Happy Halloween and Spooky Nail Art!

Hi all y'all!  First let me apologise, I have rather neglected my blog and all of you.  It wasn't intentional, but I did have quite a lot of stuff to deal with and I won't bore you with the details apart from to say I have had a bit of a stressy bad time and just didn't get chance to blog.  I am sorry, and thank you for your patience, but I am back now (YAY!)

Right, now without further ado, it is halloween!  I love this time of year, first halloween, then bonfire night, and then not long until Christmas.  I miss the summer sunshine, but all seasons have their beauty and Autumn/Winter has lots going on.  Also my dogs hate the warm weather with a vengeance so it is good to see them happy too.

I decided, in the spirit of Halloween, I had to do a spooky manicure.  I used a black polish underneath my pinky, middle and pointer fingers, and a white base under my ring finger and thumb.  I then added Wet n Wild Behind Closed Doors on the pinky and middle fingers, and a coat of China Glaze Frosty on the white ones.

Once this was dry I got some white acrylic paint and painted a white circle on my index finger, and then I used just plain black polish and a fine brush to fill in the details.  I really like this one, and it does look better in reality than it does on the pics, as macro mode shows where the black has streaked when I put a top coat on but it really doesn't show looking at it with the naked eye.  I got my inspiration (ahem, okay I copied!) the Jack Skellington faces from Nails by Asami, hers look so much nicer than mine but I am happy with my results too.  I also got a LOT of compliments and comments when I was out and about today so thats always a good indicator that I have done okay!

I hope you like my manicure, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Fat Fingers!

Sinful Colors I Love You, with Golden Rose Scale Effect I love you even more!

Today (well yesterday actually!) I have decided that since my mani's of late have been light coloured and pretty, I needed some purple back on my nails.  Purple is my all time favourite colour ever, and I had Sinful Colors I Love You sat on my untried pile just begging me to giver her a go.  This is a jelly polish which is a great purple, not red based, or a dark lavender, no, just proper purple.  I love this shade, and to add to the love it also has lots of shimmery micro glitter in there too in a lighter shade of purple (I want to say dark pink).  The first coat seemed really sheer and I was a bit worried it may be one of those that take too many coats to get the colour that is in the bottle but no, it built up nicely and my pics are three coats.  The drying time was good as well, and it has a gorgeous finish that is so smooth and shiny that I didn't even bother with a top coat.

Since I did the Sinful Colors mani yesterday, I have added some flakies courtesy of Golden Rose Scale Effect polish.  These scale effects ones don't have names just numbers, and mine which I got from a dear friend in Holland is number 13.  I thought purple + scales = dragons right?  Well in my mind it does, I adore dragons, and yes of course they are real (don't try to tell me they're not I won't believe you!)  The flakes are just packed into this polish, they are suspended in a pale blue translucent base and flash from orange to green.  The effect on my nails was achieved with just one coat and I absolutely love it.  It went on perfect and although it did dry a little dull, a coat of shiny top coat sorted that out.  I am loving the shiny effect, but I will matte-ify it before it comes off because I'm betting that will look awesome too.

You can see the lovely green and orange colours here.

Wow Just look at that green, beautiful!

I hope you like my 'dragon scales' effect nails as much as I do!

Essence Color & Go - Sure Azure, and added NYC and Essence bling because I can!

I have this lovely little bottle here of Essence Color & Go in Sure Azure.  Now I always think of deep sparkling sapphire blue when I think of azure, but this is a grey toned baby blue with a very delicate shimmer.  The formula was easy to work with and went on without issue, and my pic is with just two coats.  The first coat was a little streaky, but nothing to moan about, and the second coat evened it out anyway.  It dried with a lovely shine too, the pic is without any top coat, just the polish, you can see how shiny it is!  I love the colour and the finish, these essence polishes are proving to be rather nice additions to my collection.

Now me being me, I was bored, and couldn't leave things alone, so...I put on a coat of NYC Starry Silver Glitter.  This glitter is lovely, it has tiny silver holo glitter, and larger bright blue and lilac hex glitter suspended in a clear base.  It took a little manipulation to get the larger hex glitter to spread out evenly but that's the norm for this type of glitter.  I wish there was a ray of sunlight to photograph the holo effect of the tiny glitter, its so sparkly in reality but since its raining buckets here and dark and dreary, you will have to take my word for it.

Things were looking pretty at this stage, then I added a coat of Essence Nail Art Special Effect! Topper in Its Purplicious.  This is tiny purple glitter with larger purple and dark pink square glitter, suspended in a clear base.  This went on really well, and there is lots of glitter crammed into this polish!  Again, it is very shiny and catches the light really well, and was a perfect accompaniment to the colours I was already sporting.  I finished off with a final layer of NYC Starry Silver, and that was it done.

I love this mani, but I do love to experiment with these glitters, I can't wait to try them out over different colour combinations.  When I do, you will be the first to know!  I hope you like it, I only wish the sun had come out to let me show you the full sparkly nature of this lovely combination.

OPI Rainbow Connection - Muppets collection

Yesterday I showed you Designer...De Better from this collection, and today I have OPI Rainbow Connection.  This is a multi sized and multi coloured glitter bomb!  It is really shiny, and just spectacular!  Click on the bottle shot for a closer look, you will see magenta, green, orange, blue, gold and silver hexagram glitters in small, medium and large sizes suspended in a clear base.  The colours don't look too busy on the nail, and there is a good mix of silver and gold glitter in there which stops it from being over the top and allows just the right mix of colour.  Also because of the gold and orange colours, it has a slightly warmer toned look.  I know there are a lot of these multi glitters out there and I will try to do a comparison post at some point, but OPI does do glitter polish rather well and this one is no exception.

It applied without any problem, there was a little manipulation needed to disperse the larger glitter pieces which is usual with these types of glitter, but honestly not that much, and it  dried quickly between coats making layering it quick and easy.  The formula was good, not too thick and it had no drag issues for me.  The final pics are three layers over Designer...De Better, and I love the finished look.  The pics with three layers make it look a little uneven, but in reality it is laid pretty flat, and a coat of top coat finished any grittiness off.  I can't wait to try this over just about every colour I own, I envisage it looking rich over reds, adding bountiful colours to blues, looking dangerously cool over darks, and I can see it looks cheerfully blingy over brights.  The pictures don't do justice to how shiny and pretty this polish looks, I already want to put up my Christmas tree and start wrapping presents, it reminds me of cheer by the bucket full and I know already that these two Muppets collection polishes are going to be in collaboration many times over the Christmas holidays, and beyond!  I can't wait to get others from the collection now.  What do you think, is it just your cup of tea or do you prefer something more subtle?  Me, well, its blingernails isn't it, I LOVE it!

One coat of Rainbow Connection over Designer...De Better

Two coats of Rainbow Connection over Designer...De Better

Finally, some pics with three coats of Rainbow Connection over Designer...De Better.  I know theres a lot of pics, but it  does merit them :)

Look how shiny!

Did anyone say they wanted to see it matte-ified!  Ohhh go on then :D

The OPI Muppets collection will be available in the UK around mid October and will be available for purchase from www.lenawhite.co.uk for £10.50 a bottle.

(Polish was sent to me for review)

OPI Designer...De Better - Muppets Collection

I got OPI Designer...De Better and OPI Rainbow Connection in the post this morning, both from the upcoming Muppets collection, which is being released as OPI's Christmas holiday collection.  I LOVE nail mail, especially when its this good!  Today I am going to show you Designer De Better on its own, and tomorrow I'm going to show you Rainbow Connection layered over this, its sooooo shiny, don't miss that one!

OPI Designer...De Better has a foil like metallic finish that is just luscious!  If you look closely there are tiny micro copper and pink pieces happily floating around in a sea of shiny silver base, giving the overall colour effect of a pale champagne colour, very elegant and pretty.

On the nail the application was flawless, I have read others say it is a little sheer but I only used three coats over a base coat, and had no problems.  The pro wide brush made life easy (I DO love the OPI brushes!) and the dry time was good.  I love the colour and finish of this, in sunlight it is really bright and eye-catching, and even indoors in subdued lighting it was still shiny and reflective.  I don't have another polish quite like this in my collection, so its definitely a keeper, and it completely fits in with a Christmas collection, I can see me wearing it quite a lot over the Christmas holidays.

The collection will be available in the UK around mid October and can be purchased from www.lenawhite.co.uk for the retail price of £10.50 each.  There are 12 in the collection, 6 glitters, and 6 colours.  Will I be buying any others from this collection?  You bet I will, just watch this space, and don't forget to check out tomorrows second Muppets post featuring Rainbow Connection.

(As usual, pics are click-able to enlarge for detail)




(Polish was sent to me for review)

OPI Let Me Entertain You

I got this one as half of a set, and I have been meaning to try it out, so here it is.  This looks a lot more red in the bottle pic than it actually is, in reality it is more of a gorgeous dark magenta polish with a fuchsia glass flecked finish.  It is super shiny, and looks just wonderful!  I love these glass fleck polishes, China Glaze are known for doing these types of polish very well, but I have to say OPI have certainly not let that accolade go unchallenged, and have made a corker with this one!  The application was a dream, and I find the OPI wide brush to be one of the best to use for me.  The dry time was good as was the coverage, and I could have gotten away with just two coats, but I like to use three.

Ooooo just look at all that fuchsia shimmer, it is a really vibrant sparkly polish and I love it!  I hope you like it too :)