Leighton Denny Shipwrecked and Drama on the Dancefloor

The base colour here is Leighton Denny Shipwrecked - a beautiful pistachio green creme finish from Leighton's S/S 2012 Castaway collection. It is a lovely colour with the same fantastic formula as the rest of Leighton's nail colours. Over the top I added Leighton Denny Drama on the Dancefloor (QVC exclusive) which is a chunky gold hex glitter with gold micro glitter thrown in. I used one easy coat and as you can see, it is easy to get even glitter distribution.

Please excuse the state of my nails in these photos, they were taken a few weeks ago when my nails were very dry. I also managed to knock my middle finger while the polish was drying so it has a mark near the free edge.

Jennifer xx

Leighton Denny - The Heiress

 This is what I have on my nails at the moment. I wanted to use creme colours as I'd worn a lot of glitter recently but still wanted it to be fun. I haven't done any stripes for a while either and last time I did them my hand wasn't as steady as it is now painting nails. I picked out one of my favourite Leighton Denny colours, The Heiress which is a beautiful purply-lilac with some dusky blue in it. On the Leighton Denny website, it is described as 'a blue-belle purple' which I think is very fitting. For the stripes, I didn't have anything in mind other than using black and white so I just made it up as I went along.

The lines aren't perfect but I am pleased how it turned out and it is probably one of the best manicures I've done for myself :)

These photos are more colour accurate with some editing (purples are so hard to get colour accurate with digital photography).

 

 

 

What I used:

Leighton Denny Under Cover Base Coat

Leighton Denny The Heiress - 2 coats

Rio Nail Pens (black and white)

Seche Vite Fast Dry Topcoat.

Jennifer xx

Candeo Colors Sprouse

I have another great colour from Candeo Colors, an indie nail polish brand. It is made up of large and small matte black and matte white hexagonal glitter, black and white bar glitter, medium sized royal blue hexagonal glitter, medium silver hexagonal glitter and holographic shimmer all suspended in a clear base. I love it. I said in an earlier post about Nubar's Polka Dot polishes that I love these black and white glitter polishes. This one is even more special because it has the blue glitter and holographic shimmer thrown in. It looks fantastic over lots of colours.The quality is great too, it applies like a dream and the glitter doesn't require lots of shaking to mix it because the suspension base is so good.

Leighton Denny Castaway Collection Available NOW!

Image from www.leightondenny.com

Leighton Denny's latest collection from Spring/Summer 2012 is out now! Go to leightondenny.com to order yours. Until tomorrow, the whole collection (all 6 shades) is available at a special price of £55, normal price is £11 each. Obviously, I've ordered mine :)

Leighton Denny is probably my favourite nail brand, the colours are effortless to apply and are very hard wearing. His treatments are lovely and his Crystal Nail File and Quatro Buffer are absolute essentials to me, my nails would be a mess without them.

Go to Leighton's Facebook page to view the promotional images and the colours applied, they are all beautiful. I especially love the look of the purple and blue!

Leighton Denny Friends of Dorothy Collection

I am a HUGE Leighton Denny fan, I simply love his range and have the majority of his colours. They are a pleasure to work with, they glide on effortlessly, wear well and are super shiny. There is a new kit available on QVC called the Friends of Dorothy Collection, it is a collection designed by one of Leighton's QVC viewers for a competition to come up with a theme for a QVC exclusive collection. This was the winner, inspired by the Wizard of Oz which I think is a great idea.

There are four shades in the kit, a chunky rainbow party style glitter, a deep shimmery green with blue micro shimmer shot through it, a yellow cream and a red glitter with green glitter mixed in. It all comes in a nice box so would be a perfect present for any nail polish or Wizard of Oz fan.

The colours themselves are the same great formulation I expect from Leighton. I'm never disappointed with his polish. The green and yellow are two coaters. The glitters work best with three coats to make sure there are no gaps between the particles.

Ruby Slippers (red glitter) works as a full coverage glitter or can be used over another colour. It is not sparse however so it will still be quite dense over another shade so might be best to pair is with a red or even a green to go with the green glitter that is in it. Maybe a white or a gold would look good too. It would be a great colour for Christmas.

Over the Rainbow (rainbow glitter) is a little harder to work with, you do need to make sure it is dry between coats or you will end up dragging the coat beneath around. It is best to pat the glitter on and you can go to touch up any gaps at the end.  I didn't manage to get the glitter to stick to the tips of my nail because I was being inpatient so I went back later and added it there to get full coverage. It is very forgiving to would be good for ridged nails. It can also be used as a topper for other colours if applied thinly.

This is a little comparison between other multi coloured glitters I have.

L-R: Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday, Leighton Denny Over the Rainbow, OPI Mad as a Hatter

Emerald City (shimmery green) is my favourite from the collection. It is simply beautiful. You could get away with just one coat but I always use two for longevity and to get the full depth of colour.

Brick Road (yellow cream) is a core shade in Leighton's line so can be bought at any time. This is probably my least favourite in the kit. I found it harder to wear against my skin tone. The awful manicure I did wasn't helping either. It is still a nice shade of yellow, it isn't too garish (think the shade of yellow that is hot dog mustard... ewww) is is more pastel but still remains bright. If you are familiar with Chanel's Mimosa, is it along the same lines of that but minus the shimmer. I think this would work better when I have a bit of a tan, it is definitely a Summer shade.

Here are a couple of manicures I've done with these shades. I liked the green and rainbow one but hated the yellow and red one, I removed it the next day :(

Jennifer x

My Christmas Manicure

I took a break from blogging for the Christmas holiday period and totally forgot that I took these pictures of this manicure until I saw them on my camera. Thought I'd show you anyway even though they're too late.

I wanted to do something really festive and decided to do each nail different because I couldn't pick one thing. I thought it was really fun and got a lot of compliments on them.

What I used:

Thumb (snowflake)-

OPI Ogre the Top Blue as the base - 2 coats

OPI Last Friday Night over the top - 1 coat

Rio nail pen in white for the detail

Index/pointer finger (candy cane stripes)

Leighton Denny Pure White as the base - 2 coats

Rio nail pen in red for the stripes

Middle finger (gold bow)

OPI Affair in Red Square as the base - 2 coats

Rio nail pen in gold for the detail

Ring finger (green glitter)

Orly Here Comes Trouble - 2 coats

Little finger

OPI Russian Navy as the base - 2 coats

Rio nail pen in gold for the detail

Jennifer x

I love cupcakes :D

After seeing a few cupcake manicures around the blogsphere I decided to do my own. I've had quite a few compliments already on it at work today although a lot of them think I have too much time on my hands... I think this took me around 30-40 minutes in total.



Colours used:
Nubar Yellow Primrose (cake)
Nubar Blue Hydrangea (blue cake cases)
Nubar Purple Aster (lilac cake cases)
Leighton Denny All About Me (pink cake cases)
Leighton Denny Heiress (purple case stripes)
China Glaze Snow Globe (glitter frosting)
Rio nail pens from the original set (red for cherries, blue for blue case stripes and purple-pink for pink cake stripes and over the purple stripes.)



Do you like them? I really enjoyed doing them :)

Jennifer xx

Pink Ombre Nails

First of all, sorry I haven't posted in a while, I suck. I also couldn't get Photobucket to work for me over the last couple of days. Secondly, thank you to all of my new followers! I really appreciate you all coming to read my blog :) Lastly, I have a few posts coming up, some on the recent MAC releases, Fashion Flower and Semi Precious and also Bobbi Brown's latest offerings, The New Classics, plus the Chanel Byzance collection. Lots to do! I also want to get some makeup looks up but unfortunately can only do these at weekends when I get time to photograph them so fingers crossed all will go to plan with this coming weekend. Then of course I have lots of other random posts stored up in my head for the future too.

So I've been wondering what to do with my nails, attempting some nail art (nothing good enough to post) but recently wanting something simple, without being boring. I decided to do an ombre manicure, I have an awful lot of polish so it gave me a chance to use a few of them at a time.

Starting with my thumb I have: OPI Come to Poppy, 17 Pink Grapefruit, Nubar Honeysuckle, Leighton Denny All About Me and OPI Play the Peonies.

I really like it and will be doing the same thing with other colours in future. The OPI shades are from the recent Nice Stems collection which has just come out on lenawhite.co.uk if you are interested. The Nubar shade as from their Spring Garden collection and can be bought from feelunique.com. Leighton Denny polishes can be purchased from leightondenny.com or QVC. All polishes apart from Pink Grapefruit were two coats, Pink Grapefruit being three.

I will do my best to get posting more often!

Jennifer x

Glitter In The Air... Frenchie

I really love Deborah Lippmann's nail polishes. Yes they are expensive but she brings our such pretty and unique colours and the cream polishes have a really good formula. They feel decadent to wear and last really well with only minor tip wear. I also really like the bottles (I will do a review of my Lippmann polishes at some point in the future so you will see them there).

One of her new polishes for the Spring is Glitter In The Air, the other being Naked which is a nude colour. I've been eagerly waiting for Glitter In The Air to come out in the UK as I think the Lippmann glitters are really special, you rarely see anything like them. A lot of them have different sized glitter particles as well as hexagonal glitter shapes. This one is one of those. It is in a very sheer baby blue base and has light blue and pink glitter particles in it and light blue iridescent micro shimmer which I didn't even notice until it was sparkling in the light so was a nice surprise.

When you apply it you do need to be careful as the hex glitters need to be positioned where you want them to make them look even. The effect is so worth the effort though. The polish is very sheer so is best used as a top coat but you can use a few layers and get a semi sheer effect if you want. To get the bottle colour you would need to pick a similar shade of baby blue and then layer the glitter over the top.

I decided to do a french manicure and then add this on top. Here is what I came up with!

More pictures and what I used...

Sparkly Lollypop

I'm so rubbish with titles haha. This is what I had on my nails over the last few days before I decided to pick at the glitter and ended up peeling half of it off one nail so wanted to change it. The base colour is Leighton Denny Lollypop and the glitter is Deborah Lippmann Today was a Fairytale. This glitter is so pretty, it has small circular glitter particles and larger hexagonal glitter shapes. It can also be layered up to wear alone - although not perfectly opaque, it still looks good.

Close up - hopefully you can make out the hexagonal glitter shapes.

Like? I have a nail art post coming up which I am really proud of, hopefully it should appear over the weekend :)

- Jennifer

Leighton Denny Desireables Collection Review

This was a TSV (Today's Special Value) on QVC a while ago and I keep meaning to review it even though it was delivered a few days after being on air. I did a post on the day it came out at the special price but it is now £36.50 on QVC. I am quite a fan of Leighton Denny's products, I think they are excellent quality and his kits for QVC are such great value.

The boxed kits are great, they are well packaged in a fantastic box (usually white but this kit is a special edition silver) so would make good gifts or if keeping it for yourself, ideal for keeping your products all together.

Outer box. Nice sleek design.

Inside contents. Well packed and compact.

In the kit you recieve five nail colours (the best bit about this selection!), a bottle of Miracle Drops, tube of Cuti Lips, Demi File Buffer, Uno File and a hoof stick. Leighton Denny's nail colours retail for £11 each so you are pretty much getting 3 and a bit bottles for this price of this kit (the value was even better when it was the TSV).

Read on for pictures and review!

Art Deco Themed Nail Art

To go with my 1920's inspired makeup look I decided to do some nail art inspired by Art Deco which started in the 1920's and continued into the 40's. I googled Art Deco to find some inspiration, particularly looking for something which was quite simple and would work on nails. I found this:

I thought this was a window pane but it is actually a carved granite door sign.

I've seen this sort of sesign before and thought it would look nice using the half moon type manicure and then adding the sunburst coming out of it. Now I'm not very good at nail art, I'm still trying to get the hang of painting designs with nail polish as it dries so quickly on the brush whereas my usual painting medium is acrylic which I find very easy to work with. I would have liked the lines to be crisper and thinner, more like the design above but I just did it from memory and only painted five sunburst stripes.

More pictures and products used...

Pink Spikey Flower Nail Art

So after getting those awful WAH nail pens (sorry for the slow review, it will be up this week!) and the disaster of the disintegrating brush, I decided to get myself down to a craft centre for some thin brushes. I originally wanted some rigger brushes (For those who don't know, they are very fine brushes with length to the bristles but not as long as nail stripers. They are called so because painters traditionally use them to paint the rigging of boats in their work) but they didn't have any so I got some shorter versions. As you can see, longer brushes would have made the tapered ends crisper and finer but these brushes will do for now. I also got some craft rhinestones. I wasn't sure how they'd react with the solvents in nail polish but figured I'd try them anyway. They came in a carousel wheel and are by the well known craft brand Anita's if any of you are interested.

The colours I used were Leighton Denny Berry Nice for the base, Leighton Denny Pure White for the stripes/petals with a little bit of Leighton Denny Cascade (sheer multi coloured fine glitter) over the flowers. Then I dabbed a bit of clear polish where I wanted the gem and gently pressed it down. Two coats of topcoat to be sure it was sealed on (1 regular topcoat, 1 Seche Vite). The gems didn't come loose at all until I wanted to take it off and it was quite hard to get them off so they were well glued lol!

What do you think?

- Jennifer

Spotty Purple Nails

Sorry for the lack of blogging, I have had some computer issues at home and have been away at the boyfriend's house so not really had a chance but I am back now :)

This is some nail art that I did a few weeks ago, I used Leighton Denny Rebel and the white WAH Nail Pen from Models Own (do NOT recommend - review to come). I love this LD polish, it is a gorgeous shimmery purple shade, the perfect kind of purple and what I think of when I imagine purple. Often purples are too red or too blue but this one is just right. If you are not familiar with Leighton Denny or his polishes, definately go check them out. http://www.leightondenny.com/ He has some fantastic shades, the bright pinks are lovely and make sure you check back for his Spring collection which is gorgeous (I will be reviewing some of the shades from this soon). You can also get his colours from QVC which is where I buy from as the kits are such good value.

Anyway, on to the manicure.

I really enjoyed doing this and it was so simple and effective. I recieved lots of comments when wearing this, even the ticket lady at the train station called me back so she could look at them! I do think a cream polish would look nicer as the base colour as the spots sort of ruin the shimmery effect of Rebel. Also a dotting tool would have been more accurate for the spots but I am totally blaming the shoddy nail pen.

So what do you guys think?

- Jennifer

Leighton Denny QVC Today's Special Value

I do like Leighton Denny's products and yet I hardly ever see them reviewed by bloggers and wonder why. Of the ones I've seen, bloggers complain that they chip and don't last. I don't understand that, I've worn Leighton Denny's colours for over a week and only had slight tip wear and then on say the 8-9th day they've chipped. That suits me perfectly, I'm easily bored so often end up changing my colour before that anyway but when I've gone to stay with the boyfriend and worn Leighton's colours they have worn fine.

Those who aren't familiar with QVC, they offer a Today's Special Value (TSV) every day which is a special product which they sell for a bargain price or a great group of products which can often be exclusive with a nice saving.

I bought the last Leighton Denny TSV and was very impressed with it so I decided to go for this one too. I also needed a bit of cheering up after an awful week and for this special price, I couldn't resist.

This kit is called the Leighton Denny 7 Piece Desireables Collection with Accessories and the QVC price is £29.98 plus £4.95 P&P (if you order more than 1 set, you only pay 1 set of P&P but if you order another product with it, you will have to pay P&P for that too). This is a fantastic price, even with the P&P which is quite high. The kit comes in a lovely limited edition silver presentation box (usually they are white) which you can store your kit in or use for something else or would be great for giving as a gift. On Leighton Denny's website, his nail polishes retail for £11 each, yes, more than OPI and China Glaze in the UK! As you can see, there is a massive saving to be made with this kit.

The kit contains:
5 nail colours 12ml each - Supermodel (creamy mink - a QVC presenter favourite), Lollypop (watermelon pink), Indulgence (deep creamy red - from the Autumn 2010 collection), Berry Nice (deep berry - Spring 2011 Gelato collection) and Leading Lilac (shimmery lilac - Spring 2011 Gelato collection).
Miracle Drops 12ml (RRP £9) - quick dry drops to speed up drying time of your manicure.
Cuti Lips 10ml (RRP £6.74 for pot version) - dual action conditioning treatment for cuticles and lips (new tube packaging).
Demi Trio Buffer (RRP £4.50 for full size version) - a small version of Leighton's regular Trio Buffer to smooth ridges and buff nails to a glass like finish.
Uno File (RRP £3.25 for two)- a double sided file with a fine grit  for shaping nails.
Hoof Stick (RRP £1.10) - a cuticle pusher to help keep cuticles neat and tidy - can be used with cuti lips as a full cuticle treatment.

All together, this kit is worth over £75 and you get a nice box to go with it whilst you only pay £34.93 from QVC for the lot. See, I told you it was a bargain! Also bare in mind that QVC have a fantastic returns policy - 30 day money back guarantee EVEN AFTER TESTING! Yep, if you are dissatisfied with anything and you even used the kit, changing your nails every day until you sent it back they will still refund you. I doubt I will be sending mine back though because the colours are gorgeous. Also, the two spring colours aren't available yet even on his own website and Leading Lilac is only available in this kit until it's proper release.

If you are unsure about anything and want to see the colours on the nails, either check out QVC on the hour for the TSV showing with Leighton himself presenting the kit (plus lots of other lovely things) it is available at this price all today until 23.59 tonight and you can order via their website www.qvcuk.com or over the phone.

I will do a review when mine arrives. If you would like reviews on any other Leighton Denny products (I have a few colours in various kits), let me know in the comments and I will see if I have it to help you.

- Jennifer