Holographic Floral Nailart Inc. Artsy Wednesday - Vintage

Hi there Guys and Girls, I hope you're having a great Sunday.

I've had a pretty good weekend, I bought Zoo, a book by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge, which was about all the animals in the world going bonkers, unfortunately I found I couldn't put it down, and I finished it this morning, so I will have to by another book now!  Also I bought some art stuff, which I'm pretty excited to play with.  I need another couple of days in the weekend to fit everything in.

This morning I woke up, and the sun was beating through the curtains, and I looked at my poor bare nails, and thought HOLO, because that's what us naileys do.  If you're one too, you'll obviously know this.

And also, as you can see from the post title, I couldn't do this weeks Artsy Wednesday, as it clashed with my blogiversary post (link) so while I was lying there in bed, I was thinking up with something that ticked both boxes.  Hopefully this manicure does that, I think it does anyway:

I see now that my cleanup wasn't brilliant, how come I never notice in real life, only when I come to resize my photos?  The base polish for this manicure is Jessica's Hologram Chic in Disco Diva.  I did a full review of it (here) but if you don't want to click about, here's what it looks like by itself:

This was two coats, over the basecoat polish that came with it in the Hologram Chic kit, and application was lovely, no bare patches or streaking.  The holo is much stronger in real life, but as with all holos, it's a bit camera shy.

I think the vintage look shows a bit better in the shade, it reminds me a bit of seventies wallpaper:

I used Nails Inc's Chelsea, which looks black in the the bottle, but as you can see it's really a dark plum, to stamp over the silver base, using Bundle Monster plate BM-224, and then used quite a few of my Pretty Jelly holos and A-England Holy Grail (the old version) to fill in the centres of the flowers using my trusty purple dotter.

Here they all are:

Left to right, top to bottom:
Layla Hologram Effect in Retro Pink - full review (here)
Nails Inc Chelsea - see how black it looks in the bottle?
Bundle Monster plate BM-224
A-England Holy Grail - swatches and review (here)
Jessica Hologram Chic - full review (here)
Pretty Jelly Glamorous Thief
Pretty Jelly Grape Escape - review (here)
Pretty Jelly Bullet Rouge, one of my favourites - review (here)
Pretty Jelly Fairy Ring - review (here)

And, I'll leave you with one last sunshiny pic, happily I've got my cuticles back to the point where I don't need to mess about with them in my editing program, which makes the photo part of blogging MUCH faster, thank goodness.  Sally Hansen's Healthy Cuticles Now certainly seems to work.  I should do a post about it.  How many times do I say this?

Don't forget to check out what the other girls in the Artsy Wednesday goup came up with for their vintage nails

Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (link)
Alanna at Pretty Purple Polish (link)

Maria at Maria's Nail Polish Blog (link)

Melanie at Nail and Polish (link)
Jessica at Beauty Gnome (link)
Emily at An Accent Nail (link)
Ameerah at Valiantly Varnished (link)

They're all great designs, and I hope I can keep up with them all and their creativity!

So, what do you think, do you think of holos as soon as the sun comes out like I do?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Pretty Jelly - Grape Escape Review

Hi there!

The sun came out :-)

This means it's holo time!  The next one on my to-try list is another polish from the Pretty Jelly Glamorous Thief collection that I bought recently.  I've already reviewed Bullet Rouge from the same collection, and you can see that post HERE

I was in two minds as to whether to swatch any polishes this weekend, as I still have that slash on my cuticle, but as I don't feel like I've seen any sunshine for MONTHS, who knows when my next chance will be?  So I decided to go for it, and cover up the slash with my watermark, YOLO, right?

So here's Grape escape in all its sunshine-y glory:

Awesome, eh?  It's a lovely mid-toned purple, leaning to the lavender side, and really wearable.  I still haven't managed to catch the real life holo loveliness properly, as it looked much more holo than it appears in these pictures.  Definitely this could be office appropriate though, as in the shade it looks just as pretty but in a less 'disco' way:

This photo also shows the finish nicely too.  This is two coats over regular base coat and no top coat.  The formula was lovely to apply, and very forgiving, as I dug the brush into the first coat accidentally when I was applying the second coat.  Other polishes could have made a bald spot clumping argument about that, but this polish said 'hey mistakes happen, let me smooth that out for you', and it did, nice.  It left the brush (which was one of the thin-ish type, not pro-wide or flat) at a nice controllable speed and didn't flood or clump.  Dry time was medium-fast.  I like alot.

As a large swathe of the UK, including us here in Cumbria, have had alot of snow this week, I thought I would carry on the theme with snowy nail art.  Looking through my stamping plates, I was surprised to realise I only have one full nail snowflake plate design, so it wasn't really a hard decision which one to use. Bundle Monster BM-323.  I tried a few different polishes with this plate.  Barry M Indigo worked really well, but it wasn't really the look I was going for. 

The Essie Borrowed and Blue I bought from Amazon was delivered this week.  I have been so disappointed with it.  The colour is really pretty, but the formula is awful!  Plus I thought Essies had wide brushes now, and mine has a thin brush in.  Clumpy, floody, just a bottle of yuk.  So imagine my happy surprise when I discovered it stamps perfectly!

Here's what I came up with:

As you can see from the photo, I'd lost the sun, so I took a pic under the kitchen lights so the holo could come out to play:

I'm really pleased with how this came out.  It's definitely gone onto my list of 'lets do this one again' manis.

And just because I can, here's a picture of the polish nestling in the snow:

Just one little green shoot sneaking up past the cap, spring is trying to peek its way through!

Pretty Jelly polishes can be bought in the US HERE for $10 each, they are 3-free and cruelty free, so it's all good.

What do you think?  Do you own this one? 

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

A-England Princess Sabra - Review and Nail Art

Hiya again!

Today has been a day of excesses for me.  I stayed in bed too late, went shopping and spent too much, came home and ate too much junk food, and didn't get any housework done.  Slapped hands. 

Well, never mind, on the positive side, I've FINALLY bought myself a pair of work shoes that actually fit me, rather than struggling on with the ones I bought before Christmas that are way too narrow, and making my toes swell up.  I just didn't want to think I'd wasted my money as they cost me £40, but I've finally admitted defeat and thrown them in the bin.

Also, it's impossible for me not to buy polish at the moment, as spring is coming and all the pretty pastels are in the shops.  I adore pastels, and I bought 3 from Marks & Spencer which I'll swatch for you another day, they're so pretty in the bottle I hope they don't let me down.  I've also ordered Essie's Borrowed and Blue, as it looks like the perfect powder blue I've been looking for, fingers crossed!

Anyway, on to business.  Recently A-England had a fab sale where all their polishes were reduced to £6 each. Two of them I bought straight away, Princess Tears and Princess Sabra, and three, Tristram, Dragon and Lady of the Lake I ordered later.  Princess Tears and Princess Sabra were delivered on Friday, so I swatched Princess Sabra yesterday.

A-England have a lovely way of creating a background story for all their polishes, Princess Sabra's story on the website is "The heart-stoppingly beautiful daughter of the king, whose misfortune it was to have her name drawn as the next sacrificial victim of the dragon".  The founder of A-England, Adina, has based the colour of this polish on the eyes of her cat, Tristam.  She describes it thus:  Alluringly feline golden olive bronzite, the sacrificial Princess constantly shifts with her elusive, myriad hues.

So let's get on with the swatches.  Here's how it looks out in the garden.  Yesterday was cloudy and overcast:

It looks to me like a greenish toned antique gold.  This is two coats over basecoat with no topcoat.  The formula was nice, and has seemed pretty consistent across all the A-Englands I've tried so far.  Dry time was medium/fast. 

There is some scattered holo in this, but don't buy it expecting a holo fest, or you'll be disappointed.  However the best thing about it was that it's kind of metallic, and no brush strokes!  I hate brush strokes, I think it completely ruins any look of sophistication a polish might have.

It doesn't completely do my skintone justice at the moment, but I think in the summer when I get a bit of colour it will be perfect.  Here's another outdoor pic:

Try as I might, I couldn't really get the holo to show in my pics.  Here's the nearest I got, you can kind of see it up near my cuticles:

To jazz it up a bit I used some small circle stickers to mask off an area of my nail, then stamped using the snakeskin effect on Bundle Monster plate BM-215, and an Elf polish called Chocolate, along with NYC polish Canal Street blobbed randomly.  As it was I needn't have bothered doing that as the mottled effect I had planned didn't really show, but hey-ho it was worth experimenting because you never know:

In my impatience I smudged my index (pointer) finger with my SV topcoat, but it's not too noticeable, so I didn't bother to re-do.  Here's a final pic, taken under the kitchen lights.  Again, the holo allllmost comes out to play:

All in all, I like this polish.  I don't own anything like it, and I think it's going to make a versatile neutral-ish base for a lot of looks.  I can also see this coming out alot around Christmas time (I know it's a long way away, but planning ahead), and already I'm wondering what it might look like with Nubar Black Polka Dot over it, also safari/animal prints... and so on.....

It's available with free international shipping for £9 on the A-England Website HERE.

What do you think?  Are you a fan of gold toned colours?  I am, even though they don't do me any justice haha, I keep at them!

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Pretty Jelly Bullet Rouge - Review and and Nail Art

Hi everyone!

Hope your Saturday's going well.  I've had a day of biscuits, Dexter, and swatching, so I'm a pretty happy bunny, as you can imagine. 

I'm managing to stick with Detox January, no alcohol so far this year.  Saturday mornings are so much easier this way, I'm starting to wonder whether to stick with this all the time unless I'm going out.  And seeing as I don't go out much AT ALL, that would mean hardly any drink.  Perhaps that's a good thing, as I don't seem to be missing it much.  We'll see, I might change my mind completely on the 1st February haha.

Today I bring you a review of a polish that's part of a set unfortunately not available in the UK.  Luckily for me I have a good friend in the States who sent them to me, a million thanks to Wes at Polish Me Manly

This is an indie line called Pretty Jelly and this holographic collection is called Glamorous Thief.  The first polish I've chosen to swatch is called Bullet Rouge.  The name would make you expect it to be red, and indeed on their website it's described as a magenta-red, but to me it looks more like a slightly muted fuschia, and in some lights a dusky pink. 

It's been an incredibly cloudy and dull day here today, with flakes of snow, not a day to bring out the best in holo's, but here's what it looks like in cloudy daylight.  As you can see, the holo doesn't show so much in that light but I think it gives a good idea of what the base colour looks like without the sparkles.  This is two coats:

Application was lovely, this is my first indie polish, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was easily as good as any others I've tried, including the high end brands.  The formula was quite thin(ish), but opaque in one coat, however I did two to give me the depth of colour I wanted.  As you can see it self levelled nicely over my ridged nails, and dry time was medium-fast, I was very pleasantly surprised!  It reminded me alot of A-Englands formula.

But, of course, none of this is its piece de resistance.  First and foremost its main appeal is that it's a holo, and we need some better lighting to show that.  Ideally I would like to wait for a sunny day and do this properly, but as this is January in the North of England, I think we'd be waiting a while.  Therefore I've gone back to my trusty kitchen under-cabinet lights, and we'll just have to imagine a lovely sunny day instead:

Pretty eh?  As I mentioned, this is two coats, over a regular base coat and no top coat.  As much as I love looking at super duper swatches that make polishes look awesome, I'd like my swatches to accurately represent as best I can what you can expect if you buy this polish and get it home.  Too many times I've been disappointed by a polish, because I've bought it on the back of a swatch which probably had aqua base, four coats of colour, and Seche Vite on the top.

Because I can't get enough of the holo loveliness, here's another pic:

There is more holo to this in real life than shown in these pics, my camera just didn't want to pick it up.  The brush was quite thin, which was strange to work with after all the pro-wide brushes out there at the moment, but it didn't hamper the application in any way.

 

So me being me, then I wanted to do some nail art over it.  I've re-found my mojo for stamping lately, so I got my plates out:

I used Konad special polish in black for the stamping.  The bows are from Konad plate M59, and the hibiscus on my accent finger are from Bundle Monster plate BM-318.  I didn't get the bows on straight, but they are a definite improvement on my past efforts to line stamps up so I must be learning something.  I kind of wish I'd done the flowers on all the nails because I really like how they came out, but I'll try that another day. 

 

Heres another pic, I'll make this the last one, I promise!

You can buy these polishes by going to the Liquid Jelly website HERE the full size bottles like the one I got are $10.

 

The polishes are 3-free and cruelty free, so you can shop with a clear conscience.

 

I also have the other three colours from this collection to swatch, so watch this space!

 

Are holos amongst your favourites too, or do you prefer glitter for your bling fix?  What do you think of this one?  If you have any polishes similar to this, I'd be intrigued to hear about them, I don't think I could ever have too many.

 

Until next time...

 

MASPOOASE x x x

~Wendy~

Christmas Nail Art Challenge - Day 8 - Ornaments

Hi there again!

Hope you're doing fine, and that you're almost ready for Christmas, less thank a week now!  I've posted all my cards off, just got the wrapping to do, and it's all done, then I can relaaaaax.

Here we are at day 8 of the challenge!  Just 4 left to do, and today is ornaments.  I'm back to stamping today.  Here's what I came up with:

The base coat is Barry M Gelly in Blackberry.  I really liked the formula of this, this is one coat, and even without a topcoat it was really shiny.  It also dried pretty quick and was self levelling - fab!

I then used No.7 Stay Perfect in Disco Nights to stamp the ornament-y pattern using Bundle Monster plate BM314.  It stamps really nicely, but dries super quick, so you can't leave it on your stamper for long lining it up, you just have to get it on your nail sharpish!

Then on my middle finger accent nail I used Bundle Monster plate BM225 to stamp the bauble, and a bit of the first stamp across the edge of my nail because the bauble on its own looked a bit bare.  I used Sally Hansen Chrome polish in Ruby Chrome for the bauble.

Here's another pic, I found a prop lol:

Once again I've tried to shy away from traditional Christmassy colours, just to mix it up a bit, I think this combination works well.  Theres a coat of Seche over everything.

Just time for the close up:

Here's a reminder of what's left to come, only four left to go and my blog will go back to normal weekend posting (which will be a relief, probably for you too!):



So I'll be seeing you again on the 21st, with wreath nails, as long as the Mayans weren't on to something.  If it's my last day on earth I'll be too busy guzzling the G&T's!

 

Until next time (hopefully)...

 

MASPOOASE x x x

~Wendy~

Nail Art for Wear It Pink! Breast Cancer Campaign 2012

Hi everyone!

Yes I know it's strange me posting on a Thursday, this is just a little extra post as I've done my nails tonight, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I hope you noticed my new header!  I'm super-pleased with it, I haven't got all the fancy schmancy photoshop etc, so I was lucky that I'd taken a nice pic of a butterfly on a road while I was out on a walk, and I could add some text with my greeting card software.  Work with what you've got, right?

Anyway, tomorrow is 'Wear It Pink' day at work, you donate £2 and you get to wear pink, pretty much everyone at work does it, even the fellas!  Some people go in fancy dress, but I'm just wearing a pink jumper and some red bootcut corduroys, so fetching lol!  If you want to find out more about this incredibly worthy cause, you can at http://www.wearitpink.co.uk/

But of course I had to do something with my nails - I've kept it relatively simple (for me) and gone with a Bundle Monster stamp BM321 from their 2012 collection.  It was the obvious choice really. 

This is what I came up with:

I started off with an experimental base coat of Andrea Fulerton Peel Off Varnish in red, which you can't see, because I covered it with the lovely opaque one-coat pinkiness of OPI Mod About You.  If you've been looking for an opaque pale pink, look no further!  This is actually a little bit washed out to how it actually looks, but as it's pitch black outside, this was the closest I could get for you.

Here's a pic of the BM plate - they're so tricky to photograph without getting a reflection of yourself in it!  I nearly managed it:

To stamp with I used Konad's Princess Polish Psych Pink - I love that name!  It's super bright in the bottle, but a bit more 'normal' bright pink once stamped:

Ok, get ready for your close up, fingers:

As you can see, I also blinged it up a little bit with NYC's glitter top coat Gramercy Glitz which is pastel glitter in a peachy clear base.  A top coat of Seche Vite and I was done.  Here's the bottle shot:

To be honest, I wasn't 100% satisfied with these, the stamping isn't very crisp, there's a little bit of peely bit at the top of my ring finger, and I'd just thinned my Seche, so it blurred the stamping a little bit more....  I nearly took it off and re-did it, but then I realised...

This isn't about me or my nails.... its about raising money for this worthy charity, and if my not quite perfect nails remind of that, well then they're doing what they're supposed to, aren't they?

Until next time.....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~