Halloween Nails: Purple and Pumpkins

Happy Saturday lovelies

Ok so now I made a start on the Halloween theme I cant stop! What is it with me a theme? I just get carried away :-). Yesterday I thought it was to soon, today I could not wait to stamp pumpkins!

Spice It Up: Sparkly Brown Nails

Good evening lovelies

Just a quick and surprising post from me tonight. Surprising because it features the colour... Brown!

I am not sure why I have such a dislike for brown nail polish. I don't dislike it when I see it on others but the thought of painting it onto my own nails leaves me a little cold. That said I picked up this sparkly little number recently so decided it was only fair to give it my best effort.

Here are my nails of the day...

As you can see I started with two very easy coats of Revlon Spice It Up. In all honesty I would not have purchased this colour however I spotted it in Poundland and decided I really had nothing to lose (other than a pound coin - obviously!).

Spice It Up really surprised me. Just look at the rich colour and gorgeous golden particles that really shimmer and bring this to life.

To highlight the golden shimmers I used Barry M Gold Foil to add this simple leaf print to each nail. The design is taken from the first bundle monster collection, plate number BM 03.

I really liked this so much more than I thought. Maybe if it wasnt such an amazingly bright day I would not have seen so many shimmers and I would not have liked it so much, but lucky for Spice It Up the sun shone bright! Have you tried any colours recently that surprised you? Do you have a colour you avoid at all costs? :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Baby Shower Nails

Good evening lovelies

Have you all had fantastic weekends? We have been spoiled with glorious sunshine so Mr LiPP, the pups  and I have been out for some lovely long dog walks. We love making the most of being outdoors :-). On Saturday night I had little sis round for nails and wine and those of you who follow me on Instagram will have seen the pictures of her pretty pink gel nails. Today we have been at our friend Elly's Baby Shower which of course was my inspiration for these nails...

This was the perfect opportunity to use two new polishes from my latest TK Maxx haul. I couldn't believe my luck when I spotted the brand new only just released Kaleidoscope Summer 2013 collection for the bargain price of £7.99. The baby blue is called Evolution and the soft pink is Endless. Both have a lovely smooth formula and only needed two coats.

I then used Revlon Whimsical on just my index and little finger nails. Whimsical is not available in the UK as far as I know so I was lucky enough to have a colleague pick up a bottle for me from the States last year. It has a very pale blue milky base with lots of lovely pink and blue glitters.

On my middle finger I stamped the baby bottle and hearts image found on plate BM 317.

Finally on my ring finger using my Orly dotting tool I created two little baby feet using Barry M Matt White.

Oh how sweet are little feet? :-)

I am just home from the shower and we had a lovely time. It was held at a tea and cake place in the city were we had finger sandwiches, cup cakes, macaroons and eclairs as well as pots of tea and a glass of fizz :-).

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Leafy Green

Happy Saturday lovelies

Hope your weekend is going well? Last night I had some girls round for a nail party with my new Orly Gel FX polishes. Gel FX is a gel polish that needs to be cured under an LED lamp but then lasts for approx two weeks with no chips. My sister wore hers for 16 days before she had a few minor chips! I took a training course a few weeks ago and am now proudly displaying the qualification certificate in my nail room.

Onto my nail of the day... When looking through my new Cheeky nail plates I loved this simple leaf design, I just couldn't resist trying it out... and I love green :-)

I started with two coats of Orly Jealous, Much? Which is a gorgeous and creamy mint green. I topped that off with one thin layer of W7 Mojito. As you can see from the picture below it leaves quite a subtle shimmer of green/gold on the nail.

For the stamping I used Revlon Ocean. I am loving my polishes from Revlon. Ocean is a frosted teal one coater and could not be more perfect for stamping.

I only wore this for a day but I love the combination of the three greens together and I will definitely re-visit this pretty stamp now that Spring weather should be on the way!

How do you like these greens together?

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Hero in Disguise

Good evening lovelies!

Are you as relieved as me that the weekend is finally here? Honestly I know I say it every week but it cannot come soon enough for me. I cherish my Friday nights so much :-).

Tonight I am going to share with you the beautiful swatches of my first ever Indie polish purchased from Carolina over at Colores de Carol.  I was so pleased when I realised that Carolina has been able to offer International shipping from the USA so I quickly snapped up Hero in Disguise, which I will show you now, and Cupcake Fantasy which I will feature next week. They arrived in super quick time and have settled into my polish stash very nicely :-).

Hero in  Disguise is a light grey jelly polish which has a subtle shimmer mixed into the base and is packed with small yellow hex glitters, larger coral hex glitters and lots of little black stars. The polish comes in a 15ml bottle and is big 3 free.

I decided to layer my Hero in Disguise over one quick coat of Revlon Hazy. Mainly so I could make this manicure perfect in just two coats of Hero in Disguise and not waste a third coat for the sake of opacity.

In the below shot you can see just how glitter packed this beautiful polish actually is...

With the flash on...

This final shot is the same as above but with no flash.

How do you like Hero in Disguise? Do you own any of Carolina's beautiful Indie polishes yet? I saw on her blog just recently that Carolina has also added some Limited Edition St Patrick's duo polishes, I particularly love Irish Night, and also the super cute Girls Night Out collection.

I will be back to buy more :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Did I tell you I also love... Owls?!

Good evening lovelies.

How are you all at this mid week point? I am excited about my post tonight :-).

Whilst in London with the girls last weekend I purchased the most gorgeous scarf from Portobello Market. It is a gorgeous pale grey with bright pink owls printed on it and I just knew as I handed my money over that I would recreate the gorgeous print on my nails. I had been saving this owl stamp for something special so this is it... I hope you like it :-)

As you can see I started with a base of Revlon Hazy. In my opinion this is the perfect pale grey polish and I will definitely need to buy a back up bottle as I use it all the time.

Once the grey was dry I stamped using Konad Psyche Pink with the two different owl designs found on plate BM 309.

Isn't this just adorable? And yes the scarf is as soft and luxurious as it looks :-)

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weeks. Not long until the weekend now...

Louise xx

Special Edition Glitter from Barry M

Good evening

I did magic up a little extra time to schedule a post for while I am awaythis weekend. As this goes live I will be in London with the girls having spent the day in Hyde Park at Winter Wonderland. We will then be pulling out the party frocks to go for a nice meal and maybe a cocktail or two ;-)

Happy Birthday Samantha (I am being a lady and not revealing your age!)

This sparkly little number is a limited edition release at Superdrug for Christmas. I just have to own each and every polish that Barry M release so I went and stocked up on a 'back up' Navy and a 'back up' Silver Foil so I could get this little beauty free!

As you can see I layered this multi glitter over my all time favourite grey - Revlon Hazy. Seriously the formula on Hazy is a dream and it dries in a flash.

I love the lids on these special edition polishes. I am actually really sad that I missed out on one more limited edition from Superdrug. Both stores we have in our city have been out of stock since the week before Christmas. Typically it was a green/blue foil polish so I was bound to love it!

I love the combination of these colours: Pink, Green and Blue. You wouldn't necessarily put these colours together in a manicure but this glitter polish really works :-)

I hope you are enjoying your weekends? Have you been very busy or are you enjoying the chance to relax?

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Christmas Nails: Penguin

Good evening lovelies!

Can you believe how close to Christmas we are now? Even with our Christmas Trees being up, the lights being on and all our presents wrapped beautifully and waiting to be handed out it doesn't feel real. Maybe I need to wait for work to finally be over before I can feel truly festive. On the plus side all of this does not prevent me from creating yet more Christmas nails... tonight it is time to introduce Percy...

Don't you just love this little fella! I was inspired by another picture I saw at PolishPedia and just could not help but recreate this adorable accent nail. I decided to call him Percy the Penguin?!

I started with one easy coat of Revlon Hazy (my perfect light grey) and then added just one thin coat of Barry M Silver Pink Glitter. It looks perfect with the grey base showing through and under my office lights had an almost holo shine hidden in the fine glitter particles.

Using black, red and white I added various size dots to all nails except my ring finger which I reserved especially for Percy.

Percy was free handed on with my favourite nail art brush and a dotting tool for his eyes and the row of white fur on his santa hat.

I loved this look so much I wore it for two days which is just unheard of when I still have so many manicures I want to squeeze in pre Christmas Day :-)

Take care

Louise xx

Christmas Nails: Christmas Trees

Thats right my lovelies... the time has finally come for me to create Christmas Trees on my nails. These are the little pretties I wore to our girly Christmas lunch on Sunday. We had such a lovely meal and we sat and talked for hours :-).

For this manicure I have gone for a very traditional look - green tree with red and gold decorations. This could not be more different to trees we have up in our house which have a very modern twist :-) but I like them all the same.

I started with one easy quick drying base coat of Revlon Hazy. I considered using tape to create perfect straight lines for my trees but decided against it so reached for my favourite nail art brush instead.

I painted a large triangle on each nail using Barry M Racing Green. Once that was dry I added a thin layer of Barry M Green Glitter to create a Christmassy sparkle!

Using a medium dotting tool I added baubles in Barry M Bright Red and Barry M Gold Foil. Last but not least I added a yellow star shapped rhinestone to the top of each tree.

 Below are the pictures of my right hand. As you can see on this occasion I didnt match my lefty and righty as I ran out of time (and patience)!

This simple but eye catching Christmas coloured manicure was created using Barry M Bright Red, Racing Green and a sparkly top coat of  Yellow Topaz from the relatively new Jewel collection.

Here is one last shot of my traditional Christmas tree nails...

How do you like my Christmas Tree nail art? Do you always wear matching manicures or are you happy to wear something 'easier' on your less dominant hand?

Here is a picture of us girlies at Loch Fyne...

Louise xx

Should Blue and Green Be Seen?

Happy Thursday!

My weekend starts here as I have Friday off on holiday... :-)

We have got so many fantastic plans for the weekend which I will tell you a little more about tomorrow night but in the meantime... should blue and green never be seen?

Has anyone else heard this little wives tale or quote? I can remember as I was growing up my Mum telling me that as I have bright green eyes I should never wear blue eye make up, hence me thinking that blue and green should never be seen.

I love this mani though...

I started with a base of Revlon Ocean which is a frost finish light teal. This was mega easy to apply and dried in super quick time. I am really impressed with my three new Revlon polishes.

I then stamped this simple geometric design using Barry M Denim. Super simple but very eye catching. My Nan loved it and even asked my Grandad if he would like her to wear her nails in this colour combo! Cute!



Revlon Ocean swatch

I usually steer clear of the more geometric designs as I prefer the girly flowery kind but on this occasion and with these two colours, I think it was the perfect combination :-)

Take care

Louise xx