NOTW: Geometric Tape Mani

Hi there :-) Welcome to my blog! I have picked up a veritable TON of new followers lately and I really can't believe it - I'm really grateful for each and every one of you :-) So make yourselves at home; grab a beanbag and enjoy :D

Today I have another tape mani to show you! This one gave me hell ~.~ First off, let's see my handiwork:

My thumb is pretty too!

Sadly I couldn't quite capture the silver-green-purple
flash of  the multichrome on camera :-(

This is REALLY pretty, but I will probably never do it again. Cutting the tape up into all the right shapes was making me tear my hair out - and getting everything symmetrical was such a headache! Call me lazy, but I never want to spend that much time with scotch tape EVER again. Also, the tape is now EVERYWHERE. Ugh. Of course, had I planned this mani properly, I would have applied the colours in reverse order, starting with the purple... and come to think of it, I bet it would have been a doddle with striping tape (which I don't own)... oh the gift of hindsight! ;-) At least I had pretty fingers (albeit just on the one hand...) :-)

Here's the polishes I used:

• Essie Trophy Wife (teal base)
• Barry M Silvery Lilac (strong silver multichrome - flashes purple and green)
• Kiko #315 (purple)

This is quite a short post today - go me! All I have left to show you is a full swatch of the base colour, which is perhaps the perfect teal :-) Take a look:

Please ignore the imperfections - I managed to mess up application
big-time but the angle of the photo hides most of it :-P

Y'all don't know this, but this colour is my weakness. If it has turquoise/teal on it, I automatically love it, regardless of what it is. I just can't help myself! My go-to turquoise has always been Rimmel Green With Envy, which is a bit brighter than this Essie, but the formula is awful (much like that of my beloved Black Cherries). In fact, the polish makes me so ANGRY that I don't use it anymore - but now I have a replacement :D

This Essie polish was an untried (staining is my enemy) and is my first ever Essie colour :-) I love, love, love the colour and finish, and I quite like the brush, but I don't love it; I normally always look for a wide brush, but this brush is a bit too wide for my tiny pinkies. It's not a big deal, I guess; it just means I have to paint more carefully! :-P

EDIT: The wear-time on the Essie turned out to be poor! What a shame. On the plus side, no staining :-)


What do y'all think? I enjoyed this mani but would definitely not approach it in the same way again! I'm really enjoying my tape mani spree this month and I can't wait to show you my next mani - perhaps my favourite EVER so far! DON'T MISS IT!!! :-)

'Til next time, curlettes! :-)

- Skye x

NOTW: Sonnetarium Snowfall!

Hello, my lovelies!

***Warning: Long and picture-heavy post***

How are you today? I hope you're ready for a wordy post because I have nothing but love for this next polish :-)

Today's post is dedicated to Sharla-Elyn who was lovely enough to take part in a surprise swap with me :-) Sharla-Elyn really wanted me to send her some Max Factory Fantasy Fire (see my post for this gem here), and this lovely lady decided to make the swap fun by selecting something from my wishlist (on the left) which she had delivered to me direct in the UK - without telling me what I was gonna get! After weeks of anticipation, my polish eventually arrived just after Xmas and I was stunned to find that Sharla-Elyn had killed my BIGGEST lemming ever: Sonnetarium Snowfall!!! I was totally speechless because I've *needed* this polish since I saw it swatched by Manicurator over purple - the perfect accompaniment!

Let's take a look at the wonderment that is Sonnetarium Snowfall:

IT'S SNOWING ON MY NAILS!!!

*.* Love this so much <3

Here, I've layered *one* coat of Snowfall over two coats of Rimmel At Ease, because I was in the mood for a subtle nudey mani. DOESN'T IT LOOK LIKE SNOW?! I just adore this polish and I really think Michelle of Sonnetarium outdid herself with this one. I could just stare at it ALL day. No other snow polish comes close! This polish is *packed* with glitter and is incredibly versatile; I can't think of a single colour it wouldn't work with - even white would look delicate and beautiful! Furthermore, this polish has hidden depths. Not only are there large, small and tiny white glitters, there are also these incredible iridescent glitters that take on all sorts of funky shades (green, blue, pink/purple, copper etc.) depending on the light. I'd say the dominant colour is copper in my photos but the flash is definitely an entire rainbow :-) I can't wait to layer this polish over everything else I own!

To get a smooth surface for my mani, I first layered two coats of Rimmel Matte polish over Snowfall, and this looked kind of funky in itself, so I took y'all a picture of that too :-)

Matte polish really brought out the copper tones
of the iridescent glitter!

Of course, due to my schizophrenic polish nature, I eventually tired of the subtle colour of this mani and wished that I'd chosen something more exciting to match my new polish. However, I recently discovered an amazing tape technique from cutepolish - the girl that brought us the OPI Spotted cheat method - and so rather than remove the mani, I just had to try it out on top! For this effect, I used my crocodile zigzag scissors from my kiddies craft scissors set :-)

Pardon my tip wear! Also: notice the snowfall iridescence :-)

Isn't this cool (yes, it's busy, but I didn't want to remove the snow)?! The colours are Maybelline Turquoise Lagoon and Collection 2000 (Hot Looks) Lemon Soda, and the technique was really simple (though I foolishly ignored the two-layer rule for the yellow) - I can't wait to try it out for an entire mani :-)

Finally, here's a swatch of the base colour At Ease:

Signature shot :-)

This is the most colour-accurate - a warm, dusty brown.

Funny story - I actually bought this thinking it was a nude colour for me (I'm actually browner than you ever see in my photos). I initially went in store to pick up Caramel Cupcakes instead, but then I hesitated and this was the result (yeah, I know, I'm colour blind!). At first I was really angry at myself for wasting my money, but I've since realised that this is a really versatile colour, so I'm actually really glad to have it as part of my collection. This is two coats without a top coat.


So what do you guys think? I truly think that Snowfall is one of my favourite polishes EVER and I think I will almost definitely need a back up. I can't thank Sharla-Elyn enough for somehow intuitively knowing how badly I wanted this one and I'm sure hours of fun will be had combining the polish with all manner of colours :-) Sharla-Elyn - you rock :-D

'Til next time, curlettes!

Stay tuned over the next few weeks for a few more awesome tape manis that I'm especially proud of :-)

- Skye x

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You can buy Sonnetarium polishes from the (incredibly kind and sweet) Michelle at http://www.sonnetarium.net/all-products. Sonnetarium are just about to release a new spring collection inspired by fruit yoghurts, some swatches of which you can find on their FB page here :-)

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NOTW: Funky frog tape mani

Hello guys and girls! I have to say, I'm amazed by the number of followers I picked up lately! Welcome and thank you :-) I hope you enjoy my meagre bloggy offerings :-)

As some of you may know, I'm recovering from what has been a really painful break up, and like everyone who goes through this, I have good days and bad days. This week I had quite a few bad days... and I therefore resorted to some retail therapy to boost my spirits. Fortunately, I'm easily pleased(!) and so when I walked into Superdrug I immediately knew what I was looking for: GOSH Galaxy. Let's have a look at a swatch (this is two coats without a top coat):

Glossy ^^

My photo truly doesn't do this polish justice, and I'm really sorry I couldn't get anything good enough. Blame the awful weather we're having, blame my phone camera, blame my less-than-perfect swatch pose, but I just couldn't capture the amazingness! Take a look at these pictures instead (brace yourselves!): http://nail-loopy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/gosh-galaxy.html and http://www.britnails.co.uk/2012/08/gosh-galaxy-swatches-and-review.html. 

I'll just let you take those in... YES, that's right! This is a MULTICHROME!!! Perhaps I played up those pics too much (it's hard to photograph), but it is most certainly there! This polish has a brown/brass/black base and is filled with tiny particles that shift through gold, brass, black, green, blue (the force is strong with this one) and pink. I've seen all of these colours on my nails albeit for a fraction of a second. The polish is quite sheer and there's still a slight VNL here, but I'd say two coats is enough. Three would definitely be plenty. If you like the look of this polish, I would urge you to go hunting NOW - it is limited edition and was released in the Winter collection, so I was lucky to still find it!

As I haven't shown you anything interesting for some time, I decided to try some tape art on top (sorry for the photo quality - GOSH Galaxy is so sparkly with a topcoat that it didn't photograph very well):

Pretty *.* So proud of my ring finger!

Check out the perfection that is my thumb!
Also: turn your head and there are frogs' eyes on my nails!

As you can see, this was almost a very successful attempt! I recently got some craft scissors from Hobbycraft (Michaels in the US?) which are based on animals. I have crocodile zigzags, snakey waves and froggy eyes. For this art I used the last one. The scissors don't cut perfectly, so if you look close enough you'll see each curve is different, but overall I'm very pleased. The best fingers are my ring finger, thumb and pinkie - I rushed on the others and so didn't get the tape dead centre. To do the dots, I used an old orange wood cuticle stick that I use for clean up :-) The black I used was Collection 2000 Ebony #87.

What do you think? I almost didn't add the black dots but I think they really pull the art together :-)

EDIT: Omigosh! You won't believe this. Look at this blog post here from Tina. This is my blog twin! We independently came up with stripe manis this week that look almost identical - I did a double take when she posted her mani in the FB group Crumpet's Nail Tarts! I think the creepiest part is that I did the mani on a whim - I had no idea that the group were doing tape manis that day. Tina and I started blogging around the same time and we'll now be watching each other to see if we manage this weird nail telepathy again anytime soon! :-P

Now I have the tools for it I've decided to try experimenting more with tape, because it's something I can do in relatively little time. I also have a few stamped designs in my head that I'd like to try make happen! We'll see how that goes :-P

'Til next time, curlettes (wonder if that will stick...) :-D

- Skye x