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Nail Art Stuff
horseriding mani!
Pinky: Nfu Oh 67, 3 coats. Ring finger Color Club Pardon my French (I think, no label!) stamped with some horses from my first ever proper stamping plates, whee! Stamped using a-england Excalibur, and BYS Black Satin. Middle nail has a franken pink holo with silver blings, and ring finger and thumb have Star Kin (ours, yay!) Grayceful.
And then, winter happened, and no horseriding. Poos. But it’s funny because some of these horses have no heads. Not the stamps fault, my fault, but it’s great 😀
Winter mani – all except accent nail: Coral Colors Jayded something (no sticker), stamped with Color Club Worth the Risque – aiming for a frozen, icy lake effect 😀
Then my accent nail has two coats of Boe Beauty Red Hot polish, which is sponged with Cult Nails Annalicious and Nfu Oh 74 , then stamped with BYS Black Satin for the outline of the fire. The ‘sparks’ were sponged on Vivid Lacquer Pumpkin Hangover.
Sad Panda Nails: Three coats of Boe Beauty Ballet Pink, stamped with panda stamps, and bamboo.
I’ve started using a sticky stamper, which is silicon and very sticky and works brilliantly, BUT… it falls out of the stamper, and then when I use it on it’s own it distorts the image. I’ll glue it in, I think, I really like it, just to get around that design. 🙂 The green is China Glaze Jolly Holly, the black is China Glaze Liquid Leather, I have two black blingies for the panda’s ears on my little fingernail, and it’s all topped off with L.A. Colors Rapid Dry top coat.
And a stronger stamping pattern, using China Glaze Liquid Leather again as the black stamping polish, and Mmmm Nails Between the Buns (that NAME!) as the base coat.
I loved this… so much it was still on my nails two days later. I KNOW. 😀 It reminds me of very elegant curtains. Yes. I do love it, I keep looking at it, I think stamping over a multichrome nail polish will be a win for me, as can’t lose with a multichrome anyway.
And another quick one that was an attempt to unfug a polish – Zoya Akyra, just a weird colour on me. I stamped fish on my nails, using A-England Excalibur, and green ‘water weeds’ using A-England St George (too faint to see, sadly).
And added a nice coat of piCture pOlish splash for added aquatic effect, plus top coat, MUCH BETTER!
And last for now, before this becomes a monster post with a life of it’s own, this was a mani I wore for my very first protest, against the testing of legal highs on animals. GRRRRR.
Cannot believe we have to protest this, because the government wants to make animal testing of dangerous PARTY drugs mandatory. Words can’t express how angry I am about that!
Anyway, this was a base of Model’s Own – in Little Lemon, two coats over Kleancolor White. I’d show swatches on it’s own, but the white base was so streaky that it was really ugly 😀 Whoops!
And I stamped puppies, cats and paw prints over it, using China Glaze Liquid Leather, and top coat, which smeared the stamping polish, whoops. I did colour correct these photos to show how neon yellow this polish is, so ignore the greenish fingers :D. This is an amazing neon polish! 😀
Have a wonderful day
Ami
Cult Nails Annalicious: Re-Swatch
I posted some swatches of Annalicious quite some time ago now, and I still feel embarrassed about them. Sometimes I post terrible photos and I don’t feel that bad, because the polishes aren’t anything super special. But this is a pretty special polish, so here I go again, to try and do it some justice this time!
These photos show three thin, easy to apply coats, and China Glaze Fast Forward top coat.
All in the evening sunlight, which makes that gold shimmer shine like crazy!
Dry time was pretty quick on this, and it lasted an average length of time.
This is such a lovely, happy red!
Have a great day
Ami
Revlon Royal plus Cult Nails Seduction
Remember how I said I bought some Revlon nail polish, against my better thoughts? Well… this is the main reason why. Revlon Royal. A polish I have had mad longings for since I first saw it, about a year ago now I guess. And while a large part of me is disgusted at my sell-out-ness, another part is cackling and holding this pretty to my bosom 😀
no top coat!
One thing I didn’t know is that it dries satin. Plenty of neon pigment in here! It is my perfect blue. I love love love this colour. I did know the formula was going to be a pain, and good thing too, because it really is. Not very streaky; this is two coats and it’s even enough, but watery, and with random blobs of polish to come screaming down the brush at the last second and SURPRISE! SMURF FINGERS! 😀
As soon as I saw this on, I thought “Cult Nails Seduction.”
Pretty, pretty, pretty. This is the original two coats of Royal, with one layer of Seduction (boy are those flakies packed into that polish!) and a top coat – Kleancolor Fast Dry (lies, it doesn’t dry that fast at all, but it was all I had).
I did really like this, but I couldn’t capture the green shift in the flakes! Next time. I’ll try harder next time. These photos are all in the golden light – before twilight, but this looked lovely any time of the day.
Inside… and showing the red a bit more
Have a colourful day
Ami
Cult Nails: I Got Distracted – Swatches
Cult Nails: I Got Distracted
The colours in this are just spectacular – it’s very dark but not at all black, there are round green glitters and a HEAP of holographic glitter too: it looks like a evergreen forest made of rainbows, sitting on your nails.
Inside lighting 🙂
You can see in this blurry shot that there is almost a linear holographic effect in the bottle – its a lot more scattered on the nail, but very present.
This is a gritty glitter. Its not as rough as some of the others can be, but definitely needs a couple of top coat layers.
with toy tractor necklace! 😀
Macro…
And full hand shot 🙂
And the next day, it needed another coat of topcoat – it sort of ate the top coat overnight. Funny! But one thin coat of Kleancolor Fast Dry and it was smooth again.
Outside indirect sun
I utterly adored this polish, and am so glad I bought it. Out of the three I bought, this is my favourite – and that’s saying something, because I LOVED the other two, too!
Have a great day
Ami 🙂
Cult Nails Annalicious – quick swatches (plus bonus Ozotic 509)
This is Cult Nails Annalicious – one of the three Cult nails polishes I am a proud owner of, after Maria’s recent birthday sale. Wheee! This is Annalicious, a gorgeous mid red with red and gold shimmer.
Bottle close-up to show that gorgeous shimmer!
This is a stunning red. Just beautiful. And would you believe I had one of ‘those’ days and managed to muck up application, photos, and everything that could be mucked up?! It makes me quite unhappy, actually, to do such a poor job of swatching this. I WILL be doing justice to it later – but in the meantime, please accept these as substandard photos of the real thing, but may give some idea of the polish?
These photos have base coat and two coats of Annalicious, no top coat. All in the shade, no sun today. It covered beautifully in two coats, but I think I’d have preferred a third to deepen the colour that little bit more.
Cult Nails are Big 3 free, and don’t test on animals. These polishes are normally US $10 for 15ml – on sale they were US $7.
Macro… shade 🙂
Then, just for fun, I put a thin layer of Ozotic 509 over the top – which kept the depth of the red colour, and added an awesome holographic finish.
Love these polishes!
Have a great day
Ami
Cult Nails Seduction: Swatches and Layering
I know I’ve posted about Cult Nails Seduction before, but I really wanted to show you all this gorgeous polish on it’s own. This is three coats of Seduction, no base coat, Orly In A Snap top coat.
Outside, indirect sunlight 🙂
As you can see, it’s a sheer jelly base, so there is still some visible nail line. I prefer this layered, but I do love the colour of the base jelly too, and the depth of all those flakies. Formula was good, though a little thick, this polish is completely packed with flakies so every brush stroke just puts a million on. It’s brilliant. Dry time was quite slow, due to the thickness, but we got there in the end 😀
Wear time was good also!
Inside, kitchen lighting! heh heh heh
And for comparisons sake, here are some photos from earlier: Seduction over Color Club Wild at Heart
And macro…
And Seduction over Kleancolor Neon Sapphire.
Have a rainbow day (and I hope this has made up for the Water Marble of Ugh!)
Ami 😀
Kleancolor Neon Sapphire Swatches and Layered with Cult Nails Seduction
Not a neon! Definitely a nice dark sapphire colour. Almost identical to my NYX Ink Heart I think (post), but I’m just A-OK with that, as they’re both gorgeous deep midnight blue jellies. Blue, too, obviously not black. And they make my fingers look paler, and elegant.
This is two coats, it was VERY thick. I might drop some thinner into it, now that I have thinner (squee!) I’d rather do three thin coats that dry fast then two thick coats that don’t.
Sunlit photo…
Then I thought, oooh, I’ll layer on Cult Nails Seduction, see what that looks like! Over purple (like the Color Club Wild at Heat – post here) it looked reminiscent of Orly Fowl Play; however it does look quite different over this blue.
See? Beautiful!
This is one coat of Seduction, and Orly In A Snap to top it off. It did take a while to dry though, which was a bit of a pain. I think it took so long because Neon Sapphire was so thick. I loved the blue flakies against the blue jelly base, it really looked like fire in a sapphire to me. Usually I prefer colour contrasting top coats, but I didn’t this time!
Wear time was pretty good considering the thickness of the polish. It did stain really badly on removal, but I didn’t put a basecoat on (facepalm). I’d seriously recommend two coats of basecoarand a quick removal with tissue on hand to take the runoff of your skin. Or embrace the smurf look, as I did. Whichever works best! 😀
Have a great day!
Day 09: Rainbow Nails – and introducing Cult Nails Seduction!
Day 9 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge – Rainbow Nails!
Now, I did toy with the idea of painting some kind of rainbow on my nails, but then I saw my bottle of Seduction by Cult Nails… waiting … seductively… and I thought, hey! That’s a rainbow! And I really want to wear it.
Introducing Cult Nails Seduction!
I’ve been wanting to try Cult Nails for some time, and am so excited to finally get some of their beautiful polish. Seduction is a multi-toned flakie top coat in a Methalene Blue jelly base – I’m keen to try it on it’s own, and layered over blue and black at some point. This, however, is over Color Club Wild at Heart (you may remember it from such posts as day 06. Yeah, multi-using and storing up photos, cunning lazy person that I am!).
Indoor lighting…
I did love this combo, although it reminded me very strongly of Orly Fowl Play – which, you know, is a good thing. This one though, has that slight holographic shift peeking through – oh yeah. FTW (er, meaning For The Win, as opposed to what I originally thought it meant, from the early 90’s. The world IS a nicer place than it was).
These flakies flash electric blue, red, orange, green and yellow. You will be seeing more of this stunner later, for sure.
What do you think of my rainbow interpretation? Cheeky? 😀
School Visits and Cult Nail Mail
Today was my eldest son’s first school visit. I found out on Friday that the visits were starting today, and I cried all afternoon – pretending I wasn’t. It seemed to work, he is so excited to be starting – it’s adorable!
He had a great day – and it was lovely to see how great the teachers and kids were, and I think he’ll be really happy there. It’s a world away from the primary school I went to, so I don’t need to worry about that. It’s just… he’s my boy. My firstborn, and it feels like he was a newborn only yesterday – and now he’s almost a school boy! He’ll be 5 years old in 2 months time; we’re starting the visits early to make the transition easier for him (and for me, it seems!). You see, when he was 2 and a half he was diagnosed with mild autism. It’s very mild: he’s super advanced in some areas (IT, engineering and mechanical areas, as well as being a all round action boy), but quite behind in speech and social skills – although that’s improved a LOT in a year. So, I’m very protective of my boy – and I’ll plain and simple miss his company during the day. However, he’s ready for it, they’re one of the best schools I’ve ever seen, and I’m feeling a lot better about it now.
And, even better, I got home to nail mail – and even better, nail mail from CULT NAILS. WHoooooP! Could it have arrived on a better day? No! Here they are, all wrapped in their cushy brown – what is it? Fibre? Its not paper, it’s all padded – burrito wraps, in a box, with cotton balls for extra packaging. Gorgeous – take note, Ninja Polish, please!
Snug as a bug in a rug (but more likely to get through customs..)
And these are the three polishes I chose during Maria’s recent $7 polish sale for her birthday.
Seduction, I Got Distracted, Annalicious. Hair is an optional extra, supplied by my kids. whoops, why didn’t I SEE that before I took the photo?
Annalicious, Seduction, and I Got Distracted. Stunningly beautiful polishes, I can’t wait to try them. And then my lovely neighbour N bought me a visual diary (I’ve been keen to try to start one for jewellery and paintings), and the coolest L.A. Girl Color Addict polish(it has no sticker, but it looks like it could be Obsess) – she knows me well. I feel very spoilt. 🙂 I’ll show you all Obsess very soon!
everysensory and Star Kin 