Where have I been?

Hello everyone!!

You may have noticed I have been missing for a while now. I have actually still been doing nails and taking photos but I abandoned the blog for a bit. I found writing up posts to be such a pain and really time consuming so I switched to just using Instagram.

Here is just some of what you might have missed if you dont follow me on Instagram....

I do hope to be posting here again soon, watch this space! 

Please join me over on instagram to all my latest work just search @lifeinlacquer 

or by following this LINK

see you all soon!

OPI Quickie Stamping Nail Art

Just a quick one for you all today, its my birthday in a couple of days and my family are keeping me busy with lots of good times so I have barely had time to sit still!

Today I am wearing OPI My Address is Hollywood with stamping from plate MZR11. I used Konad white special polish for the stamping.

I used three coats of My Address is Hollywood and one coat of top coat. Formula is a bit thin but built well with the third coat. It has this beautiful shimmer to it which gives it a nice classy finish. Whenever I see this polish in the bottle I always bypass it to choose something else as this reminds me of quite an old fashioned colour but to be honest I love the way it looks on me. I think it complements my skin tone so well and makes me feel so grown up and classy! 

I thought the scripture went well with my perception of this polish.

Hope you like this quick mani. Speak to you all soon and enjoy your weekend! 

Pegasus and Butterflies Nail Art

I love a good bit of stamping. I cant stand it when people say stamping isn't real nail art. It is real nail art folks and its fantastic! So many options with colour and decals you can pretty much achieve anything! Plus it can be a quick way of adding nail art to your dominant hand!

Today I chose Hare Polish Pegasus and plate MZR-O7. I used Konad Black Special Polish and my Magno XL stamper.

I waited before top coating (using Out The Door by INM) and even floated it over but it still smudged the beautiful butteries. 

I used 2 coats of Pegasus and it built up a lovely glitter density. Its a jelly finish so you get to see all the glitter floating around in the lush pastel purple base.

What do you think of this nail art? Do you own any Hare Polishes?

Pastel Galaxy with MoYou London Stamping Nail Art Tutorial

PRESS SAMPLE 

Hello my lovelies! We have been having a discussion about nail colours on Life in Lacquers Facebook page, why don't you pop over and join in?!


Today I have a review and video on MoYou London Hipster Plate 7. Here's a quick look at what I came up with

For the tutorial and more pictures please join us after the jump! 

Do You Have This Color In Stock-Holm? Swatch and GIVEAWAY!

PRESS SAMPLE 


Hello!
Sorry there haven't been more posts recently, my son isn't taking to school to well so have been really busy,
Today I have another beautiful polish sent to me by nailpolish.co.uk. They have also given me the go ahead to run a giveaway! The prize is a set of mini OPI polishes from the Nordic Collection. All details of the giveaway and raffelcopter widget is after the jump.

This is Do You Have This Color In Stock-Holm? from the recent OPI Nordic collection. This polish was one of the hardest to photograph! It took 2 days to get this picture and I am still not 100% happy with it. 

Giveaway details and more on this polish after the jump! 

Moyra Estelle 907 Review and Swatch

Today I got some nail mail from Moyra UK and I couldn't wait to get this shade on!
Moyra is a European brand which is now sold in the UK. I have reviewed a few of their polishes before and use them regularly.
They are a budget brand (the most they cost is £4, think BarryM type pricing) but they are by far my favourite budget brand. They are better than BarryM in my opinion as I just love the Moyra brush. Its flatter and wider so, for me, makes application easier.

This is Estelle. Also known as No. 907. A lot of the Moyra polishes don't have names but use numbers instead.

This is from their Gel Look range. They are highly pigmented but not thick unlike the BarryM Gellys. I find them very easy to apply and the pictures show 2 coats with KBShimmer Clearly On Top topcoat.
It was quite shiny by itself but also slower drying.
No streaks or blotches which I have found to be a problem with other dark reds.

Estelle is a strange shade of red. In direct light it can be quite bright like the pictures but in low or artificial light it turns to quite a muddy deep red. Think old blood...Gross.
Although it bares a resemblance to gore, it still looks very classy and I do really like it.
I have always been a great fan of reds and feel they do suit me.

All in all this shade is fab and there are no complaints from me!
This shade and many others are available from Moyra UK, prices start at £3 (£2 sale running for a very limited time)

Life in Lacquer Nail Art Challenge:MONOCHROME

We have nearly reached the end of this month long challenge and I would love to hear your thoughts about how its gone, your favourite design and any improvements in running the challenge, just incase I decide to do one again one day!

This prompt is another fave of mine. Monochrome is very trendy and I love the contrast in the black and white

This was not my original design as I messed up the one i did previously. I am far happier with this design though as it really is something different for me.


As you may also be able to see is that I have gone back to the more pointy nail shape. I really do prefer this shape. What is your fave nail shape?


I used Art Club Stripers by Color Club . They are okay but they get thick everytime I use them.


I hope you like them! Please take a look at the other nail arts from this challenge by many other talented nail artists!

An InLinkz Link-up

Life in Lacquer Nail Art Challenge: PINK

Today is the second installment of my nail art challenge!! I hope your enjoying looking at everyones nail art so far.

Todays prompt is pink. This is a very broad prompt and could even just be a swatch of a pink polish. I wanted to do prompts that everyone could take part in, from beginners to pros.

Heres my contribution...

Why, oh why, does my camera HATE bright pinks? These colours are so funky and summer orientated. 

This is Moyra 919 and KBShimmer Belle of the Mall. I bought this thinking it was red but mine is for sure pink. Yes it is a red leaning pink but its pink none the less. it was incredibly hard to capture.

I handpainted the roses and buds using acrylic paint and my new fave brush St Petersburg from Moyra, I am incredibly happy with how they turned out. 

What do you think?

Pop on over to our Facebook page and Instagram (@lifeinlacquer) and see what everyone else has come up with :)

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

Lightening Nail Art using Nail Stickrs

A quick, simple and easy nail art today!

This look is so easy to do all you need is two polishes and some nail vinyl stencils. These ones are from Nail Stickrs.
Nail Stickrs are an American based brand but they ship to the UK for about £1.50 ish so very reasonable! I also happen to know that they have some very exciting new styles coming soon!



I used Moyra 602 and Jasmines Wish (853). Jasmines Wish is a stunning textured polish. A teal with a golden glitter effect.

I have really tried to get this colour as accurate as possible, it was a pain to photograph! 

Doesn't it look like a Drusy?!

Its formula is great. Cover fantastically in 2 coats and of course you don't need top coat! 

I love pairing textured polishes with ordinary ones!

What do you think of this? 

Nail Stickrs are available from Here. Moyra has a brand new website Yay!! You can find it Here.

Press sample. Some of these products were sent for my honest review. 

Dance Legend Thermal 175

WOW.
I love this thermal. Thermals are polishes that react with heat and change colour. If your nails are long enough you may be able to get a beautiful ombre effect!

Dance Legend 175 is a deep purple that changes to an orangey/pink red when warm. It is quite reactive and the colours are quite different so the change is very noticeable. It doesn't have to get really cold to change to you do get the see the dark purple quite a bit which is great.

The shimmer really makes this polish stand out, it makes it different from a lot of other indie thermals which have big, chunky glitter.

The formula is great. Only 2 coats needed. Pictures show 2 coats with topcoat.

I will admit something embarrassing now... I have a macro lens for my IPhone (Yes I use an IPhone for my pics) I have been using said macro lens wrong. Instead of using the macro I have been using the  wide angle lens... DUH!
Now I have figured it out I can do lovely up close images yay!

I added a little floral accent using a Vamp striper brush and white acrylic paint. I then added some diamantes to add some glitz.

I hope you love this as much as I do. This is my type of thing!

I won this polish in a giveaway run by Nail Stickrs. This came from Rainbow Connection but you can also buy direct.

Moyra Nail Haul

Hey!
Isnt nail mail just the best type of mail ever?! Well it beats bills, I can tell you that!

a couple of weeks ago Moyra UK had a sale. 30% off every polish, so that made each polish only £2.10 each! Deal or what!?

I have used Moyra polishes before (review HERE) and I use their nail art brushes all the time. The polishes are fab quality for the price. They have a wide range of effects and colours. I especially like the Sands and Gel effect.

Here is what I got...

I have also ordered a few others, but they are not released until next weekend. 

I have already had a little play with these and I can say I am very happy with the quality for the price. 

Even at full price (£3) they work out cheaper than BarryM effect polishes and I can safely say I prefer these. As you all may know I hate BarryM Gelly polishes with a passion, the newer ones anyway. The formula sucks butt. They are streaky yet thick!? 

The Moyra Gel Look formula is so much better. The pink one above(919) is a one coater pretty much and not thick at all. 

I cannot fault these really. 

I will have some nail art using these to show you very soon! 

Moyra is available in the UK exclusively from Aliz on FACEBOOK (website coming soon) 

All polishes are £3 each and the postage is £3 for up to 25 polishes :) 

We Have a New Look!

Hello my dears!!

As you may be able to tell we have had a whole new look!

I made this layout and the previous ones myself and let me tell you I am no designer! In fact it took me a round a day just to do the title banner!

I wanted it to look clean and professional but at the same time a bit fun!
You may also be able to see, if your on a desktop, there are new follow buttons and you can even subscribe via email so you know when Ive published something new... Why don't you sign up :)

Even the About Me and Contact pages have been updated! Super efficient I know!

What do you think of the new look?
 Yay or Nay?

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

Life in Lacquer is One!!

Can you believe it? 

Life in Lacquer is one years old!!! 

I cant believe its actually been a year, in fact I forgot! 

The "blogiversary" was actually yesterday..... DOH! 

It has been an eventful year and I have made some lovely friends in the "nail world" 

If I didn't start this blog I would have never have met you lovely people so for that I am thankful <3

It crept up on me so quickly, I wanted to run a giveaway and such but that will have to wait.....

To mark my one year anniversary I have done some lovely cake nail art! You may remember I did do some cupcake nail art right back in the beginning (post HERE) so I thought I would give it another go. I hope I have improved! 

For this mani I used a Sick Lacquers nail polish. This one is called Cotton Candied and its such a beautiful polish. Sick Lacquers were my first international indie brand and to this day they are still my fave. 

White crellys are where its at for me! 

The pictures show two coats with Seche Vite. 

Its such a happy polish and I think it works so well in this design. 

I also used Robyn by Zoya, another of my fave polishes. Such a pretty colour! 

I used Color Club stripers to do the cupcake and two OPI's for the case.

 Color Club stripers are the bees knees! 

So what do you think? Do you see an improvement compared to my old cupcake mani? 

My Life Update

Hello everyone, 

As you know i have been ill again recently and have been told I need to just calm down and take some bed rest. I am totally not the type of person to just lie in bed for a week and mope but for once I am listening to the doctor and am taking some time to recoup. 

I have had a few personal things going on in the background in the last sort of 6 months and they seem to have all caught up with me and floored me if I am honest. 

I try really hard to just keep things going but its been brought to my attention that I am not doing very well right now.

My husband has been super fantastic over the last few months and well always lol. He is staying at home to help look after me and watch our children. 

I know alot of you don't come to my blog to read about me and possibly don't really even care about anything other than the nails and I do understand that you may not want to hear me waffle on about my personal life thats why I try to keep my moaning to a minimum. 

I just wanted to let you all know that as I can't do my nails for a bit I have enlisted some help from some other lovely bloggers to fill the gap while I am gone. 

I have made some lovely friends in the blogging and nail community and I really am thankful for their support, I actually don't have a great support network in my real life so its nice to know I have people with whom I can talk to somewhat. 

Thanks for reading and I will start uploading guest posts as I get them 

<3

Black and White

Today I had an urge to use just black and white.

Oh, and a touch of glitter!

I know its only simple but i quite like it. 

I used OPI Alpine Snow, Sinful Colors Black on Black and L'oreal Confetti. The white line are done with a striper from The Born Pretty Store. 

I hadn't used the Confetti polish in months and it had gone sooooo thick. Im glad I had some thinner to hand! 

I really like Confetti as it has really small bits of glitter in as well which adds to the sparkle! i think it looks especially good over pastels. 

I used a make up sponge to do the gradient. 

What do you think of this mani? Do you like monochrome manis?

In other news I reached 4000 Likes on Facebook!! Thank you all so much!! 

*Insert Oscar type speech here* 

Laquerdasical Swatches

Hello everyone! 

I have a lovely Indie brand to share with you all today.... Laquerdaisical. 

Based in the UK and run by Alexia, Laquerdaisical makes a wide range of polishes and even some holos were released just last night! 

First up is Where the Glitter FlaminGoes.

This is a pink jelly with pink mix holo glitter. A darker pink not a baby type pink so it has my vote already! 

Macro bottle shot

All pictures with 3 thin coats and Seche Vite 

Already I have had numerous compliments on this shade. It really catches the light. 

The first thing i noticed about the polish was the way it applied. Despite having a high glitter content and coverage it wasn't thick. It was truly easy to apply. 

A pet hate of mine, and it happens mostly with Indies, is a thick polish. 

As its a jelly it had buildable coverage so you could layer it over another polish to make it truly opaque or you could be really adventurous and try it over a completely different colour polish and see what happens.....

The final one i have for you today is Elphaba's Downfall

This is a red, verging on the pinky side. It is packed with red glitter which gives a flash of bluey purple!!

It is a textured polish if left without topcoat (similar in texture to Zoya Pixiedust)

3 thin coats and 2 coats of seche vite

it is a strange polish as in some lights it looks red and in others pink. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the flash of purply blue you get every now and then but I must say that is not really noticeable if you don't topcoat it. 

Again coverage is great and it goes on like a dream so no complaints here. 

I do have another Laquerdaiscal polish to show you but I just couldn't wait to show you these! The next one will be coming up very soon! 

I think Laquerdaisical will be a brand to watch as I love the application, colours available and the name choices! 

You can buy these and other Laquerdasical polishes from HERE 

Which one is your fave? 


**these polish were sent to me for my HONEST review, please see my disclaimer page for more info**

Snowflakes and Glitter Nail Art

More Christmas nail art! Well 'tis the season and all.... 

Today I have used Nein Nein Nein, Okay Fine by OPI. Your typical grey, its a lovely shade and covers well. My clean up is a bit sucky today. I have noticed that recently my painting skills are abit crap. I think its because I haven't been keeping up with nails as much as I would like too. 

I am hoping in the new year to start with some very well intentioned resolutions in regards to blogging and getting back on this bi-atch :P 

I used OPI Alpine Snow for the snowflakes. 

The glitter is Pastel Fusion by Sick Lacquers, I think this glitter works really well as its subtle and looks quite wintery. I used a make up sponge to blend it down from the tip.

I really love this mani, and I like that I am back to hand painting. If only a couple rudimentary snowflakes LOL

Update....

I thought I would quickly stop by to explain where I have been hiding... 

Well I have been ill for a while now, a lot of vomiting! YUMMY (not!) 

I was so ill I didn't even manage to paint my nails for my own birthday on the 30th of Nov! 

BUT..... I am going to try and do a few designs this week and I have a review to do too! 

Also i have a new addiction which i have mentioned before... Crochet!! 

It is just as much of an obsession as nails! 

So anyway I just wanted to quickly pop in to let you know I am still here and havent forgotten any of you 

:D