Millennium Nails Nail Striper Review and Comparison

Happy Weekend to you!
 
Typically, as winter is pretty much here now, and everyone is rocking their cool dark mani's, I've been digging pastels and neons!  Yes, it may just be the contrariness in me, but what the hey.  I've also been having a bit of a stripe frenzy.  These two things came together and demanded that I buy a pastel yellow striping polish.  Could I find one on the whole of the internet? NO!
 
I do own some striping brushes, and some pastel yellow polish, but for some reason I really can't enjoy striping like that.  It's alot of messing about, cleaning brushes with polish remover while wearing the polish and trying not to smudge anything.... too much hassle for me!  So striping polishes are ideal, all packaged up nicely, and when you're finished, just pop the lid back on and you're away!
 
So anyway, I couldn't find a pale yellow one.  Lots of pastels in green, blue, pink, but no yellow.  I decided what I would do is buy a white one and add some yellow polish to it, voila! A pale yellow one.  Now as this is obviously a bit experimental, I don't want to buy an expensive striper, but likewise, I don't want a rubbish one either, as some of the stripers I've bought in the past have been a bit pants.  So I found this cheap one on Amazon, only £2.39 plus £1.55 P&P, there weren't any reviews for it, and I couldn't find any on blogs anywhere (hence this review), but I took the plunge anyway. HERE'S the link
 
I thought I would show a comparison against my trusty Color Club white striper, which I love, to give you an idea of the quality, and actually I quite like how it came out, which surprised me, as I'm not a great fan of red nails on me.

Without further ado, lets get on with the pics.  I used the Millennium Nails striper on my index and middle finger, and the Color Club striper on my ring finger and little (pinky) finger:

As you see, there is a TINY amount of difference.  The Color Club is slightly more opaque, and where the lines begin at my cuticle is a bit neater.  This is because the Millennium Nails brush wasn't completely even at the tip, am wondering if I can maybe give the brush a bit of a trim with my nail scissors to improve it.

But, actually, for the price, not bad.  Here's another pic:

The bottle is glass, and not the same one shown in the Amazon pic.  It made me giggle, because the writing on it says "YCC Stripping Pen".  Not a pen, and certainly not a stripper!

Anyhow, for anyone who's interested in seeing the undies for this mani, it's Maybelline Express Finish in Cherry, which is a nice bright red, a bit darker than it's showing in my pics, a bit of VNL in one coat (which is all I used), but for the purposes of this mani that didn't bother me:

And finally, here's a pic of the actual brushes, I couldn't find a pic like this anywhere before I bought the striper, so hopefully someone stumbles across this if they're looking to buy.  Apologies for the slightly scruffy background, it was the only black piece of card I could find:

As you can see, the Millennium Nails one is slightly longer, but both brushes have a nice firm spring to them, and both were nice to hold and use.  Maybe I should have cleaned off the neck of my Color Club one before taking the photo haha.  Amazon says the Millennium has 8ml in it, whereas the Color Club has 7ml.

So, in summary:

If the Millennium Nails stripers came with free P&P, they would be a total bargain.  As it is, with the shipping they pretty much come alongside the better quality Color Club ones, which have free shipping.  So if you're looking at both, I would say get the Color Club one.  I haven't done my yellow experiment yet, but will let you know how it goes!

Until next time....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Nailart: 3 colours, two different ways

Morning All,

I know it's only 11am on Saturday, but so far this weekends going brilliantly!  Finally I've finished my physio for my achilles problem, and she said I can try a small run, so off I went this morning, and it was awesome!  They're are still a bit sore, and she said I can only go once a week at first, and not far, but it's soooo good to get back out in the fresh air and out of breath again.  Also, that means no more Saturday working yaaaaayyyyy!!!!

But enough of me, onto the nail art, that's what brought you here, right?

Friday night is nail art night for me, and last night, I knew I wanted to do something stripy, but I wasn't sure which colours etc to use.  So I went upstairs, tipped a load of polishes out of their baskets onto the bed and just picked about, and experimented on a nail wheel until I found a combo I liked.  A very happy hour that was!

So here's the first look I came up with:

This is the look is was going for when I ended up with my Black Forest Gateaux nailart (LINK), I've finally sussed out tape manicures after some good advice from Sammy at The Nailasaurus (LINK). 

She suggested I use Seche Vite over my base colour, wait five minutes, and then only lightly apply my tape, and then I wouldn't get the problem I'd had, which was my base colour coming up with the tape, and she was spot on!

Firstly I used a base coat, then a base colour coat of Nails Inc Devonshire Row.  This is one coat, and that was enough, one coater, great formula, gotta love it.  Then I taped off the top of my nails using a cheap Wilko rip-off of Scotch Invisible tape.  I stuck the tape to my hand a few times first so it wasn't super-duper sticky.

Then I striped all the stripes completely in white.  Firstly to make sure they were evenly spaced, and secondly so that the white base would make the yellow show up nicely, and for once, all my ideas worked out first time.  If I were to to it again, I'd maybe be a bit more careful with my stripes, but that's just the perfectionist in me coming out.  Heres another pic of it:

Now, as much as I like this look, I decided to do something different on my other hand.  I went a bit more freeform this time.  Like the last look, I did the whole design in white first, then went over some of it with the yellow.  This is what I got:

This shouts 80's to me, and Inkynails13, one of my Twitter friends, called it Punk Tiger Nails, and I LOVE that description, it's just right!  The slightly scrappy overlapping works in its favour I think.  Heres another pic:

I actually want to try this design again in true 80s colours, black, grey and red, would be fun!

Here's the polishes I used:

I am really liking the fact that I've got a different design on each hand, but using the same colours to tie the two together.  I think this might become a regular thing for me!  Which one's your favourite?

So to carry on this super duper weekend, am off shopping, where I may happen to stumble over a polish or two...

Until next time....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Black Forest Gateaux Nail Art

Happy Saturday everyone!

Last Saturday of freedom for a while boooo!  And my car didn't get mended haha!  Oh well, the ongoing saga will have to remain ongoing. 

Today's nail art didn't end up anything like I was intending it to, and when I'd finished it, I wasn't sure if I really liked it or not, but I still ended up taking a bazillion photos of it anyway.

My original intention was to paint my nails in an autumny colour, then use some striping tape halway down my nails in a pale colour, then mask off again, add some vertical stripes, then pull the striping tape off, so it all looked clean and nice.  Didn't end up at all like that. 

My first attempt to peel off my striping tape took off my base polish (yes I swore), so I decided to freehand the line.  Then when I came to stripe over it, they came out more bold than I intended, and weren't neat at the top.  So I delineated with a gold glitter striper, and this is what I ended up with:

This is in shaded light, so here we go on our usual tour round the house for my other pics.

This is in the shade in the front garden (I love that licheny wall as a backdrop for nail pics):

This is down at the bottom of the garden where I finally found some sun (the neighbours are probably saying, theres that loony out again taking pictures of her hands, come and look!) especially as I tripped up the step coming back in:

This is me leaning out the front bedroom window (thats the porch roof in the background):

You can really see in this picture why it reminds me of black forest gateaux, the black cherry of the base coat, and the chocolate stripes, makes me hungry just thinking about it!

And last but not least I took a pic under the kitchen lights:

The bit I like most about this is that it's made me realise that this gold glitter striper (that I haven't used before) reminds me very much of tinsel, and I think I'll be able to use this exact same technique, only using different colours, for a really effective Christmas nail art look, exciting!

Here's the polishes I used:

Color Club Gold glitter striper (came in a set from TK Maxx)
Precision Nail Art Striping Brush in brown (bought from Amazon UK)
NYC polish in Canal Street (Bought online at Superdrug and reviewed HERE )
Color Club Perfect Mol-Ten bought at TK Maxx and reviewed HERE )

And there we have it, thats todays nails!

I hope you enjoyed looking at them, and until next time.....

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~

Nail Art Tutorial - Skyscrapers

I am sooo excited to be bringing this to you - my first ever nail art tutorial!  I will start off by saying that this idea came completely from my own head, I haven't copied anyone elses idea or seen this done anywhere else.  That doesn't mean that it hasn't ever been done, there aren't so many original ideas left anymore, and I'm sure someone else could do it better than me. 

Please feel free to use my idea however you wish, copy it, modify it, link to this blog, whatever.  I'm not precious like that, and I'm not egotistical enough to insist 'oh, make sure you credit me if you use it'... NO! You sure as heck don't have to!  I'm big for sharing ideas, I think that's the greatest thing about the internet, people getting together with common interests and sharing.

So there's my two penneth, lets get on to the money shot - this is what I did, and I'll be showing you how I did it:

So obviously, we'll need some tools, and here are the ones I used, it looks like alot, but it's actually not, will tell you about them as we go along...



Step 1 (optional) : Base coat.  I always use a base coat but I know some people who don't.  I used Matte Nail Envy as my nails are in awful condition right now and I'm trying to improve them.

Step 2 : Base colour.  I used light blue, as I wanted it to look like the sky.  I have farrrr to many light blues, but the one I chose was Nails Inc Albert Place.  A true sky blue, and awesomely this was only one coat:

Step 3: Sketch out your skyscrapers.  I used a silver nail art polish, as its not too intrusive, and it doesn't matter so much if a little bit is left showing at the end.  Basically its just sets of straight(ish) lines so not too tricky.  It was hard to get it to show up on photos but hopefully you can see it.

Step 4: Colour your skyscrapers in with a grey polish.  I used another Nails Inc polish, this one's called Parliament Hill.  I think it tones well with the blue I used, but obviously you can use any grey you've got.  There are two places in this manicure where you have to be patient and wait for it to dry properly, and this is the first.  You really should wait for this step to dry before going on to the next.  It doesn't matter about going over the silver, I just painted straight over it as you don't need the vertical lines any more.

Step 5: Outline your skyscrapers.  I used a Color Club striping polish which I got from TK Maxx in a set.  I don't mind too much about getting it on my fingers, can clean that off later.

Step 6: Dotting. We need to dot the windows in.  I hope you like dotting because there's alot!  The polish I used for the dots was L'Oreal Colour Riche in 'Black Swan', just because that's the only black I've got. 

I'm using an old broken ceramic tile to lean on, and have a cotton pad dampened with polish remover on there to rub my dotter on so I don't get any dry polish building up on it. 

I started off with the purple dotter, but found it too big so changed to the yellow one.  These are the 'cheeky' dotters from Amazon, here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dotting-Double-Marbling-Different-Cheeky/dp/B005FJQQMC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340999194&sr=8-2 This is what it looked like part way through:

Step 7: Lots of dots later, you should pretty much have your finished nail art!  I took a picture to try and show you the finish, its a bit lumpy and bumpy, but it was impossible to capture.... This is one nailart where I would say it's definitely worth topcoating.  I used Seche Vite as my topcoat.  This is the second place where you have to be patient and wait for everything to dry before you topcoat, or your dots will smudge.

After your topcoat - voila!

Nailart to be proud of!  If you've got something for striping, and something for dotting, you can have a go at this!

Would love to hear your comments, or if you have a go, let me see!

Until next time,

MASPOOASE X X X