Nail Art: Ombre Stripes

Long time no see! Again! :p

Today I tried something pretty complicated for me since I haven't done any nail art that's needed so much work...and even then, I still made some mistakes :p

I've been liking Ombres these days, so I did a blue and purple ombre using models own Hypergel polishes and a slight layer of gold glitter polish from the ciate Christmas advent calander. I then laid some striping tape in diagonals and then quickly put on some Barry m black polish. 

I liked using the black as it quietens down the brightness of the ombre but still has an element of interest to it. 

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: I Been Drankin' Watermelon

With summer kind of being in Scotland, fruit patterns are all over the place - nails, fashion, homeware. Watermelon and pineapples are my personal favourites, and I currently have a watermelon clutch from new look (which a friend very nicely got me as part of a graduation present!) and a pineapple backpack from topshop. 

I was going to do watermelon nails a few weeks ago bit of course my nails broke and I had to but them down to nubs again :(

Nail Polishes used:

Barry M Gelly: Greenberry

Models Own Hypergel: Coral Glaze

Models Own nail art pens: black and white

Nail Art: Pastel Marble Swirl

Marble swirls are another kind of nail art you can do that looks harder than it actually is (and also a lot less messy than water marble). 

All you need to do is blob on your polish and swirl the polishes together (still wet) with a cocktail stick or bobby pin or a dotting tool. Some nails can turn out not as great as other nails (a couple of mines had some bare patches I didn't notice till later) but I think it's nice that not all nails are the same or uniform within themselves!

Polishes used:

Models Own Hypergel: Purple Gleam

Models Own Scented: Peach Melba 

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 

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: Messy Stripes

Having been out of the nail art game for quite a while, I thought I'd test what skills I have left (if any) and try some vertical stripes. 

Vertical stripes are easier than they look since a striper brush does a lot of the work, but there's still some patience and good polish placement skills needed. 

I think my nails ended up a bit meh, with clashing colours and some in inventive stripe placement but I was a bit stuck for ideas and wasn't sure what else I could do :p

The colours I used were:

Models Own Hypergel: White Light (white)

Models Own Hypergel: Cornflower Gleam (blue)

Barry M Gelly: Dragon Fruit (pink)

Barry M Gelly: Guava (turquoise) 

Barry M Gelly: Prickly Pear (lilac)

Barry M Gelly: Key Lime (green)

Nail Art: Hime Gyaru

Hime Gyaru nails are a trend in japan which consists of lots of 3D nail beads, pearls, bows, cartoon characters etc. I personally only do Gyaru nails with flat back pearls and ball bearings as anything more would just be a hassle to my daily life haha!

Gyaru nails always look more effort than they actually entail, it really does consist of splodging on clear topcoat and then whatever 3D nail bit you have and is a really easy way to impress everyone. 

I used a base of Models Own Hypergel: Lilac Sheen and Barry M Gelly: Dragon Fruit and a good layer of Seche Vite on top to secure everything 

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! 

Swatched! Models Own: BlooBloo

This is kind of a sucky swatch as I've layered a Barry m confetti topcoat over it but I hope you can get the gist of BlooBloo. It's a lovely pastel colour that could almost pass as a winter pastel

Swatched! Models Own: In The Navy

I suck at this blogging stuff sometimes. My excuse this time is that fourth year is entailing a bit more effort than I'd hoped :p

Anyways today I have models own, in the navy. 

It's a super dark navy, almost black and you can't really tell it's navy till you look closer. However I like it as an alternative to black as sometimes it can look too harsh. 

My Birthday Nails! Feat. Essie and Models Own

It was my birthday fairly recently and although I wasn't doing much for it (I actually had another friends birthday party the same day lol), I wanted some glittery nails as a mini celebration. 

I had recently purchased the Models Own ASOS exclusive polish, Party Pieces which is a fantastic glitter polish so I thought I'd do a glitter gradient with Essie's Orange It's Obvious as a base. As lurid and loud as the mani was, I loved it! 

This was obviously a pain to remove and a pain to to wait to dry, even with Seche Vite on top. But it was worth it ;) 

Swatched! Models Own Hed Kandi: Beach Party

I love a good orange, on my lips and on my nails. Think it's because I dislike red as a colour and i find it a bit too hard to pull off as a lip or nail colour and I personally think orange is easier to pull off and modern take on the classic red. 

Beach party is a gloriously neon orange that I just can't stop staring at. This is with 4 coats as 3 was still a smidge patchy however I do have overly ridged nails and I didn't use a white base coat either so I'm sure three or even two coats would be plenty enough if I used a ridge filler and a white base coat. 

Summer Ombre & Scribble Flowers

Hey guys, long time no post! So here's a double post to make up for it ;)

I've still been uninspired lately plus my nail art stuff is between glasgow and edinburgh so it's still a bit tricky to get stuff done. 

This first design I have is a summery ish ombre using the Barry m Gellys and confetti glitter. I'm going to be a horrid blogger and say I've forgotten which ones. But I'm guessing guava, Greenberry and dragon fruit? :/ anyways did the standard spongey ombre with those three colours and then went over an accent nail with the sort of corresponding confetti glitter topcoats. 

The second design is a scribbly floral design. I like the look of the Marc Jacobs ish designs that some people have done but I was in the mood to do something that looked like doodles and wanted to use models own fuzzy peach. It's a horrid photo but I did this in te evening and light wasn't too good so I had to use the flash on my phone. Sorry!

Glitter French Tip Gradient

I'm not in much of a talking mood today sorry, but thought if post this before I forget! 

Collection 2000 electric dreams with Models Own disco inferno from the boogie nights collection

Much love! 

Neutral Triangle Half Moons

Hope you guys are enjoying the summer sunshine wherever you are, Scotland's being generous and we've had more than one day of sun, must be all this global warming, right? ;) 

I was craving some nude colours and fancied using Utopia or Lychee, I also found some striping tape so I decided to do a triangle half moon jobbie. All I did was lay two pieces of tape in a cross shape on my nail and filled in one of the triangles with Lychee over the base of Utopia. IT looked a tad empty so I dotted some Lilacism within the lychee triangle. 

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. 

Indecisive Multicoloured Patterns

Sup guys! Got a simple nail art post here, nothing too drastic/complicated as I'm still enjoying not studying for once and stuffs still kind of messy at home.

Anyways, I was indecisive between drips and stripey blocky things, and also what colour to do them in. The only thing I was decided on was the base colour, Barry M Gelly: Lychee, the colours are all the pens from the Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen collection. 

As you can see they're nothing too thrilling or fancy. I miss doing designs like I used to do such as the first pacman nails I did or the Pokemon ones, the more complicated wow-inducing ounces. Hopefully I'll get to do them again soon, it's a bit hard living I'm between houses as I don't get to have all my polishes in front of me :( 

Swatched! Models Own: Fuzzy Peach

Two posts in one day?! What a treat! R maybe I'm just procrastinating haha!

This is models own peach fuzz, which is almooooost a cult colour and I can see why, I love a good orangey peachy coral and this is a good 'un! It's not too bright like an orange but it's bit more brighter than a peach. It's opaque in two coats but I added a third to be sure, as always.

I can see this vein a favourite over spring and summer, it's just had that happy inducing aura about it :)

Very Impromptu Nail Polish Haul!

Quickie post as I've procrastinated enough and I have lots of studying to do. Boo. Anyways, I went for a quick galavanting to Boots for some fresh air/sunshine and I noticed they've started stocking Sally Hanson polishes and Sinful Colours, and of course I had to grab some! The Hanson stand was quite glorious with nail wraps and cuticle care, but the Sinful Colours was a bit lonely and empty looking. Hopefully they get more stock in to attract more folk. They're only £2 a bottle for 15ml so even better for your money than the Collection Hot Look teeny polishes! To sum up, (as my iphone photos are pitiful, I do apologise!) I bought Sinful Colours in Be Happy, Unicorn and Soul Mate. Sally Hansen in Mermaid's Tale. models Own in Fuzzy Peach. And Collection Hot Looks in ELectric Dreams and Milkshake.