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: Classy polkadots

Hello lovelies! How are you doing today? 

Today I have something a bit new for you - a full polkadot mani, achieved using my brand new Barry M Nail Art Pens (totally jumped on the bandwagon here)!!! First off, lemme show you the goods:

Spotty champagne...

... or polka-rose gold?

I love intricate nail art but have always failed at it because I don't have very steady hands. In fact, I own two Models Own nail art pens, but I've always found them very hard to use and they've ended up languishing in my polish drawer. Now, armed with my new Barry M wares, I can take over the freehand universe *evil cackle*! 

I was absolutely chuffed to bits that I did the polkadots all by myself, and basically spent the week staring at my hands in awe and amazement haha. They are fun but they also look super classy, and I could totally see me wearing this mani again at a black-tie event (should such an event ever occur in my life!) :-) :-) 

Just for fun I also have a photo of my right hand :P Check it:

Blurry leftiness :D

This hand rarely makes it onto my blog, mainly because I struggle taking photos with my left hand, but I thought that it would amuse you to see how un-dottish my RH dots look - check out my thumb and pointer in particular :D

Finally, as always, let me show you the base colour that I used for this mani - one of my favourite polishes, and one you may have already seen in this post here. Behold Kiko 221 (Light Satin Beige):

Not as golden as I thought...

Back in December I described this polish as "a sheer champagne glass fleck/shimmer polish" which took four coats to reach opacity. However, my impression of it has changed significantly now that I've seen it in the summer sunshine. More than champagne, this polish is rose gold, with a warm rosey shimmer running through it in the right (sun)light. These are also two-coater swatches, mainly because I felt lazy about doing four... but there's virtually no VNL, so I'm not sure what went wrong in December. Finally, I'm not even sure of the finish anymore! Is it glass fleck? Foil? I think it's foil, now... All I know is that it most definitely is NOT shimmer! So apparently my descriptive skills suck when it comes to polish :D but at least you've got multiple swatches of the polish to look at now :-)

One more thing before I go: in the last post featuring this polish, I said that it had a really subtle silver/purple/green shimmer that I couldn't capture on film on the nail. Turns out all I needed was some summer sunshine :-)

Microglitters flashing... click here for a larger photo!

Pretty, huh? :-)


Sooooooo what do you think of my super-classy polkadots?! I adore dots and just loved this mani. Definitely earmarked for recreation at some stage!

I hope you enjoyed this post and look forward to seeing you back here soon!

'Til next time, curlettes :-)

- Skye x

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