NOTD: Winter is Coming!

Hi Everyone, 

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers. I had a turkey and stuffing burger for dinner to celebrate!

Sorry this post is going to be short, I'm so tired, I've been out all day and it's 11:30 now, I'm ready to collapse! I went to an indoor play centre with one of the other mums from playgroup (and the kids obviously) and while I was there I got a text saying my son's shoes had arrived, so I had to go and get those. Rush hour traffic was horrendous on the way back so I really need to sleep. but I wanted to show you guys my nails!

For this NOTD I wanted something really wintery, and white with glitter really signifies this for me. The base colour is MUA All Nude (so they've finally started naming their shades I guess?) and in the bottle it looks off white/pale nude but on the nail it looks white to me. I picked this up in Superdrug last week, it's one of their new shades. The glitter is from the Models Own Wonderland Collection and it's called Blizzard. I'm working on swatches of this collection but as I mentioned the other day, the weather is terrible!

Photos below show three coats of All Nude, followed by one thick coat of Blizzard. I topped it off with two coats of NYC Get Up To Speed Turbo Dry Top Coat. This top coat is amazing, think I'll be reviewing it soon. 

Flash

Macro - the reflection of my camera is making the glitter looks black

The reason I don't have a natural light or sunlight photo is because there is no sun right now and the natural light was throwing off the white base. 

I think this combination is so pretty, and I love Blizzard over white! I love the blend of metallic, holographic and iridescent glitter, but I won't say too much about it because it will be part of my review on the Wonderland Collection!

MUA All Nude retails at Superdrug for £1, and Blizzard is available at all the usual stockists for Models Own where it sells for £5.

See you tomorrow!

NOTD: Orly Le Chateau and China Glaze I'm Not Lion

Hi Everyone,

This is actually my earliest post in a while! It's really surprising actually, I didn't really start doing anything until about 4pm today so I thought it would be a late one, especially because I got up a couple of hours earlier than normal... 

I had to go and feed my Mum's dogs because she was away dropping my brother off to start uni, that took ages, and the 15 minute walk home took ages because I stopped to get sausage and chips (so much for healthy eating). Then I had to put my son to bed and eat my dinner! It was nice not to have to cook, and I have nothing in the house so I don't know what I would have made anyway!

I have a NOTD post to show you today, and I have a confession to make: I have no camera. When I was away a couple of weeks ago I seemed to misplace it. I don't know if I left it at the hotel (I called both hotels with no luck) or at my boyfriend's parents' house, or in our car which is currently being fixed. So hopefully it'll turn up. So these photos were taken with my iPad. I know phone pics etc are a real blogging no-no, but I had no other choice and I really wanted to show off these nails!

I wanted something autumnal as the weather is getting colder, but I also wanted glitter. So I chose Orly Le Chateau, which I picked up a while ago in a set from TKMaxx and China Glaze I'm Not Lion. I'm loving that polish, I've only had it a month and this is my third time wearing it, that says a lot for me! 

Le Chateau is from the Holiday Soiree Collection for Winter 2011. I got this, Ma Cherie (from the same collection) and Lucky Duck (from the fall 2011 Birds of a Feather collection). It's a very blackened teal, near black and it's so glossy! This is what the creme from the Nails Inc Blair Duo should have been, in my opinion, because it was a disaster. This was beautiful, one coat was nearly opaque but I used two coats for the photos. 

I used three coats of I'm Not Lion, and one coat of Seche Vite on all nails.

Natural Light

Sunlight

Sorry about the photos! I need to see if I can borrow a camera from my Mum or something for future posts until mine turns up/I get something else sorted. I do have another camera but no memory card or cable... Luckily the camera on my iPad isn't too bad. I have some posts ready to go as well with the photos done so I should be okay for a little while anyway.

See you back here on Monday, have a lovely weekend!

NOTD! Barry M and Color Club

Hi everyone!

It's a bit of a quick post from me today... I'm so tired and miserable because of the weather. I'm about to buy a pac-a-mac because my only waterproof coat is a huge fur lined one from Topshop and it's not cold enough to wear it, I need something thinner. I can't believe we're having such awful weather in July, it's horrible. People wonder why the British talk about the weather and this is the reason: it's crazy!

Anyway, I have a NOTD to show you. I've been wearing this for two days now and I love it! 

For this manicure, I used three coats of Barry M Blue Moon, then once that was dry(ish) I sponged on Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe from Winter 2011. I did this by putting a blob of polish at the base of my nail near my cuticle and dabbing it upwards with the sponge. To top it off I used two coats of Seche Vite.

I was so happy with how this turned out! I think the polishes go really well together! It's made me want to try more of the Color Club glitters that I bought from TKMaxx.

Now, anyone who has bought nail polish from TKMaxx will know my struggles... There's a story behind this Color Club polish... I picked up a set of glitters in TKMaxx a couple of months ago because Covered in Diamonds was in there, but the packaging was marked "Glitter Vixen." Obviously I knew it wasn't that collection, but for £7.99 I couldn't leave it, Covered in Diamonds goes for more on eBay! So I figured I'd buy it and research the other colours later! Then when I did some research looking at swatches etc I saw some were from the Beyond the Mistletoe collection, one (Covered in Diamonds) was from the Untamed Luxury collection and one was from the Pardon My French collection. Only one was actually a Glitter Vixen polish!

But who can say no to seven polishes for £7.99, especially when they're pretty glitters! You can probably still find this set in some TKMaxx stores, and Barry M Blue moon is available for £2.99 at Boots, Superdrug and the Barry M website.

NOTD Barry M Indigo with Models Own Disco Heaven

Hi guys,

Today I have a NOTD post for you. I fancied trying something new today with my nails and I've had this combo in mind ever since I bought Models Own Disco Heaven (from the HedKandi collection). I love the combination of gold and purple, I think it looks so luxurious, and I haven't worn a sparkly glitter in ages (my mani before this was Dollish Pollish Putting On The Ritzzz - coming up soon) so I needed sparkle in my life! 

I put on two coats of Barry M Indigo with a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast last night and left it to dry overnight. The overnight bit was definitely pointless, just make sure it's totally dry before applying the glitter! Honestly, I just wanted to leave myself something to do this morning! 

I applied the glitter using a sponge. Any sponge will do, the one I used was yellow one that's normally used to clean cars! It cost me 50p from ASDA... I just tore a small piece off for this. The method I used was to place a big drop of the glitter polish at the base of my nail and then spread it by dabbing upwards, then I dabbed the excess off more towards the free edge of my nail to make it look a bit more scattered.

To level this out, I used a thick coat of Seche Vite with a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast on top. Surprisingly my nails didn't seem thick, which made me happy because I can't stand thick nails, it feels like I'm wearing falsies!

Here's a photo!

I would have taken more photos but my camera was struggling to focus on the amazing glitter, there was too much sparkly prettiness for it to handle!

Hope you like it, I'm so pleased with how it came out! Normally I change my nail polish every day but I think I'll keep this on for tomorrow as well! 

Haul time & NOTD

Hi guys,

I'm still having problems with my camera today... I've downloaded some data recovery programs so hopefully I'll be able to get my photos back...

This means I haven't got a polish to show you, but I do have a little haul post! I bought some Nails Inc last week from TKMaxx, if you haven't been into your local store lately, have a look, they've got a ton of Barielle, Nails Inc, Color Club and Barielle in there at the moment! 

This week I bought a few 2true limited edition shades and a couple of polishes from H&M too. So here you go! I'm so sorry for the photo quality, the photo was taken with my boyfriend's iPhone. My camera is currently plugged into the laptop scanning for lost photos!

Haul

I've swatched a couple of the Nails Inc polishes already and posted them but I still have a lot to do as you can see! I also can't wait to wear the yellow polish. I've been looking for a mustardy yellow colour for a while and Lemon Tree from H&M was perfect! And it was only £2.99! 

The 2true polishes I bought were so cheap, I think I got three for £4.00 or something and I'm really pleased with them. I'll be swatching them soon if my camera ever decides to like me!

I bought the matte topcoat because I've wanted to get one for a while. I keep seeing really cool looking nail art designs online combining matte and glossy polishes and I've wanted to try it out. I thought tonight would be a good time and so I used Nails Inc Park Walk which is a very bright pink. I painted it on all my nails (it was almost opaque at one coat - perfect at two) then added the matte topcoat. Once I was happy with it, I used NYC Colors In a New York Minute Grand Central Station (a clear topcoat) to paint on curved stripes on my chosen accent nail - my ring finger. I was so pleased with this! 

Here's a photo, this was taken on Instagram with my iPad, so the colour is a bit off!

Nail Art

I'm really hopeful that tomorrow I'll have a pretty polish to show you with proper photos, so fingers crossed that my camera works properly again as of then!

On a side note, I'm up to 26 followers now, so only four away from my giveaway!