Red Zin Mystery

The first Halloween design of the year... Inspired by @ninanailedit. She is so talented, I just had to recreate for the Halloween 'vampire' look. 

Using; OPI - Natural Base, Sally Hansen - Red Zin, L'oreal - Mystery, W7 top coat and Kiko top coat.

First things first, the top coats ruined the colours of this mani. I needed a new top coat urgently and went cheap with W7 which gave a horrible finish on these nails. I then tried to add more shine by adding Kiko and it just didn't work. Waaaah. 

Also, obviously the red was a nightmare to get out of my cuticles, please excuse the messy clean up.

Aside from all that drama - I adore these. 

A colour combo I have never done and studs that I would never have thought to position like that so something different which turned out great. 

This Sally Hansen colour is a great Autumnal colour - I'll be wearing it lots in the next few months.

More Halloween nails to come - I love themed nails! 

xox

My not so halloween inspired come-back

After a well deserved break for my nails I am back! I have been scrubbing them with all sorts of weird home remedies to get rid of the stains. Finally, they are back to a (nearly) normal state! However, all the nails on one hand broke therefore am now on the growth remedies... but my left hand nails are still in tact - there is still hope!

This mani is not one that I spent much time on it was just something simple and fun for last weekend. I used; MoYou, Sally Hansen - Big matte top coat (on top of the white coat) then L'oreal - Pop the bubble. 

I constantly use this L'oreal colour - I just love it and keep going back to it!

Not exactly a Fall/Autumnal colour but I'll just keep pretending it's still summer with my light polish shade choices!  

This polish also isn't a nightmare to get off - providing you know a few techniques to removing glitter it's pretty easy.

The halloween posts have been on my instagram and bloglovin feed in the hundreds and a few of them I am eager to recreate this week! So, Halloween will be making an appearance on Nailstori in the coming weeks of October.

I am thinking of making a light box to take pictures whilst I am at uni because I don't have an easy place to take them outside so find it difficult to get a nice shot. Does anyone have any experience with home-made light boxes? I've been debating giving it a go for ages now. 

 xox

Challenge accepted... Challenge accomplished

If you follow me on Instagram then you will definitely be aware that I've recently completed the Nail It Magazine 30 day challenge because I've been raving about finishing - it recently took over my nail life! Congrats to anyone else who completed a challenge - there were some seriously impressive designs done everyday by some of fellow nail peeps. 

For this post I thought I would put together a little collage of all the 30 nail pictures together - I will continue to do a few separate posts on my particular favourites. 

I have also made one of those cool flipagrams so have a look on my Instagram (@nailstori) if you are interested in seeing it. 

There won't be any new nails up as I am giving my nails a well deserved weeks break - whilst trying to get rid of those dreaded yellow stains. I will hopefully be writing a few short beauty related posts. 

Annnnnnd...

I have some exciting nail related news to share in the next few weeks. 

Thanks for reading as always! 

xox 

Don't just wear a colour wear a cause

I'm nearing the last of the posts from my favourite mani's from the Nail It challenge.

This one had the theme of hearts. 

I combined this theme with the current trend 'Don't just wear a colour wear a cause' which has been circulating the nail community as it is breast cancer awareness month. The designs and awareness created from the huge nail community is amazing and I am glad I can be a part of it. It really shows the positivity that can come from the internet - there are far too many negatives constantly focused on. 

The polishes I used for this mani are; Chanel - Ballerina, MoYou, Essie - Madison Ave-Hue, Loreal - Amazon's Flare and Mac - Dark Angel.

The heart created from dots was so much harder than it looks! I'm glad I stuck it out because it looks pretty cute. 

And Chanel - Ballerina is probably the most stunning colour I have ever seen and it is so shiny! 

A few more designs to come before the big finale of pictures.

Have a happy Monday everyone. 

xox

Overcast

This is my take on the NailIt challenge theme of - today's weather.

I didn't want to do something completely obvious,  so I decided to try drag-marble which is something I've been wanting to try for a while now!

Using; Sally Hansen - White on and OPI - I have a herring problem.

Perfect colours because the OPI turned into a glittery grey when it was dragged through the white base coat.

I chose these colours because the weather was grey and overcast (hence the blog title) 

A top tip that I learned from just winging it instead of looking up a tutorial of some kind is to do two base coats. Let the first dry completely and then don't let base coat number two dry at all so it drags easily.

Apart from that it is soo easy, there is hardly any technique to it and it always creates a cool pattern.

Will definitely be trying this again soon - it is a lot less mess than water-marble aswell. 

More NailIt challenge pictures to come and I only have ONE day left of it.

xox

Aerosol water-marble - without aerosol...

More from the Nail it challenge - this design had the simple theme of blue. So, of course I went for a blue base and an aerosol water-marble. This was my first time trying this design and it is really straight forward so, easily enjoyable to do! 

The polishes used were; Wyvnie and L'oreal - Mystery. 

I achieved this water-marble by dropping the polish into water (as you would for normal water-marble) However, instead of making a pattern in the water you use a spray to break up the polish.

It is called 'aerosol' but I didn't use one I actually used a body spray. A Victoria Secret one to be overly precise! I felt that this worked better than hair spray because it wasn't as harsh and fast when spraying into the water. It broke up the polish pretty evenly. 

Love this design because it really is really quick to do (apart from the clean up obviously) and it makes a super effective mani.

xox

Mexican Skulls

This was part of the 30 day nail art challenge; day 16 - accent nail. 

I saw this design on the talented nail tech's instagram @marikonail1214. I absolutely loved the design so gave it a go myself.

Polishes used were; Sally Hansen - White on, Essie - Pure Pearlfection, the eyes; Orly - Passionfruit, Essie - Fiji, and for the rest; Wynie - 698, L'oreal - Mystery. 

I love this mani because it is so different to anything else I would normally do and it was actually really fun do to! 

Will continue to share my favourites from the challange.

xox