Minty Jungle // Pastel Green Leaf Design

I have wrapping paper that I bought from John Lewis a very long time ago that inspired this look. You could say it's a Christmas Wrapping paper look as I'll probably be using to wrap presents this year.

I'm not happy with how hard it is to see the leaf design (even though the background colour is so light). I'll go in with darker colours next time.

I started off with 2 layers of 'Til The Record Stops, then used a large stamp from Paradise 02. I put both Cobalt Indecent and I'm On A Sushi Roll onto the plate and mixed them together to create the stamp. I then over-stamped in some placed using Lor for that "gold foil" look.

Polishes/Tools Used:

Base:

- Color Club // 'Til The Record Stops (mint green)

Stamping:

- L'Oreal Paris // Cobalt Indecent (dark teal), Lor (gold)

- OPI Infinite Shine // I'm On A Sushi Roll (light teal)

- MoYou London // Paradise 02 Stamping Plate

Top:

MoYou London // Smudge Proof Top Coat

Quick Designs // Holo Monstera

A quick look today! I bought an amazing Lina stamping plate during What's Up Black Friday sale last year (where does the time go) and I was playing around with it and came up with this quick look! I only did the index finger as I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I think I'll have to do the entire hand now.

I love A-England polishes but they take so long to dry. For this effect I applied them to a silicone mat first, swirled them round together a bit then picked up the polish using a flat brush and applied it to the nail to achieve that drag marble effect. I'm no Sveta Sanders (she makes it look so easy) but I'm getting there. You need polishes that take a while to dry though for it to work well so A-England is the way to go but sitting there waiting for your nails to dry before you can stamp is painful.

When the sun hits this design though the leaves come alive. This is why I love negative stamping designs because stamping polishes that look like that would cost an absolute fortune. It's still a beautiful look even without the sun though:

Polishes/Tools Used:-

Base:

- A-England // Puck A Fairy (blue), Dragon (dark green), Fotheringhay Castle (olive green)

Stamping:

- What's Up Nails // Blanc My Mind (white)

- Lina // 4 Seasons - Summer 04 Stamping Plate

Leaf Me In Paradise // Matte Green Glitter & Palm Leaf Tropical Look

Now this is the type of nail design that I could wear all day every day; it combines all my favourite things. Tropical, matte glitter and leaves. I think this is one of my favourite designs I've done in a while.

I'm glad I did them on false nails so I can keep them forever like the weirdo I am.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

Nails:

- Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine // Cotton (white)

- Zoya Pixiedust // Chita (green glitter)

- H&M // Witching Hour (dark green)

Stamping:

- Twinkled T // Liquid Gold (gold)

- OPI Infinite Shine // Teal Me More (dark green), I'm On A Sushi Roll (green)

- MoYou London Stamping Polish // Scandi Sun (light green)

- MoYou London Stamping Plates // Paradise 05 (leaves & text), Tropical 37 (line pattern) 

The gold nail decorations were from a random wheel I bought off eBay.

The Rainbow Nails Challenge September 2020: Leaves // Blue Hibiscus & Leaves Nail Art

I have no idea where this look came from. I just saw the stamp design of the floaty leaves and shimmery blue background in my head. The hibiscus came afterwards. These nails look like decals; I'm so impressed.

I also refuse to move into Autumn, summer just came and vanished...or rather I didn't make enough summer nail art because I'm lazy. Anway, Clairestelle8 is back as Alice.Claire.Nails after her account was hacked (honestly, what is wrong with the world??) and there are challenges again! I did a back to school look and today is the last day to get a leaf look done so here it is!

The base is Forest by Barry M and dries to a satin finish. I think the satin finish is ok but this polish is stunning with a glossy topcoat. I took photos without a top coat and it's a good thing I did because after I applied it, I spectacularly ruined my nails trying to open a chocolate bar...I never learn.

I also managed to get some MoYou polishes to behave and the hibiscus flowers turned out really well.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Barry M Silk // Forest (blue shimmer)
- MoYou London // Dream Holiday (blue), Deep Ocean (dark blue), Bora Bora (light teal), Mint Condition (light green mint), Snowflake (off-white)
- Nicole Diary Stamping Plate // ND-L14 (leaves)
- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Paradise 05 (hibiscus flowers)

Off The Grid // Tropical Black & White Marble Nail Art Design

More looks using the collab plate from MoYou London! I really wanted to do something similar to the cover sleeve and originally had this:

But I felt it was missing something. I also wanted to cover up some of the patchy black lines...one day I will be able to paint straight black lines and I'll never have to stamp again. I looked through my stash and found some tropical water decals and decided to stick them on top:

I think it turned out well! These water decals are much better than others I've used. I found that they didn't have that annoying white cut out around them that some do and it didn't immediately try to fold onto itself when sliding it off the paper. I think they were £2 for a pack of 50 assorted designs? I'll have to try and find the listing on eBay again to get some more as there were only 2 small sheets of the tropical designs.

I wore this with a peel off base coat but it managed to last a day an half before one of the nails slid off. I could't stop staring at my hand; I really loved this design. I think the pop of green really made it. The marble background was done by smooshing the dark grey shade with white and then stamping it on top of a white background.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Ciaté // White Heat (white)
- Twinkled T // Ghosted (dark grey), Vibin' (black)
- STZ Water Decals // STZ-828 Tropical Decals
- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Collab 03
- Barry M // Matte Top Coat

Over The Top-ical // Tropical Leaves, Line Art & Glitter Nail Design

Wow I used so many polishes in this one. It's definitely over-the-top...hence the name. I've also developed a love for matte green glitters; they're just perfect. I need Zoya to do more. Speaking of Zoya, have you seen the new autumn collection. It was love at first sight for me; I'm actually thinking of spending over £100 to get the full set. It's available for pre-order on NailPolishDirect but £110 is a lot of money for just 12 shades.

Anyway, I'm trying my best to cling onto summer nails with this look inspired by Lieve91's black & white geometric design that she did last year which you can now recreate thanks to her collab with MoYou London.

I'm not sure what would be easier; practice stamping to get straight black lines or practice painting. This doesn't look completely awful though so I'm happy.

The glitter nails are a green shimmer with two layers of the Zoya matte glitter on top and then some holo glitter because I couldn't resist. I had to take them off almost immediately though because these shades stain within about an hour. I'll have to paint some falsies with this combo so I can wear it for longer. 

Here's my prototypes for this look:

The entire look came together over a few days as I kept practicing designs. The one on the right is completely hand=painted with acrylic paint. I bought some flow-improver and it's radically changed how my acrylics behave and they apply a lot smoother now than the photo above.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Ciaté // White Heat (white)
- Nails Inc // Girls Got Coals (dark green)
- Sinful Colours // Amazonian (dark green shimmer)
- Zoya // Shawn (dark green), Ness (pale green), Cece (matte green glitter)
- Daisy DND // 469 Vast Galaxy (holo glitter topper)
- MoYou London // Bora Bora (light teal), Mint Condition (light mint), Olive Tree (pale olive)
- Born Pretty // 12 (primary green)
- Twinkled T // Tickled (pink), Glow Up (white), Vibin' (black)
- MoYou London Stamping Plates // Collab 03, Paradise 05, Tropical 36

STAMPING PLATES: Paradise Collection // MoYou London

Another month, another amazing stamping plate collection from MoYou London. This is by far my favourite though; look at them:

BEAUTIFUL.

Tropical summer plates are without a doubt my favourite and the second I received the email I bought plates 1 - 5. Plate 6 for me is just too similar to other plates I own. It's hard to pick a favourite of them; each plate has such a unique theme. I love the super detailed images on plate 1 and I am going to create all the sunset mountain looks with plate 4. I just wished they had released them in June as we basically have 1 month of summer left now...let's face it though, that won't stop me from doing monstera nails!

I knew when I saw the sleeves though that I had to copy the design.

Before you say anything, yes that is my hand lol but no those are not my nails.

For the first time in my life I'm wearing false nails! I have to admit it was nice to have all the extra room for the design but these were an absolute nightmare 😂 honestly felt just like Peter from Family Guy

I bought a pack of 500 false tips off eBay for £4. They came in 9 different sizes and they weren't the best match but I did enjoy painting them. I was going to do the leaves on all the nails but since I have my full collection back I wanted to use some glitter and this is my favourite glitter shade that I own. I'm glad it was on false nails though because it stains in about 10 minutes.

There are so many more designs I want to do. Expect a lot using these plates over the next couple of months!

Polishes/Tools used:-

- Nails Inc // Old Park Lane (pink)
- Zoya Pixiedust // Chita (green glitter)
- Twinkled T // Glow Up (white)
- MoYou London Polishes // Olive Tree (light sage green), Bora Bora (light teal), Dream Holiday (blue)
- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Paradise 04
- Born Pretty // Gold Nail Decorations Wheel

STAMPING PLATES: MoYou London // Tutti Frutti Collection

It's new plate time! The summer is always the worst because summer plates are the best with their monstera leaves and banana leaves and palm leaves....ok I just love leaf prints. MoYou's new summer collection was a cute set of fruit themed plates but the one that caught my eye the most was plate 6; a beautiful selection of different tile prints that can be layered. It's literally one of my dream plates (the ultimate is a layering plate just for monstera).

Here are the 6 plates they had on offer:

I ended up buying 01, 04 and 06. 01 is super cute; I just love those incredibly detailed images. 04 has some great negative space designs and 06 obviously is the best because now I can do all the bathroom tile nails.

I want to start off by saying, MoYou London plates are great. Their stamping polishes on the other hand are absolute garbage. The amount of times I had to re-do the design above and then I only took photos of the thumb because the others were horrendous. I just could not get a clean stamp using their polishes. I had to revert to Born Pretty and Twinkled T polishes which are way cheaper. I have to stop buying MoYou polishes.

I also ended up doing this look the other day but the base turned out a bit too dark or my liking.

This is also my first post back after a while; things have been a little hectic the past two weeks! I was trying to stick to a new schedule of 3 posts a week but I've decided to permanently move back to Blackpool. I've had to move things around and I bought 2 new desks and a ring light. I can now properly film nail art videos; the only thing stopping me is me. I'm very happy to back home with friends and family and the sea :) All I have to do now is haul my 1000+ nail polish collection back up the M6 😂

The Summer Classic // French Manicure with Gold Leaves Nail Art Design

When I did the french manicure I just couldn't resist adding more detail to it and took inspiration from this Blusher and Bronzer palette I bought from Essence. I'm going to eventually do a match that mani of the pattern because I love it.

This involved some really simple double stamping with the first layer in Pink Clay and then adding the gold. I really need to start doing MoYou London polish swatches though because they are, for the most part, trash. They just never pick up properly.

Polishes/Tools used:-

- OPI Infinite Shine // Brightening Primer

- H&M // Bleached Peach (sheer nude), All Clear (top coat)

- Cuccio // Mystery In Milan

- MoYou London Stamping Polish // Pink Clay (dark pink)

- Twinkled T // Liquid Gold (gold)

- MoYou London Stamping Plates // Tropical 23, Tropical 28 

Hello Monstera // Pink & White Monstera Leaf Nail Art

Yes, more pink nails! More monstera! I just wanted to do something simple after work and I wanted it to be pink with green leaves...as usual. This will also tide me over until my Barry M/China Glaze haul arrives. I promised myself I wouldn't buy any nail polish in quarantine but then Barry M had a 20% off code (and a lot of items on sale) and I then discovered the 2015 Summer China Glaze collection....I've literally just bought 15 pink/peach shades and I'm not even mad.

Anyway, in other news I've decided to finally turning my hobby into a weekend job once we're all allowed back out again. I started looking into how to get a licence and discovered that unlike the US, the UK does not require a nail technician to have any formal training or qualifications which is kind of disturbing. To think that anyone can just go round offering services like a professional with no training, is not only demeaning to hardworking nail technicians who have trained for years but just downright dangerous. 

Due to this, I wanted to get some training in but I really can't afford right now to do some of the courses I really want because they're £1k+ so I paid for an online course a couple days ago and I'm going to ask for my money back from them because it is shocking how much information is inaccurate. For example, they incorrectly teach that the the nail fold is the cuticle and that it's necessary to cut it. I'm a hobbyist nail artist and even I know that's wrong. They also had a entire module on "best customer practices" in which they teach you to talk to the client and ask them if they want a drink??? Like that's just common courtesy, why did I pay £25 for this? And that was on sale! It's normally £100. What did I expect for £25 though? At least the course gives me access to a Salon Services trade card so I can buy at wholesale prices. That was worth £25. I guess I will just continue to save so I can do a proper course but for the moment I feel I'm more than ready to just do standard manicures and gel nails.

Alright, rant over, back to the nails. This look comprises of my favourite pink polish and two monstera leafs that were stamped on but then I used acrylic gouache to add some extra detail. I'm so happy with how they turned out, they almost look like water decals!

Polishes/Tools used:-
- Ciaté // TuTu (pale pink)
- Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine // Cotton (white)
- MoYou London // Hello Absinthe (green)
- Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy  // Diamond Top Coat
- Pebeo Studio Gouache // 11 Blanc, 48 Primary Yellow, 42 Emerald Green
- MoYou London Stamping Plates // Tropical 23