Last post of 2013!

Just like last year, the 'New Year Nails' post, which can be found here, it's just a very random design. I mean, I very literally just opened up polishes and tapes, making it up as I went along (which, trust me, I rarely do).

I mainly just wanted to do another post before the bells chime, and wish you all a lovely and happy new year! I will be watching the TV as usual, singing Auld Lang Syne and watching some fireworks, haha. No 'New Years Resolutions' for me this year, however I am hoping at least do a post every month (I hate not doing any posts for months on end!).
By the way, the pink used is Rimmel Cocktail Colour '140 Hawaiian Punch', with Barry M glitters 'Amethyst', 'Christmas Glitter 2012', 'Ruby Glitter' and limited edition 'Tinsel Town'... yeah, told you it was random!

I will have a new post tomorrow! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Merry Christmas!

I cannot believe I've not had the time to post here since August, that's shocking! I had planned to do a post for Halloween at least, but I didn't have the time - too much uni work.

However, I am free for the holidays and wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Hope you enjoy these nails, they're nothing special (Christmas String Light nails have been done many times), but I had to do something before the end of the year! Must try to regain my creativity.

The base gold is Maybelline Color Show Brocades 'Knitted Gold' which my friend bought me. I love it, it kind of looks like foil from afar. It's a little bit translucent so even with 2 coats (like in the picture), it looks really gold when the light hits it, but in some lights you can just see the glitter and your nail. Overall it's really nice!

Sorry for the abrupt post, I'm in a bit of a rush.

Have a great holiday!

[SPECIAL] ONE YEAR BLOGIVERSARY EXTRAVAGANZA!

That's right! This is the one year anniversary of The Nail Noodle's creation, and boy, do I have a bumper post for you today!

I cannot believe I have been doing this blog for a year now! I have been working on this post all week because I had so many ideas for today to celebrate such an occasion (should be a national holiday too, I reckon! *wink*) and one of them is this cake I made from scratch. So time consuming, but worth it! Hope you like my fondant icing skills, hahaha!

Stay tuned to the rest of this post which includes nail art, my top 5 posts of the year and more! But for now, adding to the joy is the one and only, Sir Cliff!


Well, that was just lovely. Now onto the next part of my post! What kind of nail blogiversary would it be without some celebration themed nails?!

I went mad with the nail art gems this time! (It's a bit more obvious when you click on the picture too!)
I have to say, my favourite nail is the ring finger because I used Barry M confetti to look like sprinkles, ooh!

Celebrity Inspired Nails

I decided to do something that I actually hadn't done before; copy a look worn by a celebrity. I still don't think I succeeded based on the fact mine isn't exactly the same (I don't have all the nail art supplies in the world) so I'm going with the idea that it's 'inspired' by celebrity nail art. *wink wink*

Today's celebrity is *drumroll* Rita Ora!
She is known to wear nail art quite a lot and I thought I would go for something somewhat 'easy' (PAH! I wish!)
First, let's have a look at the original:

Retrieved from here.

I liked the half moon look with white and gold so I thought this would be a nice fun one to do!

However, I couldn't quite get the base colour right when I was doing some swatches, bare in mind my nails are real. In the end, I decided to make the base a little more metallic and overall, I was quite happy with it!







And here is my take on it! I wanted to do a light grey colour as the base, but couldn't find any (*gasp!*) so I resorted to layering nail polishes that are rather thin. I started off with No7 Stay Perfect 'Stonewash', a dark grey colour, and then painted No7 Stay Perfect 'Snowflake' on top. I then painted Avon Speed Dry 'Prompt and Pearly' which is a pearl shimmer but as you can see in the second picture, it has a kind of gold undertone to it which I thought would compliment the gold nail stickers.

So, that's how I got the main colour of the nail, in case you were wondering!
For the half moons, I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'White On' (which I love because it's so pigmented) and luckily I had bought some 'chains' nail art stickers from Poundland a while back which were similar to the original, and as I didn't have gold jewels that matched, I just stuck more chains down the nails, and a silver jem on each. That's it!

My Top 5 Posts from the Last 12 Months

Here I have compiled a list of my favourite nail art posts from the last year. I numbered them, but it took me ages to decide which I like more so the order is just a rough one! (So indecisive!) Truthfully, I never think 'Oh, I'm amazing at nail art!', because if I did, I'd be deluded. However, there are those brief moments when I really like how some particular idea in my brain has transfered onto my nails, and that is what I am sharing with you here.

5) Pastel Zebra Nail Stamping

So this one is in my top 5 because it was the first time I did nail stamping and actually liked it. I had just started the whole nail stamping thing and so I was still getting used to it at the time and that's what made me kind of proud of it!

This post can be found here.

4) Blackboard Nails

I like this one because with the matte top coat, it really did resemble a blackboard, I feel. The white 'chalk' writing was a bit messy but in a way, so is chalk, so it worked out okay in the end.

It's also one of my most popular posts, based on view counts, so that's nice!

You can view this post here.

3) Halloween Nails

I'm not really a Halloween fan, but I remember I really enjoyed doing the gradients, and the drawing using inspiration.

It is part of a whole 'Halloween Bumper Pack' I had made at the time, which can be found here.

2) Wimbledon Nails

This is obviously fairly recent, but I was really proud of how this one came out. It took me a long, long, long time to do! I felt my eyes squinting towards the end of it!

I really loved watching Wimbledon this year, especially seeing as Andy Murray won. COME ON, ANDY!!

You can view this post here!

1) Christmas Nails

I think this deserves to be the number 1, even if it is just for the sheer amount of time it took me to actually do this!

This was one of the designs that I actually had to draw out before I did it, just to make sure it would look okay on my nails.

It was so much work, with glittery layers you may not even fully see in the photo, complete with nail jewels, but I was really proud of it in the end!

The worst thing was, as a right handed person, trying to do my right hand, but they turned out well in the end! You can see the result here!


Well, I think that's it! So glad I'm still blogging here after a whole year! Granted, I do not post as often as I would like, but I am happy that I do still enjoy being creative with nail polish enough to keep this blog going for so long. (That's a first for me!)

Thank you to everyone who has visited this blog and made it a worthwhile project for me, and to those who inspired me to create my own blog, especially those at the British Nail Bloggers group (link in Menu) who helped me out a lot when I was new to the nail blogging scene.

THANK YOU ALL! x

Fun Dotty Tips!

 Fun, fun... FUN!

This design kind of reminds me of clowns or something actually, not that I particularly love clowns or anything!

The nails (bar the ring finger) were first painted with Essie 'Lovie Dovie' ...although I bought this from TK Maxx and when I googled it, the swatches were completely different, meaning the bottles were labelled wrong and so I have no solid idea of what is the actual colour name. Another blogger found the same thing here, so I'm glad I'm not the only one! If I was guessing though, I would say it is Essie 'Status Symbol' based on swatches from google images.

The ring finger, (and the tips of all the other nails) were painted with 2 coats of Avon 'Prompt and Pearly'. I then used the pink Essie polish and Barry M Blueberry to create some dots on the pearly parts, putting pink spots on some of the blue spots, but not all. I then added a sparkly edging along the tips with Nails Inc. 'Hatton Garden', and also used this to create some more dots on the ring finger which looks great when it catches the light, really brings it to life I feel!

Also, I'm excited because tomorrow is my 1 year blogiversary so I have some plans in store!

Angle Tip Nails

Well, there are only so many times I can call a post 'colourful' so 'angle tip' is all I have!

Just a nice quick post today, showing something I hadn't really done before.

I started by painting the base colours, and then painted a diagonal line of Nails Inc. 'Hatton Garden' from one side, and then painting an opposing line using the base colour from the next nail. So for example on the middle finger, I put purple as that was the base colour of the ring finger next to it.

The base colours (from thumb to pinky) are: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blueberry, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Pomegranate, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Mango, GOSH 571 Wild Lilac & Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Key Lime. (Don't ask, I just like highlighting these days!)

That's all for now!

Bright Summer Water Marbled Nails

 I think this is possibly the first time I'm actually posting my water marbling attempt.

Granted, I haven't even tried it since last year so that's one of the reasons I haven't shared it! The two main reasons I don't do this often are a) It's messy and b) it wastes a lot of nail polish. I did, however, deal with the latter by doing two nails at a time (which was sometimes successful and sometimes a complete fail). For those of you who may be reading this and have no idea what I am talking about, search 'nail water marbling' or something similar on YouTube and you'll catch the drift!

The colours used in this design are:
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Key Lime
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blueberry
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Mango
Rimmel Lycra PRO 297 Show Off
and a touch of GOSH 571 Wild Lilac which is not seen in the images very much because their lines are so fine.

I then used a dotting tool to paint some dots along the curves (usually in threes, each one increasing slightly in size). I then painted over them all with 17 (now branded 'Seventeen') Nail Xtras Glitter Topcoat. I love this topcoat because it's fairly subtle and reflects the colours underneath, so it kind of makes your nails look shiny as the light catches them.

After that, I found some nail stickers I bought from Poundland which I put on my ring fingers, and silver dots on my thumbs, which coincidentally matched the dots I had drawn on earlier! Finished with a topcoat. :)

Well, I think that's all I can say about these nails! They weren't as nice as I would have liked, and were rather annoying to do, but overall they could have been worse!

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat vs. Barry M Confetti

This post is not going to be a comparison of the two in terms of quality and such, as I only have Barry M (and I don't have money to buy, in my eyes, identical polishes).

Instead, I just wanted to share with you something I realized in Boots the other day. I have had the Barry M Confetti Nail Effects since not long after they were released, and in general, they are okay, but they're not exactly my favourite polishes on the planet so I'm never going to be crazy about them or any similar type of polish.

What stood out at me was when I was having a look at Sally Hansen's polishes where these 4 were on top display - as far as I could make out, they are fairly new to the UK, but instantly I thought 'Barry M Confetti!' and upon closer inspection I feel even more strongly that these are virtually identical.

Now I'm a big fan of Sally Hansen, I use them a lot, and I'm sure these Fuzzy Coat polishes match the quality of the rest of their range which would justify their price. However, Barry M are, in my opinion, also great quality and if I was standing in Boots looking at these, I would rather pay Barry M's £3.99 than Sally Hansen's £6.99, but then again, I'm a student so it's unlikely that I am going to fork out a lot of money on one polish without some store offer or deal.

The main point here is that these are 2 different brands which I realized have the same range of polishes, so if you were looking to buy one, perhaps have a look at the others on the market.

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat 'All Yarned Up', 'Fuzz-sea', 'Wool Knot' and 'Tweedy'

Barry M Confetti Nail Effects 'Dolly Mixture', 'Sour Apple', 'Bubblegum' and 'Liquorice'

I also want to note that Sally Hansen has a pink 'Wool Lite' shade which matches Barry M's 'Marshmallow'.

Now on Twitter!

Finally decided to make a twitter!

If twitter is your thing, please follow me on it! (It's a bit lonely over there!)

Follow @TheNailNoodle

Maybelline Color Show Polka Dots 'Chalk Dust'

A very quick post from me today!

I felt like trying out 'Chalk Dust' over different shades.

The colours, I think, because I did this 2 weeks ago are (from thumb to pinky) Essence 'Maybe I'm Amazed', Maybelline Color Show 'Electric Pink', Maybelline Color Show 'Orange Fix', Barry M 'Guava' and Barry M 'Key Lime'. All shades are over a white base coat (mainly because the Maybelline ones are Neons which work better over white).

Colourful Heart Nails... that match my phone!

 Posting something today which I have wanted to post for over a week!

A couple of months ago I bought a few cases for my phone from eBay, and I liked the pattern so much I decided to copy it onto my nails. I actually quite like it, but I tell you, it's hard work!

I got rather bored after doing my left hand, but I persevered and managed to do the right hand which looked pretty good considering (although I never photographed it, oops!).

I have to say that I did buy the case myself, and although I painted my nails myself, the pattern was obviously not my own design so I feel it's only right to credit the design to Head Case which is a registered trading name of Ecell Global.

Perhaps I might do this again sometime, actually. Even though it's quite a bit of work, it does look nice, especially as the colours are rather summery!

OPI 'The Living Daylights' Dupe!

Quite a while back (I think last year actually), I purchased OPI 'The Living Daylights' online. I don't usually buy polishes that are that expensive (this one costs on average £9).

It wasn't until last week when I was in Bodycare, I decided to have a look at the nail polishes and one in particular caught my eye. They mainly sell Technic polishes, and one called 'Money Bags' struck me as being identical to the aforementioned OPI polish. It only costs 99p, so naturally I felt compelled to buy it to see how similar they are...

I think the resemblance is very clear indeed! As indicated in the pictures, I used OPI on the index and ring finger, while using Technic on the middle finger and pinky.

I put about 3 coats on each nail so that I had enough glitter on the nail to show the two polishes well. The application between the two is very similar - if anything, perhaps the OPI polish has slightly more glitter in it than the Technic one.

The glitter sizes are the same in both polishes, and they have same same shade of gold, silver and bronze in my eyes. The only difference is that the OPI has a slightly more turquoise-y blue than Technic. You can see the difference closer by clicking on the pictures. Also, sorry that the Technic polish looks a bit 'bubbly'. I think it's more my fault than a fault of the polish. I got a bit impatient and the OPI dried faster than the Technic between coats so I was painting the Technic while it was still tacky underneath. At least that shows that OPI dries a lot faster because I didn't have to wait much between coats!

Maybelline Color Show 'Electric Pink' and 'Orange Fix' Review

This review might contain more pictures than writing - not sure if that is a good or a bad thing!

I bought these two Maybelline Color Show polishes last week, they are part of a Neons range, which only contained another two colours; a green and a purple. Seeing as I didn't want to spend all my money on nail polish that day, I took about 10 minutes deciding which two to get (so indecisive!).

 The first thing I want to say about these polishes is that there was actually a sign in the display saying that it looks better and more 'neon' when painted over a white base - so in all the pictures, I have done 2 coats of the polish on the index and middle finger, and 1 white coat covered with 1 coloured coat on the ring finger and pinky so that you are able to see the difference - which I think is pretty evident.

So here is 'Electric Pink', and I have to say I much prefer it over a coat of white (although maybe 2 coats over white would look a bit nicer than just 1).

Don't for a minute think that this will glow in the dark by the way, just have to get that out there! I'm currently sitting in near darkness and I can barely see the colour on my nails as I type.

 The next is 'Orange Fix'. Again I think it looks a lot nicer over white - I think it's too sheer to be used on its own (you can still see the nail whites after 2 coats in the pictures).

I normally would avoid these kinds of colours - really bright colours are not exactly something I go for often, however it's summer so I thought, 'what the heck!?' and I think bright colours like these are great at this time of year!

The last thing I'm going to say that I think are kind of seen in the pictures, is that they do not exactly dry very shiny, so I'd recommend putting a top coat over it if that's what you like.


Bye guys!

Wimbledon Fever!

Game, Set, Match! Since the 24th of June, I've been watching Wimbledon like some obsessed woman. The funny thing is that I'm not really a sporty person, but I have really grown to like tennis. Probably the main reason I love it is because of Andy Murray, and I'm so proud he got to the final again, yeahhh!

In celebration of Wimbledon (and hasn't it been a crazy tournament this year!?), I spent a good chunk of my afternoon yesterday doing some nail art (during the Djokovic versus del Potro semi final, because I was starting to lose the will to care after 3 hours).

I'm actually really proud of this one, it came out better than I thought it would - not bad for it being done with a nail art brush, I don't think!

The most difficult part for me was writing 'Wimbledon', I thought my hand was going to fall off, quite frankly.

There is absolutely no way I am going to list all of the polishes used here, I'm afraid!

Today is the ladies' singles final, I kind of want to Lisicki to win, mainly because she knocked Serena Williams out of the tournament. Respect. However, I'm not really into ladies' tennis that much, at least Sharapova was knocked out early, I cannot stand the 'UGHHH' with every hit, and I think she's one of the main offenders of that.

Anyway! Hope you all have a lovely weekend, whether you will be watching Wimbledon or not!

SpaRitual Sage Review

 As a continuation from yesterday's review on SpaRitual's Miss World nail polish, this is the other polish sent to me by Rachel over at NSI nails - Sage!

This is a really lovely mushroom coloured polish which is classified as a creme. I left the ring finger with one coat, and the other nails with two.
You can see that even with one coat, the polish is very pigmented and applies very evenly.







In terms of the polish quality, it is much like yesterday's review - it was easy to apply and I was very impressed at how shiny it looks when dry considering that it is Big-3 Free (and formaldehyde resin and camphor free). I love that it is free from such chemicals, and also is suitable for vegans, yay!


The polish comes in a 15ml bottle, with a lovely easy to grip handle.
I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the polish when I first saw it because I don't usually go for browns or muted tones, but I actually really like this colour - I think it's great for a sophisticated look, or even a great colour to use in the autumn months in particular.

Again, I'm using photos with and without flash, to give you an idea of its true colour. None of these pictures have a topcoat, so the gloss you are seeing is the polish itself.

It's definitely a great polish, but more importantly, the brand in general seem to be dedicated to quality, safe polishes and that's what I like the most!

Bottom of SpaRitual Miss World and Sage bottles

SpaRitual Miss World Review

 So today I am quite excited to be reviewing a couple of SpaRitual polishes that were sent to me by the lovely Rachel over at NSI nails!

SpaRitual get some brownie points from me just for being Big-3 Free (they contain no DBP, formaldehyde or toluene) and they also exclude formaldehyde resin and camphor, yay! In addition, if you are a vegan then this is suitable for you too! The polishes come in generous 15ml bottles with a rubbery, easy to grip handle (a feature I wish was present in all nail polish bottles based on the amount of times in the past where I had accidentally closed the bottle too tightly meaning I had to fight to open it the next time I used it).

The first of the polishes I am reviewing is 'Miss World' which is a lovely sort of coral pink colour. I've really been getting into pinks lately so I was really happy to try this one out. It is classified as a shimmer and I really like that it is quite a subtle shimmer which is enough to give it a nice shine when the light hits it, but not too much that it looks glitzy.

It's somewhat difficult to capture the shimmer with the camera, but it can be seen in the picture of the bottle on the right, and if you zoom in on the nails too. I have left the ring finger with one coat, while applying two coats to the rest of the nails, just so you can see the sheerness of the polish, which I really like.

As you can see, I took photos both with and without flash to give you an idea of what it looks like fairly.

In terms of application, this brush is really good - it's not the widest of brushes so when I first saw it I thought I might have some trouble getting it to spread evenly on the nails because often for me, the polish gets tacky before I've even finished painting the nail and it just looks lumpy. However, that wasn't the case here, and the polish was thin enough to spread easily. It's thin but very pigmented, which is always my favourite! When it dries, it is really shiny and in my opinion, looks just as shiny as some of the polishes out there that are not Big-3 Free so I was pleasantly surprised!

Overall, you get a sense of quality just by picking up the bottle, and application was the easiest I've had in a while so I'm really liking this polish! It has a really lovely tone and especially looks good at this time of the year!

Summer! (+bloglovin' reminder)

Hey guys!

I know it has been absolutely ages since I posted (almost 3 months, whaaaat!?) While I have been doing my nails, I've just not had the time do do blog posts due to uni (which admittedly finished mid-May for me, but I've just been chilling out since then, ultimately doing nothing, shhhh).

Hopefully, I will be posting more over the next couple of months and I actually have a few things lined up already! Some reviews, nail art (once I regain my creativity) and more.

One thing I would like to add here is that, as most people know in the blogging world, Google have decided to retire Google Reader - it will be stopped on Monday 1st July, and because of this, most nail bloggers are using bloglovin' as a replacement. Thanks to everyone who has already followed me via bloglovin', and if you haven't, please click on the button below!

Looking forward to blogging again soon! :)

Aztec Nails

Ooh, I've really missed blogging, and I feel sort of bad that I haven't posted since January... oops! I have been doing my nails, although I must admit that I haven't been taking photos of them lately. I've had too much stuff to do, what with essays and general uni work.

This is the last week of the semester (woohoo!) and I still have exams to do (booo) so I doubt I will be very active on here over the next couple of months either - which is why I thought I'd make an effort to actually post something on here today. First, I have to say I'm quite proud of myself for actually clearing up the pile of junk I had on this computer desk - I haven't been bothered to sit at the desktop computer because I was too cold, so I've been seeking refuge under a heated blanket and laptop for about 5 months.

ANYWAY, because I felt like spending an hour doing nail art, and because I'm just so fashion conscious *cough*, I thought I'd do some Aztec inspired nails, which seem to be coming back into style, again. I basically picked a few colours I liked and though 'Yeah, that'll do'.
I started off by using a base coat, then Sally Hansen 'White On' for a blank canvas. I then put on different colours (which, in honesty, I don't feel like going to dig out just to find the names at this minute) in different shapes and used a fine brush to draw on the lines, zig-zags, dots, etc.




Sorry for the short post, hope to be back soon with many more posts!

Animal Print Hearts

 I fancied doing some kind of nail art which I actually liked. I've been doing some lately but not even photographing them because they look so horrible.

Today's nail art isn't amazing, but it's an improvement from my recent attempts at creativity.

I took inspiration from a top I have which has nice little hearts of animal print. I thought I would mix it with purple, because I love it so! The purple used is Essence '05 Maybe I'm Amazed' which I really don't know if it's available in the UK because I got it on holiday elsewhere in Europe. I haven't seen it here though.

For the hearts, I used one out of twelve water nail decals (the set comes in 12 so I cut one out as I didn't want to waste an entire set just on hearts). I managed to cut it into 10 little hearts, and honestly, I think this took me longer than anything else.


I then painted (badly) Barry M Gold Foil around the edged of the hearts because they didn't stand out much from the background (they look darker in real life and there wasn't much contrast).


Overall, I'm relatively happy with it, probably more because I opened another bottle of Seche Vite for this because my other one is thick and I don't know if I can be bothered to buy Restore. I'll see!

Och aye!

 So today was Robert Burns Day in Scotland, a celebration of one of the country's most famous poets. Most people have a Burns' supper consisting of haggis, neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes).

I really don't like haggis... nor turnips, therefore my dinner was roast potatoes and lasagne. I really fit the stereotypical Scottish mould, don't I?

I was invited to a ceilidh tonight but I really didn't feel like it, in fact I was off today with yet another migraine. On the upside, it actually snowed enough to cover my garden today!

My nails are appropriately a lovely tartan design, and if it wasn't obvious, these are water decals (no way could I do that kind of elaborate nail work on my own!) and apologies that I took the photos a few days after I did them, so the edges are a bit worn.

Hope you had/are having a wonderful Friday wherever you are! I thought it would be appropriate to finish with a poem from Robert Burns. This is one of his most well known poems. :)

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

Robert Burns