Gemstone Polish

Good Evening Peoples!! According to the lore of the Inuit culture, the mineral Labradorite came to be when it fell from the frozen fires of the Aurora Borealis and is known as the 'Stone of Magic'. It's such a beautiful shimmery stone, I can see where this comes from!! I'm really into geology, especially the mineralogy and for a while now I've wanted to make some franken polishes along that theme. Labradorite is my favourite mineral so it was always going to be the first!! Here's an example of this stunner of a mineral!! The colours shift as the stone is moved but it's mostly made up of a petrol blue/turquoise colour with flashes of golden yellow, lime green, aqua and steely grey. Isn't it AMAZING?!! Yes, I'm a geek :) I used a mixed base of Seche Vite topcoat, a blue iridescent shimmer polish and a sheer teal blue polish (they were old nail polishes so I've no idea what they are?!). I added gold and aqua  micro glitter to begin wi...

Evening All! Tonight, I have another way to accent a stunner of a glitter nail polish. I'm really into this at the moment as it's a bit of a challenge- adding enough detail to keep things interesting but not so much that it hides the glitter underneath! Here's what I came up with today; That fabulous glittery red goodness that you can see here is two simple coats of Rimmel 'Ruby Crush' . Isn't it just gorgeous?!!! I can't wait to wear it in some Christmas nail art, it's going to look so gooooooooood!! I love the combination of red, pink and grey so I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this manicure! Using a striping brush, I painted arcs at opposing corners on each nail with Rimmel 'Strawberry Fizz' and China Glaze 'Pelican Gray' . Who says you can't wear red and pink together?! It's all about choosing the right shade- a bright red with a lighter pink or a deep red with a rose pink. It's usually best to stay awa...

Hey There People!! I'm totally falling whole-heartedly into dark and moody autumnal colours, and loving it of course!! I've also very much gotten back into metallics, shimmers and glitters, they just seem to match this time of year so well!! So me being me, I've piled this all onto my nails in one go-HA!!! I found this amazing polish in my stash, I have NO idea where it's come from but it's brand new!! It's Revlon Dark Pleasures 'Scarlet Letter' and I used it as my base colour. Isn't it completely and utterly gorgeous ?!! In normal light it just looks like an average reddish brown but it transforms under bright light. It has this lovely red shimmer which just makes it GLOW!!! Using my trusty striping brush and a whole bunch of nail polishes to paint random vertical lines from the free edge of each nail downwards. The polishes I used are; 17 'Fury' (gold), Zoya 'Zuza' (turquoise), Color Club 'Cherubic' (beige ...

Good Afternoon My Fellow Nail Lovers!! I've been planning this for ages as a way for me to improve my nail art skills and to think outside the box! I'm going to be representing various movies on my nails and showing them to you over time under the heading 'Movie Nights' . As I've just started this, I went for a relatively easy film first- the ultimate 'Toy Story' !! I decided to only paint two characters as I've never done this sort of thing before, not on teeny weeny nails anyway!! On the majority of my nails (thumb, ring and pinkie) I did the cloud wallpaper that's associated with the entire film. I started with Barry M 'Blueberry' which makes such a perfect sky blue colour!! Then using Essie 'Blanc' and a combination of various dotting tools and my striping brush, I painted the stylised clouds. That was the easy bit!! I love love the little alien guys so of course one of them had to be involved! I used China Glaze ...

Hello Everyone!! Today, I have a simple floral manicure for you! This kind of nail art is so easy to do as you don't need any special tools- just the nail polish brush and something to make dots. When I have time, I like to add interest to it further with half and half colour and some decorative dots. It's still super easy though! This manicure is all about the colours- it brings in a few autumnal hues while still being bright! I started by painting each nail with Barry M 'Key Lime' and then painted half of each nail with Missguided Splash 'Missmatch' . The orange ( Missmatch ) needed a few coats to get it looking bright and well orange . Then, using the nail polish brush with the excess wiped off, I painted some random 'petals' in a basic flower shape. The nail polishes I used for this were Essie 'Snap Happy' (red) and Zoya 'Zuza' (turquoise). Then, using a small dotting tool (dipping a pencil in polish would work too) and Revl...

A Good Evening To You All!! As I've mentioned before, inspiration can be pretty wacky. Pretty much anything and everything can be used for inspiration. In tonight's case, my nail art is inspired by my toothbrush holder! I know, I get inspired by the weirdest things! To start, I painted all my nails with Essie 'Blanc' and a layer of La Femme 'Fairy Dust' for some sparkle :) Using my trusty striping brush, I painted two wavy lines on each nail in Essie 'Coat Azure' and Rimmel 'Peppermint' . I swapped the colours around to make things a bit more interesting. Then it was time to do the cute sailing boats! I used my striping brush (I pretty much use this for all my nail art now-it's just so very versatile) and Barry M 'Blackberry' to paint basic boat shapes on the 'waves'. For a nice contrast, I painted a couple of boats in 17 'Orange Soda' on my accent nails. I finished it all off with OPI 'RapiDry' to...

Hey Hey Hey!! Is it just me or is anybody else totally ready for autumn??? It's my favourite season and I adore everything about it!! The food, the colours, the smells and especially the beautiful tone of light you get- lovely and dramatic all at once!! However, my nail polishes are not quite ready to wave goodbye to bright colourful manicures. Need to churn out the last of my summery nail art ideas!! Well, I say summery but you can see those autumnal colours (orange, purple and lime) sneaking in! Anyway, I started with 3 thin coats of Barry M 'Dragonfruit' before painting on Barry M 'Blueberry' diagonally across each nail. On my middle finger and thumb I painted the half in the opposite angle. This took a couple of coats but it didn't get lumpy which was pretty helpful! Using my striping brush, I painted little star shaped flowers on each nail in Essie 'Blanc' and Barry M 'Key Lime' . Then, using the same brush but loading it with a...

Good Evening Sweeties!! When I first started seeing 'framed' nail art around the internet, I wasn't that blown away by them. They kinda look a tad bit too cartoonish for me (I admit that this could just be my imagination, ha!) and would in all likelihood emphasise my teeny tiny nails! But as with most things involving art, they started to grow on me to the extent that I felt I just had to give them a go!!   I also wanted to showcase a really beautiful glitter and try it out on different colours so I went for five different nail polishes! On my thumb, I used Barry M 'Blue Moon' which is such a subtly stunning colour. It has a blue sheen to it which can't actually be seen on the nail but gives a pearlescent glowy finish without being frosty!! The other colours were; 17 'Parma Violet' (pointer), China Glaze 'Dandy Lyin' Around' (middle), Barry M 'Navy' (ring) and China Glaze 'Pink-ie Promise' (pinkie). Then I paint...

Hello Everyone!! I've been doing nail art for over a year now, so I want to raise my game! As I'm better at geometric patterns than themed art, I decided to start with what I know but take it to the next level. Usually, when I do a tape manicure, I stop there but this time I thought why not add to that?? I may have gone a tad overboard. .. . .  . I started with a couple of coats of Essie 'Blanc' as underwear for Orly 'Glowstick' . This nail polish really lives up to it's name!! and it's so much easier to apply when over white- no streaks just BRIGHT BRIGHT goodness!! I used OPI 'RapiDry Topcoat' on all my nails before applying striping tape in angled strips and Barry M 'Silver Foil' over 'Glowstick' . At this point, I absolutely loved my nails but there wasn't much skill involved so far so I carried on. But I am definitely doing it as a manicure all of it's own!!     I then started to add random shapes u...