Weekend Mani #22

It's another OPI weekend.  After a few weeks of not painting my nails due to decorating, I was really in a quandry as to which polish I would pick and so I thought a classic OPI shade which has been sitting untried in my box for quite some time now, was just what I needed to help me get my nail mojo back.

Let me introduce you to OPI Ink...

So hard to capture the complexities of this polish, it is an almost navy purple but has teeny tiny glass fleck particles through it, which, if you catch them in the right light bring a fuschia tone to the nail.   

Tried so hard to capture the almost duochrome effect that the glass flecks bring!  

As with most OPI, the formula was fab, two coats are all that I needed create an opaque finish and the pro-wide brush makes application a breeze.  

There's a lovely glossy finish and although it looks very much on the navy scale, it is definately more purple on the nail.  The glass flecks which make this polish so multi-dimensional is something you find with a lot of OPI polishes and they really do add that extra element.

There's some good swatches here. 

Once again, OPI hasn't let me down!

Here's the cheapest link that I can find where you can purchase this polish should you fancy it... here at Nail Polish Direct for £7.95 with free delivery.

Have you tried  OPI Ink before?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

We're All Stars!

So I promised a wee tutorial on how I did my starry nails and here it is!

First things first, if you are using a base colour apply it as you usually would. You can topcoat it now with a quick drying topcoat - can you say seche vite? - if you want to but it's not totally necessary.

Leave your basecoat to dry as long as possible, there is going to be tape involved and you want to minimise any chances of the base colour lifting.

I got this nifty little gadget from TKMaxx in their crafty section in the home department.  I was on the search for pretty much this exact size of star but had no joy in hobbycraft, all the punches there were too big.  

I found a UK based website which stocks the Knockout Punch Starter Kit for £8.06 + £3.50 Uk delivery, £7 international delivery.  A bit more than my £4.99 at TKmaxx, so please try there first!

That website has a selection of the Border Punch inserts, here, so you can get lots of different designs, they would be quite cute for maybe a scalloped edged french - I may investigate further! 

Get some Scotch Tape and place it on some baking paper, this makes it much easier to punch the shapes into the tape.  Punch the holes into the tape and when you are ready to use it, left the tape gently off the baking paper.

Place the tape over the nail, pop your polish over the top, give it a few minutes to dry and very gently peel the tape up.  The corners, or points, of the stars are inclined to lift - this is where a cocktail stick can come in handy if you need to do any small 'pinpoint' repairs. 

Hoorah!  I was chuffed with this! It is so simple to do and the tape on the baking paper trick was a revelation!

If you give this, or any nail art a go, I'd love to see it on instagram.  Find me @jodisayswhat 

Hugs,

Jodi
xxx

Weekend Mani #21

This weekends Mani is pretty much the opening of a whole new portal into my polish collection.  I purchased my first ever Indie polishes.  Indie's are made by independent polish makers who create and sell their wares and they are becoming big news in the nail world.  Things like glitter toppers, thermals and holo polishes are being thought up by these creative souls and being sold on places like Etsy.com, although a fair few indie brands now have proper websites and are run as proper businesses.  The polishes I bought were from Dollish Polish and they are all glitter bombs! 

The one I used this weekend is the full sized polish in the middle called 'Care Bear Stare'.  This is the one that prompted this purchase as I had previously vowed to stay away from indie's for the sake of my bank account.  However, I had been lusting after this one for a while and then saw that it was part of Dolly's restock and knew it would be mine! 

Once again, please excuse the cuticles and lack of clean up, I actually painted my nails at 1am on saturday morning as I was so keen to get this on my tips! Not sure how well you can see it, but the polish has little stars and butterflies in it, there is a butterfly on my ring finger.  Typical glitter + iPhone pic = hard to capture.  this combo is like a princesses dream.   

The base polish I used was part of my Mavala Delicious Collection, which is pretty much my favourtie selection of pastels ever.  It doesn't seem like you can buy the whole collection together anymore but you can buy trios and individuals.  I like Mavala polishes as they are small but not too small bottles.  Ideal for someone like my mum, who doesn't paint her nails too often but likes a pretty polish now and again.

Words fail me at describing this polish.  After using two coats of my Mavala base colour, I applied two coats of this baby.  The first coat, I swiped on as usual and the second coat I went fishing for the bigger particles and dabbed them on my nails.  That is one obstacle when applying such glittertastic polishes, you will have to go fishing for the big bits.

This has small circles, big circles, squares, big hexes, stars and butterflies in gorgeous pastel hues of purple, pink, aqua and silver all in a clear base with some iridescent glitter in it just incase the rest wasn't enough.  

Nev loves nail polish! And nail files and bags and shoes.  He was being a 'right sook' or suck up here as the square bottle was just right for rubbing his face against! 

Few tips for applying glitters like these would be to turn the bottle upside down for a good 10 minutes before application and use a cocktail stick if you want to strategically place any particular pieces, such as the stars or butterflies contained within this one. 

Love my new indies although I don't plan to purchase anymore just yet, I still have to have a good play with these three and explore some colour combos, prepare yourself! These were shipped from the states and did arrive pretty quickly after dispatch but one thing to always be mindful of is if you order from the states, customs may destroy a package containing polishes.

Do you own any Indie polishes?

   

Weekend Mani #19

Weekend Mani's are back!  I kinda lost my mani mojo although it is slowly but surely coming back, helped along by this little nugget right here.

Let me introduce you to 'My Current Crush' an O.P.I Liquid sand.

As with most of the Liquid Sands I have tried so far, you would get away with one coat, as in the pictures above and below.  That also had the added bonus of drying quicker if you are in a rush.

 This is two coats and it is perfectly opaque.  I really love this colour, it is just the perfect mid-purple and the silver glitter running through it just gives it that extra summin' summin'.

This post is a little picture heavy because I love it so... sorry.  I'm not sorry.

This was part of a set called 'The TXTure Effect' of which the other part was a 'Natural Nail' Base coat which is surprisingly something I have never tried from O.P.I before, I usually just use the Nail Envy as a base.

In sunlight this takes on an added warmth to it and the silver becomes more evident.  The texture is not overly abrasive, just enough so that every once in a while you find yourself stroking your own fingernails... just me then?!

As is standard, it features the O.P.I Pro-Wide brush for quick and easy application, unless you have tiny pinkies like me then the brush is a little bit too wide! 

I got this set in TKMaxx just before christmas for £12.99 and gave it to my mum to give to my brother to give me for christmas, yeah, that's how we roll at christmas.  I think most people are wary of buying a beauty products for someone has a stash to rival Superdrug but at the same time, I couldn't think of anything I would rather have than beauty, skincare or nails bits and bobs.  

Although Limited Edition, there are still one or two places where you can get this. 

I've never used this website before but they are offering free delivery as are Nail Polish Direct, here. If you do go a-browsing, particularly on Nail Polish Direct, watch out for some of the glitters that are priced at £19.95, I think 'The Living Daylights' and 'When Monkeys Fly' were the two I remember seeing priced as such.  There is no need for them to be that price, they are not hard to find so do shop around.

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend Mani #16

Yup, it's that time of week again! It's the weekend of indecisiveness for me I think, I have on this colour but as I am off work until Wednesday I may change it for something a bit more 'va-va-voom'! 

On my nails this weekend, I have 'meet me on the star ferry' by O.P.I.  This is from the Hong Kong Collection of 2010, of which I own a few others from that I didn't actually realise! 

This one is really difficult to describe, in the bottle it seems to be an almost mauve colour but with a touch of red and a silver shimmer running through it but on the nail it looks different in every light! It looks purpley, reddy, goldy, silvery, shimmery and frosty all at the same time!!

This shows it leaning towards purple.  The shine is amazing, I have no topcoat on in any of these pics. I don't know if the colour suits my skin-tone the best but that's a small niggle that most people probably won't pay any mind to.

Trying to capture the colour without the shimmer, turns out, it ain't that easy! Please excuse the peppy pig plaster, sliced my finger on a Gillette in the bathroom.  Strange I have peppa pig plasters and no kids...

In usual O.P.I. fashion, the formula was easy to work with and this was opaque in two coats.  I have three coats on my middle finger as I bumped it whilst the polish was still wet.

And there you have it, a polish captured in pretty much every light source I have at my disposal and still remains a bit of an enigma!! I like this polish and I wanted it for ages but I'm not as in love with it as I had hoped to be.  In fact, I'd quite like to put this on my gramma! (She's pretty cool though so...) 

Do you wear polish to suit your skin tone?

Are you a fan of shimmers? 

Hugs,

Jodi 

xxx

P.s. This is once again courtesy of my ipad.  Binx has chewed through my laptop cable and so I am awaiting delivery of (another) new one! Good job he's purdy!

Weekend mani #11

This mani is a bit different this week as it is the weekend of my chums hen night and hence the weekend I dress up as the cheshire cat!

 I posted about my clothes and accessories here, although there were a few slight changes.  Instead of a feather boa, I used two pink magic scarves and a purple one too, similar to these.  One of the pink ones acted as a belt and the other two were twisted together to give a striped effect.  Much more 'furry' than the boa and much less shedding too! I got them from the pound shop and I can use them again over winter, although Honey has kinda claimed the purple one! 

I also got some bright pink tights to wear along with the stripey socks. It's gotten very cold in Aberdeen this weekend.

Without further ado, onto the nails! I started off with a base of OPI nail envy matte and then used two coats of OPI Strawberry Margarita.  I have not taken that many pics of this as I have previously posted about my love of this colour here and here. 

Once they had dried thoroughly, I got some scotch tape and placed it on some greaseproof paper.  This is something new I have discovered and makes cutting out strips or shapes from the tape ALOT easier.  I then applied the strips of tape to my hand a few times before applying them to the nails.  

I then popped OPI Plum and Get it over the top, which is a lovely, shiny purple.  I was running quite late by this point and so only ended up doing two fingers on each hand like this as I didn't want to take the time to do them all and probably end up mucking them up or smudging them.  And that was it, I didn't bother with top coat as they were coming off the next day and I didn't want to risk smudging the lines.  

I made my own Cheshire cat mask, I even made the stick to attach to the mask completely from scratch.  I traced the smile onto some paper, coloured it in and then attached to some card with PVA glue to make it a bit more sturdy.  I was super chuffed with this little bit of DIY! Easily amused, moi?

This picture was taken before I applied my base, so apologies for any offensive porey bits! I was in a bit of a rush by this stage so couldn't go for the super dramatic cat eye that I was planning but this was effective enough.  I used Barry M Liquid eyeliner in 'Black', Maybelline 24Hr Colour Tattoo in 'Painted Purple', Collection Glam Crystals in 'Dancing Queen' (pink) and 'Shake it Up' (purple) and Maybelline 'The Rocket' waterproof mascara in 'Black'.  I think I put something in the crease too from the 'Heaven and Earth' MUA palette, pics here.

Lips were one of my new LimeCrime babies, which I will review soon, called Centrifuschia.  A blue toned pink that gave an impressive hit of colour.

The base was just my usual foundation with a hint of Hoola bronzer, my Mary-Lou miniser highlighter (review soon!) and my bourjois blush.  I kept it all quite minimal as the eye make-up and lips were enough to be getting on with! 

I was the only Cheshire Cat out and had a great night with the girls! And no hangover either! Yay!

What do you think of fancy dress?

Did you dress up for Halloween?

Hugs,

Jodi 

xxx

Weekend Mani #7

Another week has flown by and I'm back with more glitter! Just one nail this time though...

This is O.P.I polishes at it again, I promise I do own other brands, these just happen to be the ones I 'collect'.

So for the main blue I used 'Can't Find My Czechbook' and for the accent nail I used 'You're Such a Buda-pest' topped with the beautiful 'Polka.com' glitter.

There is something about Polka.com which just really sings to me as a glitter, I think the combination of colours suits me to a T.  It has small, circular purple glitters and larger hexagonal glitters in turquoise, a purple again and a fuschia pink.  For a change, I love that it has no silver, sometimes I feel the silver makes glitters so shiny, it's hard to distinguish the other colours!

I took this picture to try and persuade my boss that we could totally get away with wearing nail polish to work when it matches our uniforms so perfectly!  She was impressed by the colour match however wearing nail polish to work is the stuff dreams are made of for us.  

These were definately my favourite colours from the Euro Centralé collection, and I have used these several times on fingers and toes.

Showing the colours in sunlight, the blue (Can't Find My Czechbook) is a really good aqua blue but not an in your face aqua, it was opaque in two coats.  The lilac 'You're Such A Buda-Pest' is a very light lilac and has a slight shimmer running through it (supposedly) but my eyes are missing that completely! I used two coats of this also and although the formula was a touch thinner than 'Czechbook' it was still easy to apply.

Do you have any favourite glitter combo's?

Hugs,

Jodi

xxx

Weekend Mani #6

It only seems like two seconds since I posted my last weekend mani and yet here we are on the 13th Saturday until Christmas! Yikes!

This weekend, I wasn't sure what I was in the mood for and I was sorting out my polishes and stumbled across a pairing I had been meaning to duet for ages. Both shades are from the O.P.I NYC ballet soft shades collection of 2012 and I think they go beautifully together.  

Meet 'my pointe exactly' topped with 'pirouette my whistle'

'My pointe exactly' is a very sheer, jelly grey colour.  To me it is the perfect grey, I just wish it was a wee bit more opaque.  The picture above shows three coats and still an awful lot of VNL (visible nail line) but that is kinda the intention of the soft shades collection.  I suppose it's like the tinted lip balm of the polish world.  I found this to be quite easy to use albeit a tad runnier than I'm used to.  

I ended up using five coats to get the opacity I wanted and so drying time was a killer and I did smudge a few :-( This is then a great time to pop on a glittery top coat to hide any mishaps! 

'Pirouette My Whistle' is a clear based polish with tiny silver micro glitter and soft, matte white hexagonal macro glitter in it.  The bigger glitters do tend to sink to the bottoms and sides of the bottle and so it needs a good shake before applying. 

 I love this jazzed up neutral nail, it is another example of an easy to wear combo that would be suitable for all ages. 

This combo has however one mnajor drawback... I now really, really want to buy Illamasqua's most talked about polish, 'Raindrops'.  I have a link to some swatches here, by 'The PolishAholic' as she always has great pics! 

Maybe it's living in the granite city but I really do have a soft spot for grey polishes and adding the hint of sparkle is just the cherry on top.  It is almost like the flecks in the granite of my home toon.

Do you have a favourite combo of polishes?

What do you think of this as a wintery mani?

Hugs,

Jodi