Valentine Affair

Finally! My first Valentines mani of the year. 

Using; OPI - Nail Envy, Ciaté - Dangerous Affair, Essie - Quick Dry top coat and Sally Hansen - No Chip top coat. 

As I am participating in a Valentines Collaboration I decided to do the full on valentines theme. The collaboration is on Instagram with the hashtag #vdaycollab2015 - check out everyone else's designs, there are so many amazing mani's. 

I quite like these nails but think they're a bit too much for me, great for an occasion but not everyday wear. I forgot to take this mani off before going to Uni with it... Only on one hand!

Onto the polish... I actually really love this Ciaté. I'm never a huge fan of red and it wouldn't be my top choice in colour but I am really liking this shade.

You might have noticed I listed two top coats above. I used Essie quick dry for practical reasons but it looked horrible once it had dried! No shine whatsoever. I've never noticed this before but it became very clear once I used my Sally Hansen one over top giving it an amazing shine. I'm really sad about the Essie top coat because I'm a massive fan of Essie as a brand. Think I might have to try it again on a few different polish colours. 

Hopefully I'll have time to do another valentines mani this week. However, it is my birthday at the weekend so I'll be doing some nice simple birthday nails. 

I also have lots of nail goodies on the way such as; Cuter Cuticles bits, more ibd gels, Zoya polishes and a Seche Vite top coat which I have been after forever! Cannot wait to try and maybe review some of them. 

Thanks for reading this far down! Much love.

xox

Practice does not always guarantee perfect

Today's post is showing that no matter how many times you have done a nail art technique - there are still off days! This particular water-marble mani just would not turn out how I wanted and I had done it over numerous times. 

For this I used: Essie - millionails, OPI - natural base, Nails inc - Optic Wave and Ciate mini - Kiss Chase and Sally Hansen - Top coat. 

Starting off with polish; I got Nails Inc optic wave in my boots haul (a few posts down) and I absolutely love the colour. It's more of a bright blue which the picture doesn't show. I'm so glad I got it. The Ciate was a freebie in a Marie Claire magazine and I really like it too. Really nice to apply and one coat is enough for even colour. 

Onto the actual water-marbling ... 

I was going for a specific design on each nail and I wasn't prepared for it to go so wrong! 

I used everything I usually do and it just wasn't spreading in the water and was drying so quickly I couldn't create my design properly. The nails inc was spreading okay but the ciate wasn't.  

I wasn't going to give up so I did the mani on both hands but hated it because it took me so long - it only lasted a day! 

It was a disappointing mani but I love the colour combo. 

Not every design is a success.

xox

You can't say no to a great freebie

Today's post is a little different due to no new nails! 

I'm upset with my poor effort but I have been so busy with work experiencing the past few weeks.

So, I was getting a magazine for my journey home from London when I spotted ciaté polish in Marie Claire. Marie Claire is a good mag in itself but made a whole lot better at £2.50 with one polish and caviar thrown in. My mum followed suite and got the red polish (yay!)

The options were; nude, baby blue, lilac, red, pink and orange (I think that is all) With a great selection of nail caviar to compliment each individual polish colour.

I have never tried ciaté polish before so I'm glad I can try before I buy. I know many of the other nail bloggers out there love it so I am very excited to swatch at the weekend. 

The exciting news doesn't end there...

MC readers get an extra 20% off using a special code inside their magazine, this closes on July 9th which still give us nail impulse buyers to mull it over! 

MC are keen to see everyones mani's, so be sure to tweet them at #MClovesciate - I certainly will be. 

Hurry hurry hurry and get your Marie Claire before the colour you want goes!
If you bag yourself any of the polishes be sure to comment and let me know what they are like!

Ps how is it June already?

xox