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. 

Hitched - April Meebox Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! This weekend in the UK was the May bank holiday weekend, so we've had a nice three-day weekend. It's been great to have that extra time off but I'm actually more tired than I should be as I didn't get to sleep until 3 last night. Today I've genuinely spent the whole day re-watching Sherlock and not doing much else really because I was too tired to contemplate being productive. 

Today's review is of the April Meebox*. Meebox is a monthly subscription box (you can see my previous review of February's box here) I must stop you before you roll your eyes and say 'another subscription box?' because Meebox's stand out from the crowd in my opinion and are consistently great. I've been really impressed with both boxes I've received (and other boxes I've seen across social media that I haven't received). For just £20 a month you're getting value for money, this month's box would total almost £40. 

Each month the box has a theme, and this month's theme is 'Hitched', their first bridal theme. Each month you are emailed what the theme will be on the 1st of the month, and you can choose whether or not you would like to receive the box. There's no contract, you can opt in and out whenever you want, and I think that freedom makes them quite unique. I decided to create these simple heart stamped nails with some of the products from this month's box (read on after the jump to see the products).

Unicorn Nail Art

Hey everyone! So the whole point of creating the rainbow gradient I posted yesterday was to create unicorn nail art. I took pictures of the plain gradient because I loved how it looks, but also because there was a strong possibility that these could fail. I've never drawn a horse, unicorn or really any full form of horse-like creature before, not even on paper, so I was worried that these would turn out awfully. Whilst they're definitely not the best unicorn nails to exist, I was super proud of how these turned out and I wore them for a full week. 

Rainbow Glitter Gradient

Hey everyone! Now that Valentine's day is out of the way I have lots of non-romance related designs to show you. I've had quite a few designs sitting edited on my laptop for a while but I just haven't found the right time to post them. I posted a sneak peak of these nails on Instagram around a month ago when I'd just created them as I loved how they looked and I'd actually painted both nails for the first time in forever, but it's taken me a while to post the full design in all it's glory. Quite a few people on Instagram requested a tutorial for these, if that's something you'd all want let me know and I'll get one sorted! Anything pastel always gets my vote, but with the addition of China Glaze - Fairy Dust everything looks amazing!

Give Me Space

Hey everyone! Today's nail art may well be one of my favourite designs I've created. Whilst they're relatively simple, I absolutely loved how they turned out, and OPI - Give Me Space* from the recent OPI Starlight collection made the perfect base for these. It's a gorgeous navy holographic and even the name alone suggests a perfect space manicure! I got the idea for these designs from this design by 'Glitter Fingersss' on Instagram. Lexa is an absolutely amazing artist and there was no way I could recreate her design with such skill, but I tried to make it my own. I was also incredibly rushed when creating these, I had around 20 minutes which just wasn't enough time so they're not as perfect as I would like. I would definitely have liked to perfect the alien a bit more. Nevertheless, for the time I created them in I'm really happy with the outcome. I've also included swatches of Give Me Space after the jump so you can see the full beauty of the polish.

Blue Glitter Daisies

When scrolling through my Instagram the other night (please tell me I'm not the only person who looks at my own stuff now and again?!) I noticed that it's been quite a while since I posted anything blue. I like to keep the colours varied on my Instagram but recently they've been quite dark. It is autumn, and autumn is full of darker shades, but I wanted to brighten things up a bit. This is definitely a manicure more suited to summer, but who makes the rules? And rules are there to be broken after all. I guess you could say the accent nails are 'autumnal', but I love the combination of the two together. 

I tried a couple of blue ideas before settling on this one. I tried a hearts design first, which I hated and didn't photograph and now I wish I had. And then just a couple of plain blue designs which weren't the right shade of blue or just didn't feel right. Then I decided to just go with the flow, and these happened, and I really didn't want to have to take them off! However, because at the moment I can only do nails on Saturdays, they had to be removed and replaced. Although I must say that the final design I've settled on for the week is one of my absolute favourites ever (no spoilers) so these weren't too big of a loss after all.

OPI Nail Envy Strength & Colour - Bubble Bath Daisies

Hey everyone! Recently I unexpectedly received an exciting parcel from OPI through the post, of three of the four new 'Strength and Colour' Nail Envy polishes. These are a coloured version of their popular strengthening base coat Nail Envy, which is an old favourite of mine. I wasn't aware that these were being released until I received them but I think they're such a great idea. The colours are subtle so there are no worries about staining (which you definitely don't want when they're doubling up as your base coat), and you get all the benefits of Nail Envy with a dash of colour. They're also recreations of OPI favourites, such as Bubble Bath* (this one) and Samoan Sand*. They are unfortunately on the expensive side, RRP £19.99, but Nail Envy alone is pretty expensive too, and you can grab them on Amazon for £14.75. 

I also wanted to try out a new polish I received from Avon, called Lovely Lace* which is part of their new lace collection. I thought the two would pair up really well, but you know I'm not very good with plain nails (hence, the nail art blog) so I had to add a few daisies too. I love how these turned out, they're subtle but sweet, and also really good for my nails at the same time! The OPI polishes arrived at the perfect time as my nails were starting to peel at the ends so these gave them the extra strength they needed. I intend to try out the other colours in turn too (I received three of the four) so I'm sure you'll see them around, but I wanted to showcase Bubble Bath* for you first and foremost.

Negative Space All The Nails!

Hey everyone! Today's post is another monthly link-up from a Facebook group I'm part of called Paint All The Nails. Each month we do a non-compulsory monthly link-up with a theme we've all voted on. This month's theme is 'negative space', and I'm sure you all know that this was definitely my vote. There's so many designs you can do with negative space and I always love how they look. Funnily enough, I must admit that I completely forgot about this month's link up being today, and on Saturday (which is the only day I paint nails at the moment) it didn't even cross my mind. But, it happened to be that my subconscious clearly remembered, because I had an urge to do negative space nails, and I did. So rather than panic when I remembered I'd forgotten, I had a design waiting for me, and it's actually one of my favourite designs I've done. These nails were based off this post by Sakura Nail&Beauty on Instagram. The design instantly stood out to me, but I must admit I thought it might look better on shorter nails, so I gave it a go and I ended up loving the finished result. If you want to see what the other girls created this month then check out the InLinks below!

July Monthly Favourites

Hey everyone! Today I'm finally getting around to posting my July monthly favourites. I've had my photos done for these for over a week but just haven't had time to sit down and write/edit the post and pictures. I've got quite a lot to show you this month. It was really hard to narrow it down because I've loved so many products and in the end I just decided to show them all. The products I chose are:

Jord 'Ely Black' Watch* 

Mavala Polishes*

Barry M - Cotton*

Joan Collins - Divine Lips in 'Marilyn'*

Fancy Witch Black Magic Make Up Brushes*

OPI Venice Collection*

Barry M - Brow Wow in 'Light to Medium'* (not pictured)

Pastel Bunting Nail Art for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! I've had such a busy week this week. I hadn't appreciated how easy life actually was as a student in terms of having time to see my friends, it's so difficult to balance everything around work and also not be completely exhausted. I also went to the gym for the first time in a year on monday now that I'm back home and I can commit to a membership, and it absolutely killed me. I've only just started walking properly again. I'm even more unfit than I thought!  Anyway, today's nail art is some cute and simple bunting that I created for Divine Caroline. I also created a tutorial if you want to check it out here. The colours I used for these are all from Mavala and Barry M. The base is Mavala - Lavander*, then I used Barry M - Sugar Apple, Miami and Cotton, and I used Mavala - Lemon Cream* and Pistachio* for the detailing.

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

Alice

Negative Space Daisy Nail Art

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a nice weekend. I've never appreciated weekends more than I do now that I work full time and so I have to try and get as much out of them as I can. Saturday is my 'nail day' where I try and cram as many designs in to one day as possible, and then the rest of the week I live at my boyfriend's house where I have no nail polish (shock horror). This week however it's my graduation so I'll be able to hopefully paint some graduation nails on Tuesday night in time for Wednesday! Today's nails are these cute negative space daisy nails. As you all know I love negative space designs and I've done a couple of floral ones before, but I really liked the idea of doing daisies for an even more simplistic look and I love how they turned out. I wore these all of last week and I couldn't stop staring at them the whole time.

Cotton Bud Stamping

Hey everyone! I have a new type of design for you today, I'm not sure if it's been done before but if it has I haven't seen it! I wanted to try out some new Mavala polishes I got to review and my original intention was to do The Nailasaurus' 'nimbus' design. For this you need cotton buds and acetone but I didn't use a plastic palette and it just wouldn't work. I did however end up creating this design by basically just stamping with the end of the cotton bud and I really liked how it turned out! I had to use a new cotton bud end for each colour on each nail if you're wanting to try this yourself and finding they get a bit stringy, but otherwise they're super easy to do. I'll definitely be doing some more when I don't have much time or just want to do something quick. Although, I think I need a better name for it than 'cotton bud stamping', any ideas?

Review Week, Day Seven: Mavala 'London', 'Montevideo' and 'Sapporo' swatches

Hey everyone! We made it, it's the last day of review week, if you'd like to see all the posts from this week you can see them here. I think this is the first time in ages, if ever, that I've posted 7 days in a row without fail. I almost had a breakdown mid-week after editing, whilst drunk, until 5am, and I definitely wanted to quit the week, if not blogging altogether, but I did it! Have you enjoyed this week? Or would you rather I just stuck to nail art? I'd love to know your thoughts!

For the last day I have these cute polishes from Mavala. These are actually my first Mavala polishes and I'm definitely impressed by the formula and the brushes as you'll see below, despite their tiny bottles.