NOTD: Mock Croc

Picked up some of this Barry M Mock Croc stuff over the weekend and thought that it might look nice. With something. Fancied some glitter but didn't because I'm already perma-covered with it, and couldn't be arsed with the removal.

Plan B was pink, and it's one from the chemist - Laura Paige 26 Limited Edition (orginally swatched here). Put two coats of this on, horribly application, then slapped some of the Barry M Mock Croc stuff over it to hide the rubbishness. It came out ... interestingly with the little finger looking the best out of the lot.

Wasn't too keen on this combo at all, but it did have promise. Attempted a fix with some fine silver glitter and that looked a bit nicer, then chucked some ELF matte top coat over it. Much better. Quite like it now, but won't be mega-disappointed when it chips.

Plugs of the Day were abstract orchid ones because I seem to lack a good amount of pink things to stick in my ears. Remedying this.

And Now A Lack of Sleep

Can't sleep at all at the mo, so thought that I'd play around with the design of the blog and do my nails at the same time. Quite surprised the nails didn't get wrecked, what with the frustration of dealing with the possessed trackpad on the laptop and mindlessly grabbing cups of tea.

Wearing OPI Ink Suede today because it goes with me new plugs. Came out a bit blue in the pics because my newer, lovely camera that I deeply love and adore doesn't like purple all that much. There's a more accurate swatch here if that tickles yer fancy.

The Ink didn't go on terribly well because it's been sitting around for a year and was a bit goopy so the Konad stuff got dusted off and I made a mess.

Went over the nails with black special polish and plate BM201, decided it was a bit boring and wanted flowers as well, and went for the dangly flowery things on GCOCL plate K03. Boring old top coat that came from the pound shop finished it off nicely.

Be a shame to ruin it tomorrow.

Wings of the Sparklebeast

The sun came out the other day, which called for a bit of Kleancolor Holo Chrome.

Two coats of Kleancolor Holo Chrome

It smells of CHEMICALS but it went on smoothly and only needed a couple of coats for opacity. Felt a bit rough though, but that was quickly sorted out with some top coat. I love this polish, it's well sparkly when the sun comes out. Full marks for blingtasticness.

Like the wings of a sparklebeast

The mega-sparkle got a bit distracting after a few days so I went over it with some black Konading, using BM208 and some MUA Shade 2 (black). Good stuff.

Post Contains Crackle

Two more Boots 17 Mini polishes to go -- there are only nine polishes in the box but it has taken me yonks to go through them all. This one is Boots 17 Lasting Fix Royal Indigo.

Boots 17 Lasting Fix Royal actually looks a bit lighter

The polish looks darker in the picture as the camera didn't like this colour at all. I liked it, though, it went on smoothly and only took a couple of coats - much preferring this Lasting Fix stuff over the Fast Finish.

Yes, this is pretty fine.

Decided to replace my usual Konad addiction with a nice bit of crack. le. Yeah, weak, sorry. Not really the biggest fan of crackle finishes (Mr Luton is nuts about them) but this one has grown on me over the days. It's W7 Earthquake Silver crackle polish and it's pretty sparkly. Seems a bit thirsty, taking a couple of coats of top-coat to get it all smooth and shiny, other than that it's champion stuff.

Here Be Dragons

Going to try to finish swatching these Boots 17 mini polishes this week as I want to use the rather attractive box for things. We've got Boots 17 Fast Finish Moonstruck today, isn't that nice?

Boots 17 Fast Finish Moonstruck. More peas, Norma?

I like this colour but at the same time hate it as it makes my fingers look grubby and a bit John Major Grey. Not good. Going to moan about application now, it was lumpy and fiddly and had to be done a couple of times as it just didn't want to go on nicely. The polish does dry very fast though, maybe that was the source of the lumpiness. Hmph.

Konaded some dragons over the polish and it was OK, a bit boring maybe, but adequate. Stamping plate used was HB-002 and stamping polish was the Konad Special Black polish, as the plate didn't care for my usual cheapo black polish.

Dragons and glitter and more glitter

I got bored and fidgety later on and added some random silver glitter polish over the grey-silver, then added some Saffron Colour 09 (pink and silver glitter) on the accent finger. Much better. Hurray for glitter \o/

Well, Hello There Sailor

I picked up some of the, quite frankly, gorgeous OPI Suedes recently and hadn't had a chance to wear them as I have too much polish. OPI Russian Navy Suede, a matte navy blue with a kick-arse silver shimmer, is my pick for the weekend.

OPI Russian Navy Suede Swatch. Fandabydosy

You can get away with one coat if you're tidy. I'm not and needed two coats to get the coverage nice and even. Yeah baby. Then it looked fab and I was all <3 with it.

I'd read some bits about the OPI Suedes chipping really easily, but I had no noticeable problems with this, which made a very pleasant change, but this did not stop me pre-emptively Konading it later on the day.

Messy stamping, it was hot and humid <excuse />

Used part of a full nail pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-210 and some Superdrug MUA Shade 11 (silver). This silver isn't quite as in-yer-face as the Stargazer 232 Chrome silver and is very suitable for subtle stampings over dark colours.

MUA Shade 11. Konad Special Silver polish. FIGHT!

Forgot to include the MUA Shade 11 stamping test-me-do t'other day, so I'm doing it now. The stamping on the top of the nail is MUA Shade 11 (£1) and the stamping on the bottom of the nail is the Konad Special Silver polish (about £3.99). Not much difference between them at all except for the price - the Konad Special Silver polish just seems a bit more shimmery. Neither of the polishes really showed up against a light background so I've not bothered including those pics.

Finally, in other news, I have purchased a dress for the OWIHTWAD, aka the wedding.

Wedding.

Gulp. See, OWIHTWAD isn't nearly as scary.

But yeah, getting married on 8th July, have told my family so can go on about it now. Am excited yet UTTERLY TERRIFIED at the same time but it will be great as we're having the reception at the Sonisphere Festival down the road and our wedding bands will be Diamond Head, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica. It had to be done, so if you're going you are invited to our reception \m/

Stamping Polish Test-me-do

In the past, I've used a few polishes that made me think, "oooh, this'll be good for stamping", and then quickly forgotten about testing them out. However, today is different as Jennius reminded me about it :)

Testing out yesterday's Stargazer 315 over China Glaze The Ten Man (left), Collection 2000 Wham* (centre) and Superdrug MUA Shade 2 (right). Didn't come out too bad actually, I've seen a lot worse. The polish is £2.50 from Stargazer which is downright bargainous for such a fabby fab fab colour.

And this one is Accessorize Idol over the same polishes as above. Good effort here, the stamped pattern came out as a mostly opaque dark grey with a bit of shimmer to it as well. It's currently sold-out on Accessorize and Superdrug's websites at the mo, but you might be able to find it for £2 at your local Superdrug.

*This polish keeps putting Wham's 'Wham Rap' in my head.

Let's Try This One Again

Blogger ate the draft of this post as well. Greedy Blogger.

ISTR banging on about Wednesday's Urban Decay Exhaust making my fingers look a bit grey, prompting me to replace the silvery-pinky-mauve with some, errrr, more grey.

An Accessorize Idol swatch, chillin' in the sun.

Accessorize Rock Star Idol is a dark, charcoal grey with a very prominent silver shimmer, nicely dark with a good bit of blinginess to it. The application was OK, maybe a bit thick and lumpy but I did only need one coat for good opacity. This would probably work nicely as a stamping polish, actually, must give that a go.

Idol is also half-price at Superdrug at present (and maybe on Accessorize's website too but I can't find it), so yay.

Did my tips again as it's my thang at the moment. Decided on one of the tip patterns on Bundlemonster plate BM17 and some Stargazer Chrome 232 (silver), stamped away, and found it hard to get the buggers straight. Tips are hard :( The interestingly-angled bits were quickly painted over with some more of the Accessorize Idol and it looked a bit better.

Can't do tips straight

Chucked a skull on an accent finger because, you know, skull. This particular design is from the skull-feste plate that is HB-05, (here it is at NailArt Und Mehr, there's some on eBay as well). This was also stamped with the Stargazer silver chrome polish.

It all got mattified during Blogger's downtime with some ELF Matte Top Coat. I like it matte, it's quite Orly Iron Butterfly. Maybe. It looked even better with two coats of the ELF matte topcoat but there are no pics of further mattness, as it was dark.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby

I like this polish, I put it on on Thursday and it's still going. Brilliant.

Hurray, it's Lovely Sonday

This is the last Lovely Sonday for a while, as I have run out of lovely naily gifts from my lovely son. He's bought me some awesome polishes, and this one - Orly Velvet Rope - has to be the most awesome of all.

Orly Velvet Rope Swatch. Hello there.

Ooooh, this is two coats of nice. Velvet Rope is a good, vivid glass-flecked purple that'll absolutely knock your socks off, I absolutely love this colour. And what better way to express my love than popping a bit of Konading on there ...

Orly Velvet Rope with some flowers and squiggles.

It all came out a bit wonky as I had to kinda stamp backwards IYSWIM. Used Stargazer Chrome Silver as the stamping polish and Fauxnad GCOCL G15 because I like the florals. It's the weirdest thing, actually, I'm not a flower-person at all, though I quite like lilies, but for some reason I really like having flowers on my nails. Must be getting old ...

A Winter Wonderland in April

I've worn Orly Winter Wonderland quite a few times now, but never got the opportunity to swatch it until today. So here it is.

Orly Winter Wonderland Swatch

I'm a bit of a fan of this white and silver shimmer, it's all glistening and shimmering and it's not my normal colour but I loves it. It is a bit sheer for my liking and four coats were needed to get a good opaque thang going.

Kept it pure for a while, then went for a spot of Konad.

Blue Butterflies and Flowers. It was hard to get a pic of this.

I used Fauxnad plate m02 for the butterflies, Konad m57 for the flowers and shaded it all with Orly Lunar Eclipse. Quite pleased with how it all ended up, actually -- shall try and keep it on for more than 24 hours as some sort of challenge!

\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.

Blingtastic Purple

I was out gathering nicotene patches yesterday and I found this stonker for the princely sum of £2.29:

Three coats of bloomin' 'eck

This is a swatch of Laura Paige 43 Limited Edition Voodoo Violet and it isn't what I expected to find in the cheapo nail polish section of the local chemist. It is fab, a purple base with purple microglitter and larger bits of holographic glitter. ISTR there being a silver version of this as well but I was quite captivated by the purple (and I only had a couple of quid spare). It also came with a free black eyeliner, which was rather \o/

It lasts well too, we had a pretty hardcore sesh of Rock  Band 3 last night, resulting in one small break and no chips. Good work!

Oooh

I layered some on over Avon Matte Black (the stuff that chips like a potato) and it looked pretty cool; the purple microglitter shows up beautifully though I'm not sure what happened to the holo glitter. This one will be staying on for a few days, it's bloody fantastic.

Something A Bit Girlie

Here's a swatch of the Laura Paige 34 Limited Edition wot I found in the chemists last week ...

Two coats.

It's a nice foily metallic pink,  and it's £2.29 in your local neighbourhood chemist or from Makeup.UK.com. Not my usual obnoxious colour, but it is one that I like and would wear again. But for now, let's ruin it with some silver tips.

Bloody spongers, coming here, taking our nail polish.

I quickly sponged the tips over with some Saffron of London Colour 13 and it was OK, but it was missing something. It was missing some bling.

They are not hexograms, they're squares.

There we go. Today's bling is Barry M 239 Lavender Hexograms and I have no idea why they are called Lavender Hexograms because they are square with four sides. A small technicality, I know, but it is annoying me for some reason.

Space Nails III - Attack of the Lunar Eclipse

Didn't intend for this to turn out as another lot of space nails, but it just happened.

Started of with a base of cheap and cheerful Constance Carroll Diamond Gloss in 346 Midnight Blue and could not get a decent photo of it, I later found out that there was something smeary on the lens, probably from the dog, which made everything go fuzzy.

There was also something on the lens :(

The bottle has a nice blue shimmer to it which sadly hardly shows up on the nails at all. It was quite gloopy and drippy to apply as well, and it smelt of the olden days. I put some glitter on it.

Glitter will sort that out for you, mate.

This is Saffron of London Colour 05, a purple, blue and silver glitter mix (available from UK chemists, eBay and Blush Cosmetics.) It has a bit of a holo effect to it when the light hits it right, tis wicked. I was enjoying it until I got bored and thought that I'd add some nebulous tips on top of the glitter.

In order of appearance (left to right): Constance Carroll 346 Midnight Blue, Saffron Colour 05, Orly Lunar Eclipse, Laura Paige Limited Edition 34, Gosh 549 and Saffron Colour 07.

I sponged some Orly Lunar Eclipse over portions of the nail, starting at the tips and concentrating on one side or the middle. Next came a sponging of a metallic foily pink - Laura Paige Limited Edition Number 34 (available in UK chemists and at Makeup.UK.com),  I sponged this in very small patches at the tips and random spots where I had already sponged Lunar Eclipse. Next up was a sponging of Gosh 549 Holographic just by the areas I'd done with the pink, then another quick sponging of Lunar Eclipse on the bits I'd messed up.

Once I was happy with my little nebulae I applied some Saffron Colour 07 (big and little bits of silver glitter) to the clouds, with the big chunky bits going over the Gosh 549 and smaller silver bits over the Lunar Eclipse. Then it was dark and I had to get picture with artificial light :(

Under artificial lights.

In natural light. No sunlight, this is England.

Out Of This World

Gone for some Orly Out of this World today because of the purple shimmery fabulousness.

My favouritist purple in the whole wide world.

I wasn't paying attention and mattified and Konadified my left hand before I took a picture, so the shaky-cam picture above is of my right hand, but you get the general idea of the colour. The yellow duochrome you see on the bottle doesn't really show up when on the nails which is a bit of a bummer. It still looks bloody nice, though.

Mattified and Konadified.

Here it is mattified with Mavala Matt Top Coat (a 99p Fleabay bidding bargain, it's nearly a tenner elsewhere) and, yet again, the picture does not do the colour justice, it has a lovely velvety texture that makes me go mmmmm.  It did look a bit boring after a while, and I was fidgety, so I stamped over it with MUA Shade 11 using Konad plate m36  and then it was all good.

Earworm Nail Polish

I'm liking this OPI Not Like the Movies from the Katy Perry Collection a lot, but there is one thing that really annoys me about it. Everytime I see the bottle I get Katy Perry songs in my head, normally 'Teenage Dream', and they stay there for hours. As I'm a bit of a fan of angry angry music, I don't like Katy Perry music all that much but her nail polish collection and husband are pretty fit.

Hand like a zombie, wtf?

Not Like the Movies is definitely the fittest of all, the colours range from silver to pink to olivey-green and it's got some fabby glassy shimmer things going on. It's quite girlie, yet totally suitable for someone who isn't very girlie at all, like me. Shall attempt to keep this one on for a while.

Space Nails

This nail bling continues on from yesterday's Avon Matte disaster and subsequent glitter repair-job. The glitter did look like a nice starfield, and I'd not long seen a right groovy tutorial on Space Nails at Nails by Asami, so I thought I'd give them a whirl.

It all seemed easy enough, matte black base, holo and duochromes and glitter; I was halfway there already. Using a sponge that started life as one of those washing up sponges with a scouring pad on, I sponged away with me polishes and worked out that I had managed to apply 11 coats so far:

Base coat, two coats of Avon Matte Black as Night, spot of Konading, two coats of Sally Hansen top coat, two coats of the Saffron Colour 06 (black with silver glitter), a sponging of Gosh 549 (holographic and so very  shiny), a sponging of Nubar - Peacock Feathers (purple and green duochrome) and one coat of NYC Starry Silver Glitter (chunky blue, silver and lavender glitter). Blimey.

It's a bit spacey, I suppose.

I was going for a nice opulent cloud look there which was actually working quite nicely, until I put some chunky glitter on. It went a bit clunky after that and spoilt the opulence really, so I opted to add even more polish to that lot.

Space Nails II - Peacock Feather's Revenge

That's more sponged-on Gosh 549 and Nubar Peacock Feathers and some of the Saffron Colour 06 glitter. Oh, and a quick layer of some random top coat I found in a drawer that was a gift in the 1990s. The excessive glitter still ruins it, unfortunately, and the picture came out a bit clunky because my camera is a phone-cam and because I have 15 coats of nail polish on, but they look nice and shiny in real life. Yay!

This Blue Is Ace

So very, very blue. This is Orly Lunar Eclipse from the Cosmic FX collection and it really is smashing.

Orly Lunar Eclipse, it's scrummy

It's an electric blue shimmer with a purple duochrome that hardly shows up in this picture, but it is there. I loved looking at the colour but I got cravey and fidgety so Konaded it all.

Not sure about these random silver squiggles

I used Konad plate m70 and MUA Shade 11 (a silver available from Superdrug. A bottle costs £1) and randomly stamped all over the place. I like it but I don't like it, it's very confusing. Still, that blue looks the bollocks :)