Tutorial: Neutral leopard print

Here is my latest NOTD. Having to keep it tame for work so I like to think of it as subtle leopard print.  It's so simple to do yet I got lots of compliments so I thought I may as well do a step by step guide despite the fact that you have probably seen it 1000+ times before :)  Trust me, anyone can do this!

All you need is three things. A base colour, a nail art pen (or fine paintbrush and top colour) and a clear top coat. I used Essie's Chinchilly as my base coat which is a lovely greige! For the leopard pattern i whipped out my trusty Sally Hansen nail art pen in black (don't know what I would do without it)I finished it all off with my favourite Chanel top coat. Viola.

All you do is apply the base coat and wait for it to dry. On top of that draw leopard spots (or attempt to like me) I embraced the messy spots! Apply the clear top coat and you are done.

Rawr!  Told you it was easy!

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday :)

(Also I have a GREAT tutorial heading your direction so watch out)

NOTD: Stripey Nails

Good Morning everyone!

So I am sick again so I haven't been wearing any makeup lately so I'm back with another nail polish post. 

Being cooped up inside made me restless so I decided to jump on the nail art bandwagon by copying a WAH design. I love WAH nails and their blog is one of my favourite places to browse and get inspiration. Here is the design I ripped off.

I think I need to practice for a month straight to get to WAH level!

To create these babies I used Sticky Tape, Essie Tart Deco, Essie Van D'go, Ulta3 Lily White, Chanel Laque Brillance Extreme, Sally Hansen Nail art pen in black. 

It was a bit fiddly but I had fun doing it. My right hand is a bit dodge, straight lines are hard with your left hand! 

I am definitely going to track down some of the Model's Own & WAH nail art pens, has anyone tried them??

Happy Friday

Imogen x

Aztec Inspired NOTD

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Hi Beauties,

I have seen lots of gorgeous Aztec inspired nails all over the place lately so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and here is what I ended up with..

I had a lot fun doing it but my thumb was as far as I was going. I have nowhere near enough patience or skill to do my other fingers that's for sure. It was actually reasonably easy and I am really happy with the finished product. When I have a bit of spare time I will definitely sit down and have another play around and see what I come up with.

Anyway if you are curious how I did it the instructions are just below :)

Here is what I used; 
Essie Lilacism

Ulta3 Spring Fling

Ulta 3 Lily White

Essie Lapis of Luxury

Seche Vite

Sally Hansen Black nail art pen

Sticky tape

1. I started off by cutting the sticky tape into small strips and stuck them on my nail creating stripes, with 2 sections of my nail showing and 2 not. I painted the gaps between the tape, one gap with Lilacism and the other with Lapis of Luxury 

2. After waiting for them to dry I peeled off the tape and painted the remaining two stripes on my nail another 2 colours - Spring Fling and Lily White

3. After that dried I used the black Sally Hansen nail art pen to draw the patterns over the nail, this is where you can let your creative side out and do whatever you please!

4. I simply let that dry and applied a layer of Seche Vite over the top to stop the pen from smudging

5. I then painted the rest of my nails with Spring Fling

And there we have it. Pretty simple as long as you have a bit of spare time hanging about.

Have a lovely day!

Nail tutorial - Gold & Silver Leopard

Seeing as I'm going through a bit of a leopard print phase I thought I would have a crack at gold and silver leopard print. I think it's kind of cute so I thought I would show everyone step by step how I did it.

So here is how I got this result...

It was surprisingly simple to do and I used; Ulta3 polish in Antique Copper, Ulta3 polish in Silver Grey, Seche Vite, Black nail art pen and a thin paintbrush.

I started of by applying 2 coats of the gold colour for the base & let it dry completely.

Then using the paintbrush I used the silver polish to paint small random spots & shapes on each nail. It was really hard to capture the silver on the gold but hopefully these pics give you the general idea.

Next I outlined the silver spots with the black nail art pen. I wasn't too fussed being to precise so I just roughly went around the edges. Once the nail pen dried I applied a coat of Seche Vite. Make sure the nail art pen is compelety dry or you will smudge it like me. Patience is not my strength!

And that is it. Done and done

 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend and doing very productive things like painting their nails!

:)

Give me a fat lip!

I love luscious lips! I wish I had bigger lips but unfortunately my lips aren't that plump so I will have to settle for the quick fix, lip plumping glosses. I choose the Sally Hansen Lip Inflation extreme mainly because it was inexpensive ($7), claimed to be extreme and I didn't mind having a new clear gloss anyway. 

First of all I love the packaging. The long shiny gold tube is much nicer than other glosses I own. Instead of the slanted sponge it has a brush which I don't mind. This one is just a clear gloss with no colour or shimmer.  It's supposed to be cinnamon flavoured but I thought it smelt like on old cinnamon smell. The scent is reasonably strong. You can smell it on your lips and I didn't find it very pleasant.

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The gloss itself is nice, its high shine, not too sticky with decent staying power. When I first applied it it did tingle and almost sting but it was nothing unbearable. Now I wouldn't go as far to say that I have "pale thin lips" but I could do with a little extra help so without further ado here are the before and after snaps.

Before 

After

Honestly I don't think it had a plumping effect on me. I definitely don't think it gave me lips to rival Angelina's! The gloss may make my lips appear slightly bigger because of the shine it adds but as you can see the difference in minscule! Oh well at least I have a new clear gloss which I'm sure will come in handy.

What do you think?

Glitter Leopard

I got a bit adventurous with the nails today - Glitter leopard. I have been putting of an assignment I have like crazy and this is what I managed to do instead. Very productive I think :p

The photos don't quite do them justice. The leopard print does stand out more in real life and they are pretty sparkly which you can't quite tell in these pictures.  

Here is what I used to create these babies.

It was super easy, here's what I did it;

♥ I started off by applying my Orly base coat

♥ I then applied 2 coats of Essie's Playa Del Platnium (which is a really nice greige)

♥ I then used my Sally Hansen nail art pen and attempted (very dodgely) to create a leopard print pattern.

♥ Ove the top I applied a cheap glitter polish by BYS in silver over the top. The glitter layer works really well at it sort of disguises the leopard print if you have done a bad job like me, especially on my right hand. Next time I would use glitter with a thinner consistency as it covered up the leopard a bit more than I would have liked.

That's it! I was suprised with the amount of compliments I got about them today.  I want to do gold toned glitter leopard next time. I think that would be awesome.

Not long until the weekend, yay :)

NOTD: Polka Dots!

Here is my nail of the day featuring my new Sally Hansen nail art pen as promised. It's nothing outrageous, i don't know if I'm that talented at nail art! I think I will need a bit of practice to progress from polka dots.

 

I used Revlon Lilac Pastelle as the base - which is a great colour. I have been in the hunt for a nice pinky purple and i think i have found it. It applied really nicely too. I don't have much experience with Revlon nail polishes so I will be interested to try Peach Petal to see if it is as great.

I used my new Sally Hansen nail art pen in black for the dots. I'm liking this pen, it's super easy to use and the possibilities are endless. I think i'll have to get one in white too. 

Hope you're having a fantastic weekend :)

Nail Art

Hey lovelies,

I picked this Nail Art pen up the other day and wanted to share it. It's the Sally Hansen nail art pen in black. I know you can achieve pretty much the same with a gel pen but I saw it and thought why not. 

The tips looks a bit thick but you can get a fine line. I'm excited thinking about all the possibilities, i just wish i had a steadier hand!

Here is an ad for the pens which I like. I'm not sure how'd I'd go trying to do those neat sqaures though!

[Source]

This one is black but they had 8 different colours to choose from so I can imagine my collection slowly growing. I have only mucked around with it so far and it seems really easy to use, I thought it might be harder actually.

The only thing drawback is the drying time before putting a top coat on, but I am quite impatient!

I'm just about to go experiment with it so keep an eye out for a NOTD putting this to use coming up very soon I promise :)

Has anyone tried these?