31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 20

Day 20

Today is water-marbling day! I was really looking forward to this....but kind of nervous at the same time. My one and only attempt at water-marbling so far did not yield very satisfactory results!
Also what has stopped me from trying water-marbling since, is just the amount of time it takes to do. Even today I under-estimated the time and I ended up having to go to work with only one water-marbled hand. Meh I made it cool.

A picture of my first ever attempt, pretty bad, right?

Firstly I used Sea Spray as my base coat. It's a very light blue filled with grey tones. I think this is where I went wrong with my first attempt - I just tried to water-marble on bare nails.

After taking this picture, I sellotaped around my nails to help protect the skin form getting covered in polish.
Then I used Catrice I Sea You, OPI Cuckoo For This Colour and China Glaze First Mate for the actual water-marbling.

• I put drop of I Sea You into the bowl of water, then a drop of CFTC within that first drop (which had dispersed out into a ring) then a drop of First Mate and then started the cycle again. All in all I used 3 drops of each colour. 
• Then I lightly dragged a toothpick through the water to help create a pattern. 
• And then I dipped my nail into the water, in the middle of the pattern.
• I found that I could use 2 nails per each concoction of varnish before having to clear the water and start over.

And this is how it turned out! So so much better than my first attempt! The sellotape worked quite well around my nails, these pictures are pre-cleanup just to show how much the sellotape really does work in protecting the skin around your nails.

 I dipped my little finger in way too far and ended up with the design there as well!

 The Aftermath

I love how the sellotape looks!

Have you tried water-marbling? What do you think of it?

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 19

Day 19

Midweek already. It makes you feel so old when you start to be shocked at how quickly time is going!

The theme for today's nails was galaxy nails. I'd never heard of this nail trend, so to be honest I just looked through my nail varnish collection and grabbed a few polishes that I felt would be best suited for this theme. 

I think this has been my favourite manicure so far. It didn't take that long surprisingly and I just loved looking at this on my nails!

What I used:

L-R Rimmel's Black Pearl, Rimmel's Blue Vogue, Essence Blue Addicted, Essence Blue Ray, Catrice My Milkyway and Revlon Galaxy.

Firstly I put on a base coat using Rimmel's Black Pearl

Then I sponged on some of Rimmel's Blue Vogue

Next was the addition of the first glitter polish - Essence's Blue Addicted. (This is where I fell in love with the mani!)

Then I sponged on some Blue Ray from the Essence Holographic collection.

After this I decided to sponge on another holographic type of polish. This time it was My Milkyway by Catrice.

 

The final step was to put on a layer of the aptly named Galaxy by Revlon. 

And there we have the finished look!

I'm extremely happy with the way this turned out. Have you ever heard of galaxy nails before? Will you be trying it out?

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 18

Day 18 

Today's theme was a half moon manicure. And it was a slight fail (not epic this time!) It was another first for me and I thought it would be really easy and it was to an extent. At least I know where I went wrong! 

Firstly, I was too impatient to wait for the first coat to dry properly and then I put on the second polish  way to heavy handedly leading to a big gloopy mess which wasn't really aided by the addition of a coat of Seche Vite that is now as thick as curdled cream. 

My second mistake was the stickers I used. I couldn't find the binder hole reinforcer ones that everybody recommends so I used some circle stickers that I had which I use to label the back of depotted mac eyeshadows. Yeah, these were too big and not really snug enough around my nail to create the desired half moon effect.

So the result is a mani that looks fairly decent from afar and kind of okay close-up.

Another one for me to practice!! 

I used:

GOSH Metallic Green (The half moon bit)

Nubar Reclaim (The rest of the nail)

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 17

Day 17

I can't believe that it's already Monday again! Still, only 4 more days left in the week:) 

Today's nails were Glitter nails. This was one of the days I was most looking forward to! I got a lot of compliments on my nails today so they were well received. 

Instead of doing a full glitter mani, I decided to do an accent nail but to glitter up the tips of the other nails as well. I really liked the combination of this and can't wait to do it with other glitter polishes. 

I used: 

OPI The Colour to Watch (Base)

OPI Sparkle-icious (Glitter)

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 16

Day 16 

Today is the day of tribal print.

At first I was going to look up some tribal inspreid prints online but then I just decided to go for it and see what I could come up with myself first.

I was dying to wear Essie’s Angora Cardi so I decided to use that as my base.

I felt that a good clean white would work well againist the mauvey plum of the base so I just used a skinny nail art brush and a dotting tool to create the lines and shapes.

I think a tribal print is generally supposed to be way more colourful than my two-tone look but I think it looks quite tribally. Also because my nails are quite short and small, I don’t think I would have managed to fit in much more colourful detail!

It is sloppy looking close-up but it looks okay from a distance. I can't wait to be able to paint straight lines on my nails!:p

As mentioned earlier, the base is Essie’s Angora Cardie and the white is OPI's Alpine Snow.

Tomorrow is Glitter day! I’m really excited about the look I’ve planned for it! 

MAC Posh Paradise Mini Haul and Swatches!

 

Posh Paradise is one of the many new MAC collections that I was really excited about.

It was released last Thursday here in Ireland and I was going to be in Dublin that weekend so I planned to pick up a few bits from MAC while I was there. Unfortunately, for a couple of different reasons I won't be in Dublin until next weekend now, which would have been 2 weeks after the initial launch date.

I love the colourful paint pots that come with this collection and as they are limited edition I was afraid they would be sold out by the time I was able to get into BT's.

This was a really long way of telling you that I ended up ordering a few items over the telephone. (BT's don't have an online store and MAC UK won't ship to R.O.I.)

I've never ordered over the phone from them but I wouldn't have any hesitation in doing it again or recommending it to anybody.

A very easy and efficient service was received. I rang on the Friday and I had my goods on Tuesday. P&P was €5 and it was registered post so I had to sign for it, still a lot easier than a courier though. (Those of you who live in the middle of the countryside share my pain with directing couriers!!)

One heads up is that they don't take Laser (they wouldn't take Visa Debit) over the phone, only credit cards, no idea why, I'm going to double check if this is the case when I'm there next weekend. Apart from that, a brilliant service.

Phew, after that I'm finally getting on to the actual paint pots!!!

I only got 3 but if there's still some left next weekend I'll probably pick up another one or two.

I bought Genuine Treasure, Pure Creation and Imaginary.

                                   


                                    


                                    

Pure Creation is a mid-tone blue with no hints of green.
Imaginary is deep blue-based violet purple.
Genuine Treasure is a gold bronze that is slightly gritty and patchy due to the glitter.

They are so so pretty and I can't wait to use them. I'm looking forward to seeing how GT translates onto the eyelid, hopefully it will not be disappointingly gritty. I was so busy all week that I only got the chance to swatch them this morning but I'm looking forward to playing with them!

I think coloured paint pots are fantastic and I can't understand why MAC doesn't keep them in the permanent line.

Have you tried anything from the Posh Pardise collection?

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 15

Day 15

Yay for Saturdays!:D

The chosen theme for today is a delicate print. To be honest I was really stumped for this one. When I think of delicate I instantly think of an intricate design - something I knew I would in no way be able to do neatly or skillfully just yet. 

I looked at my one lonesome Konad Image plate, the m2, and it has a few flower designs on them which I feel are delicate and dainty looking. 

I know, I know, yesterdays theme was flowers and I'm using flowers again today but they really are completely different. 

I used:

Konad Image Plate - m2

Konad Special Polish in White

Catrice - Beam Me Scotty!

To celebrate Saturday and the weekend, I'm double-posting today! Watch out for the next one later this evening!