Nail Art: Half Moon Monochrome Polka Dot

Hello! After a few weeks of wearing bright summery colours, I felt like some monochrome nails for a change. Polka dots are always easy to do but I also felt like having some half moons to. 

However, I'm never good at free handing half moons (they always end up squint haha) and I thought some 3D nail gems (is that what they're called?...) would do a good job covering up some wonky moons whilst also being part of the design. 

It's not often I do two accent nails, as I usually do one accent nail, all the same or all different. 2 accent nails allow you to have some freedom in your nail art without having the pressure of having to come up with 5 (or 10) different designs, so I might do this style again :)

Nail Art: Drybrushed Ombre

Dry brushing is usually a painting technique where you have very little paint on the brush and your paint strokes become very streaky and light. 

I imagined a Drybrushed ombre would look quite cool so I have it a go and this is how it ended up: 

I quite liked how it ended up, I bit different from the standard sponged ombré. How I did this was wipe of the polish brush as much as I could and start doing light streaks from the tip of the nail towards the base, layering more towards the bottoms. Even though I wiped as much as I could off the brush, there was still too much polish to give the Drybrushed look so starting at the tip was a good way to build up the densest part of the ombre whilst also drying off the brush.  

Polishes used:

Models Own Hypergel: White Light

Barry M Gelly: Prickly Pear 

Nail Art: Frosty Snowmen

Another quick post today! (Joys of final year and dissertations...) 

Decided to (mildly) join in with th festive spirit and do some Christmassy nails. Snowmen are super simple to do and can look cute too! I added a coat of glitter over the white but under the facial detail to attempt to make it look like snow but you can't see too well in the photo! 

Nail Art: Dandelions

Dandelion nail art are something I've been meaning to do for a while, it's just one of those ones I've forgotten to do! It's so simple and easy to do, and super pretty too :) 

Swatched! Barry M: Matt White

I'd always been confused about Matt White, as in whether it was Matt in texture or whether it was just not shimmery or glittery. But after finally picking it up, I can safely say my curiosity has been satisfied and it's just a non shimmery white!

This took about 4 coats to get properly opaque on my ridged nails, but I think that's pretty standard for a white polish and could probably take three on less ridged nails. 

Swatched! L'Oreal Confetti Topcoat

I finally got my hands on the infamous L'Oreal Confetti Topcoat, a glorious glitter topcoat consisting of a clear base with large and small black and white hex glitters. 

This is kiiiind of a rip off of a much more infamous indie glitter (the name of which  escapes me!) but it's alway sold out, and I think may have been discontinued, or the maker sells them rarely due to high demand. I like that more high street brands are getting into the kinds of polishes the indie brands have been doing as it makes them more accessible to people and could make indie brands more popular.

Moving on, I've layered the topcoat over Models Own Fuzzy Peach, which I thought would be nice and summery. I love this combination, and I may get a few more bottles of the topcoat as it's such an interesting combination of glitters. It's easy to work with, the base is quite thick so the glitters spread quite easily but not so they slip about too much. Any bare patches can be patted on afterwards. 

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 ;)

Dotty/Movember Nails With Flocking Powder

Hello lovely people, how are we enjoying the cold/wet November with exams looming ever so much closer. Yup, got my exam timetable, and even though I only have one class test, I still have a heck of work to do D: (hence why this will be a speedy post)

Moving away from such disgusting topics, I decided to jump on the flocking powder bandwagon (ebay has lots of choices!) and have a little experiment with beardy/moustachey nails since it's Movember and all :)

Kinda Dalmation-ish?

Yes, those are actual googly eyes (again, ebay for bargainous choices!). Doubt they'll last the night, but they look good/kinda odd in the photo :P

If you're up to date on the whole flocking thing then you'll know how to apply the wonderfully fuzzy stuff. If not here's a teeny lesson! If you're using it as a design, then do your design in whatever colour and dab on the appropriately coloured flocking powder with some tweezers. Press down with a phalange, then blow/brush off with a fan brush (they finally have a use!). Then you're done :) If you're using the powder as an accent nail and using it over the entire nail, then let once coat of polish dry thoroughly, apply a 2nd coat and apply powder while it's still wet, no top coat needed!

Oh, and hello to my new followers :D

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

Bloody Fingerprints

Despite not being a fan of Halloween (bunny ears and a tutu galore in glasgow these days), I'm now enthralled by the gory side of Halloween after watching Tanya Burr's and MakeupbyMel's zombie tutorials. I've decided that I'll properly get into Halloween next year (not enough money to do Halloween last minute this year) and dressup as a gory zombie, and get prosthetics like liquid latex and wax etc and scare the living daylights out of the tutt bunnies and cats next year ;)

Anyways, since my last nail design was more cutesy stuff, I decided to change to a more blood themed design (and I needed a break from yet more uni work). I figured blood spatter was a bit too Dexter-ish, so I went for fingerprints. People say I should watch Dexter since i'm into CSI so much...

After using the Models Own white as a base, I took Barry M's Black Red, dabbed a bit on my pinky finger, dabbed off excess and then dabbed onto the white base. It didn't turn out as defined/well as I'd hoped, but I still quite liked the effect it gave, if it is somewhat a design that you really need to stare at for a while to understand :p I made a bit of a boo-boo on my ring finger, so I covered it up with a blood drip...I'm not sure if this helps the design or inhibits it...I don't think inhibit is a suitable word actually...These notes are getting to me...

When Uni Gets In The Way :(

Aloha lovely people, it's been a long while :(

I've been kept busy with uni related things, so I haven't done many designs, and if I have, it's been easy peasy (i.e. pointless) designs. But I've missed writing (albeit bad) posts, so I've compiled my lame attempts in one post so as not to pain your eyes hehe.

To be truthful, my timetable is fairly empty compared to other subjects, although I'm usually always in at 9, I'm rarely in past 12, never mind till 5 (which I thought would happen like every day lol). But I usually spend the rest of my day re-writing my lecture notes and googling extra notes. And I also have to start doing research for an extended essay/mini dissertation I have to do next term. So by the time I've finished doing ntoes, it's time for dinner, and then I'm usually too tired to do anything super intensive. Feels odd being so busy :p

So, with all this time spent writing notes of some form, I've been mostly sporting plain colours, and have only really done 2 designs since my last proper design post :(

I did however, purchase some of the Barry M Gelly range, since I had some extra money in my account, and I got a 20% discount email from Barry M, so I thought why not?! :P I only purchased a few, most of which I can't remember the name of...but I purchased the orange, purple, teal and the dark blue. I've tried the purple and the dark blue, and they are pretty shiney, I didn't even bother with topcoat! So if you've a lazy kinda gal/guy (you never know! :p ), then the Gelly's can be opaque in 1 to 2 coats, and don't necessarily need top coat either, perfect :)

Anyways, one of the designs I did, was an anorexic drip design (I have a habit of making my drips rather bootilicious XD)

I used the dark blue Barry M Gelly, with the Models Own white nail art pen, which helped achieve the skinnier drips as I usually use a brush to do them. I quitw like the effect actually, should've used a pen in the first place hehe!

The next design that I'm also currently sporting is a half assed Halloween-esque design, with glow in the dark polish over Barry M Spring Green, and suing white and black polish to make random googly eyes :)

I'm not sure if this even looks remotely Halloween appropriate, but I think it's the shade of green (and the fact it's October) that makes me think of Halloween? I'm hoping I should have enough time to do some Halloween themed nails like last year, since I ditched out on the Olympics thing, but we shall see what uni has in store :P

Hopefully I'll get back to posting better designs soon, I miss doing my nails :(

Models Own: Mirrorball Collection

If you're a fellow fan of Models Own or even if you follow a few nail bloogers, you'll have no doubt heard about or seen the much coveted recent Mirrorball collection! It's currently sold out online, but word is that they'll be back in stock soon, maybe October-ish? I luckily got the boxset as a present from a friend for my birthday :D

It's a collection of five glittery topcoats, with the glitter particles ranging from chunky, bar, dot, micro, shredded and bar glitter - it's as if a unicorn puked into each bottle, actually fantastic for a glitter/polish enthusiast!

L-R: Hot Stuff, Boogie Nights, Disco Inferno, Freak Out! and Dancing Queen
Each swatch is with 3 coats

Sorry for the crappy phone pic, my cable is somewhere back home >_<

Although the glitters appear pretty dense in the bottles, they're not as dense when you start applying it, however, they are marketed as a top coat as well as a stand alone polish, so it doesn't matter too much :p The top coats are easy to apply, with the standard moving about of chunks that come with glitters like these. Although the one thing I don't like is that the clear base coat the glitter is suspended in often gets a bit thick and chunky due to the layering, so drying time does add up, considering I have a base coat, 2 coats of white, 2 of glitter and one fast drying top coat. I've also got the glitter regret now that I'm wondering how I'll take these off. (No foil in Mr Lacquerised's flat y'see), but we shall get to that when the time comes :)

All in all, I do think you should try and nab as least one of these, I haven't came across anything similar on the market, and I do think they'll come in handy for any Christmas/New Years parties for the upcoming season ;)

I've just about finished my first week at uni now, and it's not as bad as I'd imagined/feared. I think mainly because my timetable isn't as lecture heavy as feared, so I usually have the afternoons to do some studying/extra reading in the library. I've had my question pretty much approved by my tutor for my extended essay next term, joined the Pharmacology Society committee (just as an ordinary member, really not social enough to be President lol), and I'm up to date with re-writing lecture notes, and even bought my textbook already (I usually buy them 2 months after I start lol), so quite a productive week really :) Hopefully this keeps up, and that 3rd year won't be as bad as reported :D

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.

Bright Pastel Watercolour Attempt

Hello one and all, how are we today?

This design is a bit of a meh design that I may re-do, either with the same colours or maybe black and white...

Ive gotten a bit sick of pastels lately (I may have over pastelled myself haha) and the use of just black and white in my last post has made me love the simplicity of monochrome on my nails!

This was my attempt at watercolour nails, using a sandwich bag to smoosh together blobs of wet polish to make a kind of watercolour-ish design. I personally don't think my attempt went too well, the colours are kind of still separated and it just doesn't seem too pretty together, maybe i used too many or something...although I do like the middle nail :)

Think black and white might make a good combo, given they might mix to make grey too...

Anyhows, I shall do another post soon if I redo this (i'll give it a day or so...) no doubt :)

The shop is going well in terms of views, but no one's bought anything yet :( Ah well, time will tell :)

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! :)

Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty...

Hello nail lovelies! 

How are we enjoying the miserable weather that has ensued on the UK? :p Did any of yous do much for the jubilee or were even aware of it if you're not from the UK?

I'll be honest and say I did eff all for the jubilee as a) I wasn't even aware it was so soon (I thought it was in July for some reason...fail!) and b) I'm not one for Royal celebrations. Not that I hate them or anything (as the standard Scot does, I have to admit), but I've never seen the whole fuss with the Royals, I didn't even watch Wills and Kate get married lol.

Anyways, I've been on a cat obsession kick lately, mainly because Mr Lacquerised has 2 cats and I do have a soft spot for them. It first started with a pair of cat shoes from Daisy Street and then I bought a rose gold cat face ring from River Island, so I thought I'd top it all off by doing some cat nails hehe. But I still stand by the fact I love both cats and dogs the same :)

Many apologies for the crappy phone photos, I've given my camera as a loan to my friend for her graduation/graduation ball photos, and the sun was going bye bye when I decided to take a photo. And I also apologies for the stringy black bits, I rarely use my black polish (I usually use a black nail art pen, but that has run dry) so it's gone a tad gloopy! 

BLACK: Barry M - Black
WHITE: Ultra Pro - Pure White
PINK: Barry M - Peach Melba

 I decided to add a bit of a different touch to my usual nail designs and do a sort of puzzle type element to it by adding the cat's body to the thumb so I can "piece" him together hehe

I opted to do just paw prints on my left hand, since I'm left hand dominant and I knew my wobbly right hand wouldn't be able to deal with piecing together a cat so I thought it'd be better than safe than sorry :)

Glittery Ice Cream

Hello lovlies, hope you are enjoying the sunshine wherever you are, especially if you're in the UK since there's a random week of sun atm :D

And what's something to enjoy on a sunny day? (apart from cider...mmm...) 

Ice Cream! :D

Lilac: Models Own
White: Ultra Pro
Glitter: Topshop

I've been on a pastel/neutral kick recently, so I decided to go with my good old Models Own lilac and thought pairing it with the glorious topshop glitter would look pretty. I thiiiink the glitter's called Razzmatazz or something to that effect...however, I think it's just a blue/lilacy version of their glitter as the other ones seemed the same?

The white drips aren't as opaque as I'd like, but I did these kind of late and the light in my room made the white seem more opaque than I thought somehow...

Anyways, I best be off to enjoy the sunshine, as it might disappear v.soon knowing the UK, so hope this post was okay...I've been a bit uninspired recently :/

Cheery-bye!

If Nothing Ever Changed There'd Be No Butterflies....

As you can tell from the new post, I am free from all things examinable and uni related! (at least until resits start...which I hopefully don't have to do...argh...) WARNING: This post becomes rather rambly after the photo, so you can stop reading afterwards if you wish XD

Moving on, I realised it'd been around 2 months since I'd done a design...was quite disheartening...darn exams! I'm not sure why I decided to do butterfly wings, I thought they looked lovely on a tumblr photo I'd seen, (the person used metalic polishes though, so they looked more...sheeny?...Is that even a word?...Obviously vocabulary is my strong point ¬_¬ ), so I thought I'd give it a wee bash. I don't have many metallic polishes since I'm not a huge fan of pearly/metallicy finishes, so I just used creme finishes instead.

To create the base, I used Rimmel Lasting Finish 280 Sunshine but it was so streaky and patchy even with 3 coats, that I ended up sponging over it with a yellow polish anyways. The red/orange gradient was done by sponging too, generally coming in from the corner of the nail rather than just the bottom as I was attempting to make the wings almost diagonal looking? However, my lack of practising drawing the black outlines led to  the majority of the nails looking...well, shit XD

But I managed to get the hang of the method for a few of the nails (middle and pinky) so I definitely know what to do for next time. I then just added a few white dots on the tip of the nail, smeared on a fast dry topcoat (it's become rather gloopy!) and ta-daaaaaaah...monarch butterfly wings!...ish... ¬_¬

All colours from ebay!

So, a few posts ago I said something about selling some false nail sets online (either folksy or etsy) to make a bit of money over summer and to give me something to do. I'm still planning to do that, so hopefully should start things rolling around next month once I get supplies in like false nails, glue, etc. Not sure of which designs to do though, as the seller I found on ebay for false nail sets only does them in batches of 5, and I dont want to buy too many in case this just epicly falls flat on it's arse and I'm left with tonnes of nails just hanging about not bought by anyone... Although after calculating how much everything would be, it shouldn't cost too much for eveything so it wouldn't be too much of a loss if this fails :)

Sounds quite scary that I'm opening a kind-of-but-not-really shop :/ It's been more or less a year since I started messing about with polish designs (the polish obsession has been ingrained for a good few years obviously) and now I''m considering selling some designs...I wasn't even expecting to create a blog, and when I did, I didn't expect to even gain one follower never mind 12...12 followers is nothing compared to the more "famous" polish bloggers, but it's a lot to me and I appreciate that people have spent time reading my mindless rambles haha!

Anyways, I shall keep you posted once my "shop" starts if you'd like to purchase my questionable designs or you can buy them as a gift for someone :)

Farewell and have a nice day! Till next time!

Flower Fail

Aloha!

Sorry I've been AWOL, but exam season is fast approaching, so just been gearing up for that *sobs*

Which means there'll be even fewer posts than there has been lately (had some tests and labs and stuff for uni - booo!)  I also apologise for the  mediocre phone cam pic, but camera needed charged and I couldn't be bothered waiting for it to charge hehe ^_^

Anyhows, I noticed that people tend to do florals/dotty flowers as their first tries at nail art, and they usually end up with lovely designs that make me ooh and aah in jealousy. Jealousy because I can't do florals, as you can seem from the attempt below -__-

Dunno, they just dont seem to look like flowers, maybe because grey wasn't the best flower colour to use, but the shape doesn't scream floral to me :( But I guess from far away they look like flowers, most likely because of the green blobs Im calling leaves :p

Hmm, think I'm placing florals on my list of things I ain't good at/never going to try cos I'll fail along with water marbling (dry marbling/dragging seems much easier and tidier) and one stroke flowers -_- *sighs*

Also in other news, I'm considering selling some fake nail sets with some of my designs on folksy (UK version of etsy), which will be something to keep me occupied over summer and maybe bring in some money, if people buy them :p Might jsut start out with a small bundle of 10 or 20, and advertise on my personal FB as some friends have said they really like my designs...or they were just being nice, I don't know lol. I've bookmarked some things from ebay like false nail sets, glue, and jiffy bags etc, and it wont come to too much, so should make a profit hopefully :)

Oh and I'd like to also thank the followers that have started...well, following...me, it's nice to see that people like you enough to follow you, even if it's just a small number, really appreciate it guys :D

Enough rambling now, better get back to the notes D':

Hope yous have a lovely spring day! :)

Japanese Dotty Design

During a quick...if 3 hours is called quick hehe...break from studying, I felt the need to change my nails (I'd had Barry M gold foil with OPI Super Bass Shatter after the text nails, but forgot to take photos)

Although I have tonnes of gems, pearls, sequins etc, I haven't actually used them much so thought I'd do some Japanese-esque nails. However, I realised that a) they're rather impractical and b) I don't have the balls to wear such loud and in your face nails, so thought I'd do some gem/pearl/bullion designs on my accent nails to tone it down a bit :p

Sorry for the poopy photo and the poopy post lacking details and probablt decent grammar, but got to get back to the books >_<