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Tuesday 28 July 2015

Picture Polish Lagoon

So currently it's summer. Or so I'm told. I don't know about the rest of the country but up in Scotland I am not feeling the summer love! That is where this polish comes in.

Some of you may be jetting off on lovely holidays in the sun, but for me, I will make do with the beautiful Lagoon by Picture Polish. Don't you want to just dive right in!

I'll be honest, I lemminged this polish for a long time, it just looked like that rare shade of light turquoise I have wanted to experience since I got into nail polish. It wasn't. I had about five minutes of disappointment and disbelief before I began to appreciate how gorgeous Lagoon really is. It's more of a blue jelly than a green on the unofficial turquoise scale with solid glitters as well as Picture Polish's glorious holographic scatter glitter which just makes it as sparkly as the Lagoons it is named after. It was opaque in two coats but I gave it three for luck, and wear time was a little over a week. I love how these scatter glitter jellies don't chip.  

I've tried to capture it's sparkle in the sun so excuse dodgy window shots, but go ahead and enjoy!
Happy summer, Bx

 

Friday 13 March 2015

Gryffindor




Well I’ll start by being honest, when I say there was a Harry Potter collection by Above the Curve that was as shiny as this I almost cried with excitement and proceeded to buy my favourites for me and for several of my friends for Christmas and birthday presents! I found it all very, VERY exciting.
Today I have Gryffindor to show you. Probably my favourite of the collection, this is a classic Gryffindor-inspired maroon with gold flecks, nicely matching the house colours and a very warm polish to wear. It was very easy to apply, not too thick and it flowed nicely onto the nail. It is long lasting too! I wore this for around a week because I liked it so much and there was nothing more than some wear and tear, not a chip in sight! I then topped it up with the glitters from my NYK1 post here. So I was already very happy with this polish.

But wait, it gets better!

The magic (intended) happens when light hits it. Look at all that holo goodness! It is so sparkly with every imaginable colour, I could have photographed it for days and no two pictures would have been the same. It is so eye catching, and doesn’t even need much sunlight to glow like this. For all that glitter it is still quite smooth, no bumps on the nail.

I reckon even JK herself would appreciate this gem of a polish. Above the Curve – you have done justice to my favourite franchise so THANK YOU!
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Sunday 18 January 2015

A Glittery Mess - NYK1 Sercrets Glitters and Blogger Fails

*These products were sent to me for honest review*

Hello and Happy New Year! I've finally made my way back to my blog after another few months have flown by, where does the time go?! 

Today I have several manis to show you, all of which using loose glitters by NYK1 Sercrets. These glitters come in a pack of 12 different colours and currently retail at £7.95.
This has been my first proper foray into the world of loose glitters, and as you can see there were varying results! 

The website suggests that the glitters can be applied with a brush,sprinkled on with fingers or you could dip your nail into the pot. I never tried the last suggestion,I think that would lead to a total lack of control,  but it could work for you. Best way to learn how to apply glitter is to experiment!! 



The website suggests that the glitters can be applied with a brush,sprinkled on with fingers or you could dip your nail into the pot. I never tried the last suggestion,I think that would lead to a total lack of control,  but it could work for you. Best way to learn how to apply glitter is to experiment!!

Attempt number 1: Brush
As you can see from the pics, applying with the brush did not work for me!! It was utter chaos with glitter everywhere and such a huge amount of glitter on my nails it had a 3D spiky effect like frost had grown on my nails. Every time I tried to fix it, I ended up moving the nail polish.
I applied over black, using the blue glitter and actually the green one was the clear glitter which has lovely bright holo particles in and which my camera picked up as green. I didn't bother with clean up as I made such a mess I took it off immediately! 
Blogger error: I used too hard a brush, with too much glitter, on nail polish that was still wet. 






Attempt number 2: Freehand gradient using fingers.

First I took some pictures to show how nice and fine the glitters are. They are so soft to the touch! 
This was my Christmas manicure, and I applied over China Glaze Meet Me Under The Stars from the Christmas 2014 collection. This polish has been described as 'galaxy in a bottle' and rightly so, it's a lovely blackfull of glitters, easy to wear and perfect for glam parties. It was easy to apply in two coats and last a lot longer than other China Glaze polishes have with me.

I used the red and green glitters for a festive effect (yes I know it's now January, my bad) and applied once the polish was dry - lesson learnt! I stuck it down by applying a light dab of the polish on the tips of my nails then dabbing the glitter on with a fingertip. 

The effect was a lot neater, and I especially liked the way the glitter flecks merged with the rest of the nail to create a more natural gradient. 








Attempt number 3 - tri-colour gradient, using fingers and stencils.

I tried this 3 colour gradient over Above the Curve Gryffindor (review to follow shortly) and chose the purple, deep pink and light pink, although the light pink photographs rather more silvery than it was in person. I used a french manicure template sticker to get straighter lines, applying a clear coat on the exposed area before lightly applying the glitter again with my fingers. I like how effective the finished article was, but it was so simple and really quick to do! I'd definitely recommend this technique to people who are a bit shy of nail art but want eye catching party nails! 

Overall I can't compare these glitters to other loose glitters as I've not had much experience with them, however I can say that (with a bot of practise!) these are easy to use and the variety of colours helps create good effects. They seem good quality to me and I loved the feel of them, they were really light. 
I'd recommend these to anyone who loved arts and crafts at school, but beware the mess you will most definitely create!! 
B x







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