Meebox Review: Gold Glitter Roses

Hey everyone! Today I'm showcasing a 'new' subscription box: the Meebox*. I say 'new' because they've been around for a few months now but they're new to me, and my first experience was definitely a positive one. Each box contains "at least three top brand and indie nail polishes, essential tools, vital treatments and stunning nail art supplies". 

In this Meebox* I got Smith and Cult - Porn-a-thon (RRP £19), Leighton Denny - Feel The Burn (RRP £11), Nails Inc - Chelsea Embankment (RRP £14), Sparkly Nails Square Studs (RRP £1.50), plus three swatch sticks. Some lucky buyers also got a bottle of Chanel polish in their box, but unfortunately I wasn't one of them! Meebox is £20 for a rolling subscription, or £54 for 3 months. Each month has a new theme, this month's theme was 'Red Carpet.' 

I decided to create some nail art with the polishes I was received, I didn't use the studs because once I tried to add them to the design I decided they didn't really work, but the other polishes were all used. I wanted to experiment with a different kind of rose design, I'm still trying to perfect roses, I've done them very similarly for years but I never feel satisfied with them. I was really proud of how these turned out but there's still some work to do too.

Nailbox - June: Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have another Nailbox review for you. I showed you May's Nailbox here, and this is June's box. Each month subscribers are sent 5 nail products, usually 4 nail polishes and a nail tool. All products are from high end brands and you definitely get your money's worth. When I opened this month's box I was in shock because there was a full sized bottle of Seche Vite, and we all know how expensive it is! I really do believe that you get brilliant value for money with these boxes and if you like a surprise it's definitely worth signing up. You can do so here. If you want to just sign up for a one-off box it's £15, which is a great deal. And it's slightly cheaper if you sign up on a monthly pre-pay basis.  I decided to once again create some nail art with the polishes I received as I thought they worked really well together. 

VVB Victoria Beckham Nails Inc Collaboration Collection 2014: Review and Swatches

Hey everyone! Today I have a super exciting new release to show you from Nails Inc: two new polishes designed in collaboration with Victoria Beckham. The collection contains two colours, Judo Red*, and Bamboo White*. The press release reads: 'The covetable and collectible duo features two new polish shades – Judo Red and Bamboo White - developed with an exclusive formulation featuring Stretch-To-Fit technology and Bamboo Extract with Silica and is presented within a sleek new bottle design ... Designed by Fabien Baron and customised by Victoria Beckham'. These retail at £25 each so they are very high end but they're absolutely beautiful and the quality is amazing. They're not for everyone but if you're the kind of person to like expensive nail polish these are definitely for you.  

Review Week, Day 6: Nails Inc Festival Collection

Hey everyone! Two posts down, one to go. I'm feeling a bit more productive now, even if it is nearly 2am and I still have a tutorial to do and edit before I go to sleep... Anyway! No more complaining, someone slap me if I complain again, I love this blog and I'm just very tired and moany this week, ignore me! This next post for Day 6 is the Nails inc. Festival collection, which consists of two glitters and two creme nail polishes. I'm a bit late to the party with these, especially as festival season is over now, but that doesn't take away from how fun and great these polishes are, and I couldn't resist still showing you them.

Nailvengers Assemble: Summer Treats, with Yoo Moo + GIVEAWAY

Hey everyone! It's Nailvengers Assemble time once again! If you don't know what I'm talking about, me, Allie from Brit Nails, Sammy from The Nailasaurus, Lucy from Lucy's Stash and Amelia from xameliax all post one themed nail design at the end of every month. I'm a bit late on my upload of these unfortunately, I didn't have time at all to post them last night. I expected that once I finished uni for summer I'd have so much time for blogging, but I've had even less time than usual due to working, moving house, seeing friends, and joining the gym. I really wish I had unlimited time because it's beginning to stress me out that things aren't getting done which I need to be done, like this post. I barely even had time to do the nails, which is why they're very simplistic. I saw Lucy's design here and decided that they'd be great, and easy, to recreate. 

A couple of weeks ago Yoo Moo got in contact with me and asked me to create some nail art for their current #GuiltFreeze competition. They've teamed up with Nails Inc. and The Nailasaurus to create a great new nail art contest. They've also brought out a brand new limited edition Nails Inc polish called 'Udderly Shocking Pink' and they'd kindly offered to give me 3 bottles to give away to my readers (enter using the Rafflecopter widget below after the jump). They are also hosting the #GuiltFreeze competition on their Instagram and Facebook until the 13th July, which you can read all about it here (you can be in with a chance of a trip to Ibiza, or winning loads of Yoo Moo/Nails Inc related prizes). 

I decided that it would be great to mix both Nailvengers and the Yoo Moo competition together, because I absolutely love Frozen Yogurt, and it's definitely the perfect 'Summer Treat'

Nails Inc. Collaboration with Teatum Jones - Swatches and Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today's post is an exciting new release from Nails Inc, who have released 3 new colours in collaboration with emerging design talent for London Fashion Week. The three colours are Sloane Street, which is the hot pink you'll see below, in collaboration with Teatum Jones. Colville Mews, which is a gorgeous nude, in collaboration with Emma Shipley. And finally Hallam Street, which is a lovely dusky purple, in collaboration with David Longshaw. These polishes will be available for 6 weeks only, or whilst stocks last, so grab them while you can! I received the amazing Sloane Street to show you all, I know you're probably all sick of plain reviews after last week's review week, so I decided to combine today's post with a bit of simple nail art just to tide you over! I'll post the full review after the jump

Review Week, Day Three: Nails Inc. Gel Effect Polish Swatches

Hey everyone! For day 3 of review week I have a few more of the amazing Nails Inc. Gel Effect polishes. I first showed you St James here, and I'm really glad to have received some more of the collection because I think they're really great, and as you'll see in a minute, I've found my new favourite polish! Full review will be after the jump

Tutorial Thursday: Negative Space Nails

Hey everyone! As promised, here's this week's tutorial. I have to be up in 7 hours as I was called in to work last minute so I need to make this quick. After posting my negative space nails I had a number of requests for a tutorial, and I decided to combine that with some more valentines nails, as the day is fast approaching.  I also really wanted to try out these Swarovski studs I got from Stephen Arnold, so I decided to combine the two. Full post with tutorial steps will be after the jump

Nails Inc. Polishes Review

Hey everyone! Apologies that it's been a few days since I've posted, I've been revising constantly, and yesterday (Friday) I passed my driving test (yay!) so I went out for a meal in the evening to celebrate and never got around to posting. I probably wouldn't have actually managed to get this up today if it hadn't been for my boyfriend, who very kindly edited all these pictures for me because I didn't have time. He's been offering to edit for a while now and I've struggled to let go of the reigns, but he didn't an awesome job so I think he's going to find himself bombarded with pictures now!

Exams aren't very far away now, so only one week and 2 days and my schedule should return to usual. I'm really sorry it's not been great for the past few weeks but hopefully you understand. I have a couple of posts in the 'vault' so to speak and I'll have a guest post from the lovely Amelia this week for you too which will be great I'm sure!

So today's post is a bit of a mix and match review with a few polishes from Nails inc. They're all from a variety of collections, but they work surprisingly well together. I love Nails inc. polishes and I'm really glad I got these to review because they're all amazing quality as usual, as you will see below! Full review will be after the jump

QVC Spring/Summer 2014 Press Event

Hey everyone! The other day I went to London, to work on something awesome for Clothes Show Live TV, and I thought whilst I was there I may as well pop along to the QVC Spring/Summer 2014 Press Event, and I'm so glad I did. There was so many beautiful things, and I got a gorgeous hand massage from Gatineau. I also got to eat some amazing cakes, and I may have had a few sneaky Thorntons fudges. I definitely feel that it would have been worth going even if I hadn't already been in London for the day. Unfortunately I completely forgot to bring my camera, so all the photos I have are from my phone, hopefully it wont be too noticeable! 

Matte christmas nails!

Hey everyone, I had the idea originally of doing these nails with studs, and then I thought perhaps studs and gold dots, and then once I'd just done the dots I quite liked them as they were, especially as they'd somehow developed to have a tree, so I added a (wonky) star on my thumb and topped with one coat of seche vite. Then I went to photograph them and no matter what I tried they looked AWFUL, the way the light was shining made them look streaky and awful so of course I decided to whack out the matte and make photographing 1000x easier (any excuse) and I actually do really like them like this, so I hope you do too!

I used a base of Nails Inc Hampstead Heath and Barry M gold foil to create the nail art and the matte top coat was one by Rimmel which doesn't have a specific name.

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

Alice

Nude flowers/return of the matte attack

Hi girls! I wasn't actually going to post today, but then I saw this lovely post on instagram and I just had to do it. You all know my love of matte nails so of course it was instantly appealing to me, and as soon as I got back from university I sat down and started on them. They were relatively easy to complete, I've just cut one of my small brushes down even smaller, it was my first time doing it and I think it could actually do with being smaller but it will do for now, and so I wanted to use it for a bit of outlining to see how it looked.

Firstly I painted my nails nude using Nails Inc 'great pulteney street' from the colour burst set (can you tell I love that set yet? haha) and then I used a dotting tool to place random dots of Barry M - Berry, Barry M - Red, Unnamed dark purple No 7 (no label, boo!) and Models Own - Blooboo. Then I used a small brush (not the cut down one) to paint on the leaves in China Glaze - Gaga for green, and then I outlined it all in black acrylic paint and a very small brush

I've always loved the look of things outlined in black (especially when it's matte), what do you think? Let me know in the comments! 

Alice

Then And Now: Week 1

Hey everyone! Today I have the first installment of 'then and now'. I can't remember exactly when I did these nails but I'd say it was around 2 years ago, and I'm hoping my skills have improved in that time! If any of you have any old photos lying around and want to have a go at the 'challenge', please do :D

Apparently I also didn't know how to colour coordinate then either, because these flowers are crazy, but I enjoyed doing such a bright and colourful design. I find that I struggle for inspiration more than I did then, I didn't need much to give me a design and I wish I could still have that, even if the designs were a little mad! The original design was created doing a dotting tool, I only remember that because that's all I ever used then, a set of dotting tools was one of the first things I bought and I used nothing else until about 6 months ago when I decided to try using brushes in this post. As I've mentioned before, I'm still not very confident with brushes, so sometimes I will turn back to my trusty dotting tools, but not this time, I know now that it's a lot quicker to use the brush from the nail varnish to create big flowers like this, so that's what I did. I then used a dotting tool for the dots and specks within the flowers. Original picture after the jump!