Guest Post: Glitterfists

Friday the 13th.  Unlucky for some...  But not for me, because I have this wonderful guest post from Melissa at Glitterfists to share with you!  Melissa has an incredible indie collection, and here blog is full of beautiful swatches, so do check it out!

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Hello everyone! Sam was ever so kind to allow me to do a guest post on her blog and I was definitely honored when she said yes! Sam’s nail art is beautifully executed and she’s someone I look up to for inspiration when attempting to do nail art (even though I’m terrible at it!). So I just want to say thank you, Sam. I wanted to create something simple, yet fun and include some nail art as well. So I hope you all like my look!

For this look I used 3 polishes. I used Enchanted Polish July 2013, Sally Hansen Salon Perfect Hi Ho Silver and OPI Black Onyx. I’ll be honest and let you all know that this is my second attempt ever at nail art, so I wanted to do something simple yet challenging (for me, at least!). So, I chose to do cheetah print.

I first applied 2 coats of EP July 2013 on each nail. Then on my ring finger I took the smallest dotting tool I had, if you don’t have one a tooth pick or bobby pin will work great, and took SH Hi Ho Silver and drew little wobbly circles and triangles. I let those dry just a little bit then took OPI’s Black Onyx with a slightly bigger dotting tool and drew C’s around those wobbly shapes to create the cheetah “look”. I then went back to my smallest dotting tool and put in some extra black dots. I added a top coat and wa-lah, you’re finished!

I think this is a really sleek look that you could wear to work or to school without it looking too crazy and its definitely something beginners could do! I hope you all enjoyed as much as I did. Again, thanks Sam. You’re a doll.

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I totally love this manicure!  I'm so pleased Melissa decided to have a go at some nail art, and it turned out great!  And how stunning is that shimmer??

Thank you again for guest posting for me Melissa (and for your very kind words - you're too sweet!).

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!

Guest Post: Life in Lacquer

Hello all :)  Today's guest post comes from Jade at Life In Lacquer.  Jade has some absolutely stunning stamped manicures that you NEED to check out, so pop on over and have a look!

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Hi everyone! I’m Jade popping over from Life in Lacquer. I am very excited to be guest blogging for you today at Polished Art!

I am a very big fan of Sam’s work and I am lucky to be able to show you all some of mine!

So after taking about 3 hours to decide what to do I have come up with this beaut!

For some reason I hardly ever use greens. But I do really like green… Strange!

For this I used a fan brush to drag a different colour from each side of the feature nails. I have never done this before but I think it looks really nice so I expect to be doing it again!

Its one of those brushes you get in the brush kits and just gets put to one side. But not anymore LOL.

Products used:

OPI Stranger Tides

OPI Don’t Mess With OPI

China Glaze Jolly Holly

Cheeky Jumbo Plate Viva Mexico

Konad Special Polish in White

Fan Brush

Poshe Top coat

I hope you enjoyed reading this and seeing my work! Hopefully I'll be allowed to pop back again soon
J
Life In Lacquer x

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I love the effect Jade achieved with the fan brush - it looks like fabric!  I may have to give the technique another go after my failed attempt a few months back...  And OPI Stranger Tides is one of my all time favourite polishes!

Thank you again Jade for your post!

Born Pretty Store Studs

Hello everyone!  Sorry I've been so quiet recently, just don't seem to be able to find any time to blog (good job I have all these lovely guest posters helping out!).

I had a...erm...interesting weekend.  We went down to Eastbourne on Saturday, stayed in a hotel with a jacuzzi bath and snazzy shower, went out for some tapas, yum yum yum!  My eye was hurting a little though, but I just wore my contact lenses anyway, because that's how I roll.  Sunday morning my eyelid was like half the size of my face (well...near enough) and my eye was sooo sore.  We drove down to Brighton, whilst I hid from the sun behind sunglasses.  Long story short, I have an ulcer on my cornea and had to go to eye hospital.  Boo :(  And now I'm not allowed to wear my contact lenses for a month...hmph.

Anyhoo, my fiance suggested I do some eye ulcer nails.  That's not what I've got to show you today though, you'll be pleased to hear!  I have some rather lovely neon studs from Born Pretty Store.  BPS has a huge selection on nail art products, as well stationery, accessories and other bits.

The studs are round and 2mm.  They come in a little packet of approximately 200.  It isn't quite as ideal as a pot I don't think, but the packet is at least resealable.

I used Barry M Grey for my base colour, then added tips with Max Factor Cactus Green and Disco Pink, then added large dots of Disco Pink on my accent nails and added studs on top.

The studs were as easy to use as any other studs I've tried, and didn't stick up from the nail too much.  Colour-wise, I thought they were really pretty, although I would say they were more pastel than neon.  Although, I should add, the colour on the website is accurate.

You can see these studs here, costing only £1.91 per pack (this is #6 I've shown you).  As always, if you decide to make a purchase you can use the code LKL91 for 10% off, and shipping is free worldwide.

Time for me to put some more eye drops in...

Guest Post: Becacine

Let's kick off the month with another guest post!  Today we have the eponymous Becacine.  If you love holo polishes, you NEED to check out her swatches (you will weep with jealousy).

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The lovely and uber talented UK nail blogger, Sam, is sharing one of my posts with her community. Yay  Take a look at her witty blog, Polished Art and join her site for fantastic nails and tutorials. You know you want to ☼

My contribution to *cough*cough* my rough interpretation of nail art involves Zoya Jelly Professional Lacquer in 3 shades of supremely buildable colors that would do wonders in the hands of just that - a professional. Funny thing - I don't do nail art!

Initially my intent was to just wear these colors alone so I did a skittle manicure to test the colors. After 3 coats, it still didn't feel right because they are so sheer and my nails were getting dangerously thick so I decided to try some random nail art "blobs" instead. Not a pretty word but the manicure turned out to be quite lovely at a distance. I am showing macro shots so you can see the different colors but the effect was much prettier IRL. I received many compliments because no one looks at another person's nails in macro mode!

 
Here were the steps:

Zoya Paloma, a sheer deep fuchsia-berry as an overall base color followed by Zoya Katherine, a sheer, dark, red-toned aubergine/oxblood with Zoya Frida, a sheer, dark, warm-toned teal blue randomly blobbed about. The always puurrrfect Hong Kong Girl top coat made them shine like glass. The manicure lasted a good 4 days without any tip wear.

 
The colors are actually gorgeous and would be perfect for jelly sandwiches. This was a fun experiment but as most of my readers know, I like my thin nails and tend to get frustrated by the amount of build up required for a novice at nail art. Don't let that dissuade you. 

 
A big thank you to Sam. I will be watching and learning from you, my dear ☼

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Well I for one think Becacine's "blobs" are stunning!  I seriously need to get myself some jellies...  I wasn't keen on the idea of them at first because I cannot stand VNL, but looking at the gorgeous manicures you can create using them (like this!) I think I need to have a change of heart!  I'm also (and I'm aware of how random this is going to sound) a little jealous of that perfect little glint she's got on her nails in the second picture.

A huge thank you again to Becacine, and don't forget to go check out her blog!