NOTD: Freak Out (11/01/2014)

Hi!

I have a new NOTD to show you today. I recently got a glitter polish for Christmas and couldn't wait to try it out so I thought I'd pop it in a post too! :)

This post was supposed to go up ages ago but I had trouble uploading the pictures...this isn't even on my nails anymore!

This is the main polish in use in this look: the Models Own nail polish in Freak Out. 

This has huge pieces of light blue, dark blue and purple glitter suspended in clear gel. 

I have to say I did have trouble getting an even distribution of the pieces onto  my nails and I ended up with loads on one nail, barely any on another. I had to go over each one a couple of times to make sure I got enough coated on each nail. 

The other polish I used as a base colour beforehand was the Miss Sporty Lasting Colour polish in...I'm not sure. One of my problems with Miss Sporty polishes is their labeling is awful. these have actual word names too but on the bottle all I can find are two numbers... 3160 and 510. From looking online this MAY be called "Atomic Blue"...but I have no idea! :) 

I really love the way the different blues shine out through and because the pieces of glitter are so big it almost looks like there are jewels in my nails which looks so pretty...I'm definitely a fan of this look!
If only glitter polish wasn't so much of an arse-ache to remove :(

Anyway! Thanks so much for reading!
Libby x

P.S
Took the dog for a run on the beach. You can't see his face but if you could you just know it would be the happiest dog-face you've ever seen. :) 

My Favourite Autumn Nail Polishes!

Hi!

 

Ever since I was a kid I've always loved autumn...the fiery coloured leaves, the cooler temperatures before the winter, the sweet blackberries on the bushes...

 

Although I have to say I'm not looking forward to spider season. Saw a MASSIVE one last night sitting there like it pays rent and ended up having to run off downstairs in our spare bedroom to sleep.

 

Anyway, enough of my irrational fear of spiders! :)

 

I thought that even though it isn't really properly autumn yet I would compile a list of my favourite nail polishes that I think will really look great at this time of year!

 

I'm not one for restricting myself to certain colours of nails in certain seasons (I've been known to wear hot pinks and bright teals in January) but I did see all of these nail polishes and thought how great they would look this time of year!

 

 

This is the first polish I thought of...this is O.P.I's colour Give Me Moor which is a VERY dark berry colour. It makes a great alternative to black and although it looks black in the photo, on the nails it is a gorgeous deep purple shade.

 

 

This is the Collection 2000 Hot Looks polish in 63 Shadow and I just think this dark brown colour would make a great dark "neutral" nail for the autumn. Definitely pulling this one out to use soon!

 

 

This is the Models Own polish in Purple Blue from the Beetlejuice collection. It has a gorgeous blue/purple duochrome and it is simply beautiful. I've forgotten about this recently and I think I might use this soon!

 

 

This is another Models Own polish, this time  a pinky purple colour called Magenta Pearl.

I love these berry shades for the autumn and this one has gorgeous shimmer and sparkle when it's on the nails. It even has subtle hints of copper and orange in it - perfect for autumn!

 

 

 

*Sigh*...one of my favourite nail polishes ever. Honestly, I wear this all year round but the copper and purple tones in the Accessorize nail polish in Aztec make it just perfect. This works best over a purple polish but it is so worth the extra step. This is beyond beautiful...if you don't have this shade already I definitely recommend it!

 

 

 

Another Collection 2000 Hot Looks polish called 65 Scorched.

You may notice that this also snuck it's way into my "summer nail polishes" post but just look at that colour...doesn't that just scream autumn leaves to you??

 

 

My last colour is a neutral colour by Models Own called Pray.

I think this would be a perfect polish for work or school as it's a great neutral taupe colour but still looks great on the nails.

 

So there you go! There are my favourite autumn nail polishes...I think I'm going to do this for every season from now on because its so fun to go through and pull out great polishes for that season, not that the weather stops me wearing any colours that take my fancy!

 

Thanks so much for reading!

Libby x

How To Get Yin & Yang Nails!

Hi!

 

I tried out a nail design look a while ago where I painted yin & yang symbols on my nails and decided that because it was such a fun look it would be great to do a step by step post!

 

 

 

I made this look really bright and colourful and although it is fairly intricate, it isn't too hard to do.

I'm not the best at nail art but I do love doing nail art looks!

Someone with a steadier hand will probably be able to make a better job of this look but it's easy enough that it doesn't matter if you're not so great at doing designs on your nails.

 

I wanted really colourful backgrounds for my nails so I used these colours:

 

From left to right:

 

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry polishes in

Scorched, Shimmy Shake, Bongo Beat, Show Off

Then the purple shade is from O.P.I called Plugged In Plum.

 

The reason I love the collection 2000 polishes is that I happen to have them in very bright colours and they're inexpensive!

 

 

 

For the actual symbols I'm also using the Models Own nail art pens in Black and White.

With these you can both squeeze out the colour or use the long thin brush to apply it, but I prefer to squeeze out the colour from the nib at the top.

 

Now lets get onto the design :)

 

Step 1:

 

 

Paint your nails in rainbow colours! I had to use about 2 coats for each nail.

I also think this looks better if you do it in the order of the rainbow, so starting from the pinky finger I used red, gold, green, blue and then purple :)

Then you just want the nails to completely dry so you don't smudge the coats underneath.

 

 

Step 2:

 

 

Using the black nail art pen, draw a black circle on each nail.

I find that you should probably always do the circles slightly bigger than you think because the line will be quite thick and you still need enough space inside to do the design.

 

Step 3:

 

 

Then draw a wavy black line inside the circle. This is fairly tricky but it's not essential to get the shape right. As you can see some of my lines are a bit dodgy but it doesn't detract from the overall look :)

 

Step 4:

 

 

Fill in one half of the circle. This can be quite fiddly but if you take your time you can fill it in as evenly as possible.

 

Step 5:

 

 

Now take the white nail art pen and fill in the other half of the circle. Make sure you let the black dry completely before or it will al smudge together and turn into a blurred grey circle...not exactly what we're looking for here!

 

 

Step 6:

 

 

Then do a white dot in the black half of the circle...

 

Step 7:

 

 

And finally add a black dot in the white section!

Again make sure the white is completely dry or it will all smudge together.

 

And that's it! :)

 

 

I find this looks quite striking and also even if you mess up a bit (like me) you can still get a great finished effect!

This is quite time consuming but it's not too tricky to do, just a little fiddly.

 

It is really important that you let the polish & pens dry completely before you move onto the next step or you could end up with a grey mixed up mess...it can be hard for someone as impatient as me but I think its worth it.

 

Did you like this yin & yang look?

Thanks so much for reading!

Libby x

My Favourite Summer Nail Polishes!

Hi!

 

I thought I'd do a quick post today just showing some of my favourite nail polishes for summer...these are the ones I've been wearing most lately!

 

 

I'll split the into 2 to make it slightly easier to see each polish...

 

 

From left to right:

 

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry Polish in Shimmy Shake 52

(Gorgeous glittery gold)

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry Polish in Ninja 36

(Matte mid green, really unusual and interesting!)

Barry M Nail Paint in Teal

(Shimmery teal colour, I've got this on my nails now! It's so beautiful when it catches the light!)

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry Polish in Show Off 23 

(One of my favourite polishes of all time..my favourite colour is blue and this shimmery bright blue is just amazing, I even have a back up one of these!)

 

 

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry in Go Retro! 58

(Matte mid purple, one of my most used shades all year round)

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry Polish in Bright Lights 55

(Bright, matte coral orange)

Models Own Nail Polish in Copper Pot

 (I love the duo chrome in this, it shows up differently in every light and reminds me of caramel!)

Collection 2000 Hot Looks 60 Second (New version of the Fast Dry ones, same thing just new name) in Scorched 65.

(This is very appropriately named given the ridiculously hot weather we had here in the UK recently....this reminds me of fire and is very shimmery)

 

 

I realise now that a lot of these are the Collection 2000 Hot Looks...this probably because I love them. They are cheap and small (but how often do you finish a nail polish anyway) and the colours are so fun! I wear mine all the time and love them.

Next time however I will try and make it more balanced from other brands too! ;)

 

 

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Libby x

NOTD: Copper Pot (05/04/2013)

Hi! I have a quick Nail Of The Day for you this afternoon, featuring an amazing shade from Models Own...

 

This shade is from the Beetle Juice collection from Models Own, and it's called Copper Pot.

It's an amazing duo-chrome blend of golds, fiery oranges and even the occasional glint of green. It cost £5 and after a quick look online you can still find it on places like Amazon! :)

 

 

 

I tried tilting the bottle so you got a proper idea of the amazing colour this is...

 

This was nearly opaque at one coat but I gave it two just to make sure it was a strong colour:

 

I really adore this shade and I think it will be so good for the spring/summer as its bright and so interesting! I love the way it looks slightly different in every light and it has a really beautiful shimmer running through it. In certain lights it looks like my nails are on fire! :P

 

What are your favourite nail polish colours at the moment?

Thanks for reading!  I hoped you enjoyed my Nail Of The Day :)

Libby x



How To Get Pink & Black Checkered Nails!

Hello! :)
I have another easy nail art design for you today; the other day I was playing around and came up with a relatively easy way of doing a checkered nails using one of my favourite colour combinations: pink & black!

Products I used:
 

The Colour Workshop Top Coat
(I also used a base coat and forgot to photograph it but they look exactly the same anyway! You can of course use whatever base and top coats you want to. A base coat is important to stop the colour staining your nails but a top coat isn't as essential but it helps the design last a bit longer! :)

Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry nail polish in "Siren"

Models Own Nail Art Pen in Black

First of all I applied 2 coats of the Collection 2000 pink nail polish to get a really opaque colour:

Then I used the nail art pen to draw black crosses on each nail using the long, thin brush (I think this actually looks like a cool design on it's own...maybe one day I'll just leave it as crosses on my nails because I think it looks quite interesting!

 

 

Then I just uesd the long thin brush again to fill in two sections of the cross. I've found that the squares at the top of the nail are easy to fill in whereas the squares at the bottom are slightly harder but as long as you take your time you can fill them in neatly!

And that's it! it looks pretty effective and you can do it with any different colour combinations (I also did white and black) and it looks interesting but doesn't take too many steps or products to achieve. The nail art pens take a while to dry but I think it's worth it! 

 

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed my little mini tutorial! :) What are your favourite nail designs?

Libby x



How To Get Colourful Panda Nails! :)

Hello :)
Today I have a nail look that is a little more intricate!
I was thinking about what to paint on my nails earlier today and remembered a panda design I did a while back...however this time I decided to make it a bit more colourful!
I thought I'd do a blog post on how to get this look, in case there are any other panda lovers out there! ;)

I used quite a lot of different products for this look, but you could easily switch it up to make the colours the way you want or to use the products you have :)

Step 1) BASE COAT! I'm using a lot of colourful polishes as the base for this look so it's always a good idea to use a base coat to stop the colours staining your nails...I've had a greenish tinge to mine before now where I forgot to use a base coat and it took ages to grow out. I'm just using a base coat I think from the Colour Workshop Nail Parade kit which had loads of different polishes in it.

Step 2) Paint your nails in whichever colours you want to be the background colours; I wanted bright colours and so I chose these:

I used these 5 colours to paint my nails, from left to right they are: Collection 2000 Hot Looks Fast Dry in Go Retro!, then Bright Lights, then Show Off, then the yellow is a Ruby & Millie nail polish in Yellow, then another Collection 2000 Hot Looks in Siren.

I used about 2 coats for each one to make sure it was opaque and bold.

Step 3)  Draw the basis for the panda's face; a large white spot.
You can use any plain white nail polish but since they aren't too easy to find I used a Claire's Accessories nail tip whitener instead to get a matte white polish.

 

You can go over it a couple of times to get it opaque :)

Step 4) Use black and white nail art pens to draw on the details of the panda. I'm using the Models Own nail art pens in black and white. Alternatively if you don't have any pens and don't want to buy one, you could use a nail brush or a long, thin fairly stiff brush to dip into black and white polishes that you already have, though I've found this harder.

I just have to pause for a moment to show you the amazing packaging on these...

First you use the black to draw on little circles for the ears:

Then you draw on the black dots for the fur around the eyes:

Then a black dot for the nose:

Then a smaller white circle inside the black circles for the eyes (you have to be pretty precise here):

And then finally you have to do a *tiny* little dot inside those white dots for the pupils...

And that's the whole thing! It's very time consuming but it's not too difficult and I find it looks so cute when its done! :)
You can of course use whatever base colours you want, or just have a clear coat underneath if you want.

I really love the way this turned out, last time I simply did the pandas over a clear polish, but I love the colourful effect of the background colours and it looks so bright!
I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial, it was really fun to do and it's not too hard - I'm not the most skilled person at nail art! I find it difficult because my hands are small and so I don't have much nail space, but I can manage this ok :)

Thank you for reading! I'll hopefully do more nail art designs in the future!
Libby x