Nailvengers Assemble! Gradients - Night Time Sky for Avon

Hey everyone! I know I've done two posts in one evening, but both of these fall on the same day, as it's Nailvengers Assemble time once again! If you don't know what I'm talking about, me, Allie from Brit Nails, Sammy from The Nailasaurus, Lucy from Lucy's Stash and Amelia from xameliax all post one themed nail design at the end of every month. I took a break from doing it last month as I had too much on, but now I'm back, and I'm combining this months prompt of 'Gradients' with some nails I created for Avon this weekend: night time sky nail art! I must admit, these did look a lot better in person, especially from further away. Macro has ruined the effect a bit I think, but nevertheless I do still quite like them, and it's something I've not done before which is always a bonus. 

Monthly Favourites: September

Hey everyone! It's the last day of September (although technically it's now the first day of October where I am) and that means that it's time for my monthly favourites once again. Can you believe I've been doing this for 4 months now? It only feels like a couple of weeks ago when I decided to start it at the beginning of summer, which also shows how fast summer went! So for September I have quite a few nail-related products, I know I've had quite a lot of make-up in my favourites for the past couple of months, but it really is whatever is my favourite that month, and I guess this month I'm going back to my roots! The products I've chosen for this month are:

KMS California - Hairstay Maximum Hold Spray* and Add Volume Volumising Spray*

Barry M - Natural Glow Shadow and Blush Palette*

Magis - Home Soak off Kit*

Sally Hansen - Cuticle Rehab*

OPI - DS Extravagance 

Picture Polish - Sizzle*

Tutorial Thursday: Matte Autumn Toadstools Nail Art for Barry M

Hey everyone! This was supposed to go live last night but for some reason it didn't work, so even though it's technically friday, here's my tutorial thursday. Today I'm showing you how to do these cute toadstool nails, as I said before in my review of the autumn Barry Ms this whole collection is great for autumn nail art, and straight away the idea of doing toadstools came to mind.

Picture Polish 2014 Collaborations: Forget Me Not, Sizzle, Fools Gold and Unicorn - Swatches and Review

Hey everyone! As promised I have four of the new Picture Polish collaborations for you today, including two from my friends Sammy (The Nailasaurus), and Allie (Brit Nails). These are my first ever Picture Polishes and I'm really really impressed, I can definitely see why it has such a good reputation as a company. All of these polishes are good quality, dry quickly and look great, what more could you want?

Barry M - Autumn/Winter 2014 'Tribal' Gellies Collection Review and Swatches

Hey everyone! Today I have a long-overdue review of the six gorgeous new gellies from Barry M for Autumn 2014. I've heard this described as the 'Tribal' collection and an email from Barry M said the same thing, I don't know if that's an official term for the collection but I think it suits it. It also suits just being an autumn collection, as the colours are so perfectly autumnal. I've already done quite a bit of nail art with these which will be coming up soon, and I'm sure I'll be doing plenty more designs! 

Picture Polish - Sizzle by Cosmetic Sanctuary Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have some nail art for you using one of Picture Polish's recent collaboration polishes: Sizzle* by Cosmetic Sanctuary. Would you believe this is the first ever Polish Shade on my blog? It's not the first to touch my nails, as I've just swatched four of the new releases from Picture Polish (review coming this weekend) and I used Unicorn* (Brit Nails collaboration shade) first. Nevertheless, as soon as I tried this polish I knew I had to do some nail art with it, it's a brilliant neon but also glittery, what else could you want?! I'll have my full review of it for you this weekend, but for now let me show you the nail art!

Tutorial Tuesday: Polka Dot Owls for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! I have a brand new tutorial for you over at Divine Caroline today which you can see HERE. My obsession with owls and polka dots continues as you can see, but this time it's a little different because I haven't got a nude background, which I usually seem to have when owls are involved. I really love how these turned out and I hope you like trying them out yourselves!

Don't forget to check out the steps HERE. 

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

Alice

GIVEAWAY: Graffiti Nails Polish + Nail Wraps

Hey everyone! Today I have an exciting new giveaway to share with you. I'm sure by now you've all seen my announcement of the brand new Graffiti Nails wraps I designed, and to celebrate the launch of our brand new Stripe nail wraps we decided it would be a great idea to hold a giveaway for you all. and you'll hopefully have seen that they will be shipped internationally. Unfortunately, we still cannot ship nail polish internationally, so this giveaway will be split into two parts, as follows:

• 1 UK winner will receive: 3 Graffiti Nails nail polishes of their choice, and all 4 nail wraps
• 1 International winner will receive: all 4 nail wrap designs

I'm sorry for those of you who live elsewhere who want to try the polish, hopefully at some point in the near future we will be shipping internationally, and I'll definitely let you know when that's the case! If you can't wait for the giveaway to end, you can buy both polishes and nail wraps here.

There are some terms and conditions to the competition of course:

• Giveaway is open internationally/UK only as stated above, please do not enter unless you understand that you will only receive nail polish if you live within the UK.
• Please do not enter if you are a giveaway only account. I will be checking and your entry will not count.
• Giveaway will close exactly 2 weeks to the opening date, so on Monday 29th September at 12am GMT
• Winners will be chosen using random.org
• Prizes will be sent by Graffiti Nails and I will not be responsible for any losses or delays

Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! 

Alice

Review Week, Day 7: Illamasqua Once Collection - Melange Swatch

Hey everyone! Here is the third and final post, review week has reached its end, and it's reached its end with one of the most beautiful polishes I've seen in a while: Melange* from the Once collection by Illamasqua. This is my first ever Illamasqua polish and I couldn't be more impressed. The Once collection is all about vintage, and it definitely shows in this polish. It's a hard polish to explain, because there's so much going on in it, but I dont need to explain it, because you can see it right here! 

Review Week, Day 6: Nails Inc Festival Collection

Hey everyone! Two posts down, one to go. I'm feeling a bit more productive now, even if it is nearly 2am and I still have a tutorial to do and edit before I go to sleep... Anyway! No more complaining, someone slap me if I complain again, I love this blog and I'm just very tired and moany this week, ignore me! This next post for Day 6 is the Nails inc. Festival collection, which consists of two glitters and two creme nail polishes. I'm a bit late to the party with these, especially as festival season is over now, but that doesn't take away from how fun and great these polishes are, and I couldn't resist still showing you them.

Review Week, Day 5: Carabella Lacquer Limited Edition Polishes

Hey everyone! I'm making it my mission to post 3 times tonight, even though it's nearly 1am, I am determined that review week will be over and done with by the time I go to bed, but if not then tomorrow morning will see the last of the posts. I bet you're all glad to see the back of it with the amount I've been moaning! I promise I'll be much less moany next week. Anyway, Day 5 is a couple of polishes from Carabella Lacquer. I won these in a giveaway Lucy from Lucy's Stash held in February. The polishes were created especially for the giveaway so I was extremely thrilled to have won them, and they're absolutely gorgeous. The colours are really unique and brilliant quality. I hadn't heard of Carabella Lacquer before trying these but if they're anything to by then this brand is definitely one to check out. You can see her etsy store here.

Guest post for Brit Nails

Hey everyone! I'll be posting the rest of review week tomorrow (yes, three posts in one day!), because I've been ill and exhausted for the past couple of days and I just haven't had a chance to edit or write up a post. Anyway, I just wanted to direct you over to Brit Nails where I've done a guest post for her. So to see more of these nails and read more about them click HERE. 

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

Alice

Review Week, Day 4: Nicole by OPI Summer 2014 Collection Swatches

Hey everyone! Day 2 of review week is going to be short but sweet as I'm going out tonight. Today I'm showing you the new Nicole by OPI summer releases. They're a bit of an odd mix but I actually really like how they look together! There are 3 cremes and one glitter and the glitter works well over any of them, but I'm just going to show you over 2. 

Review Week, Day 3: Sleek Nail Polish + Summer Releases

Hey everyone! I'm back, as promised, with the rest of review week. I'm going to make it a 7-day feature instead of my usual 5, to make up for the 2 days last week, so it will finish at the end of this week. I know reviews aren't what all of you come here for, but hopefully you still enjoy looking at a few new products! 

First up in this week's take on review week is a few of Sleek's new releases, including their brand new gel nail polishes! I wasn't even aware that Sleek did nail polish until I got an email about it, so I was excited to try them out and see what they're like. I also wanted to see if they lived up to Sleek's eyeshadows, and they definitely do! There are 8 shades available in the gel range, and I have 3 of them to show you today: Trance*, Viper* and Sugar Coat Me*. They also have a range of 12 regular nail polishes.

Mani Swap with Magnifique Nails

Hey everyone! Firstly, just as a quick explanation, I'm going to continue review week in a couple of days, I just don't have the time to edit the pictures at the moment. I'll resume it on monday probably and do a proper week from there. Anyway, today I have a mani swap with Magnifique Nails, aka my friend Ana. Me and Ana have been friends for around a year now, and we thought it was about time we did a mani swap. Unfortunately, she's made me look awful!! She's outweighed me in talent by far, and if you need proof, just look at the photos below! I'd definitely recommend checking out her blog, Facebook page, or Instagram.

I chose to do Ana's orange geometric design (see below) but I decided to use red instead. I thought it would look just as good but I kind of wish I'd stuck with orange now! And Ana chose to do my outline polka dot heart design.

Review Week, Day 2: Zoya Tickled Collection Summer 2014 - Swatches

Hey everyone! Today I have a post with my first ever Zoyas! Up until recently I didn't even know that they were available in the UK, and I always thought that they were a little out of my price range. But I know that after experiencing the quality of these two polishes I'll definitely be buying more! I got Ling*, and Rocha* from the Tickled Collection and at first I was a bit disappointed with the colour choices, but I ended up really loving them both. Orange is fast becoming my new favourite colour this year, and I've always been a lover of blue, so what could be better?

Tutorial Tuesday: Pirate Nautical Nail Art for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! As promised, here is my second post of the day, I'm not going to write much because all the information is HERE on Divine Caroline including the steps on how to create this cute pirate look!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments! And don't forget to check out the full tutorial here

Alice

Monthly Favourites: August

Hey everyone! Instead of posting day 2 of review week I'm going to post some nail art for Tutorial Tuesday after this, and review week will continue tomorrow instead, I've had too much to do today and I just haven't had a chance to edit the photos. But you get nail art AND monthly favourites, so it's a win win situation really.

So this monthly favourites is a couple of days late, but this month I really struggled to choose 5 products only, in fact I could only narrow it down to 6. I've bought, and received, so many amazing things this month that it was really difficult to make a decision! There's quite a range of products as well, not just beauty/nails, but sometimes a change is good! Sorry about the lighting in the photos, because I'm working so much at the moment I can only take pictures in the evening and all this stuff wouldn't fit in my lightbox! The products I chose for this month are:

Viktor and Rolf - Flowerbomb

Gelish - Trends - Lots of Dots*

Kiko - Golden Game - Sculpting Bronzer*

Yankee Candle - Black Cherry

Simple Kind to Skin Facial Wipes*

Kiss Double Up Top Gel*

Review Week, Day 1: OPI - Brazil Collection 2014 Swatches

Hey everyone! I realised the other day that I didn't post a single review in August, which is a first in a very long time. However, it wasn't because I didn't have anything to post, I just kind of ... forgot. I did all the reviews and the pictures have been left unedited in folders on my computer and I completely forgot that I hadn't posted them. So this week, it's time to edit them, finally, and bring them to the blog, there's a lot of exciting stuff to see so I'm going to be doing a review week. I am working full time (as in 7 days a week) at the moment so I might end up missing a day, but I'll just post two reviews the next day if that's the case. I'll be posting twice tomorrow because I've got my monthly favourites to show you as well.

Today's I have three polishes from the OPI - Brazil collection to show you: Live, Love, Carnaval* (which I showed you in my monthly favourites here), Red Hot Rio* and OPI Scores a Goal!*. This is a slightly older OPI collection, as it was released a few months ago, but it contains some really gorgeous shades that are definitely worth having a look at if you havent already (although, have you been living under a rock not to have seen them?).