Mint and Silver Manicure

Continuing the silver theme, the prompt for the GOT Polish challenge this week is a silver accent.

OPI Push and Shove - Swatch, Review & Nail Art

I am not a huge fan of chrome polishes but I do like them from time to time, specially for my toenails in the summer. When I recently came across OPI Push and Shove from the Gwen Stefani Collection, it promised a metallic ultra-chrome reflective mirror finish - so tempting - I had to try it!

Lilac & Pink Roses Manicure

Lilac and pink roses for the Lilac prompt of the GOT Polish Challenge today ...

Black Stamping manicure on a pink copper duochrome

Today, I have a stamping manicure on a pink duochrome nail Polish from the Barry M Aquarium Collection. Barry M Mediterranean is a pink copper mix. I have it here as two coats over a black polish.

Guest Post at Life in Lacquer - Pink Butterflies Stamped Manicure

If you like this manicure, then head over to Life in  Lacquer to read all the details and see more photos. I am posting there today to fill in for the lovely Jade who is away on holiday!

Summer Bling!

The prompt for my GOT Polish Challenge was bling. My first thoughts were a manicure with black and gold or something dark and sparkly like that. But since its summer, I am in the mood for something sparkly - but bright and colourful!

Tropical Flowers Stamped Manicure - GOT Polish

This is the second GOT Polish prompt that I missed - Flowers! And the free hand tropical flowers nail art that I posted last week, put in the mood for some more tropical flowers, only I stamped them this time.

Textured Stamped Manicure - GOT Polish

I don't think I have any textured polishes that are over a year old to use for this challenge. But these Sally Hansen Sugar Coats have been sitting in my pile of un-trieds for quite some time so I am hoping they qualify for the challenge in that respect. They come in some really pretty colours and I have been looking forward to trying them out but just haven't got around to it.

I painted my nails with Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in 300 Cherry Drop, which is a gorgeous slightly orange red. The green is 250 Spare-A-Mint?, a pretty teal green. The stamping polish is Essie No Place Like Chrome, one of my favourite silver polishes to stamp with.

Tropical Flowers Nail Art - GOT Polish

I have some catching up to do with my GOT Polish challenge. And one of the prompts I missed was for something tropical! I did, in fact, do the manicure earlier - just did not get a chance to post it. So here it is, at last.

Neon Tortoise print! - GOT Polish

Its been sometime since I last posted. I was away from home for a few weeks and the last few posts were scheduled before I left. After I came back, we were all sick one after the other and I just did not feel like painting my nails - which is unusual! Also, I broke a nail and had to cut them off. And when I did this manicure, it seemed to me like I had lost touch with my whole paint-clean- photograph-post routine. So although, the manicure turned out all right, I am not too happy with my clean-up, pictures and other details like that - but hoping things will settle back into the old routine from the next one!

Textured Quilted Manicure - Tri-Polish Tuesday

Continuing with the blue & pink theme for Tri-Polish Tuesday but with something entirely different from previous weeks - a textured quilted manicure!

I painted all my nails except the ring finger with Maybelline Dazzling Diva, a fine silver glitter. I painted my ring finger with Claire's Sand Effect in Silver. Once my base polish was dry, I used strips of striping tape to mark out the quilted pattern on the rest of the nails. Its really important to make sure your base is dry - a quick dry top coat can help here.

Hot Pink Manicure with a cherry blossom accent - GOT Polish

I have been looking forward to this manicure because I like wearing a pink manicure from time to time - they are like the equivalent of comfort food in manicures for me! Nothing too out there, sweet and pretty!

I love OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips and wanted to keep the focus on the polish itself. So I kept my nails simple and just added some rhinestones to the pink painted nails. For my accent nail, I painted it with OPI Alpine Snow and stamped it with Konad Black.

Easter Eggs & Bunny Manicure - Tri-Polish Tuesday

Continuing with the eggs theme for Easter and the pink, blue and yellow colours for Tri-Polish Tuesdays, here's another Easter eggs manicure!

For this manicure, I used the same base as before - Models Own Speckled Eggs Nail Polishes in Duck Blue, Dove Pink and Goose Yellow.

Coralicious Leopard Print for Golden Oldie Thursday

The prompt for the day is a Coral. I chose a very bright coral for my manicure today. And I thought it would be fun to add a leopard print to go with the bright nails!

It looks a bit red in the photos but the coral I have on here is Rimmel 60 Seconds 430 Coralicious. I love that name too! And this is the perfect summer polish - so bright and cheerful!

Speckled Colour Block Mosaic Manicure - Tri-Polish Tuesday!

I have the speckled blue, pink and yellow Models Own polishes here again in a colour block mosaic manicure.

I started with a base of Barry M Matt White and waited for it to dry completely. I did the nails one by one - marking out the blocks with striping tape. I filled the blocks in with Models Own Speckled Egg Nail Polishes in Duck Blue, Dove Pink and Goose Yellow.

Roses and Pearls Spring Manicure - GOT Polish Challenge

I have another Spring Manicure on the blog today! The colours I have used in this manicure are just perfect for spring, in my opinion. And when you think of Spring, you have to have some flowers so I did some roses on my accent nail. And to top it off, I thought I would add some pearl studs.

Starting from the thumb, the nail polishes used are Revlon Cupid, Barry M Gelly Greenberry, Rimmel 311 Spring Yellow, Barry M Matt White and Barry M Gelly Blueberry. On the accent nails I did freehand roses with the colours on the other nails and the leaves with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Emerald Express.

Speckled Eggs Manicure & Models Own Review

I have the Models Own Speckled Egg nail polishes on my nails today. The three nail polishes that I have used are Duck Blue, Dove Pink and Goose Yellow. These also happen to be the colours for my Tri-Polish Challenge for April.

It was really hard to decide which colours to get - they are all such gorgeous colours - perfect for Easter, spring and summer. The matte black glitter for the speckled effect just adds to the gorgeousness. They do look a bit like bird's eggs and definitely like the Cadbury's Mini Eggs!

Peach Manicure with Copper Stamping - GOT Polish

There may still be a slight chill in the air but the flowers are in full bloom in my garden and the days are longer and brighter. Spring is definitely here at last! And I continue my Spring theme here on the blog with a lovely pastel peach manicure!

I painted my nails with Barry M Gelly in Papaya. For the accent nail, I painted half the nail with the peach and the other half with Sally Hansen Insta Dri in Jade Jump. I added pastel studs to the accent nail and sealed them with top coat. For the other nails, I stamped them with images from the MoYou London XL Image Plate 01 from the Pro Collection. The stamping polish is Essie Penny Talk. I finished with top coat.

Colourful Flowers to Celebrate Spring!

I have a special Spring Manicure today! Its a stamped manicure but I have used a glazing or lead light technique to fill in colour into the stamped images. With this technique, you stamp an image with a dark stamping polish onto a light base, for example a black stamping on a white base, which is what I have used here. Then you can use a dotting tool to fill colour into the image with translucent polishes. Julia from Messy Mansion has done a good tutorial video on this technique.

For this manicure, I painted my nails with Model's Own HyperGel White Light. I stamped an image from the XL image plate 10 from the MoYou London Pro Collection with Konad Black. I really like Konad Black for stamping because it is such a dark, vivid black to stamp with but it is tricky to clean up and stains my cuticles.

Celtic Knots Green Manicure

I did not get a chance to do a St. Patrick's Day manicure last week so a green manicure has been on my mind for a few days! Also, I had this lovely green nail polish that I have wanted to wear for some time. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a nail fail as you will see!

Ruffle French Tip Manicure - GOT Polish

The prompt for the GOT Polish Challenge is the Ruffle Manicure. For this manicure, you just need to use a large dotting tool to create a line of dots on your nails. Then follow it up with successive lines of slightly overlapping dotted lines in a different colour. The end result looks like fabric ruffles. There's a good tutorial on Chalkboard Nails.
I thought it would be nice to use the ruffle nail art as an accent and french tips rather than the whole nail so this is what I did.

Its a pretty simple technique and the end result is very cute and colourful. This is my first attempt at this kind of nail art. I painted my nails with China Glaze For Audrey. And I did the ruffles with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Flashy Fuschia and Revlon Gold Coin.

Holi Manicure

Holi, (Pronounced the same as "Holy"), also known as the Festival of Colours is a Spring Festival. To quote Wikipedia, " It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities. Holi celebrations start with a Holika bonfire on the night before Holi where people gather, sing and dance. The next morning is free for all carnival of colours, where everyone plays, chases and colours each other with dry powder and coloured water, with some carrying water guns and coloured water-filled balloons for their water fight. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children and elders. The frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, open parks, outside temples and buildings." I found this Youtube video for Holi, that you may like to see.

I decided on this colourful manicure to celebrate Holi. This manicure also uses my Tri Polish Challenge colours.

Purple - Quilted and Flakies - GOT Polish

Purple is one of my favourite nail polish colours so I really enjoyed doing this prompt for the GOT Polish Challenge. Also, even though I love the manicures I have seen with the Layla Butterfly Effect Nail Polish, it has been in my heap of "un-trieds" for a while - so I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to break out the gorgeous flakies for this manicure!

On three of my nails, I am wearing a base of Barry M Gelly in Plum topped with two coats of Layla Ceramic Effect CE52, The Butterfly Effect nail polish. For the other two nails, I first painted the nails with Catrice 07 Genius in the Bottle. This is a gold-green duochrome. I marked out the criss-cross quilted pattern with striping tape and painted with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Grape Escape on top. I removed the tape while the Grape Escape was still wet and finished with top coat.

Blue, Green, Purple Stamped Gradient - Tri Polish Tuesday

The colours for Tri Polish Tuesday for March are Blue, Green and Purple. I thought this combination would be good for a gradient. I also stamped a pretty pattern on top to add to it.

I painted the nails with Klean Color Metallic Aqua. I then sponged on the gradient with Klean Color Metallic Aqua, Green and Purple. I stamped an image from the MoYou London plate 05 from the Sailor Collection with Color Club Harp On It. The stamping is subtle so it keeps the focus on the vibrant colours of the gradient.

Skittle Nails with glitter French Tips - GOT Polish Challenge

The prompt for the GOT Polish Challenge is a Skittle Manicure - where each nail is painted a different colour, inspired by the sweets with the same name. The colours I used for my Skittle nails are Rimmel Riviera Red, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Brisk Blue, OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips, Revlon Emerald and Barry M Gelly in Plum.

I used striping tape to mark two sections on the nail tips and painted this with Barry M (Textured Nail Effect) nail polish Lady. Now this in not really one of my old polishes but since its only for the nail art, I think I can get away with it - what do you think?!

GOT Polish Challenge Orange Nails

I am really late with my Orange Nails for the GOT Polish Challenge. But it was a much busier week than usual and I completely missed posting anything last week. I had even done my manicure in time but just didn't get a chance to post it! So here are my nails for the challenge, at last!

For this manicure, I used one of my favourite orange nail polishes, Barry M Gelly in Mango. The gradient and stamping is with Essie Penny Talk. And the beautiful stamping image is from Pueen 33.

Chevron Nails - GOT Polish Challenge

The prompt for the challenge is Chevron Nails - which I love. I had planned to do the design with tape - but you know how some of those tape manicures end up - not very well! So I had to start over and then I decided to stamp the chevron image from my Bundle Monster Create Your Own Set. The chevron image in this set is one of the images I got the set for, and I haven't used it before this - so I was glad of that chance.

The polishes I used for this manicure are Barry M Gellys in Pomegranate and Plum. Plum is a beautiful dark purple cream - though it appears almost black here. The chevron image is from the plate, BM-423, stamped with Essie No Place Like Chrome. The ring finger is painted with one coat of Essie No Place Like Chrome, topped with two coats of Barry M "Boots Ltd Ed" silver glitter.

Tri Polish Tuesday - Dotted Half Moons

I think it is a bit of a challenge to incorporate both grey and brown in a manicure at the same time - the pink helps though! Since one manicure in the month needs to use all three colours at once, here is my attempt with grey, brown and pink for the February part of the challenge ...

I started with a base of Color Club Silver Lake, a light grey polish. I used paper hole re-inforcers to mark out the half moons and painted the rest of the nail with OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips. Then I used a double ended dotting tool to add the dots with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Coco a-go-go.

Valentine's Day Nails - GOT Polish Challenge

I am late with my Challenge Valentine's Day manicure but here it is at last.
I haven't really done much for Valentine's Day in the last few years. But this year we did make an effort and I have to say, that it was really nice! It made me realise that if you have another day (other than anniversaries and birthdays) to have a nice meal and spend some quality time with your loved one, surely that is not a bad thing! What do you think?

Anyway, on to the nails ... For this manicure, I did a holographic gradient on four nails with China Glaze Holographic Astro-Hot and Infra Red. The ring finger is painted with Infra Red. These China Glaze Holographic polishes do not have a very strong holographic effect but they still look very pretty. The stamping images are from the Pueen Love Elements Set, Pueen 29 and Pueen 34. The stamping polish is Essie No Place Like Chrome.

Neon Hearts French Manicure

The Valentine's Day theme continues with a Neon Hearts & coloured French Tips manicure. I got these cute neon heart rhinestones off eBay and I thought they would go beautifully with my Neon Pink polish. Since its such a bright pop of colour, I thought it would look good as a heart shaped French manicure tip to mirror the shape of the rhinestone. I don't do this type of a manicure often but I love this look!

The nails are painted with OPI Don't Touch My Tutu! I did the tips with Kleancolor Neon Pink. I outlined the heart shaped tips with a small, thin striper brush and then filled it in with polish. Then on three fingers, I dotted the outline with Kleancolor Neon Amethyst. And on the thumb and ring finger, I added the heart rhinestones with top coat.

Gold Hearts on Red

Since Valentine's Day is almost here, I think its an excellent time to try out all those hearts images that I don't use as much throughout the year.  The image I chose for this manicure is from Konad M93. This Konad plate is one of their more recently released ones, which has larger images and they stamp great as always.
The gorgeous red polish is Layla Ceramic Effect 53 Killing Red. Although the gold flakies in this polish make it really beautiful and its gorgeous to wear on its own, I don't think I have been able to capture them that well in my pictures, unfortunately. They peek through quite prettily in between the stamping.

I stamped the hearts with Essie Good as Gold. And added the gold rhinestone on to the ring finger. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

Got Polish Challenge - Dotted Blossoms Nail Art

The prompt for my Golden Oldie Thursday Challenge is Green. I loved the cherry blossom stamping nail art that I have done in the past so much (here & here), that I wanted to do that again for this. But instead of stamping the image on, I thought I would try a simple little free hand this time. So here are my blossom laden branches!

The green polish is Barry M Greenberry. The branches are done with Barry M Black. The dotted flowers have been done with the polish Bourjois 10 Days No Chips No. 15.

Tri-Polish Tuesday - Pink Hearts & Lace

The colours for the Tri-Polish Challenge for February are Grey, Brown and Pink. My stamping manicure today uses two of these colours. And since its getting close to Valentine's Day, I thought I would go for an image with lace and hearts!

The grey base polish is Color Club Silver Lake - its a very light, almost white grey - although there is really no silver in it, as the name might suggest. It does look grey in the bottle, although it appears almost white when you apply it - its a good base for nail art, if you don't want a stark white. The stamped image is from Pueen 27 and the stamping polish is China Glaze Holographic Infra Red. The Infra Red is more fuchsia than red and stamps pink - it does not have a strong holo but its good for stamping.

Models Own HyperGel - Swatches, Review & Stamping

(A word of warning - Very long and photo heavy post!)

All Models Own Products on their website are on a half off offer until the 4th of February 2014, to celebrate their Facebook page reaching 250,000 Likes. This includes their yet to be launched Hypergel Nail Polish range. This range will be launched in stores by mid-February. This is how Models Own describe their Hypergel range - "HyperGel! 10 brand-new mega-shine shades that are highly pigmented, long-lasting and chip resistant. Enriched with lotus flower oil, the gel-like finish gives the professional shine of a salon manicure. The collection is completed with limited edition colour caps, topped off with colour-matched high-shine swatches on the lids that reflect the gel effect finish of the polish so you can select the perfect shades!"

Delivery was extremely quick for me and came bubble-wrapped in a pretty box - I got it within one day of ordering. I have swatches and reviews for six of these new shades. And I also tried stamping with them to see how they performed. I have to add here that this is the first time that I have swatched so many polishes. Its only when you do it yourself, do you realise how difficult it is to take colour accurate pictures of the swatches! It made me appreciate even more how much great work some of the bloggers put in with their beautiful nail polish swatches!
The range is quite similar to the Barry M Gellys, in my opinion. The colours are gorgeous and the formula is good and easy to work with. The formula is generally thick but it does vary from colour to colour - some are thicker than the others. The thick ones are good one-coaters. But I think for the thinner ones, two thin coats give good results. All the polishes are super shiny and glossy and I loved all the colours I got. All my swatches are two coats without a topcoat, other then the stamped manicure, where I used top coat.

Golden Oldie Thursday - Dots!

The prompt for my GOT Polish Challenge is Dots. I chose a great dotted image from my new Bundle Monster set for this manicure, on a lovely purple polish that has been in my heap of un-trieds for ages - really don't know why, since I love purple nail polish!

The purple nail polish is W7 Purple Paradise. The pink is Misa Funky Punky Pink. The stamping polishes are Essie Good as Gold and Konad black. This images are from the Bundle Monster Create Your Own Set, BM-412.

Tri-Polish Tuesday - A City at Sunset - Gradient Manicure

The combination of yellow, orange and red just calls out for a sunset gradient manicure - so that's just what I have on my nails today for Tri Polish Tuesday.

I painted my nails with a base of Rimmel Spring Yellow. Once this was dry, I sponged on a gradient with  Rimmel Spring Yellow, Barry M Gelly Mango and Sally Hansen Insta Dri Rapid Red. I recently got the Bundle Monster Create Your Own Set. I stamped on the Cityscape image from the plate BM-414 from this set, in Konad Black.