Sunday Sparkle: Witches Brew – Giddy Polish

This is the third polish from Giddy Polish’s Magic collection I have for you and it was the one I was initially most excited by. I love the combination of the purple jelly base and red glitter pieces and was looking forward to trying it out.

I layered it over Faux Pas by Illamasqua and as with the other Giddy Polishes I’ve tried it was smooth and easy to apply. I found that like the others a lot of the glitter had sunk to the bottom of the bottle but I was still pleased with the amount of glitter that was in each coat. In these pictures I’ve used two coats of Witches Brew and love the smooth finish of the jelly.

I have one more Giddy Polish to show you after this. So far I’ve really liked the polishes from this Norwegian indie and hope to try more of their polishes in future.

Sunday Sparkle: Fairy Tears – Giddy Polish

Here’s the second polish from Giddy Polish’s Magic collection. It’s described as having “a light grey base, filled with beautiful bar glitters and different sizes of silver glitters”. The bar glitters are pink and turquoise and there is plenty of glitter in this one. Again, I noticed a lot of the glitter had sunk to the bottom and I couldn’t seem to get it to re-suspend but even one coat of the polish looked very glittery and with two coats, which I would expect to use with most glitter polishes, it looks great! It’s also very easy to apply and can be painted on without having to worry too much about the even distribution of glitter on the nail.

I like the cloudy grey base. Here I layered the polish over Sally Hansen’s Licorice which is a very dark grey, but the pale cloudy grey base of this polish really lightened it up. I have a feeling this would look nice over a silver base and might try that out next time.

It’s a very pretty polish and an unusual colour combination, so nice to have something a bit different in my collection. I don’t think I love it quite as much as Emotion Wizard which I swatched here last week, but it’s a fun and slightly more subtle glitter which is very wearable.

I bought this polish and the others in the Magic collection from The GiddyDesign store on Etsy.

Sunday Sparkle: Emotion Wizard – Giddy Polish

Today’s glittery offering comes from Giddy Polish – a Norway based indie polish which I came across while browsing Etsy for European indies. I treated myself to the Magic Collection which consists of 4 gorgeous looking polishes. This is the first I’ve actually tried on my nails.

It is described as “a seagreen base, filled with lots of blue and green glitters, in different shapes and sizes.” I layered it over Don’t Mess with OPI by OPI and the picture shows 4 coats of Emotion Wizard. I could have used fewer coats and it did look good after 2 or 3 but I wanted to try and get more depth in the glitter and jelly.

At first I was disappointed because a lot of the glitter seemed to have sunk to the bottom, especially the larger pieces and even with a bit of fishing, shaking and stirring I couldn’t get to them. But as I layered the polish on I decided it really didn’t matter because I really liked it the way it was! I liked the combination of glitter sizes, shapes and colours in the cloudy base and it was very easy and smooth to apply (once I stopped worrying about the larger pieces of glitter) and I loved the depth that multiple layers created.

I’m looking forward to trying out the other polishes in the Magic Collection!

Let it Glitter – Miami Mix

I have another polish from Let It Glitter to show you today. This one is called Miami Mix and contains bright blue and pink hex pieces as well as white bar glitter in a clear base. It’s another non-metallic glitter and I love the neon colours in it.
I decided to layer it over a yellow polish (Sumner Place by Nails Inc) as it made me think of Miami sunshine! I think it looks great over yellow but would also be really fun over so many other colours. I plan to try this polish and Tropical which I swatches last week over black some time soon to really make the most of their bright neon glitter pieces.
It was relatively easy to apply and the picture shows two coats of Miami Mix. I dabbed the second coat on to try and get a more even spread of glitter and with a little bit of encouragement it wasn’t difficult to get good coverage. As with Tropical it’s not a densely packed glitter so you’d need a lot of coats to get full coverage, but I think the fun of these polishes is the neon polka dot effect that they create.

Sunday Sparkle: She Walks in Beauty

Making my nails bright and sparkly today is the gorgeous She Walks in Beauty by A England – a brand I always make a point of buying a few bottles of each time I’m in the UK.

The combination of various sized gold and pale pink glitter pieces is really pretty and felt like an appropriate sparkle for the end of the Valentines weekend. It’s a very girly glitter which is easy to apply and get good, even coverage with. Just one coat looks amazing as a topper, two coats gives a much denser, glitter heavy effect. It’s also a great polish for using in glitter gradients but today just wanted to coat my nails in it!

I layered it over Warwick Avenue by Nails Inc which I thought it went with really well, the only problem is that they match so well that it’s a bit difficult to see the pale pink glitter pieces in the photo.

If you can’t already tell, this pretty glitter has made it a very happy and sparkly Sunday indeed!

Sunday Sparkle: Fitzroy Square

I own a fair number of glitter polishes but don’t wear them as often as I’d like as I always feel like I should save them for a night out or an event befitting sparkly nails. Well at this grey and dreary time of year I’ve decided Sunday will be Sparkle day from now on and I’ll give my glitter polishes a bit of an outing to cheer up these sad wintery days.

First up is Fitzroy Square by Nails Inc which is a beautiful green and turquoise glitter with medium and fine pieces in it. It says it’s a 3D glitter and came as part of a collection of Nails Inc 3D Glitters. I couldn’t make up my mind what polish to layer it over so decided on an ombre of green/turquoise polishes. The darkest polish (on my index finger) is Stylenomics by Essie, then Emerald by Rituals (on my middle finger and I also used this colour on my thumb) after that Take it Mint by Catrice (on my ring finger) and finally CE82 by Layla. I’ve only used one coat of Fitzroy Square over each of these polishes except over CE82 as it looked a bit patchy so I added a second coat. You can see that it’s a very densely packed glitter which covers really well!

My sparkly nails have certainly brought some fun and brightness to my rainy Sunday!

GOT Polish Challenge: Blue

It’s been a while since my last post as I’ve been away on my honeymoon and I feel like I haven’t done any nail art for absolutely ages. So a slightly belated New Year’s Resolution is to get my blog sorted out and get back to posting a bit more regularly. What better way to get myself motivated than to throw myself into a challenge!?! I’m joining this one a bit late and have missed the first two weeks of it (I may try and catch up with those first two weeks’ themes when I have time).
This one is being run by Crumpet’s Nail Tarts and involves using polishes you’ve owned for more than a year. I’m not actually sure when I bought a lot of my polishes but I’m going to try to only use those that I believe I’ve owned for that long!

My first effort isn’t spectacular but does feature a blue polish that I’ve always been very fond of. I bought it when I still lived in Japan and was first getting interested in nail art. It’s not a brand I’ve seen available in Spain so when it’s gone there’ll be no replacing it. The glitter is one I’ve never had much luck with and requires a lot of fishing and coaxing of the larger pieces into the right place – I’ve always wanted to love this polish but it’s a bit frustrating to use! I thought this mani would come out looking more fun than it did, but this is the first bit of nail art I’ve done in quite a while so I can’t expect it to be my best work!

I used: Matt Aqua – BYS, Out of the Blue – BYS, Pure Pearl – Revlon

Here’s what to look forward to from the other days in this challenge:

Couture Nail Art Challenge: Inspired by Marchesa

I wasn’t going to do another challenge for a while but this one sounded really fun, so I’m going to participate in at least a few days of it. I’m a couple of days late starting but I’ll catch up.

The Ten Days of Couture Nail Art has been organised by Just Another Nail Art Blog and I love the idea of taking inspiration from some of fashion’s top designers.

The first on the list was Marchesa – after getting distracted by their fabulous bridal collection and wishing I could have a Marchesa gown for my wedding, I finally found this stunning diamanté dress which seemed like it would translate perfectly to nail art in the form of a glitter gradient. I’ve tried a glitter gradient once before and it was a partial success, so I was keen to have another go at this technique. I like the gradient effect better over a dark base colour so I think this manicure was more striking than my previous attempt

I used: Wanna Say Hello – Essence, Electric Avenue – Nails Inc, Devonshire Street – Nails Inc

You can see the list of Couture designers that will be inspiring us here if you feel like joining in.

Glitter tips

After trying the textured nail polishes which looked like glitter (but are waaaay easier to remove) I realised I hadn’t done anything glitter for a while.

I decided to try a kind of glitter tips/glitter gradient with three different glitter polishes and a nice pale pink base. I was hoping it would look bright and spring-like, but I wasn’t all that happy with it in the end.

After the pink base I started with a thin layer of fine silver glitter which I painted long streaks with, then layered a thicker coat of a pink/purple blue over it and finished off with a chunky blue glitter.

Somehow, the multicoloured glitter didn’t look as nice as I’d hoped it would and it really depended on the light. Sometimes it looked beautiful (mainly in direct sunlight) but more often it just looked a bit dirty…

Maybe I’ll try this design again and choose different colours to do it with, but it’s not one I’ll be rushing to do.

I used: Elizabeth Street – Nails Inc, Electric Avenue – Nails Inc, Shepherd Street – Nails Inc, Out of the Blue – BYS.