NOTW: And then a Bluetiful mermaid appeared...

Why, helloooooo my lovelies!!!

Today I have a blueeeeeeeetiful polish to show you (pun intended! hehe). Behold the wonder that is KBShimmer Pastel Me More!!!!

Pardon my cuticles! I got overexcited and
forgot to moisturise before I snapped away!

Sooooo shiny!!! <3 Like a mermaid's tail :-) 

This is a beyond gorgeous glitter topper from my favourite ever brand, KBShimmer. Pastel rainbows just gleam from your nails when you wear this polish, and the glitter is so shiny that my fingers looked like mermaid tails/dragon scales. This has been one of my favourite manis EVER! The polish itself is extremely special to me. Some of you may know that Essie Rae, previously of iheartprettypolish, recently went on a blog hiatus. This lady is a marvellous one with a heart of gold; I was heartbroken when I missed out on Pastel Me More at Harlow & Co., and then found that this polish was being discontinued. Since I couldn't get hold of the polish anywhere, Essie sent me her very own bottle for the price of postage alone - all the way from Minnesota, USA! Now that Essie has decided to take a break from plogging, this polish will be all the more special to me, since it reminds me of a lovely plogger friend I came to like very much in the short time I knew her. Thank you so much Essie for this polish, and for all the encouragement and kind words! I hope you have fun doing whatever you do next :-)

Also in this post is a Curly Polish EXCLUSIVE: my first ever attempt at a macro shot of any polish! It's not very good, but I did try... I wish I could work out how to make it bigger without it going blurry!

My macro sucks, but you can at least see the beautiful variety of glitter colours in this gorgeous topper. The polish is, in my opinion, entirely unique, and I'm so proud and honoured to have been able to make it part of my vast KBShimmer collection.


Finally, as always, let me show you the base coat for this mani, Essence I'm Bluetiful:

First off, I'm really sorry for the quality of this pic; I had such bad shakes when I was trying to take it! This was honestly the best shot I could come up with. This was a polish I ended up keeping because a swap fell through. I wouldn't normally buy this kind of thing for myself, but I actually really liked it! As you can see, the polish has quite large specks of silver glitter, and looks much bluer in direct light. It's actually a very versatile, changeable colour, and was a real surprise to wear.

Sooooo that wraps up this week's NOTW post :D KBShimmer Pastel Me More has officially fed my appetite for glitter toppers! I need moaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!!! What are your fav glitter toppers? PLEASE lemme know in the comments! :-)

'Til next time, curlettes,

- Skye x

NOTW: Pop! Kettle. Black?

Well, hellooooooooooo lovelies :D

I'm so excited about today's post, so I'll just get to it. I DID AN AWESOME GRADIENT!!! *unashamedly blows own trumpet* Lookie, lookie:

*yay* :D

*Pardon the clean-up: see below for why
it's not as good as usual!

Isn't it amazing?! After my failed summer gradient here, I vowed to try a makeup-sponge gradient again with a white base coat. It took me many weeks to track down Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and when I finally saw it in Boots, I nabbed it immediately, came home, and set to work. I'd been obsessing over a purple/orange gradient, and I think I may have finally got that out of my system ;-)

The polishes I used for this gradient were:

• Sinful Colors Snow Me White (base)
• KIKO #315 (dark purple)
• Rimmel How Do You Lilac It? (lilac)
• Catrice Salmon and Garfunkel (peachy orange)
• Rimmel Pop! (bright orange)

I then took a kitchen sponge and dabbed more of the KIKO polish over the top of the gradient to tie the design together. This definitely made the mani! 

A work in progress...

... now with added faux-splatter!

On a brief side note, please know that makeup-sponge gradients are not for the faint-hearted! The clean-up required is pretty horrific! Look:

It's true that splatters are messier, but my cuticles looked red raw by the time I'd scrubbed that polish off with acetone! Next time I'll definitely use Vaseline, just like I recommended for my splatter mani here. 

Sooooo what do you think of this mani? I think I was definitely channeling autumn/Halloween with this one! What strange colour combinations have you tried for your own gradients? Lemme know in the comments!

'Til next time, curlettes :-)

- Skye x