mermaid nails

Polishes used:
American Apparel 'peacock'
Milani '582 teal'
Seche Vite top coat

I feel like these should be called my mermaid nails, they look just like a glittery mermaids tail in my opinion! I used American Apparel nail polish in 'peacock' as a base. I love this one as it only needs one coat to be opaque. Over the top I layered three layers of the milani nail polish. I picked this up in New York in the summer and as far as I'm aware they're not actually available in the UK but there's a few on eBay and Amazon if you have a look. I wanted loads of glitter so I put three coats of it on to make it very opaque and sparkly. I finished them off with my favourite top coat seche vite to make it extra shiny and to help prevent chipping.


 What do you think of my mermaid nails, will you be trying out anything similar?

Cath Kidston inspired rose nail art

another nail art post, yaaaay! This one is Cath Kidston inspired as per usual with pretty pastel colours and a floral design. I haven't done this design before so I didn't take step by step photos as I did them as I didn't know how they would turn out so sorry there's no tutorial but I'll definitely be one soon. I just used a dotting tool and a light pink Essie shade to create a large flower shape as the base. Then with some darker pinks and a tiny paintbrush create little swirls to make out like there are petals on the rose. In the center of each flower, using a dark berry red do a couple of smaller swirls to give more definition and to make it look like the petals are closer together in the middle. Using a small paintbrush again do the leaves by doing the light green then dark one.

I hope you like them, please let me know what you think!I'm off to see Mike Dignam today in Brighton with a couple of my friends which should be good, I hadn't heard of him before my friend asked me to go with her but I actually quite like it- he's got all his music on YouTube if you want to listen!

easy polkadot, stripe and rose nail art

I feel like I haven't done a nail art post in forever! Anyway I'm sorry this isn't a tutorial or anything but I was painting them late at night (as always) so I didn't get any decent photos of them until the next morning. I do have a rose nail art tutorial post and polkadot nail art video tutorial and if you can do both of them then you'll be able to do these easily.

I first saw this nail art on Pinterest and I did these nails before a while back and I really liked them so I thought I would recreate them again. I like the simplicity of them with the plain designs and only the hint of colour in them. 

I used the Rio nail art pens and complete nail artist set* for the details which you can enter my giveaway to win here.

Easy polkadot nail art tutorial for beginners

I get 983920 daily requests (no exaggeration) for me to do the occasional nail art tutorial on my YouTube channel so I thought I'd give in and do one for you! I kept it simple and decided to do an easy beginners polkadot nail art tutorial which everyone can do (yes even you!) so please let me know what you think! 

As I mentioned in the video here is a post I did on DIY dotting tools to save you buying them but if you wanted to just buy them here is a link to get them very cheap on eBay!

Seeing you recreations make my day so please email them to islay_xx@yahoo.com or tweet them to @islaay_x, I always RT them!

ps so sorry about the music- I know it's a pain! I've downloaded loads of different ones now so look out for them in the next video I do!

easy cherry nail art tutorial

It seems like FOREVER since I last did a nail art post, to be honest i've hardly done anything exciting on my nails recently so I haven't had much to post about! I was inspired to do these from the new issue of my favourite magazine Company. I didn't take step by step photos because I felt Company did a good job and theirs are clearer than mine would be! They're nice and summery which I like and they stand out as they're very bright and perfect for holiday! I think I'd prefer them with a mint green or pastel pink background as I'm not the biggest fan of white nails on me but I still think they look okay with the white!

Please let me know what you think of my cherry nail art!

watermelon nails

it's not such a secret that I have a small massive obsession with watermelons (we're talking top, phone case, nails etc) so I thought I'd take up Laura's request and paint my nails with watermelons and then take photos with a watermelon wohoo! (do you reckon I can say watermelon any more?!) I would of taken these photos while wearing my american apparel watermelon top but it' s packed for holiday, boo!

Anyway if you're wondering how I did these nails then I've done a watermelon nail tutorial so check that out if it's something that interests you! Please let me know what you thought of this post- I thought it would be fun to do something a bit different for a change!

magic scratch paper inspired nail art tutorial

The Lady Boys of Bangkok have teemed up with Bad Apple Cosmetics to allow me to do a fun nail art tutorial for you all! I've done something a bit different inspired by that scratch paper you used to get as a child where it would be colourful underneath with a black layer on top which you would scratch off in a pattern to reveal the bright colours underneath! This is very different to my usual pretty floral nails so I hope you like it for a bit of a change!
Also how do you like this layout for a tutorial? Is it good or shall I stick to how I normally do the photos and put it into a grid?

♥ start off by painting a base coat to protect your nails- I used the top and base coat from Bad Apple Cosmetics

♥ paint random colours on your nails in whatever pattern you want (this can be as neat or as messy as you want it to be as it will be covered up! I chose to use 'mint candy apple' by Essie and 'barn' by Bad Apple Cosmetics as they were a nice contrast to the colour I used for the top layer

♥ using striping tape (mine is from the Rio professional nail art collection* but you can find it cheap on eBay/amazon) to make a pattern of lines across your nail. This must be done when the polish beneath is completely dry and I'd wait a good half an hour if I was you before putting the tape on to prevent the polish underneath from peeling off once you remove the tape!

♥ Paint a thin layer of the top colour over the nail- I used 'almata' from Bad Apple Cosmetics. While it's still wet peel away the tape, I find it's easiest using tweezers as it can be quite fiddly at times as the pieces of tape are tiny, sticky and covered in nail polish- loveeeely!

♥ once it's all completely dry finish with a top coat to prevent chips and make it last longer- I used the Bad Apple Cosmetics top and base coat to finish the design off

this is a very versatile design as you can use any colour combination you want! I like using the striping tape as it's fairly easy to use and gives very precise lines which would be very hard to make with a striper brush.

The Bad Apple nail polishes retail for £9.95 and are available here

You can check out the Lady Boys of Bangkok's Facebook and Twitter pages too to find out more

I was sent the Bad Apple Cosmetics nail polish to feature in a nail art post but this does not influence my opinion on them and it is 100% honest as always

cath kidston nail art

this is just a quick post, this photo was from a set of OOTD photos that didn't turn out well so I thought I would just post a photo of my nails instead as I'd just painted them! I have done a Cath Kidston nail tutorial for this design which is so easy to do so check that out if you want to see how to do these! I used all essie polishes and the Rio nail art pens for this design as per usual!

I hope you like these, have you done any nail art recently?

Fake Tattoos nail art tattoo review and tutorial

Today I have a tutorial showing you how to use nail art tattoos. I was sent the nail art tattoos to try by fake tattoos which is a Scandinavian brand who sell 'tattoos' for your skin and nails. They're similar to the ones you used to get when you were a child only much cuter designs and without the pain and permanency of a real one. As you can see from my photos they have so many cute designs to choose from so there's something for everyone!

Here's how you apply them:

1. start off with the base design you want for your nails which can obviously be something plain but I decided to go for polka dots to make it a bit more interesting. I think stripes or ombre would be a good alternative which would also look cute

2. cut the tattoo design you have chosen from the sheet of designs

3. remove the piece of clear plastic that is covering it on the front (I accidentally forgot to do this one one of the ones I did and it doesn't work!

4. place the nail tattoo face down onto your nail and wet a cotton bud with water- I found a cotton bud was best as it is small and it gives you more precision when applying it. It is quite hard to get the tattoo exactly where you want it as they're so tiny but you get used to it with a bit of practice

5. place the wet cotton bud onto the backing card and let the water soak through, making sure you wet the whole piece of card

6. once it has transferred the backing will easily slip off and you will be left with the nail tattoo on your nail!

7. finish with a good top coat- I recommend seche vite or nails inc. caviar top coatas they're my favourite and I've found they do the best job at preventing chipping

fake tattoos have such a wide range of designs on their website and it makes it look as if you've put loads of effort into painting them when you realy haven't- sneaky! It's like having perfectly manicured nails with pretty much no skill involved! The only downside I've found so far to them is that after around 3 days I found the bows started to get almost sticky on my nails and scratched off which was weird but the first couple of days they were fine!

Fake Tattoos retail for £6 per sheet (free postage!!) and are available here. They're great for people wanting to experiment with nail art but don't have the patience to paint a design on your nails yourself

what do you think of Fake Tattoos? Do you think they're a good, easy alternative to doing nail art?

although I was sent the Fake Tattoos for review purposes this does not influence my review in any way and it is 100% honest as always

easy lace nail art tutorial

I was inspired to do these by Julia who's blog I found through instagram, she did hers a pastel pink but I decided to go with essie 'mint candy apple' for mine! They're a bit messy round the edge so sorry about that! I think these would look cute with any pastel colour as a base, maybe even one finger as each! The hardest bit was getting the semicircle in step two the same size on each finger but I guess it's not too hard and it's fairly easy to even up with the base colour if you make a mistake.

china print nails using the rio professional nail artist collection

 

I said in my review of the Rio Ultimate nail artist collection* that I would do a step by step tutorial of these nails so here it is! The base colour is 'awol' by topshop which is one of my favourites, it's such a lovely bright blue!

1. Paint your nails with the base colour, any would work as long as it's a contrast to white- something bright or pastel would be my top picks

2. Using the adhesive in the Rio nail art collection set paint a thin layer on one of your nails and leave it to dry for around 10 minutes

3. Cut a piece of lace nail art foil to the size of your nail

4. Place it over the top of your nail

5. Rub the foil so it transfers making sure you go all the way to the edges

6. Using striping tape place strips of it down your nail making sure they're as straight as you can get them

7. Paint over the tape in white and while the polish is still wet put the tape off to leave the blue stripes below. This may end up not being perfect and you might need to touch it up with a white striper when it's dried which is what I had to do

8. Paint a thin layer of clear polish over the nail

9. using a cocktail stick and hexagonal glitter pieces place them onto the nail in whatever pattern you want

10. As you can see I chose to fill the whole nail in with glitter pieces but you may want to just do round the edge or a strip with a few rows down the centre of the nail

11. Using a dotting tool and white polish do polkadots over the nail

12. Using the striping tape again create a V shape at the centre of the nail- this will make the lines a lot neater than it would be if you did it freehand

13. Paint white on one side of the tape and then peel the tape off

finish with a top coat (I used seche vite) and you're done, I absolutely love how these turned out and I can't tell you how many compliments I had on them! I'm really loving the Rio kit so will probably be doing more tutorials like this with it soon! 

Do you like this type of post with the step by step instructions and what do you think of these nails, please let me know!

Rio Professional Nail Artist Collection review

today I am reviewing the Rio professional nail artist collection*. I have tried the nail art pens and magnetic nail polish before and if you've read any of my nail art posts before you'll know they're pretty much all I use as they're perfect for doing nail art with! The professional nail artist collection is basically all the nail accessories you'll ever need all together in one set. I usually buy my dotting tools/brushes etc off of eBay and they usually come from China on economy delivery meaning it can take up to a month to arrive- not really ideal (even if they are only around 99p). The Rio set is great as it has everything all together in one box. It is perfect for if you're just starting out with nail art and wanted to have everything avaliable to try out hundreds of different designs. It will take me a while to properly give everything a go so I am posting the overall review now as I've tried a few bits (I'm posting a tutorial for the nails at the bottom of this post soon so look out for that coming up) and I will be doing lots more posts in the future using different products from the set to create different manicures.

the polishes that you receive in the kit are a black nail art pen, adhesive for the nail foils, 2-in-1 varnish (top and base coat) red, white, silver and a green polish. Obviously you can use any colours you have already to create your design but it was nice that some were included! So far I've only used the red and white polishes and the adhesive which I have got on with well. I've previously tried the nail art pens and as I said earlier I love them!

you also get a selection of glitters in these tiny pots. Okay these are adorable- they remind me of little pixi dust pots or something that the tooth fairy would have- they're so cute! They are however quite fiddly to use as you have to paint your nail with the base colour and whilst it's still wet pour the glitter over the nail to stick to it which as you can imagine means it goes everywhere- hello glittery floor! They're a nice idea though but I don't really see myself using them all that much.

these pots of glitter are much more useful than the tiny jars. They hold quite a lot of glitter and the white and green ones are perfect for doing this glequin type manicure which Sam is famous for doing! The tiny beads are perfect for doing caviar nails or you can also use them as tiny studs to make your nails 3D

these fruit shapes and rhinestones are a great addition to a simple manicure. I have some similar fruit shapes already but had never tried having rhinestone nails before. To try them out I painted my nails a dark blue and used the round light blue ones to be like small polkadots- they looked really cute! You stick them on with a small dot of clear nail polish and I would recommend putting a few layers of top coat on top of the nails once they're finished though as they are likely to come off easily.

nail foils and striping tape are both something I hadn't tried before. For the foils you have to paint your nails with the adhesive I mentioned earlier (it's pretty much just PVA glue I think) and leave it until it's almost dry- 8-10 minutes. Cut a section of the nail foil to fit your nail, place it on top and rub it down making sure it gets into the corners and slowly peel off. It leaves an effect which is pretty much impossible to achieve with polish and is bound to get people asking about them! The striping tape is used to easily get straight lines when you're trying to do something precise. The base colour must be completely dry, cut the piece of tape to size and carefully position it on your nail. Once it's positioned paint over it with a different colour then peel the tape off. The area under the tape will remail the base colour and the rest of the nail will be the second colour,. They make your nails so much neater than doing it freehand and give a really striking effect!

I don't tend to use brushes apart from striper brushes usually so I'm excited to properly give these a go to see what effects I can get with them! I like how the second one in from the left is angled which makes painting easier as you can see what you're doing better! I hopefully will be able to create some interesting designs with the large fan brush on the right so I'm looking forward to trying them all out.

I think the finger stand it a quite cool but a quite unnecessary addition to the set. I guess it's kind of useful when doing somebody else's nails but to be honest you don't really need it! The sponges are for doing gradient/ombre nails. As you can see I haven't tried these ones yet as I've failed miserably several times when attempting ombre previously. I'll give these sponges a go and keep you updated though!

a nail art stamping plate is something I've bought previously off of ebay to try but I couldn't get it to work properly and gave up on it so I'm glad this kit came with two to try so I could give it another go. I gave these a quick try on mum's nails and they turned out better than my previous attempts with the eBay stamping plate. I know not all of you won't know what you're to do with these so I'm definitely doing a separate post on them soon to show you how you use them!

sorry for the overload of photos and information- this kit just has so much in it and I didn't want to miss out anything!

The Rio Professional Nail Artist Collection retails for £29.99 and is currently only available on Argos but I think it may be available on the Rio website soon! 

I've added a photo below of how my nails turned out when I tried out different things from the set. I've taken full step by step photos showing you how to use lots of things in the Rio professional nail art set and that post will be going up soon so look out for that being posted! (The base colour I used was 'awol' by topshop)