Gradient Mad

So if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you'll have seen that I've been a little gradient mad this week.  Instead of blogging about each manicure, I thought I'd give you a round up instead, so you can see what I've been up to!

I started last weekend after buying the new Barry M Matte Cancun.  This is a fabulous deep green and really perfect for the summer.  I'm not a huge fan of just plain manicures though, so I spiced it up a little bit by adding Lac Attack's Weasley Wizard Wheezes from her Magical Musings collection.  I wish I'd bought two lots of the polish when I first got them because Lac Attack does not ship abroad any more and this polish has sadly run out! *sad face*  She needs to dominate the world so I can buy her polishes without it costing me and arm and a foot to ship them!

Next I decided I needed a bit of a pink gradient.  Pink is my favourite colour and I recently got a bottle of "Shocked" by Picture Polish so I decided to mix that with Rosehip from Barry M.  I was a bit disappointed with this manicure, I was expecting Shocked to show up a lot more glittery than it did.

So then I decided to venture out and use some colours that I wouldn't neccesarily put together.  I picked out three bottles of Model's Own Pastel colours - Apple Pie, Grape Juice and Strawberry Tart.  This combo got loads of attention, both online and in real life and me and My Mint Nails have decided to use it as inspiration for our BFF Friday this week, so keep your eyes peeled for this Friday's post!  Can you imagine how beautiful this manicure smelt?

The weather has been heating up, but unfortunately I'm stuck in work and in Blighty, so there's no chance of me getting a tan this year.  But I love love love Model's Own Polish for Tans so this weekend I decided to mix these up for a summer hot manicure.  Again, these have been getting loads of attention and they're extra bright for a great summer twist.

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Golden Oldies Thursday: Valentines

I haven't been able to take part in Golden Oldies Thursday for a while because I've been super busy.  Crumpet's Nail Tarts are doing a Valentine's Day theme this week so I thought I'd join in.

My manicure is very simple.  I used Lac Attack's Amortentia from her Magical Musing's collection.  I love love her polish, they were the first indies I ever bought.  It's a beautiful pink glitter topper and finished off with a silver heart stud on my pointers.

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Golden Oldies Thursday: Blue

The rules of Golden Oldies is that we must use a polish that is at least 1 year old.  According to my Time Hop - this polish was ordered exactly one year ago, so I think it counts!

Lac Attack was the launch of my love for Indie Polishes.  I stayed up this time one year ago for a restock to make sure I could get my hands on her Magical Musings set after seeing them over on Nailasaurus and because of my love of Harry Potter (of course).

Durmstang is a fantastic blue that I don't give enough credit for.  It's a rich, metallically blue that has shards of black in them.  The polish applies really well.  My results are 3 coats of Durmstrang over two coats of white and two top coats of Poshe (which I love love love).

(P.S Did you know I'm having a giveaway?  Enter here!)

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British Nail Bloggers: Top 10 Nail Polishes

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.

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Painting Nails Neatly

Just a quick post from me this week as I haven't really done anything too exciting with my nails.  However, I have been sticking with painting them plain colours, mostly from the new Barry M Gelly range, to try and learn how to paint my nails neatly.  Tidying up my nails are the biggest bug bear about doing manicures as I mostly can't be bothered, so learning how to paint them neatly is a big deal to me. It also helps me paint other people's nails!

I was particularly impressed with this manicure with both how neat it looks and how the colours match up.  I used Barry M's guava with Lac Attack's Weasley Wizard Wheezes.

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Challenge Week 25: Inspired by Summer

It's hard to get inspired by Summer when the weather is pants like this.  As I type I'm sat under a blanket in bed (albeit still in my pyjamas).  If it was last weekend, I think I would have struggled less.

When it is nice and sunny and summery, I like to wear nice and bright colours.  So, inspired by this (lol) I went for a bright and colourful glitter gradient.

I didn't manage to grab a decent photo including my thumb but from thumb across I used (all Barry M gellys) Mango, Dragon Fruit, Prickly Pear, Greenberry and Guava.  The glitter I used was Felix Felics from Lac Attack.

I'm waiting on quite a bit of Nail Mail from a couple of indie brands.  I can't wait to start swatching them when they arrive! 

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Lac Attack: Muggles

A muggle is a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world.  Muggles do not have any magical blood.

At first, therefore, I thought that a nail polish with this namesake would be dull, boring but with little sparkle.  But then of course, I'd forgotten about Hermione Granger.

Hermione Granger was a special kind of muggle.  Born of parents with no magical blood, Hermione was the brightest witch of her time.  And she is very sparkly.

Muggles from Lac Attack is a clear varnish with purple, pink, blue and silver shards of glitter of all sizes.  Here it is over Barry M's Berry Ice Cream.

To get this amount of coverage took me about 4-5 coats.  The glitter is easy to position and dries quickly.  I followed it off with two coats of top coat, just to make the nails smooth.

This is another of my favourite Lac Attack polishes (but lets face it, most of them are!)  It's really eye catching.  I apologise for the poor condition of my nails in these photos - glitter is such a bugger to clean up and if anyone has any tips, please please please send them my way!

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Lac Attack: Felix Felicis

Here's yet another swatch from Lac Attack's Magical Musing's collection.  I can't get enough of these varnishes, they're so beautiful.  By the way, I don't think I've shared it before but here is Lac Attack's website.  Unfortunately she no longer does International shipping but she sometimes restocks on Harlow & co which does - yey!

Felix Felicis is a potion that makes the drinker lucky for a period of time, during which everything they attempt will be successful.  It is also called Liquid Luck.

Harry Potter won a small vial of Felix Felicis from Professor Slughorn during a potions class in Harry's sixth year.  He used a small amount of it to persuade Slughorn to give Harry an important memory from Voldemort's past.  He also pretended to give Ron a small amount in his pumpkin juice before a big quidditch match (which is illegal).  The rest of the potion was shared between Ron, Hermione & Ginny in the battle against the Death Eaters at Hogwarts.

As you can imagine, a potion which brings this much luck to it's drinker would be sparkly and great.  The potion is described as molten gold in colour with droplets that leap like goldfish on the surface of the potion when it's in the cauldron.

This polish matches the potion's description perfectly.  It has a gold sheen to it, almost clear with large gold hexes and smaller gold pieces.  It spreads perfectly and I only needed to use two coats to get the coverage I wanted.

I used felix felicis as a glitter gradient over Barry M's Greenberry.  The colours go together perfectly.

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Lac Attack: Durmstrang

The Durmstrang Institute is a wizarding school located in the northernmost regions of Norway or Sweden.  They travel to Hogwarts to compete in the Triwizard Tournament.

Durmstrang is notorious for is acceptance of the Dark Arts, and was known to have educated (and expelled) Gellert Grindewald before his acension of the Dark Arts.  Former Headmaster Igor Karakoff was one of Lord Voldemort's deatheaters.

One of it's most famous students is Viktor Krum

Vitkor is a Bulgarian student and was seeker for the Bulgarian National Quidditch team while still at the school.

You'd expect Durmstrang to be strong and icy cold.  Lac Attack's polish doesn't fail to meet these standards.

It's a glossy blue with big shards of black mixed in.  The final colour is something special.  Here it is after only three coats:

It's not my favourite out of the magical musings collection, but it definitely stands out on it's own.

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Ask a British Nail Blogger - Most Covetted Polish

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="">

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Challenge Week 12: Violet Nails (attempt 2)

So while I was looking for inspiration for my challenge nails this week, I came across a fab manicure on google:

These were really eye catching and gave me another attempt to practice my masking tape skills.  But of course, mine came out nothing like it as I didn't use the picture while I was attempting the manicure.

I kind of like them none the less, they look like some sort of purple stained glass window.  I used Barry M Gelly Prickly Pear & Plum and for the glitter I used Lac Attack's Muggle (which I love).

By the way, Gelly is such a bugger to clean up! :(

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Lac Attack: Small Talk

Here's another of Lac Attack's polishes.  This time I've used Small Talk from her Candy Heart's set.  This is a lovely creamy green and can be used on its own or as a top coat.  It's got pink and gold hexes in it and has a nice shine.

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Challenge Week 11: Glitter Nails (Attempt 1)

Ugh - I have totally lost my nailart mojo this past week so I apologise for the lack of posts.  I attempted a gradient 3 times before giving up - it looked horrific.

I wanted to get my mojo back so I thought I'd attempt a beautiful looking manicure (on google).  Unfortunately my attempt was bad.

I used Lac Attack's Hogwarts glitter - about 3 coats to get full coverage.  I then freehanded triangles at the base of the nail and covered the rest of the nail with Barry M Lychee.  The Lychee was too thick on top of the already thick glitter layers and the end result just looked lumpy!

In more positive news, however, I used PVA as a base for the first time and was really impressed with the results.

I apologise for the crappy quality of the picture - when I create really bad mani's, I always resort to no clean up and using my iPhone instead of my camera!

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