Swirls and Foils

Do you ever see something and just get hit by a burst of inspiration? That's what happened to me with these nails. I saw a design by Kara Nailed It and I knew instantly that I wanted to create my own version of them. I slightly adapted the colours, the use of gold foil and put them on all my nails, but otherwise my inspiration was her. I used the same technique she did, which was to blob all the colours together on my nail and then mix them together with a dotting tool (is there a name for that?).

I really loved how these turned out. They were so quick to do (except my middle finger which I kept having to redo because it wasn't behaving.. does that ever happen to you when it's always the same nail messing up?), I've never tried this method before but it's definitely something I'll do again. 

Gold Leaf Marble

I can't believe it's already Autumn, I know it's so typical as a Brit to talk about the weather, but it really doesn't feel like we had much of a summer. I must admit though that Autumn is one of my favourite seasons, I love any excuse to wear something from my extensive jumper collection, and I love cosying up under a blanket on an evening with some candles lit. 

I do have a tendency to regress back into summer colours in my nail art however, so I tried my hand at doing something a little more autumnal this time around. Can you believe I've never used gold foil before? I've had a little pot of gold flakes that was given to me by my good friend Very Emily years and years ago, and I'd totally forgotten I owned it. However, I've seen so many designs on Instagram recently using gold foil that I just couldn't resist doing some myself, and I remembered that little pot hiding away in my drawer and decided to give it a go. 

Negative Blue Marble

Hey everyone! I hope you've had a good start to the week so far. Monday's aren't always the best days but mine wasn't too bad. Today I've got a quick post with these blue marble nails. Is there a term for the new trend of half negative space nails? I feel like there should be if there isn't because "halved nails" sounds a bit rubbish so I just tend to stick with calling them negative space. Despite the lack of a name, I love this trend and there are so many different options (basically you could just cut any design in half) that I doubt I'll get bored anytime soon. Although I do try not to do it as much as I'd like because otherwise it might get a bit boring to read about! For this design I was struggling to think of a design as I was in 'swatching mode', and I saw a "halved" design on Instagram and knew that's what I wanted to do, so I just went where the design took me. I decided the combination of this and stamping marbling would work quite well, and I was really happy with the results. 

Marble Flowers

Hey everyone! We're past the half way point in the week already, I feel like an old woman moaning about how fast time goes but I genuinely can't believe it sometimes. 'Hump day' needs some fun nails to brighten it up (although hump day is technically over in the UK). For these nails I was playing around further with the L'Oreal Color Riche L'Huille collection* (review here), and I decided to create some marble nails using this tutorial from The Nailasaurus. I wasn't 100% happy with the finished product, so I decided that adding flowers over the top would brighten things up a bit. I'm still undecided on whether these are a nail fail or not, but they've definitely grown on me so I wanted to post them nevertheless. 

Candy Coat Gel Polish Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I want to introduce you to a new gel polish brand called Candy Coat, who are offering the latest subscription box to the market, but with a twist: their boxes contain only their own gel products. I always love to discover new and exciting brands, especially ones that are being innovative, and so this really stood out to me as an interesting concept. Candy Coat offer two options:

Option 1: The colour box. This is not a subscription, so you can buy whenever you please for as little as just £35 a month (if you're in the UK) you get 10 colours and a topcoat and basecoat, which is crazy cheap. Full prices here. 

Option 2: The subscription box. This is (as the titles suggests) a subscription, but with this you get 3 Candy Coat colours and goodies including accessories, tools and candy (of course) for £18 a month.

I received neither of the above, instead I received 7 gel colours* and a topcoat* and basecoat*, plus some goodies. So I decided to pull a few of the colours together and create some nail art, plus some flat lays because who doesn't love a good flat lay? More after the jump.

Barry M - Lolly Gloss Collection Nail Art + Review

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of the brand new Barry M - Lolly Gloss collection*, but rather than swatches of the collection I'll be reviewing in the form of nail art. The collection consists of four limited edition translucent shades, scented in Raspberry and Strawberry. I was quite sceptical about them being scented because normally the smell of nail varnish is just too overpowering in scented polish but these really do smell fruity, I could still smell it after topcoat and a couple of hours later too. They also dry very glossy as the name would suggest. The polishes can be worn alone or together, so I decided to put them together in this marble/red tortoise shell look.  Read more after the jump.

Paint All The Nails Presents Marble

Hey everyone! Today is Paint All The Nails' link up day, and this month we're doing marble nails. There's so many different ways to interpret this prompt, there's water marbling, or stone marble nails, but both of those involve water. Instead I wanted to create something that wouldn't make me want to flip my desk over, so I went with my old favourite: saran wrap. It's such a quick way to get the look you want. I wanted to try something a little different so I went with this half and half look. I also create a tutorial for these over at Divine Caroline so you can see that here if you want to create these yourself.

Stone Marble Nail Art for Avon

It's no secret that I hate watermarbling. Every time I've tried it over the years it's just made me angry and never come out successfully. So I was well aware during the stone marble nails trend a year or so ago that they would make me angry and incapable just as much, and so I never attempted them. So when Avon asked to create some for them this month, I went into a bit of panic, but I decided to give them a go nonetheless. These took 2 and a half hours to get anything vaguely resembling stone marble, and I'm still not entirely convinced. BUT they're not that bad considering how they could have looked if I'd just kept each fail rather than repainting my nails time and time again, so I guess they're not too bad. I added studs as I felt it made them a bit more interesting, and if I hadn't need to paint other things I would have probably worn these for a few days in the end!