Essie Lapis of Luxury

I love this colour in the bottle. I love this colour on other blogger's nails. I do not love this colour on me.

I wanted to love it so much. It's a nice colour, I don't dislike it I just don't love it. I was expecting a gorgeous denim blue but it looks more purple on me. I think I built up my expectations too much with this one.

I’m really not happy with the condition of my nails at the moment. The splits I mentioned before are getting worse. I’d already had to patch my left thumb nail and now I’ve got to do the same with my right index finger and there’s some little splits on my right hand fingers which are just glued.


I don’t like painting over patches or glue, it makes me sad.

I’m going to try and grow the splits out to above the nail line and then I’m cutting them short and then I’m NEVER EVER using cuticle remover again grr


 
Faybee x

My Poor Cuticles Continued

That's not the best picture to show it off but the skin next to my cuticles is raw and peeling :(

I've also found three splits in my nails; I'm still blaming this on the cuticle remover as there was no sign of these before. I've so far managed to fix them with nail glue so my nails haven't had to be cut that short.

I'm not going to name and shame the cuticle remover make because this was the first time I'd ever used it so it quite easily could have been my mistake instead. Although I did follow the instructions to the best of my ability.

That's China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, it's not bright orange as it appears in my photo but a neon coral. The tip is China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and that really is that neon yellow.

Flower-to-Flower and My Poor Cuticles

I didn't think my cuticles looked that bad in this photo. Not perfect but not bad. I wanted them to look perfect so I decided to try some cuticle remover on them.

It looked fab at first, took all the dry skin off and made them look that little bit better ( how naive I was.)
So I tried out OPI's Flower to Flower. It looks nice, reminds me of China Glaze Strawberry Fields but rather a lot lighter.

Models Own Tangerine Queen

So after finally managing to get Purple Haze off my nails I decided to try out something I bit brighter. This is definitely brighter.

Tangerine Queen is a gorgeous bright neon, it dries to a not-quite-matte finish (satin, is that the word I want?) it's not an in your face orange but a lovely subtle colour, well if you can call a neon subtle.

It really reminds me of China Glazes Sun Worshipper but sadly I don't own that one so I can't compare them in real life.


Faybee x

Purple Haze NOTD

I think I must have been mad not use a base colour with this. That's six coats in the picture.

Pros: Super sparkly and a fairly unusual colour; I don't recall seeing a purple glitter before. I keep looking down at my nails and going "Oooooo shiny!" I'm also pretty sure I could fight crime with my bullet proof nails now (six coats!)

Cons: I have no idea how I'm going to get this off.

Bella’s Choice NOTD

This is the manicure I'm wearing right now. I love H&M nail varnishes and wanted this one from the moment I saw it but convince myself I didn't need it because it was very similar to my Barry M Turquoise. Well I lasted about a week before I ran back to the shop and bought it. It's actually a lot greener than the Barry M one and it's perfect for summer.

The gold is China Glaze Khrome 2030 and I used masking tape to make the triangle shapes.

I wasn't as neat as I wanted it to be but I think it still looks good. I think it would look awesome with a tan but as I never tan I guess I'll never know for sure.
It looks better in real life, the little smudges and 'not quite straight' lines aren't as noticeable.

OPI Done Out in Deco Bows

I wore this dress last Sunday and I wanted my nails to complement it.

 

Image copied from Next.co.uk

I went for OPI's Done out in Deco for my base colour and added bows the Konad M59 to match the ones on the dress. I know you can't see the bows on the dress very well in that picture but they're actually a really good match; they have the same polka dots and everything!

This is after a few days wear so it does look a bit rough round the edges but tip wear wasn't too bad with this polish.
It's a shame the bows did fit fully on my fingers but I think it looks alright and they did just about fit my thumb nail.

I think this manicure looked really cute. I love the formula of this polish it's quite thin which makes it easy to apply but it was still opaque in two coats despite its thinness.

Tartan NOTD

I've been away this weekend. My family went to Edinburgh to see the 3 Rifles Homecoming Parade. I've had a brilliant weekend with lots of yummy food and shopping.

So in honour of my scottish visit I decided to go tartan.

Do you like my matching bracelet? Actually it's my Mam's that I nicked (please don't tell.)

This look was created with two coats of H&M Red Nail and Konad Plate M60 in Konad SP Black. Simple but quite effective I think.

Nubar Reclaim NOTD

I love green nail varnish. I know some people don't like it, especially as a nail colour, but I adore it and this one is fabulous.

This is my first holo and my first Nubar varnish that I've tried and I think it's amaaaaazing, look how shiny it is!

This is one of my more expensive varnishes as Nubar does seem to be in the higher price range. They have such a fantastic range on colours and I'm hoping to try more soon. I wish there was more availability in the UK.