Facebook Page!

Also, just a very short post to let you know, I have set a Facebook page up for my nails! This will probably be updated a little more regularly than my blog as I am always on Facebook!!  :)

https://www.facebook.com/nailsmustbepainted

Any likes very much appreciated!

Africa Inspired: Tiger Nails

Next Saturday I am going out to Africa, to teach in a school out there. So this week I wanted to do a few mani's inspired by Africa, as its a good excuse to Google pictures and get myself even more excited!!

But yesterday my bf came home with a new polish he had bought me :) He really liked the colour and was desperate for me to try it out. I thought, maybe I'll see tigers on safari, they're orange! So I went for a Tiger mani. I have since found out that tigers tend not to live in Africa, so I probably won't see one but shh! We'll just forget about that!

I started off with my new Sally Hansen Nail Nutrition base coat. I'll be doing a review of this in a few weeks, once I've been using it long enough to see how well it works! I then did two layers of Rimmel Golden Hour. This didn't really need two coats as it covered really well with just one, but I did another anyway, out of habit really. Then I sponged a little Barry M Matt White onto my thumb and ring finger, to create those little white patches tigers have! Next, I got a thin striping brush and freehanded some stripes on using Barry M Black. I didn't want these to be too neat and tidy, as that wouldn't be realistic! Finally, I finished off with a Barry M topcoat on the Thumb and ring finger. The Rimmel polish is so nice and shiny I didn't really need topcoat on the other nails.

I didn't think I'd say this when I first saw it, but I really like the colour of this polish. In some lights it's a vibrant orange, but as you move your hands, there's a lovely gold shimmer to it which isn't immediately obvious but makes its very pretty! You can just about see this on my little finger in the below picture.

Pretty Poundland Nail Polish

So, for a while I have been buying the likes of Sally Hansen, Revlon and Rimmel nail polishes from Poundland. Every time I go in there I wonder what their own brand polishes are like, (which are called 'Pretty') but I never bother buying them as I would rather get ones I know will be good! So, as part of my birthday present my bf bought me this gorgeous looking pink glitter topcoat to try.

I have to admit, I didn't have high expectations but I was actually pleasantly surprised!!

It goes on reasonably easily, although a little fishing was required to find the larger pieces of glitter, and  didn't clump together. I was most impressed with the finish. I have had cheap glitters before that dry really rough, where the glitter sticks out of the polish, but this didn't happen. It dried with a nice, smooth finish, almost like a gel. Smooth enough I didn't need a topcoat (And that's something from me, who hates non-smooth nails!!). This meant it easily survived my shower and hair washing, which is always the challenge for glitter, when little strands of hair get stuck underneath!! It did take quite a while to dry though. The first hand I ended up smudging whilst trying to photograph them, and having to do again! (So excuse any pictures where it looks a bit dodgy!!)

                             

It has definitely made me want to buy some more of their polishes to try out. This is just a topcoat, so It will be more difficult to see how it lasts, but I am considering buying just one or two colour polishes to try.

The colours I used were Barry M Matt White, as a base for the glitter, and Rimmel Purple Pulse. I love this mani.. Just enough glitter to be pretty, without being OTT!

 Has anyone else tried the Poundland 'Pretty' polishes? What did you think of them?

St Patricks Day Nails

Tomorrow is St Patrick's Day (and my birthday!), so I thought some appropriately themed nails were in order!! I also wanted to use these as my Tri-Polish Tuesday Nails. I know its only Sunday, but I rarely have time to do them on a Tuesday, so I've tried to stick with Purple and Green, two of the colours for the challenge this month.

The top picture is the closest to the real colours, the next two are without flash and the one right above this is with flash. The green I used is Sally Hansen Kiwi Bikini and the purple is Barry M Silk in Heather. I then used Kiwi Bikini again to freehand a clover onto the purple nail.

 I also had another fight with one of my new, disappointing BornPrettyStore stamping plates! This time I tried to stamp a rainbow. I tried with a white and a black Barry M polish but neither of these would work with the plates, even though they both work fine with my MoYou plates. So I ended up using a No.17 dark silver, as this was the only colour that worked. It doesn't show up very well on this coloured nail though, so below I have included a close-up for you!

Galaxy Nails: Tri Polish Tuesday

This week for Tri Polish Tuesday I tried something I've wanted to try for a while but never gotten around to... Galaxy nails! And I remembered to post it on the Tuesday!!!
After looking at a few galaxy mani's online I thought Blue, Green and Purple were the perfect colours to use for galaxy nails so I found a sponge and went for it!

I used Barry M Black Multi glitter as the background colour, then blended Sally Hansen Kiwi Bikini, an unnamed purple shimmer Animal Polish and an unnamed electric blue H&M polish.  I then used a BornPretty stamping plate to stamp stars onto my nails using another unnamed Animal polish in silver. Finally, I used a Kiss glitter polish as a topcoat to add a bit more sparkle.

I love this mani and it was so easy to do! Even better, its completely impossible to reproduce exactly the same!

Bows and Lace - Very late Tri Polish Tuesday!

This design was done earlier this week for the Tri Polish Tuesday Challenge, I'm just a little late posting! This months colours are Blue, Purple and Green, so this week I'm just using Purple and Blue.

After my delivery last week I was desperate to try my new stamping plates. So I did a base of Barry M Silk in Heather and decided to stamp some cute lace designs over it.
I do quite a lot of stamping with my MoYou plates, and usually they work pretty well, I like to think I'm not bad at stamping! But this was so difficult! I tried a few of the different lace designs and the stamper really didn't pick the patterns up very well off the plates. I'm not sure if it was the plates or the polish (Maybelline Dark Denim) I was trying to use but it just wasn't working. :(
So I decided on a bow across my nails instead, which was a much simpler design. This was a little easier and did work to an extent. It just didn't seem up to the same quality, they were a bit hit and miss, some bows came out really well whilst others were patchy and had bits missing.

I know I should have expected this when they were so cheap but I didn't think they would be this bad. I'm going to have another go at some point with a different polish which I know usually works well for stamping but I don't have too high hopes any more. I'm also hoping some of the other stamps are a bit better.
Hopefully the water decals will be more successful too!!

Born Pretty Haul

A few weeks ago I first came across the Born Pretty store. I had heard of this before but never actually though to look at it. Boy, have I been missing out!!
I could not believe how cheap you can get things on there, so I went a little crazy!!

I absolutely love my MoYou stamping plates and have been thinking of getting some more for a while, but I can't afford to spend £5 on one plate at the moment. So I was amazed to see that I could get plates for approx £1!! I got a little over excited and bought 6! Hopefully they will be as good as MoYou's.

I also invested in some water decals. I have never used these before but they looked so pretty, I couldn't resist buying some, so I got 3 packs of them. Two sets of flowery ones and a set of feathers. Hopefully they will be easy to use and last well, but we'll see!

I haven't had chance to use any of these yet as they just arrived, but I'm sure they will be featuring again on my blog soon! The only downfall of this website is the time things take to come. It took exactly 4 weeks between ordering and arriving. Not that you can complain when delivery is free, but I was starting to worry they would not arrive! I will definitely be ordering from here again though, probably soon!!