Models Own Scarlet Sparkle

I love this polish, it's so hard to photograph though.  In real life it's like Dorothy's ruby slippers in nail form but the shine and sparkle just doesn't show in pictures.

This is 3 coats but it was pretty much opaque in 2, the base is a red jelly with loads of tiny red glitter peices through it.  It's definitely one of my favourite glitters and totally smooth with just one layer of top coat.

OPI Catch me in your net.

I borrowed this off a friend while we were away at the weekend, although it's a pretty colour I don't think i would purchase it myself as I have several similar in my collection already.  It's a pretty shimmery blue green colour with blue flakies through it.

Here I'm wearing it over a couple of coats of a Kiko polish in a similar shade.

You can see in this picture I am starting to get tip wear but considering it was taken on Thursday and the polish was applied om Sunday night I don't think that's too bad!

Rainbow Nails!

I decided to have another go at sponging a gradient manicure, this time I thought I'd go all out colour wise and try to create a rainbow look, here are the results, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Ombre Stamps

This manicure didn't exactly turn out as I meant it to.  After the glitter gradient disaster of the weekend I decided to try an ombre / gradient style manicure over the purple I was wearing, sadly that didn't go too well so I thought a stamp, or two, over the top would disguise it.  I'm not particularly happy with how it turned out but from a distance my nails look pretty good so I decided to keep it on for the day.

There are two Kiko polishes and a No7 for the gradient / ombre part, China Glaze Cheers to you for the animal print stamp and then Island Girl colour change neon pink for the lips and sunbursts.  I was initially going to do lips on all of the nails but they weren't showing up too well so I swapped to sunbursts for the second hand, sadly these didn't show up too well either... 

Despite the fact I'm not 100% happy with them they are my most commented on nails for some time so I guess they look better to other people from a distance than they do to me up close, which is no bad thing!

Weekend Nails

A quick round up post of my weekend nails.  I had a night out on Saturday so I went with the suitable sparkle Emerald City by Models Own.

On Sunday I decided to try and do a glitter gradient manicure but it went more than a little wrong...

So I did a quick cream manicure with Kiko 378.

I love how glitter manicure look when they are on but they aren't half hard to get off!

And finally, a current picture of the staining on my nails, maybe it's time I tried some denture tablets!

Kiko 379 & stamping

These are supposed to be feathers...

Kiko 372 & Stamping

With added stamping in Barry M white using a Bundle Monster plate.

These pictures have highlighted the horrendous state of my cuticles, I think I'll be getting some intensive therapy done on them this evening to try and sort them out!

My Kiko Obsession (& a little haul)

I discovered Kiko a few years back while visiting my parents house in Spain.  We found a Kiko store by accident as it was across from Sephora which we'd gone to visit at my insistence.  At the time the polish was on offer at €1,50 so I picked a few up to try them, along with some bits and bobs of make up.

It's now become a little ritual when I go to visit my parents that we always go to Kiko, I LOVE their polishes, in fact I would go so far as to say they are my favourite brand for nail colour.  At first we used to do a 2 hour round trip to a big shopping centre to satisfy my Kiko craving but more recently my dad has discovered a store just 20 minutes away from their house so it's not quite such an expedition.

Why do I love Kiko, and in particular their nail polishes, so much?  They have a fantastic formula and an amazing range of colours and the price is excellent for the quality.  When I initially started buying from Kiko the brand wasn't available in the UK and the prices were a good bit lower than they are now, despite the price hike I still love their polishes, especially when there is a new collection or special offer on. 

I always buy mine in Spain, although there is now a UK website which delivers and two stores in London, the main reason being I like to see the colours in person before buying and the price is the same in Euros as it is in Pounds, making it around 20% cheaper to buy in Spain.

This visit there was another offer on, each polish (including the new magnetic and crackle finishes) were just €2,50 so of course I had to stock up on the new summer collection colours and try out some of the crackles, here's what I got:

Kiko's cream finish polishes are my very favourite things, they apply so beautifully and have great colour pay off so I obviously had to make sure I chose a good few of them.  I also picked up 4 of the new crackle finishes which are excellent, far better than the China Glaze ones I have.  A random blue from the LE summer collection and a back up of the now discontinued glitter top coat.

The only downside?  I was travelling with just hand luggage so a lot of these beauties are still with my mum in Spain until I go back out in September.  I'll be posting pictures of the ones in I did bring back in future NOTD posts.  I also hope to post pictures of my whole Kiko army some time in the near future, I think I have around 75 now so it should make for a colourful post.

If you want to get your hands on some of these fantastic polishes then they are available on the Kiko website, not only are they on offer at £2.50, they are also on promotion 5 for the price of 4 at the moment so for just over the price of what two varnishes would cost you normally you can have 5!  I definitely recommend trying them out.

Belated Jubilee Nails

I wanted to add a few more, better quality, pictures of the nails I did for my mum and I the other week for the Jubilee celebrations.  While I was on holiday in Spain to visit them we went to a Jubilee celebration in The Park of Nations near where my parents live.  Mum and I decided we needed something a bit patriotic to set off our outfits and this was the result.

My accent nail.

Some slightly messy toes, I find it so hard to do any sort of nail art on my toes, althe blood rushes to my head and I get dizzy!

Mum's accent nails

Definitely a diamond Jubilee!

Holiday NOTD catch up.

I've been away in Spain visiting my parents for the last week or so, here are my nails while I was there.  All Kiko polishes.

I also have a post on my haul from Kiko, my very favourite nail varnish brand, and some more pictures of the Jubilee nails I did which took me forever so I feel like they deserve their own post.