Bourjois 1 Séconde ~ Shade 9

Hello!

Today I have a market-stall find, Bourjois' 1 Séconde polish in Shade 9 (pity it doesn't have a name).  It is a very deep, rich purple with a nice rich shimmer to it.  Here are two coats:

It is a very lovely colour indeed! 

The polish bottle makes a lot of claims: fan-effect brush, one brushstroke, one second to apply, one coat, 50 second dry time.  The extra-wide fan brush is brilliant, and I wish more polishes had them!!  It really does make application a lot easier.  As for the one-coat claim... this could never be opaque in one coat; it's a definite two-coater.  It also took longer than 50 seconds to dry completely, but it still dried quite quickly and I did paint thick coats on a lot of nails.  All said, the brush is what really makes this polish a quick, convenient and easy one to use.

As I have already mentioned in this blog, dark and demure colours really don't suit me.  I would definitely be pairing this polish with something else to make it more "me", so I did a quick test with four glitters to see how it looked.  Here we go...

Index ~ Sapphire by La Femme Beauty
Middle ~ Magic by Accessorize
Ring ~ Dream by Accessorize
Pinky ~ Light pink glitter by Claire's

The combination that really caught my eye was with Magic ~ it added a different, deeper look to the glitter and so I plan to wear a mani with this pair ~ watch tomorrow's post!

Hugs,

Lisa

When all inspiration is lost...

... bung a load of glitter on your nails and sparkle away ^_^

I was getting less and less enthusiastic with every mani idea so I ended up putting 3 types of glitter (La Femme Beauty's Sapphire, INM's silver holo, Barry M's Iridescent Pink) over No7's Violetta, a favourite polish of mine right now.

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Ladybird Nail Stencil

Hello!

Here I tried out the ladybird nail stencil I got from Nail Delights - ladybirds remind me of my late grandad, so it was a must-buy.

The general depression of having baby-short nails made me want a baby mani, so I painted 3 coats of glitter - alternating between Barry M's Iridescent Pink and La Femme Beauty's Sapphire, both shown here - and topped it with Rimmel's Matte top coat for a frosting feel.  On my ring finger I used the stencil to paint the ladybird using 17's Ruby Gem and Rimmel's Black Cab.

Before I show you, I must apologise for the shocking quality of my nails and cuticles- having very short nails always seems to destroy my fingertips.  Curse my broken nail!!

That is one über-cute lil' ladybird though ^_^

Hugs,

Lisa xx

A Tale of Two Glitters!

Hello!

This is a post to show off two lovely glitters I found on my wanders ^_^

The first is La Femme Beauty's 'Sapphire', dreamy glitter with a lilac base, which I found on a market stall.  The second is Barry M's 'Iridescent Pink' which I spotted in Superdrug and absolutely could not resist buying.

Here are the sparkly pics!

The above pics are one coat of each polish on a base of Rimmel's Black Cab. 

Strangely enough, Iridescent Pink glitters more blue than Sapphire!  Sapphire leans towards a more greenish hue.  I have to say that Iridescent Pink is my favourite, but both are deliciously sparkly ^_^

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Blue Rose Mani

Hello!

Today I am showing you a beautiful blue mani using blue rose water decals I bought from Nail Delights' online store.  I painted a base colour of white and added a layer of 'Viva Las Venus' by La Femme Beauty (extremely sheer on its own but is a beautiful fairy blue). 

The next time I do a rose mani like this I'm going to try sponging my top colour of polish on for a romantic, delicate look ^_^

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Boots No7 ~ Snowflake

Hello!

Well, as soon as my student loan came through I did a bit of shopping - some for things I genuinely needed like new shoes (I am not a shoe person but my current ballerina flats are falling apart!) and university supplies, but also some new nail polish.  Bad Lisa!  This is my haul:

I had read great reviews on Boots' website about Nails Inc.'s base and top coat set; so far they have indeed served me well, although I find the top coat a little awkward to apply evenly.  Great results despite that though and I definitely recommend.  From a market stall I bought two La Femme Beauty polishes and a blue glitter shimmer striping polish for the bargainous price of 99p each!! 

Aaaand, I was given another Boots voucher, aaaand, I just had to use it.  Since the only whites I own are a bad 17 one and a harsh tip whitener I went for Snowflake, which looked very nice and subtle in its bottle.

This shows 3 coats of Snowflake.  I actually really like this polish.  As a base colour the 3 coats pretty much suffice, but if I were wearing it alone I would add a 4th.  It's a lot of coats, but given the pleasant soft white you end up with it's all good! 

On this occasion I did use Snowflake as a base colour for a polka dot mani with No7's cheery blue Stand Back!.  Unfortunately all I have is a webcam photo, but it did look very nice and cute! 

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Dry Marbling

Hello!

This mani was inspired by Gettin' Girlie's beautiful nails!  I followed the same tutorial by Enamel Girl.  Major compliments to both!

Knowing my creative clumsiness, I only made enough marbling for a couple of accent nails and used expendable polish.  My first attempt failed as the marbled polish wouldn't peel off the plastic!  I succeeded in the second attempt though (using thicker layers of polish and more pliable plastic) and here are the results:

I mixed 17's Mini Skirt (white), Sweet Kisses (pink), Bolt From The Blue (very light blue), and La Femme Beauty's Lilac Cream polishes for the marbling.  I painted all my nails with 2 coats of Andrea Fulerton's Bright White before applying the marbling to my left ring finger and thumb and my right index finger.

I adore it!!  My index finger got the best design in my opinion.  Next time I am definitely going to be more neat and careful when applying the marbling and cleaning up, but overall I am quite proud of myself ^_^

Have you ever tried this?  Link me to your marbling pics if you have!

Hugs,

Lisa

La Femme Beauty's Lilac Cream and Miss Sporty's Metallic Crystal

Hello there!

Now, as I continue to post it will become increasingly clear that I suffer badly from Can't-Leave-It-Alone Syndrome. I always want to add a little extra something to my manis. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is very very bad. In case of the latter I will always post separate pics of my lovely polishes before I put them together on my nails!!

Today I'm quite happy with my mixing and matching, however. I have topped La Femme Beauty's Lilac Cream with a layer of Miss Sporty's Metallic Planet. Here we go...

(click on photos for full size)

La Femme Beauty is a brand you're most likely to find in discount stores and on market stalls. Indeed, I found this for £1.50 in my local market but I've seen it stocked in loads of places. For a 'cheap' brand the polish actually applies very well: it goes on smoothly and is opaque in 2 coats. The colour is a lilac crème leaning towards a reddish hue.

Miss Sporty coming up:


I bought Miss Sporty's Metallic Crystal at Superdrug while they were doing a 3 for 2 promotion (normally £1.99 each). It is part of their Quick Dry Clubbing Colours range. It is a metallic, futuristic silver. I LOVE this polish! It is very transparent though: the first pic shows 1 coat, the second shows full opacity at 4 coats.

Because of its transparency, I thought Metallic Crystal would make a nice polish for layering - and Lilac Cream seemed a good potential match. Here it is...



Well, I like it personally! You get the space-age shimmery finish of Metallic Crystal with the romantic Lilac Cream glowing through. What do you lovely polishers think?

Shimmery lilac hugs,

Lisa xx