China Glaze Rainstorm French Tips

Hi guys! Yesterday I showed you China Glaze Rainstorm, and I liked it so much that even when it got tipwear I didn't want to take it off. I wore this a couple of weeks ago when I was helping with the filming at work, and I was getting back so late at night that I didn't have time to do anything fancy. Enter...the French tip.

I like the French tip because it's quick and easy to do, but effective. I started with a line of Nails Inc Black Taxi on the tips and followed it with a swipe of a silver striper from Claire's Accessories. Hasta la vista, tipwear!

The lines are a bit wobbly because I was in such a hurry, but oh well. Macro is pretty unforgiving; from a distance it looked fine.

Valentine's Day Mani #1 - Red, Red Rose

Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
- Robert Burns

I made a pilgrimage to Colourcopia before Christmas and bought a bunch of nail polishes. For those who haven't heard of it, it's a store that sells an extensive collection of OPI and Nicole by OPI polishes in Westfield shopping centre. It is basically heaven. One of the things I picked up was the OPI & Serena Williams Glam Slam! US duo, so today I'm showing you Love is a Racket from it.

Love is a Racket is a cherry red glass fleck. The flecks are much more apparent in real life than they are in my photos, unfortunately. I used two coats for full opacity.

I don't wear many reds to be honest, but I really like this one as it's not a bog-standard red creme. And as Valentine's Day is only a couple of days away, I added nail stickers from Claire's to my thumb and ring fingers to make it a pseudo Valentine's manicure!

P.S. As you can see, I've filed my nails down to little nubbins! This wasn't entirely through choice; the nail on my index finger broke, so I had to shorten the others to make them match. Sigh.

China Glaze Devotion

For the last six months I've been living in a part of the country that seems to be stuck in a sort of 1950s time warp. It is the fashion version of no man's land. So imagine my surprise when I got distracted by the window display in a nail salon and found they were selling China Glaze nail polishes! After doing a little happy dance I popped in a bought a couple, including Devotion (a silver foil) and Grape Juice (a shimmery purple).

I used Devotion on my fingernails in preparation for a night out a couple of days ago. I haven't tried China Glaze polishes before, and I must admit I was a little disappointed with the formula. I've found that metallics are often either very runny or very thick, and this was definitely the former. It needed two coats to make it opaque and dried a bit streaky, although this evened out after I put a top coat on. It also bubbled a little, despite the fact I waited a good five to ten minutes between each coat. I love the colour though - it's a very bright silver that really stands out:

As you can see, I also used one of Claire's nail stickers on my ring finger. I'm a big fan of these. They're pretty cheap (£3 for the set) and they just make a standard manicure look a bit more fun:

I'm on day four of this manicure now and it has yet to chip, which is a pleasant surprise. The formula on Devotion may have been a disappointment, but I'm also wearing China Glaze Grape Juice on my toes and it applied much better; it wasn't nearly as thin. I won't post a photo of it though because frankly I think feet are kind of gross and I don't want to subject anyone to looking at mine (you're welcome). So would I buy China Glaze polishes again? Probably...