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.

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

Leaf Goals // Dark Green & Metallic Leaf Design

Well this was a bit of a surprise mani. I tried to do some freehand painting with different coloured nails and it didn't turn out so well. I'll bundle it in with this months Nail Fail post. I did this look on the thumb and pinkie and loved how it turned out so much I replaced the other nails.

I need to get my hands on some better stamping polishes as the newer Born Pretty polishes just aren't as pigmented as the old small rectangle ones. I really love the base colour though. I just picked it up from TK Maxx the other day for only £2.99. It's an inky dark green 1 coat wonder. Thanks to the stamping this is one easy mani and I successfully recreated it on my other hand so my hands are actually matching for the first time in over a year. 

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- NailsInc // Girls Got Goals (dark forest green)
- MoYou London // Little Pickle (bright green)

- Born Pretty // Leo (blue/gold metallic), Galactic Centre (blue/green metallic), #12 (green), The Noon Sunshine (bright pastel green),

- Avon Mark. // Gel Shine Top Coat
- MoYou London Plate // Tropical 36 & 37

STAMPING PLATES: MoYou London // Tropical 37 Review

Another plate review! I wasn't going to buy this because I have to move soon and deposits...and IKEA trips but the tropical series from MoYou London is my favourite plate series and I'm slowly collecting all 37 (I have 15 of them so far). Also the elephant design on this one is so cute but I've noticed that their new plate price has gone up a £1. Combined with their ridiculous £3.99 shipping, 1 plate is now £11. That's insane. So I've started looking around for cheaper sources and I think I may start buying them from Hypnotic Polish from now on because their shipping is cheaper. 

This plate though is a nice mix of tropical/tribal style art and I love the flamingo and pineapple strips. 

I've not done much with it yet but I have had some difficulty getting clean lines. I don't think this is down to the plate but my polishes. I didn't want to use a black polish, but the only off-black stamping I have is Night Sail by MYL and it's garbage. It couldn't pick up any of the detail in the plate. I resorted to using my born pretty black shade and it struggles with the summer text; I did that about 10 times and it's still patchy. 

I like the direction they're going in with this series though and I hope they do more overprint designs or cut-outs. I'd especially like some reverse palm leaves so I could do a cool gradient and then stamp on a block colour with the leaves cut out. I think there are some uberchic plates that do that but they're £12 each...which is close to these now and they're much bigger as well. When I change jobs perhaps I should just get the uberchic ones. 

I sorely need to practice stamping lines though because mine are so wonky, I noticed that the rectangular stamper picks them up with more of a curve compared to the large round ones. So there's a nail hack lol.

If you're looking for something similar but a lot cheaper; the new Nicole Diary plates are looking suspiciously similar to the tropical series. Considering MYL import all their designs from China I wouldn't be surprised if the Born Pretty factory makes everything for them.

I also love the Tropical Punch series from Born Pretty which have some nice individual designs:

And you can get these for a fraction of the price but it all depends on what kind of designs you're looking for.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- Ciaté // Pretty In Putty (light beige)
- Born Pretty Polish // #3 (black), BPU03 Pink Planet (gold/pink), 
- MoYou London // Snowflake (light grey)

- Barry M // Plumpy Hi-Shine Top Coat
- MoYou London // Tropical 37

Nude Palm Leaves // Pink Nude Tropical Design

Something a bit different? Perhaps my favourite mani I've done so far and hand painted! Well....half hand painted. I bought some acrylic paint a couple months ago but with assignments piling up I've been doing the most basic of mani's. However I handed in my last assignment on the 24th and now I have time again. It's so strange to be able to do whatever I want and not feel guilty about not doing uni work. 3 years has gone by so quickly and now I have 6 weeks till I move to Birmingham to start the next chapter of my life.

But, these nails. I've been wanting to get into using acrylics for a while now thanks to talented nail artists like @narmei (piggyluvs). These are kind of cheating though because I used a stamping plate to get the shape of the leaves and then I painted over them to give them more detail but boy does it make a big difference!

I also found a use for one of the sheer polishes from this months Mani & Lola! Now I just need to use the other sheer pink in something. I think a more pigmented background would've ruined this as the pop of green and the pink leaves are the focus. It's a little streaky but with a nice glossy top coat it's only noticeable up close. I was also surprised at how easy it is to work with acrylic on nails, it dries quite fast but water activates it again (unlike when it's on paper). I definitely need some proper brushes though as my cheap ones are a bit to soft to do really fine detail with.

How I did it:

I applied one coat of Pink Nude and followed it with the pink leaves using Rosewood Forest. All the stamping designs are from Tropical 36. I then stamped on the green palm leaves using #12 and then mixed the acrylic paints together to create a light, dark and mid green tones and randomly painted them on to create the detail. Once it was dry I topped it off with a glossy top coat.

I have so many designs I want to do and I want to film as well! I'm also thinking of adding skincare reviews to the blog as I really miss the skincare blogging, it's just the makeup stuff I can't really stand doing. I think I'll be adding beauty box unboxings as well considering I have 6...So much to do! I'm actually excited for everything and I'm going to start my nail polish app soon once I've finished designing it.

Polishes/Tools Used:-

- ORLY // Pink Nude (sheer pink creme)
- Essence // Rosewood Forest (dusty pink)

- Born Pretty Polish // #12 (green)
- Crafts 4 All Acrylic Paint // 105 Titanium White, 605 Green Pale, 753 Black

- Barry M // Plumpy Hi Shine Top Coat
- MoYou London Plates // Tropical 36

Dark Wonder // Look Fantastic November 2018 Beauty Box Nails

This one is coming at ya a bit late this month but I got it done eventually. I mainly had a hard time visualising what I wanted to do; especially since last months was so lackluster...but then so was the box and colours so I didn't really have much to work with. This months was much better, although I wish the entire box was the same design as the bath bomb, but you can't have everything.

I have around 400 polishes now as well and I still had trouble matching the grape purple shade of the box....I have a feeling this problem will never go away. That said, after I stuck a matte top coat on the blue shade; perfect match,

The middle finger is actually a gradient of 4 shades based on the background of the little magazine that you get with the box. It looked a little boring by itself once I had done the leaves so I free handed *shudder* the LF and squiggles with a rose gold shade. As you can see it's not great....I've just ordered one of the typography plates from MoYou though (thank you Black Friday) and it contains lots of letters in a standard font that I can use going forward. Although the dry brushing effect kinda matches the style so it's not completely awful.

The other base coats are Knee Highs and Venom with a matte top coat. After that I used Tropical 36 and Summer Vibes 03 to create the layered leaves. On the blue nails I used a combination of Feeling Free and August Plum and then on the purple nail I used Knee Highs with The Antidote stamped on top (look at me using these Mani & Lola Shades!).

Even though the clean up is a little messy (I'd just pushed my cuticles back earlier that day so they're a little unruly looking; they look better after a day or two) I actually really love how this turned out. It's both moody and perfect for winter but glamorous thanks to the addition of Golden Hour. I originally had the toucan on the index finger coloured in as well, but I went outside the lines and messed up the beak so I took it off and started again. 

Polishes/Tools Used:

- Ciaté Gelology // Knee Highs (dark shimmery blue)

- Barry M Superdrug Limited Edition // Venom (purple shimmer with gold shift)

- Orly Breathable Treatment + Color // The Antidote (dark plum)

- Orly Breathable Treatment + Color // Feeling Free (dark lavender)

- NYC In a New York Minute Quick Dry // Lincoln Square Lavender (dark pink)

- MoYou London Nail Lacquer // August Plum (light plum/purple)

- Essie // Ruffles and Feathers (teal green)

- Zoya // Codie (very dark cool brown)

- Ciaté Gelology // Golden Hour (rose gold shimmer)

- Barry M // Matte Top Coat

- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Tropical 36

- MoYou London Stamping Plate // #SummerVibes 03