Teal Holo

Wow I've been busy lately! I've been at uni this week, it's been pretty hectic and it doesn't look like it'll be slowing down anytime soon... Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with blogging on top of uni and driving lessons!

Today I have another Kleancolor beauty to show you, Chunky Holo Teal. This is just as gorgeous as the others, and it's my second time wearing it in a month. (It is seriously rare that I wear a polish twice in one month so that just shows how much I love it.)

I applied Barbara Daly base, two coats of Tiger's Shade 15 which is a pretty turquoise creme, two coats of Chunky Holo Teal and 2true top coat.

Chunky Holo Teal consists of small round holographic glitters in a pale blue jelly base that shift colour. I've seen orange, green, gold, blue, peach, pink and purple colours and there are probably many more!

Kleancolor has definitely become a favourite brand of mine, I've been very impressed with their polishes so far, and I still have three more to try!

Thanks for reading!

Deep Blue Dotticure

I decided to play around with my dotting tools this week and came up with this lovely ocean themed manicure.

I first applied Barbara Daly base coat. I then used two coats of Cecile's shade 92 which is the dark metallic blue and two coats of Sally Hansen's Silver Chrome Color Quick pen on my accent nails. I added dots using the second smallest dotting tool halfway up all of my nails. The colours I used for this were; Essie's Dive Bar (the darkest black/blue dots), Models Own's Peacock Green (the dark green dots), Models Own's Dusty Mauve (the grey dots) and Cecile's shade 90 (the light green dots). I then finished off with 2true top coat.

I really loved this manicure! I like how on the accent nail the dots ended up looking quite peacock-ish while the rest of my nails looked more mermaid-y. I'm pretty sure my dotting tools are going to be used a lot more from now on, they are so simple and easy, but look quite complicated and different!

Thanks for reading!

Misslead Salsa

I have a super pretty polish to show you today! Shade 5 from 2true's Crystal collection. It is absolutely stunning!

Shade 5 (on all fingers apart from accent) is a beautiful orange, pink, gold and silver microglitter bombshell which is primarily orange glitter. It is a dream to apply and isn't even that difficult to remove, perfect. The colour really gets me too, I love oranges and this one has a little kick to it. It reminds me of salsa dancing (I have no idea why) and that makes me happy!

The yellow polish is Misslead by Missguided which came free in a magazine, I'm pretty sure it was Glamour but I could be wrong. This is a warm yellow with a prominent silver microglitter/shimmer. This is a really pretty polish but I'm not too sure I liked it as part of this manicure...

I used Barbara Daly base, two coats of the Natural Collection's Antique Coral on all but my accent nails, two coats of Shade 5 and 2true top coat. On the accent nails I applied two coats of Barry M's Lemon Ice Cream, two coats of Misslead and 2true top coat.

Overall I would have preferred Shade 5 without an accent nail. I'll remember that next time.

Thanks for reading!

Amethyst Feathers

Purple is definitely my favourite nail polish shade to wear and this polish definitely didn't disappoint me. Sadly I don't have a picture of this glorious colour on it's own as I was originally planning only to stamp on my accent nail but I got a bit carried away with the stamping and covered all of my nails...

On to the design!

I applied Barbara Daly base coat, two coats of Amethyst from Body Collection and 2true top coat. I then stamped with half of the feather design on Bundle Monster plate BM214 with Technic's gold striper polish (their metallic stripers are great for stamping). I finished off with Rimmel top coat.

Amethyst is a lovely dark aubergine metallic purple polish that I loved on it's own. To be honest I probably preferred it without the stamping but I still like the feather detail. A nice autumnal design I think!

Thanks for reading!

Holo Chrome

I saw this polish on one of the blogs I follow a few months ago and I was completely taken with it. I HAD to have a bottle. This polish was the whole reason I ordered my Kleancolors polishes and it definitely didn't disappoint.

I applied Barbara Daly Goodbye Yellow base, one coat of Essence's Chuck ( a lovely blue creme), two coats of Holo Chrome and 2true top coat.  Holo Chrome is a little gritty so the top coat is definitely needed to even that out but after that it's perfect.

Holo Chrome sits in a purple jelly base with tiny holographic glitters and slightly bigger (but still tiny) blue glitters. The blue glitters keep the polish looking primarily purple despite the holographic rainbows it throws off in the light.

This picture is super blurry but it shows off the rainbows a bit better than I was able to clearly photograph. (It still looks way better in real life). And my grandad's a fan, you can't really go wrong with that!

Click to enlarge the pictures, they look so much better blown up!

Thanks for reading!

Chunky Holo Purple

I came home to a delivery of six new Kleancolor beauties and I am so excited to show them to you guys!

The first one I tried was Chunky Holo Purple and it is absolutely marvelous.

I applied Rimmel base, one coat of a purple creme from Flormar (shade no N009), one coat of Chunky Holo Purple and 2true top coat. I probably could have done with another coat of the holo but it was still pretty with the amount I had on.

The holo consists of tiny circular holographic glitters in a sheer purple jelly base. The holo throws off gold, red, purple, blue, green and pink depending on the light. It was extremely hard to photograph! The only downside would be the drying time. I am extremely impatient between coats so I ended up with bubbling plus indentations after I had finished my nails because they still took a while to dry.

But trust me, in person it was fabulous!

Thanks for reading!

Sexy Gradient

These gradients are becoming a bit of a habit!

This time I decided to do the gradient as an accent nail instead of my whole hand.

I started off with Rimmel base on all my nails. I then applied one coat of Tiger's Shade 57 which is a brilliant black creme (and its a one coater, perfection!) to all my nails bar my accent ones. I applied three coats of Allura's white polish to my accent nails.

To create the gradient I painted the white, OPI's Pedal Faster Suzi! (a pale pink full of silver micro glitter) and OPI's Kiss Me On My Tulips (a hot pink creme) onto a sponge in that order and applied it to my accent nails. I then added a coat of Sexy (a beautiful glitter that changes from gold to green depending on the lighting) from the B and M set I bought a while back. I finished off with 2true top coat.

This gradient worked even better than the previous ones I thought, possibly because I used three colours which gave it a more gradual change. Although it might just be practice that's helping me to improve.

Thanks for reading!

Naughty Gradient

I decided to try another gradient and the technique held up again! I was obviously just doing it wrong before, but I have mastered it now, so all is right with the world.

This mani has a very summer holiday feel to it. I kinda wish I had done my nails like this for when I went away so I could actually enjoy them in summery weather instead of the hail stones and thunder and lightning we are having here...

Anyway...

Before top coat

I applied Rimmel base, two coats of Naughty from the B and M Store which is a very bright pink jelly with a matte finish (I don't know how that works, every jelly I've come across before was super shiny). This is from the same set as Glam which wasn't even properly dry after 24 hours (you could still mark it by pressing a nail into it). This time I applied very thin coats and waited longer between them and it dried perfectly! I was so happy with this. I then used the sponge method of applying both Naughty and 2true Shade No. 25 (a beautiful orange shimmer) to my nails.

 With top coat

With top coat

 I then finished it off with a coat of Espirit's Clear Glow with is a very subtle silver microglitter top coat. You can barely see the top coat in the pictures but it gives the mani a pretty sparkle in a certain light.

I'm tempted to add a white stamped hibiscus flower just to amp up the summery feel even more so if I do end up doing that I'll upload a few pictures.

Thanks for reading!

Bronze Rage Gradient

I decided that I needed some work on my gradients.  My previous attempt here went pretty well but before that I had tried one that didn't involve glitter and it was a bit of a disaster so I never even bothered to post it.

I decided to watch a different YouTube video to the one I had used before, thinking that maybe a different technique was what I needed. And I was right. I used this YouTube tutorial and Jen's technique worked a treat!

Before I had only put one colour on the sponge and had sponged layers of colour onto my nail. While this worked with glitter it was a lot less effective with regular polish. The technique of painting both colours onto the sponge worked a lot better as the colours merged better on the sponge as I was dabbing it onto my nail.

Here are the results!

I applied Rimmel base, two coats of Maybelline MNY in 445 and 2true top coat (I used top coat as I was originally planning on stamping my nails until this idea came to me). I then painted Bronze Rage by Models Own and Maybelline's 445 onto a small makeup sponge and sponged it onto my nails. I topped it off with another coat of 2true top coat.

I have seen 445 described as a shimmer but I would definitely say it was a microglitter with a lot of pale gold microglitter and a little silver and bronze too, which gives it a more textured look on the nails. Bronze Rage is a bronze metallic that I absolutely love, one of my favourite polishes.


I am so pleased with the results! I will definitely be using Jen's nail art tutorials again as she made it so easy to follow and explained everything really well.

Thanks for reading!

Fantasy Fire

I bought this polish a while back after seeing tonnes of great pictures and reviews online. I finally got around to trying it out for myself and I definitely wasn't disappointed. 

I applied Rimmel base, two coats of Avon's Vivid Violet, one coat of Max Factor's Max Effect Fantasy Fire and 2true top coat. I added a clear rhinestone to my accent nails. I used Vivid Violet as I thought that applying Fantasy Fire to a colour very similar to it, it would come out like the bottle colour. This didn't really work, however the effect was still eye catching.

These pictures make the polish look quite blue, it was a much more pinky purple in real life.  This polish is beautiful under bright artificial lighting (like a museum/art shop kinda light) as well as natural light and firelight.

The shimmer comes through very pink/purple on top of the purple base, however blue, red, green and gold all came through in different lights I just wasn't able to get a picture of it.

This polish practically glowed on my nails, probably thanks to Vivid Violet which is a lovely bright purple on it's own, providing the perfect backdrop for Fantasy Fire.

The  next time I wear Fantasy Fire I will probably try it over a colour a little less similar to it so that I can see the colour shift more. The purple allowed it to blend in a bit and appear as if I was wearing a normal shimmer at times.

Dive Bar

Today I have my very first Essie polish to show you!

I have seen a lot of different Essie's on all the blogs I follow so when I saw this one in the Duty Free at the airport in Turkey I just had to have it!

It is so different to any polish I've seen before and I fell in love with it the moment I picked it up.

Dive Bar is a blue/purple duochrome shimmer in a black base and it is absolutely gorgeous.

Because it is a dark colour I thought it would be bound to stain so I applied two base coats, one of Rimmel and one of Barbara Daly's Goodbye Yellow. I then applied two coats of Dive Bar and a coat of 2true top coat.

Here is a close up so you can really see the gorgeous colour of this polish.

I added a silver fleur de lis using a silver striper from Fing'rs on my accent nails. I'm quite proud of my little fleur de lis actually!

I was slightly disappointed that the purple duochrome that is so evident in the bottle really doesn't show on the nails at all. But even with out that the polish is absolutely stunning, definitely one of my favourites.

Thanks for reading!

Cafe Au Lait

This is a manicure I did a LOOOONG time ago. I just found the pictures floating around in my computer and thought it would be a shame to waste them, even though they are pretty pathetic!

This is a Rimmel base coat, one coat of Becca's Brown by Models Own. two coats of Avon's Cafe Au Lait and 2true top coat.

This is a lovely brown pearl shade which I really do adore. It is very similar to Avon's Freezing, which I used in this manicure last month. This shade is darker and more chocolatey though. I really can't decide which I love the most, they are both so pretty!

I can't remember much about application or durability but I do remember being please with it, despite the slight bubbling but that was no doubt due to my own impatience!

Thanks for reading!

Bon Bon ~ Ciate

Another magazine freebie today, this time it's Ciate's Bon Bon that came with this months issue of Marie Claire.

I had heard about the whole caviar manicure fiasco and decided to steer clear of Ciate, however when I saw it as a freebie I decided to give it a go.

The polish is actually really great quality. It reaches full opacity in two coats and smooths out really well, no brush strokes in sight. It also dries really fast which is always a plus.

I applied Rimmel base, two coats of Bon Bon and 2true top coat. All this could be done in five minutes, that's how fast it dries. Fantastic.

Bon Bon is a lovely beige-y lavender shade which could almost pass as a nude, but not quite. It's very unique and is a very pretty colour. I love it, and I think that Ciate is actually a good brand.  Maybe if I see more freebies in the future I'll pick one up.

Thank you for reading!

Freezing Supermodel

Today I have another magazine freebie to show you. This time I have Leighton Denny's Supermodel which came free with this months Harper's Bazaar.

This is a lovely chocolaty brown shade and even though I have a similar colour from Models Own, I still got it anyway. The other choices were an orange or a pink, I have way too many of both.

I applied Rimmel base to all my nails, two coats of Supermodel to all but my accent nail and 2true top coat. The application was good. The only problem was that a single hair was too long on the brush and was causing all sorts of problems, but I cut it and application was much easier. Coverage was good in one coat, but I used two purely out of habit.  After one night though it was covered in those little grooves you get from your hair after you sleep on it (only me?) and it peeled and chipped easily at the edges...

On my accent nail I again used Rimmel base, one coat of Supermodel and one coat of Avon's Freezing from the Color Trend range. I topped off with 2true top coat.

Freezing is a brown pearly shade and is really pretty. Jazzes up the brown nicely. Only thing is it bubbled a little, but maybe I just didn't wait long enough for Supermodel to dry...

Thanks for reading!

Glamgerine

On a recent trip (all my posts seem to start with that now!) to the B&M store that opened up in my town recently, I came across a nail polish set for £2.99 with seven nail polishes in it. If that's not a bargain I don't know what is!

I didn't have very high expectations due to the price, but the colours were pretty and there was a lovely glitter that I really wanted. So I bought it.

The polishes smell cheap (you know the kind of smell I mean?) and the quality isn't fantastic, but for the price they are pretty damn good.

I decided to start with Glam, a bright tangerine orange colour (hence the name of this post).

This is a jelly which dries kind of dull, but a dash of top coat sorts that out.

I applied Rimmel base, three coats of Glam (it has a very thin coverage) and 2true top coat.

Now I love this colour, it's absolutely perfect for summer and it's so pretty but there is one major drawback.

See the flaws on the index nail? That happened 24 hours after application because the polish was still slightly squishy and I hit it off a door. The other hand is even worse and I have no idea what I did to cause that. No normal polish does that after 24 hours of drying time! There is also slight tip wear after only 24 hours.

So while it is a lovely colour and a great bargain, I understand why it is so cheap.

However that wont stop me from using the other pretty colours, I'll just go in with my teeth gritted.

Thanks for reading!

Fairy Glitter

On a recent trip to Tesco I noticed this pretty colour in their Barbara Daly range. Seeing as it was a three for two offer on, I of course had to buy it.  Fairy is a very pale pink with a subtle gold shimmer through it. The name fits absolutely perfectly!


I applied Rimmel base and FOUR coats of Fairy! It is so sheer, but the colour is so pretty, definitely worth the extra drying time.

I was super pleased with the polish like this and I wore it out for a few parties, but me being me I just had to add some glitter to my nails! So I decided to add Golden Rose's number 70 which I bought in Turkey last year and I have never had an opportunity to wear.

This is two coats of number 70, it consists of strand glitter and small round glitter and it dries super fast, even on top of four coats of Fairy and I was really pleased with the coverage, not too much, not too little. I then added 2true top coat.

Again I wore this out, and I got quite a few compliments. A super pretty, girly mani, without it being too sickly sweet.

Thanks for reading!

Lilac Glitter Bomb

I just can't seem to get enough of glitter manis these days!

Today I have a really pretty lilac mani, sadly it's been raining here, but if I had managed to get a pic in the few minutes of sunshine we had on Wednesday you would have seen how glorious this really is, I even got asked if it was a holo, that's how amazing this looks in sunshine!

First I applied a Rimmel base, then two coats of Lizzie's nameless Love Shine lilac, three coats of the nameless lilac glitter from Claire's and 2true top coat.

I've never liked the Lizzie's lilac, it always felt too babyish as it has a slightly darker purple, pinky shimmer to it, but with things layered over it it actually looks okay! Maybe it won't just sit on a shelf gathering dust anymore!

That said I still felt like I had Barbie nails, although I kinda enjoyed that, they were very pretty.

The glitter was great too, it wasn't grainy on the surface of my nails and the coverage was alright, yeah three coats is a lot for normal polishes but I think it's okay for a glitter right?

Thank you for reading!

Bluebell Glitter

Not a very imaginative name but HEY!

This polish came free with a recent issue of InStyle, who seem to do polish promotions quite regularly! Which is always a plus when buying it!

I chose this colour out of a possible three, the others were a pink and a peach (which I really loved too!)

The application of this polish is great! It was practically opaque in one coat, and I only did an extra because I normally always do at least two.

I applied Rimmel base and two coats of Bluebell by Nails Inc. I decided to add a little something to it, not because it was boring (it is seriously such a pretty colour on its own) but because I had recently bought a blue iridescent glitter that I really wanted to try and it looked like it would match.

So I added two coats of this nameless glitter from Claire's and 2true top coat.

Overall I loved this mani and got a number of compliments, although I would have been happy with Bluebell on its own too.

Thanks for reading!