alessandro - Stone Washed & Zipper Mani

Hello Loves!

I am back from my vacation and even though I really had a wonderful time, I missed blogging and painting my nails! Unfortunately I didn't schedule enough posts for the whole two weeks. But now that I am back I'll do my best to get back into my usual blogging routine! Today I have a manicure to share with you, that I did shortly before my trip. A zipper mani.

The blue polish I used as a base is alessandro - Stone Washed (15-556). Stone Washed has an excellent formula and is easy to apply, But I had some trouble with the brush at first. It is flat, but has a straight tip and so I touched my cuticles a few times. 

I really like the colour a lot it reminds me a bit of blue jeans wich inspired me to do this manicure in the first place. To place the zipper water decals, that I bought from Born Pretty Store, perfectly, I painted a gap on my ringfinger and thumb, that I filled with Barry M - Nude. Once that was dry I cut out my zippers and placed them on my nails.

Some of the decals had a white background wich made them stand out very well, but others didn't and were pretty hard to see. So I am not 100% satisfied with these water decals, but they definitely make a fun manicure! Maybe they would look better if a lighter colour was used as a background.

To create an even better denim look I ripped out a small piece of make-up sponge and dabbed it into some white polish and filled in some of the blue with it. Now it really reminds me of a pair of stone washed jeans! :-D

All in all I do like this manicure.

How do you like it? Have you ever tried BPS water decals?

You may also like:

• Butterfly Water Decals
• BPS Water Decal Accent
• Saran Wrap Manicure

Ladybug in Grass for green week - St. Patricksday

Hello Beauties!

How are you today? It's Friday and the weekend is near! Todays post for "green week" is a little ladybug springtime manicure.

After basecoating my nails with a ridgefiller, I applied one coat of BarryM - Nude as a base for my design. On my ringfinger I created a little ladybug with my dotting tools using essence - juicy love & black is back. Unfortunately the combination of ridgefiller and Nude was not the best since it started chipping a few hours later... 

With a fine nail art brush I painted the grass on my nails with three shades of green. I used essence - L.O.L - a light green, essence - beijos be brazil - a grass green and NYX - Alsakan Wild - a dark green.

Here are the polishes I've used

Those nails are so cute! With the green you can't go wrong for St. Patricks Day but it also is lovely simply because it is spring!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead of you! If you want to join my St. Patricks Day Competition, there's still time! (INFO) 

How do you like todays manicure? If you like the ladybug and would like to do it yourself let me know, I could include a tutorial!

You may also like:

• Dotted Daisies
• start wild!
• a hint of love

Green Week | St. Patricks Day Competition ItsJustMeHayleyD

Guest Post from ItsJustMeHayleyD for Green Week

Hello there..

Well this is something new for me. As I'm sure your aware the lovely Pia is having a Green Week on her blog for St. Patricks day and has asked for some contributors. So here I am.. Also there's a little giveaway for us, so I'm keeping my freshly painted fingers crossed.

I decided that with it being springtime I would use some lovely pastel shades on my nails. I have gone for BarryM's new Speedy range in the shades Pole Position, with an accent nail of Full Throttle. I have chosen these two as I am part Irish so thought I would be good to be a little patriotic. (the Irish flag is green, orange and white)

Hope you like my choice.

Happy St. Patricks day you lovely lot.

Thanks Guys
Love Hayley

Sinful Colors - Mint Apple & Polkadots

Hello everyone!

I can not believe that this is my 100th post already! I was pretty active the last couple of weeks. Since you only reach 100 posts once, I want to show you something special:

This manicure is inspired by my friend Melissa over at Posh Nails. In the header of her blog she has a picture of a gorgeous dotted manicure with rhinestones and I fell in love with it the minute I layed eyes on this picture. I changed the colours, but the design is the same. Here is what I came up with:

For this design I did not use a base coat. I started off with a layer of Barry M - Nude. On my ring- and indeyfinger I applied a second layer, because the bottom of the nail would be visible. I then covered my thumb, middle- and pinkiefinger with two coats of Sinful Color - Mint Allpe (947). Application of this polish was pretty easy. The formula is excellent and the colour is gorgeous. It is a rich mint with a bit of a silver shimmer.

On my ring- and indexfinger I also out on Mint Apple, but I only covered the upper half of the nail diagonally. After this was dry wich took a few minutes, I applies some large polkadots to my nails with OPI - Amazon... Amazoff. I can not say much about the formula of this polish except that it dries quite fast. As I was applying it to my thumb it started to get streaky. 

Amazon...Amazoff is a greenish petrol creme polish with a glossy finish. This colour is very beautiful and I have to try it on it's own soon!

With white rhinestones I covered up the line between Mint Apple and my nude polish. To make them stick I applied a thin layer of top coat along that line.

Above pictures were taken indoors with a flash. The ones below were taken outdoors without a flash.

This manicure is pretty easy to do. The hardest part for me was to draw a straight diagonal line. I only realised later, that it was not that important to get it done perfectly. It is getting covered with rhinestones anyway... :-D On my other hand the dots were a bit tricky, because my left hand is always shaking when I try to work accurate. Wich means that the dots are not as even as they are here, but it still looks good. So no worries!

I think this is such a cute manicure. You can do it in any colour you like.

What do you guys think about it?

You may also like:

• 50 Years of Style
• Liverpool
• Roller Coaster

French Manicure on Barry M - Nude

Hi everybody!

Yesterday I showed you a nude polish from Barry M. I later on did a French Manicure with a little design. 

It wasn't hard to do. All you need is a very opaque white colour - I used china glaze - White On White -, a black polish and some glitter (essence - black is black & china glaze - Fairy Dust). Also you'll need a fine nail art brush and some stickers to create your french tips if you can not do it free handed.

 Once you're done with the tips use your brush to create four lines, two of them should form a petal shape. And also some dots.

With the glitter polish you fill out the petal shape and also create fine lines underneath the white tips of your other fingers. Once you are done let it dry a bit and then top it of with a protective topcoat to level it out. I used Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, because it never smudges the patterns and gives a great shine.

The pictures above where taken indoors with artificial light and flash. I also took some daylight pictures you can see below. 

I am not that good with nailart yet, as you can see in the closeup pictures, but over all I am satisfied with this result. Unfortunately the glitter is not visible very well in this pictures, but I think it made the manicure perfect.

What do you think of this manicure? Do you like French Manicures?

Barry M - Nude

Hi everyone!

Today I have this beautiful Barry M polish from my December Online Shopping Haul to share with you. Nude is a light beige sheer creme almost jelly polish. In the pictures below I used 3-4 coats, but 2 would have been fine too. There was not that much difference. As you can see there is still a VNL.  I topped these off with Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat.

Application of this polish was very easy, because of the great formula. It went on smoothly, dried quickly and there was no balding when applying multiple layers. Also there was hardly any cleanup to do. 

I really like this polish as a base for manicures, but I would not wear it on it's own again. I am not a fan of having a VNL. But I do like the colour with my skintone. Maybe I'll try layering it over something else.

All the pictures above where taken indoors with artificial lighting and a flash.

Do you own any Barry M polishes? What do you think about this colour?