Earthy Earth Day Nails

This is the nail art I created for the Earth Day challenge on Nailpolis. It was supposed to be leaves and vines in a style inspired by Aboriginal Australian art. I quite like the nails but they didn't turn out quite the way I'd planned and I don't think they scream Earth Day. Oh well.

I used Rimmel 60 Seconds in shade Captain Khaki for the base. Poundland have a lot of Rimmel polishes in stock at the moment so I picked this shade up on Friday when I realised I didn't own any earth-tone polishes to use for my Earth Day nails.

I used a dotting tool and NYC High Line Green, Maybelline Pow Green, MUA All Nude and Technic Canary to do the designs. I used Limited Collection Matte Top Coat to finish them off.

I think the most surprising thing about this nail art is that I now own a dark khaki-brown nail polish. Yuck!

What's the ugliest shade of nail polish you own?

Tropical Aquarium

Here is the tropical fish nail art I created for the Superdrug competition and I love it! I'm much happier with this than I was with the goldfish nails from my last post.

I started with a coat of Seventeen Fast Finish polish in shade Wave, a lovely rich turquoise that I picked up for 50p in a Boots clearance sale. I topped this with my favourite glitter of the moment, Jess Sea Breeze. This is another of the new Poundland exclusive polishes and it is beautiful. It contains tiny square turquoise and silver holographic glitter and turquoise micro glitter. For some reason this glitter seems to dry quicker than Jess Flash Harry, but that might just be my imagination. Here is a close up of one coat of Sea Breeze over Seventeen Wave but it's a bit messy as it's my right hand.

I stamped over the glitter using a wavy, slightly zebra-print like pattern from Cheeky plate N and NYC Foil Explosion polish in shade Aqua Mystic, a metallic silvery blue. I love how watery the waves of glittery and metallic blue look together. On my ring finger I used three coats of L.A.Colors Tahiti Sunrise which is a shimmery orange.

I painted lots of little tropical fish and seaweed using Vallejo acrylic model paints and a tiny paint brush. On my ring finger I used these diamond glequins again, but this time in red and orange. I topped it all with Konad Special Top Coat to protect it.

I took a few more photos in an improvised light tent to try to show the colour of the glequins better. I really need a better setup for taking photographs!

What do you think of this tropical nail art? I'm really enjoying wearing it!

Spring Greens

My local indoor market has recently reopened after a major refurbishment and I was excited to discover that the discount cosmetics stall has got bigger and better. They have lots of branded nail polish for between 50p and £2 a bottle and when I saw a pale, minty green NYC polish called "Cupcakes and Latte" for £1 I had to buy it because I'm a sucker for green polish.

Sorry about the out of focus photo!

The other two polishes I used for these nails both have some sentimental value for me, and by coincidence are both also NYC polishes. Before I discovered the wonders of £1 polish, I bought quite a few NYC polishes because they have a good range of colours and are £1.79 at Superdrug (and are often part of mutibuy offers). They are good quality, fast drying polishes, but I have found that they tend to get really thick and goopy within six months of first opening them.

High Line Green is one of the polishes that I bought and wore for my wedding day. I love this shade and it makes me all sentimental! I used it for the stamping because it is really opaque and I also used it for the first layer of polish on my thumb and ring fingers. The pattern is from my newly purchased Born Pretty plate, M83.

Green Day from NYC's Rock Muse collection is a dark smoky jelly with medium sized green hex glitter and tiny gold and green micro glitter. It is the first glitter polish I ever bought and it was the first step of my journey from having colourful but plain nails to sparkly patterned madness! I used a coat of it on my thumb and index fingers over the High Line Green.

I topped everything with a coat of P.S. Matte Top Coat because I still can't get enough of the stuff! The one problem I have found with this top coat is that although the surface of it dries very quickly, it softens up the layers of polish underneath which doesn't dry fully again for two or three hours. Your nails might look and feel dry on the surface, but put a little pressure on them and all your polish will just wrinkle and slide off. This is not a top coat to use when you are in a hurry.

I really like this pattern in these colours - it makes me think of wallpaper from a grand Victorian house - but I think I'd prefer it if I'd stamped it the other way up. I also realise, looking at these photos, that I really need to use more cuticle oil!
What do you think of these nails?

Midnight in Morocco

After being so impressed with the Born Pretty stamping plate I used for my last manicure I decided to try out one of the designs from QA65, the other plate I bought.

I picked up a bottle of Rimmel Lycra Pro in Poundworld last week thinking it was a black polish, but getting it out in the sunlight and reading the label I realised that it was Blue Vogue, a rich midnight blue. I decided to use it as a base for this manicure and it's fantastic - perfect coverage in one coat, quick drying and super glossy.

I chose a stamp design which reminds me of Islamic tiles and made me think of the photos my parents brought back from their holiday in Morocco. I used NYC Foil Explosion in Aqua Mystic (often available as a 2 for £2.49 deal at Superdrug) which is a fantastic polish for stamping. Just as with the last Born Pretty plate I tried, the stamps came out perfectly. This plate was only $0.99, an absolute bargain, so I have a feeling I'll be treating myself to a few more Born Pretty stamping plates in the future.

The only problem I have found with the Born Pretty stamping plates is the designs are quite small. My nails are quite short and narrow and the designs just cover my finger nails, but my thumb nail is slightly too wide. Instead I used some silver diamond shaped glequins (a name I have borrowed from The Nailasaurus to describe sparkles that are too big to be glitter and too small to be sequins) from this set (#4) to make a star shape on my thumb nail.
I topped everything with a coat of Konad Special Topcoat, but unfortunately I didn't wait for my base coat to dry enough on my thumb, so the glequins shifted and the base colour dragged over the glequins a bit. Oops!

I also managed to catch the ends of my nails before they were fully dry so there are a few little wrinkles on my index and ring fingers. The moral of this story is don't drink a massive mug of tea while you are painting your nails - nature will call before your polish dries!

The shine on the topcoat makes it a bit difficult to see what is going on with my nails, so here are a couple of close up shots of my thumb and fingers without the direct lighting. The dark blue is a pain to clean up if you make a mistake, so of course I managed to get it all over my cuticles!

I love this pattern and colour combination, although I'm not so happy with the glequins on my thumb. What do you think?