Sparkling Wings & Flourished Manicures

Hello!

Recently I've been doing plenty of stamping - a Born Pretty review pack and MoYou order meant I've had a lot of exciting ideas to try - and so this post shows off two of my latest stamped manicures! I'm thinking of cutting my nails short again just to get a bit of variety in, but even then I've still got some stamping in mind. I hope this isn't too monotonous for my readers?

The manicure I'm wearing right now features a sparkling pink glitter, Rose Chic by Maybelline. This polish can be worn as a gorgeous textured glitter but here I've smoothed it out so I could add some stamping in the form of a floral flourish, taken from MoYou's Mother Nature 05 stamping plate. My base coat is Picture Polish Revolution in the hope that it will make the glitter easier to remove!

The manicure I had on beforehand was a butterfly manicure, using one of the many wing designs on MoYou Kitty 12. For this I started out with one coat of Essie Ballet Slippers for the nude part of the nail. Then I took three holo polishes - Holographic Hero by Gosh, Wistful by TopShop and Red Taboo by Layla - and used a sponge to mix and dab them onto my nails as colour for the wings. I stamped the design on and top coated! I also wore one of my MoYou hand tattoos, some origami butterflies, which I've shown in the photo.

As you can see I overlapped a bit with my colour sponging which I'd hoped I could cheekily pass of as stylistic, but I don't think as many people liked when I posted it on Instagram.

Depending on how I'm feeling, the next mani you see may be of short nails - and perhaps featuring something other than stamping, just to mix it up for once!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Starburst Blue Nail Foil

Hello!

After my review on Monday of KKCenterHK's lace nail foil, I decided to delve into my existing small foil stash and try out another one.

It is said that Picture Polish's Revolution base coat for glitters is the answer to a huge prayer - a top coat that will not wrinkle, dull or destroy shiny foils! This I had to try. So I applied my very shiny Starburst Blue foil (over blue polish in case I left any gaps) then added a coat of Revolution. Here is the result:

IT'S STILL SHINY!

There is a small amount of wrinkling but, by and large, the foil is as intact as when I applied it.

A small warning - I tried applying a coat of Seche Vite over the coat of Revolution on my thumb, hoping that Revolution would act as a barrier over the foil - and the whole thing cracked like a crackle polish! So it does have to be Revolution on its own.

Since Revolution isn't strictly a proper nail polish I do wonder what the wear time will be. Unfortunately I'll be changing my nails for a Christmas meal tomorrow but I'll be trying this again during the holidays to see how long the manicure lasts!

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Review ~ piCture pOlish Revolution

Hello!

Revolution by Picture Polish is a special base coat designed to remove glitter polish easily. This hit me as a godsend as I love glitters but equally love to change my manis often, so I'm often put off by the arduous glitter removal process! I bought it for £10 from Sally Magpies, a UK-based webstore, and have since used it for a few manicures so can give a review :-)

Application: Instructions for application are to apply 2 thin coats with dry time in-between. Revolution applies naturally thinly, and it looks like the bottle will last me ages and ages. Dry time was extremely fast; I only needed a minute between the first and second coats and I waited perhaps 5 minutes in total before applying my polish over it.

Wear: Revolution did not seem to interfere with the quality of my manicure at all - no chipping, peeling etc.

Removal: To remove my manicure I used a cotton pad well soaked in remover. I pressed the pad on my nails for a few moments before gently scrubbing the glitter off. Denser glitter required more scrubbing but in all cases the polish came off completely and with no damage to my nails. I did notice a slight glue-like residue left on some of my nails which I had to scrape off.

My Thoughts: Revolution does take away the stress of removing glitter! I no longer think twice before choosing a glitter polish to wear. It's not exactly a miracle - you do still need to do some scrubbing - but, in my opinion, it is the option which gives you the least stress whilst maintaining a high-quality manicure.

Comparison to PVA Glue: Before I bought Revolution I used the PVA glue method when wearing glitter polish ~ basically, you apply 2 thin coats of PVA glue as a base coat and peel off your glitter manicure when you're done with it. The downsides of this over Revolution are a longer dry time, the glue being dislodged when tidying the edges of your mani, and that your manicure can start peeling before you want it to! However, I would still fully recommend the glue method as a quick and easy option if you don't want to shell out £10.

Hugs,

Lisa xx

Bird & Glitter Manicure

Hello!

I am currently wearing a manicure that I truly love and will probably be wearing again in varying incarnations ^_^

First of all, I ordered Picture Polish's Revolution from Sally Magpies and it arrived on Tuesday. It is a special base coat which allows for glitter polish to be removed like a normal polish, with no fuss or furious scrubbing. I'm still testing it out but will let you know my thoughts as soon as possible!

So, for this manicure, I applied two thin coats of Revolution to my thumbs and ring fingers and then painted them with Nails Inc's Maida Vale to make dazzling accent nails. I painted the rest of my nails with Models Own's Blueberry Muffin, a pale pastel blue-purple. Then, to my middle fingers, I stamped a little bird from my Cheeky plate. The result is this:

This is the happiest I've been with a manicure in a while! I think I could try different colours and little stamped images too.

What is your absolute favourite manicure to wear?

Hugs,

Lisa xx