A England - To Emily Bronte Collection Swatches + Review

 Hey everyone! I feel so frustrated with myself, I had intended to post every day this week to catch up on reviews but I've come down with an infection and I just feel awful. It's also making me really emotional for some reason, like I've cried at my own nails at least twice, so I decided to have a few days break. I'm still not feeling great but I can't deal with the not-posting guilt so I wanted to post this gorgeous A-England collection.

A England is a brand that I've wanted to try for a very very long time, their polishes are always awe-inspiring and unique, and the collections always intrigue me. I was lucky enough to be approached by Adina to review for A-England recently, and I absolutely jumped at the chance. I was sent this collection, (the To Emily Bronte Collection*), and a duo that I'll be showing you in the next few days. All of the polishes are gorgeous, but I feel a special affinity to this collection because they're all inspired by Wuthering Heights which is such a brilliant book. I used to be such a bookworm before uni and work took over my life and Wuthering Heights was definitely one of my favourites. 

I felt a lot of pressure to get my review of these perfect, not just because I want to impress Adina and my readers, but also because I want to do these beautiful polishes justice. I decided to use my new camera for my 'other' shots and my usual lightbox camera for my five finger shots. Unfortunately I wasn't very happy with the five finger shots, I didn't think they did the polishes justice, but I don't have it in me to break tradition and not have five finger shots. And anyway, it gives a perception of what the polishes look like inside and outside, but it also definitely highlights how much I need to get a lightbox set up for my new camera because the quality is 100x better!

Barry M Spring/Summer 2016 Speedy Quick Dry Collection Review and Swatches

Hey everyone! Today I've got a long-overdue review of the Barry M - Speedy Quick Dry collection* for Spring/Summer 2016. I actually swatched these within the first few days of their release but with the move I just haven't had a chance to sit down and edit the pictures, so today I made sure to make some time to edit, and these were first on my list. Pastels are always my favourite, so this collection of four light pastel shades was always going to have my heart, and they've got the usual great formula of Barry M polishes to match. Read more after the jump to see my full thoughts

Then and Now: Flowers and Beads

Hey everyone. It's been a very long time since I did a 'then and now' type post, I actually did these nails and another design I'll show you next week just after christmas, but I wanted to post them on a Thursday as a kind of #ThrowbackThursday type post, but I kept realising on Fridays that I hadn't posted them. Turns out Thursdays kind of pass me by. So upon realising today was Thursday, I made sure I sat down and wrote this so that another Thursday doesn't come and go. My friend Very Emily has also recently been doing Throwback Thursday posts and I've absolutely loved seeing hers, so I hope you like mine too.

Today's 'Then and Now' post is based off these nails I did around 3 and a half years ago, which many people said at the time were Marc Jacobs-esque. These were actually really popular when I first posted them, so it will be interesting to see if there's a similar reception for these. It's also really interesting to see how my photography has changed, although admittedly the original nails were from when I started to get a hang of where I wanted my blog to go. So you can see 'my' pose starting to develop, and my nails are relatively short compared to some of my really early posts. I've also included a picture after the jump for those too lazy to click the link

I kind of prefer the original nails, weirdly enough, because I think I went a bit OTT with the studs on my latest version, but my photo quality is definitely an improvement, and my skin care is much better too. I found that despite having hundreds of blue polishes, I apparently don't possess a proper navy, so I had to use a very gloopy bottle of a W7 navy. Although this just gives me an excuse to buy more polish! 

Evixi Gel Polish Review + Nail Art

Hey everyone! After doing the Paint All The Nails link up last week I was so inspired by the other ladies who all creating amazing stamping marbles (where you put polish onto the stamper and smush it onto your nail essentially) + stamping, that I couldn't resist giving it a go myself. I love saran wrap nails, but these are even easier to create, and much less messy. I'll definitely be trying them again. I love how with the colours I used here they look like a really beautiful set of clouds at sunset/sunrise.

Trying out this technique seemed to also be the perfect excuse to get cracking on my review of Evixi Gel Polish, I've been trying it out for a couple of months so I can give you a proper review, but this is the first nail art I've done with it on my fingers. I did some nail art on my toes, but this is definitely a fingers-only blog (so don't panic that I'm about the show you pictures of my feet). The design on my toes lasted for well over a month before I got sick of them growing out and took them off, but they were still going strong. I also did some nails on my friend Alice, which lasted her 3 weeks before she picked them off (tut tut), so I can definitely attest for them being long lasting. 

The bottles and lamp are also gorgeous, whilst the bottles are similar to Gelish in their shape, their design is unique and is what really enticed me to reviewing the polish. They look classy and expensive, whilst actually being cheaper than most gel polish, if not all, priced at just £7 for one bottle. You could get a full kit with multiple polishes for under £100 which is virtually unheard of for gels.  Just as a warning this post is quite image-heavy, but I wanted you to get a good idea of the kit and the polishes so bear with me! Full post after the jump.

Paint All The Nails Presents Pastel Geometric

Hey everyone! It's time for another Paint All The Nails link up, this month we decided to do 'pastel' as our theme, and then we realised that was probably a bit vague, so we went with 'pastel geometric' instead. I must admit, I'm not too happy with how I've done this prompt. I couldn't quite tear myself away from my new favourite colour, which is Gelish - Last Call* (full review soon), so I decided to just add my pastel geometric on top. But unfortunuately I don't think there's quite enough pastel for them to be considered pastel, if that's makes any sense. Emily, of Very Emily, persuaded me to post them nevertheless though, and I didn't want to back out of the challenge when I'd already created something, so here we are!  

Gelish Kung-Fu Panda 3 Collection Swatches and Review

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of half of the Gelish - Kung Fu Panda 3 Collection* to show you. There are actually 6 polishes in the collection altogether, but I was sent three, and if these 3 are anything to go by then the collection is definitely worth getting. You will have seen Kung Fu-chsia* yesterday in my one-stroke nail art, and it's probably my favourite from the collection.  I didn't expect to like these as much as I do, but they all had great consistency, and of course because they're Gelish they also are of fantastic quality too. For the first time ever I've attempted 'macros'. I say 'macros' because I don't actually have a macro lens so they're the best I can do, but I wanted to show you that there was quite a lot of depth to some of these.  I'd love to know your thoughts on the new images, and if they work! Full review after the jump. 

Gelish One Stroke Flowers Nail Art

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a lovely Easter. I've got a lovely 4 day weekend, but it's gone so fast already and I'll be back at work before I know it. I love my job, but I also really like being at home painting my nails all day too, and I feel like I've not done enough of that this weekend. It doesn't help that season 2 of Daredevil is now on Netflix, me and my boyfriend have spent pretty much the whole day eating easter eggs and watching it. I did manage to spend friday doing my nails though, and these summery nails are a result of that. 

I was recently sent some of the new Gelish Kung Fu Panda 3 collection*, and I ended up liking Kung Fu-chsia* so much that I had to create some nail art with it. I've only ever attempted one stroke nails once before, years ago, and whilst it wasn't the worst attempt ever, I've also never really tried again. The beauty of gel means that I can just wipe off if I go wrong though, so I decided to give them a shot. They're definitely not complex one-stroke nails like some of the amazing one-stroke artists out there, but I ended up really liking the end result. It reminds me a lot of Hawaiian flowers, even though that wasn't the original intention!