Artsy Wednesday: Designer-inspired - Joris Laarman

I hope you're doing great today?  I'm so excited to bring you todays nails. 

The weather's finally broken, and after 3 weeks of non stop dry and sunny weather, we've had storms for the last few days.  I don't mind that though, I think that one of the good things about living in the UK is that the weather seldom stays stable long enough to get bored of it.  What on earth would we make small talk about otherwise?

This weeks Artsy Wednesday theme is "designer inspired".  Of course it's not that long since I did my Louis Vuitton nails (link) so if I was really lazy, I could always repost them!  But I'm not really lazy (most of the time), so I came up with something else.

Rather than going down the fashion designer route, I took my inspiration from other quarters.  As well as nail art design, I also love interior design, particularly anything that's beautiful to look at as well as functional.  Form and function together really floats my boat :-)

There is a dutch design house started by a man called Joris Laarman who are really creating some inspirational and innovative designs.  One of my favourite creations is their furniture range called "Bone".

Here's the nail design I did based around one of their chairs:

I'm really happy with this design.  It came out even better than I planned.  The base polish is OPI Skull and Glossbones,  and then I mixed up black and white acrylic paints until I came up with a grey I was happy with.  In real life Skull and Glossbones is a taupe/grey and that really makes a difference.

Then I used my new BFF bargain nailart brush, the Daler Rowney spotter 10/0 brush from my blog post at the weekend (link) to paint on the design.

Here's a screenshot from the Joris Laarman website (link) to show you what I'm talking about:

How beautiful is this?  It's so elegant whilst managing to be Art Nouveaux yet modern.  I love it.

I picked small sections of the picture of the chair, and painted those on my nails.  Here's another pic:
I like that this design is abstract.  It's attracted alot of positive comments, and people have seen many different things in it, from trees to veins haha.

I even managed to do my other hand, although not quite so nicely of course:

I've definitely found this an addictive design.  I can't stop looking at it!  I love that it reminds me of that beautiful, beautiful, chair, without actually being a chair on my nails.

I'll be so sad when it chips and I have to take it off, but I suppose that just makes room for more designs :-)

The other girls in the Artsy Wednesday group will have done their nails too!  Here's their links:

Catrine at Unnaked Nails (link)
Michelle at Labmuffin (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)
Anna & Haylee at Makeup and Masala (link)
Rosemarie at Every Little Polish (link)

What do you think?  Do you like abstract designs?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

TX Maxx OPI Trio - Swatches and Review

Hi there again!

I've been back to my trusty ole TK Maxx, and yes, I've come away with lots of polishes as usual.  I really don't think I'll get round to swatching and reviewing all of them, especially now with the winter light preventing weekday swatching, but I've done these ones today for you. 

I have a massive blog post half way done about winter photography lighting, but I don't want to publish it until I successfully manage to find good lighting, and I haven't managed it yet.

Here's how they come packaged.  It's quite a cute little bag they come in with poppers on the top.  Waste not want not, I'm going to use it to keep my stamping plates in, as the little OPI bag I keep them in now is full to bursting.

As you can see I paid £14.99, which isn't too bad for three.  I don't really wear alot of pinks or reds, but I don't have many OPI's, so I thought I'd give them a go.

The first one I tried was on the left hand side, Be A Dahlia, Won't You.  It's alot pinker that it shows in my photos, in the bottle it looks like a red base with fuschia flecks.

Here's the first pic:

The first coat was a bit sheer, thin and a bit patchy, definite VNL.  Quite nice and flowy though.  If you don't mind a tiny bit of nail line, you could definitely get away with two coats.  By the third coat the VNL was pretty much gone, and the colour had a nice depth to it.  Dry time was medium.

Here's the close up:

It's not bad, but there are others like this in my collection which I like more.

The next one I tried was Big Hair, Big Nails.  From the first coat, I knew this wasn't one for me.  Here's the one coat pic:

Sheer enough for you?

However, in the interests of science (lol), I carried on with it, but I knew this was never going to opacity.  The formula was a little bit runny, but nice and smooth.

Here's what it looked like at three coats:

Such a shame, because it didn't give me lobster fingers, and it's quite hard to find a red that suits my skintone.

Here's the close up:

I know for a fact I won't ever wear this by itself, I'll maybe try layering it over a nude polish and see how that goes.

The last one I tried was Skull and Glossbones:

The formula was thin, and streaky at the first coat.  Dry time was medium/fast. The second coat self levelled nicely, but was still a bit patchy.  After 3 coats I still had a couple of bald spots at my cuticles, but these were pretty simple to cover.   And it was so worth it!  I love this colour.  It's a warm light grey creme, and it somehow has an ethereal look to it.

Here's another picture (I took lots):

It has a lovely shine to it, and it's definitely one I'll be reaching for alot.  Strangely, now winters on its way, and I should be embracing the darks, I seem to be having a pastel phase, oh well!

Finally, here's the brush shot:

All in all, a mixed bag.  But Skull and Glossbones redeems this set.  I highly recommend that one, the other two I wouldn't bother with personally, but am sure they'll come in handy for something! 

Until next time....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Revlon Top Speed 606 Stormy review and swatches

Hi everyone, sorry for making you wait until after the weekend for my regular post...

My blogging routine is all over the place, I had to work pretty much ALL DAY on Saturday, and then dash to the shops, by the time I got home it was late, and there's just no light left in the evenings now to take my pretty photos with, bah.   Sunday gets written off with visiting relatives each week, I took some polish to see if I could do some swatches, but I wasn't able to.

So, I've ordered a cheapie lighting photo set up thing from Amazon, hopefully that will mean I can do swatches in the evening and still get half decent colour accurate pictures, that way I'm not just stuck with blogging at weekends, I'll review it anyway when it comes, so you can see if it's worth getting or not.

But... it's not the weekend now, I hear you say?  Well, I've tried to be a bit cunning.  I painted my nails last night, took the photos in my car on my lunch break, and now I'm doing the post in the evening, so it's taken 24 hours to get to the point where I can actually write my post, and I have no idea yet if my photos will be any good.  If not I'll just have to do my best with the kitchen lighting.. sigh...

Anyway, let's get on with the swatches and review!

I bought this polish in store from Superdrug and paid £6.49 but I've looked and they don't have it on their website.  However I've seen it much cheaper than that when I just looked on Amazon, LINK here - isn't it always they way?

OK then, I've just looked at the photos I took today and they're awful, sigh....  off I go to try and take some half decent ones in indoor lighting, wish me luck!

Here's the first one:

The colour is warmer than it's showing here, think a taupe-y grey rather than just a flat grey.  As you can see I added some nail gems, I absolutely love the look of them against this polish, they remind me of drops of honey.  They're actually faceted, but I used so much top coat to try and keep them on that they've become cabouchons lol!  The topcoat I used was Sally Hansen Insta-dry, which is another polish I'm not so keen on, but it needs to be used up, which is why I used it.  I actually got alot of bubbling in my topcoat, which is why all my day time photos looked so awful but actually in real life they're not so noticeable.  You can see them around the gems in this next pic though:

However, with using so much topcoat, it's been 24 hours, I've washed my hair, peeled the potatoes, been typing all day, and I still have all my gems, and no chipping on my nails, so it has its benefits.

On to the review.  I love the colour, but I hate the formula!  It managed to be runny, patchy, floody and bumpy, worse on the first coat, and with another coat and a bit of clean up it was a half decent finish, but not as good as I would have liked.  The fact that I even bothered with a clean up and didn't just take it off is a testament to how much I like this colour, the photos really don't do it justice, so frustrating!  Dry time was medium to fast.

So here's a picture of the brush sitting on top of my glamorous (lol) pine tea caddy, it was a little bit too soft for my liking, and added to the application issues:

And finally, for completeness, here's a picture of the gems I bought.  I bought them from Amazon UK HERE is the link, I didn't have any problems with the speed of shipping etc, and they were less than a fiver, bargain! :

So, to sum up, if the formulation were better on this polish, I would wear it all the time!  Such a shame, but I will still struggle on with it, because when I'm wearing it, and I look at my nails, it makes me smile. 

And after all, that's rather the point, isn't it?

Until next time....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~