I'm back for Easter!

 

Well, well, well. For all my loyal followers and fans (I wish), though there are not many of you (if any) I'm sure those of you that do follow and read my humble blog have been wondering where I have been after I stated a turn around so so so long ago. Blame my university, it wasn't my fault I swear! Honestly, final year has had me writing so much that at the end of the day the last thing I want to do for fun is write some more adn stare at my laptop screen! I am sorry but I am back with big news...

The past few weeks I have been starting up a beautiful friendship and collab with some lovely girls in the states at GlossyFinds.com. They have formally asked me to feature in their new vlogger team with my nail art tutorial videos!

My first went up on St Patricks Day some time ago and the next will be going up tomorrow. If you are eager enough to have clicked on a tweet or facebook post (where I lovingly beg for readers) you will be one of the lucky few that gets to see the video before GF post it tomorrow for the Easter Weekend.

This design is simple for those of you just starting up with nail art, grab your brushes and pretty pastel polishes and get painting your bunnies and Easter eggs... Here is the live YouTube link, please subscribe to my channel here as well!...

Featured in this design (no PR samples), in order of appearance: GOSH Cosmetics Special Edition Nail Lacquer in Bright Idea, Maybelline Colour Show Bleached Neon Polish in Tropink, Models Own Polish in Feeling Blue, Avon Cosmetics Opal Top Coat, Miss Sporty Lasting Colour Polish in Clear, Rimmel London Pro Matte Finish Top Coat.
Tools in order of use: Thin painting brushes #000 & #00, Smallest dotting tool (needle also works for this), Masking Fluid by Terry Harrison (all purchased via eBay)

paisley video tutorial

Paisley is the first design I did with my original Rio Nail art pens, I now use a very thin design brush and dotting tool. For this particular sweet pink design (perfect for valentines day) I used Avon Pink Creme Nail Enamel and B. Complete Red Nail Polish, I topped it off with Cheeky's Matte Polish.
Please like, love or hate my YouTube video and subscribe or unsubscribe to my channel here.
Good Luck ladies.

'Avon it

Another one of my presents Santa left under the tree, an Avon Selection Box. This was a gift I spotted on Instgram and instantly sent the picture to my mum, subtle hint, and it worked. She emailled Santa and there it was.. 12 stunning nail enamels.

I didn't own many Avon polishes before I got this Selection Box (just my Opal glitter that I adore) but my mum has had them in the past. I am so happy with the quality of the polishes, I've only ever heard good things about these enamels so I wasn't surprised, just happy! The colours I got were quite varied, including another Opal polish (never can have too many), 2 Gel Finish polishes in a pale pink and red that again are really good quality polishes.

 My favourite is so hard to choose! I love the pale pink Gel Finish P805 Sheer Love because it is perfect to use as a base for my nail art, but I also love my classic Real Red Nail Enamel. It's so hard to choose a favourite.. I cannot do it.

One thing I would say against this selection box is that there are a few polishes I won't use, like perfectly flesh and romance and maybe coral reef. If Avon continue the selection boxes next year (which they should!) I would advise making them more tailored. For example, soft and sweet with pinks and light colours; glitter me happy with glitters and metallics; bright and bubbly with brights, neons and stand out polishes; mix and match with completely random polishes. That is what I would do!

Here are the swatch pics I took:

Coral Reef

 

Opal - Opalesce (on top of Real Red below)

Real Red

 

Decadance

 

Viva Pink

Perfectly Flesh

Pink Creme

 

Romance

 

Golden Vision

  Sea Breeze

mo you for me

It is time after a quiet (but not actually quiet in real life) Christmas and New Year.
I hope you all had a merry one, I sure as hell did and this review is about one of thee best presents I got from Santa (slash my mum).

Before I get into the story and picture show here is a link for the YouTube video I pulled together on how to use my new gift that I'm about to tell you about. Mo You London Tutorial
Please subscribe while you are there!

For a long long time I've seen stamping plates used by great nail artists all over Instagram and I am not going to lie.. I actually always thought it was cheating. For me nail art is about being talented enough to paint those tiny enamel things on the end of your fingers, that way you can get much praise for a detailed design. Buttttt then I changed my mind.. Why did I change my mind?

I discovered Mo You London stamping plates. I saw someone do a very pretty detailed design and at first I thought it was freehand .. when I realised it was a Mo You London stamp I was kinda gutted tbh. Once I followed them the idea of stamping became a little more appealing.

So I looked around Mo You and decided my student sized pockets weren't keen on spending that much on something I wasn't sure about, I ended up on Ebay buying rubber stamps and scrapers for 99p as well as a couple of simple round stamping plates for the same cheap as chips price.

And.. It didn't work. I just couldn't do it! At first I thought it was a skill thing but then I decided it was the cheap plates and discretely and hopefully put the Mo You plates I kept admiring online on my Christmas wish list along with socks and chocolate.When I opened up the four plates my mum had looked at with me I was so happy and scared..

I really hoped I could actually do it after my mum spent the money on them!

And I could.. the first time!

As the credits of BIG rolled on the TV screen I had mastered my first design :)

Here is a little gallery of the rest of my plates:

Fashionista plate 09:

Fashionista plate 07:

Bridal plate 07:

Artist plate 09:

nail art: alternative for clean up

My Christmas list this year left my mother searching far and wide for nail art products and tools she had never heard of. One of the things I asked for with high hopes of tearing open the packaging on Christmas Day was Kiesque's Liquid Palisade. Obviously, my IG feed is filled with nail artists pro and amateur, bloggers and experimenters alike as way of inspiration and a tool of learning :) and lately I had seen over and over again the same min tutorial video for this magical product.

I have always struggled with clean up.. always removing part of the design or ending up with red smudges all over my finger. Then there is the ever enjoyable sellotape application I endure when water marbling..

Liquid Palisade is a product that eliminates a lot of these tedious tasks I have endured these past few years. And so as soon as I found the website I scribbled the name down and prayed to Santa.

A week later my mum came up to me and said.. "What is liquid palestine?.."
And after much googling and frustration, we realised, there wasn't a way I could purchase it without a hefty shipping fee for it's travel from US to UK ground. But mother was determined..

Next thing I knew I came home to this tiny pot of blue masking fluid placed next to the kettle. A few hours later mum sprang up and and remembered I didn't know it was for me... Explained how Salon Geek had explained to her that this fluid does the exact same job and it was a meer £2.. with free delivery of course.

The result of all this mahem, is this video...

 

Pop onto my YouTube channel here... Curiosity Beauty YouTube to see it full screen, like and please please subscribe!! :)

And keep even more up to date with my nails, face and cat on my Instagram & Twitter - @curiositybty

 Products: Terry Harrison Masking Fluid 30ml, B. First Base Coat, Models Own Silver Nail Glitter, Rimmel Pro Matte Finish, Avon Nail Experts Freeze Dry Spray

Colours: B. Complete Polish in Matador, Cheeky Polish in Purplexed, Barry M Nail Paint in Matt White

Tools: Two small brushes (one for fluid, one for glitter and clean up), Tweezers, Make-Up Sponge, Needle, Nail Polish Remover, Cotton Pads, Cotton Buds.

nail art: winter sparkle

Adding a lil bit o' winter sparkle to my life and yours. It's finally December so I will be giving in to the Christmas cheer I do love so much, when it's not October.

P.S. Sorry it's been a while.. I'm a very busy final year student who has taken to living in the library!!

Hope you enjoy the video below...

I love this look for two reasons - it's simple and it's sparkly.
I used:
- GOSH Matte Silver Polish
- Barry M White Polish
- Tape (from eBay any colour should do)
- Sponges from Primark
- Brushes (from eBay of course)
- Avon Quick Dry Spray (My secret to happy nail-hood)

Steps:
- Apply tape
- Apply two coats of white polish
- Sponge on your sparkle
- Allow to dry
- Remove tape
- Clean line and around nail
- Top coat and spritz!

Taping tips:
- Be careful when applying a thick layer of anything on top of tape .. make sure it dries completely before removing the tape
- Pre-cut your tape for each nail.. of course
- Clean your negative space with a thin brush dipped in polish remover
- A top coat will even out the bumps and edges, don't worry!

Gradient tips:
- I do gradient a lot but not with glitter because it's hard to clean... Use plenty of polish remover, cotton buds and brushes and keep at it!
- Any remaining glitter will come over over night/with time, don't worry about the odd speckle
- Use a make-up sponge to apply.. of course

Please please do take a quick second to check out my other videos on YouTube (click here!) and subscribe away my dears!

nail art: great gatsby

A couple of years ago when Great Gatsby actually came out I did an inspired design in black and gold; it's one of my absolute favourite freehand designs from my collection.

Follow this link to see the full video on my YouTube channel! 

I used:
- GOSH Nail Lacquer in Gold 554
- MUA Polish in Pitch Black
- Thin brush for black and gold seperate!
- Avon Instant Dry Nail Polish Spray


Tips:
- Use the thinnest brush you can find for creating your design
- Have a dollop of the design polish on a piece of paper next to you
- Don't let the dollop dry! - Obviously
- Use black to neaten the design - so don't worry about smudges

nail art: an easier way to marble

I have now (well my dad has now) invested in a tripod so I can film all my tutorials from now without the scary balance of my phone on a stack of books! SO without further a due I give to you my dry marbling tutorial!

This design is a super easy way of getting an interesting 'how did you do that?!' design. It works great as a feature nail and you can use just 2 colours or as many as you want!

I used:

• Models Own Polish in Pukka Purple
• Barry M Nail Paint in Matt White
• GOSH Cosmetics Polish in Deep Purple
• Maybelline Super Stay 7 Days Polish in Crystal Clear
• 1 small dotting tool (smallest you can find - a needle or anything sharp & pointy can work)

Tips:

• Use a fair bit of polish for your base colour
• Act fast
• EXPERIMENT with design
• I use my nail to clean up any wonky lines or leaks in the polish (this can happen when applying a big dollop at once.. use a fine brush dipped in polish remover if you aren't a fan of the nail to nail clean up I use)
• Enjoy :)

nail art: losing my video virginity

For this post I have put in many hours filming and editing the below video, now I am not 100% impressed by the quality of my nails, I usually am much more of a perfectionist but given the resulting video I am quite happy. I more or less just wanted to demonstrate these two techniques and simplify them for you.

What I Used:

Barry M Nail Paint in White (a current favourite)

Barry M Gelly Hi Shine Nail Pain in Key Lime (a pretty new addition to my collection)

Maybelline Super Strong Gel Nail Colour in Crystal Clear

Pointed dotting tool

Make-up sponge

Sally Hansen Moisturising Nail Polish Remover

Cotton buds & pads

Masking tape

Glass of luke warm water

Avon Quick Dry Polish Spray

10 Essential Tips:

1. Always start water marbling with a clean white base
2. Always use tape to limit clean up
3. Make sure the water is luke warm/room temperature so the polish can spread
4. Shake the glass is the polish is struggling to spread
5. Add each drop quick as you can
6. Blow on the polish once you have dipped the nail in to make removing the excess easier
7. Wait until the nail is dry before removing the tape and cleaning
8. Do a few tester nails - practice makes perfect!
9. When making the design in the polish - act fast, but not too fast (again practice!)
10. If you can - use a brush to clean up your nail also as well as a cotton bud

frankenstein's monster nails

Halloween is officially here, I have been waiting to post some halloween themed nail art since I started my blog in Januray. I waited till the exact day before because this is the prime time to actually do your nails for Halloween itself! Not a week before, or a month, don't do them so early they have chipped before your trick or treating session or big gruesome night on the town. I decided to go for Frankenstein's monster as a theme/inspiration - I love the story and find him utterly terrifying!

I gathered the appropriate tools and colours once I decided exactly how I would portray this creepy character onto my nails... I used GOSH Cosmetics Frosted Look in Silver for the bolts, GOSH special edition in Splish Splash for my base coat, GOSH special edition in Kind of Pink for the cut in his head, then I used my Mirror Mirror Nail Effects Pen in Black for the hair, some stitches and his brow and eyes topped with a dab of Color Show by Maybelline in Winter Baby. I also used two dotting tools and a long thin brush to create the look.. see below:

I decided his eyes were the scariest part of him so I used two nails to create the top of his head, adding in the famous stitches and bolts to complete the look!

Are these scary enough? What will you do with your nails this year?!

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: roses, organisation & geometrics

I have a couple of really cute designs to show you from this week. I started the week with a messy & girly vibe and ended it on a neat & edgy note. I'd love to tutorials for both these designs at some point as they are both fairly basic once you break them down and easy once you have had a bit of practice, but I still got asked 'You did them yourself? How?' I'll get a few pointers and show you the tools I used (If you are someone who dabbles and has the tools these designs should be fairly easy).

pretty ugly freehand roses

Tools: A medium and small dotting tool, black nail art pen, GOSH Cosmetics Special Edition 009 Bright Idea, Spring shade 626 Kind of Pink, 012 Splish Splash and Cheeky 1813 Purplexed.

This design actually inspired my new logo (which I hope you like, designed and done by me! I am very proud of it). I've done a few roses designs in the past couple of years, this has to be my favourite though. A design I have actually seen a lot of nail artists do variations of. This is my turn on it, a shimmery gold background with deep pink roses - very messy style with simple black lines to make them look more like roses as appose to splodges! 

To do this design - you literally have to, on top of your base coat, dab a couple of random sized dots of a few different polishes (stick to pale pinks/deep pinks/bright reds for roses) in clusters. then use your nail art pen to create random out lines, creating petals then using a brush I brushed on little green leaves! - top coat and done!

random retro geometrics

Tools: Long thin brush, black nail art pen, a rainbow of bright polishes of your choice

This design is totally random - I wanted to do something completely new and as I had just gone through all my nail polishes to organise them I couldn't pick one feature colour to concentrate on or inspire me - so I picked a whole bunch and just went with it.. this is the result!

I used the brush to paint on the shapes (this took some patience and a very dry undercoat of white) It is important to have a reall dry undercoat with this as if you create a bump in your straight line you can use a small thin brush dipped in varnish remover to neaten it up. If you have a thick base (made up of several thing layers to avoid chipping) that is super dry you won't remove an obvious amount of the base colour! I created random shapes and added black lines with my pens thinner brush - and done :)

I decided to ransack my messy Soap & Glory bag this week and throw out any dried up old polishes - this I should do regularly really - in the process I came up with a new organisation plan :) 

I hope it stays this neat..

the nail art update: twisted manicure and matt glitter

Another weekly nail art update coming your way boys and girls! This week I have two cool and easy designs and a quick tutorial for a twist on the classic French Mani.

Firstly this is the design i did for my night out in Camden with my best friends from back home! I used my new GOSH matt polish, a lovely powder blue called Frosted Soft Blue that i LOVE!
I used a sponge to sponge on some pale blue polish and my glitter polish on top of a deep green to create a soft sponged effect. 




The next mani i did this week is my funky twist on the classic French manicure. Instead of classic white tips I chose to do a few layers of pink and purple shades. To do this i uses the below brush, long and thin in slow steady strokes to get a neat line.

Apply one colour at a time, two coating if the polish is needs it to create a solid colour. This layer is in Cheeky Purpl-exed.

Next layer is Models Own in Pukka Purple.

This next layer is Models Own in Dinky Pinky...

Another layer of Cheeky Purpl-exed..

When I first did this design I coated it with my pink tinted Cheeky matt polish and used two layers only...

Then when I did the tutorial to show you all, I used four colours as you can see above and ended up with the below.. 

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!

my easter/spring manicures

I am going to start today's blog by saying HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE. I hope you have all enjoyed your easter weekends, mine was very interesting ranging from tedious catholic mass to a male stripper in Church to a futuristic re-enactment of the resurrection of Jesus - let's just leave you with that amount of information! - I am going to then apologise for being so absent of late. I have been really quite ill this month and so haven't had much energy to dedicate to my lovely little blog! But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy using lots'o beauty products and doing pretty nail art.. If you follow my instagram/twitter you will be able to see my updates all the times! 

Today I have a rather simple post for you, featuring my nail art from the weekend and a little tutorial on my easter pattern nails :) Now I know it's a little late seeing as Easter is over, BUT these nails can be adjusted for any spring day. Minus the bunny you have a lovely spring manicure. Easy peasey.

I started the weekend rather plainly as far as nail art is concerned, I didn't have a lot of time so I rustled up a simple dotted design and added a negative space feature nail to spice things up a little bit. I always do my nail art whilst watching my favourite current series or doing my episode catch ups, so if you think you have to set time aside to sit at the kitchen table with all your polishes around you - yeah, don't bother! - stick the telly on, get comfy with a cuppa and your mates and paint as you chill.

As the weekend went on I got more into the Easter spirit, depsite my lack of Easter eggs this year, I did a more complicated design for the April nail challenge by @californails on Instgram. I love this cute design, I haven't done something funky or themed in a while so I have done a quick tutorial on the most patterned nail, breaking it down for yah!

Easter Mani

Start with a coat or two of your favourite polish (I used my Nails Inc Gel Effect Polish in Mayfair Lane)

Then add your base stripes, in whatever colours you want, for this theme pastels and soft colours are prettiest! (I used NYC In a Minute in Raindrop, Models Own Ice Neon Polish in Pukka Purple and GOSH Cosmetics Special Edition Polish in Splish Splash)

Use a small flat brush to paint on your stripes, don't be afraid of lumps/bumps or double coating as long as you have an even base colour.

Once your stripes are dry and more evened out in the process (if you want you can do a top coat to smooth them out but it isn't necessary) you can add your designs. For this theme dotting and zigzags work best. 

To achieve a nice zig zag design us a thin flat brush dipped lightly in your chosen polish to create lines like below...

To get lovely dotting use dotting tools like below to dip and dot as your please...

Et Voila, perfect with a shiny or matte top coat of your choice (mine was the Diamond Strength Top Coat by Sally Hansen - but I am cheeky and use it on the top too because I have run out of my Insta-Dri Sally Hansen Top coat - oops, oh well, I'll do what I want)

The bunny is really easy if you have brushes or nail pens, do your pink bits first and them your black bits second and tah dah!

I added some simple dotted nails in part to make the features stand out but mostly because my film was drawing to a close and I was tired!

Hope you like these designs everyone, I am writing up a lovely make-up B&A for you all (something new!) for tomorrow :D Feel free to ask any questions I will answer as quick as possible as best I can!

See you on the tweeting and instagramming side @curiousitybty

PS Remember, all the product names I feature are links to places you can find them, as is my twitter name above (it's the same for my instagram too!)