Essence Cool and the Gang

The lovely Christine travelled to Germany a few months back and picked up a few Essence polishes for me. Even though I'm technically in Europe, Essence is not sold here in the UK so it was super exciting to finally get my hands on some of their polishes.

Cool and the Gang is a gorgeous royal blue but I'd describe the formula as inky. I used 3 coats in an attempt to cover any Visible Nail Line but there is still a little bit showing through.

Konad Plate: Born Pretty M79
Base Colour: Essence - Cool and the Gang
Konad Colour: Barry M - Gold Foil
Top Coat of NYC

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Autumn Is Here... Apparently

Today is the first day this year that I noticed the leaves starting to fall from the trees which reminded me that it's autumn. Anyone that doesn't own a calendar could be easily fooled though because I swear it was the warmest weekend we've had all year! I heard that Saturday was the warmest October day on record in the UK... ever.

I finally got my hands on the new Barry M Foil Effects in gold. I've been needing a new gold stamping polish for a very long time and when I saw the previews of these chrome polishes I was hoping it would be my answer. I wasn't wrong. The gold is great for stamping and no doubt I'll be buying the silver soon enough.

I was hoping for a little more contrast between the two colours in this Autumn inspired manicure but I actually love the subtlety of the combination.

Stamping Plate: Bundle Monster - BM210
Base Colour: MUA - Shade 23
Stamp Colour: Barry M - Gold Foil
Top Coat of NYC

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Blue and Green Barry

I feel like I write apologies way too much on here so I promise this will be the last one ever! From now on, I will just post when I post and not feel bad if it was 4 days since I last blogged.

I hate hate hate using artificial light to take my photos but I haven't had much choice recently as winter is creeping up on us and the days are just so dull. There is a lamp somewhere in my house that I think has a white bulb though so I'm going to find that and see how the two of us get along.

 Stamping Plate: Bundle Monster BM210
Base Colour: Barry M - Mint Green
Stamp Colour: Barry M - Cyan Blue
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Snakeskin Nails... Take Two

We are switching internet providers tonight so I'm currentlysat on the floor of my brother's bedroom with my computer plugged in to hisethernet cable. For some silly reason it's only the wireless that isn'tworking and apparently I'm the only person in the house who utilises thetechnological miracle that is wireless internet!

I have some more 'take two' nails for you today featuringone of MUA Cosmetics' new nail shades. MUA has definitely risen in myestimations a lot over the past few months. Each item from the basic line is only £1 so I supposeit's the UK's version of Essence. One can be forgiven for being a bit scepticalabout the products at first because of the bargain price tag but since first tryingthem over a year ago, I can’t see a reason to pay more than £1 for aneyeshadow! If you are in the UK and you haven’t tried MUA yet, why on earth not?!

 Anyway, I digress. Here are some more snakeskin nails foryou!





Plate: BM215
Base Colour: MUA - Shade 22
Stamp Colour: Barry M - Berry Ice Cream andSally Hansen Chrome - Anemone
Top Coat of NYC



Thanks to Kari again for the inspiration!

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Thicken Up

I know it's well documented that polishes will thicken as they get old and used but I definitely notice it most with Barry M polishes. When you first buy them, they are fairly runny and nearly all of them need at least two coats for full coverage but after just a few months, they are thick enough to use for stamping. 

Great for those of us who are always on the lookout for stamping polishes, but perhaps not ideal for people that want their polishes to last until they need to scrape the stuff from the walls of the bottle!

The weather here was kind of crappy today and I could really tell that winter is setting in. Unfortunately that means more pictures with this crummy lighting will be coming very soon as the days get shorter and generally more morose. I got some advice from Cristina about her lighting and I think I need to get some white fluorescent lighting from somewhere so I too can have pretty, colour correct pictures!

Plate: Bundle Monster BM208 and BM209
Base Colour: Cult Nails - My Kind of Cool Aid
Stamp Colour: Barry M - Bright Purple
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No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of This Post

This amazing snakeskin look is Kari's brainchild. When she posted it a few months back it quickly spread all over the blogsphere and I fully intended to do it myself but never got round to it.

I was looking through my stamping plates, trying to decide on a design for today's manicure and I decided that I wanted to use a plate I hadn't used before. I still have a few of the 25pc Bundle Monster plates that still have the blue plastic covering on so it had to be one of those. I spotted this plate in the pile with it's shiny blue protective layer still attached and Kari's snakeskin idea came flooding back to me!

Plate: Bundle Monster BM215
Base Colour: Barry M - Berry Ice Cream
Stamp Colour: BYS - Glittering Purple and La Femme - Grey Cream
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Try My Two Tone

This mani, like yesterday's, came about when I just got too carried away trying to add a dash of whatever came to mind!

I knew I wanted to use scotch tape and a stamp design so I did the base colour and stamp and left it overnight to dry and to give me time to decide what to do. 'Blue' I thought, but when the blue was on it just looked too clunky so I thought I'd set myself the challenge of trying to line up the stamps to get a two-tone effect on my nails. Turns out I needn't have bothered because the pattern is irregular so you wouldn't even notice if it wasn't matched. I think I'll set myself the mission of trying it with a more uniform pattern to see if I can get it to match up.

Konad Plate: M57
Base Colour: Barbara Daly - Purplicious
Konad Colour: GOSH - Metallic Purple
Top Coat of NYC
To create the two tone look, I sectioned off the top part of my nail with scotch tape and painted on Barry M Cyan Blue. I removed this tape straight away and let the blue dry. Then I lined up more strips of tape with the blue polish and stamped over it with GOSH Metallic blue, attempting to line up the patterns and added another top coat.

How do you guys feel about me using larger pictures in my blog posts? All the pictures I post are click through's anyway so you can see a bigger version if the mood takes you, but I thought I would go bigger on the main page. Do you like it or do they just take up too much space?

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Bit of This. Bit of That.

This is one of those mani's that I was constantly looking at and thinking 'I could add this'. There's a very real danger there of it turning into a tacky abomination of a manicure but I think I managed to reel myself in enough to leave it at a slightly over the top mumble jumble of things!

It was originally just a nude nail and I wasn't going to apply any kind of nail art but I wanted to try out my Barry M Cyan Blue for stamping because I've had it for quite a while and it's gone too thick to really paint my nails with anymore. It actually worked really well! It would not have been this opaque when I first bought it but over time as it's thickened, it has turned in to a stamping polish!

The glitter is one that I found in a £1 bucket. It's not really packed with glitter so it's really just for layering. It reminds me of China Glaze Medallion. It's got gold glitter and holographic hexagonal pieces.

Plate: Bundle Monster - BM223
Base Colour: E.L.F. - Innocent
Stamp Colour and Tips: Barry M - Cyan Blue
W7 - Black
BYS - Gold Finger
Top Coat of NYC


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Comparison: Barry M Cyan Blue vs. No7 Stand Back

 I don't know if anyone remembers my post from Saturday (find it here if you missed it) where I mentioned a new colour that I purchased from No7 called Stand Back. I noted that it was very similar to Barry M Cyan Blue which I also have, but I had convinced myself that they were different and I needed both of them. Well I decided to try the two on side by side and I discovered that there is literally no difference in the colour! Oh well, what's one more polish in the pile?!

Barry M Cyan Blue and No7 Stand Back

The Barry M colour is in my Top 10 favourite polishes anyway so I'm sure they'll both get plenty of use. They look so pretty in the sun so I'll definitely be wearing them a lot with the summer coming on.

Nautical Nails

I've been looking for a nice navy blue polish for months since I caught on to the nautical trend for summer and after finally finding one yesterday, I was inspired to create a nautical nail look. I found this bargain in Asda as part of their George Make Up range for £1 (normally £1.75), the colour is Bloom.

I used some really old Collection 2000 polishes for the white and light gold, they don't even have names. The red is Barry M Raspberry and for the Anchor, I used Sally Hansen Chrome in Amber. I'm running perilously low on this so if anyone knows any gold/bronze chromes that I can get my hands on in the UK, please please please let me know because I'm getting desperate!

Mixing It Up

I had my last exam on Monday and it's such a relief to resume normal human activities like sleeping and eating! And of course it means I can get back to blogging more than once a week. Thank you to everyone that has liked my new Facebook page. I'm still working on getting lots of pictures up and just deciding how best to organise it!

Plate: Bundle Monster BM201
Base Colour: Barry M Bright Purple
Stamp Colour: Miss Sporty - Zodiac

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Blogger Ate My Stuff

Thursdays post disappeared but I found that in my drafts and most of the comments from Wednesday's post have disappeared too. Not good, Blogger. Not good.

Plate: Bundle Monster BM201

Base Colour: Barry M - Mint Green

Stamp Colour: Sally Hansen Chrome - Amber

Top Coat of NYC

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Blue Blood

Last night (or rather this morning) I didn't get to sleep until after the sun came up! If anyone's ever done that, don't tell me it's not an amazing feeling. I went out in town then watched Napoleon Dynamite and couldn't sleep until 5.30. I don't know why I've shared that with you today. It's completely unrelated to anything but I guess I just want to say everyone should do it more often! I'm very much a night person. I'd much rather sleep all day and be awake all night.

Plate: Bundle Monster BM225

Base Colour: La Femme - Grey Cream

Stamp Colour: NYC Glossies 243B

I used scotch tape to mark off the edges of the nails and painted on two coats of Barry M Blue Glitter .

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Lots o' Layers

Todays nails took a lot of time and planning! Last night I applied the base colour, stamp and a top coat. Then I waited until this morning to make sure the base was good and dry, before using some scotch tape to section off part of my nail and paint on a darker blue colour. I think it looks kind of like a persian rug but I did watch 'Prince of Persia' this week so perhaps I just have Persia on the brain!

Plate: Bundle Monster BM222

Base Colour: Barry M Cyan Blue

Stamp Colour: GOSH Metallic Purple

Rimmel Blue My Mind

A stripe of GOSH Metallic Purple applied with a nail brush

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Bright Purple for a Bright Day

The gorgeous weather we've been having is starting to dwindle but it was still bright outside today so I went out in to the garden to take my pictures. I think they come out much nicer in direct sunlight. Normally I just take them in my bedroom.

I ordered a new mp3 player from Tesco today which will be ready for me to pick up at my local store on Thursday. Now, you may not think this a particularly exciting event but I've been rocking various really old Creative Zens for a few years now and I finally decided it was time to catch up with the rest of the world and get something a bit more modern. Also, my Zen Micro keeps switching off whenever it pleases thanks to some rattly insides and is so old that it's not really even compatible with my computer!

I went for the Sony NWZ-S754 in blue which was a bargain because I took advantage of the double up your Clubcard vouchers offer so I only had to put £20 towards it. Apologies to anyone not in the UK who'll have no idea what I'm talking about. 'Clubcard' a loyalty card scheme for the massive supermarket chain, Tesco, and you can get some amazing rewards from them. I've already had 3 annual magazine subscriptions without a penny coming out of my pocket.

Konad Plate: M57

Base Colour: Barry M Bright Purple

Konad Colour: Stargazer White

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OPI Black Shatter And Other Cracking News

Thanks very much to the wonderful Diana @ The Girl With A Bow for providing me with my 2nd ever OPI polish. She held a quick giveaway last month and I was the lucky winner of a bottle of Black Shatter. I know I'm kind of late hopping on the bandwagon and there are probably hundreds of swatches of this polish all over the blogsphere but I thought I'd post it anyway since I love it even more than I expected to. I used Barry M Cyan Blue as a base then just slapped on a coat of the Black Shatter. Easy Peasy.

I think the crackle polishes that are gaining popularity fast this year are such a quick and simple way to make your nails stand out from the crowd. Or at least for now, what with every brand and their sister releasing a cracking range! But with all the colours that are now available and the effects you can get from applying the polish in other ways than the traditional cuticle-to-tip such as side-to-side or zig-zagging, you're sure to find a combination that's wholly yours.

For the Brits among us who don't have much access to OPI and China Glaze, you'll be pleased to know that Barry M are extending their crackle range and have now released their 'Instant Nail Effects' polish in Blue, Pink and White following the success of the Black (info here).

Models Own are also releasing a collection of 9 'Smash-Up' polishes. The Black and Silver will be available to buy in Boots from April 20th. The other 7 vivid colours will be available to buy on their website this month.

My blog posts may be more intermittent than usual/non-existent for a while as I'm staying at my parents house while my ankle is healing up and have hardly any nail supplies with me. 

Starlight

What an eventful week I've had! I had a great night out on Saturday with my friends and managed to wake up bright and early on Sunday morning to catch a train home to surprise my Mum for Mother's Day. I came back to my house on Tuesday afternoon and spent the evening relaxing. 

I was looking forward to a fun packed Wednesday. I'd planned an afternoon in the park while the sun had his hat on and was looking forward to either another night out or a trip to the cinema but it all went downhill on my way home from uni. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know all about my woes!

As I was walking home I tripped on some uneven ground and reeeeallly hurt my ankle. At first I thought it wasn't that bad and that I'd be able to hobble home but then I looked down and it had already swollen a lot (picture of the swelling here if you like injuries and whatnot!). I called my friends to come and rescue me and we got a lift to the hospital where we spent the rest of the afternoon. I had an x-ray and luckily it isn't a break, just a bad sprain, so they sent me home with crutches and some information about caring for a sprained ankle. I've spent practically every hour since then stuck in bed with my foot propped up and I'm starting to get cabin fever! It will be a long while until I take my ability to walk for granted again. Everything is such a hassle with only the one leg functioning properly.

Plate: Bundle Monster - BM05

Base Colour: Barry M Bright Purple

Stamp Colour: GOSH Metallic Purple

Models Own Juicy Jules in the center of the stars

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Simpleton

So far I've been keeping up with my blogging schedule. For those of you that didn't catch my post a little while back, I mentioned that instead of putting pressure on myself to post every day as I used to, I'm setting myself a goal of 3 posts per week. I've finalized the plan and the schedule is to post on Monday, Wednesday and either Saturday or Sunday. Whenever there is a special occasion, like St. Patrick's Day for example, I might throw in a quick, freebie nail art post.

Last night was my first attempt at a 'Scotch Tape Mani' made famous, I believe, by the fabulous Erika at Chloe's Nails*. It basically involves placing strips of scotch tape on your nails which act as a stencil to give you crisp lines between multiple coats of colour. Depending how you use the tape, you can get all kinds of great results and it's so easy to do. Make sure you check out Erika's blog to see what amazing effects you can achieve.

My first few attempts were a bit disastrous to say the least. I'm very impatient and wanted to get to bed so I kept putting the scotch tape on too quickly and it would rip off the base colour so after a few failures I decided to leave my base coat to dry over night before subjecting it to any tape torture.

I used Jay Jays Thrillseeker as the base colour and applied a top coat of NYC last night. I got to the fun bit in the morning when I applied the tape diagonally across my finger and used BYS Fools Paradise for the second segment. I then applied Barry M Blue Glitter with a striping brush for the dividing line and topped it off with another top coat of NYC.

* If I have this wrong and you know of someone else who was using the technique before Erika, please let me know as I like to give credit where credit's due.

Blue Diamonds

It seems that Twitter has broken down. I don't know what to do with myself, I've been sat here refreshing for 15 minutes but still nothing. What does Twitter think it is? Tumblr?!

It's been so long since I used one of my matte top coats so I cracked them out again. I know I say this every time I use an all over geometrical pattern but I love that you can't tell which colour is the base and which has been stamped on. Apart from when I mess up the double stamp on my thumb, which is every time!

Plate: Bundle Monster BM16

Base Colour: Barry M Cyan Blue

Stamp Colour: NYC Glossies 243B

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♪♫ Love Is The Coal That Makes This Train Roll

I know you're probably getting sick of my unexplained, extended absences and I'm really sorry! So far, this year has been one crazy whirlwind of events and I'm finding it impossible to make time for blogging. I'm trying to get some structure back in the blog so I think instead of attempting a new mani every day, I'm gonna aim for three a week on set days (I'm thinking Monday, Wednesday and Saturday) so you'll know what you can expect.

The internet connection in my house has been down since Sunday and no-one's called up to fix it since it's an 08 number and we only have cell phones so it will cost upwards of 35p per minute to call the ISP (I know it doesn't sound much, but we're all really stingy).

  I'm blogging from home home today (my parents' house) since I had to come back to get one of my wisdom teeth pulled. I've been complaining about it for months so I'm glad it's finally gone. It wasn't half as bad as I was expecting and I barely even felt the injections. It was actually the nicest procedure I've ever had done in a dentist's office, if anything that takes place there can be called nice!

For the mani I used:

Carla Di Roma - Grape Wine

A coat of BYS Tinkerbell

Barry M Blue Glitter sponged from the corners downwards

GOSH Metallic Blue freehanded for the lines using a striper brush (eBay)

I've made a few additions to my list of regular polishes that work well for stamping. This GOSH Metallic Blue is on there! Head over to the Stamping Polishes page if you want to see all of the polishes I use for stamping.