Spell on You // MoYou London Halloween Plate 01

My very first Halloween look...finally! I've been wanting to recreate the sleeve of the new MoYou London Halloween plates since I got it earlier this month because it's just so freaking adorable. As of writing this though, they only have 2 plates left from the collection (including this one) and I'm annoyed I didn't buy them earlier as one of them was proper gothic-y with super detailed designs and I loved it but I didn't grab it in time. MoYou also no longer re-stock plates so they really pressure you to buy it straight away. I'm happy with this plate though and I picked up a really cute tarot plate from Maniology so it's not too bad.

This plate though could seriously work all year round with its collection of stars, moons and crystals. It's super versatile and also includes a snake, moon phases and mushrooms. I'm surprised this one hasn't sold out as well as I think this and 05 were the best ones (and the only ones I wanted). I'm thinking what I should do next though as I bought so many Halloween plates from Born Pretty and Nicole Diary at the beginning of September but they've only just arrived now...thank god my peel off base coat only lasts around 6 hours because I'm gonna have to be doing 2 looks a day at this rate.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- Essence Shine last & Go // Black is Black (...black)
- MoYou London // First Kiss (pastel pink), Orchid Chic (purple), Surf's Up (blue), Turquoise Mint (mint)

- Born Pretty // #2 (silver)
- Barry M // Matte Top Coat
- MoYou London Plate // Halloween 01

MoYou London 

Halloween Collection (£6.99 each)

Reach For The Stars // Birchbox October 2019 Nails

Well, it took me three attempts but I finally managed to do some nails for this months Birchbox that I'm happy with. The first two were just too busy and so I scaled it back, reduced the mustard and violá! It's cute, not as cute as the box but still cute. The items this month though... I want to do nails based on pretty much every item. The brands went all out with their packaging...apart from the shower gel.

I was super happy to get the Lumene cocktail oil as it looks amazing, smells amazing and feels amazing. I haven't started using it yet properly but my skin really loves Lumene products. Also, when you shake the oil to mix it together, it creates this amazing ombre of yellow to red bubbles as it separates again and I just have to get this look on my nails somehow.

Then there's the goggle eye mask which features a cute shooting star and moon design similar to the box and the moon pad; whose packaging is more exciting than the product. I have quite a few rolls of space foil so I'll have to finally give foils a go instead of cowering in fear.

Back to the nails though. Here are the fails:

Eurgh. That first one looks like I cut out some stars from a hi-vis jacket and stuck it on my nails. Not to mention the awful colour matching and splattered paint that was supposed to be clouds. As you can see I left the clouds out in my final design as I just couldn't get them to look right. The second one was a creative design because I used a sharpie to create the background and acrylic paint for the moon and clouds but...yikes...I need to seriously get some good acrylic paint and get some good painting skills. But it led us to the good nails:

Simple designs look so much better than trying to cram everything on the box on my nails. I also reduced the mustard and increased the gold. Also, I have a new background! I liked the purple space glittery background I've had for a few months but every background I've ever had has always been light. I noticed that the dark green and gold jungle vibe has been in for a while now and spotted this amazing jungle wallpaper in Wilko's and then some items were on sale in Dunelm so I decided to switch things up for the winter.

Anyway, that's probably it for normal nails now, I need to go off and finally do some Halloween nails before I just forget completely. I just keep getting distracted by Minecraft. I've started binge watching Mumbo Jumbo on YouTube and his adventures on the HermitCraft server and all I want to do now is build redstone contraptions in Minecraft.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- Ciaté // Total Eclipse (dark grey/blue)
- H&M // Cantaloupe (mustard)
- Barry M Liquid Chrome // Bright Lights (gold)

- Barry M // Matte Top Coat
- Nicole Diary // 052 Plate (Moon), 039 (Hollow Star)
- Harunouta // L081 Plate (constellations)
- Born Pretty // L087 Plate (constellations + stars)

Seeing Stars // Pink & Gold Flakies with Stars Design

It's been so long! My last nail art post was a week ago! But, it was birthday and so I went home for 5 days and forgot to schedule anything (I'm now the grand old age of 28...) I also did my nails with a regular base coat *le gasp* and only just took off this look as I'm writing this. I'm quite impressed to be honest. I used the OPI Infinite Shine Brightening Primer with the Avon Mark Gel Shine Top Coat and not one chip. I was quite happy to get it off though because it was so boring wearing the same design for an entire week. I don't know how people do it.

Anyway, I wanted to try and use some shades I rarely use as well as do something vaguely birthday related and came up with this. The inspiration came from Nails Inc who recently released a new duo called Seeing Stars which contains a sheer off-white creme and a clear top coat with star pieces suspended in it. Apart from the stars being gold, it's identical to Ciatés Shooting Star that I received in their Mini Mani Month last year. I blasted it when I got it because the star pieces stick up and it's a nightmare trying to get stars out of it. I still stand by my initial thoughts 10 months later. Bits of fluff kept getting stuck to my nails and washing my hair was quite annoying. Chunky star pieces make for nice looking nail art but are not practical in the slightest. They were also a bugger to remove.

As for the rest of the design, I just really love that Chalky Pink H&M shade and Barely Peach added on top is just a stunning combo. It looks really similar to China Glaze Lawless & Flawless from their Gone West collection. When I first received Barely Peach I was pretty angry as it was nothing like advertised, however I've grown to really appreciate it as a top coat. It really adds another dimension to polishes.

I suppose now though I should really get on with doing some Halloween looks and stop procrastinating. I don't know what it is but when I have to do certain looks, I just get really bored. I love doing random looks that come into my head or copying the design off some mug/candle/blanket I've seen when out and about. Honestly, if I was a full-time blogger, I would be the worst.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- OPI Infinite Shine // Brightening Primer (base coat)
- H&M // Chalky Pink (dusty pink), Barely Peach (peach flakie)
- Ciaté // Shooting Star (star glitter)

- Avon Mark. // Gel Shine Top Coat

ROUND UP // All The Nail Polish Advent Calendars for 2019

So, as a little bit of break, I thought this post would do a round-up of all the Nail Polish advent calendars I could find for 2019. Last year I bought the Ciaté and OPI ones and with the beauty calendars sold out, this years nail ones have finally started appearing. So, read on to check out what the nail polish world has to offer this year!

Ciate Mini Mani Month 2019
£50 - 24 items

First up is the calendar I'll probably end up buying as I'm a sucker for Ciaté products and it has quite a few shades that I need for my collection but almost 50% are repeats from previous calendars. I already have 47 Ciaté shades so £50 is a little steep to end up with so many repeats.

The main turn off though is that you receive "6 mystery shades", so you could in theory end up with 12 repeats in total.

If you haven't already signed up to their newsletter, you can do so for 15% off and I also found a voucher on the internet for 20%, use LIB20. It still works as of posting this.

OPI Hello Kitty Collection

£65 - 25 Items

After last years OPI calendar I knew I wasn't going to order again and 12 of the shades are repeats from last years Nutcracker box...yes they put the exact same 12 shades in as last years. OPI have hundreds upon hundreds of interesting and unique shades but they chose the same boring 12 as before.

It also contains 10 out of 13 mini shades from their new Hello Kitty collection and just like with the Nutcracker one, they missed out the best 3. I wouldn't recommend this one, it's pricey, the tiny 3.75ml bottles have no names on them and the formulas from the repeats are severely disappointing. Such a shame as their summer Neon collection was excellent and I enjoyed a few shades from their Spring Tokyo range as well. 

24 Days of Essie

£45.98 - 24 Items

It's currently out of stock but Amazon are still allowing you to order it for delivery when it comes back in stock. £46 isn't too shabby for 8 full size shades, 9 mini 5ml polishes, 1 mini bottle of polish remover, a sticker sheet and then "5 mystery surprises". What's with all the surprises this year? As I've never had an Essie calendar before the repeats will be low, especially because I don't have many Essie shades to begin with (I just never got on the craze).

Technic Perfectly Polished Advent Calendar

£25.50 - 24 Items

Oh Technic, you strange, bargain bin rip-off of similarly bargain bin W7 who's ripping off OPI...£25.50 though for Technic? I think they got their prices wrong. Apparently, Technic say all their items are cruelty free and suitable for Vegetarians and Vegans. If your product is suitable for Vegans then it will be suitable for Vegetarians, no need for the double clarification. That said, they do not state if their polishes are at least 3-free, so it's a no from me. I accidentally bought a W7 shade once and when I opened it, my eyes almost melted out of their sockets; it smelt just like the creosote mum uses to protect fence panels with. If you order this for a young niece/nephew/sibling/child, just make sure that you can give them a sniff first for formaldehyde as, wouldn't you know, there are no ingredients lists anywhere...

Mavala 12 Days of Christmas for Nails and Hands

£45 - 12 Items

Back to a 'real' polish brand this time and Mavala have two calendars again this year and they look hella cute. This slightly different version features 6 polishes, top coat, base coat, quick dry top coat and cuticle oil along with some handcream and tweezers. I think I prefer this one just because I like having more polishes and the rose gold glitter shade looks nice.

Maval 12 Days of Christmas for Nails and Skin

£45 - 12 items

Though the names are confusing because they're practically the same, this one does contain different products but I can only find it available on Amazon. That said please be careful when buying this as many reviews have stated that 2 drawers have been missing items. Not usually the standard set by Mavala. In this set you may notice that 14 items are being shown, the other boxes contain what I'm guessing is matching day and night creams in a 5ml size which is a bit stingy for face cream.

Essence Make Your Own Advent Calendar

£19.99 - 24 Items

Although it only contains 9 nail products, I actually quite like Essence products anyway and for £20, this is an absolute bargain. I would've have bought it for myself if I didn't already own all the shades included...

// Last Thoughts

And that's as much as I can find! If I do come across some others from actual brands (not just random £5 ones of eBay or Amazon) I will update this post but I think I'm most likely to buy the Ciaté one ('cause I'm sucker for gluttony) and one of the Mavala calendars. Nails Inc haven't released anything new yet but I imagine that should come out in the next few weeks and Orly have stopped doing their "Quo by Orly 12 shades of Christmas" calendar. I've checked with China Glaze, Sally Hansen, Cuccio, Morgan Taylor, Zoya and Barry M but to no avail. If I had my own polish brand I would be on that shit. Even W7 haven't done a nail one this year.

In non-nail related news though, I think my favourite beauty advent calendars are the ridiculously expensive ones from Harrods and Liberty...isn't that always the case? One can dream. In the more affordable range, the Rituals one is pretty enticing as is the Lumene...oh will power, please don't fail me.

Black Forest Gateaux-y // Purple Drag Marble Nails

So I've been obsessing over this video from the Russian nail artist extraordinaire; Sveta Sanders, and been wondering if I could possibly re-create it. She makes it look so easy; it's not fair.

This was my first time trying this though and for a first attempt I don't think it turned out all that shabby. In fact I really like it and I'll be trying it again. It was much easier than watermarbling or smooshing. The cleanup was quicker and I didn't need to use any liquid latex. I think with practice you could use this technique for instant space/geode nails.

I took 93 images of this look; that's how much I couldn't stop staring at my nails. The holo though...I forgot how much I love that Barry M holo topper. 

As you can see, the lines in my attempt are no where near as clean as Sveta's but the glittery shine from the A-England shades make this a straight up galaxy look.

The index finger was the one I did first and that's why it looks so...awful compared to the others. You also need a thick yet runny white polish to drop the other shades into. I stupidly used a quick dry one the first time. I need to buy some more 'throw-away' white polish as you can go through quite a bit doing a look like this.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- Collection 7 Day Wear // White Out (white)
- A-England // Mustardseed A Fairy (strawberry holo), Maxim (purple holo), Camelot (black)
- Barry M // Diamond Glitter

- Avon Mark. // Gel Shine Top Coat

STAMPING PLATES: Fall In Love Collection // MoYou London

Could MoYou London please stop releasing new collections every month because I'm trying to save for a house deposit here....At this point I've just accepted that I need to budget for new nail supplies every month. This was quite unexpected from them as well as they released a new Halloween collection as well this month (I may have bought one of those as well...) 

These plates are beautiful set for Autumn though but I kinda wish they had been released early September instead as we're heading into the end of October now and it's just raining all the time. Fall is pretty much over.

This new set has four plates all with different designs but I only bought 01 & 02 as 03 & 04 are have similar designs on many other plates that I own.  

I think 01 is definitely my favourite and the reason I put an order in the first place. I just absolutely love plates with crazy detail on them. I also think this will do nicely for Christmas looks as well with the deer and holly bushes. I added 02 'cause I'm a hoe for overprint stamping plates. It's just such an easy way to add detail to a design. 

I used a MoYou polish (Into The Woods) to stamp the designs and didn't have any problems with them picking up. Although since I've been using my new combo of Maniology Ice Cube stamper and Starbucks gift card-scraper, I've had zero problems with picking up designs. I think the Starbucks card really stops you from scraping to hard or at a harsh angle that you might with finer, dedicated scrapers.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- Ciaté // Pretty In Putty (light beige)
- MoYou London // Heaven Sent (peach), Scandi Sun (pale sage), First Kiss (pastel pink), Into The Woods (dark brown), 

- Avon Mark. // Gel Shine Top Coat
- MoYou London Plate // Fall In Love 01, Artist 22

MoYou London 

Fall In Love Collection (£6.99 each)

Sweet Simplicity // Birchbox September 2019 Nails

I was debating all September if I should post this or not and I finally decided to because why not. From a far it looks great but up close you can see the dodgy stamping and bits that didn't pick up properly. I also didn't quite have the right colours or stamping patterns to pull this off but it looks almost right.

I used one of MoYou London's new Mexican plates for this look and I thought it would be so easy to recreate the box with the plate but it took an age. At least around 90 minutes as I stamp, removed details, then stamped again. This isn't particularly a look I'd like to recreate due to how tedious it was. The pinkie finger even ended up being hand-drawn with a dotting tool because I just couldn't take stamping on those tiny little details anymore.

I almost cancelled Birchbox this month as well, mainly because I really need to start saving for a house deposit but when I saw Octobers box I saved all but this subscription just because I love the box designs so much and love recreating them.

Rusty Pineapple // Clay Red & White Fall Design

This rusted fall design was inspired by a mustard look I found on pinterest by @semilac. Once it was finished I think I should've stuck with the mustard shade as the white and red kind of clash. Looking back I feel I should've chosen an off-white or parchment shade for the accent nails. Also, the red and yellow combo remind me of macdonalds...not exactly what I was going for.

It's still a somewhat cute look and I'm still impressed at how well these two creme shades stamp. Guess I need to buy more H&M shades...they just brought out a new winter collection.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- H&M // Sun on Clay (red), Cantaloupe (mustard)

- Ciaté // White Heat (white)

- Nicole Diary  // Black Knight (black)
- Barry M // Matte Top Coat
- MoYou London Plate // Botanical 01
- Maniology Plate // M051