NOTD: Black and Silver

Day 5!
Today's post is a nail design I did a couple of weeks ago that I absolutely loved and decided to recreate as part of our 21 Days of Nails.

This is super simple as I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to nail art and am nowhere near as brave as M is!

For this I used my trusty Nails Inc in Black Taxi, the wonderful present M got me which was a Couture by Nails Inc polish in Sloane Square (but my bottle was my actual name!) and then with a super shiny top coat courtesy of No7 Top coat.

I painted all over my nails as normal with a base coat and 2 coats of Black Taxi before letting them dry for a bit longer than usual.

Then I took the silver glitter and covered half of my ring fingernail, and then half of my thumb nail

It's so super easy but the effect was great!

And you can easily change the colours, nails, glitters, magnetic etc etc and create so many different looks without ever needing any kind of tool to help you.

All you need is a bit of a steady hand!

I love how even though the photo above is blurred, you can still tell that the ring finger has more detail on than just the plain manicure and it looks so shiny!

What do you think of my minimalist nail art? Are you any good at these?

I think I need to branch out...

L xxx

NOTD Lilac Spotty Nails

After a quick trip to boots the other day I ended up walking out with 4 new nail varnishes. I just cant seem to resist. I also picked up Essie Grow Stronger after hearing good things about it. I will do a full review once I've tried it for a little while.

In the Summer I love pastel nail shades as well as bright colours. Today I decided on pastel nail art so I could use two of my new nail varnishes. These are the colours I used.

Avon Nailwear pro+ in Lemon Sugar currently £5

China Glaze in Secret Periwinkle 

No7 Cheeky Chops £2 when bought with a voucher

Rimmel I love lasting finish in shade Marshmallow Heaven and Pear Drop currently two for £4 in boots

I started off by painting my nails with two coats of Marshmallow Heaven. I should add I didn't like this nail varnish, it seemed streaky and not a great quality, but after two coats it looked ok and I evened out any other strokes with a third coat. It did last almost 4 days on my nails which with work is amazing so maybe I would repurchase other shades.

I couldn't really decide on what to do but wanted to use lots of colours so ended up doing lines of different polka dots. My nail dotting tool is the best thing I've bought for my nails and I use it all the time. It's great for creating loads of different designs.

This is quick easy and summery, and although the formulation of the Rimmel Nail polish at first put me off the price and the lasting power of it has me giving it another go.

Have you used and Rimmel I love lasting finish nail varnishes? Are you a pastel or brights girl?

Love M

xxx

NOTD: China Glaze Pool Party

Day 3!

This beauty is my absolute favourite at the moment!

It goes perfectly on fingers and toes and pretty much any occasion when the weather is this blooming lovely!!

Check out that SUN!

I managed to go a bit pink on my shoulders today from my 20 minute sit down at lunch time, woohoo!

This is another polish I picked up from America, from a brand that me and M love, and I'm pretty sure M introduced me to.

China Glaze prides itself on having no toluene, DBP or formaldehyde in its products which we of course LOVE on this blog, chemicals are bad!

Pool Party is from the Neon collection so take a look at how it turned out:

It even contrasts beautifully with my room behind it haha.

It was a beautiful colour to put on and needed the usual 2 coats to be as bright as you can see!

It really is a beautiful neon colour that you can't take your eyes off.

The only downside to this (for me) was that it dried with a kind of matte finish, it wasn't as matte as you get when you apply a top coat but it was definitely more matte than a usual polish.

It was odd and not quite what I look for in a polish as I love the shiny finish

So as I always do when painting my nails, I applied a top coat and had the wonderfully shiny finish as below:

I just cannot get enough of this colour, and even though I bought a silly ridiculous 17, yes SEVENTEEN nail varnishes whilst in the US, this one is hands down my favourite of the bunch and the others aren't getting much of a look in!

What do you think of Pool Party? Do you like China Glaze?

You can still buy them in the UK but unfortunately only on eBay as far as I know, though you can still get them for around £8!

L xxx

NOTD - Tuxedo Nails

So Day 2 of our 21 days of nails! Today I'm showing you tuxedo nails. Everyone went crazy for these after Zooey Deschanel was spotted with this very cute manicure on the red carpet. I'm a little behind and decided to give it a try last Saturday as I was wearing a nude and pink dress and wanted some nail art to blend with it.

As I'm yet to own nail art pens (I use my dotting tool) and I don't have a steady hand I decided on a feature nail. You'll notice I favour this manicure a lot through these nail posts.

Firstly I painted a base coat of OPI Nail Envy Maintenance (the best at the moment for me) then I painted all of my nails with two coats of  OPI bubble bath. Its a gorgeous slightly sheer nude pink. Even though it's sheer I actually really like the colour which surprised me. It applied easily. I have the small bottles as I have the best of the best collection ( a great set of 10 mini OPI polishes in their most popular shades. I fully recommend it.)

When it was completely dry I started by doing the bow tie. I did two little triangles and a dot for this. You could use a kirby grip if you are like me and don't have nail pens. (I should add yet, as I don't think I can resist the Models Own stand much longer) I used OPI Lincoln After Dark for this. I always use this for my dark colour in nail art as I don't own black nail varnish.

Excuse my disgusting stubby nails, I bit all this hand the other day, naughty me!!

Then using my dotting tool I did 3 dots for buttons and used the brush in the pot for two triangles at the side. I really like this look and will definitely do it again.

Did you try this manicure before? Would you try it again? I think nail art pens would make it much easier.

Love M

xxx