Best of British Weekly Roundup 30/09/12

It's Sunday, so let's see what everyone's up to again!

Emma has had a week of using Barry M Gelly polishes and created her most favourite mani ever multi coloured spots and stripes over at Emma's Little Corner.

Nada'sl penguin obsession is getting out of hand! the little minions are on her nails this week!!

This week on Pie's Eyes Lyndsay has used her new Cheeky stamping plates to create a Double Stamped Manicure plus there's a handy hint for stamping clean up too.

Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing is continuing with the 30 Day Challenge (the end is in sight!) and did a Panda Bear Manicure inspired by the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

It's been HoloWeek at the Nail Newbie, featuring lots of holo goodness such as a GOSH Holographic Hero wear test, a some tribal nail art and this holo cloudicure with a-England Tristam.

This week has been Carlyn's very first week of blogging featuring some of her favourite stamping designs Pretty Stamping on Sapphire Such a stand out design.

Well today is the last day of the 30 Day Challenge! at Northern Nails but on the Bright side it is Jo's birthday tommorrow !.

Wendy from Wendy's Delights is having a cracking time with her Croc Effect nails by Barry M

As a collector of vodka bottles, a Smirnoff Vodka Manicure was in order on Enigmatic Rambles blog this week!

PishPosh and Polish's Kerrie is wearing shock horror! PINK this week!

This is Carlyn's first blog week Flower stamping on Sapphire polish one of my favourites

Sally of Nail Pron has brightened up a sad week with the brightest green daisy doticure you have ever seen in your life.

PrettyKittyClaws is joined by a hare and a dog this week with the gorgeous Hare Dog Day Dream

Dimpal of Crazy Polishes has almost come to the end of the 30 days challenge and wearing this

Inspired by Supernatural Mani Inspired by Supernatural

Ruth has a new favourite polish that is purple and splarkly, yay!

Sarah Louise, creates a Ghostbuster Manicure Using Models Own and W7 Polishes

Charlotte has decided her stash needs some cleansing, so she's set up a blog sale with some great British brands

Kerry takes an adventure with GALAXY inspired nails.

Vic continues 30 days of untrieds with A Scream manicure inspired by art work

Apologies for the sharp decrease in posts, just been too busy with uni! x

Bourjois 1 Seconde Rainbow Apparition Nail Polish

Indoor with flash

Today, I'm going to show you what is now probably one of my favourite nail polishes. I bought this a couple of weeks ago, mainly because there was an offer where you buy one and get the 2nd half price (and I'll do a post on the other one soon!).

Natural light - no flash

The first thing you might notice is that the bottle and top shape are unusual, and I think it looks pretty awesome in itself, haha! This 1 seconde polish has, as the bottle states, a 'gel silicone texture'. The purple gel is so sheer that one coat isn't enough unless you want a slight shimmer as a top to another colour. In the images, had to put 5 coats for it to be really strong, and for the glitter to be really concentrated so that the nail isn't visible anymore. It did use up quite a bit of the bottle though, so perhaps putting it over a purple or similar shade would be more economic. 

The glitter is, in my opinion, really pretty and in the right lighting the glitter has a multicoloured, holographic kind of effect (but it is not a holographic nail polish). The pictures really don't do it justice, and I tried shining a lot of lights on it to give a good idea of how it really looks. In regular lighting, the glitter does just look silver but it's the way that the light hits it that makes it have a nice effect.

Also, I'd like to add that I put Seche Vite on top because the polish doesn't dry smooth due to the glitter and the top coat just helps the glitter to sparkle more.

Best of British Weekly Roundup 23/09/12

Once again, it's Best of British roundup time!

Wendy from Wendy's Delights is feeling purrrfect with her Blue Furry Mani with easy to apply nail stickers!

Emma tries her hand at dry drag and becomes The Girl Who Plays with Fire at Emma's Little Corner.

Helly at the Nail Newbie is showing British brand W7 some love by showcasing their gorgeous Lava Flow.

A little recreation of some Bee style nails, with actual stingers from New York Fashion Week, a Fred Butler Creation from Enigmatic Rambles.

Has twenty three days gone by already? Northern Nails' 30 Day Challenge is still going strong, the themes now are all full of inspiration!

Lyndsay from Pie's Eyes is back from her holiday and showing off her colourful Rainbow Manicure she created with her latest Kiko haul!

Sally of Nail Pron is talking about a nailmas Christmas challenge, adding to her stash and doing nails to match her mood.

Sam from Polished Art re-created an old nautical-themed manicure for day 12 of the 31 day challenge (19 to go!).

PishPosh and Polish is featuring Red and Black polishes on her blog this week. See them here! Which is your favourite?

Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing is still continuing on with the 30 Day challenge and her favourite so far has been TRIBAL NAILS. What's been everyone else's favourite challenge?

Ruth goes overboard with the half moon effect to create an easy curved stripe look!

Want some inspiration for elegant nails? Lucy from Lucy's Stash did Lace & Roses nail art featuring OPI, Konad and A England.

Feeling the need for something pretty and super sparkly? PrettyKittyClaws has Smitten Polish You're Turning Violet, Violet blinging out her nails!

Vic's feeling a little behind with the times as she's only just done her first set of galaxy nails. She found a fabulously blinging star to go with them though.

Lou had a quiet week this week trying out her new Indie polishes from KBShimmer which is quickly becoming her favourite polish brand

Alexis at Glitter Tips tried some Autumn butterfly nail art

Sarah Louise plays with her Image plates from MoYou / OMG Nails and creates a Crosses & Dot's Manicure

Despite being poorly, The Crumpet has kept up with the 31 Day Challenge and has even had time to launch a Zoya Giveaway - so make sure you enter!

That's all for this week!

Curved Striped Nails

Having done the half moon mani, I decided to go one further and use two ring reinforcement stickers as opposed to one. It takes a bit longer and I was kind of impatient to begin with! This is the first time I've used the Seche Vite topcoat -- I loved it! Dried relatively quickly and smoothed out all the bumps I had from the nail polish and stickers (and there were a lot!)

The first colour I used was Avon Nailwear Pro Electric Green, then I used a blue called No7 Stay Perfect Stand Back, followed by GOSH Wild Lilac at the tips. I added a little star on the ring finger and I just love how the topcoat really holds it on!

What I'm up to!

Hey all!
Just a short post to explain why there may be less posts on this blog from now on. Tomorrow, I'm back at uni so I will have to make that a priority, but I am going to try and get at least 1-2 posts a week done and I'm definitely not going to let this blog go dead! I've already had less posts the last week due to being busy but it can't be helped sometimes!
Thanks! :)

Best of British Weekly Roundup 16/09/12

It's that time for the Weekly Roundup! Let's see what everyone's been up to!

Helly at the Nail Newbie shows her nubs some love with Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum

Wendy over at Wendy's Delights has won a Giveaway from The Hungry Asian and her prize Twenty Ten has been swatched here, also go check out The Hungry Asian's blog and polishes available at Etsy. Going from one extreme to the other see Wendy's Summery Manicure using tape to create a simple & easy square design!

Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing has been continuing on with the 30 Day Challenge with Rainbow Gradient Striped Manicure

Emma at Emma's Little Corner has a little success after a frustrating week of failures PVA experiment Blue and Black gradient mani

Ruth has some more fun with gradients this week, refusing to accept summer is over!

Lou once again is on a bit of a Chanel kick with one of the Fashion's Night Out Limited Editions

Charlotte at Charlottes-nails has been busy with apples and glitter this week for the Fall into Autumn Challenge.

Its the end of the favourite things challenge for Steph, here's Steph's Day 10 Favourite Mani. Steph can't wait for the next challenge, will you be joining in the fun?

Lyndsay from Pie's Eyes drops in from her holiday in Spain to show off some NEW Holographic Polish from Kiko!

Putting her nubbins to good use this week, imPRESS - Press on Manicure false nails were put through there paces over on Enigmatic Rambles' blog.

PrettyKittyClaws put her Nails Inc Sprinkles to good use with a pretty Cupcake Mani.

Sam at Polished Art unleashed her inner geek with this physics-based rainbow manicure as part of the 31 Day Challenge.

Jo at Northern Nails has reached the half way point in the 30 day challenge this week was all about the nail art!

Nada has got her hands on her first set of Models Own nail polish and has swatched them! check it out!

Laura at She Who Does Nails has been continuing the 30 Day Challenge and did a cool rainbow nails design using a dotting tool!

Polished Criminails sticks to the British theme this week by showing us 4 of the new BarryM Gelly Nail Paints in the shades Prickly Pear, Grapefruit, Satsuma & Pomegranate

Kerry at JustTalkNails shows off the new Barry M Burgundy Croc effect teamed up with A Englands Iseult

Vic has been on a major polishing spree this week (13 manis and counting) but she just can't decide whether she wants to show you delicate print or holo bling.

And that's all folks!

Gradients!

I just love gradients! They're pretty easy to do and I find them fun to create.

I started with Barry M all-in-one, then painted a layer of No7 Snowflake (a white polish) so that the colours show up a little easier and that my own nail colour won't show through. I still had to apply the sponge twice so that the colours were strong enough. The colours used (in order) are MUA Shade 16, No7 Lucky Lilac, Fearne Cotton Lime Green, Fearne Cotton Mint Green and Fearne Cotton Turquoise towards the tips.

I painted a layer of 17 Nail Xtras Glitter to add that little bit of sparkle. It's actually a bottle I've had for a REALLY long time and I wasn't sure if they still made it, but I went to Boots to check, and it is the same, with the same kind of glitter. I'm not sure if there's a specific name for that kind of glitter, but it sort of reflects the colour it is on which works really well on gradients because it's like you have different glitters on your nail. Anyway, I digress.

I put some fimo on the thumb and ring fingers, topped with Seche Vite and voila!

Best of British Weekly Roundup 09/09/12

It's that time of the week again for the Best of British Weekly Roundup! Check out the other British nail bloggers!

Lou is back from her holiday and is showing off her new Chanel Nail Polish in a rare glimpse of the British Sunshine

Emma accidentally signed up to two nail challenges this month, so there will be lots of posts up on Imagination In Colour, including herAntique Nail Art post, amongst others!

Sam at Polished Art produced a special Teal Tuesdays manicure for Ovarian Cancer Awareness.

Lyndsay from Pie's Eyes went under cover this week with her Camouflage Manicure and liked it so much it stayed on most of the week with the addition of a matte topcoat.

Claire from nuthin' but a nail thing is all over the 30 Day Challenge and kicked off Day One with a Ladybird Manicure to cover off "RED".

Ruth relives school and tries to 'do the math' with her Blackboard-inspired nails this week!

It's been a busy week over at Polished Criminails, so let's take a look back at the last 7 days of the 30 Day Challenge!

Jo decided to take on the 30 Day Challenge this Month and is having tons of fun painting her nails a different colour every day!

September is Polycystic Overy Syndrome (PCOS) awareness month what better way to raise awareness than a manicure! And that is just one of the manicures on Enigmatic Rambles' blog this week!

Wendy from Wendy's Delights has made her own Water Decals for the September Polish Day themed Geometry

Charlotte from Charlottes-nails tried out some crayon nail art for the start of the Fall Into autumn Challenge.

Lucie from Lucy's Stash is experimenting with the 'ikat' pattern featuring Zoya Designer polishes! Check it out here!

Steph from Never Mind Suzie may be far away on her holidays so here's her holiday nails hope you're having a great holiday Steph

PrettyKittyClaws has had a blog makeover and did a Tape mani with the new KiKo holographics!

This week Nada turned 19 and to celebrate she did birthday nails!!! Enjoy this wonderfully simple manicure!

Laura at She Who Does Nails has been working on the 30 Day Challenge and particularly liked her piano nails!

The 31 Day Challenge started on The Crumpet this week, as did another awesome Giveaway featuring indie polishes

Kerrie's 300 follower giveaway over at PishPosh and Polish is still running and while you are there you should check out her Geometric Nail Art

Kerry does fimo for back to school with China Glaze Ruby Pumps!!

Sarah Louise creates some cheeky Bactiera Monsters , don't forget to enter her 2000 follower giveaway =D - Good Luck xox

Vic has done her first leopard print mani but it's orange, blue and gold. Leopard print nails are her new favourite but she's on a mission to never use the 'normal' colours.

And that's all for this week! :)

Blackboard Nails

 Don't worry! No-one's scratching their nails against a blackboard in this house! Eugh, I get shudders just thinking about the sound that makes...

No, this is an idea that popped into my head last week when I got my Rimmel Matte nail polish and I have to say, I'm quite impressed with how it turned out! It actually felt kinda like a blackboard/chalk (not that I've spent many a day rubbing blackboards or anything).

I started off with my usual Barry M basecoat, then applied 1 coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out which was more than sufficient. I then used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On to draw the equations and stuff on (using a small, thin brush for nail art) and then did a coat of Rimmel Matte top coat to give the effect of a blackboard.

I tried to capture the velvet effect more than anything, haha. I took this off a while after taking the pictures -- I'm not sure I'd go out with this but it's still fun and easy to do!

:)

Essie Russian Roulette Nail Polish

 Last week I decided to buy an Essie nail polish - it's not a brand that I generally buy to be honest, but that's down to the price of it really.

I spent about 15 minutes trying to decide on what colour to buy (to the point where an old man walking by actually stopped and said 'You look like you're deep in thought!' to me. I finally went for Russian Roulette. Some colours are so close to one another it's hard to differentiate them.

This polish is a kind of jelly creme in my opinion. Reason being that even with 2 coats it wasn't completely opaque, and I got that kind of jelly... vibe! Really love this colour and think it looks awesome. It's quite a striking red on the nails. You can just about see in the bottle in the first picture that it appears to have a pinky undertone - although I can't really see any hint of that when applied.

I didn't apply a topcoat for this so the shininess you see is just the nail polish. Super glossy (but I had to make sure not to do anything for a while as it took a bit to dry)

:)

Lilac Galaxy Half Moon Art

Something I done last week but had no time to put up. I went down to Ryman and got myself ring reinforcements and decided to give them a try. I don't think it came out too bad! Definitely can't wait to try different colours with this as the 2 I have aren't the most contrasting on the planet.

The colours are just ones I talked about last week - GOSH Wild Lilac as the base with 1 coat of GOSH Galaxy on each.

It's such an easy thing to do and looks awesome - I would recommend taking the stickers off before it dries - like what I did, because sometimes it mucks up for people if you leave the stickers on too long.

I finished with a Barry M topcoat to seal in the colour and level out the nails. :)

Travelsupermarket Competition!

Hey! So this morning I received an email from Charlotte over at Travelsupermarket.com (part of moneysupermarket.com) inviting me to take part in a competition to win £1000 towards my next holiday as she thought my blog was right for the competition. I was actually really excited by this, probably from being contacted by a big company, and also because I wouldn't mind a smashing holiday and stay wherever I like!

I would totally love do this competition, and in fact I might just so that I would have taken part. The thing I don't like is that the people who get top 30 have to use their £50 vouchers on the second stage of the competition which would be far more challenging - but luckily(?) for me, I would never make it into the top 10 for the nails category in the first place, so I wouldn't have to worry about what I'd do for phase 2 haha.
Anyway, I am going to paste in the email (as there's really no point in try to paraphrase what it said) to share this with any British bloggers who might be interested in this competition (as was asked of me at the end of the email).

Hi,

My name is Charlotte and I work for TravelSupermarket.com. I am writing to you to let you know about our latest beauty blogging competition “Beauty and the Beach” as I think your blog would be perfect for it.

The competition gives you the chance to win £1,000 to spend on your next holiday just for showcasing your beauty talent!

We are looking for bloggers to publish a blog post with photos capturing their best ever holiday hair, nails and make-up.  If you are particularly interest in one of the categories and not the other – don’t worry! You can enter just one or all 3 categories if you prefer!

Describe how you achieved each look, the products you used and any tips for anyone who might like to recreate it. You can even describe what type of holiday you were on and where you wore each look.

Our panel of industry leading judges will then decide 10 winning looks from each category. Each winner will receive £50 worth of beauty vouchers. With that £50 the top 30 beauty finalists will be asked to create their ‘Ultimate Ibiza Look’ to tie in with the Ibiza Closing Parties.

The blogger who creates the best ‘Ultimate Ibiza Look’, as decided by our head judge, will win the final stage of our Beauty and the Beach competition and will receive £1,000 cash to spend on their next holiday!!

More info can be found here http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/beauty-and-the-beach/

If you don’t have time to enter, could I ask that you share this opportunity with your readers, or any other beauty bloggers you think may be interested in entering.

Thank you J

Charlotte x

Good Luck if you decide to enter!

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The Liebster Blog Award! :D

Many, many thanks to Clare over at Nuthin' but a nail thing for nominating me for a Liebster award, awesome! She has an amazing blog so I recommend checking it out!

The Liebster Award is given to new bloggers with less than 200 followers.

Here's how it works: 

1) The recipient must post 11 fun facts about themselves
2) The recipient must also answer 11 questions created by the award giver
3) The recipient must give the award to 11 new bloggers with less than 200 followers and post 11 questions for them to answer
4) These 11 bloggers must be told they have been given the award
5) They will in turn pass the award on to 11 new bloggers of their choice (no tagging back the award giver) 

11 Fun Facts about myself

1. I'm a student of linguistics at uni.
2. I live in the sunny land of Scotland.
3. I spend way too much time watching The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother reruns.
4. I have a Black Moor fish called Google because of its googly eyes. I've had it for 2 years. It's an ugly little bugger but it's the only fish out of three that is still alive.
5. I love macaroni, especially of the cheese variety. YUM.
6. I love playing Modern Combat 2 on my Blackberry Playbook, it's so addictive!
7. My favourite musical artist is Queen. They are the absolute best! My favourite song of theirs is Too Much Love Will Kill You. 
8. I tend to like 80s, Classic Rock, New Wave stuff more, but I do enjoy a good dance-y tune from time to time!
9. I like to sing. I was part of an opera group for 3 years - currently not with them but may join again soon!
10. Where's me rum gone?! Oh, I drank it. I love rum.
11. I like photography, but my skills have their limits!

Questions asked by Clare

1)  What made you start a blog?
I wanted to start a blog for quite a while as I saw one or two nail polish blogs and thought 'hey! I take pics of my nails all the time!' and I've really been into doing my nails for a few years now so I thought it might be a good idea to blog some of the nail art/nail polish I do.

2)  What is your favourite brand of nail polish?
Probably Barry M because that's where my love of nail polish truly started. It's affordable and easily accessible. :)

3)  What is your favourite polish colour?
Oooh erm. I really don't know! I generally love purple but I don't always wear it as a nail colour. I tend to wear darker shades a lot though.

4)  How many polishes do you have in your collection?
I really don't feel like going to count right now, and I've never actually counted, but probably somewhere around 200?

5)  How do you store your polishes?
I have a massive box that is made for under beds, which I keep (surprisingly) under my bed.

6)  When/where do you mostly do your manis?
Well I do them whenever I have time, if I'm at uni it would be in the weekends, and I tend to do them in my bedroom with the window and door wide open.

7)  What is your favourite type of nail art?
I love water transfers from time to time, and I also do like stamping, but I find that I'm more happy with my nails when I've drawn the art on myself.

8)  What polish is on your wish list?
I can't remember the names at the minute, but I want a couple from China Glaze and one from the OPI Designer series.

9)  What is the next manicure on your "to do" list?
I want to try out something else with my stamping, but i never stick to what I originally plan haha!

10)  What is your nail care "must have"?
I have some nail care products from Avon, like a peeling and brittleness solver and others, but they only thing I use all the time is my Barry M all-in-one.

11)  What nail trend do you wish you could master?
Water marbling. I can do it, but sometime it sucks haha. And also I am super impatient with how long it takes to do.

I will pick 11 blogs and make questions later if I have time, but to be honest, it took me... I dunno, a week to even do this part of the post! x

Best of British Weekly Roundup 02/09/12

   
Lucy from Lucy's Stash shows how to do a perfect Fishtail Braid manicure
 
The Nail Newbie tries a braided manicure too, but it is a peachy plait or a fishtail fail?
 
Emma's been feeling arty this week at Imagination In Colour, starting with a Purple Dotted Manicure and later a first attempt at 'brush marbling'!
 
Nada has been busy swatching the Orly Mineral FX Collection Fall 2011 sadly shes missing one of the polishes from the collection to make it complete!
 
Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing has been rainbow gradienting it up!
 
Things have been looking a bit patchy over at Never Mind Suzi as Steph tries out some MUA polishes   Wendy from Wendy's Delights has found  W7 Magnetic Nail Polish   at New Look in store & on line!

A simple nail tutorial for seaside nails perfect for the last weeks of summer 2012 over at Enigmatic Rambles.
 
Abi falls in love with A-England's Percevaland doesn't seem to realise its not autumn yet.
 
While reviewing some of her recent nail buys, Ruth also created a simple blue matte finish with some striking gold tips this week!
 
Lyndsay from Pie's Eyes discovers some great stamping polishes from the UK High Street and shows off her latest ColorClub purchases
 
Jo at Northern nails has been Paralympic nail art.

PrettyKittyClaws went to the Paralympic Opening Ceremony and celebrated with a  Saran Wrap Mani  featuring the new OPI Germany collection.
 
Rachel-Karina over at Polished Criminails gets ready to undergo the grueling 30 day challenge.

Kerrie at Pishposh and Polish is hosting a giveaway featuring some holographic and great British Polishes!
Laura at She Who Does Nails has been trying out her new stamping plates and rhinestones with a Tiffany-esque floral manicure.
 
Charlotte at Charlottes-nails broke her laptop charger this week so has only posted one challenge post for the lazy days of summer challenge
 
Sarah Louise plays with Laquistry's Placid on Acid over Nails Inc's Great Dover Street to create Sparkly Leaves! , she also thought it would be a good thing to reorganise her polish stash....Bad idea.
 
The Crumpet has been celebrating her birthday this week. You can see this purple ruffle mani as well as some of her favourite purples.
 
Alexis at Glitter Tips takes a step towards becoming the craziest cat lady by painting her cats portraits on her nails!
 
Vic at Glowstars.net has probably pushed her nail art obsession to the limit with her Carnival mani.