Its a New Dawn, Its a New Day

I don't think it is any surprise to anyone out there that 2012 wasn't the best year for me. But, we are through and I am not looking back. With all this on my mind I haven't been able to blog, I haven't even painted my nails properly in ages, but that is all changing.

So, New Year, new start, new name for the blog. The polish shop is taking up lots of my time, but I am absolutely loving it. ( everyone at work who has no understanding of the desire for polish from anywhere other than Boots keep asking me if I am selling Polish people... it is no longer funny. So, I am tying everything together. I have a new facebook account, and we have a facebook group for the shop so people can keep up to date with what is happening.

So, to assist with this dragging myself from my malaise I invested in some new stamping plates from Nailz Craze and armed myself with Layla Mirror Effects in Black as Ebony.

Firstly the undercrackers. It is Models Own 'Nude Beige' which I had as part of my secret santa from the Nail Polish Addicts Forum. As with all Models Own polishes it applied really well, even and gave a lovely base. It looked like it wasn't there, which was just the effect I was looking for.

I was quite impressed with the Nailz Craze plate. It was easy to use, and the pattern appeared really deeply etched so it was easy to use. My only criticism would be that it had no backing, so it was as sharp as hell. But this can be forgiven for the lovely image.

The Layla polish used to stamp is really pretty. Its not black, its a dark silver or pewter in my opinion, but it gave me exactly the look I wanted. It also spread very far, it only took a stripe across the plate and the polish filled the image. Nice because it means you wont waste loads of polish which easily happens when stamping.

Hope you enjoy the images. Can't wait to start on my journey again.

Why is my tip wear so horrible?

 I haven't put a nice big picture at the top of my post, because these nails just don't cut the mustard.

I have used models own magenta divine glitter with a china glaze black crackle topcoat. Even with tip wrap this just sucked back from the tips of my nails like chavs from a naked flame.

Other than this the mani looked amazing and would look great on a night out. I am open to any ideas.

Half Moon Fail

I like half moons, I think they can look really effective and pretty. This mani didn't start life as a half moon. I wanted to use Models Own Copper Pot with Copper Glitter over the top. But when I looked at them I didn't get it, so I decided to use something else over the top. This is where the disaster occurred.

Somewhere in my little head I thought the perfect partner was China Glaze 'Electrify' I must admit it was dark, and my eyes aren't the best. But the next morning I was not impressed.  The colours were just so close but not the same so they didn't gel.

However, I am not one to hide my failures, so thought you would all like a giggle. Next time I will put Electrify over black, I think that would be the perfect partner.

Shhhhh! I Got A Crackle Working!

Now, to some people this isn't anything amazing, but to me its massive. For ages I have envied those who get beautiful crackled nails at a blink. Mine were never like that, they glooped, or worse, some crackled and others didn't. 

But after listening to the lovely StarryStarry I was enthused to have another go. Rather than buy another cheap crackle I decided to go for a Barry M, a brand I trust. Put quite a contrast on my fingers first with Models Own Fuzzy Peach as I knew it would show through against the white, then left it to dry for AGES. 

By gawd, it worked. SO chuffed.  (also another two off the unused list) Now I just have to get the two Barry M crocs to work.

On another note, nail etiquette for a funeral? should it just be black, or can I go for a very subtle grey and black?

Stashing, Challenges and Nails to Match My Mood

I don't think my life ever stops being hectic. Work is still wild, I don't think it will ever change. My innermost thoughts are I am not able to perform to the best of my ability because of the pure volume I am having to deal with. But, I am doing my best and my motto for the week is that I am John Lewis not Lidl. Lets just hope it lasts!

In addition to this we went to Denmark on Monday. It was a day trip which in my mind initially was a fabby idea. We got an early flight to Billund and spent the day in Legoland as a bit of a pressie for my husbands birthday. It was a wonderful day, but sooo exhausting. It also gave me an excuse to visit Westfield in White City. The call of the Models Own shop was calling.

Well, I was super impressed with the offerings in Westfield, they have a Kiko, Models Own and a Beauty Bay. From this I ended up with oodles of polishes, 24 to be exact. Managed to get my Models Own Beetlejuice collection complete with Golden Green and Pinky Brown and got several Kiko's. Also my first few LA Girls. Woo Hoo. However, I think these final 24 have broken the camels back and I am now officially on a no buy until Christmas. I do have a few exceptions to this rule, the first being I can participate in the Models Own 50% off sale if it ever happens, secondly I can get Barry M Once Upon a Time if it is re-released as I have been told.

Couldn't resist using two of the new polishes for this mani. Its No7 Thunderstorm which is a wonderful grey/blue/purple, just like the sky before we have a storm and pink orchid from Kiko.

In addition to this I have decided to set up a new challenge for Christmas. Having to think about it now as we are renaming the 12 days of Christmas to become more nail centric. At the moment there are 17 of us taking part, but anyone is welcome, no matter what your experience/technique etc etc.

We have a thread about it in our lovely Forum or going to our Facebook group.

Saturday Nights for Dancing...

Except when you dislocated your knee, then it is for thinking of dancing, while considering that at some point in the future you will be able to wear high heels again!

But hell to the knee, I want my nails to look like I am having an amazing Saturday night, so I have dived on two recent purchases. A - England Holy Grail and Models Own Dancing Queen from the new Mirrorball range.

Firstly the Holy Grail, Its a bright gold. I would never normally touch this type of colour with a bargepole. But I love A-England polishes and just couldn't resist when this was only £5 as a gem of the month. If you want one click HERE.

Next comes the Mirrorball. I have been swooning over these little lovelies since the announcement was made. For some reason I had it in my head that they were going to be like Nails Inc Nail Jewellery, but they are nothing at all like it. Firstly, if you have Hedkandi 'Ibiza Mix' they smell the same, strong, and almost like something has died in the pot. But the smell subsides as soon as it is dry, I promise. Dancing Queen is a fab mix of green, blue, silver and gold glitters. They come in loads of different shapes and sizes. I am super impressed, even if it wasn't what I was expecting. If you want any, click on this link for the Models Own website. Also worth being aware that if they get 100 000 likes on their facebook page they are making a 50% discount, so go on over to facebook and we can all be winners!

STOP PRESS Models Own Glitter Ball

I think the gods are being kind to us glitter loving people today. Models Own have announced their glitter ball collection

 

Their announcement is as follows

NEW! The MIRRORBALL Collection, a completely unique glide-on glitter that will revitalise your entire polish collection! Wear alone or over your favourite colour polish to give a frosting finish, taking nails from boring to BLING! Each polish contains five different chunky colours of hand-cut glitter that are guaranteed to get the party started: Disco Inferno, a glittery gold disco bomb; Hot Stuff, an intoxicating mix of pink and gold sparkles; Freak Out, a crystal shimmer mix of bold blue and purple; Dancing Queen, fabulous flecks of emerald, blue and gold; Boogie Nights, a multicoloured mix of intriguing purple, pink and blue! The Mirrorball Collection launches (with LIMITED EDITION metallic coloured caps!) exclusively at the Models Own Bottleshop on Thursday, September 6th, on the Models Own website from Monday, September 10th and in Boots stores nationwide from Wednesday, October 3rd. x

Personally I cannot wait for these and will be ordering the whole set. They look SO adorable. What does everyone else think?

31 Day Challenge #20 Watermarbling

I suppose I should admit at this point that water marbling is my nemesis. If you thought the gradient was bad, well I was dreading this bad boy.

The basic thing that I don't like is the mess. First time I did this one out of 5 nails looked part way decent. But in the process of doing this I wrecked a table and spilt acetone on my clothes. I cannot abide the vaseline fingers and I am not very good at the clean up which means if I don't use the vaseline I end up looking like I fell over in a dulux mixing pot.

This time I decided to go back to basics. We did silk marbling in school using oils and water. So, I figure I just had to adapt this process to my fingers. So, instead of sticking my fingers into the pot of despair known as the water cup I walloped a bit of paper in. This was part successful, but the varnish dried into the paper, not on top. So, I moved onto something more water tight and grabbed a sandwich bag. This worked perfectly.

Final part of my plan was to leave this to dry overnight out of the way of the puppy and this morning I cut the plastic up roughly into fingernail sizes and peeled the varnish of it. Sorted. All I needed to do then was roughly paint my nails with one of the colours I had already used yesterday, then stick the bits of nail varnish onto it. A splash of Seche Vite, left to dry, and then I carefully removed the excess from around my nail.

Without blowing my own trumpet I think they look mighty fine. The only thing I would do differently next time is to include brighter colours and more glittery business.

The polishes I used are

No7 Betty Blues
No7 Minty Fresh
No7 Poolside Blue
No7 Standback
Models Own Aqua Violet

Here are links to the other ladies taking part in the challenge...



Before I forget, if you like chatting nail polish, you can always visit us on our forum

http://npaa.forumotion.co.uk/

Essence Circus Confetti vs Models Own Hedkandi Ibiza Mix

Very short blog, but thought I would compare the two after a little discussion in ManiMommies Swap n Shop. I have had Ibiza Mix in my collection for a while now, and I absolutely adore it. But when we recently to Tenerife I picked up quite a few Essence polishes, including Circus Confetti.

 Must admit I probably wouldn't have brought it if I wasn't having a nose bleed in the shop as I thought it was very very similar to Ibiza Mix. But hey, a girl can never have too much polish. So, in this little comparison

I have used - 1 coat of each on two swatch circles - 1 coat of each over two coats of NYC City Blackout - 2 coats of each on two swatch circles. Here are the polishes

Here is a picture of all the swatches I did, the order from left to right is
- Two coats of Ibiza Mix
- Two coats of Circus Confetti
- One coat of Ibiza Mix over City Blackout
- One coat of Circus Confetti over City Blackout
- One coat of Ibiza Mix
- One coat of Circus Confetti

Ibiza Mix on the left, Circus Confetti on the right, one coat of each

One coat of each over NYC City Blackout. Ibiza Mix on the left, Circus Confetti on the right.

Two coats of each, Ibiza Mix on the left, Circus Confetti on the right.

Things to consider... My Ibiza Mix was half full, therefore the glitter wasn't as full coverage as I would normally expect, Ibiza Mix stinks, where as Circus Confetti doesn't. The main difference appears to be that the speckles in Ibiza Mix are bigger, but Circus Confetti appears to have slightly patterned hexes in it.

Let me know what you think.

I wish I was a pretty peacock!

So, challenges over, I get to do my nails the way I want to do my nails. So it takes me forever to decide.

But, I wanted to use one of my new polishes, so plumped for Essence colour n go shade 78 'blue addicted' this consists of a deep blue jelly with tiny blue glitter speckles and green and blue hexes. I really really love how this looks but for me it needed a very strong base coat. So, I have plumped for Models Own Emerald black, which is about the darkest green I have ever seen in my little life! But, to make the glitter stand out better I decided to use a matte top coat from Rimmel.

Rainbow Nails - Day 7 - Pink and my latest haul

I have really really enjoyed my first nail  challenge and I am looking forward to getting into another one.

So, here are my pink pictures. I wanted something bright, bright bright so went for a base coat of a deep fuschia by  Miss Sporty 322, and topped it off with Models Own Magenta Divine. I love this Models Own nail varnish as it only takes two coats to be a really really heavy colour.

For some reason my camera didn't want to play ball so the pictures aren't as clear as I would like. But I am sure you will get the impression.

In other news I have also got these lovelies for myself today

First 4 are Sinful Colours shades...

Paris
All Mighty
Whats Your Name
Show Me The Way

They were all £1 each from poundworld - bargain.

In addition I got the three Essies from TkMaxx for £7.00 in the clearance section.

They are...

Capri
Chocolate Cake
Tiny Wine-ey

I have never owned any Essies before so I am looking forward to having a go with them.

If there are any more nail challenges about let me know, I am happy to participate

Rainbow Challenge, Day 5 - Blue

For me we are still in a nice end of the scale, and it was easier than I thought to pick my blue. My initial thoughts were China Glaze Frostbite as I just LOVE that colour. But today is very warm and humid so I didn't want to slap something to remind me of the winter all over my fingers.

So, with that in mind I have gone with Miss Sporty bright, but light blue, 456 with a top coat of Models Own Indian Ocean.

I love Miss Sporty polishes as they are really inexpensive, but they have lovely colours and they apply really well for me. Anyway. What do you think?

As always, please check out the blogs of the other lovely ladies taking part.

http://thiamere.blogspot.com
http://9mluniverse.blogspot.com/
http://web.stagram.com/n/atlcatsmeow/ 
http://captivatingclaws.blogspot.com/
http://fancyphalanges.blogspot.com/
http://fesnails.blogspot.com/
http://followtheyellowpolishroad.blogspot.com/ 
http://footballandfingernails.blogspot.com/
http://www.freshairandfashion.blogspot.com/
http://happynailsuk.blogspot.com/ 
http://iheartprettypolish.blogspot.com/ 
http://jolienskingdomofpolish.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.kellyskolors.com/
http://www.lacquerorleaveher.blogspot.com/
http://liesllovesprettythings.blogspot.com/
http://lightyournails.blogspot.com/
www.manicurity.com/
http://mylifeinpolish.blogspot.com/
http://www.nailpolishlives.tumblr.com/
http://www.nailpolishlane.blogspot.com/
http://nubbinnails.blogspot.com/
http://natrcolorsnmusic.blogspot.in/
http://polishandsuch.blogspot.com/
http://www.sincerelyobsessedwithpolish.blogspot.com/
http://www.sytycp.blogspot.com/
http://nailpolishrants.blogspot.com
/http://to-polish-or-not.blogspot.ca/

So Many Polishes, So Little Time!

I cannot believe it has been a month since my last post, and such alot has happened in this time. I had so many good intentions, but within two days my sister broke her leg and is in a cast and I had a new puppy, so time for polish and blogging has completely gone out the window.

However, having recently returned from a wonderful break in Tenerife I am back with a bang. Decided before I got there that I would indulge myself with some new polishes from brands that I can't get in the UK. All good so far, except I didn't realise how bloomin difficult it would be to find the things. All of the main perfume shops have unbranded polish and the usual Dior/Chanel/Lancome etc, but I was really after Essence and Catrice, and in the end I wasn't disappointed.

So, my purchases were...

7 Catrice beauties and from left to right they are...

600 ~After Eight
740 - King of Greens
400 - Blue Cara Ciao
C04 - Be Indieglow
350 - Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans
200 - From Dusk till Dawn
770 - Put Lavender on the Agenda
630 - Sing : Hey, Dirty Lilah!
420 - Dirty Berry

Then some lovelies from Essence

01 - Circus Confetti which appears to be a bit of a dupe for Models Own Ibiza Mix
03 - Hello Holo - a holographic multi coloured glitter
11 - Disco Disco - holographic glitter with holographic glitter squares
09 - Copper'ize Me! Copper/Red/Russet holographic glitter
01 - Purpulicious - holographic purple glitter
10 - Glorious Aquarius - multi sized holographic glitter with square glitter pieces


08 - Love potion - Copper magnetic nail polish
01 - hex hex! - Charcoal Grey magnetic nail polish

 -

L to R
Ciate Bon Bon - Free with Marie Claire Magazine
DP Cosmetics green magnetic polish
Sinful Colours - Opal Glitter
Sinful Colours - Tokyo Glitter
Sinful Colours - Noelle
Sinful Colours - Daddys Girl ( this is a very deep purple with a glitter undercurrent, but doesn't photograph well at all)

L to R

Essence - 77 In Style
Essence - 56 Got a Secret
Essence - 78 Blue Addicted - blue/green glitter
Essence - 43 Wheres the party - a chrome looking colour shifter from green to purple

I cannot wait to get these little beauties on my fingers, just wish I had brought more!

EDITED

Well, I have had a bit of a bargain over the past couple of days, so I thought I would share it with you. I popped into our local town centre to Superdrug hopefully to get my hands on the new Barry M colour changing polish. But came across a sale on their Accessorize range. All of their metallic one coat chromes were half price! So, I helped myself to one of each on the basis that they would be good to stamp with.. here is a picture of the little darlings...

While I was there I also got my hands on the wonderful NYC Mint Macaroon and Lavendar Cupcake for £2.49, another 2 accesorize normal colours for £1.50 each, a colour changing Barry M ( the original intended purchase). I also was given a free Barry M polish in superdrug by the lovely lady in there, and my husband got me a technic seafoam!