Tag: Nail Polish

The Funky £3 Manicure – Nude & Dots Nail Polish

you know me, always a sucker for a beauty bargain and as I’ve been continuously wearing nude on my nails lately, my favourite O.P.I shade (Don’t Pretzel My Buttons) has been getting it’s fair share of usage and so I’ve been on the look out for an alternative.

It was whilst I was shopping in H&M the other day that I came across these pretty polishes. I hadn’t purchased nail polish from H&M before but when I saw the price I couldn’t help but give them a go.

This nail polish in shade nude, was only 99p! It’s minature 5ml, so it’s a perfect one to pop in your handbag. I usually always carry one round with me anyway, as I can’t stand chips, so this one is the perfect size. Plus sometimes when you get a large nail polish, it can dry out before you even reach the end, so at least the mini size is bound to stay fresh until you’ve finished it.

As the polish is only small, of course the brush is too but it’s still easy enough to apply onto the nails.

It needs two coats but afterwards it looks perfect.

This funky spotty polish called, Free Your Mind, also caught my eye, it’s full of pretty blue, white, lime green and peach speckles (very summery).

This one also comes in 5ml and is £1.99. It’s been ages since I bought a fun nail polish like this. I usually avoid the confetti type polishes, as although I’m often drawn to them, in reality I know I’ll only use them a few times and then it will be a whole nail polish waisted. As this one was only small though, I thought it would be just enough and I love the colour of the speckles as I think I’ll wear this one a lot and it goes perfect with nude.

I just went for painting the ring finger this time but I think it will look great all over too. This was just after one application and the coloured spots came out on the brush really easy as the polish is full of them.

I’ve only had these polishes on my nails for a couple of days, so I’m yet to see what the longevity is like. But so far so good and I’m loving my funky £3 manicure.

What do you think? Have you tried H&M nail polish before?

Samio x

March 25, 2015
Ciaté Haute House Nail Lacquer Review

I’m always fond of the Ciaté nail lacquer collections, so of course when I recieved this Haute House one for Christmas, I was pleased. However, it’s took me all the way until now to finally get round to wearing all of the colours in the collection. Of course I could have just reviewed these shades by simply painting each nail of one hand a different colour but I thought I’d wait until I’d actually worn them all to get the full effect.

First of all I have to say that I love all of these shades, they are each quite dark and seductive and I personally think they make great shades to wear for an night out.

The Haute House collection comes beautifully packaged in this ‘house style’ box with little windows giving a peek of each gorgeous Ciaté shade inside. You can then open the front of the box to get a full view of the nail lacquers inside.

The quirky packaging of these polishes actually makes it perfect for a gift to someone (probably the reason I recieved it for Christmas). It could make a great Mother’s Day present (15th March, don’t forget) or Birthday gift for a friend.

I applied each nail lacquer with two coats (although many are bold enough with just one coat). I haven’t used a top coat in these images, just so you can see what the colours look like alone. I actually like how glossy they look even without a top coat and they all seem to stay on rather well too.

Below you can see each fabulous shade in all their glory. My favourite is For the frill of it, which is yours?

Can can

For the frill of it

Sass pot

Knee highs

Tickle my fancy

Shop more Ciaté collections and offers here

Samio x

February 27, 2015
Ciaté Very Colourfoil Manicure

In this post I will be showing you step by step the Ciaté Very Colourfoil Manicure and how it works.

This is the content of the box when opened. There is the base coat nail polish, the pack of Colourfoils and the glue to apply them. The kit also comes with a small leaflet on how to do each step.

I couldn’t work out what the transparent nail disc was for. The nails don’t seem to pull off the disc and they are all the same size, so they can’t be to stick on nails. Maybe I’m just being silly and it’s for something completely obvious, so if anyone could enlighten me, that would be great.

When you take the Colourfoils out of the pack you have an array of foil sheets in jazzy shades and metallics looking something like this (different packs vary).

Firstly apply the base coat. My pack came with shade Cream Soda, which I applied two coats of. I actually really like this shade on it’s own but anyway we’re here to do the Colourfoils so let’s continue…

Next it’s time to apply the Ciaté Foil Fix, or as I like to call it, glue.

Apply the glue in dots to the parts of the nail you want to foil to stick. Wait till the glue goes transparent to apply your first foil.

After applying and removing your first foil you are left with something like this. I found each foil was about enough to do each hand once.

Then repeat. Here I went for a metallic green for the second shade. I actually really liked the effect as it was at this point but as I wanted to see the full results using multiple shades, I decided to continue.

And another one… I repeated this until the nails were covered in the Colourfoil. Once I was done I cleaned up the Colourfoil from around the edges of the nails.

Here is the end result. I took this after having washed up (silly I know) and as you can see it has changed the texture of the foil a little. I think it has more of a scrunched up tinfoil look rather than a smooth tinfoil look as some of the foil did start to wash off as the glue underneath went a bit stringy. I think this could be prevented by applying a top coat when finished, which I did eventually do after I’d washed up. Ah well, you live and you learn.

Samio x

January 8, 2014
O.P.I – Monochrome

I’m a big lover of O.P.I Nail Lacquers. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to receive an O.P.I case full of an array of gorgeous O.P.I shades, as part of a Christmas gift off my grandparents. I’ve been hooked on the brand ever since and I’m always adding to my collection. I’ve been meaning to start doing some posts like this for a while, showing off some of my favourite shades and colour combinations. Now I’ve finally gotten round to it and for my first nail polish post I’ve gone Monochrome.

The black shade of O.P.I I’ve used, is often one of my go to shades. Especially for when I don’t know what I’ll be wearing, as this colour mostly goes with anything and the super glossy finish gives it a really slick and polished look. This weekend I fancied something different and thought I’d try out one of my crackle varnishes. I’ve actually had this particular white crackle for a while but this is the first time I got round to using it. I’ve used crackle varnishes in the past but never before in this black and white colour combo. I love it and think it almost has quite a gothic look to it.

To achieve this look I used:
O.P.I base coat
One coat of O.P.I shade, Lady In Black
Followed with one coat of O.P.I White Shatter
O.P.I top coat to finish

Longevity:
I applied this nail look on Friday evening and it lasted (chip free!) until Monday when I removed it.

Samio x

August 6, 2013