Feeling Summery // FabFitFun Summer 2022 Nails

Oh my god a new post! So, it's been a while. Was feeling a bit burnt out, then tried to buy a house so packed everything away. It's now been 4 months and no house in sight so I've unpacked all my nail stuff. 

I had to though, look how adorable the FabFitFun box was this season. I knew the moment I saw it, I had to match my nails to it. Can you believe though I only had 2 shades of purple that somewhat matched the FFF box? Looks like I'll have to buy some more polish.

I started off with 1 layer of Feeling Free. Then picked up the ice lolly stamps off Tumblr Girl 06 with Nether Noir. I then painstakingly painted in each lolly with Violet Haze, Living Your Best Life and Dance Party Teal Dawn. The lollypop stick are Cappuccino and the bite marks Coconut. I then topped it off with a smudge free top coat, then a matte top coat.

It took about an hour in total but it was worth it. I'm going to have to recreate this look though with pastel colours and a light background as it would look super cute!

Polishes/Tools Used:-

Base:

- Orly Breathable // Feeling Free (purple)

- MoYou London // Smudge Free Top Coat

- Barry M // Matte Top Coat

Stamping

- What's Up // Nether Noir (black)

- Ciate Plant Pots // Violet Haze (aubergine)

- Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine // Coconut (off-white cream)

- Kure Bazaar // Cappuccino (cream)

- OPI // Dance Party Teal Dawn (teal)

- Nails Inc // Living Your Best Life (yellow)

- MoYou London // Tumblr Girl 06 Stamping Plate

Ambers Nails /// ALL The Summer Nail Art Designs

So a while ago I did nails for my friend and this was the first time doing nail art on someone else's nails. It was a very strange experience; I'm so used to my own nails.

Well neither of us could decide on a nail art design so we went with everything 😂. The majority of the designs were done with some new Beetles gel polish but the stamping was normal polish with a gel base and top.

I can see the appeal of working with gel; it's just so much easier to manipulate than regular polish. But you can't take away my stamping tools from me. Amber told me that the look lasted a long time without chipping so I guess I'll continue to use OPI for the top coat. That was a weird one though; it smells like cooked chicken.

Unfortuantely I don't have a full polishes used list for this look because I lost count but I can say I used Cuccio prep + fuse for the base. Then did all the designs and applied the OPI gel top coat. I was happy that the stamping polishes didn't wrinkle when curing; it happens quite a lot and it annoys me to no end.

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.

Icecream for Days // Pastel Icecream Nail Art on False Nails

It's official; I think I'm becoming a addicted to painting false nails. Buying a pack off 500 off eBay was the best thing I ever did. I only need four of the nine sizes so I use the others to practice a design first. I hate having long nails but I love the extra space. Being able to pop these on and off whenever I want is an amazing feeling!

Also, it's warm. Super warm. The coast is usually a good 5 degrees colder than the rest of the country but we've been having a glorious 20 degrees for the past few days and I've eaten my body weight in icecream; cue these nails.

I started off with two coats of Cashew, then stamped on the square pattern with Mushroom. I used some acrylic paints (just red, blue, yellow and white mixed until I liked the colour) to add the extra detail to the waffle bits. Using a dotting tool, I placed down the ends of the drips first using White Heat then connected them to each other. I then just painted the rest of the nail tip white (this took two coats). I used a small paint brush to add the sprinkles and then topped it all off with a glossy top coat.

Polishes/Tools used:-
- Primark Ps Color Care // Mushroom (brown), Cashew (cream)
- Ciaté // White Heat (white)
- Primark Ps Gel Effect // Candy (pink)
- Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine // Berry Sorbet (blue)
- Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache // White, Primary Blue, Primary Red, Primary Yellow
- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Mix & Match 13

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

Pool Party // NCLA Nail Wraps Review

I received these a while ago in the Pool Party Meebox and since it's summer I've decided that I need to do something with them.

I'm not great with decals of any kind and these ones haven't even been produced properly! They've  been printed off to the side so a quarter of the design has been left out and the black outlines have ended up on the nail design...talk about quality control. NCLA products aren't cheap either. This particular design isn't sold anymore but they're $10 each (I don't even want to know how much shipping + import is) or £10.95 to buy from UK stores. That's an insane amount of money. I might have to try and recreate these nails using plastic wrap or something.

These nail wraps were a bit bent as well from being stored in the too small Meebox and the packaging was ripped...not off to great start. There is also a mini cardboard emery board included to file off excess product. You get 4 of each size, apart from the largest which only has 2. I suppose in theory this means you can get 4 looks out of this set. When you compare that to a salon visit, I guess £10.95 isn't bad.

I started off with a base coat and then started off with my little finger. I thought the smallest size would fit no problem, however due to how it's been cut, it actually misses a good 2mm off my nail and includes the black line and then white area around the cutout.

The nail wrap was also very sticky and because of this is actually pulled my base coat off from the nail and just came off entirely in place. They don't curve well so unless your nails are completely flat; you're gonna have a bad time.

The thumb was the worst as the wraps are super rounded at the cuticle end and the nail beds on my thumbs are square so they don't fit properly at all. 

Overall, it honestly looks like a 5 year has glued bits of paper to my nails. Filing the bits of paper off does absolutely nothing except make it look worse; like the paper has been submerged in water and has flaked off. If anything you'll just start filing your own nails.

I applied a top coat thinking it would solve all my problems but now my problems are just glossy...Sounds like most things in my life.

1/10, would not recommend. They do have some nice looking wraps on their website though that I might recreate. But these are too thick (even though they are described as ultra thin) and sticky and you can't smooth them out properly. I noticed on their website they've applied them to flatter false nails and the model is wearing the false nails. Obviously it's going to be much better applying them to false nails as you don't have to deal with awkward hand positions and nail beds getting in the way. Let's just say between these and the tropical holo nail stickers; I've been put off nail stickers....I still have a few more to review though that I bought off eBay...*le sigh*

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

I Pink I Must Leaf Now // Banana Leaf & Pink Nail Art Design

The weather has been amazing this month and so it's time for non-stop pink leaf mani's. It's been a while since I've used this pink shade as well; it's one of my favourites and Avon have released in a new formula that I'm tempted to buy as you can never have too much nail polish.

I'm currently waiting on some new stamping plates to arrive as well that have some fantastic leaf, feather and mandala prints on them for some proper summer designs. I've been after these plates for a while but they were a bit expensive for a random eBay brand and but I finally managed to get hold of them for £1.50 each with free postage and packaging. So I'm having to make do with the limited number of plates I brought with me for quarantine.

I think I did pretty well though. I wanted to keep this look simple so just did a basic double stamp with a pink and green polish. I wish there was more distinction between the white and pink polishes; they ended up looking a bit too similar.

Polishes/Tools Used:
- Avon Mark. Gel Shine // I Pink I Can (pale pink)
- H&M // Ice Cold Milk (sheer  off white)
- MoYou London // Candy Floss (pink), Turquoise Mint (green)
- Twinkled T // Liquid Gold (gold)
- MoYou London Stamping Plates // Tropical 28 (leaves), #SummerVibes (triangles)
- Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy // Diamond Top Coat