Barry M - Tropical Florals

Tonight on the blog, I have some hand painted flowers for you.

The inspiration to do this design actually came from a pair of flip-flops - one's that I am wearing right now, actually.

Please excuse the picture quality. My camera has dropped a million times and I'm actually surprised that the thing even works now! Time to upgrade methinks. Anyway, back to the nails...

 Barry M's 'Green Berry'.

 The art is a combination of Barry M's 'Pomegranite', 'Mango' (both from the Gelly Range), Milani 'Neon Pink', green from a random eBay nail striper and detailing with Nail Supreme nail art pens in neon and matte colours. Those of you who know how miserable I can be will be aware that I struggled with these pens for a while...I like them now!

Thanks all for tonight folks. If you want further info - just let me know. Maybe I might even do a tutorial...let me know what you think?

xx

Racer back nails!

Happy Friday, friends!

Tonight, I'm featuring a manicure created by Madeline Poole. I love her work so much because she has come up with some amazing concepts and works in the world of celebrity and session manicuring (something I am also working towards...slowly, ha!)

First, let me show you the polish I used as a base:

Maybelline's 'Audacious Asphalt'.
Two coats, one layer of Toma 45 second top coat (I didn't use a base coat because I'm wearing acrylics which have a uv gel top coat on them).

Generally, I'm not a fan of nudes, greys or beiges. This, however, I do like.

 This is quite a 'bright' grey. It catches the eye because it has a blue undertone.

Another shot of the 'racer back' nails look created by Madeline Poole. You can find a tutorial for this look right HERE.

Have a great weekend!

xx

Party menu

Hi everyone.

This is a quick post to show you the menu I had for a nail polish party I did a few days before Christmas '12 (that makes it sound so far away, doesn't it?)

I can't wait until my next party - it was so much fun!

xx

Gellux: Oriental Poppy and Gold Rush

I know I've said that I'm usually not partial to gel nail polish, but I cannot deny that it is really practical for me.  I suppose my main concerns were that I wouldn't be able to find a good variation of colours and that doing art would be too difficult.
Welp, I've proved myself wrong.

This is Oriental Poppy, with Cherry Blossom (pink) and Gold Rush.

This took a little longer to create (not much) than a manicure with normal polish might've...but this is because I had to cure every single layer of gel polish that I applied, before going on to the others. Sound excessive? Well, it wasn't, considering it only took 30 or so seconds for each coat to cure under an LED light (it would've taken 2 minutes with a UV light!)
The only thing I had issue with was the black acrylic paint. Initially, the lines were much thicker, but after curing, the top coat over the thick lines bubbled. After each layer of gel is cured under a UV/LED light, there is a sticky layer left. This is not removed if you are going to continue applying more colours or topcoats - this sticky 'dispersion layer' is what bonds one layer of gel to another. I have a feeling that I covered too much of this dispersion layer with my acrylic paint and this caused the topcoat to bubble in these areas. Had I used a black gel polish, I wouldn't have had this problem. I just picked off the bubbled area, buffed the shine off the polish and then repainted the lines. I always find a work around and I enjoy experimenting to make things work for me. 

I'm going to try my best to stick with this manicure over the next few weeks - just to test Gellux's longevity. Hopefully, if Santa is good to me this year, I might be able to increase my Gellux stash!
I should also say that despite there being reviews suggesting that there have been issues with removal, I've not encountered any problems.  On this occasion I've used Salon System Profile's new 'Easy-off' base-coat...we'll see how it goes.
xx

Boutique Nails

Okay, so I've finally downloaded an app which will allow me to blog (with pictures) on the go, straight from my phone. I'm really, REALLY hoping this will work, because I would prefer to blog in real time as opposed to whenever I have five minutes to off-load a backlog of posts.

Here goes...

Here are a few pictures of nail set that I painted recently:

I now have a little on-line shop ( boutiquenails.bigcartel.com ) where I'm selling my hand painted nail sets and a few rings. I add new items regularly so feel free to visit and peruse. If you have any questions, ask down below! Have a look here at EpiphannieA wearing my 'Rhino' nail set (and please follow her blog because she's AWESOME...and has a better camera than I *sniff*)

Another picture of a pink neon set.

Whilst I know a lot of you are perfect polishers already, there are a lot of ladies who prefer to have someone polish their nails for them. Some people also prefer the convenience of press-on nails. If you think you know someone who would like a set as a gift, please visit the site and contact me. 

There's a 22% discount on orders, for two weeks, to coincide with what was my second blogger anniversary...in October (shakes head)! Just use the code: TWOYEARS

Let me know what you think?


xx

Floral practice with nail art pens

I'm not one for horoscopes and tarot cards. Fortune tellers scare me and I will never have my tea leaves read. I do, however, believe that my own horoscope characteristics are true. I'm a Taurean and amongst a lot of the other traits that we are supposed to have (like enjoying cake), I can be a bit reluctant to change things I'm comfortable with.  Fortunately, I know when I am being belligerent and stubborn - most of the time. I can also embrace change too...

I've always preferred using detailing brushes and have managed to find some that I'm comfortable with. When I was at Olympia Beauty in September, I saw some nail art pens and thought 'Pah, it's not a brush, so I don't like it'. A few weeks later I found some on Ebay and after days of mulling it over, I finally bought some. Here's what I did with them.

These are my FIRST attempt at anything with them. They took some getting used to...

Here they are, my Nail Supreme nail art pens. £20 on Ebay.

I love that you can unscrew them in the middle and organise the colours the way you want to.

The flow took some getting used to. As I squeezed the pens, the varnish would sometimes spit out a big blob, right onto the nail. At other times, the pens flowed too much so I'd get thick lines instead of thin. I suppose it's all about practice though, isn't?

The nib is a lot tinier than other pens that I've used. If you unscrew the black lid, you'll find a normal sized nail polish brush.

I really like them...but I won't give up my detail brushes.

Do you have any of these pens? What do you think of them?

Have a lovely Sunday.

xx

A whole bunch of Rimmels

I'm really happy with today's manicure, save from the fact that my Seche Vite made a meal of it. All I know is that before I went to bed, all the cuticles were tidy and there was no shrinkage. This morning, the Seche shrank my polish away from my cuticles and my tips look they are carrying four days wear! What can I say? That'll teach me to be so heavy handed!

This is Rimmel's Grey Matter. I have no ill to speak of Rimmel polishes - they do what they do and they do it well, in my opinion.

Here's the rest of the crew...the only thing missing is the black acrylic paint used to outline the design.
Blue-eyed Girl, Man Overboard, Grey Matter, Caramel Cupcake and Pop Your Pink (my favourite ever pink!)

 I'm afraid my point and shoot camera is really temperamental at the moment, so I've taken these pictures with my phone. The picture quality has deteriorated badly because I emailed the pictures to myself rather than downloading them directly from my phone.

 I should really try using my husband's Nikon, but it's too heavy for me to hold in one hand. Yes, that's my excuse. We have a tripod too...tsk, tsk.

You can see the evil shrinkage around the cuticles there. Boo!

I had intended to put patterns on all of the nails, but I wasn't using my striping brush and the lines weren't coming out how I wanted them to, it was dark and it was after 1am on a school night. So, you only got two nails!


xx

I'm catching up, slowly...

If these are repeat posts, I'm sorry. 

I had been voluntarily submitting some work for a blogazine over the last few months, but with some free-lance nail work and a lot of other things coming up, I had to call it a day. I was finding it hard to blog for fun here, let alone blog for free somewhere else. As I had been asked to provide unique work, I didn't post the manicures here. Now that I'm no longer submitting work, I'm posting my pictures here for you to have a look.

I'm still way behind with all of my pictures, but I'm getting there folks!

xx

Hello!

Well, hello!!

It's been about a month since I've blogged or even attempted to have a look at my dashboard. After having so many things going on, blogging became a second thought and I didn't want to just churn out manicures for the sake of it. Hence my sabbatical.

I thought that for the next few posts I would just show you what I've been doing.

 I absolutely love this pink. It's a jelly polish so you will need a few coats of it, but this is a colour that will definitely cheer you up. I wore this manicure to The Nails Show...but it didn't last more than one day because I used the wrong UV top coat and the whole thing started to crack!

 

I worked at The Cherished Hair Party the following weekend and wore the below designs:

Here's a set of nails I did at the party:

And here are a few pictures of some other manicures that I've done recently:

This particular design was one I found on Instagram and replicated.

I do have a backlog of pictures, so please bare with me.

Thanks for continuing to subscribe and follow during my absence.

xx

Cover you eyes - manicure fail.

Hi all.

Today I have a bit of a fail manicure to show you. I have to confess that I'm sort of out of my comfort zone here. I honestly prefer my nails to all look similar. Thank goodness for nail polish remover, eh? Hahaha!

Excuse the tip wear! Come on, be honest...what do YOU think?

xx

Mint Green lace

Hi friends.   

Here's a little manicure that did recently. I'm going back to my roots with some Barry M. This is one of the very first brands that I've worn, even before starting my blog nearly two years ago.

 

Instagram picture

As pleased as I am with this manicure, I'm not so thrilled with my current nail shape. At this length, I think they'd look better squared, but my middle fingernail is just so short.

This shade is perfect for the summer...it did take a while to get to us over here in the UK and I'm dubious as to how long it will actually stay with us!

 

The lines were created with acrylic paint.  They could have been steadier, but I used the wrong brush - I should have used a long thin striping brush, but I used a short fine detailer instead.

 

Do you spy the dent on my index finger? It magically appeared in the morning!

I don't know what you'll be doing this coming week, but whatever it is, I hope it's great. By the way, if there is anything you'd like to see me do (any nail art, tutorials or topics), then please leave a comment below and if it's something I think sounds good, I may try it.

Thanks for reading.

xx

Two for the price of one

Hey friends.

I was wearing this hot pink by NYX the other day and had started to get a little tired of the lack of pattern. I'd been watching the Giogo Girls videos on YouTube and decided to get my acrylic paint out.

This is what I came up with:

 In Giogo world, 'Get in or get out' is simply 'What's hot and what's not'. I tweeted the picture and also put it up on my instagram (ashlilly_the _lacquer_lover) and the girls themselves gave me a 'Get In'!

No, I didn't paint the other hand. I cannot write with my left hand at all, so it wouldn't have been pleasing on the eye!

This week I've also been wearing this entire week:

 Go faster stripes!

That's all for tonight. I've been so pre-occupied with other things of late and I rarely get to change my polish during the week now. I need to get back on track.

Thanks for reading!

xx

Mismatched mani and pedi

Hi everyone, I have a quick post for you.

This weekend I've been toying with glitter and stripes.
Here's the outcome:

I wore this for the whole weekend and even did some patterns on my toes...something I've only decided to do because we've had some scorching hot days recently.

This reminds me of mint humbugs:

I know this is completely mismatched, but since when I have I cared about THAT?

After all that assault on the eyeballs, I may just do a few plain manicures to demonstrate that I can actually do a classic designs without putting stuff all over it, lol!

Take care luvvies.

xx