Models Own Southern Lights & Bundle Monster 321

 

Just a quick one - I thought the sparkliness of Models Own Southern Lights was so gorgeous, that I would try stamping over it, as I didn't want to take it off just yet.  I wanted to keep it quite subtle so I used the flower image from Bundle Monster plate 321 from the 2012 collection and stamped it with Konad White Special Stamping polish - I like the effect, it looks rather wintery!  The snowflakes would look lovely as well, but I didn't want to use them as I have some very pretty snowflake stickers that I want to use at some point, so went with the flowers this time.  Getting better at this stamping malarkey!

As before, I had to take these under my kitchen lights to try and get a hint of the sparkle (nothing like what you see in real life!) so apologies for seeing anything like shadows and tiles in the background.

Base coat Orly Bonder
2-3 coats Southern Lights
Top coat Seche Vite
Stamped with plate BM321 and Konad Special Stamping Polish in White

 

 

Models Own Southern Nights

I did say I was going to stamp something pretty over the Barielle Secret Encounter that I swatched the other day, but don't you just know it, less than 24 hours later, massive chips everywhere put me off!

So here we have another untried - Models Own Southern Lights from their Wonderland collection.   Southern Lights is a lilacy grey base, PACKEDD with fairly fine holo glitter.  The sparkle on this one is just WOW (I ended up painting my best friends four-year-olds nails with this too, but good for girlies young and old!). 

This would be great layered over another colour (I will try this at some point) or, as I did here, just layer it up until opaque.  I used 2-3 coats to get an opaque finish - it is a little rough textured, so I used Seche Vite to smooth the whole thing over.

Of course, holo is quite difficult to photograph, and I did my best but not that happy - and then I went into my kitchen with overhead halogen lights, and immediately found my rather large light box (my kitchen cabinets are cream, so are the backdrop haha).  So the first couple of pics are my normal light box, so you can see the soft lilacy-grey and then the last one is with my kitchen lights!  Unfortunately it did make my hands turn the colour of lobster....

Base coat Orly Bonder
2-3 coats Southern Lights
Top coat Seche Vite

 

OPI DS Glamour

 

Still full of yucky cold, so did a simple paint job, but with one of my most beautiful and prized polishes - OPI DS Glamour.  This was one of my very first lemmings, and when I got it, I almost didn't want to use it because I didn't want it to run out!  But of course, polishes are made to be worn.  Especially when your sinuses feel like big wads of cotton wool....

This is just a perfect polish - a gorgeous blue with a beautiful linear holo shimmer scattered through it.  It's just a pity there are no direct sunlight shots, but chance would be a fine thing!  It applies flawlessly in two coats (although not absolutely perfect, I didn't do any cleanup on this mani) and I just LOVE it.  Why, oh why did OPI stop making these original DS polishes?!   I didn't use any topcoat on this polish either. 

I was debating stamping over it, and couldn't - sometimes a polish is just perfect on its own.  Apologies about the pic overkill - I was trying to get all its different nuances under varying light sources.

As an aside, I am quite pleased with the general state of my nails at the moment - they are finally in a shape I am happy with (although I have a small split on my right hand....aaaargh!) and are growing like weeds.  All the cuticle oil and hand lotion I am slathering on seems to be doing its job!

Base coat Orly Bonder
2 coats OPI DS Glamour

 

Models Own Mystic Mauve & Purple Ash triangles

This is just a simple taped mani (sometimes my taping is good, sometimes terrible - today was "meh") using two polishes from Models Own - Mystic Mauve and Purple Ash.  I have also used OPI I Snow You Love Me from the Mariah Carey Holiday Collection 2013, but I will do a proper swatch on that at some point, as I didn't use it as a polish in this mani, I just picked bits out!

Mystic Mauve is a foil effect pale lilacy colour - very pretty and applies smoothly with hardly any streaking.  Purple Ash is a gorgeous dusty purple creme - I love this colour!   Again, it applies smoothly and as an aside, I really get on well with Models Own brushes! 

To finish off, I embellished the point of each triangle, using OPI I Snow You Love Me as a glequin source!  It actually worked okay - the pics don't show the holo effect massively, but there is a pattern on each circle, so it gives a pleasing 3d effect on the nail, while still laying flat. 

Base coat OPI Nail Envy
2 coats Mystic Mauve / Purple Ash, plus additional taping layer
Glitter from OPI I Snow You Love Me
Top coat Seche Vite

 

 

Barry M Guava with Barielle Starchild glitter tips

Barry M Guava is another polish from their Gelly collection.  I love these polishes - they are so glossy and high-shine, apply beautifully and have the most vibrant colours.  Guava is a gorgeous deep turquoise / aqua shade - another tricky one to capture, but I think it leans a little more green in real life.

I picked up a set of Barielle glitters from TK Maxx the other day (five for £8 - bargainous!) and used Starchild to daub on simple glitter tips over Guava.  Starchild is a clear base with a mixture of hexagonal holo glitters and a finer holo glitter.  It looks a little similar at first glance to my OPI Servin' Up Sparkle, but I haven't done a direct comparison, nor have I looked closely at SUS for quite a while.  Anything holo is always good though, and Starchild is gorgeous.

Base coat OPI Nail Envy, 2 coats Guava, top coat Seche Vite.

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

a england Saint George

I was very excited to try my very first order from a england, after drooling after swatches for months.  I bought this one (Saint George) from the Legend Collection, and She Walks In Beauty, which I will post about soon.  Let's just say, I don't think they'll be my last.

This is just such a beautiful polish - a rich, deep, sumptuous forest green and applies so smoothly  I used two coats for this, but you could get away with one coat if it was thick enough.  And in the depths of that gorgeous green, in the right light, you get the fine sparkling holo glitter showing through . Truly gorgeous.

However, I was an eejit on Friday and left my camera at work, so I tried to capture this on my Samsung Galaxy SIII.  Not terribly bad for camera phone pics, but not the best, and I decided they simply weren't good enough to do this lush polish justice, so had to wait till today to photograph it properly.  But then, today my new light box and lamp set turned up!  My desk looks like a photographers studio, but loving it, so included a couple of photos from my new setup, as well as sunlight pics.  I was dithering over the black and the white backgrounds for my tent, but upon looking at the photos, the black highlights the very fine hairs on my hand and makes me look like I have hairy knuckles - eeeew!  White it is.....  I am quite pleased with the results, but need to play a lot more to find out how to take the best piccies.

Nail Envy base, two coats, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

You can buy a england polishes from here - currently no international orders due to Royal Mail restrictions.  Saint George is £9.00.

Natural light

Sunlight

Lightbox

Lightbox

The start of it all: OPI DS Extravagance

Hi, welcome to my blog! I have kept a blog or two in the past, and have decided to devote a new blog to my nail polish obsession. I love to keep my nails looking pretty, polished and perfect, and chipped polish is a pet peeve. Makeup - meh, I can take it or leave it, I only tend to wear it on special occasions as I have pretty sensitive skin anyway, but polish .... ah polish. you can create a whole rainbow at the ends of your fingers.

It is a relatively recent thing. My nails used to be purely functional, to stop the ends of my fingers fraying. They didn't grow particularly well, until one day, a friend gave me a bottle of Nailtiques Formula 2. And then all of a sudden (it is truly wonderful stuff), I had nails that were growing more and more! However, I am not blessed with those nails with lovely pure white tips, they tend to look faintly grubby (even though they aren't), which is somewhat irritating. So I would have nice, safe, French manicures (pretty, but boring) or use cheapie polishes that fell off within a day.

And then one day, I found a whole host of blogs dedicated to nails and nail polish. And I saw a set of polishes that made my heart sing. They were the OPI DS series. Oh that beautiful, hologrammatic goodness. So I immediately went on the hunt on eBay, and managed to track them down the three I liked most - Original, Glamour and Extravagance.

Now, rather annoyingly, I appear to have misplaced my OPI DS Original (painful, huh - I moved house and county 11 months ago and don't remember seeing it since), but here is another one of those beauties that started the whole obsession off. OPI DS Extravagance.

I could stare at this in the sun all day. It was nicely summed up by a friend of mine: "It looks like the Twilight vampires in the sun...."

Such a gorgeous berry shade, that is mesmerising in the light. Not a particularly strong holo, in comparison to others such as DS Original, China Glaze OMG (sadly, I haven't managed yet to procure a bottle of this) or the Nfu Oh holo's which are all more linear - this is a more scattered twinkling. But very, very beautiful.

Two coats, with CND Stickey base coat and no top coat on this occasion.

Artificial lighting

Overcast natural light

Hello sun!

 

Indoors with flash

Time for your close-up, Ms Gorgeous

I hope you enjoyed my first post on this blog - until next time!