New Year's Eve

So I recently bought some studs from Born Pretty Store and I was waiting to use them on these New Year's Eve nails.

The base colour for these nails is 17 Magnetized Grey and the gold and silver foil is actually the foil from chocolate coins. I thought this was a genius idea as I can get the gold and silver from the foil as they are double sided. The gold studs are 2mm round studs and 4mm square studs and the silver square studs are also 4mm even though they look smaller. I also used some silver jump rings from hobbycraft which are 5mm. I've also put on multiple layers of top coat just to make sure they aren't too rough and all the studs stay on.

I really like these nails and I've wanted to do something like this for sooooo long so I feel as though I may be using studs a lot more in the future.

Now I've got a 10% discount code for Born Pretty Store so you can get the same studs I have with 10% off if you want. Just enter the code shown in this picture!

Sesame Street

So this post is actually a guest post that I did for Katy at Nailed It that went up on her blog yesterday. I am so excited for this opportunity and if you haven't seen Katy's work before you should definitely check her out as her nails are super polished (pardon the pun) and imaginative.

Check out my guest post here on Nailed It! 

These are obviously Sesame Street nails but being from England, I never watched/remember watching sesame street but I know, as Katy said, it's a big part of people's childhoods. I love doing character nails so I thought they would be perfect fun nails to do to represent my blog over on Nailed It. The colours I used on the thumb are Barry M Matt White, Spring Green and Yellow. The index finger and Elmo are done with American Apparel Neon Green, Barry M Coral and Yellow. The middle finger with the Cookie Monster is American Apparel Neon Yellow and Barry M Cyan Blue. The ring finger with  Oscar the Grouch is Models Own Tangerine Queen as the background colour, a mixture of Spring Green and NPG2 for his body and a mixture of Barry M Mushroom and Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens for the eyebrows and Barry M Coral for his tongue. Finally, my little finger with Big Bird is done with Barry M Pink Flamingo as the background colour with Barry M Lemon Ice Cream and Yellow with Coral and Pink Flamingo for the mouth and tongue. All of the black and white is acrylic paint as I thought it would be easier. 

I've never done writing or text within nails apart from my these nails so I really tried to do my best with the thumb and I think for a first attempt, it's not too bad. 

Make sure you check out Katy's blog and tumblr as she is amazing and make sure you follow her because you'd be missing out if you didn't! 

  

Aqua Cool

Aqua Cool is one of Rimmel's 12ml Lycra Pro polishes. I don't often buy Rimmel but whenever I'm looking for a veyr specific colour, Rimmel seem to have it. I had been wanting a blue/lilac as I had been mixing my own and having painted a swatch of my mixture and compared it to this, it was a perfect match. I keep this polish right on the cusp of my blues going into purples because it is a fantastic mixture of both colours. 

The neck of the bottle shows a sticker saying the brush is a 'maxi brush' which looks like this:

The issue I have with Rimmel polishes are the brushes. Although I must say, I was able to get a great line by my cuticle without any cleaning up, I just don't like these brushes. I think it's because I'm so used to the Barry M brushes that are quite narrow that I don't know how to handle these brushes. The thing is, the line of polish I get is so good, I am tempted to try more and convert myself as I know that it will be good for all my nails to be this clean.

As I have said, this colour is a true blue/lilac so if you are looking for something like this then I would recommend taking a look at this polish. The sticker on the polish also says it has an 'anti-fade colour system' but I found this polish to be quite streaky. Especially on the first coat, it's hard to get it without any completely sheer sections which means that on the second coat (which all nails have), you have to really make sure that you put on a nice thick layer. You can kind of see a bald spot on my ring finger in the picture below.

I think for the colour, this is a great polish but the application isn't great. The polish is £4.59 which I don't normally spend, hence why the only Rimmel polishes I have were bought on offer however, you do get more than just your regular 10ml. I think if you're a fan of Rimmel polishes then you'll be fine with this one but because of the application and the brush, I think I still need a bit more convincing. 

Christmas Medley

So, here are my final Christmas nails for this year and I kind of went all out and put everything on them.

I saw this picture online, I can't remember where but I thought I'd use him as my santa as I couldn't think of a nice way to draw him. I now realise I made him much skinnier. Also, I did the mouth he has in the picture and it looked like he was wearing lipstick so I just stuck with a smiley face.

The background colour for these nails is Barry M Matt White and all the glitter is Barry M Christmas Glitter. The colours on the thumb are Barry M Mushroom for Santa's sack, Bright Purple, Bright Pink and Cyan Blue for the presents with Barry M Silver Foil Effects for the bows on the blue and purple presents as Gold Foil Effects on the pink. The Christmas tree is done with Barry M Mushroom for the trunk then layers of Barry M Racing Green, Rimmel Sea Green and Block Your Green. The star is Barry M Gold Foil Effects and the baubles are Barry M Silver Foil Effects, Yellow, Spring Green and Bright Red. 

Father Christmas is done in Barry M Pinky Caramel for the face, Bright Red, Black Red for the shading and Gold Foil Effects for the belt buckle. Finally, the elves are done with Barry M Pinky Caramel for the faces, Yellow for the hair, Spring Green for their clothes and Rimmel Sea Green for shading. Barry M Bright Red for the tights and mouths and Gold Foil Effects for the tips of their hats. All of the black is done with acrylic paint and the white and grey in Father Christmas' beard and outfit are acrylic paint. 

I really like these nails and I know there's a lot going on but I don't think it would be right if I didn't go over the top for my final nails as I had to beat my pompom baubles. I had so much fun doing all these Christmas nails and I can't wait for next year when I have the challenge of topping these nails!

I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas tomorrow and for those that don't celebrate Christmas, I wish you all happy holidays!

Angels

So I thought I'd do something a little more meaningful for these nails so I went for angels rather than something santa related. I think these nails look so sweet and cute and it's a nice break being able to use pastel colours during this season.

The base colour for these nails is Aqua Cool by Rimmel which I think is a lovely lighter blue colour. All of the white and black that you can see are Barry M Matt White and Black and the faces of the angels are Barry M Pinky Caramel. The hair of the angels is Barry M Lemon Ice Cream and I also added some blush to their cheeks with Collection 2000 Sugared Almond. The halo and stars are done in Barry M Yellow and I used some of the Lemon Ice Cream to highlight the stars and Models Own Gold 25 Carat Gold which is also on the dress of the middle angel. 

I'm really loving the break from the christmas colours and considering how much I hate dark colours, this one is really making me happy. 

Gold Mine

Barry M Gold Mine is a new polish I bought this week and it is what I used as my base colour for my stockings & holly nails. As you can see, in the photos of the stockings nails, you cannot see the glitter and black contrast at all. I really like this polish in terms of a glitter as the gold really stands out from the black well and doesn't look tacky but it does not photograph well at all. 

All of these photos are taken at such weird angles in order for me to show the glitter as in real life, it is seriously obvious and yet as soon as it gets on camera, it disappears. This polish definitely has the same formula as the Barry M Black which produces a sheer black on first coat and then opaque on the second. This isn't great for me in this situation as the two layers creates somewhat of a jelly sandwich which I don't like. These photos show two coats and although the black does look opaque, in certain lights in real life, it still does look sheer so I would use this on top of a black and that way you get just the glitter on top not in the middle of layers of black polish. 

This polish goes on really nicely and you get a lot of glitter with just one application, compared to other glitters that you have to dip the brush multiple times just to cover the nail. The consistency is a jelly which I don't like but I guess it's good as if the black was really opaque, it might cover up the glitter completely so I guess that's why they do it.

I do really like this colour combination of glitter and I saw it online somewhere and knew I wanted to buy it which doesn't often happen to me with dark colours. I recently bought Barry M Black Multi Glitter and I thought that was an interesting black glitter but I think this one is really good because the glitter does stand out so much. I would definitely recommend this polish if you are looking for a black glitter and I would say if you want something more subtle then go for the Black Multi Glitter as this polish really has the wow factor that I like in a polish. 

Reindeer

So I think these reindeer are super super cute and I love them. I know there are a lot of different ways to do reindeer that we're all seeing but I found this photo on google and I thought it fit my nail shape well so I went for it.

The base colour is Gosh Holographic Hero which just looks silver as it's obviously not very sunny during this time of year. For the colour of the reindeer, I mixed Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens with a bit of Barry M Mushroom to make it more of a brown, I really need to find a good brown that isn't too dark. The red nose of Rudolph is Barry M Bright Red and the eyes are all done with Barry M Matt White and Black. The outlines of the reindeer, the reindeer noses and sleigh silhouette are all Barry M Dusky Mauve, a good purchase as I have used it so many times since buying it. I also added some of the Barry M Christmas Glitter which I did with glitter placement so I could get exactly the right amount of glitter even in the small places.

I really like these nails although I know I've said it a lot and I really like this Barry M Christmas Glitter as it really is Christmas in a glitter, it's perfect to use in all of my holiday nails!

Stockings and Holly

I'm not too pleased with how these nails turned out as the background colour just does not photograph well and the design is too dark to show up on the black, I should know to just stick with lighter colours. 

The background colour I used is Barry M Gold Mine which I'm going to do a review on so you can see how the polish should look. The green of the holly is a mixture of Barry M Spring Green and Racing Green with Racing Green down the middle of each holly leaf. The berries are Barry M Bright Red along with the index and middle finger stockings. The index finger stocking also has Barry M Red Glitter on top as well as Matt White polka dots. The stocking on the ring finger is Barry M Raspberry and the checked pattern is green holly mixture and Matt White. I mixed Barry M Matt White and Black to get various shades for the wool on the stockings and then everything is outlined with Barry M Black. 

The Raspberry is a lot darker in person as it photographs lighter anyway but I had to use a flash in order to see anything as these nails are so dark. I have to say I do really like the holly but I wish the glitter of the Gold Mine showed up more as it makes the nails look completely different. 

1000 Follower Giveaway

OK, so here it is, my 1000 followers giveaway! I decided I didn't want to do a random giveaway so I decided to do my favourite things. In this giveaway there are:

• 50 nail swatch sticks
• 2 nail wheels
• 2 packs of rhinestones
• 4 brushes cut to the sizes I use
• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
• Gosh Holographic Hero
• Barry M Silver Glitter
• Barry M Mint Green
• Barry M Coral

The rules for this giveaway are:

For one entry you MUST

• Follow me on my tumblr 
• Reblog this post

For extra entries you can

• Like this post
• Follow me on my blogger
• Comment on my giveaway blog post saying what your favourite nail things are to use (also say who you are on tumblr so I know you follow me)

These will all give you one extra entry each so there is a total of 4 entries available per person!

I would rather the winner be a nail art blog or someone who is interested in nail art rather than someone who wants free stuff so please make sure you want to win this for a good reason. 

This giveaway will be open for two weeks and will close on 26th December and I will announce the winner on the 27th and inbox them as well

Good Luck 

Charlie x

Instant Nail Effects Foil Silver

When this polish came out a while ago I was very excited to get it as I thought having a silver that would look like foil would be the best kind of silver. This is the only silver polish I own so I can't compare it to others but I have 3 golds and I can say, I want to buy the gold foil effects because I know that I will be able to get a true gold from it.

With this polish, it gives really good coverage with just one layer but not matter how many you put on, you cannot get rid of the brush strokes. I don't know why it happens, it's not like the streaks you get from other polishes because this is literally the brush strokes being shown in the polish. These photos show one layer and I think there is full/almost full coverage but you can see the brush strokes!

I bought this thinking that it would be like the minx silver wraps but in polish form and they aren't and I don't know why I thought it would be. Obviously the minx wraps have the mirror reflective quality about them but I think the main difference is that this polish isn't really shiny. Most Barry M polishes are very shiny without a topcoat but it's not as though this one dries matt but it has a very different finish to it that I've never seen in another polish. I don't know whether you can see in the picture but these nails are quite reflective as you can see my dark top and purple camera vaguely reflected, and yet it doesn't have shine.

I'd say the consistency of this polish is good as it's not too thick and yet gives great coverage. I think it's better to put too much polish on the brush when you apply it rather than too little as the more you go over it, the more brush strokes it creates on the nails. I would seriously recommend this polish to people as compared to how I'm feeling about my golds, I'm sure this polish is different from most silvers available.

 

Baubles

I am going to be the first to admit how ridiculous these nails are, I did the first one and just started laughing because of course if anyone was to do nails as ridiculous as these, it would be me. I am a fan of 3D nail art but I've never done or had done 3D acrylic nails so I'm always looking for ways for me to do my own 3D nail art and when I saw these mini pompoms, I knew I had to have them. 

For these nails I used Barry M Matt White as the base colour with China Glaze fairy Dust on top. It annoys me that you can't see the Fairy Dust in pictures but I'm still obsessed with it. I then used Barry M Gold for the tops of the baubles and Barry M Dusky Mauve for the string going through the baubles. I then put on my topcoat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dry and pushed in the pompoms. I had already cut off the bottoms of the pompoms so that there was more of a surface for them to stick to. I had tested this out before and it seemed to work without any topcoat over the pompoms so I left it at that but I don't know whether I'll need some in the next few days. 

I thought I'd take some more pictures of these nails from different angles so you can see how much the pompoms stand out from my nails and what I'm dealing with...

So stupid and yet so fun.

Snowmen and Snowflakes

Now I've finished uni for Christmas, I'm going to let myself get excited as I have no other distractions. I seriously love these nails and I'm not quite sure why. I love the way the silver looks with the white and it just feels crisp and fresh.

Once again, so pleased with my outlining, I feel as though I'm getting the hang of it but I don't want to jinx it. So, the background colour is Barry M Instant Nail Effects Foil Silver, swatch coming up on Wednesday. The white of the snowmen and snowflakes is Barry M Matt White and all the block is Barry M Black. The noses are Barry M Block Orange and the colour of the hats are Barry M Bright Red, Yellow and Spring Green. The bow tie is also Spring Green, the scarf is Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream and the dots down the body of the ring finger snowmen are a mixture of American Apparel Mousse and Barry M Black. I also added China Glaze Fairy Dust on top of the snowflake nails but I;m not sure if you can see it.

I think these nails are so damn cute and I think why I like them is that the silver looks flattering on my pale pale skin which is aways a plus.

 

Liebster Award

So within the past week or so, Polished Off and Nails At 2am have both nominated me for the Liebster Award. It's an award that's going around that is given to bloggers that have less than 200 followers and I'm so glad to be recognised by these two other bloggers for this!

Here are the details and rules for this award:

• When you receive the award, you post 11 random facts about yourself and answer 11 questions from the person you nominated you. 
• Pass the award onto 11 other blogs (make sure you tell them you nominated them!) and ask them 11 questions.
• You are not allowed to nominate the blog who nominated you!
• Make sure the blogs you choose have 200 or less followers

As two people nominated me I thought I'd try and combine some of their questions for me in my random facts, plus I'm not sure I'm interesting enough to have 11 random facts. 

With that being said here are my random facts:

1. I listen to mainly if not only Kpop, I started listening to it about a year ago and have completely stopped listening to any other kind of music. 
2. I collect Momiji dolls which are adorable and have been doing that since 2006/2007.
3. I have only ever been abroad once to Paris so normally go on holiday to parts of the UK.
4. I love American TV shows like 90210, Pretty Little Liars, Real Housewives, The Hills etc.
5. I don't wear makeup and never have.
6. I always wear random pink & black and red string bracelets. 
7. I've never broken a bone.
8. I hate reading, I just find it too boring.
9. My favourite TV show of all time is Gilmore Girls.
10. I kind of collect Swatch watches but I guess I just have a lot and wear them everyday and yet I still feel as though I need more.
11. I used to hate colour and only wore white, grey and blue. Now I'm obsessed with colour and wear the complete opposite. I'm going through a green phase right now.

Now for the 11 questions asked:

1. If you could only wear one colour polish, which would it be and why?

I would maybe say a glitter polish, of any colour I think. I like to change my nails a lot and I think with a glitter I could do gradients and other designs with just the glitter and I wouldn't get too annoyed. 

2. What first got you interested in nail polish/art?

When I was younger, nail polish was the only girly thing I really cared about so I always liked doing my nails but I can't remember why I got into nail art. I know I must have seen a picture online for some reason and got addicted because I have hundreds and hundreds of nail art pictures saved on my ipod as my own way of 'liking' them before I had any blog. 

3. What's in your handbag?

My handbag consists of my purse, phone, iPod, and a cosmetics bag that has anything and eveyrthing in it. Plasters, mints, lip balm, emergency food. The one thing I ALWAYS carry around with me though is an umbrella, even if I'm going shopping indoors, I'll always have an umbrella. 

4. If a famous person could play you in a film; who would it be?

I would maybe say, Ellen Paige, Emma Stone or maybe Mae Whitman because I love all of them and no, I don't look like them but I love them as actresses so why not make a much more attractive person play me. Or I'd play myself because who better to portray me than me. 

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?

I'm still young so I don't have a career as of yet but when I was in year 6 about to go to high school, aged 11, I wrote somewhere that I wanted to be a 'clothes designer' and now I'm at uni doing fashion so I still want to do something along the lines of fashion design. 

6. Who was the first (or one of the first) nail bloggers that you came across and loved?

I think I came across quite a few all at once but my favourite blogger and the person that will forever be my Jesus Christ of nail art is Mr Candiipants. My friends and family hear me go on about her too much but I just think she is amazing and not just her nail art but her as a person. I love when she does tutorials as I think she's so funny and amazing. 

7. Do you have any pet peeves?

The one thing I hate when people do is when they should say 'specific' and pronounce it 'pacific'. THERE'S AN 'S' FOR A REASON!!! I don't know why people think that's ok to do. Do they miss ou the S when they write it? Who teaches people to say that?!?!

8. What's your most liked nail art trend? Disliked nail art trend?

I honestly don't know what would be considered a 'trend' necessarily, I pretty like most nail art designs I see, I know there are certain things I hate that people do on their nails but I can't think of what trend they would be. I know my most disliked nail art design is the zebra print nails with the pink french tip. I don't know why but I cannot stand to see this design. I think because I saw it on someone who annoys me and therefore I connect the two automatically. 

9. Thoughts/opinions on duck feet nails?

I do not like duck feet nails. I know this would probably be considered a trend I don't like but I haven't seen a lot to make an informed opinion. I personally would never have them but I don't think I would ever go back to square nails so I think that's what puts me off them the most. 

10. The colour you wear the most?

The colours of mine that have gone down the most are Barry M Mint Green, Coral, Yellow and Spring Green but the bottle I have to replace the most is Barry M Matt White. Not quite a colour I know, but it is something that I use the most as I seem to use a white base colour a lot. 

11. Would you consider doing nail art as a career?

I would maybe consider doing nail art as a career although, as I said, I am 18 and in my first year at uni so I don't want to completely set my heart on doing nails as the time and money spent on this education would have gone to waste. The way I think of it is, right now I want something in fashion but I know that's hard so in my mind, I know I have a career or pathway for me to fall back on incase things in fashion don't work out. I think for me, something that combined fashion and nail art would be my absolute dream job at the minute but I don't know if that exists. 

Now, as for nominating 11 blogs, I'm not sure I know 11 blogs. It sounds stupid but I've only just started to get into blogging blogging rather than just tumblr so I don't follow a lot because I don't know of a lot so if you know some good blogs, tell me please. It seems pathetic but I think I only follow one blog with less than 200 followers, bearing in mind I only know of 9 to follow in the first place.

So this isn't a cop out or anything but the only blog I follow with less than 200 followers is

The Nail Artiste

Ok, so my 11 questions for my nominated blogs/blog are

1. What are your preferred nail art tools to work with?
2. What brand of nail polish do you own the most of?
3. What are your favourite nails you've ever done?
4. How long have you been doing nail art?
5. What made you start blogging?
6. What do other people think about you doing nail art/blogging?
7. What other interests do you have apart from nail art?
8. What's your favourite singer/band/group?
9. What's your biggest regret in life?
10. What is your biggest fear?
11. If you could be anyone for a day who would you be and why?

Spring Green

Barry M Spring Green is one of  my most used colours judging by the amount in the bottle however, I seem to love it more on other people than I do myself. I must say I love the colour and everything about it but when I see it on other people I always ask them what it is and am surprised when they say Spring Green. Normally, with most colours I have, I can tell when other people are wearing them but this one just looks different to me on my nails then other people's.

I think the name of Spring Green sums up the colour as it is a bright grass green that is bright and springy. I have other shades of green that are darker and more of a natural subtle green but I think the reason I use this one so much is because it is the perfect 'green', meaning what you picture as being the perfect grass green if that makes sense. 

The photos show two coats of the polish and no top coat and I think this is a very shiny polish which seems to be what most Barry Ms are. Although in the picture above you can see my nail line on some nails, I have never noticed that before and have never had a problem with coverage, the problem I have is that I seem to have a dark nail line for no apparent reason. 

As it is with Barry M, I love the consistency and the brush and application is always good for me which is why I have way too many of them. This polish isn't streaky at all and is a great 'green' if you want the stereotypically picture perfect green. Also, it's £2.99, that's why Barry M will always be my go to polish brand.  

Gingerbread Men

So now it's actually December, I don't feel as silly having Christmas nails. These nails definitely start out my seemingly never ending list of Christmas nails I plan to do. I was just going to do the gingerbread men and candy canes but then I couldn't resist adding gumdrops as well simply because I have the voice of the gingerbread man from Shrek going around in my head saying 'not the gumdrop buttons!' 

The base colour I used is Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens and I bought this during the summer and haven't used it since I bought it. It's an amazing mustard colour and I think the reason why I haven't used it is because I don't want to waste it because it's such an amazing colour. I used a lot of other polishes for the other details on my nails and no acrylic paint at all! Charlie 1 Technical Issues 0. For the gingerbread men I mixed American Apparel Mousse and Barry M Gold and outlined them in Barry M Dusky Mauve, another new polish for me. The white on the candy canes and gingerbread men is Barry M Matt White and their black eyes are Rimmel Black Cab. The red for the smiles and candy cane is Barry M Bright Red and the colours I used for the gumdrops are Barry M Yellow, Spring Green, Strawberry Ice Cream, Rimmel Aqua Cool and Tangerine Queen. I also added some China Glaze Fairy Dust to the gumdrops as well as the ones on the gingerbread men themselves. 

I must say I am pleased with my outlining of the gingerbread men as I was not messy at all and I am now intrigued to see what Dusky Mauve looks like as a whole colour. It looks quite dark here but it's a brown with a purple duochrome/shimmer to it that intrigued me into buying it. It was the purple that swayed me as I tend to avoid the dark colours normally.