Born Pretty Store: Fimo Canes

Fimo canes are perfect for adding dimension to your nail art. They come in lots of wonderful designs and it’s a great way to be sure that each image is exactly the same.

Born Pretty Store has gorgeous fimo canes!

You get 10 canes in a pack and the designs you get are completely random so you will hopefully get a nice mix. As you can see, I got some lovely ones!

I read a few reviews about how best to cut these and although a lot of people said a sharp kitchen knife would work, I found that was definitely not the case! I couldn’t get thin slices with a kitchen knife but a craft knife worked perfectly!

Once I had cut a pot full of fimo pieces I got creative and came up with two pretty looks!

This first one is a simple summer mani! I decided to keep things bright and went with a bold orange polish. I then added white blocks on two nails with some little polka dots. After adding a top coat I carefully placed on my flowers to neaten up the edge of the white section.

 

For my second design I’ve gone for all purple! Once I’d added two coats of colour to each nail I painted thin stripes with a nail art brush. I then used the cute purple cat pieces!

 

You can find these here: Fimo Canes!

Would you add fimo to your collection?

Born Pretty Store has everything you could need for gorgeous nail art. And you can use my discount code RARW10 for 10% off your Born Pretty Store order!

Ra ❤

*These fimo canes were sent to me by Born Pretty Store for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed are honest and my own.

 

Born Pretty Store: Simple Silhouette

I have my first Born Pretty Store post of the year to share with you and it’s definitely a good one!

I’m a huge fan of stamping plates, as I’m sure you know, and this one is gorgeous! There are 29 beautiful images for you to get creative with and I just love the classic silhouette style of each one!

The first look I tried out was this pretty pastel design..

I’ve gone for a soft gradient look with a little sparkle at the tips to match the adorable rainy day silhouette.

For my second design I went with a much bolder colour selection.

I used a white base polish and then brushed on a few bright shades. I love the contrast with the black images!

Each design transferred really well on to the nails and they look amazing too! This plate is a simple but stylish offering from Born Pretty Store and one I would definitely recommend.

You can find this plate here: Silhouette Stamping Plate!

Born Pretty Store has everything you could need for gorgeous nail art. And you can use my discount code RARW10 for 10% off your Born Pretty Store order!

Ra ❤

*This stamping plate was sent to me by Born Pretty Store for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed are honest and my own.

Marilyn Monroe In Pop Art

It’s been quite a while since my last post and today I have one of my favourite looks I’ve done to share with you! For the nail art in this post I used another fantastic stamping plate from Born Pretty Store.

As you can see there are some gorgeous designs but, of course, the Marilyn Monroe image is the reason I chose to review this stamping plate!

I wanted to keep Marilyn as the focal point of the design but I didn’t think plain colour and an accent nail would be good enough so I decided to have Marilyn on every nail! I chose to go for a pop art look so I picked out some bold polishes to work with.

My stamping skills clearly need a little more work but I just love how this turned out!

I was a little worried that the image wouldn’t fit on my short nails but it transferred really well!

I definitely recommend getting this stamping plate if you want fabulous nail art. If Marilyn can’t make your nails look glam then nothing can!

You can find this stamping plate here: Marilyn Monroe Stamping Plate

Born Pretty Store has everything you could need for gorgeous nail art. And you can use my discount code RARW10 for 10% off your Born Pretty Store order!

Ra ❤

*This stamping plate was sent to me by Born Pretty Store for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed are honest and my own.

 

Halloween Patchwork Nails

Today I’m sharing my second Halloween nail art of the year!

Orange, green and purple are some of my favourite colours for Halloween so I’ve used all three to create a fun patchwork design!

To create this spooky stitched look I used Barry M’s Bright Purple, Matte Waikiki and Satsuma Gelly Paint. I then used Barry M’s black nail art pen to add detail and finished with a glossy top coat.

This is a pretty easy Halloween nail art! And it looks great in other colours too! :)

Ra ❤

Barry M: New For Summer

Barry M has released some really wonderful polishes for summer so when I was in Boots recently and saw an offer on I couldn’t resist picking a couple up! The offer was spend £6 on Barry M products and get a free limited edition nail paint.

I chose the limited edition shade Carousel, Waikiki from the new matte collection and Damson Gelly. All are perfect for summer!

When I first saw the new summer matte shades Waikiki instantly caught my eye. Not only is the colour striking but I also love the name! I needed two coats for full coverage and this dried to a lovely soft matte finish. The zesty lime colour is brilliant and a fantastic addition to any polish collection.

Damson is a bold blue cream. One coat would be enough but I’ve used two to make the colour pop. The formula is fantastic just like other Gelly paints. I have very few bright blues so I am very pleased with this.

I love orange and coral shades for summer so Carousel definitely appealed to me. This is a deep orange with a lovely amount of gold shimmer running through it. For me this is the perfect summer holiday polish! The lid is also super cute! These photos are of two coats.

Have you picked up any of Barry M’s new summer polishes?

Ra ❤

Makeup Revolution: Nail Polish Swatches Part 1

Today is the first of two posts to share swatches of my recent nail polish purchases from Makeup Revolution. I’m sharing just two polishes in this post as I’m also including the review.

First of all I want to share my thoughts on the packaging and application. The bottles are very simple in design and the curved edges make them very easy to hold when taking photos, something I like very much! The brushes are a good size so covering the nail was quick and easy. However, I did have to trim bristles on one and another has a completely sloped edge. Not ideal but not something that would put me off purchasing more!

The formula of the polishes is quite thick and almost waxy when applying. The first coat leaves a lot of brush strokes visible but even with those issues I thought the polish was actually quite easy to work with. The second coat sorted out any streakiness, the polish smooths itself out as it dries. Two coats is enough to give full coverage but I’ve used three for each of my swatch photos just to make sure the colour is bright and glossy.

Each polish is shown in natural light and with flash on.

First up is Devil Inside. This is a cool toned mushroom shade with underlying lavender hues. This is a fantastic neutral polish!

Beautiful Helps is a gorgeous coral perfect for summer. This has a cream formula and is definitely a new favourite of mine.

Check back tomorrow for swatches of the other four polishes! :)

Ra ❤

Neon & Nude

I go through phases a lot when trying to decide how to paint my nails, whether that’s a particular colour I can’t get enough of or maybe the finish of a polish that I adore. And my latest obsession is matte! I have rediscovered my love for matte nails just recently and seeing as leather is being seen a lot throughout fashion dark matte nails really ties in with this trend. That being said, I actually have a nude and neon matte mani to share with you for this post.

Barry M’s matte polish range is everywhere right now! Bloggers are really loving the collection and for a very good reason. I only have one of the shades so far so I am using that as the base for this look. The colour I have is Vanilla.

 

I started by painting my nails with 2 coats of Vanilla. Once dry I used striping tape to paint on neat tips. I chose Orly’s Mayhem Mentality as I love the contrast between the vibrant orange and the subtle nude.

 

By only putting the neon colour on the tips the overall result is a lot softer. A perfect pop of colour in the darker months!

Ra ♥

Review: Orly Flash Dry Drops & Mayhem Mentality Nail Lacquer

This post is going to be quite a long one as I have two products to review! These are Orly’s Flash Dry Drops and Mayhem Mentality Nail Lacquer.

I’m going to start with my review of the Flash Dry Drops..

If you’re a regular reader then you will know how much I adore nail art and as much as I would love to wear it all the time sometimes it’s just too much hassle. What with applying base coat, layers of polish, nail art and then top coat, the process can take forever. Especially if the colour perfect for the design takes a long time to dry! I’m sure I’m not the only one that has polishes in my collection that I try to avoid simply because the drying time goes on way longer than I can sit still for.

So when I was recently given the chance recently to review a product aimed at accelerating drying time I jumped at the chance! I’ve tried various supposedly fast dry products in the past, most recently a drying spray from Poundland (needless to say it did not impress me at all!) so when I received Orly Flash Dry Drops in the mail I couldn’t wait to try it out and see if this would do as promised.

I’ve now used the Flash Dry Drops on a variety of polishes from many brands to really get a feel of what this product is like. Each time I used the drops as suggested on the box, adding 1 or 2 drops to cover each nail about a minute after applying the polish. This has a really handy dropper built into the lid so applying this is incredibly easy and mess free!

I have to say I am actually rather impressed with this product. The drying time is noticeably quicker. It’s by no means a miracle product, it does still take between 5-20 minutes depending on the polish used for your nails to be fully dry, but that is a marked improvement on many of my polishes drying times! It also leaves a lovely glossy finish to your nails so I actually didn’t even need to add a topcoat!

At £13.60 for an 18ml bottle (the same size pictured) it is quite pricey but considering that this does actually work and will last a long time, I will definitely be repurchasing this in the future.

Now my review of Mayhem Mentality..

This colour is a vibrant neon orange with a slight pink undertone. The intensity of this polish is fabulous! If you love bold, eye-catching shades then you need this polish in your collection! If I ever had to describe a polish as loud then this is absolutely the one I would be talking about! I’ve never known a polish be so bright. I have many neons in my collection but this is on a whole other level! It just screams ‘look at me’! It is described as having a subtle shimmer but to be honest I couldn’t see it!

This is how it looks with two coats and no topcoat..

 

 

As you can see this is very bright, even in the dark! In fact, I had to take around 100 photos of this just to get a few that really showed the colour as my camera was having real difficulty capturing the true shade of this. I don’t know what it is about neon polishes that make them so hard to photograph!

Mayhem Mentality is described as being fast drying with a streak-free formula and I do definitely agree with the first part of that. This does dry rather quickly to a lovely semi-matte finish but as far as streak-free goes this is definitely not! Now, I know neon polish tends to be a little thicker and harder to work with but for the price tag I would expect better. This polish costs £10.25 but it applied pretty much the same as neons I have that only cost £2! For that reason, I wouldn’t recommend this polish. I adore the vibrant colour but as far as I am concerned it really isn’t worth the money when I know I can buy something just as good for a lot less.

I really am hoping this is just this shade though and that other Orly polishes are better. I really love their bottles, especially with the gripper caps! I think they’re a fantastic idea!

Have you tried either of these products? I would love to know your thoughts on them.

Ra ♥

*These products were sent to me for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed are honest and my own.