I'm not the biggest lover of Valentine's Day, I don't really think we need a special day to celebrate our love for others or, if you're single, for yourself.  It is something we should celebrate all year round but I have to admit it is nice to have an excuse to eat a nice meal or have a bit of a pamper.  Me and my boyfriend usually only buy each other a card and then have a nice meal and spend some quality time together to mark the occasion.  We don't go all out.  I didn't want to let Valentines Day pass here on the blog without a little nod to the occasion and as I had a little play around painting my nails I thought I'd share those with you.

Products used:

Models Own Hypergel in Pink Veneer

Models Own Hypergel in Red Lustre

LA Colors Rapid Dry Top Coat

Small Dotting Tool

Now I don't claim to be a professional nail artist but I think they turned out ok.  I decided to go for the classic Valentines colours of pink and red.  I went for this pretty pastel pink so it had a bit more of a contrast against the red.  I used two coats of the Models Own Hypergel nail polish (which I love) for a more opaque finish.  I also really love the glossy finish to these nail polishes.  I then used the dotting tool with the red nail polish to create the little hearts.  I did this by placing two dots next to each other at the bottom of the nail and then dragging them down to join them together at the bottom to create a heart shape.  They didn't turn out perfect, but you know what they say, practice makes perfect!  I then applied the top coat, which I made the mistake of not letting them dry enough first and it smudged the hearts slightly.  All in all though I'm fairly happy at my first attempt, they look perfect from far away, ha ha!!

What are you doing to celebrate Valentines Day?

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Southern Lights, £4.99 - Models Own

I am a huge fan of Models Own nail polishes, especially their Gel polish and Beetlejuice collections, so when they were on offer recently I decided to give one of their glitter polishes a try.  Now, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with glitter polishes, I love how pretty they look (who doesn't love a bit of sparkle?!) but they are an absolute pain in the backside to remove and it can be quite a chore having to layer on about 4 coats for an opaque finish.  When I saw the prettiness of this Southern Lights polish from their Wonderland collection I decided to look past all the things I hate about glitter polish and hope for the best. After all Models Own have never disappointed me yet.  As you can see the sparkliness of this nail polish speaks for itself and I was impressed that this opaque glitter was achieved in just 2 coats!  A first for me when it comes to glitter polishes!  This is such a pretty nail polish, which is slightly more lilac in colour in real life than it looks in these photos, and looks gorgeous when the little flecks of holographic glitter catch the light.  As expected though it is a devil to remove and I was slightly disappointed with the drying time.  I am so impatient when it comes to waiting for nail polish to dry, but when it still smudges 45 minutes after applying may be a little long for even the most patient of nail painters.

Even though it has it's downsides and still wouldn't declare myself a glitter polish lover, I am still in love with it's sparkle and is one of my favourite glitter polishes thus far.

How do you feel about glitter polishes?  Which is your favourite?

I thought I'd try a little something different on my nails this week and was feeling inspired by all the daisy print dresses around at the moment.  So I took to the garden to paint my nails in the sunshine and attempted a little daisy nail art.

1.  Paint your nails your selected base colour, I used Barry M's Gelly nail polish in Greenberry, it's one of my favourites.

2.  Using a nail dotting tool and some white nail polish or a nail art pen, I used a Models Own Artstix Nail Art Pen dot four or five dots in a circle on each nail to create a flower shape.  Once that has dried, again using either a dotting tool or a nail art pen (this time I used a limited edition Barry M nail polish I got last summer and the end of kirby grip as my dotting tool), and put a yellow dot in the centre of each circle of white dots.

3. Once they have dried finish off with a top coat.  Be sure to make sure your nails have dried properly first and apply swiftly to make sure the daisies don't smudge.

Have you been trying any summer nail art?  Let me know if you have, I'd love to see. 

Revlon Parfumerie in China Flower - £6.49 (currently on offer in Boots for £4.49)

I saw a lot of hype about this nail polish before it was released and I have to admit that I was immediately drawn in by the packaging.  Who doesn't want their nail polish to come in the form of a cute little perfume bottle?!  It is available in 24 different shades and scents, and I decided to opt for China Flower.

China Flower is a nice bright red which I thought would be the perfect red for the upcoming summer months.  Now, if I'm being completely honest, I didn't really have high hopes for this polish.  I was expecting it all to be a bit of a gimmick and that the scent and packaging would be used to detract from the quality of the polish.  Now that I've tried it though, I can honestly say that this is anything but a gimmick and has fast become one of my favourite nail polishes.  It applies so easily and smoothly, not a streak or lump in sight.  Even better, it only took one coat to get the full coverage you can see in the pictures.  Revlon does advise to use two coats but I honestly didn't feel the need, and less coats means less drying time.  This is an added bonus for me as I am super impatient when it comes to waiting for nails to dry.  Once it is dry you start to get the hint of the scent, which is nice and subtle and not too overpowering.  I'm not entirely sure what China Flower is meant to smell like, but to me it has a smell that reminds me of a nice hot bubble bath.  Which, as someone who loves a nice relaxing bath, is pretty pleasant.

Have you tried the Revlon Parfumerie polishes?  Which is your favourite?

I thought I'd get in the romantic spirit of things ready for Valentine's Day by creating some simple nail art to share with you.

You can use pretty much any colours you like but I used the new Model's Own HyperGel polish in Red Lustre and their nail art pen in white.  If you don't have a nail art pen this can also be done using a dotting tool or the end of a kirby grip with your selected nail polish.

I started by applying two coats of the Red Lustre nail polish, but this polish is so good you could probably get away with just one coat.  I'm a little bit in love with these new HyperGel polishes, so definitely expect to see more.  They apply beautifully and have such a gorgeous glossy gel-like finish.  They are advertised as being long lasting and chip resistant.  Now I don't find them to be miracle polishes and found that mine still chipped after a few days but still this is pretty darn good to me, as normally my polish doesn't make it a day without a chip in sight.

I then used the white nail art pen to draw two small hearts along the side of each nail.  This can be simply done by placing two dots next to each other, to create the top of the heart, and then drawing these dots down into a small v-shape, to create the bottom of the heart.

I hope you like my simple take on Valentine's nails.  Let me know in the comments if you've done your own Valentine's nails or give these a try, I'd love to see.

Also, just to let you know that my giveaway is now closed and the lucky winner is Mary from Little Feather.  Congratulations Mary!!

Now I have to admit, being the absolute wimp that I am, that I am not the biggest fan of Halloween.  When it comes to fancy dress I am a little "bah humbug" so dressing up is out of the question and the last thing I want to do is spend half the night cowering in a corner because I'm too scared to actually look at anyone in their horrific masks.  So I decided that this year I would get into the Halloween spirit with a spot of nail art.  I decided to go for a simple pumpkin and cobweb design and here's a little tutorial in case any of you fancy giving it a go yourselves.

All you need is:

An orange nail polish

A black nail polish

A toothpick

A topcoat

Apply a base coat of orange nail polish, I used 17's Lasting Fix nail polish in Orange Soda, and leave to dry.

Now if you have a black nail art pen this will be a lot simpler but as I don't I dotted some of the black nail polish onto a piece of paper and used a toothpick to draw on my design.

Draw on two small triangles for the eyes, a small inverted triangle for the nose and a crescent moon smile.

Whilst your pumpkin face is drying draw 5 straight black lines spreading from the corner of each of your other fingernails.

Then join each of these lines together with a small slightly curved line to finish off the cobwebs.

By now your pumpkin face should be dry, so taking another toothpick dip it into the orange polish and use it to dot on some jagged teeth in the pumpkin's mouth.  The finish by applying a layer of your top coat.

How are you getting into the Halloween spirit this year?  Let me know if you've tried any spooky nail art or make up this year, I would love to see it.







 



Ruby Crush - Precious Stones by Rimmel

 

It's been a while since I've done a nail post on here but as soon as I brushed this polish onto my nails I just knew I had to share it with you.  I got this nail polish at Christmas thinking it would be perfect for the festive season, all red and glittery.  If I'm being honest, I didn't exactly have high expectations of it and just expected it to be like any other glitter polish, thinking I would need several coats for any substantial amount of glitter coverage.

 

Well Rimmel, you have proved me wrong.  These pictures really do not show just how beautiful and sparkly this nail polish is but as you can see I managed to achieve full on glitter nails.  Even better, I managed to do this in just two coats.  Yes, you heard that right, just two coats as opposed to the usual 4 or 5 I have to ply onto my nails with other glitter polishes to get anywhere near this amount of coverage. 

 

You can see better in the second picture that this polish is made up of lots of tiny flecks of red glitter and larger flecks of silver glitter.  You can't really tell from this picture but it sparkles so prettily in the light.  Like every other glitter polish it can be a right pain to remove but when it looks this pretty who really wants to take it off?

 

At the moment Precious Stones is only available in two shades, this one and Diamond Dust, which is a grey and silver glitter.  I'm really hoping Rimmel decide to do this polish in more colours though as this polish has made it pretty fast to the top of my list of favourite glitter polishes.

 

What do you think of Rimmel Precious Stones?  Have you tried this one or the Diamond Dust shade?

 

 

Now I'm not usually a huge fan of TK Maxx, with it's rows and rows of rails with very little organisation, so I very rarely go but I went along with my sister last week and was pleasantly surprised.  To be honest I usually walk around with blinkers on because I hate it so much but whilst my sister was looking at the sunglasses, I noticed the beauty section right next to them.  Thanks to this I have a new found love for TK Maxx.  It's not very organised so you have to have a bit of a root through the shelves but there are some right bargains to be found if you have the patience to do so.  I ended up getting the most gorgeous smelling candle for my room, which isn't really the treasure I found but I had to include it because I bought it at the same time and it really does smell incredible.  The real treasures that I did stumble upon though were the nail polishes.

 

Yes that's right, I finally got my hands on some Essie nail polishes.  I've been wanting to try an Essie polish for ages, and even more so since they started selling them at Superdrug, but was a little put off by the £7.99 price tag when Barry M was there to seduce me with it's £2.99 polishes.  All of the Essie polishes were in boxes of three and I just picked a box up to see how ridiculously expensive they were, so my eyes nearly popped out my head when I saw they were only £9.99 for the three!  They had lots of different colours but I picked this one for the mint green polish that I have seen on many other blogs.  When I got them out the box to take a look at them and try one out I noticed the name on the bottom of the polish.  I decided on the pink one and when I went to look at the colour I saw that it said Tangerine.  Now I would expect a polish named Tangerine to be orange so I searched for it online and sure enough it is a red/orange colour.  So then I looked at the mint one and saw that it was called Capri, so out of curiosity I looked this one up too and it appears to be a brighter version of Tangerine.  So I'm assuming that they have the wrong names on the bottles and that's why they are selling them at such a good price.  The last one is called Ballet Slippers but I can't tell online if this is wrong or not because it looks pretty much the same colour.

 

 

As you can see this nail polish definitely doesn't look "Tangerine", so the name is definitely the wrong name but that doesn't really bother me.  Although if somebody happens to know the actual name of this polish please do let me know.  I can see what all the fuss is about with Essie polishes now though, it applies so nicely and so far it seems to be pretty chip resistant.

 

If you have a TK Maxx near you I would say it's worth a trip just to check out their make up section.  Not only did they have these Essie polishes but they also had packs of four Nails Inc polishes for £12.99, which normally cost a little less than that for just one.  I'm definitely going back for more when I have a bit more spare cash.

The lyrics in the title of this post are from Jack White's I'm Shakin'.  I'm loving his new solo album Blunderbuss.  What album are you loving at the moment?

Just thought I'd do a quick post before I leave for my holiday.  I'm off to Norfolk for a week, so I hope the sunshine reappears.  I was planning to post whilst I was away but I've just found out that the cottage we're staying in doesn't have internet.  Boooo!  I was going to do an outfit post but as usual I left packing to the last minute and don't have time to beautify myself.  So instead I am going to show you my holiday nails and what the lovely postman delivered to my door last weekend.