British Nail Bloggers - Weekly Round Up!

Yet again, the ladies of the UK share their week in nails with us.

Emma has started a Quest for the Holy Grail in honour of the retirement of the a-england shade she has rarely used and is now trying to use it in a personal Holy Grail challenge at Emma's Little Corner.

Lyndsay at Pie's Eyes has taken a delivery of some new Christmas themed HB image plates for stamping with and has been trying them out to see how they perform.

In need of distracting this week Enigmatic Rambles' spent waay to much time painting frog eyes on her nails for a Sat-ART-Day nail challenge.

Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing has been doing some checkerboard themed manicures. Pink, White and Black and a more spangly Blue, Black and White checkerboard mani, which do you prefer?

Sam at Polished Art has made her second and final attempt at water marbling for the 31 Day Challenge. Never again!

More Halloween spookiness over at Never Mind Suzi, Steph is playing with ZOMBIES.

Jo at Northern Nails has been entering a few competitions this week, from skulls to coming up with Taglines!, She has also joined in with Pink October, with a lovely pink bead mani !

Polished Criminails has been busy showing us the OPI - Skyfall Collection this week in her Skyfall Swatch Series with an added insight to each of the corresponding James Bond films.

Vic's been carrying on with the Halloween theme but has also managed to fit in some non-Halloween related nail art. Her Frogs mani fits somewhere in between. Check out the cute pic of her two year old who insisted on getting frogs on his nails too!

Jazz has been continuing with her love/hate affair with frankens and has also been divulging in a little bit of Halloween nail art! Frankens! Glitter is appropriate no matter what the occasion!

Ruth finally posted up her first fishtail attempt this week!

Carlyn has fallen in love with OPI Diva of Geneva A gorgeous shimmering red then added a rose stamping design.

Charlotte at Charlottes-nails has swatched a polish from Born Pretty Store for a review post this week.

Wendy from Wendy's Delights has been going round in circles with her new Circular Magnetic & Magnetic Polish and while your over at Wendy's Delights check out her Nail Foil for the Llama A-Z Challenge.

Kerrie from PishPosh and Polish has been on holiday this week. She decided to try out some Sally Hansen Nail Effect Wraps to create Denim Nails and loves the result!

Mimi tries her hand at freestyle nails Halloween and thinks they are really cool!

Danielle gives her first tutorial on Black velvet manicure at Totally Nailed.

This week, The Crumpet has done a series of posts for Depression Awareness. Feel free to join in and share your story, or do a green mani in support.

Kerry at JustTalkNails has gone all out for Halloween with Daring Digits Trick or Treat a perfect Halloween glitter.

Here is a pastel green manicure with a glitzy difference for Abi's first post back at Volatile Varnish.

This week Sally of NailPron bared her soul with a green manicure and came out as an anxiety survivor, oh and she broke the news about the new Speciallita Hits Glitter World polishes.

Models Own Nude Beige & Stamping

This manicure really didn't turn out how I wanted it to, originally I was trying for a nice subtle floral effect for a night out but after I'd finished my nails reminded me more of an episode of Dexter or a murder scene.

The light flowery stamp really didn't take well to being stamped over the nude base and ended up looking more like blood spatter than the delicate ladylike manicure I had imagined!

My stamping technique was also clearly a little off that day too as the only finger which has worked well in my index finger, the rest are not stamped clearly at all which I think adds even more to the murder scene look.

I definitely want to give this stamp another go so hopefully I'll be back soon with a slightly more impressive attempt.  I used a red Sally Hansen Insta Dri to stamp which worked pretty well so if I take nothing else from this manicure at least I now know I have a decent opaque red to stamp with! ;)

Kiko 387 & Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Blue Plum Stamping

For this manicure I started off with Kiko 387, another beautiful cream polish from Kiko.  It's quite a hard to describe colour, a blue teal sort of shade but quite muted.  I love it and I didn't want to cover it up totally as it looks so pretty alone.

 

 

 

However I hadn't stamped for a few days so I had to add something, I decided to go with a dotty stamp from Cheeky plate CH6.

 

 

The dotty image didn't stamp too well, a lot of the dots had empty centres and no matter how many times I tried I couldn't get the stamp to pick up with them filled in.  As it happens I quite like the look so I am not too bothered but I do wonder whether this is a flaw in the plate or whether it's meant to look like this?

 

 

 

 

I love how this turned out, the base colour is still the main feature but the subtle dots add a little more interest to the manicure too.

 

Yankee Christmas & Winter Tarts

It's probably a little too early for this post, but I have been enjoying burning my Yankee Christmas and winter scents so much that I wanted to post and let others know how many lovely scents there were this year.

 

I have 7 of the Festive scents so far, 4 from the Q4 release (Yankee do 4 releases each year compromising of 4 or 5 new fragrances, generally Q4 is the one with the Christmas and Winter scents in) and 3 additional Christmas scents I picked up from my local stockist when I saw they had them in.

 

First, the Q4 tarts:

None of these really scream Christmas to me but they are definitely winter themed.

 

Snow In Love:

Fall In Love with this delightful blend of creamy, comforting woods and wintry powder freshness.

 

Cranberry Ice:

Refreshingly tart and sweet, A cool, stimulating rush of frosty red fruits bursting with a tangy sweetness.

 

Sugared Apple:

A deliciously sweet apple treat ... a perfect recipe of juicy apples sprinkled with sugar and vanilla.

 

Apple & Pine Needle:

Popular pine gets a fruity twist as crisp apple notes are combined with pine needle, cypress and cedar wood.

 

Overall, I was really pleased with these tarts, I bought them online as a set and hadn't smelled any of them before they arrived which was rather risky but worked out well on this occasion.  They definitely smell like their descriptions and they're all perfectly suited to winter and colder weather. 

 

Snow in Love and Sugared Apple are both very warm, soft scents perfect for a snuggly evening on the sofa whereas Cranberry Ice is very zingy and fresh and perfect for perking you up on cold, dull days.  Apple and Pine Needle was the one I was most concerned about as I feel like pine can tend towards a toilet sort of smell if it's not done right but this one is done right, the apple really comes through and it's a fresh, clean scent which is really pleasant to burn.

 

There is also a fifth scent in the Q4 release, White Christmas, which I have yet to try.

 

Then the additional tarts I picked up which are definitely Christmas themed in their names and wrapping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve:

Traditional holiday scents of a warm hearth, sugared plums, and candied fruits.
 

Happy Christmas:

Glad tidings of Christmas joy come wrapped in the happy scent of Christmas pines and festive fruits.

Christmas Cookie:

Buttery rich, vanilla scented, holiday sugar cookies.

 

I was quite surprised by Christmas Eve and Happy Christmas as they are both definite fresh, fruity scents which is not what I would immediatly link to Christmas, but that's a definite plus for me as I am not a big fan of many of the more spicy festive scents, I really dislike cinammon which means a lot of the usual festive tarts are off limits to me so it makes a lovely change to have fruity ones.

 

Christmas Cookie is an old favourite of mine, I have a candle too which I burn at the same time as my tarts in a different room so the scent wafts all through the flat.  I love it, it's sugary and warm and absolutely delicious, perfect for cold weather.  I'm tempted to stock up on a big batch of these to see me through until next Christmas!
 

Here's my sub-standard picture of my most recent festive haul.

 

 

I also want to try out Christmas Cupcake: An irresistible treat ... rich, moist vanilla cupcake covered with sweet buttery holiday icing.  I imagine it'll be similar to Christmas Cookie and probably the other cupcake scents Yankee have done in the past.

 

Have you started buying and burning your Christmas scents yet?  Which ones are your favourites?  Am I missing out on any you think I should try?

 

New HB Nail Plates from BF Beauty

A link on a Facebook group I use led me to the BF Beauty website, which features all sorts of beauty and nail products. It's a Hong Kong based site (I think) and to me looks very much like the Born Pretty store which sells similar items.

I was initially drawn to the site by their stamping plates which retail for just $2, for my first order I chose 8 of them. Shipping came to a very bargainous 60 cents! Plus, with your first offer you get a gift of some points to spend in the store which is equal to another $1 discount. All in my order of 8 plates and shipping cost me a total of $15.12 (for some reason the pates went through at $1.94 each) which is just under £10. Not a bad deal for 8 plates!

These are the ones I chose, mostly in preparation for up-coming Christmas manicures!

 

 

 

 

 



I placed my order on the 2nd of October and received a confirmation email saying they had shipped early on the 3rd of October, the plates arrived on the 15th of October, so pretty much exactly 2 weeks after I ordered. 

 

Not super fast but not too slow either and pretty good for a website based in Hong Kong (although oddly my package has a lot of German details on it and seems to have been delivered by Deutsche Post, so I'm not sure if they do maybe ship from Europe or have a warehouse there?).  However they got here I am pleased with the shipping time taken and they were well wrapped too so no complaints on that front.

 

Now that they've arrived with me lets see how they match up in real life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They look even better in person than I hoped!  There are some gorgeous images on there that I can't wait to try!  I have ideas for so many manicures using these plates already.

 

The plates don't have backing on them so they are a little sharp round the edges, no big deal though as I am happy to put backing on myself as I've done before.  They all came with a clear film over the front on the plates to protect them, I can now see why people have tried to stamp with a film on before, it's quite tough to see if you don't know it's there and there are no wrinkles to give it away!  The film came off without too much problems but did require a little bit of picking round the edges.

 

I did a few trial stamps to see how the images came out, they're not the neatest as it was late but they give a pretty good idea of what the images will look like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HB37 and HB26 come out worst in these examples, I think in part that is down to the designs being so small and complicated and in part down to my bad stamping technique.  HB24 isn't perfect either but again I think it's me rushing the stamping when they are such small images.

 

I am really pleased with these plates, the Christmas images in particular are fantastic and I can't wait to get started on doing manicures using them.  The only small issue I would mention is that some of the larger designs are an odd size, particularly on the feet images (both human HB26 and animal HB37) the larger design isn't large enough to cover the full nail but it's too large to look like you just meant it as one part of a design, I'm sure there are ways round this though and as a complaint it's a very minor one.

 

I was very happy with the service I received from BF Beauty and wouldn't hesitate to use them again, so much so that I have been back on the website already planning my next order!

 

Have you tried any of these plates?

Accessorize Sprinkles - Dragonfly & Bumble Bee

I was excited to try out these two new polishes after discovering them in my local Superdrug last week.  I couldn't decide which to try first so I decided to use both, one on each hand with an accent nail.  Here's how they looked:

 

 

Dragonfly is a green polish with lots of dark blue / navy glitter through it, in certain lights the glitter looks almost purple.  Bumble Bee is an orange polish with black glitter.

 

 

 

Both polishes applied well, these photos show 3 coats but they were pretty much opaque in two, I just did a third to get the glitter exactly how I wanted it.  I also did two layers of top coat to get a smooth finish as they do feel slightly bumpy on their own.

 

 

 

I'm not entirely sure the two polishes go together but I do love how they look on the nail, I think I would have preferred to just use one or the other than to mix the two though.

 

Bumble Bee is ideal for Halloween, I can't wait to do a themed manicure including it.

 

 

One downside of these polishes is removal, as with all glitter polishes they can be a total pain to get off, after trying to remove one finger with regular remove and cotton pads I gave in and went for the trusty tinfoil technique, I suggest you do the same!