It’s Time Nailartforfunn Went NEON!!

 

 

 

 

I know neon nails has been done but not by me! I never really bothered with that look this summer. I think it’s because I was focused on the wedding and all things french manicure-y. Yes, I made up a word. I do that a lot.

Pic 1 topcoat is OPI’s The Living Daylights, Pic 2 OPI’s The Man With The Golden Gun, Pic 3 MODI.

Yesterday I went into Penney’s (Primark). For those of you who don’t know Penney’s it sells everything from clothes, to shoes, to accessories, and it’s REALLY cheap. I went in to buy furry cuddley socks. I came out with 20 euro worth of stuff! Including these nail polishes. There were actually 4 in the pack but the neon yellow one had turned into a putty, so I didn’t bother with that one.

All four only cost 2.50! Couldn’t pass that up! The bottles are only 6ml and they smell strong when applied. Each polish needed just 2 coats, except the green which needed 3 to cover bald spots.

 

 

I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more bargain polishes from now on!

 

 

Which one is your favourite? I think mine is the first one. That orange-y tang is quite cheerful!

 

 

 

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

Here’s another waterfall manicure that I did a few weeks ago. I chose these colours to match a new dress.

I used;

Modi hardener, OPI’s Fly, Essie’s First Timer, Coverl Girl’s, Glosstinis (yellow), Sephora’s Social Climber, Sinful Colours’ Dream On, and Seche Vite topcoat.

I love the dress  because the skirt is really light and flows. The top is comfortable and dressy enough for evening wear. I got it in a store here called Pamela Scott’s.

Here’s a close up of the skirt.

Purple Waterfall Nails

For my wedding day I had a french manicure. I went to the spa and had Shellac nails done in the nail salon for the first time. They lasted really well, more than two weeks. The salon charges 10euro to remove the polish. While I was in there excitedly chattering about my wedding, the nail technician and I started to talk about nail art. I eventually told her about my blog, and she even asked me to write down the name so she could check it out! Such a compliment! She also told me if I bought a bottle of acetone I could take off the Shellac myself. I’ve never used acetone before. I’ve always just used nail polish remover. I found a bottle for 2.99 and took off the Shellac yesterday! It was a great tip, because then I used it to clean all my brushes, and tidy up the lines around the cuticle for this manicure! It also saved me money and an unnecessary trip to the nail salon. To remove the Shellac I just soaked small pieces of make up remover pads in the acetone, put it over the Shellac, and covered it in tinfoil. I left it on for less than ten mins and then it just literally fell off my nails.

Once my nails were Shellac free I wasn’t sure what to do with them. It’s been a while since I dabbled in nail art. So, I went back to the start. The place where I first fell in love with easy nail art. Nailasaurus of course! I browsed around a little bit and fell in love with Sammy’s waterfall nails! She’s done them in a selection of colours and helpfully, she made a tutorial which makes it super easy to do. I sat down, feeling inspired and excited about painting my nails. It took one or two false starts, sometimes the bristles on my brushes would go wild. I found a little lip balm kept them together as I worked.

For this look I used MODI nail hardener, Estee Lauder Lilac Leather, OPI Casino Royale, Sephora Dream On, Sephora Dark Purple, Sephora Social Climber and Seche Vite top coat. Hope you like these and try them out for yourselves! xxxx PS. It feels great to be painting my nails again!!! 🙂

Essie and Estee – Summer Gradient, Matt style

The weather in Ireland is usually really mild and it rains a lot. We don’t get scorching hot summers, and our winters aren’t ridiculously cold either. But for the past week the sun has been splitting the rocks here!! (26 degrees Celsius one day!!) Everyone I know went to the beach and had lots of fun. I had to work, but that’s ok. I get burned too easily anyway and don’t want tan lines on my wedding day!

All this hot weather made me crave ice-pops from my childhood. Do you know Tangle Twisters, Brunch, Feasts, Loop the Loops? Well, I’ve had all of them in the past week, (as my trainer would say, ‘disaster’). And their bright colors made me want to paint my nails.

I chose gradient because it’s still a challenge for me. So, I’m trying to perfect it. Expect more!

I used Essie, Blanc and Estee Lauder, Lilac Leather. I also used Modi’s Matt topcoat to give it that frozen look.

I love my Toms! Greg bought them for me last year when he went home to the states. So comfy and cute!

Milani Nail Lacquer

 

 

 

 

First off, sorry for not blogging in a while. I was really sick with the flu last weekend and as soon as I got better I had to go straight back to work. But I’m back now and feeling healthy and I can’t wait to share more nail art with you! 🙂

 

I’ve been really  wanting to try these Milani polishes for ages but I couldn’t find them in Ireland. Luckily, my favorite Texan girl sent me some in a polish swap! Thanks Julie from Short and Sweet in Texas. I tried this one out first. It so cool! I thought it would kind of have a leathery feel to it since that’s what it looks like in pictures but actually it’s just really really gritty! I will use my Modi Peel Off Base Coat under it in future!

 

 

It’s really easy to apply. Dries super fast and doesn’t feel annoyingly gritty, it’s fine not too coarse  I love how it looks!

 

 

Have you tried these polishes? Did you like them?

 

Gelly Hi- Shine Nail Paint by Barry M Pomegranate

Last Monday I landed in Heathrow, was a little sad, not gonna lie! But one of the things that cheered me up was seeing a Barry M polish collection in Boots!! I bought three little beauties. AND they also have Barry M polishes in my local Boots!!! Expect to see more on this blog soon!! So far this is my fav. I have it on my toes as well! It applies really well the only problem was that one of the bristles  was longer than the rest so I had to cut that first. Apart from that, and the unimaginative name, no complaints with this polish!

The colour of this polish is hard to describe. All pics were taken with the same setting on my camera, just in slightly different light. Sometimes, it’s a cherry pink type color, other times it looks almost red? I don’t know!

Of course I had to mess with it! It looked great, but I wanted to see what my black and white Modi topcoat would look like over it. I really like the effect.

Which topcoat is best?

I was shopping yesterday and while in Aritaum I saw this beautiful nail polish. I’m no stranger to Modi polishes. I’ve blogged/reviewed them before here and here and here. But I’ve never owned this shade before and I fell in love! It’s not as dark as I thought it would be but it looks great on. I was really excited to try it out. It took three light coats to get it perfect. Sometimes the polish kind of separates on the nail. It’s like it’s reacting to the base coat or something. But it’s really easily fixed, just like streaky polish.

When I had it on I couldn’t decide how to glam it up a little. So I picked my four fav options. Modi Matt TopCoat, Modi Golden Glitter, Modi Black and White TopCoat and Revlon regular TopCoat.

I have a favorite but I really want to know which one YOU (my beloved reader)  think is best! Plz let me know. 🙂

Nicola

Modi Glam Nails Swatches and Reviews

This is my second about this range of glitter polishes. The Modi range was so fun I had to go buy more and show you! My previous post covered a red, black and white,  multicoloured glitter. You can read it here.

This time I bought a creamy glitter with multicoloured pieces. This polish has square, circle, and hexagon shaped glitter throughout. The thing I love about these polishes is that they don’t hold back on the glitter. I don’t normally like creamy polishes but I did enjoy wearing this one. It’s cheerful and peppy.  This was two coats. I think you can see little bubbles underneath the polish because I used a peel off base coat. It was worth that not to deal with removing the polish the standard way! 

I paired this glitter with OPI’s Fly from the Nicki Minaj range. I think they compliment each other quite well. As with all glitter polishes from this range they are so packed with glitter you have to be careful that too much doesn’t come out.

Modi Peel Off Base Coat

I was shopping in Aritaum last week for some more of those great Modi glitters, when I saw this product. Modi have a peel off base coat. My mind instantly ran through the implications! My first thought was that it’d be really helpful in removing glitter polishes. They always take time to get off and I worry  the glitter pieces will scrape my nails. My second thought was, will this really work? Or is it a gimmick?

It wasn’t expensive 3,500 Korean Won. That’s around $3 USD. I’ve been seeing lots of posts recently about nail bloggers using hardware glue as a base coat to get glitter polishes to peel off. This polish seems to be Korea’s answer to that problem.

So, I tried it out. I spread it on my nails as my base coat. The first thing I noticed was that it was really think and gooey. There was no strong polish smell, no smell at all actually. It took a long time to dry, about 7 or 8 minutes. Once it was dry I applied OPI’S Fly from the Nicki Minaj range over it. Usually this polish is opaque in two coats but when I applied it over this base coat bald patches  appeared a few seconds later. It was almost like the polish was rolling off the base coat in places. But it was no big deal I just used an extra coat of polish and it was fine. I applied Modi’s gold glitter polish on top of all that, and a topcoat to make it look smooth and shiny.

I left the manicure on for a day (a whole day! ha! that’s about how long a manicure lasts me) and then came crunch time. I tried peeling it all off. Success!  Using just my nails I was able to easily peel off all the polish and base coat. Some of the polish even came off in one intact piece! (and yeah that did give me a thrill!) 🙂

I did notice that my nails were slightly stained blue from the OPI polish. That never happens with my OPI base coat. I think next time I will just apply the OPI base coat under the peel off one. Also, I think I will only use Modi’s base coat for glitter polishes. Overall, I was really impressed with this base coat. 🙂

Converse Manicure

An all picture post today. Enjoy!

Modi Glam Nails Swatches and Reviews 1

Last week while shopping in Gangnam, Seoul I came across these beautiful glittery polishes in a store called Aritaum. These are Aritaum’s Modi Glam Nails. They were so eye-catching I had to buy them. I’m just sorry I only bought three! They were 3,500 Korean Won each. That’s roughly $3 USD. Bargain! 🙂

The thing that surprised me the most about these polishes is that one coat was enough! They are JAM PACKED with glitter and bits and pieces. If you scroll down and check out my macro shots of each bottle you can clearly see this. So each manicure was simple and took the minimum amount of time! That’s a win for me.

The pink base coat is OPI’s Strawberry Margarita.

Look at all that inside!!

I think this manicure would be really great for a Christmas party. Some of the pieces of  glitter were quite large. The red base coat is OPI’s Color So Hot It Berns.

Mmm full of glittery goodness.

Here’s my last swatch. This glitter would go with any colour but I love how it looks with light and dark purple. That dark purple is OPI’s Louvre Me Louvre Me Not.

Can you see how jam-packed each one is with glitter? I may just have to go back and get some more this weekend!