New Barry M Textured Nail Effect 2013 swatches and review

Hey everyone! I'm back with another Barry M swatch-fest after yesterday's post. Today's post is about the new textured polishes that they've brought out, which I'm sure many of you have heard about. I expected them to be a lot like OPI's sand polishes, which I didn't much like the look of, but as you'll see they're completely different as they dont have any glitter and mainly because they're so much nicer all round. I really didn't expect to like these polishes but I absolutely love them, and you'll see some nail art coming up with one of them in the next few days! More information and swatches after the jump. 

My first giveaway!

Hey everyone! Today I'm starting my first ever giveaway, kindly sponsored by Born Pretty Store. I would like to give them a huge thankyou for doing this for my blog!

Giveaway rules:

• There will be one prize - a $20 gift card to spend on whatever you want at bornprettystore.com (and remember, they have free international shipping!)
• Entrants must be 18 years or older, or have parental permission in order to enter
• The winner will be chosen randomly using Rafflecopter, which uses random.org
• Whoever wins must respond within 48 hours of me choosing, otherwise I will pick another winner
• The closing date is 14th Feb at 12am 
• This giveaway is open internationally
• EDIT: The option to 'leave a blog post comment' must state which post of mine you like most and/or what you would like to see more of on my blog
• Good luck everyone!

I decided that I would make this giveaway for a gift card, rather than choosing your prizes for you, as I know that most of you will probably prefer that! Here are a few options of what you could get with your prize:

a Rafflecopter giveaway
I want to thank you all so much for supporting my blog, and I want to thank Born Pretty Store for allowing me to do so!

In the meantime, remember you can use my code KHL91 to get 10% off your order.

Alice

New Barry M Gelly Nail Paint 2013 swatches and review

Hey everyone! As promised, I have a review of the new Barry M gelly nail varnishes to show you today. I was SO excited to receive these for review. I'm sure many of you have realised by now that Barry M is my number one love over any other brand, so I'm completely in awe that I'm now a blogger for them! Anyway, they have released 4 new gelly nail varnishes to add to the 9 that they released last year. I haven't tried any of them, but from what I've heard the only thing different is the colours, which I must say I absolutely LOVE. Swatches and information after the jump.

Rainbow gradients + paisley nails

Hey everyone! It's been a while hasn't it? (Well, a week but still!) I intended to post a then and now piece on Saturday but I didn't find any time to edit the pictures before I went home for the weekend and I didn't take my laptop in case I fell over in the snow, so here is my first chance to post. But rather than doing my then and now post I'm going to show you some different nails that you will have seen slightly already if you're following me on instagram, and I shall post my then and now nails this Saturday instead. I have quite a busy week planned in blogging, the only day there will be no post this week will probably be tuesday (aka tomorrow). I have some wonderful new Barry M nail varnishes to show you, and lots of lovely nail art ideas planned around them, and I also have other exciting products and designs to show you, so I hope you'll stick around to see!

Anyway, on to today's nails. Last time I did paisley nails I had a couple of comments that I should try them in different colours, because as you might recall I just did them as a test of gel pens on top of some glow in the dark polishes, so the colours weren't that exciting. But I couldn't really decide what colour to choose and I've been meaning to do rainbow gradients for ages, so I thought why not, and I mixed the two together. The outcome reminds me of some hippy fabric in the 60's but I quite like it! I've also included a picture of the rainbow gradient alone at the end of the post just in case you dont like the paisley! 

I used Essie - Blanc as a base and then sponged on Barry M - Lemon, Collection 2000 -Fruit Loop, Barry M - Blueberry, and China Glaze - Refresh Mint. And once that was completely dry I drew on the paisley print with a 0.38 Muji Gel Pen (seeing as though so many of you asked me what I used last time). Unfortunately I wasn't patient at all with top coat and I did smudge the pen a bit, but that's not the case usually, I was just a bit hasty. Although I dont think it looks too bad really. I decided to also add an accent nail using Born Pretty Store studs like the ones in this post.

And a bonus picture of the rainbow gradient alone:

I think my gradienting skills could probably do with a bit of improvement still but I still like how these turned out! What do you think? 

Alice

Can owls be romantic?

Hey everyone! Did you miss me? It's nearly been a week since you last saw my nails! I actually did these nails last wednesday, but I knew Emily's post was coming up and I didn't want to leave you with no post this week so here you go. 

These nails are one of only two designs I've ever done directly from another artist, you can see the other here (unless I've forgotten about another one!). I have a folder of screen grabs on my laptop and I was just browsing them, not actually intending to do any nails from them, and this design really stood out to me. It was a screen grab from youtube so I went on the hunt for the original tutorial, but unfortunately it had been deleted, I managed to find a full picture of the nails here (mine was only a partial screen grab with no thumb) and decided to do my nails based from that. I know my owls aren't anywhere near as good, but nevertheless I still really like them!

I used a base of Models Own - Blooboo, and added tiny white dots using Essie - Blanc and a dotting tool, I then painted the moon in white acrylic paint, and then put a top coat straight over that, it came out pretty bumpy so I added Essence - Top of the Ice-Stream to give it a creamy tint and to hide any bumps. Then I used a tiny brush and Models Own - Nude Beige for the brances, a mixture of China Glaze - Gaga for Green and OPI - Dont Mess With OPI for the leaves, and then black acrylic paint for the writing and owls, and red acrylic paint for the hearts. All topped off with 2 coats of Seche Vite. 

What do you think? Have I done justice to the original? Let me know in the comments

Alice

Guest Post by Very Emily!

Hey everyone! I'm still in the midst of piles and piles of revision (literally) so my very lovely friend Emily, from Very Emily offered to step in and do a guest post for me. I've not known Emily long but she's become a very great friend to me and I'm honoured to have her beautiful work on my blog, read on to see what Emily has to say about her post!

First of all, thank you so much Alice for having me! I am so excited to share a guest post on One Nail To Rule Them All.  Alice has become a great friend to me over the past few months, but I've always been a huge admirer of her blog. She does such beautiful designs and her photos are simply beautiful!

For my guest post I decided to do some nail art with one of the polishes Alice was kind enough to give me for my birthday! She got me Barry M's Foil Effect polish in Gold which is just the most incredibly opaque gold. It's probably one of the best gold polishes I've tried! It's absolutely perfect for nail art.

I ended up painting a baroque print on my nails using Barry M Foil Effects in gold, over Barry M Dusty Mauve. I also used the gold Barry M as an accent nail.

I really love how this baroque print turned out! I've seen a few girls do really beautiful baroque print nails, but Candice a.k.a. MrCandiipants was my main inspiration for this design. Huge thanks again to Alice for asking me to create a guest post for her blog. I had such fun doing these and I really hope you like them! 

Valentines has come early!

Hey everyone, I had my first exam today and I'm feeling relieved that it's over, but I have 2 more to go so we'll see if the optimism continues! Today's post is only going to contain one picture as it's actually from an upcoming tutorial that you'll see around valentines day, but I wanted to use it as a post this week so you weren't left with nothing! I'm not going to give much away now because you'll see soon, but I hope you like them! 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Birthday card nails

Hey everyone! Some of you may have noticed that there was no 'then and now' challenge yesterday, I really really didn't have time, I have so many exams coming up and I'm super panicking so I've been revising non-stop. It's not that I haven't been doing the work, I'm just struggling to keep up! So basically what I'm trying to say is that my nails are having to take a back seat at the moment whilst I put my focus into my work, which means no then and now nails until the 26th. I do have a couple of posts lined up, one of which is hopefully a guest post by a very lovely friend of mine, and I will try my best to do my nails away from the 'challenge', but I hope you understand if not!

Although, today is my birthday so of course I had to take a break from revision, and so it seemed like the perfect time to also do my nails.

These nails were based on a birthday card my mum gave me, there were quite a few designs on it so I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more based around it, and I didn't want to give any spoilers which is why there aren't any pictures of it haha.

I used Essie - Blanc as a base colour, and then I used a medium length striper and China Glaze - Electric Beat, and OPI - Who the Shrek are you? to draw on egg shapes, which I then filled in again with Essie-Blanc and a tiny detail brush.

I hope that you all decide to stick around and see what's in store after my exams, because I have plenty of lovely ideas lined up, I just have to wait until I have time! 

I hope you like these nails, time to get back to packing!

Alice

My first guest post!

Hey everyone, just a quick post to say that I did a guest post for basecoat-topcoat on tumblr, so click here to be taken to that post to see what products I used! Hope you like them, Alice

Then and Now: Week 9

Hey everyone, today I have week 9 of my 'then and now' challenge. When I first set out to do this 'challenge' I randomly numbered the 22 posts I have so that I could do them in that order, but once I got to week 5 and didn't really like the design I started mixing things up a bit, so today's choice was because I felt I'd used too many reds and blues lately: bees! More after the jump

Born Pretty Store BK Review + Nail Art

I wasn't going to do a post this week because I have so much work to do, but when I received these polishes in the post from Born Pretty Store I knew I wanted to create some nail art along with the review. The products I received were #13 and #16 from these polishes. All swatches are without topcoat. More photos after the jump!