Naileymabob: British Nail Bloggers

Showing posts with label British Nail Bloggers. Show all posts

British Nail Bloggers: Top & Base Coats

04 January 2014

So over at the British Nail Bloggers facebook page, we've decided this week to blog about our favourite base coats and top coats. I'm very stuck in my ways with these and once I've found a decent product, it's very hard to persuade me to switch. I've taken pictures of my favourite products, as they're the ones I'm currently using, but I'll talk about others I've used too.

Base Coat

OPI Nail Envy is the only base coat for me. Since using it, I get hardly any breaks and the condition of my nails has improved so much. It's quite pricey, but I'm lucky enough to be able to buy it at trade price so it's a lot cheaper. The bottle last for ages and I use it under every manicure as a base coat. It's quite good on protecting against staining too - I haven't got any discolouration on my nails and I use some pretty strong (and stainey) polishes.

The other base coat I have tried in the past is Sally Hansen's Green Tea & Bamboo. Although it's a lot cheaper than Nail Envy, I found that while I was using it my nails were still prone to breaking but were less peeley.

Top Coat

My favourite top coat is Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri. It's so easy to apply and dries so quickly (which is key for me as I'm very impatient and loathe sitting still waiting for my nails to dry). If I'm using it I get less chippage than anything else I've used.

I buy mine from Boots and it's only £5.99 so a bargain.

Other favourites include:

Seche Vite. This product dries super quick but is quite pricey and is prone to shrinking which I detest.
No 7 Stay Perfect Nail Top Coat. Super shiney and quite good at protecting your manicure but I find that it dries quite slowly, despite being a fast dry top coat. It also lures me into a false sense of security and makes me believe that it's really dry, until I go to bed and I get those horrid sheet marks on my nails. I'll usually only pick this up when I have no. 7 vouchers to use.

British Nail Bloggers: Top 10 Nail Polishes

22 November 2013

Over at British Nail Bloggers, we've decided to all post about our top 10 nail polishes on the same day. Here are mine. They're my top 10, but in no particular order because I just can't chose that!

Nail Lacquer UK - She Got My Soul. My favourite indie brand and the first I bought from Nail Lacquer UK. The polish is a milky base with blue, pink and violet glitters of various sizes. Looks lovely over a white base.

Nail Lacquer UK - Happy Monster. This is a milky greeny/cream base with neon pink, blues, greens and yellows.

Barry M Lychee - This should be a staple polish in every girl's nail polish box. The nude is really shiny, perfect for when your nails need to be a bit more, boring.

Models Own - Absynthe. This is a matte glitter polish. You get amazing coverage after just two coats and looks great with a matte or normal top coat over it.

Lac Attack - Weasley Wizard Wheezes. I love Harry Potter. Lac Attack was the first indie polish I invested in. This glitter topper is a fab vivid orange mixed shape glitters and I love clashing it over bright colours.

Barry M - Boots Limited Edition Silver Glitter. I found this in Boots the other day and it was fab. It's a silver glitter, but it's holographic a bit and looks fab over a silver base colour.

Lac Attack - Beauxbatons Academy. Another Lac Attack from my first ever indie splurge. This is a milky base with gold and blue glitters.

Nail Lacquer UK - A Dolphin's Dream. This is a fantastic turquoise glitter that goes well over bright colours or builds up fantastically by itself.

Lac Attack - The Horcrux of It. I always turn to this colour when I need a black that's not just boring plain black. It has a green shimmer to it with gold glitter, making my black just a little extra special.

Barry M - Greenberry. This is my favourite summer colour. I try to mix it with gold for a lovely summery manicure.

From L-R Greenberry, She Got My Soul, Happy Monster, Lychee and Absynthe

From L-R The Horcrux of It, A Dolphin's Dream, Beauxbaton's Academy, Limited Edition Silver Glitter, Weasley Wizard Wheezes.

Halloween Nail Art Challenge 2013: I Vant to Suck Your Blood

26 October 2013

I am taking part in the British Nail Bloggers Halloween Nail Art Challenge 2013. It looks a little something like this:

After a stupidly hectic day yesterday, I didn't get chance to take part in "Trick or Treat". Also, it seems for "I Vant to Suck Your Blood" I have picked a very common idea!!

I used Sinful Colours Snow White (which is sadly on it's way out! :( ) and the new Barry M Matte Burgundy Crush for the blood. I had to position my fingers to hide the mistake I made, I didn't have time to correct it! :-(

An InLinkz Link-up

Gelly Splatter Nails

21 August 2013

I love love love Splatter nails. They look really good and I love cleaning up the mess too.

Here's a manicure I did with Barry M Gellys - Guava, Mango, Key Lime and Pomnegranate. I blow the nail polish onto a white base (Sinful Colours) then tidied up and topped with two layers of top coat.

Simple, but really effective.

An InLinkz Link-up

British Nail Bloggers Massive Giveaway

07 June 2013

Hey guys, I've done my tribal print manicure for this week's challenge. I just need to upload the photos. In the mean time, check out this awesome competition from some of my British Nail Blogger buddies. If you win you can get $100 vouchers to spend online on some fantastic new nailart stuff. Go enter!

Ask a British Nail Blogger - How do you store yours?

21 April 2013

I've been so rubbish with my blog lately and I'm really sorry. My life has gotten busy (I'm currently 27 hours up on my clock), I was filming at the start of the week and I've even gone and got myself a little bit of a social life! Shock horror, I know! On top of that my MacBook has been playing up and will only connect to the wifi when it fancies it!

So I thought I'd ease myself in with this fortnights "Ask a British Nail Blogger" question. This time around it's "How do you store your polish?"

I'm a bit disorganised but I'm looking to start getting myself more organised. I found some lovely stackable crates in Hobbycraft yesterday. But they're really expenisve and probably too tall for what I need so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for something similar.

Until then I currently have a cloth box type thing that is just big enough to hold all my varnishes. I think have a drawer in my bedside table for all my tools. It's nothing exciting. I tried sorting my varnishes by brand but I quickly got bored of them. I tend to just shove them back in the box at the end of my session without paying attention where they go. So my box is a mess.

Here's a picture of it when I originally sorted it out:

Ask a British Nail Blogger - Most Covetted Polish

24 March 2013

This fortnight's question is What is your most wanted polish (or polishes)?

For ages I covetted Lac Attack's Magical Musings polishes. I wanted them for forever. I was fortunate to get my hands (claws) on a full set during her January restock and I love, love, love, love them. I always keep my eyes peeled on Harlow & Co for restocks.

Apart from these, I haven't really got a list. This will be the next thing on my to-do list, I think. I spend enough money in Boots so don't really need much more encouraging but I can always stretch my small purse further.

I was just browsing Harlow & Co when I went to get the link and this caught my eye (picture lovingly borrowed from PrettyPolishPlease:

I think this one will be the top of my list! <3 --="" comment-="" end="" inlinkz="" script="">

Ask a British Nail Blogger - Nail Care Routine

17 March 2013

So the girls over at the British Nail Bloggers facebook page are starting a fortnightly "Ask a British Nail Blogger" spot.

This fortnight's questions is "What is your nail care routine?"

I try to keep mine simple. I remove all old nail varnish with actone. I then trim my nails with a toe nail clipper (if they've had any chance to grow) and use a Leighton Denny nail file to smooth out the sharp edges.

I then use a square nail buff to buff around the edges of my nails (I don't go anywhere near the tips as they're already so weak). I dust off any excess powder left from the buffer and wash my hands with lukewarm water. Once my hands are dry I use Sally Hansen's Green Tea & Bamboo as a base coat and then paint my nails.

Once my nails are completely dry, I wash my hands again before using Sally Hansen's cuticle massage cream with apricot oil (I'm definitely a Sally Hansen fan). I then use a decent hand cream, Soap & Glory's Hand Food or Cath Kidston's. (See my separate post on hand cream here)