Tag Archives: china glaze

April 13, 2012 · 11:36 am

Girl on fire

Being a big fan, I bought all of the Hunger Games nail polishes. This is Riveting (2 coats) with a gradient of Electrify on the accent nail. Then I free handed flames in black. Actually I preferred it without the flames – I want a flame Konad plate. Is there one?

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I’m also holding my new foundation – Benefit’s Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow (somewhat of a mouthful) which I am a big fan of. It’s incredibly runny, so I have no problems spreading it on my face and gives me a good medium coverage – I still need concealer on blemishes but not much. I also like that it’s not too matte.

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January 5, 2012 · 9:17 pm

the end of Christmas :(

And here’s my last Christmassy manicure. If you’ll excuse the chips and wear, I’d be grateful -  didn’t get to take a picture till 10 days in!

 

This was China Glaze Glittering Garland with Andrea Fulerton striping polish in white stamped over with a Bundle monster plate snowflake. This needed more glitter.

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November 20, 2011 · 8:34 pm

birthday nails!

I painted my nails especially for my birthday. These were OPI The one that got away stamped with Orly Luxe using  Konad M57 – leopard print, and then a coat of China Glaze Golden Enchantment – a gold holographic glitter. And again, everything is topped with a big old layer of Seche Vite, the shiny glossy topcoat of the gods.

 

Clearly my tastes are not so refined. I’ve used all these polishes/stamps before so nothing was a surprise except that it appears I can’t keep a patch of nail polished on my middle finger of my left hand – it just keeps chipping off there. Very weird. Again, I couldn’t find my SD card and I wanted to get a photo before I ruined them, hence the stamping excess all over my fingers. I love how well Luxe stamps.

 

As for what I did for my birthday, well, I dressed as Bookaboo for my nephew’s 3rd birthday party.

Bookaboo:

Me:

I thought I looked excellent, but I was the only person visibly dressed up in the car on the way there and got some really funny looks!

Then we went to see Matilda the Musical, which was absolutely EXCELLENT. You should totally go. If, y’know, you live in SE England… otherwise it might be a bit of a trek. (Boringly, I changed my outfit) The music is written by Tim Minchin who is basically my favourite comedian ever. I just crack up, although I would suggest not YouTubing him if you have a nervous disposition.

Afterwards, we quickly stopped in to get a takeaway from MEATLiquor as I just can’t get enough of their burgers and deep fried pickles. OMG, so good. You should go, if you haven’t already. Seriously.

 

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September 2, 2011 · 8:03 pm

sparkles!!

I took delivery of my new watch today. I might’ve mentioned that I’m dyspraxic, and one of the main ways it affects me is that I can’t tell the time on an analogue clock. Well, with school starting, this is an issue so I treated myself to a brand new shiny digital watch. But this ain’t no ordinary watch! It’s pink and sparkly!! I also painted my nails to match. My pictures are rubbish becase it got dark early and surprised me.

 

 

This is two coats of Traffic Jam, part of China Glaze’s new Metro collection. While I don’t think it’s a unique colour, it’s really nice, raspberry coloured and a bit brighter than it’s looking on my screen. I then popped a row of diamantes on and plonked two coats of Seche Vite on top.

 

Here’s my watch! It’s from a new watch company called Phosphor and has some special technology that I don’t really care about. I just like that it’s PINK AND SPARKLY.

 

See! It’s 7.27! The sparkles flip over to show the right time. Again, my picture is bad today because it got dark so quickly (at 7.27!!) so I’ll link you to the manufacturer’s website too – here. I’ll see if I can swap it out tomorrow.

I bought my watch from Twisted Time and I really have to shout out to them for fantastic service. I bought my watch at noon on Wednesday, paying £5 for next day delivery, they shipped by 3pm but I didn’t recieve my watch yesterday :( I phoned them, I think before they opened, today and left an answerphone message asking for a tracking number because neither of my deliveries scheduled for yesterday arrived. Within half an hour they’d called back apologising, having already rung Royal Mail, refunded my postage and checked the status of my parcel. I was impressed.

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August 29, 2011 · 5:19 pm

Δy/Δx

The title is nerd for gradient. I really liked the idea of yesterday’s mani, but not necessarily the application. So today I decided on a glitter gradient. I didn’t use a sponge for this one because it didn’t transfer the glitter very well, just brushed it on in layers. This means that the ends of my nails are extremely thick but  I think I can stand it, because I love this! I took a long time picking the colours, as I’ve amassed quite a lot of glitter polishes now… The base colour is China Glaze For Audrey and the glitter is one of my £1 polishes, LA Colors in Treasure Island. Next time I go to Westfield (the only place I know that stocks them) I think I will buy them all. It’d be the price of maybe 10 OPI polishes, maximum but I would have ALL THE COLOURS. Then maybe I could have a really long shelf and put them in rainbow order!? That appeals, but what doesn’t is that you just know my mum would come along and put a few out of order to annoy me.

Anyway, pictures.

 

 

As per usual, this is topped with a coat of Seche Vite. I’ll definitely be doing these again in future.

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August 28, 2011 · 5:50 pm

sunrise

I wish we were getting lovely sunrises here at the moment, or sunsets. I wish we were getting any sun at all. Anyway I tried a sponge gradient and made sunsets on my fingers. Or flames. Whatever. It reminds me of tequila sunrise cocktails, which is one of only a few tequila drinks my stomach can stand.

 

It was pretty easy to do, and the gradient looks more blended on my actual nail – I think the photo has highlighted the lines. Anyway it was some cheapo yellow which was horrible to work with (any recommendations of good yellows?), the free Mavala polish with Elle magazine this month, and Zoya Sooki. I sponged them on with a makeup sponge (although, do it the opposite way up to me – sponge at the tip – you can see the redness of my cuticles – that’s nail varnish) and then I topped with China Glaze Golden Enchantment, which is the gold version of Fairy Dust and equally awesome. One coat of Seche Vite (from a brand new bottle – heaven) and I was done. Certainly a lot quicker than the cupcake nail art! I used a youtube tutorial for how to do it, a good one is here.

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August 17, 2011 · 2:37 pm

beautifully tragic

Plain colours get boring, dontcha think? I’ve just done a really quick and easy nail art look today inspired by the musical Wicked that I saw at the weekend. I’ve used China Glaze Jolly Holly, a dark emerald colour which I found in Sally’s for £1.50   – it has a silver cap instead of a black one which is a bit odd, a white striper by Andrea Fulerton I bought from superdrug and then the same striper brush dipped in OPI DS Coronation, which is an awesomely dense holographic glitter. I’ve not got anything bad to say about anry of them, really, and I was quite impressed with my dexterity, especially considering I’d not had a cup of tea yet when I did my nails. Google tells me the OPI polish is relatively hard to find but I wasn’t exactly looking for it, just happened to find it at the OPI nail bar in Selfridges.

 

And I have a little confession, I snapped one of my nails trying to turn off my alarm yesterday so now one has a false tip and gel overlay, courtesy of moi and also Tesco for supplying the goods. But I’m so proud – I bet you can’t guess which one it is!! Ok, must get back to singing (badly) along with the Wicked soundtrack and lesson planning.  I’m such a multitasker.

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August 8, 2011 · 9:48 pm

matte mad

I got Essie’s Matte about You in my polish-fest this week, and I’ve been applying it to everything, just to see what it’s like. I pinned a couple of looks to my Pinterest nail board using matte polish so I thought I’d amalgamate them and see how it went!

 

 

I quite liked it, although I’m not really a black-nail fan. This is China Glaze’s Liquid Leather and OPI Fiji Weejie Fawn, then I stamped using my black striper polish (it’s really pigmented, much better than CG or the Barry M black I have) and Konad plate m57. Matted everything using the essie polish, and then put a shiny top coat on the black tips. I liked it alright, but look at my index finger – a chip! I’d only had the polish on a couple of hours, and wasn’t doing anything particularly strenuous with them. Grr. Maybe it’s the top coat, not using Seche Vite is probably my downfall – I’m just too used to it wearing like iron.

The other thing I just have to tell you about, although you probably already know as I’m pretty much the last person in the world to discover it…. Lush’s Lemony Flutter cuticle butter. I love it. I’ve used it for a few days and hardly made a dent in the tub, so even though it was fairly pricey, I feel like it’s worth it, unlike the tub of Sally Hansen stuff that I used up in just over a week. I use pure acetone as my polish remover, so my fingers are as dry as the Sahara after a few mishaps with the nail art!

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June 28, 2011 · 3:53 pm

NOTD

A leopard print mani using OPI Fiji Weejie Fawn and some random black to stamp with, and one I did for my mum in honour of Armed Forces Day on saturday, using Up All Night (China Glaze) and Orly’s Luxe.

Am now dashing out the door to see Glee! Live!

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June 27, 2011 · 3:59 pm

starburst

Thought I’d try a tape manicure today – first time ever and it’s actually not too bad. Basically, that means putting sellotape on your nails as a stencil. I cut thin slices of sellotape and arranged them in a starburst sort of shape. Quite possibly I should’ve tried something a little less tape-intensive for the first go but… it’s ok! This is China Glaze Stella on the majority of my fingers, and then China Glaze Fairy Dust on my ring fingers with Stella over the top. I really like Stella – it’s such a nice rich purple with a bit of shimmer, but I think it’s a rather classy amount of shimmer. I really didn’t need the second coat, but it intensified the richness so I went for it anyway.

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