Possible Chanel Black Pearl Dupe

I've had this a while and been meaning to swatch it for my blog. When I saw Black Pearl by Chanel I thought I've got that colour what do you think?

This is Black Ice by myface.com Lil' Bling. The above was 2 coats with no top coat. I think it was £6 from Boots. The formula is nice. The brush is the normal Barry M, Models Own etc type brush. 15ml so good size for the money.
I think Chanel is slightly green from the swatches I have seen online but not massively different. So do you think this is close enough or do you need the £16.85 Chanel version?
Stacie xoxox 

Giveaway by the Secret Life of a Wannabe Diva

I got this giveaway in my google reader. You can in all this stuff:

 Lauren Conrad's Book - Style 

24 Mac Brush Set with Leather Roll Bag

Soap & Glory; Soaper Heroes Gift Set

Nars Fashion Icon Set Inc: Mini Orgasm & Super Orgasm blush duo, Orgasm nail polish, Super Orgasm lip gloss & Orgasm Multiple

& finally the gorgeous 'Peace, Love & Juicy Couture' fragrance!!

 

I hope you enter! I have and I hope I win. I'd love the Nars stuff and those gorgeous brushes. What a briliant giveaway!

Love Stacie xoxox

Nails Inc Shoreditch with Daisies

So after a busy busy weekend I wanted to do a super cute but quick manicure. This is so simple to do if you have a nail art pen or 2. Paint your nails in Nails Inc Shoreditch after your preferred base coat (I used Seche Rebuild as my nails are dire at the moment).

Then make a simple flower shape using the nib of your nail art pen. 5 spots in a circle leaving a gap in the middle then fill the gap with a yellow dot.

The result is something like that!

Don't worry if your not perfect with the daisies. Mine aren't just look at this

You can see that the yellow circles are not perfect or central and I have messed up a few of the white bits too but unless someone looks as your nails as closely as the photo above then no one will notice.
I hope you like them and I love reading your comments and appreciate any feedback
Stacie xoxox

Haulage! Essie Merino Cool and so much more!

I had a busy weekend. I went to Milton Keynes shopping with my good friends from Uni. We had great fun and they were patient enough to let me shop for nail varnish too!
Here's some pics of what I got.

I got Seche rebuild and Seche Vite. I strayed from Seche Vite as I was getting bad shrinkage and it got so thick towards the end of the bottle but you cannot deny this stuff dries soooooo quick. Also at the start of the bottle it is lovely. I have am going to be super careful when I close it to make sure it is sealed tightly and I have been cleaning the top of the bottle before I put the lid on to prevent the crusties. I have 3 fingernails which are disintegrating so I bought rebuild. I will let you know how I get on in a few weeks.

I put Merino Cool by Essie as soon as I got home. I got it from John Lewis they didn't have a nice stand or anything it was just a few random nail varnishes on a shelf! It applied well and took 3 thin coats to get full coverage worked well with the Seche rebuild and vite. I think the think I noticed the most was that it was how smooth it looked and although I used 3 coats it didn't feel like I had a lot of polish on. I love the colour too very sophisticated. Would recommend Essie polishes and will get more soon. 

I also got the Andrea Fulerton gemstone topcoat. I used this on my friend and it is a lovely flaky glitter.

MeMeMe in Wild. It doesn't really look like the colour in the picture. It reminded me of Grape Pop by China Glaze which is why I got it.

NYC in Empire State Blue. I think this is being discontinued as it cost 99p. Which is partly why I bought it. I also liked the vibrant colour its got a kind of greeny metallic shine in the light.

 NYC in Starry Silver Glitter. It also cost 99p so I believe it will be discontinued. 

 In addition to the ones I bought my friend gave me Nails inc Shoreditch and a sample size of No7 in Pink Grapefruit.

I will do some swatches on the polishes soon.

Stacie xoxox

Models Own Juicy Jules & Black Crackle

My nails are in a state on my right hand so I've had to file them all down to match or I might look a bit strange!

I've been struggling to find things that look nice on short nails but I think this combination looks good.
First Juicy Jules in her naked state:

Juicy Jules is a nice sparkly polish this is 3 coats which covers the nails pretty well. 

I then added Barry M special effects as a contrast

I couldn't capture the holographic quality of the glitter as it was quite overcast today.

I think this is a funky easy to do manicure that looks good on shorter nails. Its also a good way to wear more loud nail varnish that you wouldn't normally wear. 

I hope my nails grow quickly! I'm going to find something tomorrow to help them 

Stacie xoxox

Tropical flowers

I bought some new polishes this weekend.

I used 17 Fast finish in Out of the Blue (needed 2 thick coats was streaky), Lasting fix in Tropical Island (top orange), Lasting Fix in Orange Soda, Collection 2000 Hot Looks in Lemon Sherbert. Base coat was Orly Nail Armor and Top coat was Sec n dry.

I hope you like them. The clean up isn't great I just wanted to get them finished tonight. The top coat is good in that it drys quickly and I haven't seen any shrinkage, you can paint on lots of layers over a few days and can look very shiny. Down side is that it smudges nail art. I might go back to Seche vite.. love the speed, and that it doesn't mess up the designs but annoyed it goes so gloopy so fast and I have to buy an additional product to sort it out. It also shrinks a lot too. Bit of a top coat review there! 
I hope you all had a lovely valentines day. Me and Chicky did same as every year... nothing! We are not terribly romatic

Vintage Pink Roses

More retro style nails I hope you enjoy

I used a different topcoat (Orly sec n dry) and it smudged the flowers so I'm a bit annoyed. I guess you have to let the nail art dry completely if you're using this topcoat. I used Orly nail armor for the base, Sinful colors easy going for the bottom colour and various bright pinks for the flowers.
Stacie
xoxox

Fimo cane nail art - better photo

As promised a better photo for this post

Great giveaway

BeautyCrazed are having a giveaway so if you fancy winning lots of lovely nail varnish click here
Stacie xoxox

Fimo cane nail art

Well I got an Ipod touch today so as I have spent all day playing with that I haven't had much time to do any serious nail art. I did really need to change my nails though because 1) the nail art pen part of the previous design was rubbing off and looked miserable and 2) my nails have started to peel badly on the thumb and first 2 fingers of my right hand. Grr. So they are so short i have to be a bit careful as to what looks ok on both hands.
Anyway this is what I did!

I used the diet coke promotion denim blue, orly nail armour as base coat (hoping this will save my poor, peeling nails)  and orly sec n dry for the top coat. I used butterfly fimo cane (finely sliced). I stuck them on with nail glue after I painted the nails and topcoat. I also used a coat of topcoat after to seal it over slightly.

I don't rate the ipod pictures or think this manicure will last that long. My fine slicing skills are zero so I have sticking out bits on the butterflies which will get caught in everything. I estimate 2 days max for this manicure because of my inept cutting. It could be because I use a craft knife and not the cutters the advertise on ebay.

Anyway my bed is calling. If anyone has any requests of nails they would like to see let me know and I will see what I can do. Also if you know how to cure the peeling nail situation I would be eternally grateful, if it helps I always get peeling nails when I wear nail varnish for over 2 months.
Thanks for reading I'll take some better photos tomorrow xoxox

Marc Jacobs Daisy Pop Art inspired nails

Hiya
So I was surfing the web and decided I wanted to do a Marc Jacobs Daisy inspired nail. I was looking at the site and found the pop art design .

I decided to do a bit of a tutorial for this nail but because I was stopping to photograph as I went a long I smudged some bits. Please ignore those bits :-D

STEP 1: Paint your base colour. I used Baked Cherry by boots 17 cosmetics then put on some nail guides (or you can free style if your neater than me!) You do not need to pile on perfect base colour because you will be painting the tip white you won't see a line so you don't need the usual 3 coats perfection you would without the art.

STEP 2: Paint the tips white and remove guides when touch dry

 STEP 3: Paint on the black daisys. I did this by using a nail art pen and dotting 5 times in a circle. 

STEP 4: Dot of yellow in the middle 

STEP 5: Nail guides on and paint a yellow line between the guide and the white edge

STEP 6: let it dry well then paint on a coat of your favorite top coat. 

And that is that. Like I said they aren't perfect but I think they look cute and fun. 
I know its not the most indepth tutorial in the world but I hope it was enough to help anyone who wants to recreate it.
xoxox

Stuff and things

Hello :-D 

I thought I would share some things I have bought this week. Firstly I ordered some Orly from amazon.co.uk. I got

Orly nail armour. I have only used it twice so can't really comment yet on its ability to do the job it says but as it dries you can see the bits of silk in there which is quite cool. Next I got

Also only used once so not sure how good it is. I think it dried quickly but not hard if that makes sense. I will do a full review in a couple of weeks.

I like the blue on it looks just as you expect. I used the thinner with the dregs of a bottle of Seche Vite and then used the SV and it still worked. I only used a few drops and it was still thick. I'm going to try adding some more and see what happens. You get 60ml for about £4 which is pretty good value and if it works with SV. I do like SV for its speed and hardness but shrinkage and drying up after 3 weeks are bad points for sure.

Lastly I got myself a little treat this week. I adore it! 

Its got a good length strap for over the shoulder and a long strap which you can clip on and off. It was from Mark & Spencer limited collection and cost £79.

I will do some reviews in the week when I've tried everything out properly xoxox

Chinese New Year

Kung Hei Fat Choy

Happy Year of the Rabbit everyone. This is my house bunny Bluebell. She isn't albino because she has blue eyes so she has the Vienna Gene or something else scientific. She is a cutie!

Leopard print and hearts

Oh My Days! I had the hardest time doing my nails today. You know when everything you try just doesn't look right. I tried wonderwoman first - looked ok but I couldn't get the wonderwoman logo right so I binned them off. Then I started a cupcake theme but it just didn't look right either.

Then I did this:

I used China Glaze Midnight Kiss for the background, Models Own Becca's Brown for the centre of the dots. A black and a pink nail art double ended pens I picked up on ebay in a set of 30. Seche Vite as top coat and Girls with Attitude self adhesive diamonds.

I got the inspiration from a Japanese nail art magazine.
I actually did this look once before - the week before christmas but I didn't take any photos. I think I like it this time better because I added the bow. I love that it is a little bit crazy. I tool the pics with a flash as it is 3.20am here.
xoxox