First Adventures into Striping tape

Hey guys,

Today I'm gonna show you my first striping tape mani. I was so proud of this that I thought I would share it with you guys. I apologise for the terrible phone pictures but as I did this while I was studying for my exams I wasn't really thinking straight.

The striping tape I used was purchased from Born Pretty Store which I have a link to on my side bar. I was afraid to use the tape at first but I'm so glad I took the plunge, it's so easy to use and looks incredibly cool.

The polishes I used were A-england Camelot as the base colour and Sally Hansen Glided lily as the topper. The most important thing to remember when using striping tape is that your base colour must be bone dry, because if it isn't the tape could lift the polish off with it. You can either use a fast dry top coat or wait until the day after you've painted the base. The latter is what I chose to do purely because I was nervous as hell!

So after my base was dry I cut pieces of tape roughly a couple of cm in length and placed them on my nails in the geometric designs I chose, make sure if you are doing this that the tape is pressed tight against the nail as some lines may not come out as straight if you don't. Next I painted over the tape with Glided lily and removed the strips of tape immediately after. Removing the tape immediately prevents the polish from hardening on the tape and possibly bringing your lovely art with them. 

As always I topped them off with Essence Better than gel nails fast dry top coat and cleaned up any polish around my cuticles. I hope you like this nail art as much as I did.

Emily x

Essie Naughty nautical swatch

Hey guys,

Today I have another swatch and review to share with you.This time it's Essie Naughty nautical from their summer 2013 collection which is in Boots right now. Essie retails at €12.99 in Boots, which is pretty dear but they are such good quality polishes they are worth it. You can find them in other pharmacies for less but, they often don't carry the same stock.

2 coats with top coat

Naughty nautical is a stunning near teal blue with a little silver shimmer. It's a beautiful colour and looks really good on your hand. Again the top coat I used was Essense better than gel nails fast dry top coat.

2 coats with top coat

2 coats with top coat

2 coats with top coat

Like all Essie polishes it applied like a dream and dried relatively quick. I would of had another polish swatch from this collection if my pointer fingernail didn't break in work! Sad sad times. So I'll more then likely post some old nail art pics for the next week or two while my nail gets back into shape.

Emily x

OPI liquid sand - Tiffany case - Swatch

Hey guys,

Today I have some swatches to show you of the amazing OPI liquid sand in Tiffany case. I have been lusting after some liquid sand polishes since they came out but seeing as OPI are so expensive here, around €13 a bottle, I never got the chance to buy one. That is until my sister came home to visit this week and got me a bottle in Duty Free! Eek how unreal was she? Totally amazing!

Ok, so if you don't know what liquid is basically it is a textured polish which contains different types of glitter. In other words the coolest most sparkly amazeballs nail polish. 

2 coats, no top coat

Tiffany Case is one of the polishes in the OPI Bond girls collection (and personally the best). If you wanna checkout the rest of the collection visit Chalkboard Nails , she always has impeccable swatches.

2 coats, no top coat

Tiffany case is a gorgeous icy blue with fine blue glitter and medium silver glitter. Below is a close up so you can see the different glitters and also the texture.

Close up.

I decided to see what it would be like to put a top coat on, and well there's not much difference other then it lasting longer. The top coat I used was Essence better than gel nails fast dry topcoat. It seemed to just settle into the polish rather than smooth it out. However it made it look more like a foil effect polish. 

2 coats with top coat

Seriously though, this is now one of favourite polishes it is just so cool and after waiting so long I am definitely not disappointed.

Emily x

Golden Oldies... part three

Hey guys,

Today I have the final part of  the "golden oldies". I did have another one to show you but it was just too messy. Anyways this is just a simple accent nail mani. For these I just wanted to do an easy girly sort of nail art.

So  I just did a simple striped nail on my middle finger an a glitter accent nail on my ring finger. I used a Striping brush to do the lines and I clearly need to practise them!

The polishes I used were,

OPI I'm all ears on the pointer, pinky, thumb and the darker pink lines
OPI alpine snow as the base of the stripes and A-england Iseult was the lighter pink lines and finally A-england Merlin glitter accent on the ring finger 

I thought this was pretty fun and cute, what do you guys think?

Emily x

Golden oldies... part two

Hey guys,

This is the second part of the "golden oldies", I think I just have one or two more to show you before the new stuff starts. Exciting!!

But up now is a tumblr inspired mani, which I can't for the life of me remember who the original artist was. I know! How terrible am I! If anyone knows please tell me and I will definitely give them the credit they deserve, because look how adorable it is!

So basically it is a mixture of different prints and designs. The dots, hearts and bow were all done using a dotting tool, which can be bought in packs on Amazon and the likes.

Yep so the colours I used were,

A-england Iseult on the pointer finger
Nails inc. Summer place on the middle finger
Barry m Blueberry ice cream and Strawberry ice cream on my ring
Essie Bikini so teeny and A-england Merlin on my pinky
and the Barry m Boots limited ed. purple on my thumb 

Whoa a lot of polishes,oh and I changed the colours of my ring finger and pinky finger on my right hand which is pictured below.

These polishes were Barry m Berry ice cream and Mint green on my ring and Nails inc. York street on my pinky. I have no idea why I changed the colours, probably changed my mind half way through, as per usual.Oh and the top coat I used was Seche vite aka a life saver!

Thanks for reading,

Emily x

Golden Oldies...

Hey guys, 


So I decided to show you some of my "golden oldies" i.e nail art I did last year! In other words not that old. I have a couple I wanna show you. I'll do separate posts but, pretty much in quick succession of each other.

Ok, first up are these galaxy nails. I think these where my first real try at any nail art and they were so popular around then, they still are really. Galaxy nails are my all time favourite nail art to do with them being so easy and looking absolutely fierce.

.
Along with the galaxy print I tried to do a jelly sandwich accent nail. If you don't know what that is its when you layer a glitter polish over a jelly polish and top it with the jelly polish again,so its jelly glitter jelly. God what a terrible description! That's something to go on my must get better at list.
Anyway this method makes the glitter look like it is suspended in the polish, pretty niffy. 

Here's a list of the polishes I used for the galaxy nails,

A-England Camelot (bottle in picture) as base colour
Barry m Shocking pink, pure turquoise and the unknown blue mentioned in my collection
OPI Alpine snow for the stars and base of galaxy print

And the polishes for the jelly sandwich,

I used Essence Cotton candy as the jelly base and topper
NYC Lights-camera-glitter and Gramercy glitz were the glitters in the jelly sammich

Thanks for reading guys, hope I did ok for my first real blog post.

Emily x

Heyyyy you guyyys!!!

Hey you guys,

So I finally managed to start my blog, after months of procrastinating, its here, yay!

Just as an overview of what it will be about, a nail polish/ nail art blog. I'll be starting off with some swatches of my  collection and maybe post some nail art involving the swatched polishes. We'll see sure. 

Anyways I'm excited and I hope you guys are too. Whoop lets get this bloggy started.

Emily x


ps I really hope you read the title in Sloths voice from the Goonies because I know I did!