Review: Born Pretty Store Flakies

It's the weekend, hurrah!  Although I did only work one day this week (and that wasn't work so much as watching people present and eating a free lunch)...but still, weekends mean family time :)  And even more so this weekend because the in-laws have come to stay!

Today I have the second item I received for review from Born Pretty Store.  Prepare yourself for holo flakie goodness.

Honestly, the pictures do not do this justice (blogger fail...oh well!).  I literally gasped when I applied it.  I do like me some sparkle...

I was a little confused by the instructions though.  Not that they weren't clear, more that I was a doubter.  So it says for a full coverage mirror look you should cure your no-wipe gel top coat and then dab it on - the pot even comes with a little applicator by the way!  Alternatively, for more of a flakie look, the instructions say to apply to your top coat before curing.  I didn't understand how it would stick after curing, so I went for the flakie look.

The flakes are mostly a lovely warm purple and dark blue.  Then there's also holo glitter in there so you get the flashes of that as well.  Frankly, it is perfection.  Oh and it's shown here over black polish for best effect of course.

I used this with gel polish as per the instructions (I'm a stickler for following the rules don't you know).  When I googled for reviews of it though whilst trying to sort out my confusion about when to apply it, most reviews I read had just used it on normal polish applied to wet top coat, so that's also an option.  If you don't use gel, you don't need to miss out!

You can find this glitter here, and the colour I've used is #3.  Don't forget, shipping is free to wherever you are in the world and you can get 10% off with the code LKL91.  And while you're there you might as well treat yourself to a few other bits...

Holo Gradient

A little while ago I bought my first ever Ciate polishes in one of their many massive sales (I picked up the Nail Lab in a more recent one - will blog about that soon!).  I'd never really been particularly interested in Ciate - I didn't think the polishes particularly looked anything special and I didn't like all the drama they'd created about people using the term caviar manicure.  But dammit I love a bargain.

One of the items I bought was the Mini Paint Palette.  Seemed like a good way to try out their polishes :)

I used a base of Amazing Grace, a pretty soft pink jelly.  I then painted on Looking Glass to create a gradient.  I actually really wasn't expecting Looking Glass to look like that; I thought it was a glitter, but it's actually a stealth holo!  Happy days!

I really like the effect of the holo blending into the non-holo base - I should definitely do more of these!  All-in-all I can't criticise the quality of the Ciate polishes I've tried.  Although, as always, there are about 5 from this set still sitting unused...I should really stop buying polish.

Orly Miss Conduct

I have a rare swatch post for you today!  Photographing this polish reminded me why I don't do swatches...such a pain getting a polish to look totally colour accurate.

Anyhoo, a little while ago I bought my mum a set of three Orly polishes, which included Miss Conduct.  It caused me genuine physical pain to hand it over to here, having seen Miss Conduct all over the blogosphere.  I couldn't justify buying myself a set as well, because the other two polishes were just a red creme (and I definitely have enough of those!) and a glitter that looked pretty similar to China Glaze Pure Joy.  I did contemplate deconstructing the set and just giving her the other two polishes, but I thought that wouldn't have been very daughterly of me...

But then!  A few weeks later there was a different set!  Still featuring Miss Conduct, but now with Halo and Angel Eyes, which I could TOTALLY justify adding to my collection!  So, at last, I had Miss Conduct.

Then...er...it sat untried for a couple of months.

So I finally whipped it out to have a play last week.  I actually had thought it was a full coverage glitter (I have no idea how when I had looked at swatches), so I was rather surprised!

It's actually a rather fabulous magenta polish, with a very fine scattered holo.

I used two coats for these swatches, plus a coat of Seche Vite.

The colour is just totally stunning.  And the holo...well, it's holo, what more do I need to say?  It's quite a subtle holo I think, like at times you almost want to call it a shimmer, but it's definitely more than that.

Application had no problems.  No dragging or patchiness that you get with some holos.  And I wore this for a fair few days and didn't have any chipping, just minimal tip wear.

Do you have Orly Miss Conduct?  Or is it a polish you'd like to add to your collection?

I just need a blue holo now...

Day 19: Outline

I do believe these are also referred to as framed nails?  Anyway, this is something I haven't tried before, so I decided to go with this over the other option wings.

The way I've seen this done in the past is to paint your outline colour first, then tape of your tips and paint your second colour, leaving a little bit of a margin around it.  I sort of did it like this, but minus the tape - I just freehanded tips on in my outline colour.  Not as neat as you'd get with tape, but I really hate the stuff lol.

Naturally what little sunlight we had disappeared when I went to take pictures of these!  I used Jessica Ruffled Bottoms and Layla Gold Idol.

My nails are really curved, so you can't really see that there's an outline at the sides as well!  So here's a side shot just to prove they are there lol.

Thanks to the rubbish British weather, Gold Idol looks like a rather poor scattered holo here.  It's actually an AMAZING really strong linear holo.  Here's a picture with flash that shows it much better!

 Have you tried outline nails?  Or would you have chosen to have a go at wings instead?

Flip Flop #11: Splatter

So today I learnt that I can't to splatter manis.  Absolute disaster.  I don't get it...I have no idea what I was doing wrong.  And then I got a bit light headed from all the blowing lol.  So in the end I went for blobbing polish on and blowing it across the nail.  Didn't really work at all because it spread out far to nice and evenly.  But here's what I ended up with anyway!

Yeah...

I used Barry M Grey, then 'splattered' with Jessica Ruffled Bottoms and GOSH Holographic Hero.  I've probably managed to take the only photos in existence of this polish where it doesn't look holographic...that's an achievement right?

Flip Flop #6: Fan Brush

I saw this technique a little while ago on the Crumpet's Nail Tarts groups, and it looked fantastic!  So it'd been on my to do list for a while, and this challenge was the kick up the bum I needed to get on with actually doing it!

Other versions of this technique I've seen have the polish swept across the nail, either side to side or diagonally.  I thought it'd look quite cool going up the nail from the cuticle instead.  I was mostly wrong, but here's what I ended up with.

They're super pretty...but that's just because there's three different holo polishes, not because of anything I did lol.

I used a base of A-England Saint George - a beautiful teal-y holographic.  Then I used the fan brush to add Nubar Reclaim and Layla Gold Idol.  As for the rhinestones...pretend they're not there.  They looked good IRL but in the photo they just look awful lol - they're too small and the colours look wrong!

I have rather a lot of links for you today as well.  Firstly, there are of course all the other ladies taking part in this challenge.  The other option for today was Glitter Bomb, so there are definitely going to be a lot of drool-worthy manicures!

Also, there's been a bit of a change to the British Bloggers group on Facebook.  Instead of posting a weekly round up, we'll be linking up via InLinkz once a week - hopefully you'll find this a better way to discover new blogs and see more pretty nails :)  Feedback on this would be appreciated!

Lady Flowers

Teehee.

A little while ago I won a giveaway hosted by Rebecca at Polish Etc.  The prize was two A-England polishes  of my choice - I hadn't tried any before but I had been lusting after some, so I was very excited!  After much deliberation, I chose Lady of the Lake and Saint George.  Today I'm showing you Lady of the Lake, and I shall show you Saint George in another post.

A-England Lady of the Lake is a beautiful purple holographic polish.  It applied beautifully, and was so pretty it distracted me in all my lectures while I was wearing it (although I'll be honest, that's not a difficult task...).  I added some flowers using Barry M Matt White and Lemon Ice Cream.  I was a bit lazy with my flowers - I just painted a star and added a dot, so they're not as good as they could've been.  But the purple's pretty, so I don't care.

Here's a picture in artificial light (my boyfriend told me off for standing on the sofa to get closer to the light...) so you can see the holographic goodness a little better.  Pretty...

So thank you again Rebecca!  Do check out her blog Polish Etc - she's got some beautiful swatches that she's posted recently!

Untried: A-England Lady of the Lake

GOSH Holographic Hero

You may never see any nail art from me again.  I don't think I can bear to take this off.  I don't have much to say (other than I'm in love) but I do have an unnecessarily large number of almost identical pictures for you.

These are all two coats of Holographic Hero with a coat of Seche Vite.  There was no attempt at clean up here - sorry - I was far too excited for such things.

These pictures are in natural light (I wouldn't go so far as to say sunlight...).

And these are with the flash.

 Pretty pretty holo...  It's probably worth mentioning the application.  It wasn't too bad, although I did end up with a few bald spots on the first coat, and so after two coats there were some thinner patches.  But who cares, look at it...  I only have one other holo polish (Nubar Reclaim), which is stunning when it's in direct sunlight, but the rest of the time it just looks like a normal polish.  Holographic Hero is holo ALL THE TIME.

It gets a thumbs up from me.  In case that wasn't obvious.