The Great Gatsby inspired nails!

I have seen a lot of Great Gatsby mani's online in the past few weeks and they look so amazing! So I thought I would do my own one. This is my first ever time using striping tape so I will do a lot better next time, but I think they are quite good considering :)

First I applied my base coat and then I applied 2 coats of Barry M's gold foil to each nail and 2 coats of Barry M's black to my ring finger.

Then on my ring finger I did a gradient effect using W7's gold dazzle, I used this glitter gradient effect a couple of mani's ago and I really love it, it is so easy to do but looks so pretty :)

I then used a white striping tape to make different art deco looking patterns on each nail, apart from on my ring finger. I bought these from eBay (here) I got a mixed pack of 10 for £2.88, but you can also buy 3, 5, 20 or 30. I picked 10 because they had 10 different colours and I asked for 1 of each colour which I did receive.

After I had applied all the striping tape I used Barry M's black and painted over a nail then before moving onto the next nail I used tweezers to peel off the tape before the nail polish dried. Then of course applied a top coat once this was dry.

I am very happy with how they came out, I did mess up my thumb nail a bit on this hand which I was a bit disappointed with, but apart from that I love them!

Hope you all do too, see you for my next post!

Blues :)

When I bought all my new China Glaze polishes I bought a few blue polishes so here is a blue mani and how I did it :)

Firstly I applied my base coat then 2 coats of polish to each nail, on my thumb and my little finger I used Hanging in the Balance, on my index finger and middle finger I used Electric Beat and on my ring finger I used First Mate, all China Glaze polishes.

On my index finger where I had painted Electric Beat I did a gradient using the same three colours. To do this I painted the 3 colours in a line after each other onto my plastic palette dish, I then placed the sponge into this and then stamped the sponge onto my nail, I did this process twice to get this effect.

On my ring finger where I had painted First Mate I then used Barry M's Amethyst Glitter and applied 2 coats on top.

On my thumb and little finger where I had painted Hanging in the Balance I used the polka dot pattern on Cheeky Plate CH6 and Konad's white special polish and stamped this.

Then on my middle finger where I had painted Electric Beat I used Bundle Monster plate BM-307 along with Barry M's Silver Foil and stamped the butterfly pattern.

I then applied my top coat and here is the finished manicure :) I messed up my little finger a bit after I applied the top coat :( but never mind I still think it looks good :) and I hope you like it too!

Westside Warrior and CH7 Mani

So thought I would use another of my new China Glaze polishes, this is what I did and below is how I did it :)

So firstly I applied my Barry M Basecoat, Topcoat and Nail Hardener then 2 coats of China Glaze's Westside Warrior. I am now going to do all my pictures in a flash and no flash version as nail polishes look so much different in each picture.

On my thumb nail and ring finger I used W7's Gold Dazzle and put it on quite thickly near the tip and less thicker further down the nail. In both of these pictures the gold looks quite subtle, but in real life the gold is very bright and quite a yellowish gold.

On all my other nails I used Barry M's Gold Foil (I am starting to run low so need a new one soon!) and I used Cheeky plate CH7 from the Vibrant Collection. I stamped this sort of geometric pattern which looks so nice and very intricate.

And to finish I again applied Barry M's Basecoat Topcoat and Nail Hardener. I really like this manicure and I will definitely be doing this again. I hope you like it too and if you have anything to say or any questions please comment below :)

I have had my eye on the 25F Sumptuous stamping plate set from Pueen Cosmetics for a long time now, I have ordered it and got an email today that it has been posted, but it says it will take 15-25 days for delivery :(

I will let you know when I get them and give my opinion of them. I ordered them from (here) the cost $18.99 and the deliver to the UK is $9.99, altogether this came to £19.49. I think this isn't too bad considering that is for the plates and for shipping to the UK.

So keep a look out for my opinion on them and for a lot more new manicures! :)

Nail polish swatches!

So in my last post I said I was going to test all my nail varnishes and post which ones are any good for stamping. Over yesterday and today I have been testing them all. From doing this I  have discovered that no normal polish will be able to be stamped over a colour that is completely opposite or darker, a normal polish will only be able to be stamped over a much lighter colour and potentially the same colour in a lighter shade and in some cases a darker shade.
Even if a normal polish is very opaque it is very difficult for it to not be a little transparent because stamping uses such a thin layer.

Of course there are some polishes that you cannot stamp with at all, so in this post I am going to show you the swatches of all the nail polishes I own (as I haven't yet done that anyway) and also talk about which ones are any good for stamping :) (this could be quite a long post!)

So firstly I will start with my Avon nail polishes, the polishes on the left half from left to right are; Pastel Pink, Cotton Candy, Coral Sands and Casablanca. These colours are pretty simple apart from Coral Sands, this polish has got a lovely green shimmer to it in certain lights and makes it a really pretty polish.

On the right half the polishes from left to right are; Berry Shimmer, Viva Pink, Coral Beat and Lucky Penny.

These swatches are also Avon, on the left half the polishes from left to right are; Real Red, Ruby Slippers, Sequinned Turquoise and Luxe Lavender. And on the right half from left to right are; Violetta Sparkle, Gleaming Gold, Vintage Boutique, Deluxe Chocolate and Mirror Shine Luster (this one is really old).

I haven't had any nail polishes from Avon for a while so I am not entirely sure which of these Avon still stock. None of these really stamp very well, and of course the glitter ones as with any glitter polish will not stamp. However the last polish is a kind of metallic polish, this and every other kind of metallic polish stamp really well, even over black!

Now onto my Barry M polishes, on the left half from left to right are; Matt White, Peach Melba, Pink Flamingo and Spring Green. And on the right half from left to right are; Blueberry Ice-Cream, Cobalt Blue, Navy and Mushroom.

The Cobalt Blue polish is one of my favourite polishes, this along with the Blueberry Ice-Cream and Mushroom polish are the better ones for stamping as they are quite opaque, but are still too transparent for stamping over anything too dark.

Still from Barry M on the left half from left to right are; Grey, Black, Silver Foil and Gold Foil. On the right half from left to right are; Pink Iridescent, Silver Multi Glitter, Diamond Glitter and Amethyst Glitter. The Silver and Gold polishes are extremely good for stamping and stamp over every colour, I use them quite a lot.

Of course the glitter polishes don't work for stamping, but these glitters are so nice. Pink iridescent looks pink in the bottle but once applied there is no pink sheen to it and this can be applied over any colour to make it look like a glitter colour polish. Silver multi glitter has a clear background with lots of small different coloured glitter. Diamond glitter I used not long ago over China Glaze's for Audrey and I fell in love with it, there are different sized glitters and they all give off different colours in the light, the picture really doesn't do it justice! I haven't used the Amethyst Glitter yet, but it has small glitter pieces which are blue, purple, gold and a few pink and green so looking forward to using this! I ordered most of these from www.barrym.com but also bought some from Superdrug.

Now onto China Glaze, on the left half from left to right are; Sun Worshipper, For Audrey, Starboard and Grape Pop. And on the right half from left to right are; Matte Magic (over the top of Barry M's Black), Platinum Pearl, Kalahari Kiss and Re-Fresh Mint.

For Audrey, Grape Pop, Platinum Pearl, Kalahari Kiss and Re-Fresh Mint all work for stamping but again only on colours that are lighter or of a similar colour but different shade. I am hoping that Platinum Pearl may possibly work over dark colours, but I haven't tried that yet so I will do soon.

Continuing with China Glaze on the left half from left to right are; Electric Beat, Hanging in the Balance, Heli-Yum, Westside Warrior and Def Defying. And on the right half from left to right are; Life Preserver, Fifth Avenue, Spontaneous, Urban Night and First Mate.

Electric Beat, Hanging in the Balance, Heli-Yum, Westside Warrior, Spontaneous, Urban Night and First Mate will all stamp although of course not on colours that are darker.

I haven't used many of the China Glaze colours yet as I have only recently ordered all of these, but I find the formula really good as the colours are all very vibrant and you don't need to apply too much polish to get a good colour. I ordered all of these from www.nailpolishdirect.co.uk.

These polishes are from MUA, on the left half from left to right are; Shade 19, Shade 5, Shade 16 and Shade 15. On the right half are; Frozen Yoghurt and from the Love Hearts set I <3 U, U R Fab and Love U 24/7.

All of these apart from Shade 19, Shade 5 and I <3 U can be used for stamping, but they are a little more transparent so only on shades that are a lot lighter.
All these colours are really nice and they are only £1 and £2 for the Love Hearts set polishes. These were bought from www.muastore.co.uk.

These swatches are now just random polishes that I have collected. On the left half are four polishes from a make-up set I received a few years ago and the make was called Colour Works, I think it was from Superdrug. And on the right half a four polishes from a set of nail polishes I received a couple years ago and the make is called Cute or What, I am not sure where these are from. None of these are any good for stamping and I don't really use them much as they are just cheap sets so the formula isn't very good.

On the left half from left to right are; another Cute or What polish, Maybelline Nude Rose, Nails Inc Victoria and Natural Collection Topaz. On the right side from left to right are; a No7 polish (I don't know what shade it is called), OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry, Rimmel Sunshine and Rimmel Tangerine Queen.

I think most of these polishes I have bought randomly from Superdrug or Boots over the years and some of them are really old so not really sure if they are sold or not anymore.

The Nails Inc and OPI polishes I don't remember buying, I'm not really sure where they came from. These two polishes are also good for stamping, they don't look very opaque so I was surprised they worked so well, but they are quite dark.

On the left half from left to right are; Rimmel Green Grass, Rimmel Orange Bliss, Rimmel Golden Wonder and Sally Hansen Jungle Gem. And on the right side from left to right are W7 Gold Dazzle, Sally Hansen Fairy Teal and W7 Silver Dazzle.

The two Sally Hansen and W7 polishes I have purchased recently. I bought Jungle Gem from Superdrug and then found Fairy Teal on eBay for a lot cheaper than the one from superdrug, I think there was a £3 difference! both of these polishes work for stamping.

I bought the W7 glitters from www.nailpolishdirect.co.uk. These glitters are really nice, they can be applied so they don't completely cover the nail, I just put about 3 coats on the swatch wheel so that they did.

So that is all the polishes that I own and my opinion on normal polishes for stamping. I also tested the above polishes which are a set of nail art pens that I bought from eBay before I had discovered stamping. I was really hoping that these would work as most of them have gone quite thick and the polish inside is really opaque, but unfortunately they didn't work :(. I think this is probably because the quality of the polish is not very good as these were really cheap.

After researching on the internet I have seen a lot of people saying that Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri polishes are very good for stamping. I am going to order some of these as these can be found for a similar or cheaper price to Konad Special Polishes, but the good thing about them will be that they can also be used to paint your nails unlike the Konad polishes.

I hope this post has been helpful :)