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: Across The Universe in style

Well helloooooooooo, ladies (and gents?) *Old spice guy* ;-)

***Warning: very picture-heavy post***

Have I got a zinger for you today! If you follow me on FB, you'll have seen a few months ago that I finally used Enchanted Across The Universe (had been waiting for some sunshine) - and I was totally and utterly blown away. I genuinely couldn't get focused on work for a couple of hours after I put this polish on, because it well and truly knocked my socks off. There are A LOT of pics of this one because I just couldn't believe how awesome it was. You've been warned:

My taping... in blue

My thumb in ALL the colours *.*

...pink holo!!!!

Did I mention the polish is a holo?

 

Blue holo...

It's a multichrome too!

...golden blurple <3

Pink and purple...

Pretty, pretty polish <3 I've never really understood the hype surrounding Enchanted Polish, and I only picked this polish up on a whim from another of Debbie Crumpet's blog sales some months back... but I TOTALLY GET IT NOW!!!!!!! I turned into a total magpie for the duration of this mani and chewed the ear off anyone who would listen about it, basically going ZOMG LOOK AT MY RAINBOW MULTICHROME HOLO NAILS *ahhhhhhh!* You all need this polish. Seriously. Go buy it.

All the colours!!!! :D

Multi-coloured HOLO goooooodness!!!

Now let me 'briefly' discuss the other impressive part of this mani - it's my first EVER striping tape mani! This striping tape was sent to me as a RAOK by Anita Marie Roberts a looooooooong time ago, but this is the first chance I've had to sit down and use it properly. I googled pictures of striping tape manis for inspiration, and this is what I came up with. I just ADORE this stuff! It wasn't nearly as difficult to use as other bloggers made me think it was, and I'm thrilled to bits that I have two or three reels of the stuff to play with - thank you so much Anita :-)


Last but most certainly not least, I bring you the base colour for this most wonderful of manis - Collection 2000 Blue My Mind (#12):

Indirect light

Direct light

Now, the left-hand photo is a bit 'lobster', and the right-hand photo is deathly pale, which means that the colours in these pics aren't quite right, however, as you can see, this is a beautiful, deep, rich blue shimmer polish, which though not duochrome, looks like it's in a blackened base until you get it in the light. This polish is one of my favourite blue polishes, and was the perfect accompaniment for ATU. The only downside to it is probably the brush; it's far too wide for my nails which means getting a good, clean line is tricky. I had a lot more clean-up to do for this mani than usual! Fortunately, this polish is most definitely worth the extra effort :-)


Which Enchanted Polish do you think I should get next? Let me know in the comments!

'Til next time, lovelies :-)

- Skye x

NOTW: Essence Stuck On You

Hello lovelies! I'm back!

Well: I have been gone for a long time. And for that I'm sorry :-( As you'll already know if you're a FB follower, I really hurt my wrist whilst I was away in Scotland, and I've been in a splint ever since and trying to catch up with my actual work (for my jobbie job!). My wrist has been very painful and I ended up having to go to hospital about it, but it's just a bad sprain and I have been resting it. I've got a few weeks' worth of posts prepared, so you'll keep seeing my splint disappear and reappear because they're all in a higgledy piggledy order. I have a few cool ideas for the blog, but it'll be a while before I'll be physically able to try them all out. I hope you'll bear with me whilst I get the blog back on track!

Finally, before I begin this post, I'd just like to say a big WELCOME to all of my new followers - especially those who clicked follow when literally nothing was happening here! Bless you, you must really like the look of my blog to follow when it's inactive *sheds tear* :-) Welcome one and all to the madness ;) 


With all that being said, let's get onto today's post :-) Today I have a particularly short post for you, since I've been SNOWED UNDER with work. As a result, this is just a simple swatch. I hope you don't mind! Let's take a look:

Look close for the silver shimmer!

This is Essence Stuck On You! This polish was originally part of the wishlist of a lovely lady who was going to swap the complete Fingerpaints flakies collection with me, but the swap fell through and so I was left with a whole bunch of random Essence polishes! SOY is a lovely navy blue polish with a very subtle silver shimmer which brightens it up a lot. The shimmer is extremely obvious in the bottle and I was concerned it would be too much, but it was just right on the nail ^^ Since I was really busy, I didn't get a chance to do any art on this mani - but actually I quite enjoyed the colour on its own, and it had a great wear time, so this was no problem. I normally go for much warmer colours (and rarely wear blues!), but I was in a cool blue mood and so the mani was sort of a novelty for me :-)


What sorts of colours do you reach for when you want something a bit different? Tell me in the comments!

'Til next time, curlettes :-)

- Skye x

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

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

A Christmas mani: snowflakes!

Hello lovelies! I seem to have picked up several new followers so welcome one and all :-) I hope you like what you see here.

Today I have a wintry mani to show you that I created for a guest post for Katherine Reed's blog Nail Art and the Sims. Katherine asked me for something Christmassy, and so I chose to do a snowflake mani. As you all know, I've been dying of jealousy with all the beautifully stamped snowflake manis around about at the moment, so this seemed like a good choice – even if it’s not totally original. Looking back, this isn't really a Christmas design (it’s more of a seasonal one), but hopefully my nail art efforts will make up for that haha.

As I had to write an entire post for Katherine, I thought I’d just show you the finished masterpiece ;-)

Snowflakes are finally MINE!!!

This is the most intricate nail art I’ve EVER done, so I’m really pleased with how it came out, even though I had super shaky hands when I did it (it’s an intermittent problem and was a real issue when I did the mani).

If you want to read my full write-up, head over to Katherine’s brilliant blog to see my post :-) In the write-up, I discuss my thought process for the design, as well as the polishes I used. I also show a couple more pictures of the finished mani (which really show off the incredible contrast in my gradient), as well as a pic of my work in progress (which is real pretty, if I do say so, myself!). Finally, I have a swatch of the blue shimmer that I used as a base coat – which is a real winner from Collection 2000!

I hope you enjoy reading my post and hope to see you here again soon :-)

Stay smiley!

– Skye x