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nailed it: Illamasqua i’mperfection bird egg nails

14 Apr

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Here’s Loz modelling the Speckle nail polish (colour: Scarce) from Illamasqua’s newest collection, I’MPERFECTION.

Nice, innit?

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As you can see, Loz is a married woman so to all you hand-fetishists that creep around on here, don’t even think about it.  But wouldn’t you say this makes a classic, yet subtley-different nail look for a bride?

By the way, this is polish applied by me drunk in the pub, with no top or base coat, and it’s been on for 2 days already.  Illamasqua nail polish wears really well and stays shiny, get amongst it!  Review coming soon of the excellent matte top coat I bought at the same time… 😀

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nailed it: carbon grey with studs

31 Mar

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This is Maybelline Forever Strong Super Stay 7 Days gel nail colour in Carbon Grey #815.  So far it’s been on for 3-4 days and showing no signs of wear – impressed.  It’s a really nice dark gunmetal grey with just the right amount of shimmer to it, and the finish has stayed really shiny.  I applied two coats to get the opacity I like.

Along the tips of my nails I put some little diamond stickers just for fun.  The purple nail is a Sephora colour.

High five!

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St Patrick’s day nails

3 Mar

First up today, a bit of housekeeping – apologies to any bitterly disappointed readers who, like me, were unable to take advantage of the e.l.f sale I posted about the other day – I didn’t realise they only deliver to Canada and the USA.  Secondly, thank you all so much for clicking through to see a photo of me in a bra – site views were through the roof the last couple of days!  How exciting.

And now, you’ve had your fun(bags)… Back to the serious business of MAKEUP!

So what I attempted to do here was some kind of St Patrick’s Day manicure, using the two Illamasqua nailpolishes I got as part of a mystery pack I bought a few weeks ago.  The dark one (Rampage) is a nice dark ninja-turtle green that looks black until you go outside.  It’s good.  I like nailpolish that looks black but isn’t.

My idea was to do a reverse French manicure that looked like a glass of Guinness, and then I was like, BACK IT UP – I’VE GOT DARK AND LIGHT GREEN NAILPOLISH, so why not make it look like a Guinness with nasty-ass green food dye in it, just like how they serve it on St Patrick’s Day in the pub!!!  And a mediocre idea was born.

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I almost didn’t put these pictures up because I made such a pig’s ear of it – look at that, er, black four-leaf clover.

Moving right along, I painted my right hand with Barry M Nail Paint in #284 Emerald Green.  Barry M Nail Paints are yet another example of an excellent UK high-street cosmetic brand; their stuff is only a few quid and it’s just as good as what you’d pay ten times as much for.  Experiment and get crazy with all the colours, yo.  It won’t cost you.

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Fly, my pretties, get your tacky green on – and remember, if you go back far enough… You.  Are.  Irish.

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Grant’s skull nails (freehand)

7 Feb

So, this was what I was trying to do.

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My handsome, hilarious, charismatic friend Canadian Ian emailed me that picture, knowing I love all things skull and nail art.  I screamed and decided to give it a go, enlisting my favourite hand model Grant and his nice big neat fingernails.

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I started off painting the ‘ribs’ hand black with Barry M Nail Paint in Black.  For the hand with the skulls, I painted a big white spot with my white nail striper from www.sparkly-nails.co.uk, outlined with my black nail striper.  Grant commented that this was a bit of a 60s/mod kind of look, and I agree – in fact it reminded me of these nails from MAC’s Glamour Daze collection (late 2012)….

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…which I tried to recreate on myself a few months ago, long before I owned nail stripers, I was painting the black on with a regular (ie, too thick) nail polish brush so it was impossible to get the thin lines I was after.  So I improvised and only did three sides of each nail, I thought they looked pretty funky and graphic.  I like the combination of candy pink and black.

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And here are those nails in action, just for fun.

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Anyway, back to the skulls.  They then transformed into panda feet and something kinda Aztec, when I painted the teeth on with my white nail striper.

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Before finally becoming what I think is a decent copy of the photo up the top of this post!

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In the original picture she’s got nail stickers on her thumbs; here’s me with two different types of Nail Rock stickers on my pinky and ring fingers (for some reason they WILL NOT stay on my middle and index fingers on either hand). 

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So what do you think?  Do you find fiddly nail art easy or does it take you FOREVER (like me!)?

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Thanks to Instagram Queen Carissa for the snaps of my nails!

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nailed it: Hunger Games/Katniss/flame nails

30 Jan

Feeling a lil bit hot-rod one day, I thought flame nails would be a good idea.  HOT DAMN!

To YouTube!  The CutePolish tutorials on YouTube are some of my favourites.  Using my newly acquired nail stripers from http://www.sparkly-nails.co.uk, I got busy.

I’m right handed so I had a go painting my left hand with free-hand flames, which in the end came up better than the flames I painted on plastic for my right hand.  I used cling-film instead of a thicker lunch bag type plastic, and they ended up kind of wrinkly.  They still looked pretty cool, though.

Here are the nails I painted freehand, I don’t seem to have a photo of the other hand.

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These I painted on starting with the red then moving in towards the centre of the flame with the orange, followed finally with the yellow.  Once it was dry I went around the outside with a black glitter nail striper.  The usual Sally Hansen base and top coats (Miracle Cure nail strengthening basecoat and Insta-Dri anti-chip top coat).

What do you think?

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nailed it: grey on grey skulls

28 Jan

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Sally Hansen Miracle Cure nail strengthening basecoat – I f_ck with my nails a lot and this stuff keeps them going.

2True Fast Dry Colour Quick Nail Polish in Shade 13 – cheap cheap, from Superdrug.

Nail stickers also from Superdrug, also cheap cheap.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri anti-chip top coat.

It’s been on my nails for about 4 days now and there isn’t a single chip – this is almost unheard of for me, my nails usually don’t last more than 24 hours before they start to show serious signs of wear.  The grey is an unusual choice and a lot of people have commented on it.

Just goes to show that you don’t need to spend a fortune.  British high street is amazing for cheap, good quality makeup.  Which is how I justify buying so much of it 🙂

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