Experiment with Texture

I'm not in love with these nails. In my imagination they were amazing, but in real life I'm feeling a bit 'meh' about them.

I used false nails with one coat of Maybelline Color Show in shade Cool Blue followed by three coats of Technic Mermaid (£1, Bodycare), my all time favourite glitter, which is a mix of medium and small turquoise holographic hex glitter. I love how holographic glitter looks with a matte finish, so I added a coat of Limited Collection Matte Top Coat (Marks & Spencer).

I used strips of clear sticky tape to mask a wide stripe down the centre of each nail and used Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Laughie Laffy, the dark blue, and Sugar Fix, which is white (from Poundland and Poundworld), to create textured stripes down each side of the nail. The stripes came out a bit untidy which was disappointing.

Although I'm not thrilled with these nails, they have inspired me to play with contrasting textures and finishes in future nail art. What do you think?

The Weekly Haul - Sally Hansen Sugar Coats

When I first started to see textured polishes in shops my initial reaction was "Yuck, why would anyone want nails that look and feel like sandpaper?".

Then, as my obsession with reading nail blogs grew, I saw more and more swatches of various textured polishes and the look began to grow on me. When my local pound stores suddenly seemed to be full of bottles of black and white Sally Hansen Sugar Coat, they both found their way into my polish collection.

I love greens, blues and purples (90% of my polish collection consists of these colours) so when I found Sugar Coat polishes in Spare-A-Mint?, Laughie Taffy and Gummy Grape in Poundworld this week I had to buy them!

I was planning to do some nail art with these shades, but I like them so much as they are that I decided to just keep each nail a single colour. Spare-A-Mint? (middle finger) is a teal-tinged green. In real life it is much closer to emerald green than it looks in the photos. Laughie Taffy (thumb and ring finger) is a rich navy blue and Gummy Grape (index and little fingers) is violet.

They aren't the most long wearing polishes and I usually start to see wear on the tips of my nails within 24 hours, but that is to be expected with such a rough finish. I know textured polishes are old news now, but I really enjoy wearing them. If you do too, get down to your local pound shop because Sally Hansen Sugar Coat polishes are a bargain right now!