review: o.p.i. skyfall collection mini's

left to right: 'live and let die' | 'the world is not enough' | 'goldeneye' | 'the spy who loved me'

hello beautiful people! for christmas my lovely mum bought me this stunning o.p.i. nail polish mini's set. my local hairdresser's actually stocks a lot of o.p.i., and she just picked up the set with the colours that she thought i'd like the most when she last had her hair cut. i am a huge fan of dark sparkly polishes so she chose the perfect ones for me! (apparently the other choices were pastels and a selection of bright pinks). i won't give you the details of my hairdressers, but you can purchase this set here. i've spent the last month trying out these beauties so now i can tell you exactly what i thought!

top left: 'live and let die' | top right: 'the world is not enough' | bottom left: 'goldeneye' | bottom right: 'the spy who loved me'

my favourite polish of the collection is 'live and let die'. it's a beautiful sparkly black with green and silver undertones, and looks so lovely on my pale skin. from afar it looks like a plain black but then it shimmers with such stunning colours in the light, i LOVE it. 'the world is not enough' is another polish that i loved; a shimmery silver with green, pink, purple tones. i thought this was kind of a unique and interesting take on a nude or subtle nail colour and it is so beautiful on.
'goldeneye' is the only polish that i wasn't head over heels with. firstly, it looks very opaque in the bottle, but is definitely more of a glitter top-coat when actually applied on the nails. i also found it quite difficult to take off; o.p.i. clear coats are incredibly strong, which is what the gold glitter flecks were suspended in, so it took me a while to get all the glitter off. however, it is gorgeous, and i think it would look lovely over a pale polish (perhaps models own 'utopia'?). the last polish is 'the spy who loved me', which i was avoiding using, to be honest. in the bottle it looks like a very strong red with gold flecks, which i didn't think would suit me, but on the nails it is actually a beautiful dark raspberry red and i ADORE it.
my only complaint with these polishes is that they are all sparkly and contain really fine glitter. other than 'goldeneye', i had no problem removing any of them, but i did notice that the glitter went all over my fingers when i was taking the polish off. i'm not sure if this is more of a comment on my nail polish remover than the actual nail polish, but i felt like it was worth noting.

so that is it! i hope you guys found this useful. please let me know if you bought any of the 'skyfall' polishes and what you thought of them. this is only a small sample of the 'skyfall' range so i'd love to read your reviews on the others - please link them below! thank you so much for reading! xx

review: primark nail wraps

hello beautiful people! on my last trip to primark i spotted their new line of nail wraps by the tills and was intrigued. they only cost £1 a pack, which is enough for all of your fingers and toes, so they seemed like the perfect choice for my first ever nail wrap experience! they had a lot of really cute designs but i fell head over heels in love with the beautiful dusty floral pattern, so picked them up to try out. 

when i first looked at the sizes they give you, i thought that most of them were going to be way too big and that i would just need multiples of the smallest sizes. however, i found that the smallest three strips were actually too small, and didn't cover the nail entirely. i have quite small hands and nails so i wonder if they would actually fit properly for anyone? the other nail wraps were a bit too big but it was really easy to trim them to the size i wanted before applying. they were so easy to apply and are basically like stickers; rub them between your fingers to warm them up, stick them to your nail, fold over the edge, and then file your nail to remove the excess.
i found the nail wraps to be really strong and they didn't start to peel at all. i did notice that they chipped a little, but no more than your average nail polish. i do wish that they were a bit sturdier, but maybe that's just because they're from primark, and for only £1, i can't really complain. the nail wraps were really easy to take off, they just peeled off straight away. they scuffed the nail a bit, which was quite annoying, but a good clear coat would've taken care of that just fine.
overall, i really like these nail wraps. they're cheap, easy to use, and look adorable, so what more can you ask for? the only thing i can think of to make the experience better is to use the wraps designed for your toes, which are the larger set, instead of the ones designed for fingers, so that you can cut them down to fit your nail perfectly.

have you guys tried the primark nail wraps? what did you think? xx

skeleton nails

i'm currently doing an enterprise project for my textiles a-level which means that i'm constantly sewing, dyeing fabric, using pins and needles, etc., so i have neglected my nails for a really long time because i didn't see the point of painting them just to have them ruined the next day. however i came across this image of some girl's nails and i decided to copy it. :-)

the original is much better than my take, though. i have tiny hands so my nails are very small and it's hard to get good detail, even with nail art pens. i got a lot of compliments on them though!

i used barry m's berry ice cream as a base and i added the skeleton design with the black and white nail art pens that i got in the set that i got for christmas. they're unbranded but are easily available on ebay, just search 'nail art pens' or 'black nail art pen' or something. xx

nails of the day - 29.04.2012

barry m 'berry i/c' & nicole by opi kardashian kolor 'rainbow in the s-kylie'

i can't believe it's been so long since i blogged here! usually i like to wait at least 3 days after posting before i post something else and i didn't think it had been this long at all!

this kardashian kolor nail polish is my new favourite. everything hypes so much over 'rainbow connection', which i do love, but i have to prefer this one because i can't really compare them on my nails. as much as i'd love 'rainbow connection', i just think generally, all opi glitter polishes are amazing.

because some of the glitters are so big, i thought they'd chip off so easily but the clear nail polish they are in is SO STRONG. i've had this on for at least a week and the glitter hasn't chipped once! (kind of annoying though, because if you get glitter on your skin it's a pain in the arse to get off). xx

nails of the day - 01.03.12 - usa

since i have less than a month to go until i go to florida, i decided to test out my new nail art pens and recreate the usa flag! these were really easy to do, although they took a little while as i had to wait for the base to dry before i could do the stripes, and then the stripes had to dry before i could do the blue bits, etc. 

i used 17 lasting fix nail polish in 'mini skirt' as a base. i also used my rimmel lycra prop matte finish mattifying topcoat as i still have yet to get a plain clear coat nail polish and i didn't want to chance any unwanted chipping. 

i also used these nail art pens that i got for christmas. they're un-branded, they came from china and my mum ordered them from ebay. i think they were around £8 for a set of 24. obviously they're not the best polishes ever and you don't get to choose the colours, but they do me just fine for amateur nail art. they're so cheap that you can't really go wrong - you can get sets of 60 pens for £20! be warned though - these smell horrible! brand nail polishes usually use scents to disguise the chemical smell and these smell awful. i'd use them with a window open and not to near your face if i were you! 

i store my nail art pens in this cute little plastic crate. it was 99p and from wilkinsons, and is the perfect size and height!

thanks for reading. :) xx

freddie mercury nails

for the 20th anniversary of freddie's death, i painted my nails like this. when most people think of 'freddie mercury nails', they probably think of nails with pictures of freddie on them (like katy perry's russell brand nails) or nails that say 'freddie mercury'. these are more based on the nail polishes that freddie actually used himself. (sorry for the bad photo- i was running late, which is why some of the pink nails are a bit smudged as well).

during queen's glam rock phase in the 70's, freddie was big on straight hair, black eyeliner and black nail polish as part of his stage outfits (my favourite of that era being his white batwing outfit). he could only paint his left-hand nails though, which is why my left-hand nails were painted black.

freddie also wore bright pink nail polish to match his earrings, lipstick and jumper (?) in the 'i want to break free' video.

both images of freddie were found on google images and are not my own.