The girliest you will ever see me!

Don't worry, these are MY nails, not those of Katie Price or any of the cast of The Only Way is Essex. I would never call myself a girly-girl (she says with a blog centred entirely around nail polish art and makeup), preferring to do more colourful, eyecatching and badass designs. This manicure is, however, the most trashy-fabulous you will ever see my nails haha. All that's missing is a giant 3D acrylic bow.

I've got exams coming up (BOOOO), so wanted something on my nails that would tempt me away from removing it and doing something else, to maximise revision time. Anyone whose ever had a full glitter manicure on, will know what an utter ARSE they are to remove. I am hoping that the fear of removal will make me concentrate harder on revision, and resist using nail polish as a distraction!

I started with two coats of Catrice Be My Millionaire, a silver polish, then added 4 coats of Models Own Juicy Jules. Juicy Jules is AMAZING, it's a holographic glitter, and catches the light beautifully - perfect for sunny days. I could have got away with 3 coats, but I wanted maximum glitter coverage. I had a hard time photographing the sheer awesomeness of this glitter, and I'm sure that if I had got it perfect, your eyes would have exploded anyway. I resorted to using a lamp directly over the nails, and using the macro setting (as opposed to the SUPERmacro setting) on my camera to blur the image sliiiighttly so you can see more of the holographic-ness. *gets a bit pic heavy from this point onwards...*

Juicy Jules on its own:

blurred so you can see the holographic sparkle

a sharper picture that doesnt show the colours as much! also sorry for my STUPID index finger that broke, I know it looks ridiculous!

I added a coat of Seche Vite to smooth it out and create a base for Barry M's new pink crackle polish Pink Fizz. I find the best way to use the Barry M crackles is to apply them thickly, as they crack better, with larger spaces between the pink bits. I hate it when you use a crackle and it barely cracks, so you can only just make out the base colour (I'm looking at you Boots 17!).

I added another coat of Seche Vite to top off the whole thing, and because the Barry M Instant Nail Effects dry Matte.

under the lamp

under the lamp

natural light

I tried my best to capture it, but imagine all that holographic glitter shining through! BLINGTASTIC! Now, this was somewhat of an experiment, but I took a video on my camera to see if I can better show you the sparkle. The quality is pretty poor, but it does give you a good idea of the shine. (bloody nicked my cuticle right before though didn't I?!)

 

Hopefully you get an idea! I actually tweeted this manicure at Amy Childs from The Only Way is Essex (a trashy reality TV show over here in the UK - IT'S BRILLIANT), she is yet to reply though haha :P

Let me know what you think everyone, was it worth it to include a video? I really wasn't sure about it, but thought I would get some feedback from you :) I realise this isn't strictly Nail Art, but that's what I love about crackles, they add instant interest to a Manicure with minimal effort. I know they've been around a while now, but I've not seen this combo before :D

Em x

Gleek and Gypsy Nights.

 So my housemate is fantastic. As you know, I went home for the weekend and returned this evening to 2 lovely presents from Sophie, one of my favourite people with giant hair. One was a “glee” Easter egg, complete with Mug – which I’m thrilled about, one of our favourite things to do together is drink copious amounts of tea, eat copious amounts of chocolate, and spend a copious amount of time talking about Everything and Nothing. The other present was a “knit your own boyfriend” kit....which I'm not as thrilled about....hahaha!

Rubbish phone pic...but look at the size of that mug! Cheers, Sofa!!!

 On to the Manicure!! I recently acquired an interesting polish from Topshop called “Gypsy Nights” which is quite a sheer black with holographic glitter and flakies! I snapped it up; you don’t see flakies very often over here in the polish middle ages (UK!). I applied two coats of it over two coats of Claire’s Black polish, and then added a silver stripe at the very tip of my tips with Claire’s Silver Nail Art Pen. Topped it off with Barry M topcoat, and here are the results, as best as I could capture the glitter effects! 

Shiny shinnnnyyy

 You can't see the holo glitter tooo much here, but if you look at the pinkie, you can see the iridescence of the flakies in it.

I've seen some exciting effects created with flakies by adding a matte topcoat, so i decided to matte it up with Claire's Matt topcoat (which should be spelled "matte" - really bugs me haahah - I'm a fiendish English student/grammar Nazi!). Here we are:

With Claire's matte topcoat.

I liked the effect of the matte topcoat, it did, however, dull the holographic glitter, but I like that it's a bit different. i decided to keep it like this for a couple of days before I was boooorrreeeddd!!! I went to a 21st birthday party over the weekend for one of my best friends, I've known her since she was a tiny babba, and it was lovely to see in this milestone together - love you Rachie poops. I'll post my party manicure tomorrow!

Another exciting installment - my bundlemonster plates arrived! WOO HOOOOO now I can start this Konading business properly!! Look out!!!