Ninja Polish Girly Floam

It's midweek finally, my most tired day of the week and as I'm still naked (see Monday's post!) I thought I would show you something fun that I wore a few weeks ago. I'll be posting my results for the naked challenge tomorrow so you can see for yourselves.

During this bleak midwinter I wanted to wear something girly and fun and as this has been sitting in my untrieds for a few months out it came. Ninja Polish Girly Floam is a matte pink and purple fine glitter in a clear base. For this mani I used it alone and it took 3 coats to reach full opacity.

As everyone who has worn Floam knows, it is one hard polish to remove so I thought there would be no better time to try the PVA basecoat method we've all been hearing about. I've been a bit wary of this method just because I don't really like the thought but then again the thought of removing Flaom was enough to push me into it!

The PVA basecoat method was reasonably straightforward but the only thing that puts me off using it again is that I was tempted to pick at it most of the time it was on my nails and I'm not even a picker! It was particularly soft after a shower so that would be a good time to take then off if you have more willpower than I do.

Anyway, on to the swatches:

 

Look at that shimmer!

 Now, before I took off this mani I had a little practice at stamping, I still need lots more but here are some of the nails I was able to peel off when I wanted to remove the mani. Really it was easy but I will probably be reserving this method for really hard to remove polish. These look a bit creepy don't they??!!

 

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OPI Spotted and Colour Club Halo Hues

As you might have noticed I have quite a stash to choose from and so I only tend to wear things again if I really like them, or I mess them up the first time and feel I should give them another chance to impress me. Today's post is a little bit of both.

This mani is an older post that I had stored for you, if you read my blog post yesterday than you'll know that I'm doing the 3 day Pure Oil Naked Challenge. It's going well and I'll be posting my results on Thursday.

So you may remember my first attempted at OPI Spotted? If not you can see the post here. Well that was my first time and I tried really hard not to use too much and just end up with black nails, well I had the opposite problem and didn't use enough so I got drag marks instead. Hmmmm, back to the drawing board.

This time I decided to try Spotted over the Color Club 2012 Halo Hues. I stared with a base of randomly placed Halo Hues so I could get a multicoloured effect through the Spotted. I just painted on lines and blobs (yes that is a technical term!) and the applied a thin layer of Spotted over the top. I was careful to float my HK Girl topcoat over the top so I didn't smudge

I really quite liked this mani, the pictures don't quite do it justice but the holo really shone out behind the Spotted. I'd like to try it again with some brighter holo's next time!

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Pure Nail and Cuticle Oil - 3 Day Challenge

So today I have something a bit different to show you. It's not a swatch but it's a nail care oil called Pure Nail and Cuticle Oil made by Ana at Simple Nail Art Tips. If you haven't heard of it she has been calling for people to do a 3 day 'Let's Get Naked' Challenge. This challenge basically involves 3 days with naked nails and following Ana's initial hydration process with her Pure oil.

I first came across this page and product from a blogger friend who is participating in the challenge. I read her post and the link to the Simple Nail Art Tips site and I was amazed. You can check out the site here at: http://www.simplenailarttips.com/products/pure-cuticle-oil and on facebook here. The article gives a lot of really useful information and demonstrates Ana's personal experience of her product. The results she has had look great and as she was having a sale I had to try it.

The concept is basically that for the first 3 days of this treatment you must have bare nails and apply the oil frequently throughout the day, reapplying when it has been absorbed into the nail. After these 3 days you can go back to wearing polish and using the oil a few times a day. Please read the link above for a full explanation, it'll have you reaching for the cuticle oil I can tell you that!

One thing I absolutely loved about this company is that Ana gives out her recipe for the oil on the site. She is so confident in the product and that you will love the convenience and the essential oils she adds to her blend that you will like to buy from her, and if you can't afford to you can try and pick up the ingredients to blend at home. In fact, that was probably one of the reasons I decided to purchase the oil to try myself.

The oil is mixed in small batches and contains only Jojoba oil, Grape Seed oil, Olive oil, Vitamin E, Vitamin A and essential oil blend and Tea Tree oil. It smells divine and is quite subtle, certainly not overpowering.

So, here I am with the 3 day naked challenge. All polish came off last night and I took photo's of my bare nails. Now, when you look at these they will certainly not be the best or the worst. I have always had really dry hands and my job means that I can wash my hands or use alcohol gel upwards of 20 to 40 times a day, because of this I am really careful to try and moisturise and use cuticle oils and creams. Although I do that I still get dry cuticles and skin, and my nails can be quite brittle. I have taken quite close up photos of my fingers and the problem areas to point out the bits I am hoping to 'fix' with this oil.

I purchased an introductory pack and received a 15ml (0.5fl oz) of Pure oil, a 2 ml Pure oil pen, a few samples of other scents and an instruction leaflet. It arrived speedily to my door from the US to the UK within a week!

So here's what I got in the introductory pack:

Here are the directions:

And here are my nails:
This is the left hand - OK they are not in too bad a state but the could be better. You can see the dry skin, particularly flaking on the inside of the index finger.

Also can you see that line on the outside of the index finger nail on the corner? That is a split in the nail which I have patched and glued. This particular nail on both hands really curves inwards, which I hate. They commonly break here too as evidence in the photo. I wonder if using an oil over the long term wil help?

This is the index finger of my left hand above - dryness and flaking at the cutcile and side wall. It was also inflammed and itchy when I woke up this morning.

My right hand: again some dryness at the cuticles and on the sidewall of some nails

This is my middle fingernail on the right hand above. See that split so low down - ouch! I really do believe these are caused by dryness and brittleness of the nail. I get them quite a bit.

I find that of all my fingers my right thumb nail cutcile grows the fastest, because of this I push it back more than the other nails and it often gets thicker and dry as you can see below.

So that's day 1 of my Pure Oil challenge. I will be using it as directed and taking pictures to update you. I think I may keep the results a surprise until the end of the 3 days - so that's Wednesday. Wish me luck!

 

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Nails Inc Paulton's Square

I have a very pretty polish to show you today and a bit of a sad polish related incident too (no, it's not Royal Mail related so you are safe to read on!). Firstly the polish.

This beauty you see below is Nails Inc Paulton's Square. I got this in a kit of 4 from QVC called the Stardust collection which you can see here. Unfortunately this kit is no longer available and it was only offered for sale maybe twice before it sold out and never came back, I really do hope it is restocked.

The best description of Paulton's Square I can give is a shimmery duochrome flakie glitter. It's amazing in the bottle and amazing on the nail. Unforutnately my bottle broke when trying to open it (see pictures below) so I had to decant what I could into a spare bottle, thank goodness I had one on hand!

For this mani I used one coat of Barry M Cobalt Blue as a base (great formula and a one coater!) and 2 coats of Nails Inc Paulton's Square, although one would have been absolutely fine. I really love this polish, I was staring at it all day and I don't want to take it off for work tomorrow. Boo.

Anyway, on to the swatches:

Look what happened. I'm so sad and I don't think I can get another one although I am going to message Nails Inc and see if there's anything they can do or if they are planning on releasing it. At least I managed to salvage most of it.

My poor hubby cut his hand in the process. When I head it 'pop' my first reaction was for the polish, oh dear, I need to be a better wife.......

Tomorrow I will have a very different type of post for you so make sure you keep an eye out for that!
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Enchanted Polish Wish Me Good Luck

Today I have another exciting post from one of the Enchanted Polish Love-A-Lot of Glitter collection, inspired by the Care Bears. I received 4 of them from Enchanted Polishes first stock and I managed to grab Freeze Machine from the recent restock at Mei Mei so I'm very excited. I've have had a hard time deciding which to wear next but I finally went for Wish Me Good Luck.

I cannot tell you how stunning this polish is in real life, literally I can't stop staring at my nails and I know I need back ups of these. I wanted a base that was able to show off all the glitters and in this polish there are tiny green glitters, irridescent blue glitters, black hex's and bars and more, so finally I went with Nubar Reclaim which I've been meaning to try for ages.

We were lucky today and got a little sunshine so I literally ran outside to take some photo's as sunlight really shows off this polish. I have to say that I could not capture the real beauty of this polish. I'll be honest and in the bottle I liked it I just didn't love it. On the nail I adore it.

For this mani I used 2 coats of Nubar Reclaim which is also amazing, why did it take me so long to try, I'll show you in a seperate post, and 2 coats of Wish Me Good Luck, topped off with 2 coats of HK Girl. The sparkle is just beautiful, it's like jewels.

Some of these pictures were taken in the sunlight and some in my lightbox, I wil specify which next to the pictures below. Either way it's beautiful.

Sunlight:

Lightbox:

Sunlight:

Sunlight:

Lightbox:

Lightbox:

You can really see the gorgeous blue glitters shining above.
I can't wait to show you the rest of them. I am on an Enchanted kick right now and I am obsessed so keep watching for more Enchanted posts.
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Crows Toes Merope Tape Mani

Happy Friday everyone!!!! I love Fridays, I think they might be the best day of the week, the whole weekend is stretched out ahead of us.......

 

So yesterday I decided to do a tape mani. Well actually I wanted to do some stamping but I just couldn't stamp. I don't know why, first I was scraping off too much polish, then the image wouldn't transfer properly, then only bits of it came onto my nail. I got fed up and gave up so I thought I'd try something different. I'll come back to stamping another day when I have more time and patience. I think I need to only try using my Konad polishes, and this means I need to get some more of them when I go to the US next month.

 

OK, so what I did do was start with 2 coats of Zoya Kendall which is a pale lilac creme. I really like this, it's a great base colour. Then I applied some striping tape and used Crows Toes Merope over the top. Did it turn out OK? Well sort of. The lines are not as crisp as I would like and I think I kinda messed up in the ring finger, I know you are supposed to take the tape off when the polish is wet but I think I did that a little too early and that's why I got some blurred edges. Oh well, the overall effect was nice, I just need more practise.

 

Crows Toes Merope is part of the pleiades collection. As described by Crows Toes, in greek mythology the pleiades were seven sisters: maia, electra, alcyone, taygete, aterope, celaeno and merope. their parents were atlas, a titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid pleione, the protectress of sailing. After a chance meeting with the hunter orion, the pleiades and their mother became the object of his relentless pursuit. enamoured with the young women, he pursued them over the face of the earth. in pity for their plight, zeus changed them into a flock of doves, which he set in the heavens. This collection are their namesakes.

 

Merope is really very pretty, it's the only one I own so far but it certainly won't be the last. I looked for a description but couldn't find one so I would say it's a multichrome with flashes of blue, grey, green and purple. I can see orange in the bottle but it wasn't evident on the nail. I want to wear it plain next time so you can see the whole effect, I might wait for some sunshine so I can hopefully get all the multchrome goodness out of it.

 

So more practise for me with the nail art. Anyone have any tips on getting really crisp lines with the striping tape?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and because I have been asked by one of my lovely readers to show you more of Miagi here he is. He was lucky to be sent a toy in one of my birthday packages from my nail birthday group this morning, here he is sitting on his favourite blankets on top of the couch. He's there as I write this snoring away!  

Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury

Happy mid week! I'm always so relieved to get to this point!

Today I have a mani I wore before Christmas. I initially saw Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury posted on the Crumpet and it was such a fabulous swatch I knew I needed it! You can see the blog post here.

Well, as it was Christmas I wanted to wear red. You might have noticed red is a colour I hardly wear at all. I really like it, I just don't wear it much, however I had just got my OPI Bond collection and so needed to try them out.

Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury is from the Crows Toes Halloween collection and is described as a bright mix of fire and orange glitters with a red/orange/gold colourshifting shimmer. For this mani I wore 2 coats of OPI The Spy Who Loved Me and 2 coats of Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury. Look at the purple irridescent sparkles, it's beautiful.

In fact I think I like The Crumpet's version more because all the glitters from Hell Hath No Fury really had a chance to pop, but still, this is one awesome polish. The formula was fine, Crows Toes always tends to run a bit thick but really it's not a problem.

This polish is still in stock at Llarowe, which considering it isn't Halloween anymore is pretty lucky. If you haven't got a bottle I'd strongly suggest you grab one while you can.

 

 

 

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Dollish Polish You'll Shoot Yer Eye Out, Kid

Well, this week in most parts of the UK we've had a ton of snow, it's so cold here right now but oh so pretty and I just love it!

So do you remember the mad rush before Christmas to your your hands on a bottle of the new Dollish Polish You'll Shoot Yer Eye Out, Kid?? It was from the Christmas Story 2012 collection and sold out in a matter of seconds at each restock. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a bottle and I was super excited. I knew before it arrived that I would use it when we had snow so here it is!

For this mani I used 2 coats of Barry M Blueberry from their Gelly range, which if you don't already know is FAB! I then used a coat of Dollish Polish You'll Shoot Yer Eye Out, Kid. This polish is more complex than I gave it credit for because as as well as having snowflakes in it it also has a lot of irridescent glitters. These glitters really glow and sparkle. A topcoat of HK Girl finished off this mani.

I absolutely adore this mani, yes, the snowflakes were not easy to fish out but I did manage to get 5, I think turning the bottle up upside down helped. The only other thing that bothered me a little is the really tiny glitters you can see. They kind of remind me of bubbles from topcoat but they aren't, although I did have some bubbling from where I put lots of topcoat around the snowflkes, I don't know if those little glitters show up more because of the base I tried or if I've just been staring at them too much! Anyway this mani is so sparkly and pretty, just the thing for this time of year.

And on to the swatches.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And look who I found yesterday when walking back from the station.... two little snowmen. How cute! 

 

 

 

I thought for sure I would end up swapping or selling this polish but I really love it and I think the undie choice is perfect. I'll certainly be wearing this again, I'd love to know what it looks like over a pale pink.......

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