Barry M Lilac Roses Tutorial

Hey everyone! I'm so excited because today I managed to get my hands on tickets to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! I was in the 'queue' for 5 hours and when I finally got to the end I panicked and ended up booking for ages away (next October) so that I could get hold of the tickets I wanted, but it will be worth the wait. I read the script in one day at the weekend and I loved it. I know there's been some negative opinion surrounding it but I really liked it. Have you read it yet? Let me know your thoughts on it! 

So today I have a tutorial of these rose nails for you. I actually created these ages and ages ago, but I completely forgot that I'd done them somehow! I loved this design when I did them and I'm glad I'm finally sharing them with you. The full tutorial will be after the jump. 

Burgundy Barry M Swirls

Hey everyone! I've spent all day Christmas shopping and I'm absolutely exhausted. I always forget how tiring shopping is but I cant wait to fall asleep after 8+ hours of wandering around. And I've still not got everything I need. I'm trying to be organised this year and also avoid the crowds, so I think I'll be doing the rest online. Anyway, today's nails are quite Christmassy, burgundy and gold is always a favourite of mine at this time of year. I was in the process of reviewing the Barry M Autumn/Winter 2015 Speedy Quick Dry collection* (review soon - just need to edit the photos!) and I couldn't help but create some nail art with Sprint Finish*

Crazy Peace Nail Art for Avon

 Hey everyone! I'm not really sure how I feel about these nails, it's one of those designs that just didn't turn out as I pictured in my head. I had to wear these for a week so I had a lot of time to contemplate whether I liked them or not and I still couldn't decide. Weirdly, I did get quite a lot of compliments whilst I was wearing them, but that might just be because they're very bright and a lot more noticeable. I suppose they're not too bad, I'm happy with the design execution but I think they're just a bit garish.

Swirled Glitter Sandwich

Hey everyone! Today's design had no prior inspiration, it was one of those designs where I just decided to see where my brain took me. I wanted to try out some of my new OPI polishes, a lot of which are nude jellies, so I thought I would create a glitter 'sandwich' also using a new glitter polish I got from my friend Hannah, of Polly Polish. I wasn't sure whether the two would work together, and I decided to add some swirls using OPI - Alpine Snow to neutralise the design a bit. I really liked how they turned out, I hope you do too!

Picture Polish - Sizzle by Cosmetic Sanctuary Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have some nail art for you using one of Picture Polish's recent collaboration polishes: Sizzle* by Cosmetic Sanctuary. Would you believe this is the first ever Polish Shade on my blog? It's not the first to touch my nails, as I've just swatched four of the new releases from Picture Polish (review coming this weekend) and I used Unicorn* (Brit Nails collaboration shade) first. Nevertheless, as soon as I tried this polish I knew I had to do some nail art with it, it's a brilliant neon but also glittery, what else could you want?! I'll have my full review of it for you this weekend, but for now let me show you the nail art!

Gelly Gradient Swirls

Hey everyone! It's been a few days since I posted anything because I had a really hectic weekend, but I have tonnes of great nail art (if I say so myself) and reviews coming for you in the next couple of weeks, so that should make up for it! Today is the one of promised designs from my Barry M Gelly Hi Shine review. I have no idea where this design came from, I didn't have any particular inspiration, I felt like doing a gradient, wasn't very proud of the gradient, so I added some swirls to blend it together a bit more and ended up loving how it turned out. I even kept it on for more than a day! Swirls are basically my go-to design when I want to just mess around a bit, most people tend to have leopard print as their go-to but I've just never really go in to it, and I think swirls are just as effective and simple.

The base for these nails was Barry M - Rose Hip, and I used Graffiti Nails - Butterfly Pink and Graffiti Nails - Pistachio for the gradient, then I added acrylic paint with a small nail art brush and topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite

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

Alice

Tutorial Tuesday: Cosmo Swirls

Hey everyone! I've been super busy with revision and essays because I have a load of deadlines/exams coming up and I'm stressing a bit so apologies for not posting tonnes. I promise this isn't a sign of things to come in 2014, I just want to get my exams out of the way and then I'll be back to posting more regularly. I have a couple of nail art posts for you, a couple of reviews, and a couple of tutorials so I'll spread them out over the next 3 weeks until the end of exams just so you're not missing out! 

Anyway, today I have another tutorial tuesday for you. You might remember these nails from when I went to the Cosmo awards, and as they're clearly lucky because I won an award, I thought I'd do a tutorial for them. I actually created this tutorial for Nail It! so I wont be writing the steps down here because I think it's only fair that you head over there to see, (look HERE) but I will post the picture steps just so you have something to look at! 

As with my original post, the base for these nails was 2 coats of Alessandro - Midnight Black*, and 3 coats of Alessandro - Glitter Queen*. I then applied a layer of China Glaze - Fairy Dust to the black. Once that was dry I used a thin brush (this one) and white acrylic paint for the swirls, and finally I added the black studs (which I unfortunately cannot remember the origin of but they're most likely from Born Pretty Store). Finished off with a coat of Seche Vite

  

Don't forget to check out the steps HERE. 

I also wrote a post for Nail It! about photographing your nails with a few other bloggers which you can see here if you're interested.

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

Alice

Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2013

Hey everyone! I have some super exciting news for you all today. Some of you may remember that a month or so ago I was asking you all to vote for me for Best New Beauty Blog 2013 in the Cosmopolitan blog awards, and this week was the awards ceremony. I went with the intention of meeting up with some amazing bloggers (aka The Nailasaurus, xameliax, Brit Nails and Lucy's Stash) and with absolutely no expectation of coming away with a prize. So imagine my surprise when I won! I'm still not sure it's entirely sunk in but I'm absolutely honoured to have been chosen and voted for, and I have all you amazing readers to thank, so thankyou. I still cannot believe that I run a successful blog, let alone a prize-winning one, and it is purely down to you, and I really cannot thank you all enough.

I of course couldn't attend without doing my nails, and although I wanted something that I could do on both hands, I also wanted it to be something that stood out, and so I finally settled on this glitter/swirl/stud combo. The base for these nails was 2 coats of Alessandro - Midnight Black*, and 3 coats of Alessandro - Glitter Queen*. I then applied a layer of China Glaze - Fairy Dust to the black. Once that was dry I used a thin brush and white acrylic paint for the swirls, and finally I added the black studs (which I unfortunately cannot remember the origin of but they're most likely from Born Pretty Store) I've also included a few pictures of the event and whatnot after the jump!

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.