NOTW: Newspaper roses

Hello my dears!

Today I bring you a post I've been thinking about for a looooooooong time, but was too scared to try. Newspaper roses :D Lookie: 

Right hand

Left hand

Isn't it awesome? :-) I have a slight obsession with the idea of background colours being present, but the main focus being monochrome; sort of like an inverted Schindler's List. I love how my idea translated onto the nail :-) I've been wanting to try it for months and months, but always found rose manis extremely intimidating; they look so involved! It turns out that they're the easiest thing in the world. Do a rough blob on the nail with one colour (Rimmel Grey Matter, in this case), then draw little Vs and Cs in and around the blob to create the suggestion of a rose. Unbelievably fool-proof -- everyone should try it! Of course, the entire job was made much easier by my Barry M nail art pen, without which I would have totally failed at this mani. Funnily enough, I actually liked my right hand better; the roses look more open and alive because I couldn't be as precise :-)

I also experimented with some pinstripes (though the photo isn't so great...):

The base colour for this mani is one you've seen before here -- Barry M Pomegranate. I'm still in love with this colour, and I think it contrasts fantastically with my newspaper roses. 

All in all I think this mani was super successful, and I'll definitely be attempting another rose/flower mani sometime in the future. What sorta colours do you think I should try next? Have you ever tried a monochrome mani like this? Lemme know in the comments!

Silly attempt at 'proper blog' pose :P

'Til next time, curlettes!

- Skye x

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

NOTW: Razzle Dazzle Black Cherries

Hello dearies! I hope you're all well this week :-)

I have yet another lovely mani for you today! It had been a while since I'd done a reverse gradient, so I reached for a nice jelly glitter and set to work: 

Black cherries dazzle my digits *.* - oh the alliteration!

This was such an amazing mani in real life; the photo just doesn't do it justice! Unfortunately, I had a bad case of the shakes that day, so the pic is a bit out of focus... but isn't it pretty!? I wasn't sure if the hot pink KBShimmer It's Razz-ical would 'pop' over the dark base, but it really did; it's surprisingly pigmented for a jelly! I didn't use a sponge for this mani; I simply applied the jelly carefully with the polish bottle brush. This is a great technique for when you're pushed for time; it will look horrendous before you tc your digits because of the multiple layers of polish, but you'll end up with a lovely fade. I managed this better on some fingers than others (cf. ring finger), but I still adored this mani; I was truly sad to take it off!

What, then, is the base colour for this lovely mani? You're looking at Rimmel Black Cherries, and you've already seen it on this post here. Let's take another look: 

Expand to check out that beautiful, beautiful shimmer ;-)

First of all, let's take a moment to appreciate that GOSH haven't my photos improved over the past year?! It's hard to believe I've almost hit my one-year anniversary! This is a gorgeous, rich polish true to its name, a vampy deep purple with a hidden red/brown shimmer. I once declared Black Cherries to be my favourite polish ever. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it remains a firm favourite which I reach for time and time again, especially when I do nail art. The formula isn't perfect but the colour just makes me smile.

What do you think of today's mani? Isn't it fun when an idea really comes together! For the past year, I've been trying to track down dupes for Black Cherries, since I love the colour but I'm not so keen on the formula. Unfortunately, I've not come up trumps. If you know of any polishes that might fit the bill, please do let me know in the comments!

Otherwise, 'til next time, curlettes ;-)

- Skye x

NOTW: Criss-crossed At Ease

Hello my lovelies! How are you today? :-)

In line with my summer catch-up posts, I'd like to share with you a new striping tape mani! This had been on my mind for a long time, so I'm glad I finally got to try it. Let's take a look:

Look, it's me! :P (indirect sunlight)

Direct sunlight :-) :-)

Soooooo... what do you think?! I just loved this mani - especially the juxtaposition of neutral and bright, creme and shimmer (Rimmel At Ease vs Catrice Heavy Metal-lilac) :-) I originally planned to do this to all of my fingers, but the striping tape was actually a little tricky to use, so I decided to just criss-cross three fingers (incl. my thumb). I think it actually worked better this way! I bet this mani would be great for work if you had time to do all your fingers :-)

Of course, no post is complete without a look at the base colour - Catrice Heavy Metal-lilac:

Shimmery, shimmery goodness *.*

Indirect light :-)

You've already seen this colour on this post, and also on this post, but I have STILL failed to do a full post on the polish. I will once again reiterate how awesome it is - it's a FAVOURITE of mine, and I promise I'll do a proper post on it one day. I love, love, love it, and you should all own it.


Despite this mani being a summer mani, it has a very autumnal feel. I think I'm straddling both seasons right now ;-) I really do love this combination of nude (my new favourite tone!) and bright, and I definitely think I'll try it again - do you have any colour requests? Help me out by leaving a comment with your ideas! :D

'Til next time, curlettes :-)

- Skye x

NOTW: Accessorize Those Scales!

Hello my lovelies! How are you? :-)

I have something short and sweet for you today; another play around with my Barry M nail art pens! Let's take a look:

This is my dragon scales/chainmail nail art! I really just had an image in my head of this looking like an abstract pattern, but close up I guess it kinda looks like weird flowers, or like I let a child scribble on my nails! I did actually really like it though; from a distance (head to hand) it looked pretty cool, and the black over multichrome polish was a fun look I hadn't tried before! :-)

I promised you a short post, and I wasn't joking. It's already time to show you the beautiful base colour for this mani - Accessorize Bronze!

This gorgeous multichrome is an oldie but SUCH a goodie; just check out that shift! Yellow gold, bronze, copper and dusty pink-brown tones make this the perfect autumnal polish for those who want a subtle polish with a bit of punch. Oxymoronic? Perhaps. A problem? Absolutely not. This polish has so many different facets that it was really difficult to photograph, but the photo up there is a good attempt at revealing its personality. In some lights it looks a deep, dusky pink-brown and in others you get the full shift. This polish is a real stunner and I'm never disappointed when I wear it. The formula and brush are also fantastic.

I actually adore multichromes, but own very few of them. I think I can count three at the most in my collection. That said, I have already taken steps to rectify this; I pre-ordered the entire ILVP Ultra Chrome collection :D I've never pre-ordered anything before, but I'm really glad I did. Not only have I added to my multichrome stash, I also didn't have to be involved in the mad run on the store on the official release date! I wish more of my favourite brands would do this. Needless to say, I'll be swatching those AS SOON AS THEY ARRIVE. I'll then possibly not post for several weeks while I just stare at my fingers in awe ;-)


What are your favourite duochromes and multichromes? Do you have any swatches you'd like to share? Share a link in the comments so we can all check them out!

'Til next time, curlettes :-)

- Skye x

NOTW: Not-so-showy summer gradient

Hello lovelies!

So this week, I decided to get on the summer bandwagon and try out my new makeup sponges again in a bright gradient:

Indirect light... *meh*

In the sunlight... still not orange :-/

*ahem* Yeah. Not so bright. My usually-very-bright orange (Rimmel Pop!) doesn't really pop over the pink base, so it basically looks like a big red stripe, making me a sad panda :-( I'm not really sure I like it too much... I had been planning to do some silly drawings over the top of the gradient, however, the polish started chipping on the day I sat down to do it, and so I ended up taking it off and creating a whole new mani! Tune in next week to see that one ;-)

Finally, the base colour for this mani was, yet again, Rimmel Show Off:

You've heard all about this one already here, so I won't go on. All I'm-a say is that the formula and brush were, as always, impeccable. I can always rely on a tidy mani when I reach for this polish.


So: WOW well wasn't that short and sweet! I guess it just goes to show that I do eventually run out of things to say!

Are you still doing summer manis or have you moved onto Autumn styles? Link me to your pics in the comments!

'Til next time, curlettes :-)

- Skye x