August Monthly Favourites

Hey everyone! It's been a very long time since I last did a monthly favourites post and I've been enjoying loads of great products recently so I thought it was about time I showed you them. (Can I also point out that it's actually the end of the month that I'm posting this and not midway through the following month as normal!) As always, some of the products I bought myself and some I was sent for review. These products wouldn't be in my favourites if I hadn't tried and tested, and loved, them so no matter how I got them, they are my favourites and my opinions will always stay true. I've got quite an odd mix of stuff this month, and whilst I normally only show 5, I couldn't choose so my favourites are:

- Sure Antibacterial Odour Protection Deodorant 

- Nars Sheer Glow foundation in 'Siberia' shade

- Winstonia Short striping brush from this set*

- Barry M It's a Brow Thing*

- Morgan Taylor React base coat*

- Gelish*

- Barry M - Copper Mine* 

- Lee Stafford Coco Loco Dry Shampoo*

Celestial Cosmetics Dracarys Flowers

Hey all! Just a super quick post today, but I wanted to show you these floral nails I did using Celestial Cosmetics - Dracarys* (see my review here). I did these a while ago but I wasn't 100% on how they came out so I've put off posting them for a while. I'm not sure what I was trying to go for with them but they definitely weren't as planned! However, I'm really behind with editing at the moment so this was one of my only edited posts. I need to get on top of stuff because I'm going on holiday soon and I want to make sure I have enough posts for whilst I'm away! 

Essie 1000th Shade - Aim To Misbehave Nail Art + Review

Hey everyone! Hope you've all had a lovely weekend, we had a bank holiday weekend in the UK and it was so great to have 3 days off. Less than two weeks now until my holiday where I'll have a whole 9 days off and not have to think about anything. This weekend I spent time with my friends, shopping for my holiday and of course doing tonnes of nails. In fact I feel like I've wasted my day off today in a way because I've been inside catching up on reviews all day instead of enjoying the sunshine - the sacrifices I make eh? Haha.

Anyway, today's nail art is something fun and bright to match the weather we had here today, even if I didn't get to enjoy it. Essie recently released their 1000th shade: Aim To Misbehave*, which is this gorgeous fun and shimmer golden yellow shade. It's such an honour to be able to show their 1000th shade on my blog. Whilst I don't have a tonne of Essie polishes, I love all the ones that I do have, and they were some of the first polishes I ever owned (thanks eBay!) so the brand holds a special place in my heart. Especially as they organised for me to have my photo done by Rankin!

Jamberry x One Nail To Rule Them All Video

Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a good week so far. I've spent my evening watching Great British Bake Off. I only started watching it a couple of years ago because I couldn't understand the hype at first but I'm well and truly hooked. Who knew cake could be so dramatic?

You may remember my review of Jamberry nail wraps from the beginning of last month, where I discussed that they had asked me to work with them on a new project, but I had been very sceptical without trying the products. As I mentioned then, I was well aware of the rep surrounding Jamberry and I didn't want to get involved with something 'dodgy'. However, once I tried the wraps and spoke to some of the consultants I realised for myself that the actions of a few have tarnished the brand for many. I would never endorse a brand that I wasn't comfortable working with (you should see the amount of emails I turn down), and it was important to me that I tried the products first to know if I wanted to work together. I know that their methods of selling may not to be to everyone's taste, but the products themselves are, in my opinion, worth raving about, and I decided to go ahead with the project.

Anyway, today I can finally tell you about that project: I was filming a video with Jamberry! They wanted me to talk through the process of applying the wraps, current trends and a few other bits too. The video is after the jump but you can also see it here. It's never very fun seeing yourself on camera and I must admit it doesn't really look like me (I am the palest person in the world and video-me looks a lot more tanned), but I'm happy with how it turned out. Jamberry made me feel very welcome whilst shooting, and it was a great experience. I'd also like to give a special shout out to the cameraman Tom Gates from Don't Shoot Yourself Media. He was the loveliest guy ever and made me feel completely at ease in something that I'd never really done and didn't feel 100% comfortable with. He didn't ask for me to mention him but I feel like I couldn't leave him out as he was so nice! And thankyou of course to Jamberry too for having me.

Flickanail Inspired Water Flowers

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a lovely weekend, I can't believe once again that Monday has crept upon us. Two days is never enough, but luckily next weekend is a bank holiday so we get 3 whole days, and then 2 weeks later I'm going on holiday for a week I can't wait. I've done lots of gel designs this weekend, both on myself and on other people, but the nail art I'm showing you today is purely trusty old nail polish. 

For a long time I've been in awe of a number of Japanese nail artists. My twinsie nails with Very Emily were a homage to this, as we both have great respect for Japanese nail art, but I wanted to try my hand at something further. I was inspired by this design by Flickanail, but once again my need for everything to be neat meant that the design didn't turn out as I hoped, despite my best efforts to just go with the flow. When looking at the design alone I really love it, but in comparison it looks nothing alike. I think that I didn't add enough flowers because I was wary of going overboard.

However, I'm not going to give up, there are tonnes of Japanese designs that I want to try my hand at, and I have a feeling that for a lot of them I might be better off working in gel. I'm also tempted to sign up for Neiru tutorials. Have any of you tried these? Are they worth paying for? I really want to improve my skill and learn something new too, so let me know if they are worth doing.

Negative Space Stamping

Hey everyone! Can you believe it's already Wednesday? I've been to the cinema tonight to see Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, which by the way is hilarious but if you don't like inappropriate films it definitely wont be for you. They really don't hold back. But if you don't mind that kind of thing then I'd definitely recommend it because me and my friend were in stitches. I love a good cheesy comedies, and I'm a huge fan of Anna Kendrick so it was great for me. 

Today's nails are some that I created ages ago and I was so proud of them when I did them but before I took pictures I ruined the thumb bail and when I tried to fix it I didn't like how it came out second time around. Nevertheless, I still wanted to post the design, which I did when I was experimenting with stamping quite a lot. I seem to go through phases of experimenting with it and then going back to freehand and I'm in a freehand stage at the moment.

Blue Celestial Geometric

Hey everyone! How has another week gone already? August is absolutely flying by. I've had a really busy week, last night I went to see Wicked which was absolutely amazing. I've never seen it before but I went with a friend who has seen it 3 times now and I can see why she keeps going back. I'm going to try my hand at some Wicked nails this weekend so we'll see how those go.

Today's nail art is a result of me experimenting with these* brushes from Winstonia. I did these nails a couple of months ago when I first received the brushes and I completely forgot I did them. I've been practicing with them since and you will have seen them in many designs, but I was happy with how straight I managed to keep my lines here. I used the smallest brush for this design, and I was really impressed with it, although it took me a while to get used to as it contains harder bristles than I'm use to.

Twinsie Nails With Very Emily

Hey everyone! Today I've got a post that I've been super excited to share with you: Twinsie nails with my good friend Emily of Very Emily. Emily was one of my first blogging friends, if not the first, so it was about time we did something like this. We've been talking about doing it for a while, but as we've both had a lot on we only got around to finishing our designs last week. We decided to use marimekko flowers as inspiration for our design, specifically these nails. We found that it was really hard to coordinate on colours, as we seemed to have none of the same polishes, so we just went with what was closest to the original design. My shades are a bit lighter than Emily's but I like that it gives it an individual twist. Emily also created this gorgeous collage of our two designs together which I absolutely love. Don't you think the flowers down the side look great next to our designs? You can see Emily's design on her blog.

Copper Triangles

Hey everyone! Hope you've all had a lovely weekend. I was meant to have quite a busy one but I was far too ill yesterday to do anything so i just painted my nails and watched TV - a perfect day really, had it not been for me being ill! Luckily I'm feeling a bit better today and I managed to get some holiday shopping done. I found a skirt today that I think I'll be doing some nails inspired by, so keep an eye out for that! 

Today's nails are as a result of me just playing around a couple of weeks ago. I really wanted to try out Barry M - Copper Mine* from the Molten Metal Collection* as I'd seen a few people using it and it seemed like the perfect mix of copper and rose gold. And it is! I love it, but of course I couldn't just wear it plain. I decided to play around with some nail art pens that I'd not used in a while, and then I added some triangle studs from She Sells Sea Shells, which I bought absolutely ages ago but never got around to doing any designs with.

Barry M Lilac Roses Tutorial

Hey everyone! I'm so excited because today I managed to get my hands on tickets to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! I was in the 'queue' for 5 hours and when I finally got to the end I panicked and ended up booking for ages away (next October) so that I could get hold of the tickets I wanted, but it will be worth the wait. I read the script in one day at the weekend and I loved it. I know there's been some negative opinion surrounding it but I really liked it. Have you read it yet? Let me know your thoughts on it! 

So today I have a tutorial of these rose nails for you. I actually created these ages and ages ago, but I completely forgot that I'd done them somehow! I loved this design when I did them and I'm glad I'm finally sharing them with you. The full tutorial will be after the jump.