Nail Art: Matching Pastel Aztec

It's graduation season and with that comes fancy dresses! My boyfriend's graduation is before mines and I've decided to wear a pale grey shift dress with a pastel aztec pattern from missguided. I don't often wear such bright colours but thought I'd make the effort for summer. 

I attempted to do matching nails, by picking out specific parts of the pattern. However they didn't come out as neat or as dainty as I'd hoped. But they could be worse haha! 

Colours used:

Models Own Hypergel: Cornflower Gleam

Models Own Scented: Banana Split

Barry M Gelly: Greenberry, Dragon fruit, Papaya 

Revlon: Hazy 

Swatched! Are We There Yet?, Hazy, I Have A Herring Problem, Classy, Wet Cement

I have some swatches of my Fragrance Direct haul in this post, sorry it's a bit late, but I took these in the lead upt to my holiday intending to post whilst I was away, but I ended up being super busy as I realised we only had 5 days in Chamonix and 2 days in Brugges so I wanted to do all the sight seeing as much as I could!

The swatches that I'm missing are Mojito Madness & Cascade Cool from Essie and  Did You Ear About Van Gogh & I Don't Give A Rotterdam from OPI. It's ironic since mojito madness is my favourite colour out of the haul as its such a pretty green and it's probably the one ive worn the most. However, you could just look up swatches from other (better) blogs online. I did kick myself when I realised I dont give a rotterdam and I have a herring problem where just light and darker version of each other though, but it's always nice to have an OPI in your collection and I did get them for cheap so I guess it's not too bad. 

I dont have many comments to make as I did the swatches so long ago now, sorry D: All swatches are done with three coats.

OPI, Are We There Yet:

Cream finish, such a pretty orangey peachy colour!

Revlon, Hazy:

Cream finish, slightly darker than sally hansen's wet cement further in the post.

OPI, I Have A Herring Problem:

Fine glitter finish, sort of blue grey colour, really pretty.

Revlon, Classy:

Cream finish, nudey peach colour. Nice for everday, understated work colour

Sally Hansen, Wet Cement:

Cream finish.

Fragrance Direct Haul

Just a quick post as in super tired from travelling about all day - Perth to Glasgow to Edinburgh! 

Basically go to fragrancedirect.com and revel in all the cheap products they have, I got all this for £25 including the delivery! 

Did you ear about Van Gogh, are we there yet?, I have a herring problem, I don't give a rotterdam. 

Mojito madness, cascade cool. 

Classy, hazy. 

Wet cement. 

Nail Art Mish Mash and Fragrance Direct

Sorry for the lack of posts these days. I've been feeling so uninspired lately and pretty much only do things like polka dots and triangles just in different colour combos which can't be too inspiring for you guys tbh :/

I miss doing the WOW designs like the pokemon nails or the butterfly wings, but with my stuff being in two different places, it's a bit hard to get everything together T_T

Anyways, this is just a collage of what I have done, which is just a colour block design using standard sticky tape, gems and some polka dots with a holo polish. Pretty boring really :(

But one semi exciting thing Id like to mention is that if yous would like to buy some cheap OPI or China Glaze or Essie then head over to http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/ which sells high end AND drugstore products (hair, nails, make up, perfume etc) with a huge discount, even Revlon polishes were down to 99p :o I did a smaaaal purchase of 9 polishes which totalled to £22, which is really good considering it contains 4 OPI polishes! I think it's old season products they only sell, but definitely have a click on the link to see if theres anything you've been desiring!

Dreary March Ombré

This weather is awful. It's supposed to be spring soon, and we're having to deal with bitter winds, rain and SNOW. What is earth?! (Grav3yardgirl fan ;) ) I've decided that L.A shall be my country to emigrate too since it doesn't seem to get too cold in the winters over there, I don't mind rain too much but I can't stand actual coldness.

After the pastel bonanza of the models own scented collection, I decided to tone it down with a bit of grey and black. How "emo" HA. I used Barry m black and grey and revlons white on white and sponges it on as per with these kind of nails. So. Yeah that's it's really, it's nothing that interesting but thought I'd post it anyways.

I'll also add an Instagram effect overload photo just cos I can ;)

Watercolour Nails

I've been sucha a bad blogger...again... I've been really busy with uni, as I have a project due and I had a week with like 9 labs (I usually have 1 or 2 at most) and it's all just been a but WAAHDAODHASIIDBISDIHU lately XD I also haven't done any of the swatch posts I'd said I'd do from my last Boots haul >_<

Things are semi-calming down right now, so I might be able to do swatch posts of my latest Boots hauls (got some of those Barry M textured polishes :D ) so hopefully I'll get something typed out, really sorry guys!

Anyways, on a rare night off from uni work/sobbing at labs, I dashed out some watercolour nails. I'd previously attempted it by using the cling film/sammich bag technique but mines ended up very splotchy and looked like a 2 year old tried to paint my nails lolol. So I got the acetone out and did it hte proper way, and LOVED how it turned out :)

I used a white Revon to as a base, then topped with 2 coats of Seche Vite to use as a barrier between the acetone and the white base. I then dabbed on patches of Essie Lilacism, Essie Lapiz Of Luxury and Essie Mint Candy Apple and used a brush dipped in acetone to smudge out the blobs. then another coat of seche vite was used and you're done!

Personally, it took me about 15 mins to do the whole thing (inc base) as I didn't want any harsh lines where the blobs has dried around the edge. I thing using pastels makes it's really pretty, but I might consider using  more bold colours and see how that turns out :)

Starbucks Nails!

It's that time of year again when the Starbucks red cups are out, the grass is crunchy in the morning and Primark has cosy tights out...I hate this time of year tbh. I'm just not made for cold climates, and Christmas was never a big deal to me. But I do like christmas patterned clothes and the odd christmas film :p

I've always favoured Starbucks over Costa, think they have a better variety...and I'm not 

 a huge fan of the colour red either :p

So thought I'd give Starbucks nails a go, after having a...craving?...to use Barry M's Spring Green. It's just so vibrant and bright without being too neon, and aaaaalmost the right shade for Starbucks :p

I'd like to apologise for various things. Such as the scary demonic face of the logo, the streakiness and the overall blurriness :(

None of my tools were small enough to do the face, so I resorted to a sharpie, which was also slighty clunky, but I got sick of trying to do the face so I left it. The streakiness is due to me using a new fast dry topcoat (Maybelline) and it just being overall crap - no speed drying, and lots of streaks. BOO. And the blurriness is due to me still sucking at taking photos and not using a stand.tripod type device :P

In all honesty, I have no idea what the friiiiick was going on with this hand. Being left handed, I was aiming to do something easy, but it kind of ended up being a garbled mess :p The middle finger's supposed to be the little brown slips they put round the takeaway cups and the pinky/thumb ended up being a disjointed version of the bottom of the starbucks logo :/

I much prefer my right hand as that had the better designs, so i may have to keep my left hand in hiding for the rest of the week :p

I've been pondering to do an extra theme to my blog. Being an avid fan of Boots, I'm thinking ofpost ng Boots haul posts along with my usual nail art posts. Just because I'll probably not be doing many designs on the run up to exams (ERMYGADZ EXAMS), and I do have quite a spending issue when it comes to Boots :p Anyways, I'll see how the Boots haul posts do, and see if I'll continue it on or not :) I'm not intending for this to become a beauty blog (I'd be the worst beauty blogger ever haha), but just a few comments on anything I bought, plus I usually always buy a nail polish whenever I go to Boots :p

Marmalade Doodles

I've been meaning to do a doodle-esque mani for a while, but I've been lacking in appropriate imagination and patience recently.

I used Revlon Colourstay in Marmalade for the base, and I have to say that the Colourstay range takes SO long to thoroughly dry, I have a few from this range and they all take so painstakingly long to dry. I left this mani to dry for 3 hours and still managed to dent it when I went for a nap...however a nice layer of top coat helped smooth things over :)

ORANGE: Revlon Colourstay - Marmalade
WHITE: Ebay - Unbranded

I find it quite ironic that the designs done with my non-dominant hand (2nd pic) are actually more detailed than the ones done with my dominant hand...I probably made more of a conscious effort with the designs on that hand :p

I'd also like to add that my thoughts, hopes and wishes go out to those affected by the Colarado shootings. Hopefully this is the final straw to make the state to change it's gun laws.

Double Post: Hime Gyaru & Ying Yang Drips

Hello m'loves, how are we surviving the freakishly wet summer of 2012? T_T

Anyhows, I have a double post for you today, since I didn't have much to say about of the designs as there wasn't much to it. Also, more apologies for my cuticles, I got fed up and went a bit snip happy with nail clippers...now I know why you're not supposed clip them -_-

The first design is a gentle step into the ever so slightly OTT world of Hime Gyaru nails from Japan.

In all honesty I kind of had another mind blank on what nail design to do, and all I decided was that I was going to use the ever so lovely Buttercup from the Revlon Colourstay range as a base. I then just blindly went into my nail decorations box and grabbed anything yellow based and ended up with this kind of thing. Normally I do my ring finger and my thumb as accent nails, however due to the unpractical use of gems and pearls and whatnot, I decided to keep my accent nail to just the ring finger. They did however last a fair amount of time before I decided to take them off (around 3 days) 

YELLOW: Revlon Colourstay - Buttercup
Gems & Pearls: Ebay

The next design I have is a Ying Yang/Drip effect design that I actually really like. If anyone watches the amazeballs Voussontbeauetbelle (i.e Becca) on youtube, you'll know that she often sports some wowza looking ying yang nails more often than not, and I just had to get involved! Me being one for accent nails and all that tosh, I decided to sport the ying yang sign on my accent nails and a drip effect on my other nails (God, I do like a good old drippy effect)

WHITE: Models Own - Snow White
BLACK: Barry M - Black

Given that my usual white is in Glasgow at the moment and I am in Edinburgh (making sure Mr Lacquerised doesn't die from starvation while his family are away in the sunny climates of Chamonix), I persuaded Mr L to purchase me a white from his place of work (Boots, however he only works in the opticians not the normal part of the store where I can easily peruse the contents for almost an hour!) and he picked up the Models Own French Mani white which I'd never actually used before. Personally, I find it a bit blah to work with...opaque-ish in 2 coats but can be a bit patchy and it has a weird consistency...maybe I'm just too used to my Ultra Pro one lol.

It was surprisingly hard/confusing for me to do the ying yang signs...I couldn't get them consistently the same shape...maybe I was overthinking it too much hehe.

Anyhows, if you don't know yet, Ive finally got round to opening my Etsy Shop, so have a quick peruse if you wish, and maybe even buy a set if you want hehe ;)

Till next time! :)

Grapefruit Fizzies

Bonjour Lacquerised lovelies,

How are we surviving the summer? Are you somewhere warm and lovely, and are you somewhere a teeny bit temperamental like the UK? :p Right now it's rather humid, but switching between sunshine and rain...and wind...very odd.

Today's design isn't too intricate, it's a dotty ombre-ish kinda of deal, with a peach and yellow contrast which is a rather nice, summery pastely concoction methinks :)

Barry M is renowned for their polishes and peach melba is one of the good ones (I've been fooled by many a sheer/jelly polish!). It's a pink-ish peachy colour, opaque in 2 coats. Buttercup was a essential for me to grab asap, Allison of Amarixe on youtube raved about this on her blog (post here) as being an opaque pastel yellow in just 2 coats, which I've found to be extremely hard to find (Revlon Sunshine is a 5 coater culprit!) It's a such a lovely pastel yellow, almost like vanilla ice cream!

PEACH: Barry M - Peach Melba
YELLOW: Revlon Colourstay - Buttercup

Sloppy Clouds

Just a quick post today, got an exam on Thursday -_-

After my atrocity of peach and black yesterday, I began doing this cloudy sky/sun design. Barry M's Blue Moon is a gorgeous pale blue, however, with the word pale comes sheer, and with sheer comes a pain in the behind to use :p This is actually 2 coats of white and then 3 (or 4) coats of Blue Moon, so 5 or 6 coats of polish! :o I decided to leave this overnight to dry as it was late and I would've stabbed myself in the eye if I messed it up with the clouds.

Blue: Barry M, Blue Moon
White: Ultra Pro, White
Yellow: Revlon, Sunshine Sparkle

Sunshine Sparkle is also sheer but this only required 2 coats of yellow over 2 white, so not as bad to handle. I was going to do one finger grey clouds with rain (since the weather in the UK pretty much IS rain), however, that effed up also. However, I did a thick layer of topcoat on top of the blue before the clouds, so none of the blue came off when I took off the grey clouds :)

Anyways, that most likely makes no sense, I'm a bit brain fried right now -_-

Hopefully my next post is better, sorry guys!

Pastel Humbugs (And my new camera!)

Hello people! Sorry for the absence lately, I've been studying for a test and didn't have time (nor creativity) for nail stuff...which leads me onto how it's now test/exam time for me, so things might be a bit quiet for the next month...which saddens me cos I like doing nail stuff, even if it end up like crap half the time :p But i might fit in a few simple designs (like this one) so hopefully I'll still get to do some things :(

Also, new camera finally! :D I found a Samsung ST550 on ebay, with 3 memory cards, a case and an exra battery on ebay for just £60...bargaiiiiin! :D I didn't actually have money at the time, but Mr Vimto bought it for me as an early Christmas present, so he says...I say that cos I don't like him buying things for me and he's disguising this as a present :p

Anyways, back to the point... I hate winter and was clinging on to summer by staring longingly at my summery shades...and somehow matte pastels with glossy stripes popped into my head :)

Pinky: Models Own, Lilac Dream.

Ring: Revlon, Sunshine Sparkle (over Revlon, White On White)

Middle: Barry M, Blue Moon (over Revlon, White On White)

Index: Barry M, Peach Melba

Thumb (unseen): Models Own, Jade Stone

Matte topcoat: GOSH

White Stripes: Revlon, White On White

This reminds me if colourful humbugs and ice cream....I miss summer... *sigh*

Well, as I head off for exactly 4 weeks of energy drinks, 12 hour library shifts and lots and lots of writing...have a safe month and hopefully see you soon! :)

Facets Of Fuchsia and Beetlejuice Collection

I had quite a little polish haul this week :) I've slowed down on my polish buying these days because I'm a jobless student :( However, I had enough Boots points to grab the coveted Facets Of Fuchsia by Revlon (£6.49), and Mr Vimto was lovely enough to buy me the newly launched duo chrome Beetlejuice collection (£20) from Models Own :3

(no topcoat)

£6.49 from Boots

I'd seen Facets of Fuchsia in Boots before I'd seen it around on Blogger, but I was a bit hesitant because I wasn't quite sure as to how it'd be on the nail. But after seeing it swatched on someone's blog (can't remember who, it was a while ago!), I wanted to get it before it sold out or discontinued since it's part of a limited collection.

FOF is a black jelly base with some hex glitters and smaller square glitters. What's interesting about this is that you can see the glitter from the previous coat through the newer coat so it has a sort of...faded but solid look of something stuck in amber. If that makes sense...I just realised how retarded that sounded lol! I went to see Jurassic Park in the cinema when it came out so maybe that's where my analogy came from :o

Anyways, now to Models Own...I have swatched these, and I am looking at them right now, but my sucky camera (and lack of natural daylight) means I can't take a photo of the true lovely duo chrome-ness of the Beetlejuice collction, but here's a photo of the polishes in the bottle!

L-R: Golden Green, Pinky Brown,  Purple Blue, Aqua Violet, Emerald Black

£5 each

I'm not entirely sure if these are limited edition or not, but I have heard from their Facebook page tha even though the pinky brown (2nd from left) has sold out, they'll be getting more stock at the end of November (just in time for Christmas ;) )

As you can see from the photo, these polishes are shimmery duo chromes shifting between 2 colours in natural daylight.  I wanted the majority of these since I heard about the launch on the Models Own Facebook page, (golden green doesn't tickle my fancy too much) but Mr Vimto was nice enough to get me the boxset (all 5 with a 3-in-1 clear polish for £20) as an early Christmas present :) However, I dont like him spending money on me so I'm hoping to pay him back when I can :o

These seem a little thinner than a normal Models Own polish, but not too sure as It's been a while since I bought a fresh polish. But they're opaque in 2 thin-ish coats so they're probably not as thin as I seem to think they are.

So that concludes my ramble on my polishes this week!

I Moustache You A Question!

Moustaches. They're awesome! I dunno where I got the idea of moustaches from, it kinda popped into my head :)

I knew if I did moustaches on both hands, my left hand would be all screwy (cos I'm awesome and left handed ;) lol!) so I decided to do the pun on the other hand...It took a while for everyone to read it though since I had to write it in text speak more or less.

I decided to use a skin tone type polish so my nails would look like wee faces and to draw differet kinds of taches to mix it up a bit :)

Beige: Revlon, Gray Suede

Black: Ebay unbranded striper/pen polish

Creepy nails...

I decided to do some nice, simple nails for a job interview I had coming up, and had picked up Revlon's Gray Suede. I'm pretty much brainwashed into always doing something nail art-y whenever I do my nails and decided to put on some rhinestones to jazz it up a bit.

However, I didn't like the final results :/ Due to my rather sallow skin tone, the beige made y nails more or less blend in with my fingers, and it just looked rather strange with my long nails. And the rhinestones were rather too large :(