Marcus Manis!

Marcus is back! It feels like ages since he has had a guest spot here!

As many of you will know Marcus is my father in law and he is also an artist. He regularly comes around and dones my nails for me. Its nice to have someone who supports my mad obsession and even joins in!

Marcus is a skilled painter and hes really good at making mosaics.. More on that very soon.
Today's nail art is based on the colourways of a beautiful picture he painted in 2000 and now proudly hangs in my living room!

I love the way this nail art came out. Its bright and summer orientated! I feel the lined gradient came out looking like a beautiful sunset.

What do you all think? Do you enjoy seeing what Marcus comes up with?

 You can see more of Marcus's Art work HERE 

LIFE IN LACQUER NAIL ART CHALLENGE

The day will soon be upon us... The start of Life in Lacquers first nail art challenge.

This is open to absolutely everyone. You do not need to be a blogger or anything. Even if you don't feel like you are any good I would still love to have you be part of this!

The reason I am running this is so we can all meet new friends and get some inspiration!


The prompts run on a Monday and a Thursday. You can post your image to our FACEBOOK page or use #lifeinlacquerjuly AND tag me @lifeinlacquer on Instagram, twitter and other medias. I will then share some on my Facebook and Instagram (with full credit of course)

You do NOT have to do every prompt if you don't feel like it.

There is also now a inlinz. So if you write a blog post you can add the inlinkz via HTML so you can all see other entries. You may add as many links as you want as long as it relates the the challenge and the links are your own. You can find the inlinkz code HERE


if you have any questions AT ALL then please drop me an email through the Contact Me/PR page above!

Cant wait to see all your efforts!

Fantasy Unicorn Nail Art

This has got to be the cutest, most girly nail art I have ever done!

I used some nail vinyl stencils from She Sells Seashells for the unicorn. I know I have been doing loads of reviews for Nail Stickrs recently but of course they are not the only supplier and they do different stencils too. She Sells Sea Shells is also based in the UK.
They were easy to use and I got a great result too! I used Konad stamping polish in white to do them as it covers better than other whites.

You also get the cut outs left in the middle so they can be used as stickers :) 

I used Zoya Robyn, Unnamed Color Club Glitter, Essie Cascade Cool and Zoya Mira

I used Essie Cascade Cool as the base. Its such a powdery sweet pink. I really love it. Then used a sponge to splodge on the two +Zoya Nail Polish. Topped off with the Color Club glitter.
I hate that they don't label half the Color Clubs! I think its all the ones that come in sets that remain unnamed.

The metal charms are from eBay. I think I payed like £1 for a wheel with loads of different designs.

What do you think of my unicorn fantasy nails? I LOVE them!

I think I may be turning into an actual girly girl! HELP!

You can browse and buy various stencils and other nail art items from She Sells Seashells HERE




*some of these products were provided as a press sample for my honest review*

Mylar Nail Art

Heres a new one for me.... Mylar.

I first heard about it years ago when I was working as a nail tech but I had never tried it.Until now!
I know Mylar can be great encapsulated in gel or acrylic but I was unsure how to use it with polish.

This is shade Iridescent Hot Pink and in the bag you get 5g but that is loads!

I basically just put it on top of wet nail polish to stick it and then topped with topcoat. 2 coats needed at least. If you are one of those people who don't like things sticking on your nails then this wouldn't be for you at all.

I really like this Mylar. Its pink but also looks blue and even Orange sometimes. I think it adds a unique dimension.
I was in a massive grump doing this nail art so as you can see its not my best. I just hate Rose Hip by +Barry M . Its streaky and hard to apply. It gets me in a rage every time I use it! I just love the colour though... Anyone know of any alternatives?

I used a darker pink acrylic and a nail art brush from Effect Beauty to do the squiggles and dots.

You can buy the nail art brushes and Mylar from Effect Beauty. They sell everything you could ever want in regards to nail art plus you can get 10% off using code LACQUER

Like I said Mylar may not be for everyone but sticky up bits don't bother me and I rather like it.

*press sample, All opinions expressed are honest and my own*

Neon Disco Nail Art by Marcus

Marcus is back to do another nail art for you all!

When I was away I bought some new Neon and Pearl acrylic paint and we were dying to try them out. 

I also have 4 new nail art brushes from Moyra UK that I had been lusting after for a really long time and they do not disappoint!!! I am hoping to do a more in depth post on these soon so keep your eyes peeled (gross!) 

Marcus used Glitter Gal Brainfreeze for the base. This black in an amazing holo......

So Marcus saw the neon's and thought of DISCO! 

The neon paints didn't cover worth a damn so we put white underneath but I'm still not happy with the way they cover. Le sigh.

My picture isn't great as I HATE the way the light bleaches some of the image out... Any tips on this then please drop me and email lol.

Okay so this nail art is disco lights and on my ring finger there is a raver man! 

I don't think I have ever seen a nail art like this and I am not 100% on it but I know Marcus was happy with the shapes and the effect. 

Hes just pretty far out man....

NAILS ON TOUR!! Holiday Round Up

I'm back my loves!
I really hope you enjoyed all the lovely guest posts and thanks again to all the contributors!

For our summer holidays this year we went to Holywell, about ten minutes away from Newquay in Cornwall, UK.
We always holiday within the UK and its always Newquay lol, we love it there. Its like a second home.

It rained like the whole time we were there but we managed to get to Holywell Beach. Holywell beach is stunning. Easily my fave beach I've ever been too.

CUE ARTSY FARTSY PICS....

My brother and son at Holywell beach.

 

The polish I chose for the holiday was a thermal called Nostalgia by Polished by KPT. A duochrome thermal polish. In some lights it has a pink tint and in others it has a green tint!
I wanted a polish that would go with most outfits and not be to garish. This polish was actually my third choice and to be honest I don't know why I didn't pick it first. I am in love with this thermal.
It covers great and in it warm state is a perfect duo chrome nude. Its quite sheer but I really didn't mind that this time. I am learning to embrace my VNL
It also reacts really well too so even on my relatively shortish nails I had the gradient effect a lot!

My nail polish lasted about 4 days before It started to badly chip but for me that's a record! I could not be more chuffed with this polish.


We also enjoyed going to Newquay Zoo, Crealy and Cornwall Gold. My husband bought me this gorgeous freshwater Pearl ring for an early anniversary gift (pictured above)

Purple Cracked Nail Art

I had a request from Alexia, Creator of Laquerdaisical to do a purple nail art so here it is.
If you would like to request a nail art or have any ideas please contact me

I used one of my new Cadillacquer polishes Easy As Pie. I wanted this polish for so long. In fact I want all Cadillacquer polishes....BUY ALL THE POLISH!

I had no idea what I was doing when I started this nail art lol. I used Nails Supreme pen in white to do the design and then a gradient using OPI Planks Alot and Steady As She Rose with a bit of Easy As Pie on the nail tip.

Easy As Pie applied really well and I got great coverage with 3 thin coats. I prefer to use thinner coats of polish to build up the depth of the glitter.

I still have no idea what this nail art is... Trees? Cracking? Lightning? You decide!

Foil Squiggle Nail Art

I have wanted to try foils for so long so when Effect Beauty offered to send me some I jumped at the chance!
 I wanted to have a play and not, for now, go for the full nail foil coverage.

The foil comes rolled up in a plastic pot so its great for storage in ye olde Helmer. The actual sheet of foil is really long, I could do this nail art about 20 times I think! Obviously you would use more foil if you were doing a full nail.

This was really really hard to capture! 

I used a dotting tool to add the foil glue onto the nail in a random squiggly pattern. Then waited until the glue went from white to see through. I then placed and pressed the foil onto the nail and pulled it off. And this was what I was left with!!

In love with this, it catches the light and reminds me of a very exotic fish tail or something ha ha.

I used Mentality Polish Scoundrel. A black with a minute shimmer.

This foil and others are available from Effect Beauty and you can get 10% off with the code LACQUER :)

some of these products were sent to me for my honest review

Keep Breathing Little Fishy

I have wanted to use Keep Breathing by Cadillacquer for so long but for some reason I have overlooked it whenever I pick out my polishes. 

I didn't have a nail art in mind when I started putting this on but then my eyes fell on my poorly goldfish. His tank is directly opposite where I sit to do my nails. He has swim bladder disease and so far is not getting any better. We bought the goldfish as gifts for my son the day before his brother was born (they unfortunately died while I was in labour....oooppss) Two more were swiftly bought and replaced the others before my son had even realised :P 

I feel so sorry for this little guy and what's the best way to cheer a goldfish up? That's right, do a fish themed nail art. 

So here we are. The worst looking fish nail art you have ever seen.....

I'm am actually proud of the reed/plant things and lily pads... 

The fish on my nails looks even more poorly than my fish in real life Ha! 

On the other hand this polish by Cadillacquer is lush a blue with beautiful purple glitter and a micro glitter adds to the shimmer. 

Covers well with two coats :) 

So hopefully I will be able to rescue my fish and not have to send him to the big fish toilet in the sky. 

I am doing the pea thing but we will have to see.... hes not looking to good.

But at least he is forever immortalised in a bad nail art :P

**UPDATE** 

after a very late night and lots of pea feeding he looked to be recovering.... only to pass on to the great lake in the sky the next morning. 

My son still hasn't noticed.

Color Club Worth The Risque Nail Art

I have been doing a lot of girly nail arts recently... 

So now I have gone for something abit more flashy!

This reminds me of something very futuristic, a bit like the mani I did for KBShimmers Blog a while back. 

I bought this Color Club polish, along with a few others, a really long time ago and I am only now just getting round to trying it! 

This is two coats but to be honest if you were in a rush then one thick coat would work just fine! 

Worth The Risque is quite a strong holo in real life.

I really really like it! 

Color Club also do a range of stripers and I used the black to do the pattern. The stripers are actually really good and cover really well! 

I added the studs into the topcoat. I purchased them from the Born Pretty Store. 

What do you think of this? 

Thanks for reading, my lovelies! 

Love Skittle Nail Art

This mani is super cute, even if I do say so myself :)

This is a skittle mani a la Nailasaurus, as you all know I love +The Nailasaurus.

 She is a real inspiration to me :)

I got sent these really lush Love charms from Effect Beauty. The feature a little diamante and I really love them. I did bent them a little to get them to sit flatter but I think it would probably sit better if I had bigger or longer nails. 

Doing different nail arts on different nails is quite fun as you get to try out different designs and see what you like :) 

I used BarryM Rose Hip for the base, I really dislike the formula of this polish.

 Intensely.

I also used Zoya Areej and Barry M Dragon Fruit. 

What so you all think? 

The Love charms are available to buy from Effect Beauty and used LACQUER at the checkout for 10% off. 

some of these products were sent to me for my honest review. please see my disclaimer for details. 

Life in Laquerdaisical Tri-Thermal Review and Swatches

Today I have something very new and fun to show you! 

Okay a little background information first.... Alexia owns and runs Laquerdaisical. Alexia is a lovely lady who I message all my insane nail ideas too! I sometimes think about a polish I would love and then I got to Alexia to see if it is possible.... Turns out this one was.

Alexia decided to call this polish Life in Laquerdaisical as I helped with the basic idea. How cool is that! 

Okay so I have always loved thermals. I wanted more from thermals! And I had see some other brands doing a tri thermal thing so I took the idea to Alexia. 

Here's what she came up with! 

A blue that turns to a greeny blue that then turns to a dark purple!! It also features a pretty silver glitter.

This is four thin coats and no top coat.
This polish is smooth without topcoat. 

Okay so I couldn't photograph this for the life of me!! I can assure you I can see the blue to green blue change in real life. It is subtle mind you but its there. 

The purple comes up when you are really cold.... So its a nice surprise every now and then! 

This used to look so much better on my longer nails :( BOO to breakages! 

One thing I will mention is that I found the formula thicker than normal but Alexia has said she plans to change that on the new batch :) 

This polish and so many other BEAUTIFUL polishes are available from Laquerdaisicals new website!

This polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are honest and my own! 

Moyra Vivid Sands Power Pink

I have another amazing Moyra polish to show you today! 

This is Power Pink. Its a textured polish and it also has glitter in it. 

I can compare this texture to that of OPI Liquid Sands, its not like super super textured. 

The formula on this is AMAZING. I could have gotten away with just the one coat but I (probably out of habit) did two. 

Capturing this polish was so bloody hard! Its a true neon, very bright indeed! It much more pink toned in real life. 

This just screams summer! 

You can buy this and many other Moyra polishes from the Facebook page :) 

This polish was sent to me for my honest review. 

Technicolor Yawn by Laquerdaisical

Today I have a funky indie polish on my nails, we are talking SUPER funky.

This is like someone from the 80s puked on my nails.... in a good way :)

Laquerdasical is a UK based indie brand which I have had the pleasure of working with Alexia a few times and she even listens to me rambling on about polish dreams whilst she strives to make them come true and I'm sure Alexia won't mind me dropping a little hint that there is something very lovely coming up soon!

Anyway back to the polish! Technicolour yawn is a micro glitter polish.

3 coats in the pictures with one coat of topcoat.

 Bottle shot ^^

This polish does cover without undies but as you can see it can be hard to get the glitter in all the right places. The nail line is not as visible as this in real life.

This polish is just so fun! I think it would also look great layered over a range of different colours. 

So what do you think of this? Are you a fan of glitter polishes? 

Technicolour Yawn is available from Laquerdaisical facebook page and their new website!

This polish was sent to me for my honest review. Please see my disclosure page for more details.

Easter Inspired Nail Art

Today I have actually managed to get a post done on time! 

This mani is inspired by Easter. I have a draw full of bits and bobs and today I chose to use the gold leaf. I highly doubt this is real gold leaf seeing as I payed about a quid for it but it looks good! 

The gold reminds me of Easter egg wrapping! I didn't want to go for the whole bunny and chick thing as that tends to be what the majority of other people are doing. 

I wanted to use a pastel shade as it really reminds me of spring. BUT I just couldn't find one that I felt went with the gold. 

I dislike gold.

Immensely. 

I used Barry M Gelly in Huckleberry and the Gold Foil Effect. I HATE the newer gellys. They are so thin! I like the thicker consistency of the others I have. They used to be great for stamping and art but that's not the case now. What happened +Barry M ?

The "gold" leaf was quite hard to get neat. I don't think its possible to get the application perfect. Its thin and a pain in the butt to use but it gives this mani an Easter twist.

What do you think? Have you ever used gold leaf?

And if you are celebrating Easter then have a great day, if not have a great day anyway!

Nails Supreme Review and Nail Art...

I have really been trying to get back into nail art recently. Im going to put more and more time (and posts) into and practicing art.

So on that note I wanted to try a new nail art pen or a few different options to see what I prefered best. I looked online and saw that Sophie Harris Greenslade AKA The Illustrated Nail used nail art pens called Nails Supreme. I have never gotten on with the nibbed pens before but It had been over 2 years since I lasted tried! 

Lucie from Lucy's Stash also recommended these to me and she wrote a great review on these which you can find here

I purchased these on eBay as they turned out cheaper than anywhere else I can find them. These came in at nearly £19. So not cheap but worth it if I can get on with them lol. 

I bought the Matt Set (CP1) and its comes with 10 different colours connected together. 

The pack is also supposed to come with a cleaning tool but I couldn't find that in my kit. 

The nib is pretty small so ideal for very intricate nail art.

One thing to mention is that when you unscrew the nib there is a brush but it is NOT a striping brush, It is a regular nail polish brush. 

I chose to use the yellow and white for this nail art and also try out one of my new polishes from my recent Harlow Haul.

 

The yellow didn't cover as well as the white and I was warned by Lucie that some don't cover as well as others.

For the bases I used Glam Polish, She Had A Lipstick Taser! and BarryM Gelly Dragon Fruit. 

This Glam Polish is so freaking lush. The layering of the glitter is sooo good! Its a nice bright blue but not in an offensive way.

Okay so I need to get used to the whole squeezing and drawing thing.

 It was hard not to over squeeze, that then creates an uneven line.

I also think one of my biggest downfalls is not sitting and thinking what I am going to do before I do it and thats why it never works out how I want it too. 

Some people find it easy to just free hand and doodle etc but I just cant do it so for me planning is the way forward. 

I look forward to really getting stuck in with these and hope one day I can master them. 

Have you ever tried these? What do you use for your nail arts?

Mega Mix Nails Review Part 2

You may remember a couple of days ago I tried a new product called Mega Mix.

Mega Mix is a product that turns your nail polish or mica/glitter pigments into gel polish.

My first testing wasn't a complete success, you can read it HERE


So I thought it best to try out a more pigmented polish and see how that faired.
I figured that my most pigmented polish might be a Gelly by BarryM so I used Pomegranate.

As per my previous post I applied BarryM Pomegranate on the index finger and a mixture of Mega Mix and nail polish on the remaining three nails. 

2 coats on the index and 4 on the rest. 

This mixture fared considerably better than my previous one of Essie and MegaMix. 

Its not perfect though. You can still see my smile line and it has a jelly like appearance. 

But how can we expect it to be opaque when its effectively "watered" down by mixing in the clear gel? 

Would it not be better if the gel was tinted white?

Another point worth making is that this is time consuming and I ran out of mixture half way through so I do wonder if by mixing up a new batch half way through would the colour or coverage be the same?? 

What are your thoughts on this?
Do you prefer gel to polish?