Bloggers Do Sunshine Better!

When I received the 5th topic for the #bloggersdoitbetter challenge I was a bit stumped but after some thought I decided to concentrate on the colour of sunshine....

Models Own Polish for Tans in Bikini VS Models Own Ice Neon in Luis Lemon.

I painted every other nail in Bikini and the others in Luis Lemon. On my right hand I painted them on top of a clear base coat and on my left hand I put them on top of a white base coat. I also took pics in a couple of different lights.

Right hand first....

On my thumb, middle and pinky finger is Bikini from the Polishes for Tans collection and the other two are Luis Lemon from the Ice Neons. As you can see when painted onto a clear base Bikini is the brighter of the two. When I first bought the Ice Neons I thought they were bright but up against the Polishes for Tans they look quite dull. Bikini is more of a pastel shade and the polish is very creamy.

So now onto my left hand....

This time Luis Lemon is on my thumb, middle and pinky fingers and Bikini is on the other two. Using a white base makes Luis Lemon almost as bright as Bikini. I still prefer the shade of Bikini and as you can see you don't really need to use a white base with it.

In the sunlight they almost look the same with a white undie :)

so in conclusion....

Luis Lemon (above) can be used as a bright or a subtle neon, however it is quite sheer.

Bikini is very bright so it's not for the faint hearted ;) The formula is creamy but can be a bit gloopy.

My personal favourite is Bikini.

Thankyou for reading.

George xx

Introducing OneNear.

I know that some of my readers are makers of their own brands of indie polish and others have Etsy stores. I was recently contacted by Richard (CEO and founder) from OneNear to tell you a little bit about them and how they can help you.

OneNear is a market place for home beauty aimed at local individuals with a talent to sell. A lot of people don't get time to phone around looking for treatments or make appointments so with OneNear they can do it easily on the net or off the iPhone app.

Here is what you get:

• Free website within a market place.
• Easy to create shop front.
• Free listings.
• Help with finding customers.
• Technical support if needed.
• Your site being actively promoted.

OneNear are registered with the Financial Regulator (FCA) and you can find their homepage here!

Here are some links to some of the shops already set up:

Life and Image Coaching Company
Abi England Reflexology
Cover Fitness


Hope this might be some help to any of you who already have shops or would like to set up something for your business. For any further information please feel free to leave your email in the comments and I will pass your information on to Richard.

                                                  Thanks for reading.
                                                     George xx

My Stash - Part Four!!

WARNING PIC HEAVY POST!!

In part four of My Stash I will be showing you my Avon, OPI and China Glaze polishes.

When I bought my first OPI polish I didn't realise just how big and popular the brand was. I was shocked at how much the polish cost me (£9 at the time) but figured this was because I had bought it from a salon.

Above is my favourite white polish, 'Alpine Snow', next to it is my first ever OPI called 'Altar Ego'. This looks like a normal nude on the pic but in real life it has the most beautiful iridescent shimmer. The third one is 'Have You Seen My Limo?', this is a funny one as it seems to be a deep shimmery purple but when it is on my nails it sometimes looks like a brown colour. Has anyone else got this one?

The above polishes are two from the Brazil collection. They are 'Where Did Suzi's Man-Go?' and 'I Just Can't Cope-acabana'.

My newest OPI is this pretty pink which I bought today for £2 at a carboot sale called 'Suzi & The Lifeguard'. See some of my other boot sale bargains here!

The only other three OPI polishes I have are Nicole by OPI's in 'Hit The Lights' (from the Selena Gomez collection), 'You Can!', and 'Studio Mama' (from the Justin Bieber collection).

Now onto my China Glaze polishes... first up we have my three crackle polishes, I got these from Poundland and I am yet to try them. They are 'Platinum Pieces', 'Oxidized Aqua' and 'Tarnished Gold'.

'Turned Up Turquoise' is the first polish you see above and I love this colour! Then there is 'Tree Hugger'. I tend to use this one for Halloween nail art! The third one is 'Trendsetter'. This has got to be one of the most ugliest polishes EVER!! I did a blog post on it which you can find here!

The first of the above two is one I bought at a car boot sale and unfortunately has no sticker with it's name on. Do any of you maybe know it's name?? The second is 'Liquid Leather' and is my favourite black polish.

China Glaze's Sea Goddess collection are gorgeous polishes. I currently only have 'Seahorsin' Around' but  really want all of the others too.

Above is 'It's A Trap-eze!' I saw this on so many people before I actually had it myself, it is a beauty!!

My last China Glaze is a mini which I got from Sally's for about 80p on clearance lol. It's called 'Travel In Colour' and is a really pretty glitter that you can use on any colour as a topper.

Now onto my Avon's! A few years ago Avon did mirror shine polishes which I loved. I still have 'Gold Foil' and 'Silver Foil' but unfortunately they are getting old and aren't quite as shiny as they used to be.

The new Avon Gel finish polishes (in my opinion) are fab! I have 'Purplicious' and 'Lavender Sky' (above), and 'Very Berry', 'Candy Apple' and 'Royal Vendetta' (below).

Finally in the above pic there is 'Underworld' (speed dry), 'Wicked' (an old nailwear pro) and 'Plum llusion' mosaic effects, which is actually a good one. I don't like normal crackle effect type polishes but I do like the sparkly ones! :)

So, there are a few more of my pretties!!

Keep an eye out for part five.....

Thanks for reading

George xx

First Experience With Nail Bows

Thought I would do a nice light hearted post for a Sunday afternoon and let you all have a giggle at my first experience with Nail Bows......

A few months ago I bought some little bow gems from poundland....

Seems as I was going to a Wedding this weekend I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try them out. I chose to use some black ones (not shown in above picture). My outfit was black and white so I did all of my fingers in a black, white and silver animal print pattern apart from my two middle fingers. I painted these silver and then put a holographic glitter over them. These were the fingers I had decided to put the bows on.

To ensure the bows stayed on I decided to use nail glue....

I put a blob of glue on the first finger and popped the bow on. It went on easily and I just moved it slightly to ensure it was straight, and then put some more glue around the base of the bow. I then went onto the second finger. This was when the fun started. I put a blob of glue onto the nail but found it was a bit too much so without thinking I wiped a bit of it off with another finger.... I then managed to get it onto the back of my hand and on the tips of some other fingers. Meanwhile I'm still trying to put the bow on. This is quite difficult when your fingers are getting stuck to the bow and to each other :)

Finally I got the bow in position and again put extra glue around the base. I had left putting the bows on til just before we were due to leave. Whilst sat waiting for our lift (and the glue to dry) I discovered that my skin had gone hard where I had got glue on it. It was all down one of my fingers and onto the back of my hand!! I couldn't leave like this so 5 mins before our lift was due I had my hubby wiping glue off my hands using acetone lol.

Anyway, despite me being a messy bugger I was pleased with the result and the bows lasted all day and night :)

I am now sat trying to get the copious amounts of glue and the bows off my middles fingers :)

Thanks for reading.

George xx

An InLinkz Link-up

My Stash - Part Three!!

Hello everyone :) here is the third installment of my stash!!

To start off we have Rimmel.....

I don't always buy whole collections as sometimes I either don't like some of the colours or already have polishes which are the same colour, however I did buy all of the Sweetie Crush collection. They are just so pretty and different to anything else I have got.

From left to right they are, 'Violet Swizzle', 'Candyfloss Cutie', 'Sherbert Sweetheart', 'Fizzy Applelicious' and 'Blueberry Whizz'. If you like a bit of sparkle I would really recommend you try these.

In this next pic you can see two of the Rita Ora collection. I chose these particular ones because I don't have many pale colours and these looked really creamy. They are 'Lose Your Lingerie' (pink) and 'Breakfast in Bed' (green). The other two polishes are just normal 60 seconds ones. These are 'Coralicious' which is a gorgeous coral colour (I always get complimented on my nail colour when I wear this) and 'Blue me Away' which is a blurple! I have had most of my Rimmel polishes for years which you can tell by the amount of polish that has gone out of the bottles :)

Some more 60 seconds polishes (below), 'Sunrise' (shimmery peach), 'Green with Envy' (gorgeous teal, as you can see the bottle is half empty), 'Portobello Pink' (one of my favourite baby pinks) and 'Pompous' (sparkly deep purple). I used to have a lot more Rimmels but my sister in law inherited them from me when I started purchasing a variety of different brands.

Below is Rimmel 60 seconds in 'Shocker', my I love Lasting Finish in 'Your Majesty' and my Rimmel pro in 'Hot Gossip'. Hot Gossip is a shimmery red and it has the large brush which I love!!

Next up we have Seche. I only have three Seche polishes, although I also have the Seche Vite top coat which I love! The colours I have are (left to right) 'Prim & Polished', 'Magnifique' and 'Empress'. 'Magnifique' has a purple shimmer to it which you can just about make out on the photo and 'Empress' is a very dark purple. Two of these cost me a pound each at a carboot and the other (Empress) was out of my Glossybox. :)

For the final part of this post we have my Color Club polishes. I have two collections which I bought from TK Maxx. 'Molten Metals' (below) and 'Backstage Pass'. The Molten Metals collection consists of 'Perfect Molten' (green), ''Lumin-icecent' (light blue), 'Cold Metal' (dark blue) 'Hot Like Lava' (dark pink), 'Foil Me Once' (light pink) and last but not least 'Antiquated' (bronze). These are a lovely set of shimmery metallic polishes however the old collections you get in TK Maxx don't have the polish names on the bottles so I had to do some research and put the names on the bottom myself!

The Backstage Pass (all glitters) collection consists of 'Platinum Record' (silver), 'Backstage Pass' (pink and silver), 'It's a Hit' (purple), 'Fame and Fortune' (pink), 'Wish Upon A Rockstar' (multicoloured), and 'Take the Stage' (gold). I like this collection apart from 'Fame and Fortune'. The glitter in this one all sinks to the bottom and you are left with a pink liquid at the top, it just doesn't look attractive. It is the third bottle from the right on the pic below.

My last full size Color Club is my first ever holo :) 'Harp On It' is a beautiful silver holographic polish. I will definitely be investing in more holographic polishes :)

Recently Color Club have changed their logo and bottle designs. I'm not totally sure why as I quite liked the old ones. Anyway I have managed to get my hands on a mini called 'Heirloom Pearls', it is a pearly (hence the name) off white.

I uploaded this next pic so that you can see why I called it a mini and also so you can see the change in logo and bottle design.

So there are a few more of my polishes. I have quite a stash so there are a lot more of these posts to come. Hope you are all enjoying reading them.

:)

George xx

Bloggers Do Trends Better!

Hello and welcome to my third post of the #bloggersdoitbetter challenge :)

This fortnights theme is 'Trends'. Recently nail art and nail polishes have become extremely popular. There are endless possibilities to nail art so instead of focusing on these I decided to do a post about nail shape trends.

At one point in time most people's nails would be a normal rounded off shape, as were mine (pic below).

There are now however several shapes that are popular in the world of nails. The main ones are:

Rounded

Squared

Squoval

Stiletto

I have been lucky enough to find some lovely ladies who were willing to let me use pics of their nails to show you how some of these styles look.

First up we have Rounded. This is what most people would have as it is, on most people, their 'natural' nail shape. Below are some beautiful rounded nails which belong to the lovely Helen, and below that are my own nails :)

Next up are some examples of Squared nails. These were kindly sent to me by Bethany (red nails), the water marbling queen Tracey (second pic) and Sarah (third pic).

Squoval nails are square nails with the corners rounded off. I find it hard to say whether nails are square or squoval but hopefully I have chosen two good but different examples. First up we have Caroline's nails and below her is Charlotte's pic.

The last nail shape is Stiletto. This is becoming more and more popular and is one that I haven't tried. The lovely Sioux sent me a pic of her Stiletto nails (with pink tips).

Which is your favourite nail shape trend?

Thanks for reading

George xx