Owl Always Love You

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm single (again) this year, but instead of moping I like to think of it as a 'me' day. So I'll be spending the day with my hamster Claude, plus Molly Ringwald and the rest of the Brat Pack - yup, I will be watching cheesy eighties films this evening. :) Are you doing anything for Valentine's Day this year?

My Valentine's manicure this year is based on a design by Chalkboard Nails. She freehanded an adorable pair of owls and I knew I had to give it a go. I love owls - according to my parents I've been obsessed with them since I was little - and recently I've been going owl mad. I've bought an owl necklace, jumper, snood and ring. Owl nails seemed an obvious progression!

The base colour for this design was OPI My Very First Knockwurst, a pinky nude. The two pinks I used for the owls themselves are Essie Tour de Finance and Essie Sure Shot (which I also used for the hearts on my thumb). The heart-shaped rhinestones are from a set I got on eBay.

Right, I'm off to watch Sixteen Candles and eat too much chocolate. Have a great day!

Sonnetarium After the Rain & If We Could Meet By the Sea

Good evening! Sorry for not posting for a bit, I've been on a course in Wales. To make it up to you I'm showing you two swatches from the indie brand Sonnetarium. I've had these for a while - I bought them at the same time as Samurai Princess - and I've worn them both before, but kept forgetting to photograph them. Anyway, here they are.

After the Rain has a blue shimmer base with multi-coloured glitter - I could see white, red, green, yellow and purple glitter. The base is pretty opaque so it doesn't need undies; this is two coats on its own. It has a great balance of glitter to base and was a breeze to apply.

If We Could Meet By the Sea has small teal and white hex glitter, smaller white glitter and teal bar glitter in a clear base. It's a really pretty combination and it does remind me a bit of the ocean. I've shown a single coat over Essie Turquoise & Caicos - again, it application was very easy. I think this is my favourite of the two!

Glitzology Swatches - Part Two

Good evening! This is the second part of my swatches from the indie brand Glitzology; you can find the first part here.

Bad Things is inspired by the TV show True Blood, so I knew I had to buy this polish. It has a deep red jelly base with different shaped red glitter, small black hexes, and silver holographic micro glitter. It also has red hearts - you can see one on my middle finger! This is a surprise favourite for me; I didn't expect to like this polish quite as much as I do. You can build it to opacity on its own but I chose to layer one coat over Orly Ruby.

Second is Diet Cokehead. I love love LOVE the name of this one - it describes me perfectly! Hello, my name is Sophie and I am a Diet Cokehead. I drink it every day (sorry, teeth). Anyway, the polish contains red square and hex glitter, black hexes, and red and black bar glitter in a shimmery silver base. Basically, it looks exactly like a can of Diet Coke can. As with Bad Things it's opaque on its own but I layered it over Barry M Silver Foil instead.

Finally I have Snow Day to show you. It has matte white glitter and disco glitter (which looks slightly yellow in my photos for some reason...) with an iridescent blue shimmer. It's a wintry polish but I think it can look good all year round depending on what you wear under it; I used Essie Borrowed & Blue here. It's packed with glitter so I dabbed it on rather than applying normally, but it wasn't really a bother.

As with yesterday's, the polishes needed two coats of top coat to make them perfectly smooth, and there were no curling glitters. I am a huge fan of Glitzology now and I'll definitely be placing another order very soon. :)

OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Evening! I've got another OPI Skyfall collection colour to share with you today. OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service has a greyish blue base with a green, turquoise, pink and purple shimmer. The shimmer is pretty special in that it's really lots of very small flakes (my camera is rubbish at extreme macro shots, but A Polish Addict has a great one here). It's really really beautiful. It had an easy application but the formula was a little sheer and needed three coats for opacity.

So I mentioned recently that when I reached thirty followers I'd have a giveaway. I've already bought the polishes but I was wondering if anyone knows the rules about posting polish within the UK and abroad? I had a look on the Royal Mail website but it wasn't very clear and basically seemed to say, 'Nail polish bad'. Obviously others have done it though so there must be ways!

China Glaze Immortal & Glitter Goblin

Oops, I didn't mean to not post for five days but I've been so busy this week that all the days have sort of blurred together. I had a training day yesterday on how to manage pests (insects/rodents) in historic houses, which probably sounds really dull but is actually fascinating. It turns out I knew most of it already so I didn't really learn much, but oh well.

Today I'm showing you the two polishes I bought from China Glaze's Wicked collection for Halloween, Immortal and Glitter Goblin. I actually passed on the blurple colour, can you believe that? It just didn't seem that unique. Immortal, however, is pretty interesting - a medium grey with turquoise and fuchsia shimmer. I'm going through a grey phase at the moment, so I had to have it. Glitter Goblin isn't as cool as I'd thought it would be from promo shots: orange and silver glitter in a clear base. I was expecting awesomeness; I got blah. Anyway, I decided to wear both polishes together, with Glitter Goblin as the accent nail.

You can see that now the weather is dark and rainy and rubbish I am in desperate need of a lightbox. I had to take these photos in the bathroom under the light there, because it's the brightest in the house! Does anyone have any tips for making a DIY lightbox?

Lastly, I decided a while ago that when I got to 30 followers I was going to do a giveaway - I'm only one away now! Come on, let's get me to 30! :)

Burning Bright

Hi guys, this is my last post before I go on holiday on Tuesday. I'm off to Spain, and I have some very exciting nail art posts to keep you entertained while I'm away. :)

I also have a bit of nail art for you today too. I was wearing Orly Emberstone, a gorgeous glowy orange, for a few days when tipwear began to appear. I didn't want to take it off so I used Sctoch tape to make a large triangle with Orly Rock It. As a final touch I used gold striping tape along the lines where the two polishes met.

I like this manicure, but what a nightmare the striping tape was! I've used it as a guide before but not in an actual design - I did this at night, and the next morning it was peeling off the nail despite the top coat! I had to redo it on a couple of nails before taking these photos.

Barry M Dusky Mauve

I have what's thought of as an 'ugly pretty' colour for you today. Barry M Dusky Mauve is a near-perfect dupe of Chanel Paradoxal, which has a brown/taupe base with purple shimmer. It chucked it down the entire time I wore this so I couldn't take photos in the sun, which means the shimmer was a little shy. Still, you can, ummmm, kind of see it if you look very closely...

A million years ago (or thereabouts) my mum and I were in Selfridges and I painted one of her nails with a tester of Chanel Paradoxal. I was 'eh' about it but my mum downright hated it. She took it off as soon as we got home! Still, considering how cheap the Barry M version is, it would've been a crime not to buy it. XD

Illamasqua Muse Blinged Up

OK, I promise I have some more non-blue nail posts coming up, but in the mean time here's one that's not exactly blue. Illamasqua Muse is a bright teal creme that is opaque in two coats. As with all Illamasqua polishes I've tried, it goes on easily and effortlessly. I topped it with one coat of Lilacquer Selkie (you can see swatches of it over black here), a duchrome top coat with a blue/green shimmer, and finally a line of square studs down my ring finger.

Unfortunately my top coat bubbled horribly when I put it over the studs. Boo.

I only have ten days until I go to Spain! Not that I'm counting or anything... Being the insanely organised person I am, I'm already compiling a list of all the places I want to visit while I'm there. I'm going to Seville and Madrid, so if anyone has any suggestions of what I should see, please let me know! :)

Accessorize Colorado

I realised recently that I've been wearing almost nothing but blues on my nails recently, so I'm making a conscious effort to wear different colours now! Today I'm showing you Accessorize Colorado, a light grey polish with gold shimmer. I had a little trouble capturing the shimmer but you can kind of see it in the first photo. I used three coats for opacity.

This isn't the sort of polish I'd normally wear and I'm not 100% convinced it suits my skin tone, but I kind of like it anyway. It's a nice palette-cleanser. It reminds me a lot of Nails Inc Covent Ballet Garden but at half the price (yay!). I think Accessorize nail polishes don't get as much notice as they deserve - they have a good range of colours and they're purse-friendly. What do you think?

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.

China Glaze Rainstorm

So you've probably realised by now what a sucker I am for blue nail polish. When I saw the discontinued China Glaze Rainstorm on Chalkboard Nails last month I knew that it had to be mine. Rainstorm is a sheer periwinkle blue shimmer with flecks of blue glitter. I wasn't going to attempt to get it opaque on its own, so I used China Glaze Electric Beat as underwear and followed it with two coats of Rainstorm.

I'm really glad I bought this! Thank you, eBay. :) Tomorrow I'll showed you how I jazzed it up after a couple of days' wear.

On a completely random note, this time in two weeks I'll be holidaying in Spain, and I AM SO EXCITED!!

Reswatch: Dior Saint Tropez

Hi, I have a reswatch to show you today. Dior Saint Tropez is a gorgeous turquoise polish with that sparse, almost invisible shimmer Dior is known for. The colour does have a green tint to it, but it seems to pull quite blue on me - which suits me fine!

This is still my one and only Dior nail polish but I'm desperate to get my hands on Amazonia, so watch this space!