Jacava - Pink Whisper and Candy Floss

A few months ago, I introduced you to a British polish brand called Jacava. They are '8 free' (free from DBP, Camphor, Formaldehyde, Toluene, Collophane, Parabens, Phthalates and Animal Ingredients) and of course they are also Cruelty Free.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Jacava polishes, their formulas are brilliant to work with. Being free from all the above nasties doesn't seem to impact their formulas whatsoever. They are still long lasting and amazingly opaque.

For this mani I chose Pink Whisper, a very subtle light pink, the kind you would use as a base for a French mani but also great on it's own as a palate cleanser. I added some slanted french tips with Candy Floss, a bright berry pink and ran some silver striping tape along the connecting lines.

I also love Pink Whisper on it's own. It makes nails look so sophisticated! The reason I don't wear more sheer pinks like this is because my tips are always stained from the amount of times I change my polish!

You can purchase Jacava directly from their website - http://www.jacava.com/. and they also sell through Feel Unique.

Don't forget to check out their Facebook page for amazing swatches and manis from other girls as well as competitions and promotions.

*The product(s) in this post was provided for review purposes 

Liquid Leather & Sleek Silver

You have probably seen the mani I'm about to show you various time in places such as Pinterest, Instagram or Tumblr. I thought it was so sleek, I had to recreate it. I have no idea who the original creator of this mani is as none of the pictures I've seen have watermarks and I don't recognise the nails (please drop me a line if you happen to know) *Edit* - the lady who originally came up with this mani and who inspired me has come forward. Check out her original version here!

I hardly just wear black on my nails. Black is usually a base colour for some nail art or stamping but I had forgotten how much I liked the bold, striking look of it.

This is two coats of China Glaze Liquid Leather (a new black in my collection, I usually stick to Barry M Black or Sally Hansen Black Out). I then added silver striping tape to create the french tips. I "wrapped" the tape around the underside of my nails and sealed it in with a thick coat of SV. I've been wearing it for over 24 hours and so far the tape has stayed put.

Glittery French Chevrons

How about a palate cleanser? I haven't worn a typical French Manicure in at least 3 years. Before I got really into nail polish, I used to love them and would sway back and forth between typical frenchies, red and dark polishes like OPI Lincoln Park After Dark and You Don't Know Jacques.

I changed it up a little and with the chevron tips instead of regular smile lines and with a holo glitter topper, Crystal Shimmer by Accessorize. I really enjoyed wearing this, mostly because I haven't worn a french manicure in such a long time.

Tip Top Nail Chic - Traffic Lights & Sexy Fishnet Stamping

This is the second polish sent to me for review by Tip Top Nails. If I liked the colour and formula of the first polish, this one totally blew me away.

I like reds but don't usually go out of my way to buy a dark shimmery red like this, so I couldn't believe how much I loved it on my nails. It's so vampy and mysterious, a great colour for fall. You know when we say "this polish is almost a one-coater but I used two for consistency", well, this mani is actually just one coat! The formula was a dream to work with, I'm so impressed.

I'm going to a Burlesque show tomorrow so I couldn't have received this polish at a better time! I channelled my inner Chloe's Nails and went for a sexy fishnet pattern (BM209) with some black french tips. I love how they turned out.

And here is one coat of Traffic Lights on it's own. How cool is it that it's completely opaque in one coat?!

If you want to find out more about Tip Top Nail Chic, I suggest you visit their Facebook page as the company is very active on there.

*This product was sent to me for review by the company.

Exotic Encounters - China Glaze On Safari Collection 2012

When I found out that the store I usually buy my polish from had the new China Glaze On Safari Collection in stock, I immediately placed an order for the two polishes that grabbed my attention the most - Exotic Encounters and I'm Not Lion. Come to think of it now, there are definitely a few more shades I want from this collection and lot of the colours have an autumn/ winter feel to them.

Exotic Encounters is like a dark teal green, definitely leaning more onto green. The formula is very opaque and with careful application, you almost wouldn't need two coats. Although this wasn't a problem at all, I found the consistency quite strange, it started out very thin and runny but by the time I got to my pinky, it became thick and goopy. It reminds me of some Barry M polishes whose formulas are also like this.

I wasn't feeling all that great today and to be honest, was also totally uninspired to do nail art or stamping so I just placed some loose hex glitter whilst the polish was still wet, to form french tips.

I have a bad feeling that this polish stains because when it pooled onto my cuticle on one of my nails, it was a pain to remove! I hope that isn't the case as I've only just recently got rid of some other staining!

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Silver Glitter French Mani & Born Pretty M71 Plate Review

Today I have a review for you. The lovely ladies from the Born Pretty store offered me the chance to review their M71 stamping plate, which is most popular for the Hello Kitty image. However, for this reason I wanted to give one of the other images a go first and decided on one of the flowers and a simple french.

I used Kiko 209 for the nude pink'ish base, China Glaze Polarized for the slanted french tips and Barry M Silver Foil to stamp with.

Other than the plate, they sent me a stamper and scraper as well which can all be bought HERE for $3.49 (free shipping). The M71 plate has 9 small images consisting of various flowers/ plants, fruit, cat, dolphin, butterflies and the famous Hello Kitty.

As you can see in the picture below, the stamper is shorter than my Konad one but the diameter is only the slightest bit smaller, which shouldn't cause any issues when stamping.
The silicone bit is somewhat firmer than Konad which meant I had to apply a lot more pressure on it. I used it on a couple of nails but had to switch back to my Konad stamper because of this. I had no problems at all picking up the image, the firmness of the silicone just made it difficult to transfer onto the nail.

The scraper is also slightly smaller than the Konad one but the blades are the same. They both do damage to the plate which is the reason I often use a old credit card. 

Born Pretty plates in general, are a very good alternative to Konad as they are of good quality and at a fraction of the price.The store has an array of different plates to chose from and a whole lot of other nail art equipment and decorations. You can get 7% off if you use the discount code on my sidebar - VA7J61.

Papa-paparazzi

A while ago I was looking at "Lady Gaga nails" on You Tube and came across some really cool designs! There were quite a few clips on how to do nails like her Paparazzi outfit which I found really cute so I thought I'd give them a go!

I used Beauty UK Yellow Peril as a base colour and a dotting tool to draw the Mickey Mouse heads. The very thin gold french tips are made of striping tape.

60's Red Polka Dot French

A nude and cherry red polka dot French. That's what I wanted to show you guys today! I thought it was very retro and 60's looking, hence the post title :)

Since I've been back, I've been so busy that my nails have been naked for a few days! I managed to finally paint my nails last night with a Speciallita polish I recently received in a swap and I will post that as soon as I've posted these last few manis I did before I went on holiday!

For this mani I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, a creamy nude shade with the slightest hint of rose. I use this polish very often as a base for funky Frenches! The tips and polka dots are Nails Inc Victoria, a dark cherry red which is much darker than what you can see in these pictures but as I just applied one coat over the tips, it looks lighter.

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Glittery Tips On A Bed Of Roses

Orly Artificial Sweetener is such a pretty and soft colour which means I probably shouldn't have added anything to it but I couldn't help it. As the colour reminds me very much of roses, I thought that would be a good place to start.

I stamped with BM14 and Konad White Polish. The french tips are China Glaze Polarized from the Prismatic Chrome Glitters collection (I'm not ready to give up on this polish yet)! This glitter is so dense that it makes a perfect one coater for tape manis and french tips!

French Twist

This morning on the train, I saw a girl wearing gold nails with black tips. I see her every now and then on my way to work and she always has impeccable nails. I wonder if she is a blogger or something?! I'm too shy to ask! Lol!

Anyway, back to my point. I'd forgotten how much I actually like french tips of various colours. It makes for a simple yet fun mani.

I used Barry M Silver as a base colour. This isn't the best silver I've tried. In fact, it's below average. On the brush, the micro glitter is plenty and quite densely packed but it doesn't translate to the nail (not the same calibre as Zoya Trixie which is my favourite silver). I used 3 coats and there was still some sheer patches.

Drying time was horrible, even with a fast dry top coat (or maybe I'm just too impatient). Because of this, I dented my ring finger and had to try and cover it up with another coat. My other Barry M polishes are much better than this so I guess it's just this particular one that's problematic. The black tips are Barry M Black.

Do you guys like french manicures of various colours as well or are you a traditional french manicure kind of person? I like both to be perfectly honest but traditional french is so unadventurous! I haven't done one in years so I might actually do one sometime soon :)

Wintry Terracotta

It seems that terracotta colour I put on yesterday was a hit after all, 2 of my friends commented on it today and they were actually positive comments!

I was racking my brain trying to think of what to add to this mani. I was going to stamp with a sort of abstract bundle monster stamp but that quickly went horribly wrong. Good thing I did my right hand first!
After all that, I just added some navy blue french tips and a double line of gold striping tape to compliment the blue. I quite like how this unusual mix of colours turned out, it looks like a "wintry" mani.

One of my friends also posted something on her facebook page today which I thought was very funny. I think you would have probably read it before, it's been making the rounds on FB and Twitter:

"There's a rumor going around that says boys are stronger then girls! Oh! Please, can you carry a 7 lb baby in your stomach for 9 months? Can you cook, clean and talk on the phone @ the same time? Can you burn your forehead with a curling iron and not complain? Can you walk all day in 5" heels? Can you cry all night then wake up the next morning like everything is okay? Remember guys, women are only helpless until their nail polish dries :)"

Black & Gold Egyptian Pyramids

Today's mani was inspired by Jane's Pyramid manis. I spent the best part of an hour trying to figure out how she created a 3 tier pyramid without having to use 4 strips of tape simultaneously, but in the end I gave up! All I could come up with was a 2 tier pyramid!

Polishes used were Barry M Black and Miss Sporty Gold Backstage. I really like the contrast between Black & Gold and I love doing tape manis but I need a little bit more practice to get my angles right!

Illamasqua's Purity Theatre Curtains!!!

I first came across this look on this blog. The initial theme was "hearts" so as to copy the design the model had on the ad campaign for the Illamasqua Throb collection.
However, they look more like curtains to me, maybe because I can't draw hearts very well. Hence the silly post name I just made up :)

So, keeping with the theme of Illamasqua's dramatic makeup and alternative culture, I give you my Illamasqua's Purity Theatre Curtains!!! Lol!

Kismet Elated gets a French Diamante twist

This is now the second manicure I have done with Kismet Elated. The first time around I added some heavy white opaque french curtain tips which gave the mani a sort of retro feel.

This time I went for a bit of a glitz & glamour look. I added slanted sheer french tips with Zoya Trixie and filled the ring finger with different sized rhinestones:

Accessorize - Aztec Wrapped Pressies

Today I have one of those rock minerals-glass-crystals-foily-duochrome type polishes, in the fashion of Orly Space Cadet and Hard Candy Beetle to show you. It's by Accessorize and it's called Aztec. I picked it up at the airport on my way back from holidays but hadn't yet had a chance to try it out.

This isn't a dupe for Orly or Hard Candy but it still portrays the multi-facet range of colours that we have come to like in these type of polishes. What colours can you see in this one? I mainly saw a sort of army green, plum sort of purple, gold, brown.

You already know about application of polishes like this - not majorly opaque unless you apply 3 coats to even out bald patches.
I don't really like taking pictures in direct sunlight because it can often alter the true colour of the polish but for this one I had to wait for a bit of sun to capture any sort of dimension to the polish! With no sun, they are a b*tch to capture. The duo chrome effect only showed if I angled my hand. 

I wasn't sure what to add to a colour like this, so I just added some tips, played around with some striping tape and added a metal butterfly embellishment. No top coat applied to these:

The LA Colors Seashell & French Tips Incident!

Right, so this mani wasn't supposed to turn out like this whatsoever! I had something completely different in mind. As the polish is called Seashell, I was going to stamp little light brown shells to keep with the beach theme. A sparkly beach! And then it all went downhill from there!

The polish applied relatively well but it was sheer so I added 1 coat of Barry M Lemon Ice Cream base colour before 2 coats of seashell. Then it all turned into a mess!

The drying time was so horrible that I found it hard to actually believe that any polish would take this long to dry, even with 2 coats of SV! The second coat of SV even made the polish lift from the nail a bit. I waited about 30 mins before using scotch tape for the tips and this created massive bubbles of air underneath! I was still trying desperately to salvage this mani, even without my little seashells.
The only thing I could think of was  nail stickers to cover up some of the mistakes. But guess what? As I added a top coat over the stickers, they started curling up at the edges (which has never happened to me before with these stickers)! That's it, I was so annoyed I gave up and this mani came straight off. And not so long ago I was raving about LA Colors, maybe I just got a bad bottle :( *sigh*

Orly Blue Suede & Silver Shimmer French Tips

For the past couple of days I've been wearing Orly Blue Suede from the Fall 2009 Orly Matte Couture Collection. As the name suggests, this has more of a suede, satiny finish but I still consider it a matte because of the way it look on the nail!
I know a lot of people still haven't embraced the matte look, others think it's horrendous (my cousin compares it to felt tip pens) but I have to say that I quite like it. It's not as versatile as a regular gloss finish polish, but for me, it serves it's purpose.

Blue Suede is nothing like OPI Russian Navy Matte, which I don't own but have tried. This is a gorgeous navy with a dusty satin shimmer.
I actually wore a base coat with this polish as I was afraid to stain my nails and it still applied smoothly, without major dragging or patchy problems.

I then added some Zoya Trixie french tips and some rhinestones. I couldn't think of what else to do with a matte polish. I did consider some stamping but I was sure it wouldn't hold without a top coat and it would probably make it look like chalk board!

I was curious to see what this particular colour looked like with a glossy finish so I added a top coat of SV, but concluded that this matte should be left as it is:

Paradise Pink - French Tips & Salient Flowers

For Pink Wednesday yesterday, I went on and on and on about L.A Colors Paradise Pink! Lol. What can I say, I was impressed!! So before I took this mani off, I added some black french tips and fimo flowers last night.
This probably seems like a really impractical mani because the fimo is so salient, however I was actually surprised that they were still there after a whole 18 hours. They do easily get caught in my hair though...Lol!

I wouldn't usually wear this much fimo on an everyday mani but it looks pretty for the pictures :-)