Born Pretty Lace Decals

Hello lovelies!

So it's a bank holiday weekend and naturally the weather is glorious!  Haha, I jest of course.  It's the middle of the afternoon and it's so grey outside that I've actually had to put the lights on.  And genuinely, I don't know how it's possible for there to be so much rain.  Another one of those moments I'm glad I love in a top floor flat.

British summer is the best.

Anyway, I really need to give the flat a good clean today ready for my fiance's return tomorrow.  But obviously I (and my nails) hate cleaning, so instead I'm posting this Born Pretty Store review.  This time I have some more of their wonderful decals, for quick, simple nail art :)

So these are the decals!

They're lace sort of designs, and you get 10 black and 10 white.

Let me firstly apologise for the quality of this photo...I did these while I was up in Liverpool and didn't have my light box!

Anyway, so yes, this is what I did with them:

I used them over OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons.  I think from the shape of them they're really intended for almond shaped nails, so they kind of didn't really fit very well on my nails.  And some on them I thought were very small compared to others (i.e. my middle finger) so I had to add in a few little black dots on all the nails to try and balance them out a bit.  And then I thought they still looked a bit odd with just a touch of black lace on the tips, so I sponged some Barry M Gold Foil on to try and make the rest of the nail a bit more interesting.  In hindsight, I'd sponge the gold on first so that you could put the lace overlapping it.

If you've read any of my Born Pretty Store reviews before, you'll know I'm a HUGE fan of their water decals.  But honestly?  I was really disappointed with these.  Not just the shape, because that might be fine for other nail shapes.  Not just the size, because that's down to personal taste.  But they were NOT easy to use.  They kept folding over on themselves when I slid them off the backing paper and I couldn't unstick them, which meant I ended up with bits that I couldn't use (so I stuck them off the end of my nail) making the decals smaller.  I've never had this problem with any other Born Pretty Store decals, so I don't know if these were thinner than all the others I've used or is it was just because of the sort of long thin shape of them.

If I haven't put you off though and you do want to try these out, you can see them here.  Each sheet costs £1.18, and as always you can get 10% off these or anything else on the website with the code LKL91.

Happy shopping! And I hope you all have a lovely weekend (fingers crossed for some sunshine tomorrow...).

Born Pretty Store Chains

I didn't disappear again, honest!  I had an exam last week so I went in to hermit revision mode.  Don't know why I bothered though - it was awful!  Wine in the pub afterwards was lovely though...all's well that ends well.

I have a few Born Pretty Store nail art products to show you again, the first of which is this chain:

I've seen these around for a while, and I'm always somewhat intrigued by them.  They don't seem like they'd be the easiest thing to use!

It turns out they weren't too bad actually :)  I snipped them with some nail scissors (easy enough as long as you cut between the beads!) and stuck them on with top coat.  I actually - you may want to sit down for this - used tweezers to position the chains.  I know right...  My mum bought me some great angled tweezers for Christmas which I now use for everything.

I did some skittles so you could get a few ideas how to wear them - that's a heart on my thumb in case you can't tell (it's totally obvious from a different angle, ahem...).  I just did this manicure for this review, but if I was wearing it longer I'd probably file down the beads overhanging the tip of my little finger if going for that sort of look.  The beads aren't too dense so I think it would be do-able.  And I almost forgot!  The polish is OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes.

If you like what you see, you can purchase this chain (and a whole host of other colours) here.  It's £1.54 and you get a whole metre.  That's a lot of beads.  Don't forget, you can use the code LKL91 for 10% off and shipping is free to wherever you may be in the world.  Happy shopping :)

Glam Polish Meteorite Mash

Hello lovelies :)

I hope you've all had a lovely Sunday.  I had a nice lazy start to the day, then I had to pop into town to pick up a few last bits and pieces for my friend's hen do next weekend.  Town was packed though!  I always go on a Sunday instead of a Saturday because it's so much quieter, but there was some sort of scouts march happening so it was crawling with kids.  Bad times.

Anyhoo, just a quick swatch today.  Although this polish is nail art in itself.  It's Glam Polish Meteorite Mash.  I forget now where I first saw a Glam Polish swatch, but I immediately had to track down where to buy them.  I love love love their bright colours.  And this polish is absolute neony glittery perfection.

I've used it here over Barry M Matt White.  I didn't want to lose any of the colours of the glitter into the base, so I stuck with white.  Maybe a pale blue would be nice as well?  I shall have to try :)

The stars are my favourite, because...well...stars in your nail polish just don't get old.  I did have to sort of place the stars rather than brush them on, but all the other glitters applied lovely.  And frankly I don't mind a little extra faff to get stars on my nails.

What do you think of this polish?  Have you tried any Glam Polishes yet?

Vinylux Topcoat

So this is a prime example of a post I should've written months ago and just didn't...

I was really rather excited when the CND Vinylux range was first released.  For those of you who haven't come across them, they're basically supposed to be like gel polishes (i.e. should remain chip-free for a week) but you just apply them like normal polish, no curing required.  The apparent science behind this is that normal nail polish becomes brittle with sun exposure due to some chemical breakdown business (I'm a physicist, not a chemist!), but the Vinylux polishes contain something that apparently reacts with sunlight and becomes more durable with time, instead of brittle.

And yes, as a scientist, I am thoroughly ashamed of that shocking explanation.

So, I wasn't really particularly interested in the coloured polishes.  I've got so many normal polishes that I really don't want to start using some other type of polish (be it gel or vinylux) and have to rebuy every colour in that type of polish.  I was, however, very much interested in whether I could use the Vinylux topcoat over normal polish for a longer lasting manicure.

For my extremely scientific experiment, I decided to paint both hands the same, with Vinylux topcoat on one hand, and my usual Seche Vite on the other.  Here's how I got on!

I used OPI Natural Nail base coat, plus two coats of Cirque Planet Caraven on both hands.  This was my first mistake.  This was the first time I tried out this polish and it turns out it just does not flipping chip!  I can honestly say this is the first time I've found that a negative about a polish.  But anyway, left hand is Vinylux and right is Seche Vite.

Also, please excuse awkward right hand poses.  It hasn't had the same training as my left.

After 1 day:

 So far so good!  No chips on either hand.  Vinylux is maybe a little glossier than Seche Vite though.

After 2 days:

 Right...yes...still nothing of interest happening.

After 4 days:

 Well this was turning out to be super interesting...  It was at this point I decided I should've used a polish I know chips (Illamasqua, I'm looking at you!).

After 6 days:

 Hurrah!  We have chips!  The Seche Vite starts to lag behind the Vinylux, with a few little chips on the corners of the thumb and middle finger.  Vinylux is still going strong.

Frankly though, I wanted more chipping.  After 6 days of the same polish (one which I'd decided I didn't even like) I really wanted to change my manicure, but I needed something a bit better to show you than a couple of chipped corners.  So, I had a marathon dish-washing session and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom.  And later on on day 6...

 So neither survived the cleaning intact.  Just one of the many reasons I don't clean.  But the Vinylux has clearly fared better than poor old Seche Vite.

Any because I wasn't leaving the house, I left it on for one more day.  So after a week, here's what the results were:

Not much change on the Vinylux hand from yesterday, apart from a chip at the base of my middle finger.  The Seche Vite hand has gone past the point of no return though (not that chips ever repair themselves...) and the chips inflicted by day 6's cleaning have got larger.

The conclusion?  Well...it appears as though Vinylux keeps your nails chip-free for longer than Seche Vite.  And certainly, until the cleaning there were no chips at all on the Vinylux hand.  The jury's still out, but I'll definitely have to give it a go again over a poorer quality polish!

If you are interested in purchasing the Vinylux topcoat, I picked mine up from Nail Polish Direct, but I believe I've also seen it on Amazon.  You can see the official spiel from CND here.

I'm Still Alive!

Firstly, I shall make my excuses...

Life's been somewhat hectic.  With planning my wedding, my friend's hen do, starting my Masters project and an exam coming up in just over a week, the blogging has...er...well, I've posted three times this year.  Shameful.  I've found that whereas when I used to have a spare half hour I might paint my nails or write a blog post, now I spend my spare time flicking through Pinterest looking for wedding ideas.  Sometimes for other people's weddings.  I am wedding obsessed.

But of course I don't want my blog to fizzle out and die (if it hasn't already), and I'll certainly want it here and waiting when the wedding planning is all over!

So, I have a two part plan for being a less rubbish blogger.

Part 1 - Post everything I've got waiting in my 'Ready' folder

Some of that stuff has been in there for a loooong time.  It really needs clearing out so I can start afresh, and I might as well post them all rather than delete them!  This does come with a few warnings though.  A lot of the pictures were taken while I was up in Liverpool earlier this year without my lightbox, so some of the photos aren't the best quality.  Clean up is often absent.  Some of them you can even see a little bit of polish I missed when removing the previous manicure...lovely.

Part 2 - Steal other people's ideas

As well as being busy, a big reason I haven't posted is because I haven't even been painting my nails.  I literally don't even know when I last did nail art, and even then it was probably only leopard print.  I've seriously lost my mojo.  I have zero new ideas and I feel like I'm just never going to improve my skills.  So, I'm thinking copying a few manicures I like would be a good place to start, and hopefully eventually get the creative juices flowing!  Obviously I won't actually steal designs, they'll be credited!  Any suggestions of manicures I should (attempt to) recreate are welcome :)

So, here goes...wish me luck!