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Sponging

    Glitter, Gradient, Uncategorised

    Cotton Candy Gradient

    27th February 2013
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    I’m so so proud of myself today! This is the smoothest gradient I’ve ever done and possibly my favourite colour combo too. I’m going to chock it up to the perfect polishes which are both smooth but kind of watery two coaters – perfect for gradienting!

    I used NYC Lavender Cupcake as my base coat and created the gradient using Barry M Gelly Blueberry following this tutorial. Then I coated it with one coat of  Seche Vite.
    For the striped finger I applied a few strips of striping tape straight from cuticle to tip using some nail art tweezers, then painted over them with W7 Black and quickly removed the strips.
    The glitter on my accent finger is La Femme Purple Glitter. La Femme make some interesting polishes but unfortunately the names aren’t quite as creative! This one’s is a vibrant purple jelly base packed with tiny purple and blue squares and only took two coats for full coverage. I found this in my local What! store. They don’t have a website but they’re scattered all over the country and they’re one of those shops that you have to just stumble across unless Google Local has one listed near you!

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    Glitter, Gradient, Swatch, Uncategorised

    Cirque French Roast Swatch (Kind Of)

    17th February 2013
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    This is a swatch post but I’ve spent WAY too much time swatching this week (although you haven’t yet seen the fruits of my efforts because I still haven’t finished!) so instead of yet another plain old swatch I wanted to mix some nail art in to this one.
    Feast your eyes on this beauty…. Cirque‘s French Roast*. It’s a glitter polish made up of gold and bronze glitter and a few tiny bronze hexes scattered in. It’s in a clear base but I only needed 3 thin coats to get it completely opaque. Isn’t it amazing? It’s just so rich and luxe, I love it!
    If you’re in the UK, you can get your Cirque polishes from Sally Magpies. The wonderful lady behind this shop (who is Sally) has made it her mission to stock all the incredible polishes that are hard to find or otherwise completely unavailable in the UK. Go check it out, you might find something you’ve been lemming after for a while.
    US ladies can buy directly from the Cirque website and there is a list of stockists for you here if you hail from elsewhere.

    Because of all the glitter, I applied one coat of PVA glue to my nails and let that dry thoroughly before painting on any polish.
    I used 3 coats of Cirque French Roast on my thumb and ring fingers with two top coats of Seche Vite for ultimate shininess.
    To create the gradients on my middle and pinky fingers, I applied 2 coats of Deborah Lippmann Fashion then painted some of the French Roast on to the edge of a make-up sponge and dabbed it on starting from the tip and working down towards the cuticle. Again, two top coats of Seche Vite.
    My pointer finger has one coat of Fashion, one coat of French Roast and a real feather buried underneath a few top coats of Seche Vite. I made a tutorial for how do it here.

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    Gradient, Swatch, Uncategorised

    New Summer Barry M Gelly Swatches and Gradients!

    2nd February 2013
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    I’ve got some more Barry M Swatches to show you today, these are the new additions to the Gelly line. There are four new shades, all nice and bright for summer. Instead of just more boring old swatches, I thought I’d show you these in some gradients. I’ve found the Gellies work really well for blending in to gradients and when I saw these, I knew they’d make for some great colour combos. There’s a tutorial for the gradient look here.

    Greenberry (Green) and Lychee (Nude)

    Both of these shades apply perfectly in two coats. Lychee is a nude shade at the cool end of the spectrum which the Barry M range has been needing for a long time. It’s a really gorgeous creamy colour which will look amazing next to a sun tan.
    I really love Greenberry too. I think my pictures are quite accurate colour-wise but it’s so hard to describe it in words! I just really like it!
    This mani is topped with a coat of Seche Vite but the polishes are really shiny on their own.

    Papaya (Orange) and Dragon (Pink)

    How amazing is this colour combination? These two were just made for each other!
    Papaya is a creamy coral which probably ties with Greenberry as my favourites of the selection. It’s a two coater. I don’t have too much else to say about this one either, I’ll let the pictures do the talking here!
    Dragon has a very subtle shimmer which is barely there but adds a touch of sparkle to what would otherwise be just another pink polish. It needs three thin coats to be opaque but you’d get away with two thick ones. I should also mention here that they all dry really quickly!
    Again, this one’s topped with a coat of Seche Vite.

    These polishes will be available in Superdrug on February 13th and Boots on February 20th.
    They’ll also be for sale at BarryM.com from February 13th.

    Are you getting excited for all the summer shades that are hitting shelves this month? I like the cheerful colours but it just makes me more sad that it’s not summer quite yet!

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    Gradient, Uncategorised

    Something Sweet

    3rd January 2013
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    It’s been a long time since I did a gradient. I’ve really been in the mood to create some gradient nails for a while now but I couldn’t think up a colour combination that I was really happy with and that I hadn’t already done! Blue and brown sounds wrong when you put the words together but I’ve always loved them paired as colours. I really have gone super girly recently. This is a very soft set of colours for me!

    I used two coats of Barry M Blueberry as my base colour and created the gradient with Essie Glamour Purse using a makeup sponge, following this tutorial. I topped it with two coats of Seche Vite for an ultra glassy look. 

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    Freehand, Glitter, Uncategorised

    Christmas Jumper-y

    10th December 2012
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    Here’s another Christmas mani featuring Essie Jag-u-are, a polish I picked up in TK Maxx just because I thought it was Christmas-y. I don’t normally go for frosty, shimmery polishes like this but the shimmer in this is subtle so I don’t hate wearing it on my nails but I’ imagine after this month, it’s going to sit at the back of the drawer until next December.
    For the snowflake designs on this mani, I followed Coewless Nails‘ super simple Fair Isle Snowflake Tutorial.

    I used Essie Jag-u-are as my base colour and painted on the white detail with acrylic paint and a small nail art brush. The gold glitter on my tips is Sinful Colors Paris and I dabbed that on using a sponge.
    Finally I topped it off with two coats of NYC.

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    Glitter, Uncategorised

    Polish Days: BLING Nails!

    4th December 2012
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    Two posts in one day? I’m on fire! But don’t get too used to it because I’m so fire that I’ve kind burnt myself out so it might be quiet for the rest of the week. Or maybe not, I can’t think straight right now. Ask me again after I’ve had a nap.
    Today is the December Polish Days event and the theme is Bling so I went straight for the rhinestones and holographic glitter. I was determined to go all out with today’s mani and really expected to hate whatever I came up with but I actually love it! I wore it for as long as I could today before the urge to pick it all off overcame me just after lunchtime.

    The holographic glitter I’ve used is H&M Jo Is In The House. I used three coats of that as the base for my ring finger before covering it in 1mm rhinestones. For the bronze finger, I used Rimmel Metal Rush in Gold Save The Queen as my base colour and then stuck on the bronze rhinestones from Cult Nails. 
    For the rest of the fingers with the glitter gradient, the base colour is Deborah Lippmann Fashion and I used a sponge to apply the H&M glitter from the tips downwards.I finished those fingers with two top coats of NYC.

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