My first water marble AKA Birthday Nails

So last month it was my 23rd birthday. I decided to do something different on my nails that I'd never tried before and had wanted to do for a while. Water marbling! I've read that a lot of bloggers found it hard to get it to work for them at first but I got lucky with the colours I'd chosen and it worked first time. (Subsequent attempts have been failures haha)

The colours I used were all from China Glaze - I'd read that they tend to work well for water marbling. They were For Audrey, Electric Beat and Blue Year's Eve.It took me two hours to finish but it was worth it :) Only two nails weren't as nice because I smudged them when pulling them out of the water.

If you want to see some brilliant tutorials for different designs, please look at Colette's blog My Simple Little Pleasures and check out her YouTube page. She is so talented at marbling and you will learn so much from her. She also deserves more followers and subscribers.

Jennifer xx

MAC Heavenly Creatures - Sky & Universal Appeal Eyeshadows

L-R: Sky, Universal Appeal

Every year MAC bring out a mineralize collection for the Summer, after their main Summer collection. They are always so beautiful with the swirls in the products and there are always lovely shades. I like mineralize products but I had to be practical with the eye shadows this year because I simply don't pull them out enough to get a bunch of them, no matter how much I like them. I chose two shades which I thought were quite unique compared to what I have already.

Sky

Universal Appeal

The things I like about the mineralize eye shadows are that you can use them wet or dry and when you apply them over different bases you get multidimensional effects which look pretty cool. I also like these swirly eye shadows because you can pick out different areas to use. Some people say you can't but I always use them like this so I know you can. You might not be able to pick out an individual colour but I do pick areas to swirl my brush in to change the shade of the shadow. Eg. In Universal Appeal, there is a dark purple, violet and gold. If I want it to be very dark purple, I choose an area which has more of the dark purple or if I want more violet, I choose those areas. 

L-RL Sky, Universal Appeal. Complete mixed colours swatched dry, no primer/base.

These two colours are quite well pigmented for mineral eye shadows when used dry, when used wet they are much better and yield plenty of pigment. Universal Appeal also appears more purple when used this way compared to the browner tone it has used wet. Sky is such a pretty shade of blue and has a teal undertone which makes it easier for me to wear, blue is not the best colour on me so I have to pair it well to work. Both colours apply smoothly and evenly and don't drop lots of fallout although all mineralize eye shadows have some fallout so care should be taken when using them. These have a much nicer texture compared to the chunky mineralize eye shadows MAC has released previously.

Jennifer xx

Pink and Blue Leopard Print Nails

I saw these pink and dark blue Barry M polishes in Superdrug and really wanted to use them together in some nail art. I was going to do stripes but then decided to add the other blue in and do some leopard print. I've never freehanded leopard print before and this isn't great - it looks more abstract than leopard print. I liked it all the same though, I really love the colours together. It is so bright and fun. I didn't want to take it off but had to because I cracked my thumb nail and needed to fix it :(

Colours used:
Barry M Flamingo (pink)
Barry M Turquoise (light blue)
Barry M Indigo (dark blue)

Jennifer xx

Green-Blue Gradient Nails

Gradient nails have been on my to do list for a good while now and I've finally got around to trying it. I really like the way it came out. To do it I applied the lightest colour and then dipped a makeup sponge into the next darkest colour and sponged it onto my nails. I repeated with each colour until the darkest colour making sure that they blended together. It's not perfect but I think it looks good for a first attempt.

The colours I used were (in this order):
OPI Gargantuan Green Grape for the base colour
OPI Mermaid's Tears
OPI Fly
OPI Ogre The Top Blue

Jennifer xx

Playing with topcoats

L-R: Models Own Ibiza Mix, Leighton Denny Angel Dust, China Glaze Techno. Base colour Leighton Denny Inkjet.

Jennifer xx

My first franken! Tropical Waters

Those of you who are not aware what a franken is, well it is taking different polishes and mixing them together to create your own concoction or making your own colour by adding pigments or glitter to clear polish. It comes from Frankenstein who in the novel gathered different parts to create his monster.

I've seen some gorgeous frankens, some people have even started up their own indie polish brand to sell their creations. I've wanted to try it for a while and finally decided to buy some glitter, bottles, shaking balls and clear polish to try it for myself. I have learnt a lot from doing it and have done a lot of research. My first franken whilst it wasn't a complete fail, (I love how it came out on my nails) I found that the dyes in the glitter bled into the clear polish, tinting the clear base which was unwanted. For the future, I need to find some glitters which are suitable to be mixed with solvents. I also learnt about glitter sinking to the bottom due to it needing a base to keep it suspended, clear polish just doesn't cut it. I can't find suspension bases online in the UK so for my second franken, I used a fine glitter polish and added to it. More on that in my next franken post.

Anyway, this is what I came up with:

I really need to get a macro lens to help with these close ups...

As yet it is un-named. My boyfriend said it reminds him of swimming pool tiles when you look into the swimming pool. I thought it was a really good description. I wont tell you exactly what glitters I used because I don't know which ones caused the colour bleeding and I don't want my readers to potentially waste their money.

The base colour I used under this was Color Club Lumin-icecent which is from the Foiled collection.

So what do you think of my first franken? Does anyone have any name suggestions so I can stick a little label on it to finish it off?

Thanks to The Polish Anon's comment below, I'm now going to call this polish 'Tropical Waters'. 

Jennifer xx

OPI Nicki Minaj - Fly & Save Me

Hi all! Hope you are all great. Just a quick post to show you a mani I did a couple of weeks ago using two of the OPI Nicki Minaj colours. They are all beautiful shades and I shall be showing the others in other posts as I wear them.

Fly is an amazing bright turquoise-teal-blue cream finish polish. It is highly pigmented, this is two coats pictured and applies like a dream. It is quite a unique shade of blue in my collection and I really love it. I have a bit of a thing for blue nail polish, quite a few of my favourites are blues.

I topped my ring fingers with OPI Save Me glitter which is a blue and gold strand/bar glitter which is also a bit holographic so changes colour in the light. It also has some regular silver glitter thrown in the mix. I used two coats here but I think one coat would have been better as you would be able to see the strands better.

By the way, I've got cuticle oil on my fingers which is why they are so shiny.

Jennifer x

MAC Fall Colour Eyeshadows and Chromagraphic Pencil

Here are a couple of Eyeshadows and a Chromagraphic Pencil I picked up from MAC's Fall Colour collection. All are part of the 'Wild Colour' section which consists of some amazingly bright colours. I chose Three Ring Yellow and Royale eyeshadows and Hi Def Cyan Chromagraphic Pencil.

Three Ring Yellow



Royale

Three Ring Yellow is a bright yellow with a green undertone. It is a Veluxe Pearl finish so is very soft and pigmented. It is easy to blend and work with. I like that it has the green undertone so it isn't a straight yellow, some people may find it easier to wear due to the green in the shade. It is quite similar to Sweet & Punchy eyeshadow which came out last year with the To The Beach collection. If you have this colour you may not want to get Three Ring Yellow. Sweet & Punchy is more of a yellowed green apposed to a yellow with a green undertone, in other words, Sweet & Punchy is more green. Sweet & Punchy is also a Veluxe Pearl and a little more pigmented.

Royale is a deep blue with a purple undertone (I found this a very difficult colour to capture so these pictures are not accurate). It is a matte finish so can swatch a little chalky but when used it works really nicely. It is a little sheer but still pigmented enough although may require a bit of building if strong colour is required. If so, a shader brush such as the 239 would be best for that. I used it in my crease with a 217 to crease diffused blending but built it up where I wanted.



L-R: Three Ring Yellow, Royale

L-R: Three Ring Yellow, Sweet & Punchy

Top: Sweet & Punchy
Bottom: Three Ring Yellow

Chromagraphic pencils are a new product to me but I read really good reviews about Hi Def Cyan so decided to try it out. It is a lovely cyan shade, I really like to use bright blues and teals along my lower lashes so I knew I'd get use out of this colour. I am really impressed with it, it is so creamy and pigmented in just one swipe. It dries down and doesn't move at all until you take it off and even then it doesn't want to come off! Chromagraphic pencils are PRO products so are available all year round at PRO stores or via phoning mail order if you do not have a store near you. It is nice to be able to get a few of the colours at regular stores in the meantime though. Some shades are not eye safe, this particular colour is not suitable for the inner rims (waterlines) of the eyes but can be used along lash lines or on the lids.

I highly recommend the Chromographic pencils and I would like to get the green and one of the nude shades when I go to the PRO store as they perform so well.

Jennifer