Mid-week Manicure: Twinkle Glitter Garden

Currently listening to: Forget Me Not by Lucie Silvas

Hello dear readers,

Today I'd like to show you the second polish in my A'Pieu Flower Garden Set, Twinkle.

 Twinkle is a clear based polish packed full of various shapes, sizes and colours of glitter.  There are hearts, diamonds, hexagons and circles in an array of colours from white to yellow to pink to blue, not forgetting the specks of holographic silver glitter.

Getting a good assortment of glitter on the brush was easy, as was application.  I was happy not to have the same shapes on each nail so didn't even attempt any specific glitter placement.

It's quite unusual for me to wear a coloured glitter like this so it was a real novelty seeing every shape stand out so well against the pink background.  It made me think of falling blossom or the piles of blossom you can see on the streets and in parks on a windy day.  I am really happy I decided to try this set as I love how these polishes look together.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Monday's Manicure: A'Pieu Glow NOTD

Currently watching: The Voice UK

Good morning girls,

Thank you for all your birthday wishes; I had a lovely birthday weekend :-)

Today I'd like to show you another of the polishes I ordered from Korea Department Store, as I slowly but surely make my way through swatching that haul.

 

I bought this A'Pieu Flower Garden set purely because of how cute the packaging looks.  Wouldn't it make a great gift?

 The idea is that you layer the glitter polish over the pink shade, called Glow, so I'm going to start by showing you the pink on it's own before showing you the glitter later in the week.

 This shade is so bright, I absolutely love it.  The pictures aren't quite true to reality, it's definitely a lot brighter in real life although I don't think it's a neon.  The polish is really thick so while I found it easy to apply two coats to my nails, they're quite long at the moment (yay).  I imagine it may be more difficult when painting shorter nails.

 

Despite being a difficult shade to capture, and even to describe (coral? fuchsia?), this polish is perfect for summer and certainly adds a pop of colour to my nails.  I love it.

What do you think?

Bye for now,

Laura

Friday's Fingers: Sea Sand Cherry

Currently listening to: The Bells of New York City by Josh Groban

Good morning dear readers,

Today is my birthday :-) 

Unfortunately I will be spending the day at work so my nails have to be appropriate for the office.  I thought a subtle touch of glitter was apt for the occasion.

 This is a polish you may recognise from my Korean Department Store haul.  It's by the brand VDL and is part of the Guylian collection.  This shade is called Sea Sand Cherry.

 The picture on the site wasn't very clear so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but the bottle contains a white polish packed full of tiny pink and orange specks of glitter, which blend to give a red appearance.

 It's a very pretty polish, one which I absolutely love.  I used two coats of this on top of a clear base coat.  Next time I may try it over a soft pink creme but overall I'm very happy with this polish.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Mid-week Manicure: Iced Hearts

Currently watching: The Apprentice UK

Good morning lovely ladies,

Last week I was on holiday in Croatia, a beautiful country which I had never visited before.  I stayed in Dubrovnik where I had a great time.  Of course while I was there I was excited to find what polish brands Croatia had to offer but I came away disappointed as Dubrovnik is not the best place for shopping, or at least the areas I explored weren't great for shopping,  All the global brands we're familiar with were on display but I couldn't find any brands I didn't already have in my collection, except for She.

That explains why these three polishes make up my very small Croatia haul.  I wasn't excited by any of the Essence toppers and felt a lot of the basic colours were dupes for those already in my collection so I chose Peaches & Cream and Iced Strawberry Cream, shades I usually stay away from.  From She, I chose Farben.

 

 

The first polish I chose to try was She Farben.  What a bad buy that was.  It looks like a beautiful Barbie pink creme but, as is often the case with such shades, it turned out to be a jelly.  I used two coats of it before deciding I needed to cover it up.

 My choice of cover-up was Essence Iced Strawberry Cream.  I'm not sure why I bought this.  I think it was because the sun was shining, I had a bit of a tan, the shop lights made it look great against my skin...

And actually, I don't mind it.  It's an oyster pink shimmer which I think looks quite flattering although I doubt I would wear it alone.  I stamped over it using Easy Paris 48 and Bundle Monster plate BM 317.  I really loved the end result as I think the pink and white go very well together.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Saturday's Stamping: Stripes and Bows

Currently watching: Star Trek 

Hello ladies,

As much as I loved my elegant nude nails, I just had to add some nail art after wearing them plain for a couple of days.

 

 My first step was to paint vertical stripes down the length of each nail using a Technic white striper.

I then stamped a bow on my accent nail using MUA Shade 2 and Born Pretty Store plate m59.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Thursday's Talons: Nude Nails

Currently watching: Britain's Got Talent

Good morning ladies,

Today I have another new Korean polish to show you, again by the brand Innisfree.  This is shade 134 and, as you may have guessed from the title, is a nude...

 I've never had a shade like this in my collection and at first I wasn't sure if I liked it but it really grew on me and I loved how delicate and feminine it made my hands look.

 I also love the fact it's a work-appropriate shade ;-)

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Tuesday's Talons: Rose Quartz NOTD

Currently listening to: Payphone by Maroon 5

Good morning girls,

Today I have a very simply glitter manicure to show you, the style of which I'm sure you've all seen many times before now but I don't think this ever gets old.

My base is Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, a very soft and feminine pink shade.

I then applied Barry M Rose Quartz Glitter to the tips of my nails.

I think I ended up with more glitter on my nails than I had planned but I still like this.  There's no such thing as too much glitter anyway ;-)

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Sunday's Sparkles: Innisfree Glitter

Currently watching: The Big Bang Theory

Hello lovely ladies,

Today I'd like to show you the first polish from my Korean haul which I swatched.

 The brand is called Innisfree and the shade is simply number 121.

 As you can see, it's a pale grey polish packed full of glitter of various sizes, shapes and colours.  There's a whole rainbow of sparkles in this polish with pink, gold, silver and green being the colours that stand out to me.

 I layered this over Color Club Cherubic, simply because that was on my nails when I wanted to try one of my new polishes and I thought this glitter shade was a good match for Cherubic.  Next time I'll try the polish without a base colour as I don't think it will need many coats to become opaque.

I really like this polish and I'm happy it's in my collection.  It reminds me of China Glaze It's A Trapeze and the Nails Inc Sprinkles polishes although it's not a dupe.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Friday's Fingers: Purplicious Berry

Currently watching: The Apprentice

Good morning lovely ladies,

Before the excitement of my Korean haul, I did this manicure:

 I started with Barry M Berry Ice Cream, a pretty purple pastel.

 Then I applied Essence It's Purplicious to the tips of my nails.

As an afterthought, I applied glitter to the whole of ring finger to create an accent nail.

What do you think girls?

Bye for now,

Laura

Tuesday's Talons: Korean Haul

Currently listening to: Titanium by David Guetta 

Good morning lovely ladies,

At the start of the year I said that I was going to make a conscious effort not to buy nail polish from brands I was already familiar with and try brands that were new to me.  I think I've done well so far, making purchases from only Sinful Colors, Color Club and Essie.

A couple of weeks ago I read about Korea Depart, an online Korean department store and decided to try a few more unknown brands.

 My order arrived within two weeks and was well-packaged.

 The website doesn't have great pictures of the polish and photos of swatches were difficult to find so I took a bit of a gamble with some of these but I think I'll wear them all.

 The prices were very reasonable although it is worth nothing that these bottles are quite small.  I'm happy to have so many new brands to try though and it's good to have some colours which were not already in my collection.

What do you think of my haul girls?  Do you recognise any of these brands?

Bye for now,

Laura

Sunday's Special Effects: Layering Indian Ocean

Currently listening to: Sincera by Josh Groban 

Good morning dear readers,

Today I'd like to show you a layering manicure I did using Kiko 338 as my base.

 

I love this shade, it's so pretty.  Although when I put it on I did wonder how similar it was to Essie Bikini So Teeny.  A side-by-side bottle shot shows they're similar but not identical as the Kiko polish is more lavender toned than Bikini So Teeny and doesn't have any silver shimmer in it.

[On a side note, I'm actually really disappointed with Bikini So Teeny.  The first time I wore it, the colour was really patchy.  I blamed my top coat, which was blue, for darkening the colour in some areas but actually the problem is with the Essie polish.  I'm not sure whether I got a bad bottle or whether this is a fault common to Essie.  Does anyone know?]

 My next step was simply to add a coat of Models Own Indian Ocean.

 This isn't a polish I wear often because, apart from blue shades, which I don't wear a great deal, I'm not what other colours to wear it over.  However, it does create a really pretty shimmer effect.

What do you think girls?  How else would you wear this polish?

Bye for now,

Laura

Thursday's Talons: Elizabeth Street Dotticure

Currently watching: Homeland

Good morning lovely ladies,

Today's manicure features a design which is completely different to anything I've done before so I'm excited to find out what you think of it.

 

 I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street as my base and added dots using MUA Shade 2 and my dotting tool.  Initially I added three dots to two nails, covered the whole of my ring finger nail with dots and left two nails plain.

 I then decided to see what it would look like if the two plain nails were covered in dots too...

I really like both designs although I prefer the first one.

Which is your favourite?

Bye for now,

Laura