A Selection of Christmas NOTDs!

Hello!

Wow! Two posts in one week?? I must be ill or something!...oh...wait...I am ill...bad times for me but great times for getting time to blog properly!

So, as mentioned in the previous post, I have been rubbish at keeping up to date with blogging. I had SO many nail changes over Christmas that I wanted to share some with you guys, and although I was very bad at actually doing any blog posts on them at all, I did take photos of them. So this is going to be an special epic Christmas edition of a NOTD post! (I can tell you're all very excited....)

WARNING: This post is both picture and word heavy....also the lovely Leanne suggested I make my pictures bigger so you can actually see them properly. Let me know what you think :)

So first up here is the base coat and top coat that I used for all of them.

Sally Hansen's Miracle Cure - This one is suppose to strengthen nails. You can use it alone or as a base coat and I'll be honest, I think it really works! My nails have always been quite supple and I've found that this has made my nails feel stronger (sorry for how gross the label looks, I promise you it's just random glitter from a mini explosion that happened in my old polish storage!)

Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri - Love love LOVE this product! I honestly can't believe I ever did my nails without this! You leave your nails to dry for 2 minutes and then paint the top coat on and 30 seconds later your nails are dry! Now then, your nails aren't "dent free" with this top coat and if you've layered you nails with lots of polish then it'll take longer than 30seconds but I'm still damn impressed by it! It's a lovely top coat too with a great shine to it.

So first up is my early December look. This came about because I brought a pack of 10 glitter polishes in TK Maxx and just had to use one of them! (you'll probably get a post on those soon!) I wanted to have a fun colour whilst I was shut away in a freezing cold room prepping sale stock for after Christmas....lovely.... I didn't want to go OTT on the glitter so went with the ring finger statement nail. I quite like it but not sure the colours really go together. Also I really like the normal pink by itself so don't think it needs the glitter nail really.

The colours I used were:

Rimmel 60 Second 619 Pulsating - Love this colour so much that my mum got me a new one for Christmas due to the fact that I keep complaining that it's running out! haha! It's got a really nice shimmer going through it and I just realy love it for some reason.

W7 7 Pink Dazzle - Really love this colour too. Easy to use as a glitter top coat or you can layer it up for a thick pink glitter full cover coat.

Ok, so this one isn't really Christmassy at all but you know what it's like when you get a new polish! You just HAVE to try it out! I was doing so well with not buying any new polishes and I popped into Accessorize to buy a new ring (I had put my other one somewhere safe and just couldn't find it anywhere!) in their pre-Christmas sale and as I got to the counter I spotted their nail polishes. They had them all upside down so you could see the colours properly and I just knew this was the one for me! It's multi-tonal so it looks different in every light! Love it! I had a lovely conversation with the sales assistant who said she had loads of nail polishes "about 40 or so!" Cue my slight shameful head down look before I utter the words "....I've got about 150..." We then had a huge conversation about the Models Own Beetlejuice Collection and how much we both want it! (quick side note...I love how spell check wants to change "Beetlejuice" to "Betelgeuse". Nerdy things like that make me smile!) I love making brief friends with people based on nail polish or makeup!

Without flash - With the green tint showing.

With flash - the purple tint going through.

The colour I used was:

Accessorize Shade 38 Aztec - Really good coverage with quite a small brush. My only issue with this one is that I generally always find polishes with big tops on are a little difficult to use due to the lack of ability to see the brush properly (this may just be me...)

Another ring finger statement look. This was the day I discovered that the Boots opposite my work place has a Models Own section and as they had a "buy two and get a free Gold Rush nail polish" how could a girl resist? I wanted to try out the two others that I got because....well why not right? 

The colours I used were:

Models Own Mystic Mauve - This one is a lovely lilac colour with an intense silver shimmer through it. The coverage is really good but it does have my pet hate of the big lid to it! Still worth the purchase though.

Models Own Juicy Jules - I've been wanting this glitter polish for AGES. It looks really silvery in the bottle but can be used as just a top coat very easily.

I was feeling very icy this day and I also went a tad crazy on the nail stickers too... This was my first attempt at doing different coloured tips. I used some stickers that I had from a nailene manicure set that I got years ago. I put them on the tips of my nails and then painted them like normal. After I'd painted them, I took to stickers off and painted the tip freehand (filling in the bit that didn't have the other colour on ) and hey presto! Easy to do coloured tips! I do need to work out how to do this free hand though as I don't have any more stickers left after my Christmas frenzy of coloured tips...

The colours I used were:

W7 5 Silver Dazzle - This polish has small chunks of glitter in it so it's really good for a top coat or as a thick glitter coat for an intense silver glitter nail. Application is really smooth and easy - it's more of a jelly polish so it goes on quite smooth anyway but I would still use a top coat for a really smooth finish. I hate rough nails!

17 Fast Finish in Moonstruck - LOVE this polish. It's not like any of the other silvers I own, they all seem to be either really glittery/shimmery or really dull. I wanted something with a bit of a shimmer to it but nothing too grey...I'm very fussy that way!

Natural Collection in Topaz - I've mentioned in a previous post about how great the Natural Collection polishes are for water marbling so this is always going to be a favourite. However, despite loving this colour I do get frustrated with just how many layers it takes to get the proper colour! I do love how icy this blue is though.

So these were my nails in the lead up to Christmas week. After experimenting with the nail tips I wanted to have a go with some proper Christmas colours and went for the classic red and gold look. I couldn't decide which colour to have as the main one and ended up going with gold because I didn't want the red to dwarf the gold accent nail....in hindsight I think it should have been the other way around. Too much gold! You can tell by the chip on my index finger (and by the lovely pjs in the background..) that I took this after work. I was quite pleased with this look and it earned me a compliment from the girl who works in Starbucks near my work. I had a lovely conversation about how I achieved this look as I waited for my peppermint mocha (favourite thing about winter!) It's starting to seem like I'm only in this whole nail painting thing for the compliments isn't it?? (....I'm not going to lie....they do help! haha!)

The colours I used were:

Barry M Gold Foil Effects 320 - I wasn't sure about this when I first got it (I did only buy it because Superdrug had a "Buy two Barry M cosmetics and get this Limited Edition Lilac Foil Effects free!" Damn them and also my inability to pass up "Limited Edition" anything. My new years resolution is to stop doing this) Anyway, I thought it wasn't quite "gold" enough and would look washed out on my nails (I'm not a fan of really light or "nude" painted nails) but it's actually quite nice. I wouldn't wear it alone because it's quite difficult to get it to not look streaky. I definitely prefer it with the glitter on top.

Claire's Accessories Gold Glitter (no actual name or number) - My sister got me this and I really like it. I don't have another gold glitter like it. It's thin enough to be able to do just a really small hint of glitter which I absolutely love. The glitter is really tiny and sightly more of a bronze-gold than a yellow-gold. Again, it's in more of a jelly so it actually dries quite smoothly. Very impressed.

17 High Gloss in Risky Red - I got this in one of the "Buy such and such and get this cute set free!...that's right...FREE Robyn! You know you want it even though you don't need it!" I'm so weak when it comes to free stuff when you buy other things, although I was actually buying a new 17 blusher anyway so that's ok.....right? Anyway, it's a really lovely colour and it really is super high gloss. You don't even need a top coat for this one!

Barry M Nail Paint in Red Glitter150 - Oh my god! I can't even put into words how much a love this freaking glitter nail polish! It's amazing! I feel the need to get the rest of the glitter polishes from Barry M now....well I definitely wished that I had the Green one for Christmas so that one is a definite purchase at some point. It goes on really easily and is really good for a really intense glitter look. It's quite a dense glitter so it's a little more difficult to use just for a top coat.

This was my ultimate Christmas nail look. I did this one on the 22nd and it lasted right through to Christmas afternoon...when I just HAD to try out the new polishes that I got for Christmas! I really love this look (despite the fact that I took these pictures just after I'd done them so they look really messy!) The tips aren't exactly neat but I kind of like that effect, it kind of makes a bit more snowy. This photo is without flash.

With flash - This one really shows how messy my nails are when I paint them late at night! I think this one also shows the glitter colours a little better too. I love the white with the glitter top coat on, I think the effect is simple but effective.

The colours I used were:

17 Nail Xtras Glitter Top Coat - Again, this one was in a little freebie kit that I got. I actually already have the bigger pot of this, which was my first ever glitter top coat that I got way back when I was at uni. It looks really lovely on top of simple black nail polish for an easy way to jazz up nails. I was considering using "Juicy Jules" for on top of the white but this one has less glitter per brush stroke and, as I didn't want an intense glitter on the white, this was the clear winner for me. I don't think you could ever really layer this one up to use it by itself (unless you wanted to layer your nails about 15 times...) but it's an amazing top coat.

ELF Nail Polish in White - I really wasn't sold on this at all to start off with. I was quite disappointed  with how thin the consistency is, but I found the trick with this one is to do the first coat and let it dry completely(it's very quick to dry) and then paint the next coat on. This seems to make the colour stick better and then it only takes 2 maybe 3 coats max for total coverage. It's really easy to use and I like the pigmentation of all the ELF polishes once they are dry.

17 High Gloss in Risky Red - See above. (Side note - I ALWAYS use a base colour underneath a glitter polish. Even if I'm going for full coverage of the glitter like I did with this look. I just think it makes the polish easier to take off...and like a terrible person, I tend to peel my nail polish off so it's much easier for me. I read somewhere that to take glitter polish off you can actually put another thin layer of nail polish on then let it dry a little bit (so it's still tacky) and then use nail polish remover on this. Apparently this softens the glitter polish and makes it easier to remove! I'll be trying that soon!)

Barry M Nail Paint in Red Glitter150 - See above. I used this one as a full cover glitter coat this time and it was pretty much done with just the 2 coats. I might have done a few touch ups but the coverage is excellent.

This one was actually my first polish of 2012. I completely forgot to take a picture of my silver magnetic nails that I did for New Years (I needed a quick drying/good look combo and the 17 magnetic lot are really good for this!) Anyway, I was feeling like a glitter fest and I really do love my W7 set so I went with two from in there. I know some people don't like intense glitter but I was actually quite pleased with this look! This photo is without flash.

With flash. I really love how "silver" the silver glitter is....if you understand what I mean??

The colours I used were:

W7 5 Silver Dazzle - See above. I used this one for full coverage and, again, I was very impressed with how easy this was to gain full cover.

17 Fast Finish in Moonstruck - See above. This one was for the base coat to the silver polish to make it easier to remove.

W7 7 Pink Dazzle - See above. Again, this one was very easy to use as a full cover glitter coat. I think the small, densely packed glitter is a key factor for a great full nail cover in only a few coats. I think it also helps that all the W7 glitters that I've used so far are in a more jelly type fluid which makes them slightly thicker than some glitter polishes.

H&M Nail Polish in French Kiss - Now then, I got a nail polish from H&M YEARS ago and it's still going strong and is a really great polish (2 coats for full coverage) So when an H&M opened in my home town (finally...) I obviously picked up this polish when it caught my eye. Turns out it's an updated version of the one I've got... But then next time I went in another 3 caught my eye so...that...urm....makes it all ok.... Anyway, this one is just as amazing as the old one that I've got. Although I only used it as a base coat for the pink glitter this time, I have used it without the glitter and I was very impressed. The almost matte look to it means that it looks a little streaky but all is fixed when you pop a top coat on it. I love the consistency and the coverage...I also quite like the different names of them too! I always wonder whose job it is to name these polishes because some of them are fabulous!

So there we have it. A lovely selection of some of my (slightly) better Christmas (and early 2012) nails. I hope you enjoyed reading this post (or even just looking at the pictures!) and I hope it wasn't too dull for you! I really do love to waffle... Which ones do you guys think were a hit or miss? Any favourite go to polishes for Christmas nails?

Until next time,

xoxo