Chocolate Nails

It is Easter Monday and if you haven't been stuffing your face with Chocolate all day, then I take my hat off to you. Where ever I have been today I have some fragment of Easter Egg in my hand.

I have wanted to do Chocolate nails for a while now, as there is a great tutorial in my I scream Nails book I bought when I was in Aus. I thought as I didn't do any Easter nails this year, this would be  nice way to wind down from my long weekend.

My base colour is 'Espresso' by Mavala which I think may be a tad to dark for the milk chocolate I have been eating all day, but I am really pleased with the way the 3D chunks of chocolate came out.

These nails look quite hard but all you need is a bit of patience. 

Draw a black line down the centre of the nail, then create square blocks.
After that, paint on tiny L shapes with a dark colour and a light colour, opposite one another and that is it! 

I hope you all had a really Happy Easter!

Mavala Oasis Collection

All the lovely new summer collections are coming out which is very exciting! This one is from Mavala which you may know is one of my top nail brands!

The collection as a whole, is quite cool in terms of colours. We will start with my favourite collection from the collection! So here is...

Sunset Orange

This is such a nice colour on everyone who wears it. It makes your hands look really tanned and it is a real eye catcher. A good coral colour is a must have in everyones nail collection.

Wind Breeze

Wind breeze is a very flat nude colour. This didn't look quite right on my skin tone, but my friend with darker skin tried it and it looked lovely on her. It's a really nice nude colour.

Sand Rose




In the bottle this didn't really stand out to me but when it was on, this burnt, metallic rose gold is really pretty. Another colour that would look great on every skin tone.

Orchid Mauve

This is another colour that I thought looked underwhelming in the bottle. I would now go as far to say it is my second favourite in the collection. It has a slight twist on a pastel purple that is popular this time of year, as it has a slight dusty tone to it. Very pretty.

Treasure

Treasure is the bling of the collection. On its own I thought it is a bit much on the hands, but on the toes, or used for nail art I think this is a really exciting colour. It is a smooth metallic which means easy removal which is a bonus!

Sky Blue

This was one of the colours that really stood out to me in the collection. A bright blue is another must have in any collection. It isn't a pastel blue, but more of a bright baby blue. It is a great eye catcher and one of my favourite blues.

What do you think of this collection? let me know in the comments :)

Mavala Technicolour range

Hi everyone! Today I am going to be showing you the latest collection from Mavala. Mavala are certainly on top when it comes to bringing out new collections, as they tend to do two for every season rather than one. The latest addition to their collection is the Technicolour range, which aims to be quite bold and individual, rather than the usual pastel summer colours we see coming out this time of year.

Antarctic

White is the nail colour of the season, and plain 'tippexed' nails are the latest trend. This white from Mavala has a gentle shimmer to it to make it a bit more 3 dimensional.

White looks perfect on short healthy nails. Mine are a bit flaky at the moment and I feel the white almost highlights that, but otherwise, a very chic colour, and one I will be wearing lots when my nails are healthier.

Black Night

In direct contrast, we have a black colour which is also another colour that everyone has to have in their collection. Black is a timeless classic, but this one stands out for me, as it has very faint green glimmer to it which I think makes it a bit more special.

Black is another colour that looks great on short nails, and its adds a graceful shape and extra shine. The green shimmer is not blatantly obvious, but under certain lights it just adds that bit of interest.

Cobalt Blue

I. Absolutely. Love. This. Colour. If I was to describe my absolute favourite colour in the whole world, it would be this. I adore electric blue shades, and when I saw this come out of the box I would not put it down. 

This is not to dissimilar from the Nails Inc 'Baker Street' and the new Mavala formula promises to give extra high gloss. My love for this colour is just unspeakable. This colour is very matte (which I also love) so I didn't do a second shot. It comes as it is, and I love it that way.

Arty Pink

Another colour I really love in this collection. When I saw this and the blue, I put one colour on each hand because I wanted to wear them both so badly! 

Arty Pink has a very light pink shimmer going through it. It is almost unnoticeable but it adds a bit more excitement to a candy pink shade.

 Cyber Yellow

This is the controversial colour of the collection. Some people absolutely hate this colour, and others love it. This is a real metallic yellow/green colour which is very larey.

I personally don't like the way it looked on my nails. Again, because it highlighted all the damage my nails currently have, but the colour just did not suit my skin tone. Being fair it is almost impossible for me to wear any kind of yellow, but I think this would look really good on a olive or black skin.

Orange Fusion

I have quite a large soft spot for orange polish on the nails. As I can't wear yellow, I find that orange is my next citrus-y colour that I can go to if I want summery, tropical nails.

This colour has a yellow/gold shimmer running through it which really makes it warm up the colour. Again, I really like this colour and think it will be one of the popular ones.

Overall, I think the whole collection is really quirky and different, but still has a summery aspect to it.

What do you think? And which is your favourite colour?

Day 9: Pattern

So today I should be posting you my 'Day 11 nails: pastel blue'. However, I have still not posted my 'Day 9 nails: pattern'. I can only apologise for my lateness, I have been a bit ill so haven't been as speedy with my posting as I'd like. I have however done my pastel blue nails and they are on my instagram page NOW if you want an exclusive look! Please follow me on there as I tend to put my pictures on there first!
I'm really enjoying this nail art challenge, because the prompts are pushing me to do designs I only debated doing before, and pushing me to think outide of the box a little. This design in particuar made me reach for my Wah Nails book and search for this Python skin pattern which I only breezed over when I was reading it before.

This nail art was inspired purely by the nail polish I had on that day! After my previous post of the Mavala Metropolitan Collection, I left on the Emerald Gold colour. As I said in the post, a lot of the comments I got wearing this polish were "thats very mermaid-y", so I thought my pattern post should enchance the mermaid effect of the polish even more. And so here are my scale nails that look slightly marine/reptile. 

This design was also inspired by 'Brit Nails' who stamped black over a similar colour. I was going to use my stamper originally as I want to embrace it a bit more, but I didn't have a plate with the scale effect I wanted. I just freehanded these scales with my black Models Own nail art pen. 

Mavala Metropolitan Collection

The new Metropolitan collection is the latest addition to the Mavala range. This launched in shops this year, but it was exclusively launched in salons over Christmas. The collection resembles some of the Autumn/ Winter shades from other ranges we have seen this year. Metallics and duotones have clearly been the trend this Christmas, as seen in collections from Jessica and Leighton Denny.

The collection is clever in the sense that each colour has a duotone, meaning in different lights, there is a different colour. This means you can wear two colours on your nails at once. I used to never be a fan of metallics, but the recent metallic craze that has taken over this season, has made me think twice about my opinion.

Pink Gold

I featured 'Pink Gold' in my latest piece of nail art which you can see here. In the bottle, I don't think Pink Gold looks very special. When on the nails though, the two toned shades really come out. I think out of the whole collection, this colour has the most dramatic duotone. In my nail art, I used a pink paint next to it, which I think brings out the pink shade more.

Silver Chrome

'Silver Chrome' reminds me of the silver foil Barry M brought out. Its a really metallic silver and has a really strong colour after just one coat. It looks like melted liquid metal, and will be a fantastic base for some nail art I have coming up.

Metallic Blue

This blue reminds me slightly of my favourite Mavala colour Flashy Violet. Its a much lighter and bluer version though, and will be great in the summer. In normal daylight this is slightly darker and changes between light and dark tones.

Gold Bronze

'Gold Bronze' is another colour that looks much more exciting when on the nail. This really bronze tone will look great with a tan in the summer. This is another duotone that changes from light to dark and changes more dramatically with light.

Copper Violet

This is probably the most iridescent shade, and needs a few more layers for the best effect possible. The purple shade is a cooler tone, but the copper hues warm it up when it reflects in certain lights.

Emerald Gold

This is probably my favourite colour in the collection. Emerald green was THE colour of 2013 and this combined with a metallic duotone is the recipe for success. The Emerald and the Gold really shine out. This is the colour I have kept on the longest from the collection, and it has had a lot of comments from people who have seen it. One comment was that it was very 'mermaidy' which is a comment I like a lot.

These colours have really inspired some ideas for nail art I am planning to do soon so keep watching to see what I come up with.

Day 6: Sparkles

Today is day 6 of the Nail art challenge and so I give you my design for 'Sparkles'

For this design, I used Pink Gold from the new Mavala Metropolitan range. I will be doing a full review on this range, but this is just a little sneak peak of what you can expect! It's an amazing gold colour which turns pink under some light. I used this as my inspiration for the rest of the design as it has a metallic sparkle. I used Nails Inc 'Brompton Place' for the index and ring finger, and free hand the diamonds, using a pink nail art pen on the gold finger to make them stand out. Obviously diamonds sparkle, so I used my new Barry M top coat to add the finishing shine. The diamond design is one used in Wah Nails a lot so I took the inspiration from there.

before the Sparkle

finished look