the nail art update: overload

Well well well.. it's been a few weeks since I wrote the weekly nail art update I enjoy doing so much. I do apologise for my recent absence but I have valid excuses. I am leaving London this weekend and so have been saying my goodbyes to my favourite parts of this lovely city and ticking things off my London Bucket List ready to leave. As well as this I have been tackling mice and partying hard - as you do.

While I have been away I have had a few different nail designs. One good, one average, one I don't like anymore! In my attempt at the July Californails Nail Art Challenge 39037th month in a row I failed and managed 2! But I guess God loves a trier right?

So given that I haven't much of a tutorial like I planned, I am going to keep this post nice and visual...

I'm a lover not a hater (well..) .. but I think I might hate this design. I thought it was super cute and simple at first but my opinion on it slowly declined. It was part of the nail art challenge and I did it whilst watching American Dad in the dark! - so good effort but I think it could have been much much better!

Going for gold is one thing intend to do in life, and I LOVE my gold nail polishes (I have a few glitter and just plain shiny like this one). This design I really like and can see myself doing again and again in variations and different colours, all I used was two sizes of a dotting tool and two shades of gold/cream polish. And tah dah! Easy peasy!

Slurple the Purple... Hehe couldn't think of anything purple related!... This is a new design for me and a good first attempt - I did rush with my top coat as it was so late and I was tired! But my advice  with doing dark colours on top of light is WAIT UNTIL ITS TOTALLY DRY. Honestly, you will regret it if you rush it and ruin your design! Generally though I enjoyed doing these nails, the inverted moon is new for me and I am getting a good feel for negative space now :)

I am dying to get thinner nail art brushes as well and have them on my wishlist for after my trip to Thailand! Where I will be backpacking for a month finding fun beauty ideas and Thai tricks to put on here in dingy internet cafes! So keep your eyes peeled for those posts in August! x

the nail art update: gel polish & birthday nail art

It has been a while hasn't it? I want to say over a week but it kills me that I have neglected my little blog! 

So here is a nail art update for you all featuring the nails I did for my 21st birthday and my new favourite ail polish find!

Red swirls with negative space

This isnt't the best picture, but to get this effect I used one of my favourite techniques. Use two polishes one a the top, one at the bottom and use a small dotting tool to swirl the colours into each other.

I did these nails for my birthday party back home which was amazing! For the first time I used a clear polish to creative a negative space in this design, and I loved it! I used GOSH Cosmetics nail polish in Lambada (a stunning harsh red)

New glittery polish!

I own a lot of glittery polishes and for my birthday my best friend got me some more! (cause she knows me so well) and so I did a lovely but simple design with the red one (evidently I love red).

I love this colour polish, it's so much fun. It went perfectly with my new Maybelline Super Stay Gel Polish in Berry Stain which brings me onto my next polishes..

Maybelline Super Stay Gel Polishes

I LOVE THESE POLISHES! I have tried a couple of random Gel polishes from other brands and liked the results, I much prefer them obviously as they last longer. But these ones are the best I have tried, the clear I can use over any design so make it stay more than two days and the Berry Stain is one of my favourite shades. It's quite dark and rich, which I love in a polish. (you can see a swatch in the image above)

I highly recommend them to people who have chipped nails quicker than they like, or those of you who get a shellac manicure as they stay just as long. I applied mine on Monday night and they were still perfect by Sunday - this never happens to me!

June Nail Art Challenge

I always take up the nail art challenges by Californails and promise myself and my followers I will do them but NEVER do. This month I am really inspired by some of the challenges and I am actually setting alarms on my phone so I don't forget to do as many as possible! I must say.. Challenge Accepted.

See you soon for my next round of summer essentials :)

the nail art update

So, as it is quite long and complicated to do tutorials for all the nail art I do they don't all get post on here as I think just posting them without any deets is a tad boring.. But then if you don't follow me on Instagram you won't get to see all my nail art. Hence the nail art update comes into play. Once a week I am going to post a nail art update with my latest nail art, the inspiration for it, and maybe a little bit about the technique/tools and polishes I used. How's that sound? Sounds good to me.

Nail art challenge May by @califonrnails on IG - Aztec

I have done aztec style nails before, they took a very long time while I was cooped up in hospital and so turned out terrible haha, so I was going to just go with this design again but with funkier summer colours. Then I decided - something different is always more fun. So I googled 'aztec design' and looked at all the different designs and where aztec pattern actually comes from to create these -

They took me an hour and half for this hand alone! - I took my time as it is a very complicated design with a  lot of colours and a few mistakes may have been made. I used my nail art long thin brush for all the art work except the black, where I used my nail art pen - with needle. The rule with this design is to neaten with black. So apply all your colours and if they aren't perfect, don't worry - apply your black with a  precise needle/pen like this one to neaten up your design! and remember a nice top coat smoothes out everything. I used a LOT of polishes for this design so I'm not going to list each one.. (sorry!)

WAH nails inspired Spiderman Design for Shauna the Spiderman fan

My little Irish friend Shauna is the biggest fan of Spiderman I've ever come across. And when our friend Ella came across Spiderman nail art by the WAH girls of Topshop, it had to be done. Et voila - 

Using my black nail art pen again and GOSH nail polish in Lambada. All this design takes is a steady hand and half an hour :)

My new dotting design

Always wanting to do something new, after the epic, my new all time favourite, aztec nails I knew I had to do something new, but didn't have the time to match the aztec. So I went with this new simple dotting design - 

I used a small dotting tool to do the dots, easy peasy, one colour at a time. The base coat is NYC In A NYC Minute 325 Raindrop Quick Dry Nail Polish and the dots are in Models Own Dinky Pinky & Pukka Purple, GOSH Peachy & Balloon & Lambada.

Then my little friend Chloe insisted I do the same for her - 

So there we have it - the first ever nail art update.

Hope you enjoy! And are inspired to try some yourself, because they aren't as hard as you think!