Sunday, 27 January 2013

Spring?

I'm being totally optimistic with the usage of the word spring. The snow has only just thawed and its still windy and freezing outside, but I felt the need for something a little less snowy on my nails.

Generally any mention of 'spring' involves pastels, which I've never really been fond of, so I went shuffling through my polish drawers and found something a little less on the saturated side.


The base colour, Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Gray by Gray, is a lovely shade of slate-y blue gray which provides a lovely contrast for what is probably the most optimistically early daisy ever. Quite impressed at my first attempt at flowers, not that they're massively complex, but they're a wonderfully cheery alternative to the gray skies that are hanging about right now. Daisy was done in all-purpose BarryM White and Yellow.


Saturday, 26 January 2013

More New Polish!

As you may have guessed by now, I'm totally hooked on scouring for polish bargains. Mostly they're coming from Poundland and Poundworld, as they seem determined to sell every bottle of Sally Hansen ever made for £1 each. This makes me incredibly happy as they were still selling the Complete Salon Manicure range in Boots for £6.99 last time I checked.

I've bought far too much in the last week.

For the grand total of £24, I've managed to get myself Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Black Platinum, Gilty Pleasure, Grass Slipper, Calypso Blue, and Green Tea; BarryM in Foil Effects Silver, Peach Melba, Teal, Tnagerine and Gelly Watermelon; also Rimmel 60 Seconds in Sky High (to replace a bottle I had ages ago that seperated badly), Rimma Lycra Pro in Aqua Cool and Revlon Hot for Chocolate. My other half, like a complete sweetheart, sneakily bought me a bottle of Essie Bahama Mama as I've been eyeing up the colour for absolutely months but I'm far too cheap to pay full price for a bottle of Essie.


Friday, 25 January 2013

Pokemon Challenge Week 2



Pokemon challenge week 2 - Fire!


The obvious choice for fire from Gen 1 was always gonna be Charmander. I'd just like to go on record and state that I was never fond of Charmander, as a pokemon. I much preferred Growlithe and Arcanine, or Vulpix and Ninetails. However, all of these damned things are so hard to paint! So when my other half suggested I do Ninetails, I was mentally preparing myself to have to re-paint all of my nails about sixty times.

Oh me of little faith.

Sunday, 20 January 2013

Snow!

It snowed, this week. For England, it snowed lots. At the worst point our street was about half a foot deep in snow, which I'm sure doesn't sound like much to inhabitants of Northern Europe or the northern end of North America, we're far more used to just being wet.

So, in honour of the odd weather - snowy nails!


These really were the product of a sunday trapped in the house by the weather. Both the snow and the snowman (who I have named Armand for some reason) were painted free hand with my teeny little paintbrush. The brush I'm using at the moment is just something we had lying around the house as the other half used to paint Warhammer miniatures - its a Citadel standard with shortish bristles so not much good for nice neat stripes but not bad for spots and actual painting.

Colours used were George Quick Drying Nail Varnish in Dazzle for the main colour, BarryM white for the snow, and little bits of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Rapid Red, Models Own Pro Jack's Black and BarryM Block Orange for the snowman's details - yes, he even has an orange carrot nose.


I have to admit that the main colour is just a cheap polish I bought ages ago for £1 from Asda, but it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous shimmery navy. Formula for the polish itself is a little on the gloopy side, but that may be because I've left it while a while before I used it.

Saturday, 19 January 2013

New Polish

Instead of going shopping for something useful yesterday, like snow boots or a super warm jacket, but instead I went to TK Maxx and Poundland and bought more polishes.


These three were £1 each from the pound shop. I've gotten quite a few of the Sally Hansen polishes lately from there - 7 Insta-Dri and 3 of the Complete Salon Manicure.

I also managed to find something entirely fabulous in TK Maxx, although it was slightly more than £1...

Friday, 18 January 2013

Pokemon Challenge! Week 1

I choose you...!

Yep, I'm a massive nerd. I've played pokemon since Crystal came out many moons ago, and so when Rachel (of Racho's Nail Love) showed me the super awesome Pokemon Challenge run by The Blahg and Adventures of the Nail Friends  I really couldn't resist doing it.

And so I ended up all snuggled up in my nice warm house, eyeballing the snow which has been falling pretty constantly for about six hours now, and freehand painting Pokemon on to my nails.

Week 1 of the challenge is a grass type pokemon.


As we're limited to the original 151 I went for...

Thursday, 17 January 2013

Polish Remover

Nail polish remover can be quite a tricky thing.

There's four or five different varieties of each brand - acetone-free, moisturising, etc and to be honest some of them are just no good. For years I've used Cutex, either the strengthening or the ultra cleansing type and since I've started doing my nails more regularly I was beginning to wonder if I should take out shares as I'm going through it like there's no tomorrow. It wasn't really doing my nails much good though, as they always felt a bit dry and abused after I had scrubbed or soaked off the previous week's polish, and the smell of it had a nasty tendency to gas out our room. Also, even with the best of soaking and such it could never really cope with anything too glittery. Glitter would inevitably end up everywhere - on my hands. on my clothing, on my face... I really do mean everywhere. I'm not sure how I do it.

Then I noticed that a few places were raving about Bourjois' Magic Nail Polish Remover, and I figured if it was all it claimed to be then it would be some kind of super miracle and I would create great hyperbole about it, like I do about everything I like. Finally found a pot in Superdrug for £4.99 - I've never seen a shop with more than two of these in at any time. They go like hot cakes.

Its a simple little pot with a couple of big sponges in it which are soaked in remover. All you have to do is stick your finger in and wiggle it about for a couple of seconds.


It really does live up to its name. It is indeed, magic. Also, its definitely a nail polish remover. And its awesome. It really only takes a couple of seconds to remove pretty much anything you can layer on to your nail - my first try took off a layer of basecoat, three layers of Rimmel 60 seconds Princess pink, an attempt at blood red french tips and two layers of Seche Vite in about 10 seconds. I'm also fairly sure I left my finger in there for five seconds too long.

I can't actually say how fantastic this stuff actually is. My fingers came out smelling of berries and feeling lovely thanks to the Sweet Almond oil. I can't recommend this enough (if you can find a pot, that is).

Although this is a little more expensive compared to a bottle of my usual Cutex and some cotton wool pads its way more handy. Not sure how long it will last yet, but I'll keep you posted on how many full nail paints it removes.

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Spotty!


I love spotty things. I also love stripy things, but I've got fairly shaky hands and no long striping brush so I figured it was best to stick to what I could do pending the procurement of a nice set of long striping brushes.

I got a triple pack of Essie the other day from TK Maxx - three bottles of what I suspect to be Forever Yummy, but sadly they have no identifying mark on the bottles and the labels they do have have no barcode or anything. I'm very fond of reds, especially the less orangey end of the red spectrum. I'm kinda convinced, although I'm really not sure if I'm right in this, that I don't suit the orange/coral colours, so over the years I've ended up owning a lot of very similar shades of red.

Test

Live! LIIIIIIIIVE DAMN YOU!!!

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.