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: Glitter Ombre

Nail Art: Galaxy

Galaxy nail art is a sure fire way to get people to look at your nails and stare in wonderment at your "skills" when really you're doing a lot of careful splodging lol

I can't remember what colours I used, but all you need is a black, dark blue, purple, pink, yellow, white and a glitter. 

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! Andrea Fullerton: Gemstone Overcoat

Hello there! 

Bit of a random post today as today's swatch is actually a "gemstone overcoat". I guess you could technically call it a glitter topcoat but it's more like a flakie topcoat. The flakes are iridescent, shining various colours depending on how the light hits it. 

ive actually had this polish or a year or two, but not many people have posted about this and I think it's a really underrated topcoat. It's not as obvious as a standard glitter topcoat and almost makes your nails look like marble or some kind of stone. I've Swatched it over Sinful Colours, Be Happy but this polish really outdoes itself when over a black base. The iridescence really comes to life! 

I've only ever seen Andrea Fullerton products in superdrug, and I can't remember how much this is, but I highly recommend it if you want something more subtle than a standard glitter polish. 

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. 

More Sinful Colours

Hey guys, really quick and sparse post today, Myself and Mr Lacquerised have some family problems going on at the moment and that coupled with 3rd year uni exams isn't the best feeling.

I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure when I'll get back to posting like normal, things feel a bit poopy right now in all honesty.

Anyways, here's some more Sinful Colours polishes that I picked up a while ago. I haven't got time to properly do swatch posts of each one so I did a quick patch test on some paper.

If you haven't bought these from Boot already then I suggest you do, cos for £2.00, they are really good and pretty much around the same volume as standard polishes!

Hope you guys are well too and stay safe! Hopefully see you's soon :)

China Glaze - It's A Trap-eze!

Sorry for the blurry photo guys, it was a horrible day in Edinburgh, and I couldn't find my camera so had to make do with my phone :/ 

This is the fabulous It's A Trap-eze from the China Glaze Cirque De Soliel collection, and i have to add that the photo does not do it justice at all. Its a very pale milky blue, with various glitters suspended in it. This is with only 3 coats, which shows how densly packed the glitters are in comparison to standard glitters. 

The first layer of glitter applies fairly well, with the glitter spreading evenly and no specific dabbing is necessary which is one of the reasons why i love it so much. It's like having a mix of confetti and cupcake frosting on your nails and i never ever ever want to take it off!! 

I probably should have tried the PVA trick before applying this, but i couldnt wait as soon as i saw this land on my doorstep :D 

Last Minute Pastel Ombre

After an afternoon/evening studying I felt like relaxing and doing my nails, and since the ombre for my last post worked out well, I thought I'd do another one but with pastels (still not accepting that autumn's here!)

I'm pretty tired after being at the computer for most of the day so this will be a pretty straight forward post methinks :p

Pale Blue: Maybelline - Ceramic Blue
Mint Green: Essie - Mint Candy Apple
Lilac: Barry M - Berry Ice Cream

Since these were sheer colours and I was sponging, (I usually just fade the colours together with a brush), I applied a base coat of white before starting the ombre/gradient. It did take a good few coats to get them this opaque though, however it still seemed quicker than doing a proper design...

Anyways, I better get off to sleep now, hopefully I dont end up with duvet marks. I know you can just topcoat over marks, but I have a 9am lecture so doubt I'll have time :p

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

Galaxies Round 2

Yet another re-hash of an old design for you guys today! Although this time, my galaxies turned out a bit 

meh in comparison to my first time :/ 

Also, I'm sorry my cuticles are in a dire mess, this was my third attempt at a design (one did not turn out as I hoped and the other just smeared all over the place cos I was too impatient D: ) and the acetone wasn't doing much for them...I must get round to buying some cuticle nippers, now that I know that they're not as scary as they seem thanks to good old youtube :)

I normally list the colours to my designs, but the only branded polishes I used were the black and the glitter which were good old Barry M, the others were just those cheapy ebay polish pens!

Galaxy nails have been around for yonks now, so there's probably loooots of explanations/tutorials on how to do these :) They're a lot easier than they look, all you really need is a couple bits of sponge, some galaxy-esque colours and a glitter topcoat :)

I'm not liking these ones as much as I liked my first ones, these are too yellow and I should've taken my time to blend/sponge my colours a bit better...but I guess they look okay from afar, I don't take too kindly to strangers getting too cosy with me XD

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!

Pastel Gradient

Hello special people!

Just a quick phone pic themed post today, I just did a simple gradient which I didn't think qualified for a proper photographing session with my camera.

Gradients are good if you want a simple yet "oooooh lovely!" type design, especially if you go over the top with a glitter topcoat, which also blurs any harsh lines and makes the design a bit more flawless :)

I've been hooked on the pastel trend lately, although my wardrobe doesn't convey my obsession thanks to my other obsession that is lip balms and lipsticks *sighs*. However, hopefully I will remember to NOT buy any lip related products next time I'm in Boots or Superdrug, and remember that they now stock the once America-only brand thats is Essie...Mint Candy Apple, Tart Deco and Fiji are first on my list!

Sayonara! ^_^

Negative Spacing

Another Valentines themed post today, got bored of doing uni work so I started procrastinating hehe. Anyhoos, I've seen a few posts about negative spacing (when part of the nail is left bare) so thought I'd give it a shot with my somewhat unprofessional hand :p

For my colour scheme I somewhat reluctantly decided to open my OPI minis box of The Muppet Collection. It was my first ever minis collection from OPI and I've been perving on the collection since it came out, wishing I had the money to get all of them D:

Anyhoos, the minis set comes with Wocka Wocka!, Excuse Moi!, Designer...De Better! and Warm & Fozzie. So I decided to use Wocka Wocka! and Excuse Moi! as theyre the more typical Valentines Day colours. 

First off I thought I'd do an XOXO type pattern (hugs and kisses) but thought it'd look like I was playing naughts and crosses on my nails, so thought Id turn the O's into hearts. For my accent nail, I thought I'd put a negative spaced heart in the middle of Excuse Moi!

White: Ultra Pro
Glitter: OPI, Excuse Moi!
Red: OPI, Wocka Wocka

After I finished this design, I thought it looked a tad too busy, and Wocka Wocka! had smeared so it was bugging me, but I really liked the accent nail, and wasn't wanting to waste a single drop of Excuse Moi! So I just changed the other nails to simple negative stripes through some Wocka Wocka!

Glitter: OPI, Excuse Moi!
Red: OPI, Wocka Wocka!

Even though I'm not usually a fan of reds, I quite like this design, as it's more simple and subtle. Although I'm  not looking forward to taking off Wocka Wocka! as I've got a feeling it's gonna stain like a biatch as cleaning up around my cuticles was hard enough :(

I have a few other valentines designs in mind, so I may get round to doing them if I have time :)

Owly Love

I have to admit that even though I'm in a long term relationship, I'm not the hugest fan of Valentines Day. Well, the cliched side of it, y'know, teddy bears, balloons and other various public declarations of love. Although I've never received flowers before, so that'd be nice I suppose :p Actually, I dont even like hearts either, think this may be the first time I've used my heart gems that I got last summer...

Anyways, I'm trying to avoid doing typical Valentines nails as I also dont like reds or pinks too much so thought I'd try something original (I hope..) and do some owl nails :)

Anyways, sorry for the blur and the messiness of the nail, I done these at midnight and I couldn't find my proper nail art brushes T_T

I can't really remember what polishes I used either (rushed straight to bed), but I'll try and edit this and put the names in somepoint after uni :)

Glitter Stripes

I have to say, I love this blue glitter from Barry M. It's so dense so it only takes 3 coats for it to be opaque...

But I didn't want the in yo' face glittery-ness that it has on it's own so I decided to lay some striping tape on the blue, and paint over with black, so there'd be lines of blue glitter left amongst the black :)

Also, this post means I am FINALLY up to date with my designs and I shall be able to give you better posts about each design such as inspiration and colours of the polishes :) but nothing can be said for the quality of the photos...sorry :( I wish I had a proper camera :/

Angry Birds!

In all honesty, I hate iPhones. And iPads... But I love the games like Plants vs Zombies and...Angry Birds! :D

There's nothing like destroying a green pigs fort ;) So this is my attempt at angry birds nails...a few folk on youtube have done the full nails with their faces, but I thought it'd be better to see the whole shape of the head so I did them...erm...not sure of a short way of saying I only partially painted my nails hehe.

The hardest bird out of them was the big white one, was hard trying to get the angle on his sorrowful eyes :p
I was planning on doing Plants vs Zombies nails on my other hand, but they turned out SO stupid and ridiculous, so I just did co-ordinating colurs with some GOSH flakey glittery polish over the top :)

Glitter overload

I'd heard about the glorious density of the Barry M glitters, so decided to get a lovely blue one when I bought a tonne (suppose you could call it a haul....) a week or so ago. And it did not disappoint....it was more or less opaque in just 2 coats, but added a third to make sure there was no bare spots. I was amazed at how dense it was, and completely fell in love with it. However I did take a step back and realise it wasn't going to be so fantastic when I had uni late on in the day, so decided to tone it down a tad with some matte topcoat. Still loved it nonetheless ;)

Oh, I apologise for not cleaning up properly. I was too excited XD

Out of rubbish comes a gem!

I remember doing my nails quite late one night and I had a 9am start the next day. It had been a rather poopy day, and already had a headache before the nail polish/acetone fumes even reached me so I wasn't in the best of moods to do my nails. But my previous nails had been chipping, and I have a habit of peeling my nail polish once it chips...it's already destroyed, so I see no harm in making it worse :p And I've gotten to the point where I cannot stand my bare nails. And they're now pretty stained ¬_¬

So looking at my stash of gems and polish I ended up doing this...flower?...ish thing. I hadn't had a previous idea of what to do, so I was basically winging this idea. And I did not like it. I liked the base colour (Collecion 2000, Parma Violets, if I believe so) Dunno, it didn't seem interesting enough...a bit plain. Maybe I've been brainwashed by my previous designs...but I wasn't in any particular mood for a plain and simple design, ironic considering my mood :P

So i was sitting pondering what design looks rather fancy yet simple, and the infamous drips came into mind, and form there came layering and matte effect! I grabbed a light and dark colour and a white and began my design, and here's what came out of it...

Once I finished I realised there wasn't an accent nail, so I grabbed a blue and silver glitter polish and attacked my ring finger. I love a bit of matte polish, and I ended up really liking these nails :)

Either, or...

One thing I like about playing about with nail polish and the like, is the fact you dont have to do each nail or hand exactly the same :)

I'm not a typically girly girl, I don't like the colour pink (I only have one, maybe 2, pink nail polishes) and I tend to have guy logic on most life problems :p

But the one pink nail polish I like in my collection is Fruit Salad by Collection 2000. It's not too girly a pink, sort of on the red, salmon-ish side of the colour scale... Yes, I am a n00b at this describing lark, I'll try and get better at it :) But I quite like the formula as well, it's opaque in 2 coats at the most and it's pretty quick drying, which we all want from a nail polish don't we? 

So yes, back to the nails, I was torn between doing girly, floral nails with 3D nail decos and glitter (or as I like to describe, "girl vomit" XD ) or go gothic-ish with some black stones.

I decided to keep both colours the same to keep them more together, and I thought the black stones would be a nice contrast against the pink base. 

I wanted to do something a little different from the usual polka dots, and I thought some black rhinestones would add a nice 3D tough. Kind of studded-ish.

And here's my girl vomit hand :p You could say this was Japanese inspired as a lot of Japanese nail art tends to have 3D decos and rhinestones and glitter and...well, you get the idea. This was my first time using the floral decos, and I was worried about them popping off straight away (I use clear nail polish instead of nail glue for decos since it's easier to take off and I'm worried nail glue would damage my nails) But I found some glooped up quick drying top coat so I used that as a glue, and to dab around the base of the flowers, and they lasted a good few days with showers and uni to deal with!