Chain Nails

Here's another manicure that I've worn to my internship recently. I don't have many neutral-tone polishes, but Revlon Smoky Canvas is one of the few. It's a light grey creme with a bit of yellow in it that comes out particularly under artificial light. So it's kind of...greige? It's very work-appropriate, but it's actually a really nice colour. I did three coats and the formula was brilliant - it went on like a dream. Why can't every polish be so easy to apply?!

I was going to wear Smoky Canvas on its own, but inevitably decided that was boring so I used some Andrea Fulerton nail stickers to jazz it up a bit. These ones are a chain design, and I used them almost as a French manicure at the tip of each nail.

In case you're wondering what my internship is, it's as a conservation assistant at an historic house in Surrey (think Downton Abbey and you're along the right lines). I actually have a paid job as a conservation assistant at another property, but I'm trying to pad out my CV so I'm combining the two. It means I get to handle priceless artefacts such as Turner paintings, Sèvres china and Fabergé trinkets, which is pretty special. :)

February Haul

It's a little silly doing a haul post for February halfway through March, but I simply forgot to do this sooner! I bought quite a few polishes in February and I thought you might like to see a few of them. A couple of them I've already shown on here as I am posting this a bit late. (Please excuse the quality of the photos. I know they're a bit rubbish. The lighting was awful when I took them.)

OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?, I Have a Herring Problem & I Don't Give a Rotterdam!

I only bought three colours from the new OPI Holland collection. I want more, but I can't justify buying them so I only got the three I was desperate for. I'm actually wearing Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI? at the moment, so you'll see it on here very soon.

OPI Magic Garden & OPI Peacock Feathers nail apps

Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love & Honey-Dew You Love Me?

Most places seem to be selling OPI nail apps for £13 or more, which is insane, but Lena White has them for £3.50 at the moment so I nabbed these two designs. I haven't actually used nail apps before so it will be interesting to try them out. The two Nicole by OPIs are also from Lena White. It was the blue shimmer in Kim-pletely in Love that made me fall for it...and Honey-Dew You Love ME? has blue glitter hearts, so it was a no-brainer!

China Glaze Awakening & Midtown Magic

Sally's has a promotion on at the moment where, if you buy a China Glaze polish, you get one from the Metro collection free. I have a couple from this collection already but not Midtown Magic, so I'm happy to have filled that void.

W7 The Fab Four

I have no idea if these polishes have individual names as they're not listed on the packaging. I got them from TK Maxx for less than four quid. It's hard to see, but they're all kind of shimmery.

Color Club Back to Boho Autumn 2011: Boho Mojo, Nouveau Vintage, Voodoo You Do, Artsy Crafty, Blue-topia, Rebel Spirit & Top Coat

Color Club Alter Ego Spring 2011: Ulterior Motive, Secret Agent & Alter Ego

The Back to Boho collection was also from TK Maxx. It was reduced to £6 - that's less than £1 per polish!! The others I got on Amazon. I absolutely adore these colours.

Topshop Gypsy Night & AWOL

I've already shown you Gypsy Night here. AWOL is supposedly very similar in colour to Nails Inc Baker Street which you might have heard some buzz about.

Revlon Secented: Pineapple Fizz, Orange Fizz, Grapefruit Fizz & Grape Fizz

I have already done swatches of Grapefruit Fizz and Grape Fizz, and they smell amazing. My mum bought me the other two a couple of weeks ago (thanks Mum!) and I can't wait to try them on.

Nubar Innocent Whispers

I began an internship last Friday that I'll be doing two days a week until August. While my paid job is one that allows me to wear whatever nail polish I fancy, I wanted to tone it down a bit for my first day of the internship while still being true to my bold tastes. Naturally, the answer lay in one of Nubar's duochromes.

Nubar Innocent Whispers is a pretty opalescent duochome that shifts from grey to blue to pink. It's very sheer and isn't really meant to build up to full opacity, but I did three coats and more or less banished any VNL. I had no problems with the application, but there was a teeny tiny bit of bubbling on my index finger after using a top coat.

As you can see, it's demure enough to be suitable for work, but interesting enough not to make me yawn. It actually reminds me of OPI Give Me the Moon, but I'd have to compare them side by side to be certain (would anyone like me to?).

And just in case you were in any doubt that this was a true duochrome...

Yes, that really is the same nail polish!

Pastel Rainbow Cheetah Mani

Whew! The title of this post is a bit of a mouthful, but I'm afraid I used all of my imagination up on the manicure itself so it's stuck with a boring name. I'm really chuffed with today's manicure - it's my first attempt at freehand animal print and it came out so much better than I expected!

My plan was to do a rainbow manicure of some sort but jazz it up a bit. I took inspiration from this design, but as it's spring I decided to use pastel colours instead of neon. Short version? I began with a white base because pastels can be a bit sheer. I then painted on five different pastel colours in diagonal lines on my nails using the brush that came with each polish - I did this twice to build up opacity. Once it was dry, I used a black nail art pen to freehand broken O and C shapes. This was much easier than I expected as they actually look more authentic if they're not perfect, and the cheetah print has the added bonus of hiding any imperfections in the colour gradient background.

Products:
White base - OPI Alpine Snow
Peach - Barry M Peach Melba
Yellow - OPI Banana Bandanna
Green - Revlon Minted
Blue - Barry M Blue Moon
Lilac - Barry M Berry Ice Cream
Cheetah spots - Models Own Wah Nail Art Pen

It just goes to show how easy nail art can be. Even a couple of weeks ago I never dreamed I'd be able to create something as eye-catching as this, but it turned out to be dead easy! Not to worry you or anything, but I may have caught the animal print bug...and I'm pretty sure it's contagious.

Stripy Spring Manicure

Here's a fun manicure that I did last week. Stripes and pastels are two trends that are always very popular in spring, so I decided to incorporate both into a nail art design. I started by painting my nails with two coats of OPI Alpine Snow, a white creme. I then used striping tape to paint vertical stripes in Nubar Absolute, a pale blue with holographic glitter, which I have previously shown you here. Finally, I used a nail art brush to freehand Alpine Snow in a bow shape, and added a diamante in the centre.

I mucked up my index finger a bit (story of my life!), but it turned out rather well all the same. Unusually, it actually looks better on my right hand, but since I'm rubbish at taking photos of that hand you get the slightly less brilliant one.

Topshop Gypsy Night

I've been trying to curb my nail polish buying recently with some success. There's a particular polish that I've been lusting after for a while, Topshop Gypsy Night, and for the last few weeks I have found myself debating whether or not to get it. I bookmarked its page on the Topshop website and I kept looking at it every so often, like nail porn. Then, on Thursday, I popped into my nearest Topshop on my way home from work (confession: it wasn't exactly on my route, I took a little detour) to find they'd revamped the make-up section and made it ah-mazing. Even better, they had Gypsy Night in stock! Well, it was like fate, wasn't it? So Gypsy Night came home with me, as did AWOL, which I'll show you another day.

Gypsy Night is such an interesting polish - I haven't seen anything quite like it before. It's a black jelly with flakies and holographic glitter. The flakies flash the red/gold/green combination seen in Nubar 2010, but they're a bit smaller. As with most jellies it's quite sheer, so I layered one coat over a black creme for the photos below. It dries very smooth, but I used a top coat anyway.

I love this polish even more than I thought I would. It looks even better in real life than it does in my photos. And does it remind anyone else a bit of galaxy nails?!

Revlon Grape Fizz

Here is the second of the Revlon scented nail polishes I bought, Grape Fizz. It's a vivid purple polish with a glass fleck finish. I'd say it was red-toned, but I swear I could almost see a blue flash at certain angles. As with Grapefruit Fizz it's very sheer but I was silly and didn't layer this one. I used three coats in the photos below; I should've used four. It's not very obvious in real life, but in the photos you can see some VNL.

As the name suggests, when the polish dries it smells like grapes. It genuinely did, and it really made me want some grape juice! Even though I used a top coat the smell persisted for a couple of days, which was a pleasant surprise, and probably would have endured for longer if I hadn't decided to take it off.