French Mani with Freehand Florals

I toyed with the idea of keeping my French mani plain for a day, but I just couldn't do it!

I used a fine paintbrush with China Glaze Mingle with Kringle and Jacava Blackberry Fool in order to do this design. It's only simple but I do like it. 

The gold lines are a bit thicker than I meant to do, but I suppose that doesn't matter. 

What do you think? 

 

Classic French Manicure

Just a quick post for now to show you what I've just put on my nails. I realised earlier that I'd NEVER worn a classic French tip mani, so I thought I'd try it.

This is Essie Blanc and Essie Mademoiselle. I used tip guides to get a clean line. 

I like how this looks! It's very plain though, so I'm going to do some kind of nail art over the top.  

Dior Rouge Maya & Black Rose French Tips

I've been away to my parents' for a few days, so haven't painted my nails or posted here. But now I'm home and I've borrowed my mum's Dior Rouge Maya. Isn't it gorgeous?

This is two coats of Rouge Maya. One was very almost enough, but one or two nails weren't entirely opaque, so I added a second. I wore this for a day without topcoat, and it was a bit dull on the surface by the end of the day, so these photos are with topcoat. 

This is a really lovely consistency and quality, and I love the flat, rounded brush. 

Tonight I then stamped over the tips with Konad Black and MoYou London Mother Nature plate 11.  

I like the idea of this more than I like the execution - Konad Black always seems to smear slightly and end up looking disappointing. I need a better black stamping polish!  Still, I'm quite pleased with how this ended up. 

 

Colour Me Crazy: Purple!

This week the British Nail Bloggers are doing PURPLE!

I've been really busy all week, and have actually had bare nails for work on two or three days. Tonight I came home and added a quick French tip with this fab purple glitter. It's Models Own Purple Haze, a rich, sparkly purple glitter. I also added a rhinestone (I think these came from the Born Pretty Store) and a quick coat of Seche Vite, and that was that. 

It's not particularly elaborate or complicated, but it is sparkly and I do like it.

What do you think?   

My nails are getting really long at the moment. I'm thinking I'll have to shorten them a bit next week as we've got a really heavy week lined up at work where I'll be dashing around a lot and doing lots of stuff with lever arch files, so if I don't shorten them I'll end up breaking them. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Leopard Print Water Decal French Tips from Born Pretty Store

Today I have some gorgeous leopard print water decals from the Born Pretty Store to show you! I decided to pair these with a red/nude combo, a colour combination that I am particularly fond of!

These decals come in a pack of 14 of varying sizes. I love how they look, so I decided to only use two on each hand for now, so that I can spread out the use and have more chances to wear them!

The red is Rimmel Pro Heart on Fire, and the nude shade is Barry M Matte in Vanilla. I made the half moons using hole reinforcers, and topped everything with Seche Vite once I'd added the decals.

I have to say, these tip shaped water decals are a little fiddlier to use than the ones that are smaller than a whole nail, because of the shape. You need to get them to match up to the width of your nail, so the chances are they'll either be slightly too wide (as on my thumb, where I had to trim a tiny bit off) or slightly too narrow (as on my ring finger, where there is a sliver of red showing along the side). However, that's only a slight difficulty, and as you can see, the results are pretty impressive!

I think this looks quite fancy, and I really like it! I wouldn't wear these to work, but I felt very glam wearing these!

If you want to try these, they are item 6725 and are currently on sale! You can get a set of these for a totally bargain price of $1.86! And if you use my discount code, you can get an extra 10% off on top of that as well!

I do love Born Pretty Store! They're constantly introducing new items, and there's always something new I want to try as well.

























I received this product for review purposes, but words and opinions are entirely my own. I do not receive anything if you use my discount code, although when it's been used ten times, BPS will let me host a giveaway for my readers! See my Disclosure page for more details.

Glitter French Tips

I wanted to jazz up yesterday's plain nails a bit, but didn't have much time, so I added a quick swipe of China Glaze Solar Flare, one of my favourite glitters ever!


Solar Flare is a clear base with large gold hexagonal glitter pieces. In these macro shots it looks a bit patchy, but in real life it's just a blingy, sparkly tip to the nails, which got lots of compliments at work today.
This was over yesterday's Barry M Nude (2 coats).

China Glaze Def Defying

I couldn't resist! I had to go back and buy two more of the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil collection in my lunch break today!

This is Def Defying, a bright lime green creme. This is two coats, freehanded as a French mani, with Seche Vite topcoat for added shine. 

I know this isn't a traditionally pretty colour (most of the people in my office made a bit of a face when they saw this one) but I'm kind of fond of lime green.  These may not be the neatest French tips ever, but I'm quite happy with them as it happens, as I think it's the first time I've done them freehand.

Def Defying is the usual excellent China Glaze formula - this is two coats - applies easily, dries well, and has a smooth, even finish.

China Glaze Pool Party

This week has been mostly hot and sunny, and I've had an uncontrollable urge to wear neon nail varnish. I didn't have any, so I chose two from my local shop. They had lots of this year's China Glaze Summer Neons collection, and from 2011's Poolside neon collection. I bought Pool Party from last year's, and Beach Cruise-r from this year's.

First I wore Pool Party as a French mani, with Opi's Heart Throb as a base colour. I quite liked this, but I made a bit of a mess placing the French tip guides, and there is still some of my own nail tips showing, which looks a bit messy. Still, it only really showed if you looked very closely.

The next day I changed to a whole coat of Pool Party. This is a fairly sheer neon, that dries quite matte and very smooth. This is three coats, with topcoat for glossiness.  It's very hard to photograph!

The colour is hugely bright! It's pink, honest, although it looks more reddish on my nails in these photos. It does look different on the nails from the way it looks in the bottle though. But I absolutely love how this looks in the sunlight, with a (for me) tan! I don't tan easily, this is about as brown as I get.  

I am getting used to my new square nail shape. It feels a bit odd sometimes, especially now they're getting a bit longer, and when the corners sometimes catch things. But they feel more grown up than my old rounded nails.