Glitter Stars and Moons

Happy Tuesday! I fancied doing something a little different, which is how these nails came about. I also wanted to play around with the Essie Concrete Glitters collection*, so I used them as a gradient base and created this sparkly galaxy effect. 

Glitter Spots

Today I want to talk about the Essie Concrete Glitters collection*, because I've totally fallen in love with it. I sat down to do some nail art with them and ended up doing three different designs because I felt so inspired by all the colours! 

This was the first design I did, and it was completely inspired by Betina Goldstein (who by the way is totally killing it at the moment!). I used all the colours from the collection except Stay Up Slate. 

Gelish Forever Fabulous Collection - Review + Swatches Part 1

Christmas really is the busiest time of the year isn't it? I feel like I've barely stopped recently, and I've got to go away with work this week so I've got even less time than usual.

 I've been so busy I haven't had the time to write up this review, even though I tried the products a few weeks ago, so I'm sorry for the delay in getting this out to you! 

The Gelish - Forever Fabulous collection* is a bumper collection of TWELVE new shades for winter.  There are some really great colours in this collection, and I've split it into two halves so you can see them all in more detail. This is Part 1, and Part 2 will be along shortly. 

Christmas Gift Guide 2018

Sit tight folks, it's a long post today. For the first time ever I bring you my Christmas Gift Guide! 

There is a wide variety of products in here, for those who love a bit of elegance, or for those who want to do gel nails at home (or remove them), or those looking to bring a bit of extra sparkle to their Christmas. I hope you like the products I have chosen to show you, I hope there is something in here for all nail lovers. 

Gelish Royal Temptations - Review and Swatches

Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed the super long Easter Weekend, I certainly made the most of it with a spring clean but also a few days of chilling out. I feel much more refreshed! 

Today I've got the gorgeous Gelish - Royal Temptations Collection* to show you. I've made no secrets of my love of Gelish, and this collection is no different. I really feel that the formula of the new bottles is so much better than the old, so much so that I've pretty much stopped using all my old bottles! Read on for my thoughts on the collection. 

Glitter French Triangles

And just like that, Christmas is over. I hope you all had a lovely one. I'm counting down the days to the next festive period already, it's definitely the best time of the year. I'm lucky in a way that my birthday is only 3 weeks after Christmas so the fun isn't quite over yet, although it does mean that once my birthday is over I have to wait a whole year for any more celebrations! 

One of my Christmas presents this year was a wonderful new lightbox handmade by my dad. He built my last one but unfortunately it only worked with my old camera, so it was time for an update, and he pulled all the stops out this time. Of course I couldn't resist taking some photos in it, and here are the results!  I've seen this design around a few times on Instagram, but these in particular were inspired by Hey Nice Nails and I'm really pleased with how they turned out. 

Rose Gold Snowflakes

It's been a busy ol' week this week, which concluded with me smashing my car into a bollard.. so not the best. But as with all bad weeks, I've turned to blogging to take my mind off it. I have to keep telling myself it's Christmas soon to distract myself, and what better to remind myself than with Christmas nails! I have so much inspiration this year but just not enough time to do everything I want to do. I'm hoping to be able to do a couple more designs this weekend before it's too late. I did however manage to squeeze in these nails a couple of weekends ago. 

I was recently sent a wonderful Christmas package from Sally Hansen, and I knew as soon as I saw these polishes inside that I had to do some nail art with them, they just looked like they would work so well together... and they do! 

Harry Potter Nail Art

I'm so happy it's the weekend, I've booked Monday off to get my Christmas shopping finished so I've got three whole days off and it's almost Christmasssss. Now it's December I feel like I can finally start getting excited for it. I know that these nails aren't Christmas related, but I thought that I had posted these in October but when I was looking on my Instagram I realised I never did, so I wanted to make sure you saw them before they got lost in the depths of my drafts folder. Seriously there's so many posts in there that just aren't relevant anymore, desk tour of my house from 2 years ago anyone? I've moved twice since then! 

Back in October I was lucky enough to be able to go and see Harry Potter and The Cursed Child in London, and we decided to make a weekend of it and also go to the Warner Bros studio tour, of course to mark the occasion I also had to do some Harry Potter nails, and to be honest I'm surprised it's taken me so many years to get round to doing any because I am a hugeeee Harry Potter fan. The play is amazing by the way, and I really really want to see it again. 

Gelish Chilly Christmas Trees

I'm trying to be strict with myself on Christmas this year, especially in terms of food. I've lost weight recently and I don't to gain it back by pigging out on mince pies, but they're so delicious I'm struggling to resist. However, I decided that I didn't need to resist doing Christmas nails, what's the harm right? And apparently Twitter agreed, as I did a poll earlier and these were the popular choice! 

These aren't the first Christmas nails I've done this year I have to admit, I've been playing around with nail wheels to decide on some designs and these are a by-product of that.  As I was swatching the Gelish - Thrill Of The Chill Collection* (review coming soon), I couldn't help feeling Christmassy and I wanted to do some quick Christmas nails to show off the gorgeous shades of the collection, and to play around with one of the designs from my nail wheel. 

Marc Jacobs Geometry

Hey everyone! I'm so pleased to show you these nails as I was looking enough to have had a chance to try out the new Marc Jacobs* nail polishes. I've never used the brand before so I was really excited to see what they were like, and I must say I am soooo impressed. I often wonder whether brands with big price tags are so expensive just because of the name of the brand, but it turns out they really do have the quality to reflect the price. I was sent two shades to try from the latest Fashion collection: Trax* (Burgundy) and Ladies Night* (Beige). Both polishes glide on to the nail so well, and they're super shiny. Call me a price tag convert! 

Gelish - Little Miss Nutcracker Collection, Review + Swatches

After a busy weekend of doing absolutely nothing except painting nails and eating (what could be better?), it feels right to end it with a blog post. It's a super exciting week for me as I'm off to see Harry Potter and The Cursed Child next weekend, plus we're off to the Warner bros studios, I can't wait! I bought the tickets for the play more than a year ago, so it's been a long time coming. 

Anyway, on to the nails! It's been so long since I last did a Gelish review, in fact it's been pretty much exactly a year, and boy have I missed reviewing their gorgeous gels. So when I got the new Little Miss Nutcracker* collection to review, I wanted to show you them as soon as I could. I'm well and truly in the festive spirit this year already, I know it's super early but I think because I had such a miserable time last Christmas it just feels all the more exciting this time around, and I already can't wait to decorate my house! 

The collection features 6 gorgeous shades, plus a lovely glitter topper to complete the collection. They're all such wonderful Christmassy shades, but I think my favourite must be Plum-thing Magical*, because it really is (some)thing magical! This was also my first time trying to new Gelish bottles. When I first saw they'd changed I was a little sad, as I really loved the old design, but having seen them in person I really like them, and it's so much easier to see which colour you're picking out! 

Shimmery Starfish

Hey everyone! To celebrate the first day of Autumn I thought it would be appropriate to share some summery nails... right? In reality I completely forgot I hadn't posted these yet, there not as complicated as I'd prefer them to be so I've put off posting them for ages and now it's getting a bit late in the year. Not that I've ever let the seasons put me off posting pastels in winter, who sets the rules anyway?

China Glaze My Little Pony Rainbows

Hey everyone! Another busy weekend down, only 2 weeks until we move and we're in Berlin next weekend so we've got lots to do and not much time to do it in, so as you can imagine it's pretty hectic at the moment. Nevertheless, I did manage to throw in a bit of time to play around with the amazing new China Glaze - My Little Pony collection*. Have you seen it yet? I think it may be my favourite China Glaze collection ever, or at least for a few years. There are tonnes of pastels, but also a great mix of glitters too, which works really well together, and it definitely suits the theme. I'll be having more of a play around once I've moved, but for now I thought these rainbow nails inspired by Tiny Brushes were pretty fitting for the collection. 

Lost City - Meebox May '17 Nail Art + Review

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I did a review of Meebox thanks to my unscheduled break, so I actually have two different boxes to show you at the moment, the first of which is the 'Lost City' Meebox* from last month. When this landed on my doorstep I was a bit stumped on what to create with the contents of the box, which were:

Annika - Blue Lagoon
Cuccio - Pier Pressure
Ruby Wing - Hello Sailor
NCLA - Take It Off Soy Remover Sheets
House of Wonderland Decals (exclusive to Meebox)

Worth more than £40 in value (despite the box only costing £20 a month, or £18 if you pay for 3 months), they're definitely worth trying out if you haven't already. All these brands were completely new to me, and pushed me to create something I wouldn't usually do.

Anyway, I was struggling to come up with a design so I decided to completely wing it. I've never used water decals before so I started with those on top of the Cuccio polish, and I accented with Ruby Wing - Hello Sailor over Pier Pressure. Then I decided to play around with striping tape, and by the end of it I really loved the result, and I hope you do too!

No Place Like Home - Meebox December Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! I'm back with another Meebox review, this month's (well, last month's) box was themed 'No Place Like Home'*, and is of course based on the Wizard of Oz. It includes an amazing £63 worth of products for just £20, which include:

Kure Bazaar – Pigalle (RRP £14)
Zoya Goldie (RRP £11.50)
Leighton Denny – Jailbird (RRP £12)
MoYou Fairy Tale Stamping Plate (which is Wizard of Oz themed) – (RRP £5.99)
MoYou Stamper- (RRP £2.99)
NCLA Gingham nail wraps (RRP £13)
Ard as Nails – cuticle oil (RRP £5)

I love that there's always a theme to each box, but I think this might be my favourite theme so far. And of course there was no option but for me to create some Wizard of Oz nails with the polishes, I used all the products for this nail art, they all went so well together I couldn't resist.  

All That Glitters - Meebox November Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! Everything is still super busy in my life, I'm moving house next Friday and I haven't even starting packing yet because I've barely stopped! And I've stupidly agreed to host people from work tomorrow evening at my house... why did I do that?! So as I'm sure you can imagine things are a bit hectic and blogging is having to take a bit of a backseat, but today I have a treat for you with this review of the gorgeous November Meebox, this month's theme is 'All That Glitters'* so of course it's absolutely chocka block full with glitter. This month's box contains:

Little Ondine - Rumba*: £11

A England - Crown of Thistles*: £11

Floss Gloss - Dime Piece*: £7.50

MeeBox Holo paper*: £2

Naio Nails Glitter pot*: £1.10

 

So it has a total value of £32.60 but it costs just £20, you can't really go wrong with that!

I was trying to debate what I could do to use all the products in the box, in the end I realised I would have to sacrifice at least one product and that had to be Little Ondine - Rumba, but I used the rest of the products in the box to create this fun glitter heart design.

Here's a quick shot of all the gorgeous products in the box!

To get your hands on next month's 'Wizard of Oz' themed Meebox, worth a staggering £60.. for just £20, you can visit their website, but be quick, it's going to go fast!

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

Essie Glitter Leaves

Hi All! Hope you're having a good December so far. I'm trying to get into the Christmas spirit, I'm feeling a lot better than I have been so I've even been able to sing along to a few Christmas songs. It's good to know that I haven't turned into a complete Scrooge! But whilst I might be getting into the Christmas spirit, it's still Autumn on my nails, with the gorgeous Essie Winter 2016 collection*. These were just a quick design I did to try and get myself back into the swing of things but I ended up wearing them for nearly 2 weeks, which wasn't exactly the plan! But it's a testament to how long-lasting these polishes are. 

Glitter Pumpkins

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you've all had a fun day dressing up. My work dressed up on Friday instead as Monday is a super busy day and we wouldn't have had time to play any Halloween games, so I didn't actually dress up today. But on Friday I was Wednesday Addams, which makes a chance from my usual cat outfit that I do every year! I of course had to post some nails on Halloween, and whilst they are more autumnal than scary, I hope you still like them!

Barry M Rose Gold Geometric

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a lovely weekend. I've had quite a busy weekend so far and we're off to Chester today to go the zoo and do a bit of shopping so another busy day ahead. Whilst I'm waiting for my boyfriend to be ready I thought I'd write a quick blog post as I haven't had much of a chance recently. I created these rose gold geometric nails a couple of weeks ago whilst I was playing around with the gorgeous autumn releases from Barry M. Their recent Molten Metals collection from a few months ago contained a copper shade which was close enough to rose gold that I thought that they wouldn't possibly create anything closer. Well I was wrong, their newest releases include Twinkle Twinkle*, a limited edition polish especially for Superdrug. You'll know how much I love creating nail art with rose gold if you've been followers of my blog for a while, so of course I had to do something with this. I wasn't really sure where I was heading when I started these nails, but I just went with the flow and I really liked the end result. 

Pink Glitter Roses

Hey everyone! Happy Monday. I'm starting the countdown again for trip away this weekend, which, as I mentioned in my last post, I spent last week counting down for as I thought it was last weekend... oops! At least I know it's definitely this weekend now. Anyway, on to the nails. I find that despite the fact that I have hundreds and hundreds of nail varnishes, I tend to only use the same colours or ones that I have to review, and as a result so many of my polishes don't get used and get forgotten about. It helps now that I have changed from a Helmer to Alex drawers from IKEA, because the drawers are much easier to use and don't feel like they are about to collapse as soon as you open them. Now I don't just keep a collection of polishes on my desk, and I try to use different colours in my drawers now and again, even though my priorities are products I have to review. Recently I saw on Pinterest that an old Barry M review of mine was quite popular, which included the shade Princess, and I remembered that I owned such a gorgeous shade, and I've been wanting to use it ever since. Then I stumbled upon this design on Pinterest and I knew it would be the perfect design to use the polish in. Unfortunately it's no longer available to buy, you could probably find it on eBay but for some reason they chose to stop making it, even though it's stunning!