Three Coats of Absolutely Gorgeous

Didn't want to do two purples in two days, but I still haven't had a reply from BYS UK or AUS about their packs of mystery unlabelled bottles, and it has been a few days since I wrote, so I'm impatiently sulking by wearing OPI Ink. Yeah, I'm really cutting off my nose to spite my face there.

OPI Ink Swatch. Horrible photo, cuticles still freaking out because of ills.

It looks a bit gritty, but that was because I was lazy and didn't put on any top coat, whoops. Anyway, this colour, to loosely quote Derek and Clive, it gives me the 'orn. It's a dark purple-blue base with blue and pinky purple shimmer all over the shop, it's three coats of absolutely gorgeous. This is far too nice for Konad.

Oh, hang on ...

Put some top coat on this time round.

I gave in to the stamper, and gave my lovely purple shimmery nails a little flower each, using part of a flower design Fauxnad m75. This went on with some Konad Special White polish, and the centres of the flowers were dotted with Collection 2000 Gilded 292 (gold). The ring finger got the full flower design with the same colours.

I absolutely love and adore this colour, but, despite this, it'll probably be replaced by something else tomorrow cos I got bored, or something. Meh.

420 Stick Skulls on Stuff Every Day

It's time for the next thrilling installment of 'Swatching the BYS Pack', wow, how exciting. Actually, it is a bit exciting as I've discovered that I really, really like this nameless purple chrome.

BYS Chrome Purple Swatch. Nice.

Pouty Purple, maybe? BYS haven't got back to me about the colour names, maybe they don't want me buying their products and sticking skulls on them.

Before I stuck a skull on them, I stamped them with the dotty design on Konad m60 with some Collection 2000 Gilded 292 (metallic polish that is quite good for teh stamps, and it's dirt cheap on fleabay). I cocked up a bit on me ring finger so stuck an Andrea Fulerton skull nail decal on there and coloured that gold. Finally, filled in the skully eye and went around the skull with some Saffron Glitter Colour 04.

Need to know the name of this purple.

So tempted to put a little mohican on that skull =:)

Mystery BYS Pink Chrome

I can't keep on referring to these colours as Mystery BYS Colours, so I've done something quite sensible. I've sent an email to BYS. I really want a bigger bottle of that green/blue/aqua polish, you see.

Today's BYS Mystery Surprise is the Chrome Pack's pink colour. Horrible pictures today as it's a miserably grey day.

BYS Chrome Pink Swatch

Not much I can say about this really, it's pink, it's a bit metallic and it's on my nails. This one may be called Tinkerbell, but that's only going by the makeup.uk.com website. Anyway, it's not really my kinda colour so I chucked some Konad on it. There's a surprise.

BYS Chrome Pink Konad and Andrea Fulerton Skull Decal

Used Konad plate m64 and some Superdrug MUA Shade 11 (Silver) as the stamping polish for a more subtle look. But it was too subtle for me, so I popped an Andrea Fulerton skull decal on there. Why I didn't put it on the nail that didn't stamp too well, I have no idea.

Mystery BYS Green Chrome

Been wearing this BYS green chrome varnish, tis rather groovy. As with the mystery white chrome, I'm not sure what this one is called as it's from this set.

BYS Chrome Green/Blue/Aqua Swatch

My money's on Aqua Blue No. 1. The coverage looks a bit thick as I've had it on a couple of days and have been topping it up when bored as this colour does rock considerably.

And then I had to go and spoil all by going completely overboard with the stamper :(

1. Stamp in black 2. Stamp on white flower 3. Whack on some glitter.

Started off by getting out the Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black) and stamping the flower off Fauxnad plate m75 (pic) and the tribally pattern on Bundlemonster plate BM08. Then I stamped the flower pattern again, this time with the white Konad Special Polish. I gave the centre of the flower a good seeing-to with some random gift-set silver glitter polish, lightly went around the flower with more glitter and added a couple of dots.

Don't like this one.

Had to flip the picture upside-down as I was a doofus.

Mystery BYS White Chrome

The lovely blokey bought me some random cool things, Bundlemonster plates and BYS Nail Polish packs for our anniversary, and I'm going to try them out.

Wearing a polish from the chrome set today -- the white one. Yeah, the bottles come unlabelled, so I have no idea what the names are. This one could be Moonshine, or White Pearl, but I really have no idea :(

Here's the white chrome polish that could possibly be Moonshine or White Pearl or something else -- it's pretty much opaque after three coats and while it looks a bit frosty under natural lights, it's quite nice and metallic under artificial lights.

BYS Chrome White Swatch

I wasn't too sure which Bundlemonster plate to go for, and after some tea, toast and careful deliberation, I went for the flower design on BM04 and stamped it with Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black). I dotted over the dots with 2true Shade 13 (purple) and we were there.

Plate BM04 Struts its stuff.

Blue is Soothing

Two posts today as I could no longer bear orange upon my fingernails. I needed the comfort of familiar colours. I needed blue.

Nubar Absolute Swatch

Nubar Absolute, from the Prisms collection (my reward for resisting the siren temptation of nicotine) soothed my orange-ravaged soul quickly and effectively. The polish was a bit sheer, requiring four coats to get almost opaque, and holo effect was quite subtle, but is still lovely.

Nubar Absolute Konaded

The nails were Konaded with the flowers found on Konad plate m60. Superdrug MUA Shade 11 was used to stamp the flower images, and a dot of Gosh 549 was applied to the centre of the flowers.

There, I feel much better now.

Fingers O' Fire

I've not worn any orange for a very, very, very long time. It isn't really my colour, y'see, but I decided to try out this possibly ancient bottle of Constance Carroll 238 Squash because it looked interesting as it had a green shimmer to it. Oooh.

Constance Carroll 238 Squash Swatch. Very messy as there was a splodging incident

The green shimmer that made it interesting didn't show up at all on the nails, making this orange a bit boring, really. I decided to chuck some Nubar 2010 over it, and suddenly, my fingers looked aflame like I was some sort of superhero, or something.

Fingers. Of. FIRE!

I absolutely love this but I hate it at the same time as I really can't bear orange on my fingers, it just freaks me out :(

Tribal Nails II

I've been trying out cheap and cheerful nude shades, and today I'm trying Maybelline Express Finish 27 Marble. At least, I think it's called Maybelline Marble -- the bottle doesn't say so I'm having to rely on the eBay selller.

Maybelline Express Finish Marble 27 Swatch

There we go -- two coats resulted in a fairly opaque pearly finish that dried quickly, albeit a bit streaky. The finish was actually a bit too pearly for my liking, so I put two coats of E.L.F. Nude over it and it was ready to rock and roll. Or stamp and roll with Chez-Delaney plate T31 and Konad Black Special Polish.

Tribal Nails II -- Matte

Went for the matte finish on the above picture, which is why it looks a bit smeary. The middle finger got trashed whilst stamping the other hand -- that was a bit of a bummer -- but the other fingers looked OK. I decided not to colour anything in and leave it two-tone.

Absolutely loving these Chez-Delaney plates, I must continue to be cigarette-free and get some more \o/

Kevin Spacey's Midlife Crisis Thing

Couldn't decide what colour to wear so asked the blokey. He suggested red and black and, since he puts up with my polish habits, I went along with it. I had made this frankenpolish ages ago out of some old 90s red polish and half a vial of red Hobbycraft glitter, and was frankly too scared to use it because of all the glitter.

Today, for my lovely blokey, I shall wear it.

Kevin Spacey's Midlife Crisis Thing Frankenpolish. Oh dear.

I put three coats on and it wasn't too bad -- it reminded me of a bath full of rose petals for some reason, which reminded me of Kevin Spacey's midlife crisis thing in American Beauty. And from this, a ridiculous name for the frankenpolish was born -- Kevin Spacey's Midlife Crisis Thing, hereafter known as KSMCT.

KSMCT itself was quite clunky and lumpy and a bit oogly but I liked the way the different layers of glitter interacted with each other. Sadly, I wasn't too happy with the overall look (it looks fab on my toes, mind) and stamped over it all with Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (black) and Konad plate m64. And then it started to look really badass :)

Kevin Spacey's Midlife Crisis Thing & Konad m64

Yeah, I like this, I feel like I have Darth Maul's face on my fingers. Thanks blokey, you're ace!

*Edit: this frankenpolish was a bit of a pain to remove because of the sheer amount of glitter in there, but it also seriously stained my nails. I mean proper stained, I used base coat and everything, and the franken just kicked it right in the arse.

Thank You For Coming To Knebworth

I've been wanting to see Opeth for years and years and years but never got round to it. This year, they're coming locally to the Sonisphere Festival which is just over there *gestures vaguely*. I'm so chuffed about this that I've done Opeth nails, loosely based on their album 'Blackwater Park'. Cover is pictured on the right there, say hello, album cover!

Started off with a bit of the old Avon Matte Black As Night. I've swatched it for your viewing pleasure, though it is very boring as it's matt black. I apologise for my minging cuticles, I've been abusing them :(

It's matte and it's black -- it's Avon Matte Black as Night.

I started off by sponging the top portion of the nail with light grey acrylic paint. I applied some tiny blobs of black around the tips using a small brush, then dabbed them with a sponge. A small amount of white acrylic paint was dabbed on to the centre and blended in with a sponge. It looked pretty manky at this point, as you can see.

The next Konading part was meant to be painstakingly photographed step-by-step but I got into it a bit and completely forgot to do it.

Stamping in the sillouhettes was first. I used Superdrug MUA Shade 2 as the stamping polish and stamped on the four lines design from the Fauxnad m03 plate. These lines were meant to represent the creepy people hiding in the trees.

Next up was Fauxnad plate m43 -- there was a tree shape on there which would do. I stamped this pattern on twice, once upside down  to make it look like there were trees, though they look like bits of bamboo TBH.

Then it was time for a squiggly design on the Konad m70 plate, I used this with Superdrug MUA Shade 11 and stamped it over the black area at the bottom.

My Nails' Tribute to Blackwater Park

Up there is the end result. It doesn't look like the Blackwater Park album cover at all but I like the overall effect so I've kept it on. It's hard putting album covers on my nails, but it's bloody brilliant fun.

Hello Kitty Skull & Crossbones

Fancied a bit of pink today. I have several pinks that I never wear and, after some deliberation, ruining two coats of another pink and getting annoyed, I went for the Laura Paige 26 Limited Edition.  This is a good pink, available from your friendly chemists or makeup.uk.com

Laura Paige 26 Limited Edition Swatch. It's pink

As usual, I got bored and decided that pink wasn't enough. I received the Hello Kitty Fauxnad m71 plate the other day and saw this as a perfect opportunity to try it out. I put some silver stars from Fauxnad plate m17 on (which was a waste as they don't show up in the finished result), then I stamped the head of Hello Kitty over the stars. It was missing something -- crossbones! I got these from the skull on Fauxnad plate m42 (also on Konad m28).

Hello Kitty and Crossbones. Nose is fat.

Some messy colouring-in followed this stamping fun. I cheated and used white acrylic paint for the heads, the pink ribbon got some glittery treatment from Saffron Colour 09, and the nose had a splodge of Collection 2000 Hot Looks Oh La La. It looks a bit messy up close as you can see from the macro-abuse below, and there's a mark under the chin that shouldn't really be there, but no-one goes up to my nails and closely inspects them for bad paint splodging so I'm getting away with it \o/

Holo and Glitter and Duochrome, HAHA!

Today is a good day to wear some Urban Decay Graffiti.

Urban Decay Graffiti Swatch

Graffiti is a light blue with a purple duochrome that isn't afraid to say hello. It's a good one to wear if you like to wiggle your fingers about whilst admiring your own polishing. It's a bit of a shame I Konaded it, really, but I was bored and fidgety and didn't want to play Assassins Creed: Brotherhood.

Fauxnad m09 (Konad m20) butterflies and flowers

Used a Fauxnad m09 plate (pic) and some Superdrug MUA Shade 2 for both the butterfly (also on Konad plate m20) and the flowers on this Konad jobbie. The butterfly got coloured in with some Nubar Treasure, and a few bits of Saffron Colour 05 were applied to the wings. The centres of the flowers were filled in with Orly Winter Wonderland, which is my favouritest glittery white ever but I never wear it for some strange reason. I've not even gotten round to swatching it yet :O

Then I took pictures of it all the holo and glitter and duochrome with the macro mode on my old new camera, a mode that I expect I will abuse greatly over the coming months, but hey, at least I'm not moaning about how awful my camera is.

Across the Universal Studios Car Park

It's been a rubbish day today, bloody miserable, so I've gone for some blue -- Superdrug MUA Shade 1. It's a very dark blue with a rather glorious shimmer to it, mmmm.

Superdrug MUA Shade 1 Swatch

I did actually want to wear some Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe but I didn't have any. I did, however, have an empty nail varnish bottle so I made some frankenpolish out of the MUA Shade 1 by adding some blue glitter polish to it (beauties_salon on eBay sells it). I've named the frankenpolish Across the Universal Studios Car Park.

Across The Universal Studios Car Park Nail Bling.

It's like having loads of little blue ultra-brite LEDs in my nails, but these aren't quite as dazzling and they don't use electricity. They're so bright that sailors could probably use my nail bling to navigate their way home.

This frankenpolish certainly made my camera go a bit funny, it doesn't seem able to cope with all the shinyness and makes everything look clumpy and awkard when it looks well blingtastic in real life. I had to dig out my turn-of-the-century Kodak awful-cam to get the blurry picture on the left as the phone-cam could not hack it. Seriously need to invest in a half-decent camera at some point, just need to stop buying plugs and polish and plates and posh coffee for a while.

Wiggle Yer Fingers

Today's nail polish of the day is Nubar Peacock Feathers, a sexily gorgeous purple and green duochrome. Here it is looking rather purple:

Bright purple in daylight

And here is a picture of me contorting my hand at a very awkward angle to show how it goes green in the shade.

Shade makes the purple go green. Yummy.

Naturally, I trashed a bit whilst doing something dull and mundane and decided to pretty it up a bit lot with some Nfu.Oh 51, and spent some time just wiggling my fingers about, going, "ooh, that's nice" and stuff like that.

Oh my.

Imagine my sadface as I ruined my nails by doing housework shortly after the above photo was taken, so I took the opportunity to try out a pattern on Konad plate m36 using MUA Shade 2. It then needed to be mattified with some ELF Matte top coat as the gloss was drowing out the black geometric shapes.

Don't like it but it's better than pretty nails with chunks missing.

The photo does not do the colour justice as the good light had gone -- it's all lovely and colourful IRL, and looks quite effective against the black, but here it looks a bit muted and *yawn*. I'd imagine it would look quite good with some black crackle over it, actually, next time I wreck an Nfu.Oh job I'll try it.

Just One Fix

Didn't want to get rid of my Damien Hirst skull nails but needed to do something with my hands otherwise I believe my head would have exploded due to the wanton desire for nicotine I was having.

Here is the Master Chief wearing some Orly Meet Me Under The Mistletoe -- this is the armour upgrade he's been waiting for for years and years, though I reckon he could have done with another coat.

I don't think that his new paint job will stand up to the trials of battle and sticky grenades and marines driving Warthogs but it looks grand and I still want a cigarette but I'm going to get some Nubar Absolute instead. Yeah.

Cute Damien Hirst Skulls

I enjoyed yesterday's handpainting of Konading so much that I decided to do some more. It's quite relaxing, you see.

Started off with a neutral base of Superdrug MUA Shade 10, and I've no idea if it's a pearl or a frost. As with all the MUA nail products, the brush is awkward but the polish covers well enough -- thats two coats in the picture below.

Is this pearly or frosty, I can't tell.

Now for some Damien Hirst skulls. I stamped a cute skull pattern on the nails using Fauxnad plate m39 (pic). You can get this skull patten from a variety of fauxnad plates as well the proper Konad m13 plate.

The skulls' eyes were coloured in with some Barry M 66 Matt White Nail Paint, and the skulls themselves were coloured with this holo glitter that comes from ancient times -- Boots 17 Sparkly 500 Party Animal. Then I was :( because there was nothing left to colour in.

I have no idea how old that bottle of glitter polish is, but its old.


You can see the holo kicking off with flash

Tribal Lillies

I've been using too many blues and purples and mattes so I'm going for some shiny shiny green. Here is a swatch of some old Urban Decay Cult.

Bottle is old and probably wise.

Blimey, that bottle has seen better days. Colour is great though, it's a metallic green with an occasional flash of gold and blue (depending on the light).

The nails then got Konaded with some black tribal off the Chez Delaney plate T31 using the black special Konad polish, which looked a bit boring on its own, so outlines of lillies from the Fauxnad m33 plate (pic) went on. These were then hand-coloured with Orly Winter Wonderland and some Collection 2000 Hot Looks Oh La La (an obnoxious yellow off eBay, it's brilliant).

Konading, handpainting, and look! It isn't matte!

Then I had a cup of tea and resisted the urge to add glitter and matte top coat. I am strong, or something.

Arrr, Treasure

My posh polish reward for having no ciggies this week is Nubar Treasure from the Prisms collection, a set of colourful holographic polishes. Unfortunately, the holo doesn't show up all that great in the rubbish light that I was left with after the Sun decided to bugger off behind a huge cack of cloud.

You can just see the holo doing it's thang.

Naturally, I had to ruin it all by doing a very dodgy Fauxnad job on the tips. For this I used Fauxnad m33 plate (pic) with some 2True Shade 16. It was meant to be nice and slightly subtle but it came out really subdued and boring. I tried painting some dots in the center of the flowers with Collection 2000 Hot Looks Parma Violet but this was the wrong colour to use, t'was too dark. I completed the nail ruination by mattifying it with some Rimmel Ultra Pro Matte Finish and it didn't look that bad if I squinted.

Pattern didn't stand out so I mattified it.

I'm mattifying everything at the moment, must get a grip.

\m/ As Metal As Flippin' eck Nails \m/

Decided to go with some silver today so I've swatched the Saffron Colour 13.

Saffron Colour 13 Swatch. Shiny Silver.

Nice and shiny, it does the job, available from Blush Cosmetics, eBay and maybe in your local chemist, and it costs a quid for a bottle. This is good. What wasn't good was breaking my Boots boycott by purchasing a bottle of Barry M Nail Effects 311 Crackle stuff :O

Barry M Nail Effects 311. It crackles me up.

I applied different thicknesses of the crackle polish to see how it affected the final look; the index finger sported a very thick coat, middle finger was a thickish coat and the ring finger had a thin application. Can't remember what I did with the little finger, anyway I like the thin coat the best. A top coat of Rimmel Ultra Pro Matte Finish finished the job and then a nice plumber came round to fix my cold tap before my nails had dried properly and I gouged a bit out by turning off the stopcock.  Bummer.

Flakies are Fab

Had to say farewell to the tribal nails as the Nfu.Oh was calling my name, like some demanding mistress of nails. I had to comply and started off with some Boots 17 Fast Finish True Blue as a base colour.

Boots 17 Fast Finish True Blue Swatch.

Nice colour, shame about the application really, as it went on horribly thick and patchy; did not enjoy putting that on at all. The Nfu.Oh 52 made up for this bothersome application as it went on like a champ.

Blues and greens and ahhh. It's like a shimmering ocean.

Yet again, I am let down by the limitation of my ickle phone-cam, you can see how the flakies change from green to blue, but you can't see how vibrant it all looks. Also, you can't see how utterly messy today's application is,  so thanks for that cam, nice one :)

Next day brought a spot of Konading, using Chez Delaney plate B101 and MUA Shade 11. Seem to be using the same polish for stamping, like, all the time :(

Funky little flowers

Tribal Nails

Fancied a bit of red to match my socks, so today, for your viewing pleasure is Superdrug's MUA Shade 8.

Oh, hello there Red. Tea?

Got a couple of Chez Delaney plates this morning, and they're really rather lovely. Most of the stuff on that site is, it's like a shiny money drain :) Anyway, there is an incredible selection of tribal design plates, and being a fan of tribal tattoos I had to get a couple -- and after much mmmming and ahhhhing I went for plates T31 and B101. Today I used the T31 plate -- it  is a tad challenging to get a good stamp out of, it didn't like my cheap Superdrug black polish but it was fine with the Konad Special polish. Cleaning the plate and stamper after every stamp was also helpful, as was using an old HMV gift card instead of the metal scraper, and after a few messy attempts I got the hang of it. Yay.

Tribal nails own considerably.

I got a bit bored as usual and dotted on some dots using a pin and some Eyeko Vampira, a black polish with fabby red shimmer. It probably ruined it but I don't care, tribal nails own. In fact, they own so much that I'm ignoring the Nfu.Oh 52 that appeared through my letterbox this morning.

Mattified it the next day with some Rimmel Ultra Pro Matte Finish, and the design stands out beautifully, albeit a bit smudgy and messy.

Tribal Nails mattified. Matte is like the new glitter, or something.