Untried Challenge Day 9: Cheapest

There's quite a few of my untried polishes that were only 99p or £1, so I had a few to choose from for this manicure.

My cheap polish here is Sinful Colors See You Soon (picked up from Poundland).  I teamed it up with W7 Mosaic.  I thought the colours matched a little better in the bottle than they did on the nail - oh well!  Both very pretty polishes anyway :)

Don't forget to catch up with all the other ladies!

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Lizajane at Organic Neglect

Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails

Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors 

Rainbow Foil

Evening everyone!

Why oh why is it still not Friday?  Or, better yet, Tuesday, when I have 10 days off work, woohoo!  Going to pop down to Swansea for a few days to hopefully book our wedding venue and my Mum's organised an engagement party.  And then on Sunday we fly to Portugal :)

Anyhoo, today I have some nail foil from KKCenterHK to share with you.

Back in the day, my Mum and I used to use Special FX foils, so I was quite excited to try these ones out!

The foil comes in a little storage pot, which is fab for keeping it in good condition!  I have some foils that I bought from ebay a couple of years ago, and they just came in an envelope, so there's bit patches that can't be used because they're creased and crumpled.  None of those problems here!

The foils are super easy to use.  Apply the glue in a thin, even layer.  When the glue goes clear, it's ready (it'll still be sticky, so don't touch it!).  Press the foil down on top.  Give it a good rub and make sure you get into all the corners.  Remove the foil and ta da!  Pretty rainbow gradient nails without all the sponging :)  And with a bonus bit of holographic thrown in.

It's a good idea to use a layer of polish underneath, just in case you get any small gaps in your foil.

And here's this foil used for a full manicure:

Top coat is a must to seal the foil, otherwise your manicure really won't last.  Special FX used to sell a Sealer, because normal topcoats would cause the foil to crinkle.  I used one coat of Seche Vite here, and I don't think the crinkling is noticeable.

This foil (product NNAIL-E04) is available to buy here. It costs $7.69 (£5.09) for the foil, or $12 (£7.94) for a set of the foil plus the glue.  Please note, this isn't just nail glue!  You won't have much luck if you try to use that!

Don't forget, if you decide to make a purchase (of anything) from KKCenterHK, you can use the code polishedart for 10% off.

Untried Challenge Day 8: Glitter

Hello lovely ladies!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend (extra lovely if you're in the UK with the bank holiday!).  I went down to St Ives for the weekend to meet up with my fiance's family, which was lovely :) I  also managed to sunburn the bottom of my legs whilst wearing turned up jeans, despite being freezing.  Slightly concerned about what's going to happen to me when I go to Portugal in a couple of weeks...I'll come back a beetroot.

Anyhoo, here's a reminder of the challenge prompts for the Untried Challenge:

So far I've been going in order, and I've got up to 'oldest'.  I'm now going out of order though (although my newest polishes - some rather lovely Illamasquas - are sitting poised and ready for the 'newest' challenge).

Today I'm jumping ahead to 'glitter'.  I'd wanted a black and white matte glitter (such an oxymoron...) for aaages, but I didn't really want to pay indie prices and not really know what quality of polish I was going to get.  So, when this polish was released, I HAD TO HAVE IT.  I ordered it immediately, then swooned at it when it arrived...then put it in my storage box and never used it.

It is, of course, China Glaze Whirled Away.  Not quite as elusive as It's A Trap-eze, but this still sold out in a lot of places pretty quickly!  I was seriously impressed with that whole Cirque du Soleil collection.

The white glitters required a bit of fishing, which is most most reviews have said.  A little bit of placement was required to get an even coverage, but it certainly wasn't the most difficult polish to apply.  I've used two coats here over OPI Can't Find My Czechbook from the Euro Centrale collection.

The other ladies, whose laptops didn't decide to give up on them, are now up to day 13.  Take a little look-see what they've been up to:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Lizajane at Organic Neglect

Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails

Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors 

The Most Fantabulous Water Decals In The World

As promised, here's the second set of water decals I have to show you from Born Pretty Store!

Oh my giddy aunt.  Straight on with nail art pictures!

Here's the first manicure I did!  As I had hoped, the white ones were see though!  Yay!  So I blobbed on some pretty colours and applies the decals over the top.  They are faaaabulous.

The decals are super easy to use - just cut them out, peel of the protective plastic, soak for 10-15 seconds and slide off the backing paper.  And when I say 'cut out', this is what I do...

Personally, I find it easier to cut them out really roughly and then just clean them up with acetone (as you would polish) afterwards.  You can of course cut the shape out right in the first place, but I'm terrible at judging the right size lol.

Next up, even more fantabulousness...

I don't think words can actually convey how much I love these.  Actual photos of leopards on my nails!  Aahhhhhhh!  Epic.

There are, obviously, enough decals for four full sets of nails. But of course you can just use them for accent nails, and make them go further :)

It's worth mentioning, all the decals were translucent, so I put them on over a coat of white to make sure the colour popped :)

So if you love these as much as I do, you can find them here.  They cost $3.99 (£2.65) with free shipping worldwide.  And don't forget, you can use my code LKL91 for 10% off any purchases.

Untried Challenge Day 7: Oldest

Going for a stab in the dark here...I think this is my oldest polish: Max Factor Ruby Fruit.  I'm assuming this because, back in the day before I was nail polish addicted, I loved Max Factor make up.  Some things never change though, so back then I also didn't like paying lits of money for things.  So I used to buy make up twice a year when they had those offers on in Boots with the free bag of goodies when you spent £15.  And I'm assuming this is a polish I got in one of those, because it's really not a colour I'd buy (unless I was drunk and/or caught up in the nail-polish-buying moment, in which case anything goes).

So anyhoo, here it is!  My oldest untried.

There's a reason I've left Ruby Fruit unused for this long - it's ugly.  It was actually really pretty on the first coat, it was more of a fuschia colour.  But far too thin and streaky to wear as one coat, so you have to build it up to this rubbish colour.  I also decided to change the rules of this challenge, and I decided that black and white polishes are also allowed.  So I added some Barry M Black tips and dotted with OPI OY-Another Polish Joke from the Euro Centrale collection.

I was really impressed with the OPI actually.  In the bottle I though it was going to be a bit of a rubbish translucent gold-y sort of colour, because it looks similar to another brand I have which is a bit poor on the nail.  I was fully ready to dot over my dots several times to get an opaque colour, but it only took one go!  It's packed full of shimmer, very pretty indeed.

Don't forget to take a look at how all the other ladies in the challenge are getting on!

Jonochi at Just Add Polish

Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily

Amy at Fancy Side

Amanda at Designer Nail Accents

Patricia at Polished and Glittered

Lizajane at Organic Neglect

Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails

Kristina at Lacquer Fetish

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors