Five Year Blogiversary! I didn't forget!

Hello! It's that day of the year where I actually put up a blog post on here! "Why?" I don't hear you ask. Well, it has been 5 years since I decided to make this blog, and although I have neglected this blog since um... last year, this date always sticks in my head for some reason so I felt I just couldn't not post today as I've made somewhat of a tradition of it I think.

One of the reasons for my lack of posting is that I've had a lot of other things going on so honestly this wasn't a priority. The other (and main) reason is that I've been learning and dabbling in the world of gel polish which as we know is a very different system to normal nail polish. This has meant that I'm pretty much only doing my nails every 2 weeks as opposed to the 2-3 a week I used to do, and while I could still post them on here, I've just found posting on Instagram more practical for me at the moment. So, if you want to see any more recent posts, please check out my instagram HERE, where this is currently my latest post:

My new favourite nail glitter (over white gel polish)! #indigonails #cinderella #indigopixel #pixeleffect

A post shared by The Nail Noodle (@thenailnoodle) on Jul 18, 2017 at 11:11am PDT

I also managed to make a last minute cake before posting this. As you can see, my skills... have not improved! Haha! At this point I'd like to say "I'll be posting a lot more", but there's no use in kidding myself so I'll see you next year probably!
Bye!

Purple and Orange Halloween Nails!

Muahahaha-uh, I mean Hello! Today I thought I'd share my nail art for Halloween, which I only realised the other day is the first time I've done Halloween nail art since 2012 I believe?! To be fair, I usually had a lot of essays to do around this time so that's probably why.
I'm actually not that bothered about Halloween, but I do like pumpkins (well, carving them anyway) so I decided to do some purple and orange nails with pumpkins (and bats!) this year.

I'd like to say this didn't take me a long, long time to do but that would be lying. I used my silicone mat to paint the pumpkins to create 'nail polish stickers' for the thumb and ring finger. If I had been just doing one hand, I would have just painted them directly on the nails but as I was doing this on both hands and I am not ambidextrous, this was the best option! I also used this method for the black triangles and bats, using cuticle scissors to cut once dry so that I had nice sharp edges.
I think I'll stop there for now because I've got a cold and I am struggling to concentrate on anything! Bye!

I'm now (finally) on Instagram!

Hello!

Just a quick message to say that I've finally made an Instagram for the blog for the times when I want to share my nail designs but without having to write a full blog post about them. If you are reading this and you happen to be on Instagram, please follow me at thenailnoodle, it would be much appreciated!

Thank you!

[SPECIAL] Four Year Blogiversary!

Hello! Even though I haven't posted on here in quite a while *cough* 6 months *cough*, I couldn't forget my blogiversary, and I had to follow my tradition of posting a poorly constructed cake and some pictures of nails, which I think is the theme of this blog? ;)

Yes, marvel at the cake you see here. As I'm writing this I was going to reference the upcoming series of Great British Bake Off (excited!) and I felt a sense of déjà vu so I decided to look at last year's post and apparently I was thinking the same thing then, so at least I'm consistent!

In terms of actual nail art, I still have been doing nail art all the time, and trying out new techniques I see online - some with success, some without!
Instead of making themed blogiversary nails, I decided to just post some of the pictures of nail art I've done while not blogging but as I did them quite a while back, I can't remember the polishes I used, only the method. This geometric one to the right was done by painting my nails white, placing striping tape at different angles, filling in the sections with different colours and then removing the tape. Finished with a subtle glitter topcoat.

 This next one was done in admittedly a really awkward way. I painted my nails white and on a silicone nail mat, I used a sponge to create a long strip of glitter gradient of pink-purple-blue-green and then cut it up into triangles. These polishes are more of a gelly type so I had to do quite a lot of layers when making the gradient strip so it ended up quite thick which meant that when I stuck them to my nails, there were ledges along the sides which were fairly annoying. Putting tape on my nails in a v-shape would have been easier, but with the polishes being rather transparent, I would have had to have done a lot of layers anyway to really see a gradient.

This last picture was just me trying out something a bit more simple, but I liked it and thought I'd add it in here. Also, I love the polish on the middle finger - HOLO there! (SimplyNailogical anyone?)

Well, thanks if you're here and still reading. I'm away to watch more of the Olympics - one of the few times I have any interest in sport!

Bye for now!

Rosy Pink Nails

Ah, where to begin with this one!

Doing this set of nails was laborious to say the least. You know when you start doing your nails and you have a fairly simple image in your head, but as you start to paint them and whatnot, you think 'hmm, that looks a bit plain, I'll add something there' and 'oh, what about doing this topcoat on it' et cetera, and before you know it, you're suffering from hand cramp and eye strain thinking 'why, WHY did I start this?' at 1 o'clock in the morning? Heh... yeah.

Well, lucky for you, I'm not going to go through all the stages of thought I had while doing this because a) I wouldn't want to bore you, and b) honestly, I can't even remember at this point... such a blur.

Anyway! I found some leftover bits of my favourite water decals, also used in this post from 3 and a half years ago (wow, time flies!) and used them initially on my ring finger but then, during my never ending 'ideas' I cut bits up and put them on my index finger and thumb too. The index finger and middle finger both have gradients from white to pink (from lightest to darkest pink, the polishes used were Barry M - Rose Hip, Nails Inc - Kensington Square, and Rimmel Pro - Show Off), and I went over them with a coat of Barry M - Crystal Glaze. I added a little pearl stud to the thumb and middle finger... for some reason. My pinky had the easiest time here, with just a coat of Nails Inc - Kensington Square (like what was used as the main colour on the thumb) and 2 coats of glittery GOSH - Girls on Film.

Well I think I covered everything while avoiding all the boring stages between one layer and another! It's obviously far more tiring when you're doing nails you actually want to go out in public with because you have to do both hands, and ambidextrous I am not! It's strange though - even though doing my nails can start feeling a bit tedious after spending hours on them, I still really enjoy it!

Bye for now!

White and Purple Glitter Look

Hi! Another short post from me today! This is actually a more recent photo this time.

I know it's fairly simple but thought I'd share it as it's a style I don't normally do, and by that I mean painting my index and pinky the same and the rest being a different colour. Recently, I bought the glitter (No7 Nail Effects 'Party Pearls') which I liked because it has a mix of purple, blue and pink so I painted all my nails white, painted the glitter on the index and pinky (in hindsight, I wish I had made it more concentrated) and then used purple and blue gems to match the glitter colours, but used Rimmel Glitter Bomb 'Disco Fever' on the middle finger (I like that the glitter in this are square shaped). I think I only did one coat of this.

Oh, just remembered! The other reason I wanted to do some glittery nails was to test out a peelable base coat - OPI's Glitter Off - which, like most other peelable base coats, is much like PVA glue in both smell and consistency, only I find that the OPI stuff dries quicker. I cannot believe I haven't looked into peelable base coats sooner, really. Amazing! I've avoided doing a lot of glitter lately because I HATE the removal process but with this, it's so much easier! I must add that I bought the OPI base coat for £3.99 in TK Maxx which I think is great but I doubt I'd pay the RRP for it - PVA glue will probably be my replacement, who knows! I'm already using PVA glue in an old nail polish bottle and applying it around my nail before doing gradients, works great (I'm keeping the OPI stuff just for the nails!).

Sorry for the bad quality photo - I decided to take this on a day that offered no natural light whatsoever.

In a bit of a rush so bye for now!

Geometric Style Nails

Hi again! Here's another design with triangles which I found in my backlog of nail photos! However, unlike the last post, I don't have any list to tell me what exact nail polishes I used - sorry about that! I used a purple, pink and teal though apparently!

I pretty much painted my nails white and then used regular tape on my index and ring fingers, and used nail striping tape on the others. Using the edge of a make-up sponge (or by ripping off pieces of one, I can't remember) I applied the three colours randomly over the nails and then removed all the bits of tape with a pair of tweezers.

Probably the trickiest one was the middle finger nail because I had to actually cut the tape down to smaller bits to make the diamond shape whereas I didn't have to bother so much with the others. Also, it's easier if you do the big X in the middle first, then add the 4 smaller pieces of tape on top as that makes it a lot easier to remove all the tape without ruining the design. Seal with a topcoat and you're done!

Bye for now!

Edgy Gradient Nails

I'm well over a month late, but Happy 'New' Year 2016! I had planned to post this last year when I did it but I wasn't really in a mood to blog or anything so I just took a photo and left it until now.

Due to the fact that it's been such a long time since I did this, I honestly cannot remember the specific colours I used --- wait! I just found a list I wrote when I did this, thanks 2015 me! Alright, so I painted my nails white and then did a gradient from dark purple 'Revlon - Impulsive', to a lighter purple 'NYC - Jam & Nap' to dark pink 'Rimmel Pro - Show Off' to a paler pink 'Nails Inc - Kensington Square' to white.

After that dried, I put two pieces of tape on each nail in a 'V-shape' and painted the exposed part of the nails white and then used Avon Colortrend - 'Silver Plated' topcoat before removing the tape and sealing it all in with Seche Vite topcoat.
I ended up really liking this design, especially considering that I only did the white triangles so that I'd hide some of the purple --- after the gradient stage, which was my intended final look, I thought my nails looked like they were bruised or something so I thought 'I must save this!'. Hopefully I did!

Well, that's all for today, thanks!

Awesome Autumn! [Part 3/3]

Hello again, and welcome to the last part of my Autumn-themed posts!

Now, you might be thinking 'What has the galaxy got to do with Autumn?' and I wouldn't blame you!

The reason I'm doing this now is because for me, Autumn onward is the time of the year when I find myself stargazing more -- the sky just seems to be a little bit clearer, and perhaps the fact that the days get shorter means that I am more likely to be out when it's dark. So, in that sense, I connect this to Autumn in my head!

If it wasn't obvious from the picture, this is the first time I've ever tried galaxy nails. Honestly, I've seen this many times online and I've never felt brave enough to try it (in my head I thought 'This is going to look really awful' thanks to my love/hate relationship with makeup sponges, but I actually found it to be not as bad as I expected). I think the trick is knowing what sorts of colours to use, and not overloading the sponge but instead layering up bit by bit. With that in mind, I mainly used colours that had a slight shimmer to them so that it catches the light more, and here I've written a list of the colours I used, in case you were wondering.

Base colour:
Barry M - Navy
Galaxy colours applied with a sponge:
Rimmel - Luna Love
Rimmel - Hawaiian Punch
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Turquoise
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Deep Blue Sea
Barry M - SLE 2012 247
Maxfactor - Fantasy Fire
& finally Barry M - Matt White, which I also used to make stars with a dotting tool.

Phew!

Well, thanks again for reading and I hope you liked these posts! :)

Awesome Autumn! [Part 2/3]

Today's Autumn-themed post is a very simple one, but I thought I'd share it here anyway. I've had this Barry M polish since they came out (which I think was last Autumn) but I never really used them as a main colour so I thought I'd give it a go this time. Honestly, 'Mustard' as this polish is called (and the shade in general) is not really a favourite colour of mine, and the colour looked even weirder a few days ago when I realized my nails were the same colour as the macaroni cheese I was eating. Heh.

Anyway, I tried to jazz it up a little bit so I used OPI 'The Living Daylights' on my thumb and ring finger, painting more on the tips to create a slight gradient effect. I don't think using a makeup sponge would work with this polish. I felt like the colours of the glitter really complemented the base polish nicely - and kind of reminded me of pumpkins. To be honest, if I do this again, I would maybe put the gradient on all of the nails rather that just two.

No, wait - scratch that. With the glitter particles being big, getting it off was an absolute nightmare, even with the soaking method, so I might steer clear of glitter for a bit!

That's all for today, see you tomorrow!

Awesome Autumn! [Part 1/3]

Hello, Autumn! I'm really glad to be able to post today! It's been quite a hectic couple of months for me but I am here today to celebrate one of my favourite times of the year - the leaf crunching joy that is Autumn (or Fall, for our American friends!).

I love it so much that I have been doing a few Autumn designs lately and decided to share them on here this weekend! Apologies for the slight messiness here - I hadn't originally planned to upload this design but I do like it so here it is.

To make this design, I first painted my nails with Barry M 'Matt White' and then painted a brown tree on my ring finger with Nails Inc - Prince's Gate. Then I used different sized dotting tools to create random dots on all the nails using these Barry M colours: Chilli, Paprika, Mustard & Gold Foil. I then decided I didn't like the way the Gold Foil colour looked so I went over those dots with a brighter shade of gold: Jessica - 804 Bling! which I felt looked a bit better. Topped with Seche Vite and done!

I like this mainly because it's a fairly easy way to get the Autumn colours into some nail art -- and dotting tools are a lot of fun!

If you're interested in all things Autumn, then I think you will love this Tumblr that belongs to a friend of mine, which can be found here! It really gets me into the cozy, fuzzy Autumn spirit!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for the rest of the Autumn theme this weekend!

Thank you!

[SPECIAL] Three Year Blogiversary!

 Yay! Today marks 3 years since I started this blog, and in keeping with the posts I made for the previous two blogiversaries of 2013 and 2014, this post contains nails but also cake!

Ooh cake, let's start with that! Just marvel at my (limited) baking skills! Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry would be incredibly impressed I'm sure - especially when they realize I used cut up revision flashcards as a cake collar!

Yes, really.

In terms of the taste, 'twas lovely and chocolatey - I'm just glad I didn't burn it! Ohh okay, I'm probably being a bit hard on myself, I'm actually not too bad at baking - certainly nothing I bake is burnt because I'm one of those people that keeps opening the oven door to check on it every 5 minutes if I can't see the cake clearly through the oven window (I know I shouldn't, but I'm just too impatient when I smell food baking!).

Anyway, on to the nails! I've kept it somewhat simple this time, going with a nude base and using various sized dotting tools with orange, blue, pink, purple and silver. I'm not sure if it's as clear as in real life but I dotted a 3 onto my ring finger nail too!

I'm going to leave it there and say that I would have loved to have posted more in the past year but I had a lot of things to do for uni, but I am proud of myself for not forgetting this blog. The truth is, I still love to do my nails all the time, and the main purpose of this blog for me is to share just some of those designs when I am able, so if I don't post for a while, it doesn't mean I've lost interest in all things nail art!

Thank you for reading! :)

Colourful Herringbone Inspired Nails

Lately, I have really been loving anything with chevron or herringbone patterns (as you can see from the tealight holder in the background, haha) so I decided to make some chevron nails last week. Well, that didn't go too well and just looked so wrong and I took them off immediately.

A couple of days ago, however, I was scrolling through chevron wallpapers (and I mean actual sticks-to-your-wall wallpaper) on Pinterest and felt inspired to try again on my nails, but I figured out this is easier to do (just painted stripes down the nail and then painted the diagonal lines). Before I could draw the white lines though, I made a colourful base by painting lots of different dots (not with a dotting tool, just their own brushes). Here are the steps and colours I used:

1) Painted nude-coloured base coat (Sally Hansen - Bandage)
2) Painted dots using: Fearne Cotton - Lime Green, Revlon Top Speed - Electric, Sally Hansen Insta-dri - Man-go Team!, Maybelline Color Show - Electric Pink, Technic - Bora Bora Beach, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine - Blueberry.
3) Then applied glittery topcoat (Seventeen Nail Xtras - Glitter Top-Coat)
4) Painted all lines on with The New Black Striper Brush - White.
5) Applied Seche Vite Top-Coat to seal in design, and DONE!

I really like this (more than I thought I would, actually) and I think if you have a white nail art pen or thin nail art brush, this isn't too difficult once you start. The lines are not all perfect but I don't see why they have to be!

Thanks for reading!

Hello, Summer!

  Before I start talking about the nails here, I would like to say that I am so glad to be posting today! It is indeed my first post of 2015 - only took about 7 months (oops!). I'd also like to say that even though I haven't been posting, I have been doing nail art as I find it therapeutic at times. I simply just didn't have the time to post anything due to my studies, and I had to spend so much time on computers writing essays and my dissertation that any free time was spent offline as I was getting frequent migraines (horrendous, might I add!).

The photo here was taken about a month ago, so you know... better late than never! Due to this, I cannot be certain what nail polishes I used but I believe the main colour is Barry M's Green Berry painted over Barry M's Matte White (which I use all the time to enhance bright colours). I like this kind of fairly simple nail art - all you need is a dotting tool (which I used on the thumb and pinky) and a little nail art brush for the petals (which I feel make it easier to paint). I also used the dotting tool to apply some yellow and orange for the disc of the daisy. Apply glossy topcoat and done!

I hope to post a few more of the designs I have done soon!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - December

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 Wow! The final Nails Inc diary post! I actually kept to the plan I made myself last December and have posted on the first of every month all year! Quite proud of that, really!
There have been many times I've almost forgotten to post, frantically writing it the night before... which is totally not what I am doing right now or anything! *cough*

I wish I could write a nice long post but I've just finished writing an essay so this isn't really the time to write another one!

So, to the polish! This month is Knightsbridge Road, which is kind of translucent in certain lights. On the ring finger, I painted 2 coats of the polish over last month's foil and 1 coat over the foil on the pinky in order to show the gold, blue and red glitters.

I totally get why this colour was chosen for December, it's just so festive! Looking forward to wearing this later in the month!

Well, it's been great! I hope to squeeze in another post or two before the new year!

x

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - November

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

Well, hello! I'm sorry that this will be a very short post indeed! I am just exhausted and bogged down with a cold -- can't wait to go to bed, really.

This month's polish by Nails Inc is a foil called South Kensington. I really like South Kensington (the polish and the actual place!) as it really does have that foil effect. I believe I painted 2 layers of the polish (oops, I forgot) but I'd recommend using some ridge fillers before this because this polish doesn't exactly mask them.

I really don't know what else to say, I think I'm going to fall asleep.

Happy November!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - October

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 Well, hello! Ahhhh, it's October already! I can already smell the cinnamon scented candles (I love candles, even if I am essentially burning my money as I've been told a number of times!).

However, this post is all about this month's Nails Inc polish which is Belgravia Place and is part of the Fibre Optic collection.

So, here I have painted 2 coats of this lovely polish on each nail, apart from the ring finger, on which I only painted one coat onto a layer of next month's polish (South Kensington) so that you can see what it looks like over something else.

I quite like this, but I'd probably use it more towards Christmas. The colours are quite difficult to capture on a camera which is why even though the second picture is a tad blurry, I'm still using it because out of 10 photos, it showed off the glitter the best.

Like most polishes with this kind of glitter, they can be a bit annoying to paint as they just go EVERYWHERE, but I do think it can look quite nice!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - September

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 September is here! Wow, the year just seems to have passed quickly! Or at least the Summer has anyway! After this, there are only 3 more Nails Inc posts, awww! (Although I will enjoy not having to write these posts hurriedly in order to meet my personal '9am on the first of each month' deadline!)

This month is... let me check because I forgot already... Electric Lane! This is a holographic topcoat which Nails Inc recommend layering over any colour, which I have done here.

Each nail has two coats of the polish. I left the index finger with no colour, applied November's Nails Inc 'South Kensington' which is a silver foil polish, July's 'Notting Hill Gate' to the ring finger and February's 'St. Martin's Lane' to the pinky nail.

Overall, I really like this and look forward to using this later on. At first I was a little disappointed it wasn't more intense, but then I remembered that this is a topcoat and so it makes sense for it to be this way because you can glam up any colour you like!

Sparkle!

[SPECIAL] Two Year Blogiversary!

Well, HELLO! Today marks two years since I started this blog! Granted, I don't post very often, but I'm glad that I still do post and still enjoy doing nail art. Here you can see my cake efforts... Buddy Valastro, I am not, but the sentiment is there! Also, it tasted delicious.

Last year, I put together a pretty long post, including my favourite nails from the year and some other fun stuff which you can see here. Looking back, I put an awful lot of effort into that, more so than this year, but I have got quite a bit going on at the moment.

I can't really do a 'Top 5' this year because all I have really done are my Nails Inc Polish Diary posts, and no nail art ones.

However, today I'm uploading two nail designs to make up for it. The first one here is one I did last week.


I used a lovely shade by No7, 'Purple Bouquet', and I wanted to add some gold effects to some of the nails so I painted a single line of Barry M 'Treasure Chest' on the thumb nail, painted my pinky nail with a subtle gold glitter by Sally Hansen called 'Starcrossed', and my favourite - I applied 8 and a half gold coloured metal squares to my ring finger (using about 2-3 coats of Seche Vite which secured them for about a week).

Overall, I was quite happy with how these nails turned out, especially since I thought the gold squares were going to fall off within a day!

And finally, I thought I'd add some form of nail art that commemorates this blogiversary! Well done if you understand the nails within 5 seconds because it's not immediately obvious even to me, and I did them! In my defence, I did this is under 10 minutes because I decided to do this right before had to go out - always the best time to do nail art, said no one ever. I just wanted to be able to take the photo in natural light, really!

Oh, before I forget, the polished used are Barry M's Gold Foil, with two coats of Maybelline Color Show Brocades 'Knitted Gold' on top. The black is Rimmel Space Dust 'Total Eclipse', and I added a couple of blobs of Barry M 'Boots Limited Edition' glitter from Christmas.

Well, this has been fun, and I look forward to doing more nail posts eventually!

Nails Inc: 'My Nail Polish Diary' - August

For the main post on Nails Inc's 'My Nail Polish Diary', with links to all other months, click here.

 August is here, and so is the polish of the month! This is Fleet Street, which is a leather effect polish.

I applied 2 coats for better coverage. It's a light brown shade, and it does have a texture, although I don't think I'd call it leather, but that's just me.

Personally, I wouldn't have chosen this colour for August because to me, August is still a time for summery colours and so this is the first month I've not exactly agreed with the choice but I would perhaps wear this in say October or just in Autumn in general.

Well, that is Nails Inc's polish of the month!