cosmopolitan blog awards have rolled around again and I think this year I might be in with a chance to make the shortlist but I can't do it without your help!

Unfortunately, there's no category for 'Best Nail Blog' so I fit in to the 'Best Established Beauty Blogger' category! Last year we had The Nail Buff and Emily's Nail Files representing the Nail Blogging community in the Best New Beauty Blog category so it would be great to keep up the streak and see some more nail blogs on the shortlist in 2012! And of course, it would be very gratifying and such a  huge accomplishment for me to be listed among some of the country's top beauty and fashion bloggers.

Click here or on the picture to go to the nomination form

Entrants in the Cosmopolitan blog awards must be Bloggers based in the UK or 'British bloggers blogging from abroad or multiple locations from a British perspective' but you can nominate wherever you are in the world.

I feel like now would be a good time to redirect you to my Best of British page where you'll find a roundup of British Nail Blogs. If you find any there that you think are deserving of a nomination, pop them in to the mix too!

Thanks so much for reading this post and good luck to all the homegrown British blogging talent out there!

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Wibble Wobble, Polish on a Plate

Fun fact - In the UK (as opposed to the US), Jello is called Jelly and Jelly is called Jam. Wrap your brain around that for a second! Also, have some context for the title.

This is my first ever Jelly sandwich! It just seemed to slot together this week after I got my first 'proper' jelly in a package from the States and spotted this multi glitter in The Original Factory Shop yesterday.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with jelly sandwiches, the process involves layers of jelly polish and layers of glitter or other special kinds of polish painted alternatively on the nails so the glitter looks buried underneath.
I didn’t get too overzealous with layering on this one because I didn’t want a mani that would take five hours to dry! I kind of cheated and used a crème first to cut down on the amount of coats I’d need to get it opaque. You can find all the details of the polishes and the order I used them in down the page a little.

You may also notice my funky new watermarks. I finally figured out how to get text to follow a curve in Photoshop so I had a good time playing with that effect. I’m not sure if I’ll be keeping them this way because it takes much longer than just stamping on the straight version but for now, they’re lots of fun! I'd like to know what you think if them, do they detract from the pictures or do you prefer the way they're integrated instead of randomly placed?

Q and A: Ask Me Anything!

I can't think of a clever, funny or even relevant introduction for this post so I'll just dive straight in!

This post is here for you to leave any questions you've got for me 

My plan is to make a video which actually features my face and voice *gasp* in which I answer your questions. I'm terrible at answering queries that get left in the comments so I want to make sure everyone finally gets the answers they've been looking for.

Your questions can be about absolutely anything. Go ahead and ask me about the weather, my favourite movie, oh or nails, you could ask me about nails!

There aren't really any rules, just nothing rude or too personal, those kinds of questions will obviously just be ignored but you're a great group of people so I'm not really expecting to see any! Leave your questions in the comments and I'll make the video as soon as I get the chance. I'll keep the comments on this post open for at least three days so you've got some time to think it over!

UPDATE: Sorry guys, but I had to close the comments earlier than I originally planned. I already have waaay more questions than I ever thought I'd get and if I accept any more, I'm afraid I'll never get a chance to answer them. Thank you for the amazing response!

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A-England Guinevere Swatch + Stamping

A-England is a brand I have buckets of admiration for. I've yet to find one of their polishes that disappoints and the brands creator, Adina, is one of the most inspiring women I've ever had the pleasure of speaking to. Guinevere is from the Mythicals collection - a collection of sublime cremes - and this one's no different. Look how creamy!! The colour is a slightly greyish lilac, it's so pretty and neutral enough for work.

All swatches are 2 coats of A-England Guinevere* with a top coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Click 'read more' for more pictures and the nail art!

Let's Build a Frenzy

This Hard Candy polish was in an amazing package I received from the lovely Kim from A Polished Addiction. She was kind enough to send me a birthday package containing 10 polishes from the US and they're all absolutely stunning. The package included my first Color Clubs, Hard Candys and my second and third OPI bottles!

Despite my addiction to nail art, I'm not much of a polish connoisseur. I'm sometimes aware of new collections coming out but generally speaking, I'm clueless when it comes to salon brands or anything that's not sold here in the UK!

Stamping Plate: Red Angel RA119
Base Colour: Hard Candy Frenzy
Stamping Colour: W7 Black
Top Coat of NYC

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Hologradient

I'm back to doing gradients again! In the tutorial I wrote, the sponge I'm using is a bathroom sponge and is quite porous. A lot of other bloggers have been using make-up sponges to create their gradients and many of you lovely lot suggested I try one myself to get a smoother fade and less 'bumpy' gradient. It definitely works - make up sponge  > bath sponge for gradient nails!

I used A-England Princess Tears as a base and then added A-England Bridal Veil to create a gradient following this tutorial.

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We Like to Touch

This mani was a bit-by-bit creation. By that I mean I picked my base colour, painted it on. Picked up my scotch tape and just kept adding! This is the fastest scotch tape mani I've ever made thanks to Cult Nails Wicked Fast which really does dry wickedly fast. I've switched top coats recently after the couple bottles of my favourite NYC top coat that I picked up most recently turned out to be really runny and not very hard drying. I was waking up every morning with sheet and hair marks all over my nails! I'm really hoping it's just a bad batch and they haven't changed the formula.

I used Rimmel Grey Matter as a base and Cult Nails Vicious and My Kind of Kool Aid for the patches which I marked off with scotch tape to paint. I used a coat of Cult Nails' top coat, Wicked Fast in between each new layer to prevent the scotch tape from puling it all up and two coats on the top!

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Under Lock and Key

Today's nail art is inspired by a piece of jewelry from Anna Sabino - a New York based handmade jewelry designer. When I saw this key pendant, I instantly had the idea to fashion a lock and key on my nails which I think turned out incredibly cute! I've even worn this mani for more than a day which is a surefire way to tell I love it!

The black and gold gradient just makes this mani. You can never go wrong with black and gold together, it's a classy and chic combination but adventurous and kind of wild at the same time.

I used W7 Black as a base and Barry M Gold Foil for all the details including the gradient. The gold glitter stripes were done using a Kiss nail art striper. 

You can get 20% off any order at LucidNewYork.com using the code LN20D.

Sorry if you're sick of me reminding you, but the Bundle Monster Facebook Competition is still open and every vote counts! You can go straight to my entry here and if you like it, it would be great if you could drop a vote in the pot for me. Thank you!

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Strippy McStrip Stripe

I seem to be posting later and later every day as this week goes on. I'm so easily distracted, especially when you put me in front of anything with an internet connection! So even when I sit down and fully intend to focus all my attention in to writing a post, it normally ends up taking 3 hours or so to get it done in between all the other interesting things I can find to take up my time. For instance, tonight I opened up blogger and uploaded pictures then proceeded to watch 3 episodes of Fresh Meat before I remembered I had a post waiting to be written! 

Since I first used metal chain in a manicure back in March, I'm always on the lookout for chains that would be suitable for sticking to my nails. I found this one in a charity shop and picked it up for £1. It is really really tiny and absolutely perfect for nail art.The best part is I don't even need pliers to cut it, my nail clippers slice through the metal like it's butter!

This is my first time trying striping tape! I decided to get one from Born Pretty Store to see if we would get along and I'm pleased to report we've become good friends. I've purchased a set of ten rolls from eBay here for an absolute bargain of 99p so prepare for more stripy nails in the future.

I started with two coats of A-England Galahad and waited fro that to dry before applying the striping tape. My main concern with the tape was how I would cut it to the right size so I started with a generous guess, placed it at one side using my Mash Tweezers and slowly smoothed it down towards the other edge. If there  was any excess, I chopped it off using nail clippers before smoothing it down right to the edge.

I applied a clear top coat and placed on the chain while that was still tacky, again using the Mash Tweezers. Finally, I added another top coat just to my ring finger.

If you have time today, please stop by Bundle Monster's Facebook Competition and vote for your favourites. If you'd like to put in a vote for me, you can go directly to my entry by clicking here. Thanks so much to everyone that's voted for me already, your support really means a lot much to me!

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It's Been a While

I just had a look through the pages of The Nailasaurus and it's been nearly a whole month since I posted any stamping nail art. Crazy when you consider that's the only thing I ever posted for at least the first year of its existence.

I love having my nubbins back. Whenever I have long(er) nails, or rather when I haven't trimmed them for a while, there will come a day when I look at them and just think 'You have got to go!' and I just cut them down. When I was a kid, I always thought it would be really awesome to have long nails one day but now that I've been there and done that, I can safely say I prefer them short and square. After a trim, I always paint them black or some other very dark colour and find myself staring at them like they're a new pair of shoes!

Stamping Plate: Red Angel RA102
Base Colour: Glo Baby Glo (from Primark) in Yes Cyan!
Stamping Colour: Barry M Gold Foil
Studs from Born Pretty Store
Top Coat of NYC

P.S. Voting is still open for the Bundle Monster Nail Art Contest. My entry can be found here and your votes are very very much appreciated. Thanks!

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