Cute Lines and Bows Nail Art

First off let me apologize for my very poorly looking fingers. I have rather neglected my hands this week as my hubby has been off work and we have spent the time going out to various places with the kids.... 

Mainly involving dinosaurs LOL

I am really happy today as my new bulb for my lamp came and as it a daylight bulb it works so much better in regards to picture taking. 

As many of you may know I only have time to blog in the late evenings when the babbys are in bed so a good lamp is essential to me. 

Anywho, enough babbling lets get to the nails! 

Today I have a very cute nail art! 

I created this look using 3 Essie polishes..

Avenue Maintain (blue) Go Ginza (light pink) and Bond with Whomever (darker pink)

I used the ole Striping tape to create this look. 

Painting the colours between lines of striping tape using a thin brush, on top of Go Ginza as a base colour. 

Then removing the striping tape whilst the polish is still wet. 

The lines haven't come out as crisp as usual but I still think it looks super pretty. 

The bows are a pearlescent yellow and were sent to me by Sparkly Nails. 

I really like these bows as they are a lot more practical than the massive bows i usually use, plus they are just so cute!

You can purchase these bows and other nail art things HERE

*some of these products were sent to me for an HONEST review. The views on this product are COMPLETELY my own.*

TarasTalons Announcement Plus Swatches and Reviews!!

Hello Lacquer-roonies!

I am very lucky to be reviewing two new polishes today and announcing a new product in Taras shop!

Okay so as you all may know I am a big fan of TarasTalons polishes and also of Tara herself! She is a UK indie polish maker and I have done posts on Tara and her fab polishes before. Find them 

HERE, HERE HERE and HERE!!

As of TODAY TarasTalons will be offering 5ml bottles in her Etsy shop!! 

She also now sells "Lucky Bags" and "Pick N Mix" (better than sweets!!) 

Lucky Bags are four random polishes and cost £14.40 for 10ml and £10.00 for 5ml! 

That works out at £3.20 a polish for 10ml!! Bargain!!

Pick n Mix are four polishes of your choice for £20.00 for 10ml bottles and £13.60 for 5ml. 

Both of these bags offer huge savings on the normal selling price of a single bottle.

With these bags it makes it even easier to now own your own handmade polishes at bargain prices! Or you could even gift them to a loved one (or yourself LOL) 

AND DON'T FORGET TO USE MY EXCLUSIVE 20% OFF CODE 

LIFEINLACQUER20 

(No minimum spend)

To Promote this launch Tara has sent me 2 lovely one off polishes for review, they are both in the new 5ml size. 

Heres a bottle shot...

First up we have Life in Polish...

The only way i can describe this polish is a dusky pinky purple jelly effect! Here it is with 3 thin coats and topcoat.  

The glitter gets beautifully sandwiched between the layers of colour. 

Holo glitter with Silvery pink hexs.... YUM!

The other polish is called I'm Jades Polish. 

love that it's named after me :P

So the first thing I noticed was how thick this polish was. When you apply it you only need one coat and it is a bit tricky to apply. 

I thought it was going to turn out to be a textured polish but when it dried it dried flatter. I then floated 2 coats of top coat and oh wow! 

The depth of colour and glitter is amazing. Its hard to tell in the pic but it has lovely purple glitter in it too. 

Because of the thickness, caused by the high content of glitter, the cuticles and side walls are not as neat as usual. 

But the depth of colour and the way it shines (i cant stop looking at it) makes up for the thickness IMO. 

**One little hint for very dense polishes,  apply one layer of topcoat and then wait until nearly dry, then lightly press your finger on the polish to help it lay flat. You will be left with finger prints but don't worry as one more coat of topcoat should sort this**

          All of TarasTalons polishes are one of a kinds (except the first collection)

Taras polishes are in high demand so get them while you can!!

You can buy all her polishes HERE

Also please do check out her BLOG as it contains loads of pretty nail arts :)

and as Tara would say 

GET NAILED :P

x

Royal Baby, Prince George of Cambridge Inspired Nail Art

Wonderful news this week about the birth of Prince William's and Princess Kate baby boy. He has been named George Alexander Louis, The Prince of Cambridge. 

I just had to do some sort of nail art to commemorate the birth, so here it is!

FYI I hate stamping individual images and these are wonky (as always) sorry!

I used Essie's Butler Please and Avenue Maintain, BarryM Foil Effects in Gold and nail art pearls from ebay. 

The glitter is 24 Carat by Kleancolor.

Bundle Monster plate BM-215

In hindsight I think the footprints would have bee better if they were bigger but i still like this royal mani :) 

Congrats to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!

Have you done anything to commemorate the birth? 

Hope you all have had a good week!

Mint Manicure For Talia Joy

Today we have a very special mint mani in memory of a very special girl Talia Castellano.

Talia was a well know beauty and nail guru and inspired many through her Youtube Channel

She lost her 6 year battle with cancer on the 16th July aged just 13 years old. 

Nicole from Nail Polish Wars suggested that in remeberance of Talia we should all ban together and do a mint mani, inspired by Talia's last Instagram Post. 

So here is my mint mani. Using 3 coats of Mint Green by BarryM and my new Cheeky Jumbo stamping plate called Happy Nails. 

I used BarryM foil effect to stamp with.

Rest in peace Talia 

Please find other tributes in the links below x

Special FX Fickles Heat Sensitive Swatches + Review

I was sent these by FX Nailz for a review and I was so happy to try them out as i have never tried this type of polish before. 

This polishes come from a range of nail polish called Fickles. They react to heat and change colour. 

The colour you see in the bottles are the cold colours, except the greyish one as that's the warm colour?! strange!

Okay these don't have names or anything so here it goes! 

First up is the grey polish 

Here its is straight out the bottle

This is 3 coats with no topcoat. As you can kind of make out there is a subtle colour change already on the tip of my nail. This is to do with the tip being colder than the nail bed.

This is the same polish but after a dip in ice cold water. It has got noticeably more blue. In real life the change is more noticeable but my damned camera was being a pain!

Next up is the middle polish in the first picture. Looks pink in the bottle with loads of glitter but this is it straight out the bottle

 Again this is 3 coats with no topcoat. This has a lovely amount of glitter and both colours look lovely in their own right. It also has the gradient effect. I think this is my fave out of the three.

Here it is after the ice cold treatment. This is more of a noticeable change than the previous polish. 

Last up is the final polish which is a purple glitter polish. Here it is straight out the bottle. 

 This is again 3 coats with no topcoat.The glitter in this is kind of a holo glitter but you have to get up close to notice which is a shame. 

Here it is after the dunk! You can see the change but its not mind blowing.

 Okay so all in all they are good polishes but I felt the formula was quite thin, hence the 3 coats. I like the novelty of a colour changing polish but it can be subtle, I want a polish that goes from pink to green or something lol but i don't even know if that would be possible HaHa. I do like the fact that most of the time they look like I have a very subtle but superb gradient on. Which would look even better on a longer nail. 

The one other point is that the bottle, I'm sorry, is cheap looking. I expect to find these at the back of an old fancy dress shop or in Poundland. I think if the bottle was more attractive then people would think it was a higher end product. 

So yes i do like this product. The colours in their own rights as lovely and its pretty cool that you effectively get two different shade in one bottle. 

These are available from FX Nailz for £4.50 with FREE postage HERE

Special FX Chameleon Swatch and Review

This is a Special FX Polish called Chameleon. 

I will admit right now that when I saw this in the bottle I was hesitant, Im not a fan of oil slick type of polishes and when I saw the gold hues to it, I was really put off. 

I am NOT a fan of gold HaHa!

But boy was I wrong! 

This polish is beautiful on and it has a really deep sexy purple base that catches the light.
As you move your hands around you can see the different colours come to life! 

I really love the way it makes my hands look LOL!

The pictures are with 2 coats and no topcoat. 

The formula was good, first coat was streaky as hell but a thicker second coat sorted that out. 

The brush is too thin for my liking though.

The bottle really looks cheap, I am sorry but to me it looks like something you would see in Poundland or something. I feel it lets down the product inside. 

But other than that I am surprisingly in love with this polish!

FX Nails sent me this product for review and unfortunately I cant find this for sale on their site. I will look into it and update this when I get more info

You can look at FX Nails other products including their Fickles Heat sensitive range (keep your eyes peeled for swatches!)

HERE

80's Themed Nail Art

I haven't been able to post that much recently, I have been super busy planning a surprise birthday party for my husbands 30th. 

As you can probably guess from the picture it was an 80's themed party. 

Well the party was last saturday and now you all have my undivided attention! I will hopefully get back into the swing of posting nearly every day :) 

I just had to use my new bold Essie polishes for this mani, I used Essie's Lights, Essie's Butler Please and BarryMs Lemon Ice Cream. 

I used Cheeky plate CH51 from the summer 2012 collection and Konad Special polish in Black. 

I hope you enjoy this bright mani and i hope you all haven't missed me tooooo much ;p 

Essie Lights with Glitter

Here is Essie Lights!

A beautiful bright pink. Its a creamy type of neon, and its bloody beautiful!

I think I would have used this whole bottle up by the end of summer. Its probably the brightest shade I own. Its not like a really eye burning neon but more of a creamy bold colour.

The formula is lush and is opaque in two thin coats.

The glitter is Guilty Pleasure  by InVogue.

I simply used a sponge to fade the glitter out.

What do you think of bright colours? What are your fave summer shades?

Essie Haul from Direct Cosmetics

 

I have been a bit silent on the blogging recently, sorry :(

 

I bought these at +Direct Cosmetics Ltd about a week ago and I've only just had time to have a play with them :(

 

These were a bargain at £2.99 each!

As you all probably know by now is Essie is my favourite brand, with their wide brushes and wide range of colours.

 

The colours I purchased are

(top L-R) Lights, Sweet Talker, Butler Please, Where's My Chauffeur,

 (bottom L-R) She's Pampered, A Crewed Interest and To Buy or Not To Buy

 

 this was the first time I have used Direct Cosmetics and on the whole they are a good company. What I didn't like was that I had to pay a surcharge to use Paypal. It is understandable though as they would have to pay fees to Paypal themselves.

 

Buy from Direct Cosmetics HERE

Nail Luxxe Guest Post Week 2

 

 Hi everyone, Nail Luxxe here!

Jade's let me pop over again to show you another look :)

White and gold is one of my all time favorite colour pairings. So I decided to translate that onto my nails in today's manicure, which uses all Barry Ms.

Starting with one coat of White I painted the whole nail and waited for it to dry.  Then I went in with a beauty sponge and dabbed Barry M's Gold Foil from the top of the nail to the centre, easing the pressure as I went.  (If it wasn't for Jade I wouldn't even know that this is referred to as a 'mottling technique'!) To complete it, I added a coat of topcoat.

For some reason it makes me think of desert sand, maybe because of the textured effect. Or it could have something to do with the beautifully hot weather we've been having lately!

I hope you have a great rest of the week.

Nail Luxxe xoxo

You can check out Nail Luxxe HERE

Zebra Print Nail Art

 

Here I have again used the mottling technique used in posts HERE and HERE

I think this is one of my most fave techniques as its so easy to do and cant be achieved on both hands easily.

 

I used BarryM's Blueberry Ice Cream as a base then used BarryM's Guava, OPI If You Moust, You Moust for the mottling and Accessorize Damselfly for the glitter.

 

I used a Bundle Monster Stamp for the zebra print but I also painted over it with black polish to make it stand out more.

 

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

 

Nail Polish Remover

In my time as both a nail tech and a polish fanatic I have used a lot of different nail polish removers.

 

I usually buy the most basic brands and I have finally found a favourite!

 

I have, for the last month or so, been using two different types of polish by Boots.

Why do you need two types of remover I hear you ask?!

Well, I use one for general polish removing and one for clean ups and glitter removal as its stronger.

 

For general use I use the basic Boots own brand for £1! Its is, IMO, better than the Superdrugs own brand. It really doesn't struggle with dark colours or anything. And its a good size (250ml).

 

You can buy it HERE

 

For clean up I also use a Boots own brand polish called Clean Off. It is really good at cleaning up any accidents on the side walls or cuticles. Also nails are left nice and smooth after polish removal, they don't feel dry at all.

Bit more pricey as its £1.30 for 150ml but to be honest that's still really cheap!

You can buy it HERE

 

BOTH of these contain acetone and to be honest I only use polish remover with acetone in. I find non acetone remover doesn't do the job as well. But if you wear acrylic nail extensions then please don't use a nail polish remover which contains acetone.

 

Just thought I would share this with you all as I know it can be hard to find a good one.

 

Doc Marten Roses Inspired by Get Nailed

 I have been watching a lot of Get Nailed Videos on YouTube and I had to give this one a go!

Let me first apologise again for my crap cuticles and fingers in general :( They just are not getting better!

I used BarryM Berry Ice Cream, Vivid Purple and Bright Purple.

The leaves are OPIs Dont Mess With OPI, I also used BarryM Nail art pens in white and black to highlight them in places. 

View Get Nailed videos HERE

What do you think of these roses? Do you like floral manis?

Happy Independence Day!

 Happy Independence Day!! 

The fourth of July is here so here are my USA themed nails!

I hand painted the flag using Oumaxi Acrylic. I am really proud of the way it turned out and it took me an age! Totally worth it though!

Base for the flag is BarryM Blueberry Icecream. 

The index and pinky finger are OPI Red Light Ahead,Where? Topped with my custom polish by TarasTalons called My Life In Lacquer. 

I used the glitter as a representation of fireworks.

Have a great day!