Gelish - Make A Splash: Review + Swatches

Hey everyone! I had such a mare trying to get this post up. I managed to get my review done soon after I received them, and as I went to plug my memory card in, the whole thing wiped! I've no idea why. After a lot of panicking from me, and help from my boyfriend, I actually managed to receive the photos, hours before I was due to go on holiday. So I thought therefore I'd write the post on holiday, but then Blogger wouldn't work on my phone! 

We're finally here... so here is the gorgeous and fun Gelish Make A Splash Collection. I love how bright these gels are, the perfect summer shades! There's also a Cellophane Coat included with the collection, which is described as an 'iridescent overlay' and just adds a bit of shimmer, scroll down to have a look. 

Essie Abstract Neon

Hey everyone! Long time no see, I've been so busy with moving I just haven't had a chance to post, but I've really missed blogging. We moved in on Friday and have managed to get everything unpacked already, so I finally have the chance to sit down and write a blog post. 

I actually did these nails quite a few weeks ago, using the Essie 2017 Neon Collection*. (I can't seem to find these online anymore so I assume they were limited edition). I keep seeing abstract nails on Instagram, and I've wanted to have a go for a while. These were super easy, I just splodged some colours using the brushes from the bottles, and then dotted some white using the end of a striping brush. Super quick, but I really love the end effect, and I wore these for a week or so. 

Gelish Street Beat Collection [Partial] Review + Swatches

Hey everyone! Hope you've all had a lovely week, I've been on the countdown to my holiday all week and it's finally here! I fly tonight and I can't wait to be sitting by the pool tomorrow not having to think about anything else. I feel like I haven't switched off in a while so I'm hoping I'll be able to unwind. I have of course prepared some posts for you whilst I'm away, I couldn't just leave you all hanging could I? You'll probably get more posts than usual actually because I've actually scheduled them. I feel like I should do this more often because often in the evenings I'm too tired after work to prepare a post and then I get really behind. Does anyone else schedule their posts a week ahead? Does it work?

Today I've got a review of the stunning Gelish - Street Beat Collection* for you. There are actually six polishes in the collection, and I have 3 of them to show you today. In addition to the three I have, there's also a yellow (Street Credible), a neon pink (B-Girl Style) and a fuchsia (Tag, You're It). It's such a fun and bright collection, and it was a perfect release as their summer collection. I couldn't resist choosing one of them for my toes for my holiday (read after the jump to see what colour I chose), as I absolutely love these shades. I was interested to try the yellow too, as it's quite an unusual shade for Gelish, but having read reviews of how sheer it is I think I got a good selection with these three. Full review is after the jump.

Paint All The Nails Presents Neon

Hey everyone! It's nearing the end of the month again, and that means it's time for another Paint All The Nails link up, and this month the theme is 'neon'. I wasn't actually going to join in this month because I don't own many neons at all and I didn't think I could create anything worthwhile. Just as I'd given up on the idea of participating, the new Models Own - Polish For Tans* collection dropped through my letterbox. I haven't received anything from Models Own for at least a year, if not two, so it was a nice surprise and also a strange coincidence. I felt like I had to create something using them for the prompt as it felt like fate, and so here I am! I used all 5 polishes from the collection for this nail art, and I'm still wearing them now. I'm not used to wearing something so bright so they keep catching me by surprise, but I ended up really liking them. 

Tweexy Nail Polish Holders

Hey everyone! I'm glad to be able to sit down and concentrate, I've been doing a charity fast today for work and I've never been so hungry, and I've really struggled to concentrate today. I have so much more respect for those who do Ramadan now, I couldn't do it for a whole month, a day was hard enough! But I did it, I wasn't expecting to but I did and I'm pretty proud of myself, because all I do is eat usually. 

Today's post is about Tweexy* nail polish holders, designed to keep your polish bottle in place and make it easy to access whilst you paint your nails. Tweexy* is the original nail polish holder, and whilst there have been many copycats since, their design was perfected over two years to fit all bottles and fingers, and is guaranteed for 10 years. So whilst they may seem a little bit pricier than their copycats, it's because they're of a much higher quality. Full post after the jump

Tweexy* is designed to fit every nail bottle shape. I tried it with multiple different shapes and sizes and they all fit and stayed in place. You can also move your fingers without fear of the bottle falling out as the rubber grips the bottle.

I decided the best way to show you my thoughts would be do a pros and cons of Tweexy holders:

Pros:

- Stays steady whilst you paint your nails

- Doesn't pop out/stays very stable in the holder

- Ideal for people who paint their nails with their hand steady

- Adjusters on the side so you can simply lift away without smudging your nails

- Easy access to the nail polish

Cons:

- I felt like I was breathing in the polish a lot more because it was closer to my face (I get very close to my nails when I'm painting them)

- I usually hold my hand in ridiculous ways when I paint my nails so I found it hard to paint them neatly. However, this is just a matter of personal preference so for many people this wouldn't be a problem

Overall the only cons were really down to my own personal weird ways of painting my nails, rather than any issues with the product itself, so I was pretty impressed.

I decided to test it with Orly - Road Trippin* because I liked how the bright yellow contrasted with the turquoise, but also because Orly bottles are quite large and I wanted to test whether it held it, which it did.

I also created a boomerang video of me wearing my Tweexy which I'll be posting on my Instagram.

You can find Tweexy on Amazon for £14.95 + Free Postage

What do you think? Do you want to try out, or have you already tried out, Tweexy? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

*The products in this post were provided to me for review but all opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way

Guest Post for Very Emily

Hey everyone! Today I've got a guest post over at Very Emily for you all, you can see the full post here, which also includes a tutorial for this design. All info is on Emily's blog.

Thanks again to Emily for having me! 

Alice

Throwback Thursday - Neon Stripes

Hey everyone! It's almost the end of the week, just one more final hurdle and we'll have reached the weekend. I've got lots of birthdays this weekend (sister, mum and grandma), and it's fathers day too, so not only am I busy, I'm also poor! It'll be nice to have a meal with the family though, and eat cake. Diets have to go out of the window when there are so many birthdays to celebrate. Anyway, it's been a while since I did a Throwback Thursday post, despite the fact I've actually had these images for well over 2 months. Thursdays just seem to pass me by, and suddenly it's Friday and I have missed the day to post once again, but this week I finally remembered! 

This was the original post for these nails, which I did for the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge back in 2012. They ended up being quite popular, which I wasn't expecting, and a few years later I recreated them in pink here. But I wanted to go back to my original design and give it a new lease of life. The first time around I remember waiting hours and hours for tape to dry and getting frustrated at how messy it was. This time around Seche Vite was my friend, and so was liquid palisade, which made it a lot easier and a lot quicker to do.

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.

Matte Neon Flowers

Hey everyone! I've had a nice relaxing weekend of doing pretty much nothing. I spent saturday doing a tonne of nail art designs, it felt like so long since I just sat down and spent a day doing nails and it was great. I got quite a few designs done which I'm sure you'll see soon but for tonight I just wanted to show you one of the simpler designs I did. I got a selection of Models Own polishes to review and they've been sitting around waiting for me to do something with, and I decided that it was time to do some nail art with them. I'll probably do some more at some point as there's a great selection but this is what I came up with on a short timescale.

Review Week, Day 1: Models Own Polish For Tans Collection 2014 Swatches

Hey everyone! In case you missed my announcement yesterday, this week I'm going to be doing another review week as I have so many polishes to show you. Today's post is a well-overdue review of the Models Own Polish for Tans collection*. I've had these polishes sat in my review pile for quite a while, and I must admit I'd been quite reluctant to try them. As you will have seen from my pictures, I am not a tanned person, and mistakenly I believed that these were only really suitable for people with tans. I was, however, completely wrong, and I have fallen in love with these polishes. The collection consists of 5 colours, three of which I received to review. I was also slightly put off but how similar the colours looked in the bottle to each other, but once I got them on the nail I was in love with each and every one of them. My gradient from yesterday demonstrates how wearable these polishes are. They also made my hands look particularly tanned, even though I definitely am not!

Models Own - Polish For Tans Gradient

Hey everyone! I have an announcement, of sorts. Tomorrow I will be starting another 'review week' as once again I have tonnes of reviews to post, and posting every other day with nail art interspersed just means that they get delayed even longer, so I will be posting every day next week with reviews. I'll try and throw a bit of nail art your way too because I know that's the main reason you're here, but I'm sure you'll love the awesome stuff I have coming your way! 

The first review will be Models Own - Polish For Tans*, and to start you off I have some nail art using Beach Bag. I wore these nails for almost a week (and I did both hands!) and I was quite sad to take them off. They're simple but they were so bright and summery I just couldn't stop staring at them. Of course, because they're neon my camera didn't really show how awesome they are, it just looks like a bright peachy colour, but I promise you these are AMAZING in person.

The base for these was 2 coats of Models Own - Beach Bag*, and then I used Graffiti Nails - Ice White and a sponge to create a gradient, topped off with a coat of Seche Vite

What do you think? Let me know in the comments

Alice

Butter LONDON Polka Dots

Hey everyone! Today I have some very bright polka dot nails for you. I know polka dots have been done a million times, but I always like to come back to them now and again because there's something about them that just entices me. These nails were inspired entirely by these wellies* - or 'rain boots'/'galoshes' (definitely didn't google that) from Shop On My Go Go. I got mine in the post a few weeks ago and I absolutely love how warm and comfy they are. Also, now it's starting to snow (yay!) I can finally wear them without looking like a fool. As you can probably see, the nails don't exactly match the colouring of the wellies, but I wasn't at home and the only colours I had to hand were the Butter LONDON Colour Clash collection, I'm sure you don't mind too much?

The base for these nails was Butter LONDON - Cake Hole, and then I used striping tape for the accent nails, along with Butter LONDON - Cotton Buds and a dotting tool, which I also used on the alternate nails.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review but all opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way. Please see my disclosure policy

Models Own Ice Neon Nail Art

Hey everyone! Here's the promised second post of today, this time a review of some gorgeous Models Own Ice Neon shades*. I know these aren't new shades but I wanted to review them for you anyway. I've also included some of the gorgeous new pastel studs* from Born Pretty Store for a bit of contrast. 

This was an idea that I'd had in my head for quite a while but it didn't turn out at all like I'd imagined and I was quite disappointed, but nevertheless I do kind of like the effect. These were a heck of a lot brighter in person but as always it was difficult to capture properly on camera. 

This was one coat of both Luis Lemon* and Toxic Apple* over white, I originally tried applying them on their own but they were way too sheer and it was just getting too thick, and I think the effect over white is much brighter anyway. 

If you like the look of the studs* you can buy them here in shades #3 and #8

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review but all opinions are entirely my own

Neon gradient + tribal nails (and an announcement!)

Happy Easter everyone! I'm going to hopefully be posting twice today because I'm going to quickly try and do a 'Then and Now' post for tonight because I didn't have time to do one last night. But I just wanted to show you these neon gradients I did, and then decided to add a tribal design to. I shall have a tutorial coming up for this soon if you're interested? These were meant to be my 'easter' nails for this year but I fancied something a little different to the usual pastel combinations.

I actually quite liked the design with just a neon gradient but as always I knew I wanted to add more to it, oops. The base for this design was MASH - White, which is meant to be for stamping but as it's so opaque it works great as a base too. The neon colours were Models Own - Toxic Apple, Orange Sorbet and Pink Sorbet, all of which as you can see are really bright and great neons, I would definitely recommend getting them if you haven't already got them. As neons tend to be quite translucent they're great for gradients. 

(The number 2 is there as it's part of the tutorial)

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Also, today is my blogiversary! This little blog is one year old today, I had started a Tumblr 8 months previously so it's not a year since the start of my 'nail art journey' but it is via blogger! I shall be having a little giveaway soon to celebrate so stay tuned! 

Alice

EDIT: the tutorial can be found here

A bit too much neon?

Hey everyone! I'm finally back with my own nails, have you missed me? This design is very similar to this one I did previously but is a lot more neon. I received these studs from Born Pretty Store to review and this nail art pen from Models Own and knew instantly that they had to go together! 

I chose to apply the studs using dotting tools from MASH, which can be found here, by applying an extra coat of OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls and before it was dry placing the studs on. I love these studs, as you can see from the awful quality of the pictures my camera had a hard time picking up the neon on these because they're super bright, and they're also a great size. Remember you can use my code KHL91 to get 10% off these too!

Next, I used the nail art pen to draw random swirls all over the rest of my nails, I started on my thumb and as I'd never used them before it went a bit thicker, but I quickly picked up how to use them and the rest of the nails were easy to control, I definitely preferred doing this design with a pen rather than a brush due to the control, and it's really opaque (and again, super neon!)

What do you think? Let me know in the comments, and dont forget to use my code KHL91 to get 10% off your order at Born Pretty Store!

Alice

Some of the products in this post were provided for review, my opinions were not influenced in any way and are entirely my own.