WAUF... 9ml Universe?

Why Aren't You Following... ? was conceived by Curly Polish as an attempt to help polishaholics put a face to the nails! Sometimes in our FB polish groups we don’t really connect those beautiful talons with the person behind them – often one who blogs! It is hoped that this series of posts will help polishaholics get to know new blogs and rediscover old ones by means of twelve succinct questions. Most of all, this series is designed to give a shout out to all the bloggers I admire the most – both big-time and small fry :-)

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Welcome to the latest edition of WAUF! This week, I speak to Raquel from 9ml Universe! Let’s get down to business :-)


Name: Raquel Soares

Blog: 9ml Universe

Since: 12 Feb 2012; almost a year now.

GFC followers (at time of writing): 590

Signature bloggism: If it was some months ago, I would say my accent nails, but I haven't done much of those lately, and I keep experimenting with new poses, so I have no idea! xD

Fav brand: Nubar, I don't have many, but absolutely adore mine. 

Fav colour: Blues and teals.

Fav nail art technique: I'd have to go with stamping. It's just so easy and quick, and you can get some great manis with it.

Fav blog: Hard one...I can't pick just one, so I'll go with my top 3, Scrangie, Becky from A Polish Addict and Amy Grace from The Polished Perfectionist.

Would still like to try: Would still like to try: Splatter manicures, I think they'll be too messy so I stay away from them.

One fact we may not know about you/your blog: The name of my blog was actually chosen by one of my best friends; I have a huge lack of imagination when it comes to stuff like this!

When not painting my nails you’ll find me... : Hanging around on FB groups, even though I'm a bit of a lurker sometimes, or playing Guild Wars 2! xD

"It's so simple, yet it turned out so beautiful! Surely it is one of my favourite manis ^^ "

Why I follow her: Raquel was one of my first 'polish pals' on the polish FB groups (the European one, to be precise), and she's just a lovely person, plain and simple :-) On top of this, she has beautiful nails and a funky and original blog name (and now we all know her secret, on that front :P)! Her's is also a fascinating blog on the linguistic front; it's the first bilingual blog in my WAUF series, featuring a write-up in both English and Portuguese. Not only is this very clever (props, Raquel!), it means I get to pretend to learn Portuguese by reading the two languages side-by-side *language nerd*. Being Portuguese, Raquel also shows me lots of just-out-of-reach pretties from brands like Purple Professional, which is always fun! Finally, a very superficial thing: I love her blog design! I just love green ^^

So tell me... why aren't you following 9ml Universe?!

How to follow Raquel:

Blog: http://9mluniverse.blogspot.pt/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/9mlUniverse
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/9mluniverse/

Twitter: @9mluniverse

Thanks for reading this week’s WAUF! Tune in next week for more blogger introductions :-)

‘Til next time :-)

- Skye x

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***Disclaimer*** 
These are not the only ladies I follow, or the only people whose blogs/nails I love. I don’t prefer any one of these blogs over the other because I like them all for different reasons. If you haven’t been contacted (yet), it doesn’t mean I don’t love you! Also: if you don’t have a blog but you have lovely nails, I may be in touch at some point, but I don’t know how to make an entire post about a non-blog right now :-) Finally, please remember that my preferences may be different to yours. This is meant to be a fun series! I adhere to the Thumper principle: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Keep smiling guys and girls :-) 

NOTW: Nerdy nails - H20

Hi lovelies! How are we this week? :-)

Today I have my nerdiest ever mani to show you! It's a bit different to the sorta thing I normally do, but I ended up obsessing about doing it, so it had to happen! I bring you, my H20 mani!!! Lookie lookie:

Science can be magical!!!

Isn't it groovy?! I think I wanted to do this because I've been getting to know a new friend lately who is a chemist. He sorta gets my geek going, and when I realised that the crummy weather wasn't gonna let me enjoy this holo in all its glory, I knew I had to do something to it. For some reason, water molecules popped into my head (although my chemist friend named them, I just saw the dots - ahem, atoms - in my head)! Here's what they look like for the non-scientists like myself:

Water molecules! An unconventional mani inspiration? :-)

I'd say the mani is a pretty accurate depiction :-) Although I wouldn't normally put these colours together, I may actually be in love; I can't stop staring at my nails! I especially love how the red contrasts with the gorgeous blue holo beauty that is A England Tristam (so sparkly!), and I love the nerdy nod <3 It's just a funky coincidence that water is blue and so is the base :-)

Here's what I used for this mani:

• A England Tristam (holo blue base)
• Barry M Silver Foil (stamping)
• Kiko 238 (red 'atoms')
• GALS 34 (stamp)

Finally, as usual, I wanna show you the base colour for this mani, the beautiful A England Tristam and my FIRST EVER HOLO (squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!): 

ZOMG HOLO! I've been living under a rock!
This pic was taken with flash cos there's no sun :-(

This polish will always be special to me because it was sent to me as a surprise gift by the lovely Anne Catherine Vold Archer (thank you soooo much, Anne). I've learned this year, especially through the polish forums, that people are just insanely kind. I love that I have a material representation of this in my polishes - like a little daily reminder :-) I actually wore this polish expecting the sun to come out and blow me away with rainbow holo goodness, but sadly it was not meant to be :-( I will have to dig it out again in the summer (remember that season?) so I can enjoy it properly. Needless to say, it is GORGEOUS and I'm now totally getting the entire holo hype!

I'm actually considering doing a science mani series now, because there are a few stamping images that I have which make me think of science... but I maybe need neons for some of my ideas. Watch this space! 

Would you be interested in me doing a science series (as a linguist? ha!)? Lemme know in the comments!

'Til next time, peeps :D

- Skye x

WAUF... Haute Lacquer?

Why Aren't You Following... ? was conceived by Curly Polish as an attempt to help polishaholics put a face to the nails! Sometimes in our FB polish groups we don’t really connect those beautiful talons with the person behind them – often one who blogs! It is hoped that this series of posts will help polishaholics get to know new blogs and rediscover old ones by means of twelve succinct questions. Most of all, this series is designed to give a shout out to all the bloggers I admire the most – both big-time and small fry :-)

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Welcome to the latest edition of WAUF! This week, I speak to Shaina from Haute Lacquer! Let’s get down to business :-)


Name: Shaina Cadet

Blog: Haute Lacquer

Since: 5th February 2011

GFC followers (at time of writing): 1,194

Signature bloggism: I'm not too sure what my signature bloggism is! You could say that the way I describe my designs is somewhat a signature. I almost always start off with "for this manicure I..."

Fav brand: Easily Zoya nail polish.

Fav colour: Any beautiful shade of blue! 

Fav nail art technique: I absolutely adore drag marbling.

Fav blog: Sarah's blog, Chalkboard Nails. I admire her creativity and hard work.

Would still like to try: Stamping, it's so intimidating!

One fact we may not know about you/your blog: I may have mentioned it before but I am bilingual. I speak Creole and English.

When not painting my nails you’ll find me... : You will find me reading magazines. I am a huge magazine reader and collect more than I should!

Why I follow her: Shaina is great fun, and has lots of personality - and she does some pretty epic nail art! I couldn't possibly ever emulate even half of the stuff she does, but I do so love to look at it <3 This girl goes LOUD and PROUD and never ceases to come up with something unique for her latest mani - she's just brimming with creativity :-) One other thing I love about Shaina's blog is that she offers hints and tips for beginners, some of which encouraged me to take my first baby steps with nail art, because she explains how to make good of anything that goes 'wrong'. You can check out her Beginners' Guide to Nail Art here.

So tell me... why aren't you following Haute Lacquer?!

How to follow Shaina:

Blog: www.hautelacquer.com
Bloglovin: http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/2655691/haute-lacquer
Google +: https://plus.google.com/111423613775573197115?prsrc=2

Thanks for reading this week’s WAUF! Tune in next week for more blogger introductions :-)

‘Til next time :-)

- Skye x

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***Disclaimer*** 
These are not the only ladies I follow, or the only people whose blogs/nails I love. I don’t prefer any one of these blogs over the other because I like them all for different reasons. If you haven’t been contacted (yet), it doesn’t mean I don’t love you! Also: if you don’t have a blog but you have lovely nails, I may be in touch at some point, but I don’t know how to make an entire post about a non-blog right now :-) Finally, please remember that my preferences may be different to yours. This is meant to be a fun series! I adhere to the Thumper principle: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Keep smiling guys and girls :-) 

NOTW: Pastel mishmash

Well hi there, peeps! How you doing? :-)

Today I finally got on the Easter/spring bandwagon and decided to do a pastel sponge mani! As y'all know, I loooooove sponging, so I was really looking forward to this one. First off, let's take a look at the finished mani:

Water-colourey pastel nails!

I was especially looking forward to doing this mani since I decided to use my new makeup sponges! I normally do all of my sponging using a cheap old kitchen sponge from Asda (Walmart in the US?). However, I'd really like to do a sunset gradient at some point, and I know that I can't do this with a kitchen sponge, so I picked up some makeup sponges from Boots.

I'm actually quite surprised, since I figured people prefer to use makeup sponges for a reason. However, I found that the sponge was more absorbent, so colour transfer wasn't as good. In addition, bits of sponge kept breaking off into the mani and I had to keep removing them (grr). Finally, this mani was horrendously messy. I've never understood why people say that sponging or gradients are messy, and now I do: y'all are using the wrong sponge! To illustrate:

A messy work in progress!

I have virtually no clean up when I use a kitchen sponge - and the above photo is only half-way through the mani!

I was originally planning to stamp over the top of this, but I somehow didn't get around to it, and anyway, I quite liked it on its own. If I had to do it again, I think I'd use a kitchen sponge and darker colours, since despite my nails looking like amazing watercolour masterpieces, I missed my usual bright colours! I'd also buy a better white base colour before doing this mani again; I tried using my Essence Stamping Polish in white, but it was too gloopy, so I had to use my white French tips polish from Rimmel, with its tiny, tiny brush! The base coat was just laborious!


Here's the polishes I used:

• Rimmel Nail Tip Whitener (base and mixing)
• Rimmel Show Off (pink - lightened)
• Catrice Salmon and Garfunkel (orange)
• Collection 2000 - Hot Looks Lemon Soda (yellow)
• Catrice Sold Out Forever (green - lightened)
• Rimmel Aqua Cool (blue - lightened)
• Rimmel How Do You Lilac It (lilac)

Pastel goodness! *.*

So what do you think? :-) I'm looking forward to doing more sponge manis with other funky colour combos! What combos would you like to see? :-) Lemme know in the comments!

'Til next time, curlettes!

- Skye x

WAUF... Never Mind Suzi?

Why Aren't You Following... ? was conceived by Curly Polish as an attempt to help polishaholics put a face to the nails! Sometimes in our FB polish groups we don’t really connect those beautiful talons with the person behind them – often one who blogs! It is hoped that this series of posts will help polishaholics get to know new blogs and rediscover old ones by means of twelve succinct questions. Most of all, this series is designed to give a shout out to all the bloggers I admire the most – both big-time and small fry :-)

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Welcome to the latest edition of WAUF! This week, I speak to Steph from Never Mind Suzi! Let’s get down to business :-)


Name: Stephanie Gillespie

Blog: Never Mind Suzi

Since: 10th April 2012

GFC followers (at time of writing): 299

Signature bloggism: I say "Hi all!" at the start of each post, my sometimes dodgy cuticles... I also always do at least two pics (one overhead light, one flash)... I do a lot of leopard print manis.

Fav brand: Main stream - Nails Inc; Indie - Glitzology

Fav colour: Pink in real life and blue in polish.

Fav nail art technique: Leopard print.

Fav blog: Lindsey @ Neverland Nail Blog, as she took the time when I was starting out to speak to me and encourage me, plus she always does the funkiest unique nails.

Would still like to try: Polish brand - Zoya; nail art technique - water marbling (it's my holy grail).

One fact we may not know about you/your blog: I love penguins and have a second up-and-coming blog called Slimming with Suzi.

When not painting my nails you’ll find me... : Watching TV and movies. I love series such as Star Wars, LOTR, Harry Potter, X Men, The Avengers and Twilight and on TV I love to watch Criminal Minds (mmm.... Derek Morgan), CSI, Once Upon A Time and The Big Bang Theory. Not afraid to admit I love TV :D

"My favourite mani that isn't just a decal like my FB profile pic - though I do love it!"

Why I follow her: Steph's blog was one of the first nail art blogs I discovered and I've always been amazed by her creativity. She is always trying new things (big challenge junkie) and she makes new techniques seem very accessible to the uninitiated (like me!). This blogger may not be Scrangie (who is?), but I love her manis and I also love how she engages with us on FB! I think Steph has real personality and it's always a pleasure to see her posts appear on my FB wall :-)

So tell me... why aren't you following Never Mind Suzi?!

How to follow Stephanie:

Blog: http://www.nevermindsuzi.com
Bloglovin': http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3750849/never-mind-suzi-this-is-stephanie

FB: https://www.facebook.com/NeverMindSuzi
Instagram: http://instagram.com/steppy_g 
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/steppyg2
Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/nevermindsuzi 

Twitter: @steppy_g2

Thanks for reading this week’s WAUF! Tune in next week for more blogger introductions :-)

‘Til next time :-)

- Skye x

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***Disclaimer*** 
These are not the only ladies I follow, or the only people whose blogs/nails I love. I don’t prefer any one of these blogs over the other because I like them all for different reasons. If you haven’t been contacted (yet), it doesn’t mean I don’t love you! Also: if you don’t have a blog but you have lovely nails, I may be in touch at some point, but I don’t know how to make an entire post about a non-blog right now :-) Finally, please remember that my preferences may be different to yours. This is meant to be a fun series! I adhere to the Thumper principle: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Keep smiling guys and girls :-) 

NOTW: A little sunshine in your life

Hello lovelies! How are you today? Welcome to the blog ^^

Yet again, today, I have quite a short post for you, because I've been swamped with work... so let's get to it! First off, I'd like to show you the final mani, which is a nice, simple one; I revisited accent nails! Lookie lookie:

Squeeeeeeeeeeeee amazingness (oops poor jumper)!!!

Shiny, shiny holo shiny glitter goodness!

As you can see, I was in a sunny kind of mood when I did this mani  (what a contrast with last week's mani weather!)! I felt like doing something bold and bright, and so I dug out some (Rimmel) Sunshine for my nails :-) The accent nails are one coat of KBShimmer We Three Blings, which is one of my favourite topcoats of ALL TIME *cue Kanye impersonation* - it really needs no introduction :-)

Finally, let me show you some swatches of the base colour, one of my oldest ever untrieds, Rimmel Sunshine:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine...

... you make me haaaaaaaappy, when skies are grey!

This polish had been sat in my drawer for a loooooong time before I finally used it! You have seen it used in art once or twice before (here and here), but this is the first time I've used it for a full mani. I have to say, despite my initial misgivings about yellow nails (smokers' fingers?), I actually loved this. It's bright and fun, and really does look like bottled sunshine, complete with a crazy subtle-shimmer that I couldn't capture in any photos!

However, the application was a PITA; this polish is what you'd classify as a jelly, and I tend to avoid buying these simply because they are hard work to apply smoothly (unless you're a super-duper professional manicurist!) and take a gazillion coats to build to opacity (yes, three is a gazillion). All this being said, the painful application was totally worth it in the end! I've been told that Barry M Lemon Ice Cream is a pretty good dupe for Rimmel Sunshine, but I can't confirm or deny this since I don't own it. Apparently it's also a creme, so I'm tempted to find it sometime and give it a whirl - I definitely see yellow nails in my future!


What do you think of my sunshine mani? Do you like wearing yellows or do you also avoid them like I used to? Holla back!

'Til next time, curlettes! :-)

- Skye x

WAUF... Nail Art 101?

Why Aren't You Following... ? was conceived by Curly Polish as an attempt to help polishaholics put a face to the nails! Sometimes in our FB polish groups we don’t really connect those beautiful talons with the person behind them – often one who blogs! It is hoped that this series of posts will help polishaholics get to know new blogs and rediscover old ones by means of twelve succinct questions. Most of all, this series is designed to give a shout out to all the bloggers I admire the most – both big-time and small fry :-)

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Welcome to the latest edition of WAUF! This week, I speak to Lisa from Nail Art 101! Let’s get down to business :-)

Name: Lisa Bailey

Blog: Nail Art 101 

Since: The site went live in November 2011

GFC followers (at time of writing): 39,304 (on FB - if you haven't heard of her yet, you're living under a rock!)

Signature bloggism: I suppose it would have to be my step-by-step photo tutorials. When I started the site there were lots of video tutorials on youtube but I just don't have the patience for them. I wanted to do something that was simple, easy to understand and quick. Another bonus is that you can easily save the photo to your phone or computer for later reference!

Fav brand: I love Orly. Their polishes are great quality, a great price and the people behind the company are very nice! I also like China Glaze and OPI, and the less expensive drugstore brands Sinful Colors and Sally Hansen. 

Fav colour: Silver holographic polish, if that counts as a color! My holo collection is getting ridiculous, but my favorite one is Nfu Oh 61, the holo is amazing!

Fav nail art technique: Probably ombre. It's quick, easy and a great base for other designs on top. Another favorite is the watercolor nails technique featured on my site.

Fav blog: There's so many great nail artists out there, but lately I've been really into a nail artist named Clara H and I'm always blown away by Britney Tokyo.

Would still like to try: I want to get more into 3D nail art: sculpting 3D acrylic flowers, more in the style of Japanese nail art. Nail wraps can replicate hand-painted nail art, but 3D stuff is so dramatic and impressive.

One fact we may not know about you/your blog: My mom was a nail tech when I was a little kid and did nails in my basement all through my childhood. I think that may be where my nail obsession started. The smell of acrylic still reminds of sitting in the nail room talking her clients ears off!

When not painting my nails you’ll find me... : In nail school, playing with my dogs or cooking! But I'm pretty much always painting my nails!!! 

Why I follow her: With over 39,000 followers and counting, this girl is nail blogger royalty. Lisa is the sole reason I got into nail art in the first place; bored of plain nails, I started googling for different things I could do with polish and stumbled across her blog. Since then, she's been my preferred blogger for all manner of tutorials and has helped me to create a huge number of manis that I would have otherwise thought were way out of my league! Lisa also serves as motivation for me to improve and to try new things, because her tutorials make new techniques seem less scary - and her art is amazing! I just hope that she's always going to be there to show me how to have pretty nails! I may be gushing, but all of this also means that she was a catalyst for Curly Polish, the blog, which is pretty damn awesome :-) Everyone stands to learn something from Lisa and I honestly think ALL nail polish enthusiasts should be following her religiously!

So tell me... why aren't you following Nail Art 101?!

How to follow Lisa:

Blog: http://www.nail-art-101.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/nailart101
Instagram: http://instagram.com/nailart101official 
Twitter: @nailart101

Thanks for reading this week’s WAUF! Tune in next week for more blogger introductions :-)

‘Til next time :-)

- Skye x

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***Disclaimer*** 
These are not the only ladies I follow, or the only people whose blogs/nails I love. I don’t prefer any one of these blogs over the other because I like them all for different reasons. If you haven’t been contacted (yet), it doesn’t mean I don’t love you! Also: if you don’t have a blog but you have lovely nails, I may be in touch at some point, but I don’t know how to make an entire post about a non-blog right now :-) Finally, please remember that my preferences may be different to yours. This is meant to be a fun series! I adhere to the Thumper principle: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Keep smiling guys and girls :-) 

NOTW: Snow-day Snowfall

Hello dearies! Welcome back to Curly Polish!

Today I have another snowy Snowfall mani to share with you, since the UK was hit (a few weeks ago now) with a freak snowstorm. Snow is not common in the south of England, because it is normally too warm... but today my mani matched the weather *nerdy squeeeee*!

My sincerest apologies in advance for the photos for this post; I had a massive fit of the shakes (too little food and sleep!) when I took these photos, and despite having taken about twenty, NONE of them were in focus, which sucks because this was beyond gorgeous IRL :-( 

This being said, I did the mani and took the photos...

... so let's take a look anyway :-)

The best pic I had... and it's still blurry *le sigh*

This is one thickish coat of Sonnetarium Snowfall over a purple gradient created with Collection 2000 Purple Rain (base colour) and Rimmel Black Cherries (gradient), which gave this mani an awesome wintry depth ^^ I did need to dab a little in places to get a nice even distribution of snowflakes, but that's mainly because I decided I wanted a saturated snowstorm look. I think the mani worked really well and I couldn't stop staring at my fingers, but the mani didn't last long...

Indeed, for this mani, I used the Essence All Aboard glue base coat (which, btw, has everything that pva glue doesn't!), and then I was stupid enough to wash my hands between coats cos I popped to the loo, and the base coat melted... so I had to do ANOTHER layer of the glue basecoat on top, and then my mani sorta popped off my nails a bit sooner than planned :/

This post also sucks slightly since I forgot to include a swatch of the base colour (I'm sooooo sorry). I think that there is a decent-ish swatch in this post, however, so all is not lost :-) ! What I can show you is a work-in-progress shot; this is my pre-clean-up gradient pic, which truly does neither polish justice, but will have to do:

The perfect base for Sonnetarium Snowfall...

This was a highly successful mani, despite the photos, and despite the fact that it was a short-lived success. I also now know to set aside a decent amount of time when doing a glitter mani with the glue base coat - hand-washing ruins glue!

What have you layered Snowfall with? Holla back 'cos I wanna know!


'Til next time, curlettes! :-)

Keep smiling!

- Skye x