My "breaking them in gently" nails...

Hello everyone! A super quick post for you today as I have just hurriedly painted my nails for a meeting early tomorrow. Most people I work with know me well enough that they expect me to turn up with random colours and patterns on my nails, but every now and again something comes up and I feel the need to play it safe (I also tone down the make up and take out the facial piercings - that kind of meeting). 

But me being me, I still can't go for completely plain nails, so I opted for a subtle accent nail on each hand ;)

I painted my nails with two coats of my all time favourite polish (and one I hold responsible for much of my polish addiction!), Jessica Ruffled Bottoms, except for my ring finger which I painted with three coats of LA Colors Lilac Frost. I then added some random freehand lines to the accent nail with the Ruffled Bottoms edged those with Barry M Gelly Guava and then added in a few fine lines with LA Colors Metallic Silver before finishing them all with Seche Vite.

I suppose you could call this my "breaking them in gently" nails, and this is about as subtle as I get - the restraint involved in leaving these as they are is beyond comprehension!

I will be back with my GOT Polish challenge nails for you tomorrow. The prompt is Coral and I apologise in advance for the strange colour my skin appears whenever in the vicinity of anything remotely resembling that colour! You have been warned!!!

Sam xx

NAILS Magazine 31DC - Day 13 and 15 combined (Drip and Latest nail purchase)

Hello everyone! I hope your weekend is off to a good start! Today I have doubled up two of the NAILS magazine 31DC prompts. Day 13 called for a drip manicure while day 15 was to use your latest nail purchase. You'll remember that at the beginning of the week I reviewed a Belle Glamour polish called Chocolate Kiss, well it reminded me so much of melted chocolate that I wanted to use it for the drip manicure and it also happened to be my latest nail polish purchase!

I painted my nails with two coats of Chocolate Kiss and left it to dry. I then painted a drip outline using Revlon Impulsive and filled in the rest of the space to the free edge, and topped that with LA Colors Morning Glory for the rich, subtly glittery finish. I tidied up the drip edges with a little extra Chocolate Kiss and finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

This mani has made me crave some chocolate but the only chocolate in the house belongs to Scarlett and she would be able to tell if even so much as a square had gone, so I'm going to have to go without. Instead, I'm hoping now that you all will want chocolate too and share my pain :p However, I also hope that you all have chocolate available to you should the need arise :)

Sam xx

FingerFood's Theme Buffet Week 2 - Shapes/Geometric

Hello everyone! Today I have a Theme Week mani for you - for those of you that follow, I'm a little late posting this week but I hope its worth the wait.

I decided to test my patience as far as possible with many fiddly bits of tape (I think I'm now done with tape for the year and its only January!), because I thought squares would be cute.

I started with a French White base and allowed it to dry. Next I added three pieces of tape vertically down the nail and six pieces horizontally This was a tad time consuming - and not at all good for my OCD. Next was the fun part - I added (from tip to base) Barry M Gelly Blackberry, LA Colors Edgy, Electra and Wisteria and finished with Barry M Gelly Prickly Pear. I then carefully removed the tape and finished with Seche Vite.

Despite the fact that they took forever and it makes me angry and impatient just to look at them - I do like the way these turned out. They remind me of paint colour charts and I'm happy with the gradient effect of the colours.

Our theme for next week is Weather, time for something wild maybe? :) In the meantime, follow the links below to see the fabulous geometric creations by the other ladies in the group. And if you would like to join us, click here for all the details :)

Sam xx 

GOT Polish Challenge - Stripes

Hello everyone! Scarlett is finally back at school but now I'm ill! Really can't catch a break at the moment :( However, on the upside my laptop problems have been solved with an early birthday present of a Chromebook! I'm a total Google/Android geek so saying that I'm excited is probably a little bit of an understatement, and playing with all the apps is keeping me occupied until I'm back on form!

Anyway, back to the nails :) My polish hoarding started with my Jessica collection in 2009. Up to that point I constantly wore acrylics and my natural nails were ruined. A friend suggested Phenomen Oil and Restoration base coat and I never looked back. I probably have about 60 or 70 Jessica polishes even though I haven't bought any (apart from replacements) in over a year, but I love them all.

I picked some bright neon colours as I've decided I've had enough of winter several months early - Purple Burst, Blue Blast and Diva On The Dunes. I taped wide stripes over a white base and then added the brights. The formula has suffered a bit with age on the blue and pinky purple but I got there without too much trouble and finished with Seche Vite.

This mani was a little trip down memory lane for me - not the best time of my life but I'm happy to say that things are lot better now. If nothing else I can see that I've always had good taste in polish!

Sam xx

Belle Glamour Polish Review

Hello everyone! Today I have something a little different for you! As stated in my list of New Year intentions (note that I didn't say resolutions!), I promised more swatches and to look at some indie polishes. I'm pleased to say that it starts now!

Today I am reviewing four polishes from Belle Glamour. They all arrived after fantastic service from the lovely Catriona, all individually wrapped and labelled in bubble wrap and tissue paper. I ordered four 5ml bottles to start with and selected a variety of colours and finishes.

I'm going to start with Chocolate Kiss, a light pastel brown with a purple-ish tinge, but it is like looking at chocolate milk on your nails and I loved the colour, so rich and luxurious. The formula is thick enough that it is opaque after one coat (although I painted two because I'm like that), but still easy to work with. I can definitely see myself using this polish in nail art, but its also a great stand alone colour.

Next up, we have the Limited Edition polish, Bluebelle. This is an eye catching deep blue with a sprinkling of holo hex glitter that helps create an instant jelly sandwich effect. I found the formula on this one a little harder to work with, and it took four coats to get it opaque, but the glitter was easy to manipulate in the thinner formula and it was worth perservering for the finished result as you can see from the photos:

The third polish is called Splatter Bomb - no prizes for guessing why! There is so much multi coloured glitter packed into this creamy white polish that it is almost opaque and fully glitter bombed with just one coat! Again, I went for two, but it didn't need a base colour and there aren't many glitter polishes that you can say that about! Considering how much glitter there is crammed into it, the polish went on surprisingly smoothly (the brushes are a great help with this) and the finish evened out beautifully with a layer of top coat.

 Last but not least is my favourite of the four, a blue holo polish called Wave. Omg I love this! The holo effect is subtle but is definitely there, and the colour is a beautiful marine blue that has a very subtle green tone. Very rock and roll mermaid! Two coats to get it fully opaque, although I probably could've got away with one and it was so easy to work with. I can't find a bad word to say about this one at all - its fab.

So, I was very happy with all my selections from Belle Glamour, but I have to say that Wave (the holo) was my standout colour, closely followed by Chocolate Kiss. I loved the colour and formula on those two, so I can safely say that I will be going back for more pastels and holos :)

So there you have my first Indie review - who else do you think I should check out? Let me know :)

Sam xx

The NCC presents "Inspired by a Tutorial" #2 - Robin Moses' Jerseylicious

Hello everyone! Today I have the second of my four "Inspired by a Tutorial" manis for the Nails Challenge Collaborative's January theme. It was always a given that I was going to pick one of Robin's awesome designs (you can visit her YouTube channel here), but with so many to choose from, it took a lot of time to finally settle on this one - the Jerseylicious Nail Art - Diva Bling design.

I'm not fan of foil. In fact I've done it twice, once for part of my nail tech assessment, and then once again to prove to myself that I could do it. But I hate playing around with it so I went with a Sally Hansen HD polish in LCD Pink as my base. I followed the tutorial and added the white sections (using nail polish instead of acrylic paint) with French White and then LA Colors Black Velvet for the black lines with a striping brush. I finished with Seche Vite.

Robin's designs are always amazing but this one I totally fell in love with, and I'm happy with the way my recreation turned out.

I still have two more "tutorial" manis to come in January, but in the meantime, follow the links below to see what all the other talented NCC ladies have painted :)