BeautyUK: Queen of Hearts and Gold Digger

Morning all :)  I hope you're all having a lovely Sunday so far!  I'm about to begin my Sunday with a yummy cooked breakfast!

On Wednesday I showed you two glitter polishes from the BeautyUK Posh Polish range.  Today I'm showing you the other two polishes I was sent to review :)  These are Queen of Hearts and Gold Digger.

First up is Queen of Hearts.  I thought from the bottle that this was going to be quite dark and not the sort of polish I'd like, but actually it's really pretty on the nail.  It's made up of medium matte black and shiny pink hexes, with black microglitter.  It's actually quite a delicate-looking polish.

I used two coats of Queen of Hearts over OPI Skull & Glossbones.  Great coverage and great formula.  I think this would also be really pretty over a light pink.

Next up is Gold Digger.  This is primarily gold hexes, with a sprinkling of larger silver holo hexes.  The coverage of this was much better than I expected - I used two coats here.  You could probably get this to full coverage with a few more coats (or fake it with a shiny gold basecoat).

Here I'm showing it over Jessica Ruffled Bottoms.  I think this would benefit from a few more of the larger hexes, I ended up with only 1 or 2 on each nail and they weren't very noticeable.  Interestingly though, I bought this polish a year or so ago and my version is different - the glitter is a darker gold, and it has silver square glitters instead of the large hexes.  Don't know why they changed it, but I think the squares were a bit more interesting, but then the formula and coverage with this one are much better.  I could do a comparison if people would be interested in seeing that?

You can find these polishes here for £3.49 each, or they're also available in Superdrug :)

BeautyUK: Intergalactic and Twinkle Twinkle

Hello lovelies :)

I spent all night last night painting my nails (and er...drinking a bottle of wine) so I should hopefully have lots of posts coming up for you soon!

Today I'm showing you some glitter polishes I was sent from BeautyUK.  BeaultyUK is a British brand that produce colourful and affordable cosmetics.  You may have seen them in your local Superdrug :)

The polishes I was sent for review were glitters from the Posh Polish collection.  Today I'm showing you Intergalactic and Twinkle Twinkle, and you'll have to pop back later this week to see what else I was sent!

Rather than saving the best until last, I've decided to start with my favourite!  Intergalactic is a multicoloured glitter, made up of both square and hex glitters.

Intergalactic contains large hexes in gold and red, large squares in purple, green and red, medium hexes in blue, red, green and gold, as well as teeny little purple glitters.  It's pretty hard not to love a multicoloured glitter, and this is certainly no exception.  I love the little twist having some square glitters in it (and it also means you can totally justify buying it if you already own something like Technic Carnival).

Application was great - I used my normal two coat method here for this glitter gradient over OPI Skull and Glossbones.  The consistency was good, and the glitter's really dense.  Happy nail painter here.

Next up is Twinkle Twinkle.  From the bottle this looked like it was just going to be silver bar glitter, but I was totally wrong.

It's actually primarily silver holographic microshimmer, with a sprinkling of silver holo bar glitters.  Again, great consistency and glitter payoff.  I used two coats here - one was pretty enough for the microshimmer, but two gave a nice amount of bars I thought - over Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream.

Overall, I'm really pleased with these polishes - the quality is great and I think they're a bit different from what most high street brands offer.  It's nice to see brands coming up with new ideas rather than just recreating what the bigger brands have done!

BeautyUK Posh Polishes retail for £3.49 and you can check out the whole collection here.  They're also available in Superdrug, so you can pop in for an impulse buy as well!

Love Hearts

Morning all!  I hope you're all enjoying the festive season, and haven't over indulged too much!  I think if I see another glass of wine my liver might try to make a break for it...  Today's my last day in Swansea with my family, before I head up to Liverpool to spend New Year's with my boyfriend and his family.  My brother and sister-in-law (plus dogs) are coming over for a second Christmas dinner and eggnog later, so that should be good fun :)  And my sister-in-law isn't driving for a change, which means I can get her drunk :D

But anyway, you read my blog for the nails, so here you go!  These have been sitting in my 'To be posted' folder for months - I did them for the evening reception of my cousins wedding back in September, and for some reason just haven't got round to posting them.

I used George Gnome and OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons as my base colours, then added a coat of BeautyUK Gold Digger and Kleancolor Twinkly Love on the nude nails.  I did have to fish about a bit for the hearts, and place them where I wanted them, but I don't mind when they're this cute...

What do you think of an accent nail arrangement like this?  I'm normally a ring finger accent kind of girl, but I do enjoy the occasional foray into something different.  What's your accent nail preference?

On Stranger Clouds

Happy Tuesday!

Today I have for you my first attempt at a cloud manicure.  This also falls into the category of sensible work manicures (er...sort of).

I used a base of OPI Planks A Lot, then drew on the clouds using Barry M Gold Foil and OPI Stranger Tides (gotta love those Pirates of the Caribbean polishes).  I added a little sparkle using Saffron 01 and BeautyUK Gold Digger.

I have to say, from all the cloud manicures I've seen on other people's blogs, I thought it would be easier.  It was flipping difficult.  The brush on the OPI mini was perfect for this though, and I have a much easier time with that than the full size Barry M brush.

I was very pleased with the end result anyway :)  What do you think?  Have you tried a cloud manicure?

My Collection

People sometimes say to me "You must have so much nail polish!".  I always insist, of course, that I don't.  to be fair, it all used to fit in a shoe box.  It doesn't any more, but it's still far less than a lot of people's (I don't yet have a room devoted to nail polish, although I am working on my boyfriend...).

So anyway, I thought it'd be a good idea to photograph my collection so people could see what I have.  And because I was bored.  So here you go - all polish names are from left to right.

OPI 

Not Like The Movies, Fresh Frog of Bel Air, Teenage Dream, Grape...Set...Match, Over The Taupe, Mermaid's Tears, I Juggle...Men

Grey Glitter Gradient

Yay for alliteration!

Anyhoo, I'm still at my parents with my limited polish supply, so something simple for you today.  I'm still trying to get the hang of this gradient business, so I thought I'd have another go.

I used Beauty UK Soft Grey, with Barry M Grey sponged on the tips.  That's topped with Saffron 07 and a coat of Seche Vite.

I'll attempt a three colour gradient sometime soon, maybe I'll get better blending between the colours then.  I do love how this simple technique makes a mani look so much better though.  Now I just have to do my mum's nails before we go out tonight!

Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

Glitter Gradient

Hello all, I am now back from sunny Aberdeen (I have literally never seen so much rain), and I have some more nails for you.

Today I decided to try out a glitter gradient with a gorgeous new glitter I picked up last week.  This was my first attempt at this sort of manicure and...er...I failed a bit.

This is Beauty UK Soft Grey and Barry M Magenta Glitter, with a coat of Seche Vite.  The glitter's lovely, it's packed with really fine glitter and then has some larger pieces dispersed through it as well.

I don't think there's enough of a gradient effect, and the line where the glitter starts is too defined.  I might have been better off using a less dense glitter?  Any tips for how to do this more successfully next time would be much appreciated!

First Post!

After a few months of flooding all my Facebook friends' news feeds with pictures of my nails, I've decided to start a blog instead.  I'll be posting pictures of my nail art attempts, as well as the occasional swatches and reviews.

So for the time-being, here are my current nails.  I recently got my hands on some googly eyes that I desperately needed to incorporate into some nail art, and an elephant seemed the most appropriate way to do that...(I wanted to do a monkey, but I really couldn't draw one).

Apologies for the mess around my nails - the polish was really watery and I got fed up of trying to be neat.  I used Beauty UK Soft Grey (3 coats) and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream.  The pink for the ears was just a nail art pen I got off ebay, and the black is a Sharpie.  It's all sealed off with a coat of Seche Vite - I'm hoping this'll last a little longer than my OPI RapiDry before going gloopy!