Duochrome Flakie Nail Polish Swatches: Born Pretty Store Multicolored Shell Glitter Nail Polish

I love my duochromes, and I love my flakie glitter, and recently, I found a source of awesome nail polish that is a duochrome flakie! And the best part is? It's not overly expensive, either.

Born Pretty Store duochrome flakie nail polishes!

These little bottles of awesome are the Born Pretty Store Dazzling Starry Magical Multicolored Shell Glitter Nail Art Polish, (and, by the way, you can use code MCAW10 for 10% off your order). I had two colours, #4 and #11, so I figured I'll show you guys how they fared on me. These are fairly sheer, and I think they perform best over a base, although you can certainly layer them at 2-3 coats for opacity.

Scary Halloween Nails: Bloody Scarred Nails

My last Halloween nail art was nice, but it wasn't really scary. So this time, here's my shot at trying to scare you, LOL!

This was actually quite easy to do, and I imagine anyone could do it, really! For the base, I used a mannequin hands shade (a shade that matches your skin colour closely - it was all the rage back a couple of years ago), Nails Inc Basil Street, one of my all-time favourite polishes ever. I guess you could use any shade for the base, but I wanted a skin-like colour that would stand out against the red blood layered over it.


For the "blood", I sponged on some red nail polish. In this case I used Eyeko Saucy Polish (also previously blogged about before), and sponged it over my nails for that gradient effect. For this, a rougher sponge with larger pores would actually work better for the "splatter" effect than a finer sponge. I really just used a sponge that I had on hand for polishing shoes. LOL!


Lastly, I freehanded on the scars with a black polish and a long skinny nail art brush (I got mine from Born Pretty Store, I wrote about them in a previous Chinese New Year nail art post. I didn't really think too much about where I was placing the scars, which is why perhaps the placement isn't always optimal for all nails. But still, it was cool. Lastly, to keep in the scary Halloween theme, I deliberately didn't cleanup the nail polish, so it's supposed to make my fingers look bloody and gross, LOL!

So I guess my nails are all ready for Halloween! Now all I need to do is dress up like a mummy or something, and I'll be ready to go!

Chinese New Year Nail Art: Red, Gold, and Pearls (Just a Bit!)

Chinese New Year is coming round again, and you know what? This year, the first day of Chinese New Year actually coincides with my birthday? How cool is that? Anyway. Not that you wanted to hear about my birthday (I'm getting older, ugh!), but I'm sure you'll want to hear about my Chinese New Year mani.

So without further ado, here's my Chinese New Year's mani! Which, I guess, is also going to double as a birthday mani this year. I was inspired by this post which I stumbled upon, but I thought I'd make it my own by adding some bling, in the form of pearls!

For this mani, I used a Rimmel Fruities Lasting Finish Polish in Cranberry Zest. This was actually a launch from a couple of years back that featured scented polish (hence the "Fruities" name). Cranberry Zest smells kinda artificially sweet, but it's pleasant. While scented polish may be abit gimmicky, I like the little bit of fun they add to a mani. The design was done with China Glaze Hi-Tek, from the Khrome collection sometime back.



To make the designs, I used my Born Pretty Store nail brush set, using the longest brush to draw three lines on my nail. I don't know whether these types of lines are easier to draw or whether my skillz have improved, but the first time I did an NOTD with nail art brushes, the lines sucked a lot more. Yay for improvement!



Lastly, I added on some pearls from my Born Pretty Store pearl wheel for that extra bling. I used the smallest sized pearls for this one. I've recently been into pearls lately, as you can tell - my previous Winter-inspired nail art had pearls in it, and so did another deep red nail with pearls NOTD. But well, you know, I love my bling!



So there you have it, my Chinese New Years and how I did them. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't actually take as long to do as I thought it would. If you have a steady hand, the gold lines won't take too long to do, although the placement of the pearls would take a little bit more time. Now I'm all ready for Chinese New Year!

Laushine Crackle Polish in White: Budget Beauty Shatter

Shatter/crackle nail polish seems to be a trend that is still very much alive! Almost a year from the time this wave of crackle/shatter polish trend started, all the brands are still going strong. High end, low end, you name it, there's probably a shatter in there somewhere. So of course it's no surprise that eventually coloured shatter would make its way down to the cheapest brands available.

Today's shatter polish is available on Born Pretty Store, and is a nameless Chines brand called Laushine. The crackle polish comes in a variety of colours, but I picked the Laushine White Crackle Polish, at the very reasonable price of US$5.50 per bottle. At that price, it's not bad at all.




The texture of this polish is quite thin, and it dries fast. I recommend applying a slightly thicker coat, but I wouldn't advise applying multiple coats, otherwise the polish takes on a very odd looking texture and looks a little bit thin and brittle. You can see this on the ring finger - there's this bit in the middle that looks a little bit different from the rest of the nail, and that happened when I applied a second coat on that part of the nail. Otherwise, application was smooth and easy, and I have no complaints.



The polish was pretty opaque with a slightly thicker coat, and dried fast and crackled pretty nicely. All in all, I don't have any complaints about the polish at all. For the price I think it's a pretty great buy, and the Born Pretty Store has these shades in a wide range of colours. Must-have colours are white and black, of course, but some of the shades, especially the shimmer ones, are quite unusual and would interest anyone who wants a greater variety of shatter shades (e.g. green shimmer shatter, anyone?).



If you're looking for cheap crackle/shatter polishes that come in a wide range of colours, and if you don't mind ordering online, the Laushine Crackle polishes aren't a bad deal. The Born Pretty Store ships internationally, and shipping is pretty reasonable as well, so they are worth checking out.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Halloween Nails: Cobwebs and Blood Splatters

Halloween, one of the few times of the year you can get complimented for dressing absolutely crazy! Since outrgeous and scary costumes are de rigueur for Halloween, I took the liberty to do some Halloween nails! I thought nothing could scream Halloween better than cobwebs and splats of blood, so I attempted to incorporate both of them into my NOTD (Nail of the Day).

In the nail look below, it consists of two red blood splatters and a black cobweb on a white background. I don't know about you, but I kinda feel like this isn't quite as scary as I'd have liked. I really wanted to spook everyone out with my nails, but I actually ended up getting compliments on them - twice! At least, they thought it was nice until I explained how those cute designs were supposed to be spider webs and blood...Oops.

The photo below shows what I used for this look. The white base was Wet n Wild White, the red blood splats were created by konading with Eyeko's Saucy Polish, using Konad Plate M21. I used the design of two paint splats on the M21 plate. The cobweb was created by using Wet n Wild Black, and my new favourite plaything for nail art, my nail art brushes.



I've never actually tried freehanding nail art with a brush before, so using the nail art brushes was totally new to me. I got mine from Born Pretty Store, and these are being sold in sets of three each, for the awesomely cheap price of US$2. Here is the link to the nail brush set that I bought.



You get nail brushes of varying lengths, so these are perfect for drawing lines, curves, or, if you're skilled enough, I can imagine them being used for french tips and other similar nail art. I personally didn't notice much difference between using the longer or shorter lengths, but some others might - it really is personal preference. The bristles are thin and flexible, so you can really draw both thick and thin lines with these.



For the cobwebs on my nails, I used the shorteset brush, dipped it in Wet n Wild Black, and basically just freehanded the lines. I did the straight vertical lines first before doing the horizontal lines. It's definitely not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at using nail art brushes! Here is a close up shot of my nails so you can see the lines created.



I painted on the cobwebs after konading the blood splatters. I used Eyeko Saucy Polish for the konading of the blood splats because in my previous Eyeko Saucy Polish NOTD, it was opaque in pretty much one coat, so I thought it would be ideal for konading as well. Turns out, the blood splats looked a bit pinker than I'd like, but well, it does look like blood splats!



Although I have to admit my Halloween nail art is a little bit noob-ish, I'm still enjoying it! I had never thought of doing nail art for Halloween before, but I was just so inspired by seeing all the different Halloween nail looks around the blogosphere. I'm so glad to be rocking my own Halloween nails!

(Bornprettystore product was sent for review. All other items were purchased by me. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Polka Dot Mani Fail with Essie Foot Loose

Edited to add: Get 10% off your Born Pretty Store purchase with coupon code MH10K31 - expires Oct 31, so you can purchase happily til then! (Note: I don't profit in anyway from the code. I'm just sharing it with interested readers.)

After seeing all those awesome cool manicures featuring dotting tools, I decided that despite my lack of hand-eye coordination and general clumsiness, I just HAD to try one out. That, and I wanted to bring on a summer colour on my nails. That's how I ended up with this monster of a manicure. I have to admit, while there wasn't anything wrong with the tools I used, my dotting skillz are teh suckz. Seriously.



I got my dotting tools from Born Pretty Store, which has been popular lately among bloggers and nail polish lovers for its ready availability of cheap and cheery nail art suppliers, including crackle polish, stickers, rhinestones, etc. The dotting tools I got were just under US$5 for a set, and are available here.

These dotting tools are of good quality, and quite handy to use. You get a set of 5 dual-ended dotting tools. All five have two ends.



One end is all the same size, a standard size that would be handy for most designs:



The other end of the tools is more interesting for girls who really want to dot in all sizes. The ends of the tools range from really big to positively tiny, and would definitely satisfiy any dotter's needs.



For the dot manicure below, I used Essie Foot Loose because it was such a lovely summer colour - girly, bright, and still a little spunky. And since it's in the colour family of pinks (in this case bright purply-pink), it's wearable to the office! And unlike other Essies which tend to be sheer and streaky, this is a one-to-two coater, depending on thickness of application.



For the dots, I used the dotting tools and Wet n Wild White. One of the best white konading polishes ever, now used for dotting. FOr the variously sized dots on my nails, I used the large end of the green dotting tool, and the large end of the pink dotting tool. I also, for smaller dots, used the white dotting tool.

I know the dots don't looks as nice as they could be, but that's realy due more to my lousy application than anything else. After all, all dotting tools are the same right? But looking at these photos makes me feel like from far, they aren't THAT bad, right, right? *Crickets chirp*



Anyway, I love the colour of my mani, even if my dotting skills suck. It kind of reminds me of summer - bright, and polka dotted, and just generally cheery!

(Dotting tools were sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Nails Inc Paddington + Nail Art Pearl Rhinestone = Classy But Fun NOTD

I don't always get to do nail art, so whenever I bling up my nails, I get all excited! So please humour me while I start off this post with a photo of my awesome blinged up nails.



The nail polish in question is Nails Inc Paddington, a gorgeous glossy deep red I bought in my craze to own as many Nails Inc colours as I possibly could before leaving the UK. It's distinct from Nails Inc's other famous colour, Victoria, in that Victoria is a jelly (sort of), while Paddington is a creme, and Victoria has a tinge more purple to it, whereas Paddington is more maroon.

Anyway, I first applied Paddington, which applies like a dream, as with most of my Nails Inc polishes. I loved how absolutely classic it looked. So I decided that if I wanted to bling it up, I would have to use something equally classy - and lo and behold, I took out this little baby.



This humble-looking set of nail art pearls is available from Born Pretty Store, which has been quite popular among nail bloggers lately for their vast array of nail art products. The store simply has everything, from shatter polish to nail art tools, and of course, nail art decorations like this set of pearls. This set of pearls is the 3 sizes nail baby pearl rhinestone decoration wheel, available for a very reasonable price.

The pearls come in three sizes, so you can pick and choose to form various designs, or to suit very large or small fingers. I've taken the liberty of photographing a pearl of each size against a ruler, so you can guesstimate how large these are. The smallest pearl is really quite tiny, while the largest pearl is pretty big.



For this look, I used just the medium-sized pearl. For round items like nail art pearls or rhinestones, I find it best to pick and place them on the nail by using a damp toothpick, a tip I learned from some other nail bloggers. Basically, you dampen the end of a toothpick, and touch the surface of a pearl or rhinestone. The pearl or rhinestone will then "stick" to the toothpick due to the surface tension of the water, thus allowing you to move the pearl and hover it over the nail until you are fully satisfied with its position. Then, you can lower the pearl or rhinestone on to the surface of the nail, and the wet nail polish will have a stronger surface tension than the water on the toothpick, so the rhinestone will stick to the nail even after you lift your toothpick. Nifty, right? Sometimes I also use a pair of tweezers, when I can't find a toothpick lying around.



Another tip I've found handy when working with nail art is that topcoat is needed over the pearls and rhinestones, otherwise they will fall off within a couple of days. I typically use two coat of topcoat over the nail art. I first use a slow-drying topcoat, and then apply a second coat of fast-drying topcoat, like Seche Vite, over it. That way, the pearls and rhinestones stay firmly in place for as long as possible, without me having to wait for hours for my manicure to dry. With this method of slow topcoat and fast-dry topcoat, my manicure is typically ready to go after half an hour. Meanwhile, in the interim half-hour, I can use my hands, but carefully.



Lasting power of the manicure was very good. If you've been a longtime reader of my blog, you'll know I'm an absolute hoor for all Nails Inc polishes, since they work very well on me. Nails Inc's Paddington applied smoothly, and stayed on for 3-4 days before chipping, which is about usual for me. I only wish that Nails Inc was cheaper, and available outside the UK! In my humble opinion, the Nails Inc formula is the best there is in nail polish - outstripping even - dare I say it - RBL. I personally find the consistency smoother in Nails Inc polishes, and the application less streaky. Okay, now I'd better run before the RBL fans stone me.



I don't know about you, but I am absolutely loving my nail art, although it was a little more time-consuming than your average manicure. I love the combination of deep red together with white pearls, and I love how it looks classy with the deep red colour, but still a little fun with the pearls! I'm not going to lie - I simply couldn't stop looking at my nails when I had this manicure on.

(Nail art product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)