I started with two coats of Revlon Minted and, when this had dried, painted on a coat of Essie Mojito Madness. When this was still wet I dabbed it with scrunched up cling film and followed with a coat of China Glaze Golden Enchantment for a bit of sparkle.
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!
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!
I've been wanting to try the fishtail manicure for a while but thought it would be really difficult to do. In the end I decided to bite the bullet and just go for it using the Swatch and Learn tutorial. Turns out it's not that hard to do after all!
It took me ages to decide which colours to use for this. In the end I just stared at my stash and my eyes fell on my mini set of Essie polishes from last autumn. All four colours complement each other really well, but I picked the three that I thought would work best: Carry On, a deep plum; Power Clutch, a grey-tinged green; and Very Structured, a reddish brown. As you can see, I decided to do the fishtail as an accent on my ring finger and use Carry On for the rest.
I love how this turned out - I think the fishtail has a slight camoflage feel to it because of the colours I used. The only bummer is that I was impatient with my top coat and smudged it! Sad.
So I've probably mentioned once...or twice...that I'm not a green nail polish lover. They just don't suit me - I don't have the right colouring for them. Still, every now and then I like to give greens a chance, so when I bought the Summer Mini Collection recently the first colour I put on was Essie Mojito Madness. It's a bright green creme that reminds me a lot of Barry M Spring Green. It has a nice formula and was opaque in two coats.
It's nice, isn't it? It doesn't look too bad on me here, but from a distance...eugh. Like I said, yellow-toned greens don't suit me at all. Oh well, I have a friend who is a green fiend, so it looks like she'll be getting a little present!
What do you think of Mojito Madness? Are there any colours that just don't suit you?
Instead of showing it on its own, I decided to use it in a tape manicure. After painting on two coats and letting them dry thoroughly, I placed a lightning-edged French tip guide diagonally on each nail and painted over with Barry M Silver Foil. Turquoise and silver is one of my favourite colour combinations - it reminds me of Navajo jewellery.
The only disappointment was that Haymarket stained my nails, so I'd recommend doubling up on basecoat when you use it. It's a shame because my nails had just grown out from their previous staining (I'm looking at you, OPI Fly!). Ah, well.
Anyway, Essie Turquoise & Caicos is a turquoise as the name suggests, and very much a green-leaning one (I know it doesn't look it in my photos, but I promise it is!). Not being a huge fan of green polishes you'd think this would put me off, but I actually really love this colour. I think the fact it's a jelly just gives it that extra edge...it's so squishy-looking.
I used three coats to make it opaque, and the bubbling you see is my ancient Seche Vite rather than the Essie. I also added a line of rhinestones down the centre of my ring finger to jazz it up a bit.
...I finally took the plunge and tried nail stamping!
It's something I've wanted to have a go at for a while, so I bought a Konad starter kit. The designs on the two plates it came with were pretty boring though, so I got a set of Bundle Monster plates too. I've been playing around with them and slowly getting the hang of stamping - I didn't want to mention it on here until I'd familiarised myself with it because I'm a bit of a perfectionist! Here's Barry M Silver Foil stamped over Essie She's Picture Perfect using one of the BM plates:
You can see there are some missing bits - I'm having a bit of trouble getting the images to transfer onto the nail perfectly - but hopefully this will improve with practice.
Have you tried stamping? Do you have any tips for a newbie like me?
Nails Inc Black Taxi with OPI Rainbow Connection on the ring finger. A weird combination. Also, a bizarre hand position. It reminds me of that moment in Toy Story when Buzz Lightyear asks the little alien toys who's in charge: "The claaaaw."
Illamasqua Kink. It's one of those rubber-finish polishes. Terrible photo, but I really like the polish. Also, my index fingernail appears to be freakily long in comparison to the others here.
OPI Warm & Fozzie. Love this polish. Barry M Copper, a new release, is supposedly very similar to this if anyone is looking for a cheaper alternative.
Nails Inc Old Bond Street. It's a dark grey with a pink/purple shimmer. It's completely gorgeous and I should really re-swatch it so you can see it better.
Essie Lady Like. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's a greyish pink. It's very work-appropriate. I actually wore it to the interview for my internship a few months ago.
Essie Lady Like with Essie As Gold As It Gets. A random combination I tried out. Subtle, but I like it.
OPI Alpine Snow with Nubar Opulent Pearl. I wanted to see what Opulent Pearl, a flakie top coat, looked like over a white polish. Not much, apparently. I also seem to have decided that painting half my skin would be a good look.
Nails Inc Jermyn Street. I think this was the first nude polish I ever bought, and it's still my favourite. Its formula is unbeatable.
OPI Fly with OPI Save Me. Not a very original combination, but they go well together.
China Glaze For Audrey with Nubar White Polka Dots. LOBSTER HANDS!!! I used a Big Ruby nail tattoo on the ring finger.
a-england Galahad and a-england Tristam. I remember I was so chuffed with this manicure, but my Seche Vite was getting to the gloopy stage when I put it on and the whole thing just bubbled like a witches' cauldron! I was devastated.
Nails Inc Seven Dials with Barry M Silver Foil. I quite like this manicure, but it's a terrible photo. Although the foil looks gold, I actually used a silver polish but the green underneath changed its colour!
So there you have it, my crappy swatches out there for all the world to see. Am I the only one who cringes when looking at early photos of one's manicures? Does anyone else feel they've come a long way since they started nail blogging - whether a few months or a few years ago?
