Hi there everyone! Today's entry is a little late. The weather here has been crazy.It has been over 34 o C most days and we are to hit 40oC by Monday so as fast as I polish my nails they dry, then I cannot turn the PC on as it just overheats :(. I'm currently sitting here with a fan aimed to my PC just so I can get this post done.
So for xmas I wanted to do some thing quick and easy. something that will not dry too quickly and go a blagh!
I decided to do a christmas french tip on my nails.
I used Pretty Serious Cosmetics Presence, then Stud muffin for the red stripes and acrylic paints and gems for the holly. I topped it off with crystal top coat.
the second pic I used my TARDIS gingerbread house as my mani prop. If you follow me on @lokislacquer on Instagram you can see all my step by step progress of making it.
Ill pop some pics up once it is finally finished.
Make sure you check out all the other manis everyone is doing this week.
Hi there everyone! Today was a bit of a quicky for the nail art. This week has been chaos what with concerts at high school for my oldest and then parties for my youngest at preschool and then add swimming and transition to school...man we have hardly had time to breath!!!!!!
So I did a cheeky mani of a blue to white gradient then stamped snowflakes which is super wintery...tho its not what we get here in OZ. We have been having 36 oC days this week so no snow here!!!!!!
For my mani I used Pretty Serious Cosmetics Presence, Grannie Panties, and Type 40 to do the gradient. then I stamped with a Joss Silver stamping polish and used a Born Pretty Plate.I topped it all off with China Glaze fairy dust.
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Make sure you check out everyone else's mani's below for everyone's wintery themes'
Today I have the new Christmas Cracker collection from SM Polish to share with you.
I was quite excited when I opened the collection for the first time because it was a great collection of traditional Christmas colours. I love this because a lot of the polish collections ive seen of late celebrating Christmas are not your traditional colours, and I love the good old red and greens!
All colours in this collection only needed 2 coats with application and one coat of top coat.
Lets have a look shall we???
Christmas Candy- Is a bright red jelly filled with blue and red hexes. The hexes I wiggled about a little to place on the nail but I looked how it only needed a few glitters per nail for full effect.
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Santas Suit- Is a red jelly based polish filled to the brim with micro glitter. This was one of my favourite polishes in the collection. I love this perfect Christmas red. It looked so quishy with a top coat on and without a little textured. this is a must have for any Christmas collection!!!!
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Jolly Holly- Is a green based jelly filled with micro glitter of green and a little red. This was my next favourite in the collection I just loved the colour on the nail and the effect the different colours glitters in the polish created. A definite must buy!!!!
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santas suit and jolly holly
Jingling Bells- Is a gold polish filled with different sized gold glitters. Again another great Christmas colour! The gold is a what i would describe as a cool gold and is super pretty on.
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Blue Bauble- is a plus jelly polish with blue glitters in small hexes. This is pretty colour but one I have seen before with various brands over the years. saying that the formula was great and coverage was awesome. plus it sparkled like crazy in the sun!!!!!!
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Twinkling Lights- Is a bright yellow holographic polish with gold glitters. When i saw this in the bottle I was not overwhelmed with it, but on the nail it was a whole different other story. The holo was great and the gold glitter gave it an added sparkle.
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The Christmas Cracker Collection will be available todayvia SM Polish and will retail for $10 each or they whole collection for $50 .
Today's theme was glitter toppers and flakies. Me personally...I love glitters and flakies but I rarely wear them as they are a PITA to remove.
I decided I would bite the bullet and make an effort with them LOL!!
My prompt for today was dots, so I grabbed my dotting tool, Pretty serious persence, and my bottle of Lynnderella Ruby Red Ruby. Which i might say is an amazing red glitter topper if you are looking for one!
Rather than paint my nails I used a sponge to apply the glitter to make an almost metallic foiled finish. then I popped some dots on in a circular pattern.
The finished result I love and reminds me a little of xmas so im happy!
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Make sure you check out everyone elses awesome nails this week too below!
Today I have the Precious Gems Collection from SMpolish. This is a collection of 12 polishes that represent 12 different gemstones. I have 6 to share with you today.
All of these polishes are a similar format as in different sizes of glitters and pigments in a coloured base.All the colours without a top coat give a textured finish but a good coat of Seche Vite will smooth them over.
Lets have a look at them shall we??
Blue Opal- Is a bright blue polish full of different small sized glitters . I used 2 coats for opacity as a different option you could also use a plain creme base and use once coat for a layered effect..
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Sky Blue Topaz- Is a paler version of blue opal, so these 2 colours do go hand in hand colour wise. I used 2 coats tho I did find it a little gluggy so I was careful not to rush application. Once on the colour is pretty and shimmered in the sun.
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Tantalising Tanzania- Is a Pretty lilac polish. This I think was my favourite colour wise. I used 2 coats for swatches. it actually reminded me of jacaranda's where I live!
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Shimmering Garnet- Is a red /gold polish that actually made it look a little brick red in colour. Again only 2 coats were needed for this colour and it was super sparkly IRL tho hard to capture with the camera.
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Tigers Eye-Is a gold holographic glitter bomb. The sparkle was amazing tho hard to capture on camera without making the pic fuzzy. I did find this polish a little thick to apply but with careful application I used 2 coats to get even application.
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Tourmaline Crystal- Is a green glitter polish with several shades of green and even a little red glitter. I used 2 coats for coverage.
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All of these polishes are available now over at SMpolish and retail for $9.00 each. you can alos purchase the full 12 piece set at a discounted rate of $100.00.
Make sure you check out SMpolish facebook page Here.
OK so before you all shout " OMG YOU HAVE GONE TO THE DARK SIDE!!!!" I am NOT here to sell you Jamberry. Nor have I become a sales person for them. What I have done is unbiasedly tried the Wraps that they sell and as someone who has never used them before videoed myself try them for the first time to give a good and accurate representation on how they work and ease of use.
So what is Jamberry? Well if your in the nail world, you have heard about them and the bad press they get. If your not a nail person then you may have been offered to try them by a family friend these past few months as they were released here in Oz in October.I myself was even on the fence about giving the product a go as the whole pushy way they seem to be rammed down your throat turned me off them totally. Ive seen the "reps" try to tell you that they will pretty much do anything ,that you will get 4 sets of nails from one pack and even that they are Gluten Free. I know crazy right?!?
But after speaking to one of the ladies who is helping with the launch in Australia, she was really lovely, not pushy at all and a pleasure to chat too. So I decided to try them out.
I was sent the following.....
A manicure set.
A heat fan.
2 packs of Jamberry wraps.
Firstly the Heat fan looked great but it had an american plug so I asked the rep what to use as an alternative and I was recommended to try a Hair dryer. So I grabbed my Remington Hair Dryer.
The premise with the Jamberry wraps are you heat them and place on your nail and stretch them in place.
I followed the instructions that came with the parcel. In the below video you can see me trying the product for the very first time. It was a learning curve for me as Id never used these type of heap wraps before and I also have hard gel overlays on my nails which I did not know would or would not affect the application.
As you can see the application did not go as smoothly as I would have hoped or as they claim on their site. Here are a few pics of the wraps.
As you can see when I applied the wraps with the hair dryer they did not wrap on my nail well and I ended up with a bunch of creases. they were sharp and scratchy on the free edge and personally looked like my 5 yr old had put them on.
I was really disappointed. These were suppose to be easy to use and I found them awkward.
As a person who has done nails for many years I really do not see how other people will be able to use them with ease.
Saying this, most of the promo pictures I've seen are of people with really short nails. And when you think about it they would be better for short nails.
After speaking to Cathy from More Nail Polish she tried her Jamberry wraps with the toaster to heat them and had a better result. So I decided to I've the wraps another go but this time I brought a adapter for the heat fan provided and used this. The heat fan worked a million times better than the hair dryer, so if you do decided to buy any Jamberry wraps I would recommend the heat fan. This of course puts the cost to you up tho.
The second attempt I also tried over coloured polish to see if I could get a different effect.
This time the wraps moulded better to my nails and I think for 2 reasons.
Firstly I trimmed my nails shorter. I think that made a difference with the application and there was less surface area to crease. Secondly the heat fan made them more flexible to stretch on my nails so I could get most of the creases out.
Even tho I got a better finish this time I still found the tips to be rough and scratchy.
So Jamberry Wraps...are they for you?? well lets think about the pros and cons.
Pros-
* They come in a variety of colours and designs.
* They are non toxic and are a good alternative to regular polish.
* If you are not great at nail art they will be great for a feature nail.
Cons-
* They are expensive. $22 per set. You do get 22 wraps per set so you can do 2 full manicures or pedicures. -I have seen some advertised that you can get 4 full manis or pedis from a set, but honestly unless you can get them to fit your nails exactly you will not get 4 manis from them.
* You require a heat source to warm the wraps. -Ideally you require a Jamberry heat fan but a toaster or other heat source could work.
* They do not always fit your nails - I found that with my longer nails and C curve they did not fit perfectly and I had wrinkles on my nails which were rough and scratchy.
All in all I'm kind of on the fence with them. I like the designs but i'm not a fan of the faff to put them on. I have used OPI nail wraps and Sally Hansen ones and they seemed to take less effort.
If you do decided to i've them a go, check out Facebook as many people are selling them,
