BPS Review | Colourful Feather Water Decals (plus, dry marble!)

Hello, my beautiful readers! Today I have a pretty design featuring some nice water decals from Born Pretty Store :)

These colourful feathers were sent to me to review for you today. Verdict? They're gorgeous! Click the jump to see more!

Purple & Yellow Drag Marble

Hello! I didn't do a specific Easter manicure this year, but this purple and yellow drag marble reminds me of a Cadbury Creme Egg wrapper!

(click to enlarge)

This was a quite simple one to do... I painted on one coat of Orly Charged Up, the purple creme, as my base, and let it dry. Then I applied a second, thick coat of it, and added some blobs of Zoya Darcy, the yellow creme (although it has a veeerryy slight shimmer, I say it's a creme). I used a thin striping brush to gently drag the polish around, swirling it for this marbled look. You have to be careful using opposite colours like this--too much swirling and it just gets muddy brown. I actually had to re-do one nail because I got too drag-happy, but I like the end result a lot.

Seche Vite on top for shine and longevity, as usual :)

I love when I can get a complicated-looking, eye-catching design in 10 minutes! What do you think of this one?

Thanks for reading today--see you next time! xoxo

Black & Silver No-Water Marble

Hello! Today I've got a pretty swirly look that's a lot easier to do than it seems :)

Shimmery Marble-Accent Mani

Hallooooo :)

Before I get started--I want to quickly leave a link to a recent post on my Facebook page. If you're interested in any of the products I use and would like to get them for a very low price, or if you have any feedback for me, go check out that post! I'd love to hear your nail art requests, or other ideas for what you'd like to see on the site.

Now then, on to today's nails! I was recently inspired by this video on YouTube, and wanted to do a colourful design with water-marbled accent nails. But some things happened, and it ended up more random and skittley than I'd planned. I'll explain! ;)

Outdoors in sun

If you watched the video above, you have the basic idea of what I was trying to do: marble with three colours on the ring finger and thumb, then paint each of the other nails solidly with one of the shades in the marble. I wanted a nice shimmery design, so I chose China Glaze Blue Year's Eve (blue), Zoya Ivanka (green), and Color Club Daisy Does It (yellow), and the marbling itself went well!

But, as I was cleaning the excess polish off the water surface, preparing to take my marbled nails out of the cup, I accidentally touched the cotton swab I was using for this to my yellow middle nail, and a swirly blue and green blob was left behind. At first, I got all annoyed and thought I'd have to redo it... but then I realised that blue and green blob was pretty, so I swirled it around a little, and dabbed more splotches over the rest of the nail to make a speckly look. Cool, right?

Once that was done, I had to jazz up the other plain nails, so I pulled out coordinating blue, green, and yellow Born Pretty Store glitters and applied them to the areas you see. Finally, I topcoated with Seche Vite.

Indoors with flash

Outdoors in shade

The marble on the thumbs. Righty, y u so short for? I used a pale yellow creme as a base for the marble, so that's why the blue looks turquoise on the right hand. I used more drops of Blue Year's Eve when I got to the left hand so the colour would be more saturated :)

Outdoors in shade. And with a towel.

Speaking of Born Pretty Store, now is probably a good time to share some news! I'll be doing some product reviews for you soon, and I have been given a special code so that YOU can receive 10% off any order! They sell not only oodles of nail art supplies, but hair, makeup, and other beauty products too. The prices are great, and they even ship worldwide for free! Check them out at http://www.bornprettystore.com/ and use code CITYG10 for your discount sitewide! 

I hope you liked these. See you next time! xoxo

Black & White Fan Brush Marble

Hello! I bought a fan brush the other day, finally. Here's the first thing I did with it!

Purple Zoya Swirl

Good day :)

As I hinted at in my last post, I got some new Zoya polishes in my late-birthday package! Two of them are purple, and I thought they'd be so nice together, I did a swirly-marble mani with them:

Ozotic Swirl with Crystal Cross Accent

Hullo everyone!

Today I have a slightly pic-heavy post showing off a fun swirly duochrome look.. but before that, I want to quickly mention something of which Rebecca reminded me recently:

Paraphrased from her page--because she summed it up perfectly: "Facebook is going to be showing posts from pages like mine to less and less people. A Facebook spokesperson said, 'the best way to get your stuff seen if you’re a business is to pay for it.' I will not pay Facebook to share posts that I create and share for free." (This hobby is expensive enough as it is, amirite?!)

This means you might not see my posts anymore in your news feed. If you want to be sure you get my updates on Facebook, like or comment on something from my page. If you do, it should ensure that you continue seeing my updates there! Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter, where I post every update as well as #notd and sneak previews, plus occasional other little tidbits I find :) Or Bloglovin'; they haven't turned evil and started charging (yet?)...

And now, on to the nails!

Outdoors in shade

Luxe Mint & Coral

hullo hullo :)

Here is a pretty mint-and-coral swirled design with a luxurious accent nail!

Indoors with flash

The base for all nails is the gorgeous Sinful Colors Mint Apple. A creamy mint polish with lovely shimmer and a wonderful formula, it's one I recommend any day of the week.

After the first coat was dry, I set to work on the accent nail! I used the flakie polish shown above--China Glaze Luxe And Lush (hence the title of this post). Big chunky iridescent pieces in a clear base--it's awesome! I painted two coats, and then used an orange stick to pick out individual pieces to fill in the gaps, as I wanted the entire nail to be fully covered in opalescent flakes.

Outdoors in sun, kinda. It was rather overcast today but I caught a few rays :)

For the rest of the nails, I placed a few small drops of Mint Apple as well as a drop or two of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Snappy Sorbet--a orangey-coral creme that picks up the peachy tone in the flakies really well. (They photographed more pink than peach, but they're closer in colour-family in real life.) I used a small striping brush to swirl these drops together gently to create a marbled look without having to do water-marbling. Learned this technique from Robin Moses!

Outdoors in shade

It's all topcoated first with Maya's Smoothing Coat for Glitter, and then Seche Vite on top for quick-drying shine.

I need to use this marbling technique more often! I actually quite enjoy water-marbling, but this is much easier and less messy. I also think I need to do an entire manicure of flakie mint nails like that--how pretty did those come out?!

Hope you enjoyed today's design. Come back soon for more! xoxo