OPI Stranger Tides and gold glitter

New blog post! How long has it been? Sorry for my AWOL!

Anyway, I got the POTC OPI mini set, and the first one I’ve tried is Stranger Tides, which is a kind of musty grey-green but in an attractive way!

I’ve used three coats over my OPI nail envy base, and then I topped with a thick coat of Seche Vite. The texture of this one was runny and a little hard to get a nice, smooth, even finish which is why I used a thick top coat.

On my accent nails I used a gold glitter as a top coat and I really like how that turned out! Everyone is using the silver shatter so I thought the gold glitter was something different. The one I used is by Stargazer, which is easily accessible and great quality.

On the topic of that silver shatter, I don’t have it just yet, (one bottle is on it’s way to me in the post) but I do have a lovely silver shatter from a brand in Boots called 17. Someone I worked with (I had to leave my part time job L) bought it so I went and got one too. It works really well, it’s about the same quality as the Barry M polishes, which have been insanely popular!

I don’t have any pics right now, I’m waiting for the OPI one to come through and then I’ll compare for ya!

And hey, check how long my nails are now! My new job isn’t as hard on my nails, so less chips and breakages means they have just sprouted out of nowhere! They’re difficult to type with though, my laptop broke so all I have is my netbook and its tiny keyboard!

I'm reading: OPI Stranger Tides and gold glitter

Blue, Matte, Glitter and crackle!

This is quite an indulgent manicure, but like I said in my previous post, I wanted to make myself feel better!
First off, I painted my nails with Claire's Accessories matte blue. I seriously love Claire's nail polishes, they are so cheap and they rarely disappoint! This matte is lovely. It's not a true matte finish, more of a pleather look and it's beautiful. These pictures are after just 2 coats.

Next, I used OPI Last Friday Night from the Katy Perry collection to add some glitter. This is 2 coats:

After this, I threw on a thick coat of China Glaze's Crackle Glaze in Crushed Candy

You can't really see it very well, but I topped the whole lot off with a coat of Seche Vite to make everything smooth and even, and then No. 7 Matte Top Coat to make it all matte.

I'm reading: Blue, Matte, Glitter and crackle!

Theme: DC Comics - Superman

Finally, a DC Hero rather than a villain, and he isn't even from Gotham!

A background on Superman

Just before the impending destruction of their home planet, Krypton, Jor-El and Lara lovingly place their baby son into a space ship and send him to a far away planet where he will grow up to a great destiny.

Kal-El crash lands in a small town called Smallville and the infant is discovered by a human couple, Jonathon and Martha Kent.  The couple decide to keep the child as if he were their own. Giving him the human name, Clark Kent, they raise him with great love and great kindness, but they soon discover he is not like normal children.  Clark, powered by Earth’s yellow sun, has superhuman speed, strength, hearing, super breath, heat and x-ray vision, the ability to fly and is invulnerable, except to radioactive pieces of his home planet, Kryptonite.

Clark faces his destiny, helped out by the wisdom of his birth father living on through the fortress of solitude,  and puts on a blue suit with a red cape and proudly wears the House of El crest on his chest, the S shape prompts Lois Lane to give him his title “Superman”.

The House of El crest has also been worn by Supergirl, Superboy and Krypto.

Onto the nails!! 

For this nail design, I painted my nails with Orly’s Royal blue.

Using a short nail art brush, I painted the yellow diamond shape with China Glaze’s Solar Power and allowed to dry. Next I painted an outline for the diamond shape and a small S with Barry M’s Bright Red.

Not bad for my first ever free-hand design!

I'm reading: Theme: DC Comics - Superman

New OPI shatter polishes

The very instant I red this blog post, I had to share it with you!
OPI are bringing out some new coloured shatter polishes!
Check out the information and photos at Addicted To All Things Pretty

I'm reading: New OPI shatter polishes

OPI current and future collections

This blog post is all about the current and future OPI collections. I know I said that I wasn't the type of person to keep up to date with new releases, but if I have the information I definately want to share with my readers! So, you've recently seen my post about the Pirates collection and the new Serena Williams Glam Slam duo, here's some further info about Pirates and some new information about a couple of other collections.

OPI Katy Perry collection
Firstly, there is the Katy Perry collection. The Katy Perry collection is already available to purchase and I would highly recommend buying at least one of each!
The collection comprises of four coloured polishes that are all named after Katy Perry songs and a black shatter topcoat.

• Last Friday Night - A metallic blue glitter
• Teenage Dream - A metallic baby pink glitter
• The One That Got Away - a beautiful bright pinky red nail polish
• Not Like The Movies - a shimmering silver colour which shows a green and purple duochrome

Each polish has an RRP of £10.50 and there is a set of 4 mini versions of the 4 colours with an RRP of £12.75

Click to see it larger!

OPI Texas Collection

The OPI Texas collection is currently available and already proving to be another popular collection

• Don’t Mess With OPI - A lean, mean, kick-grass forest green.
• Austin-Tatious Turquoise – Cowgirls love this bodacious blue-green.
• It’s Totally Fort-Worth It – A shimmery lavender grey that’s so worthy of you.
• Do You Think I’m Tex-y? A “berry” sexy bloom of Dallas Dahlia.
• I Vant To Be A-Lone Star – You won’t want to share this starry Texas-sky blue.
• Houston We Have A Purple – A galactic red-violet that’s ready to “rocket-roll”!
• Suzi Loves Cowboys – But she loves this campfire chocolate shade s’more!
• San Tan-tonio – A “honey” of a ten-gallon tan!
• Too Hot Pink To Hold ‘Em – A red-hot pink-red that deals a winning hand.
• Guy Meets Gal-veston – An “engaging” coastal coral.
• Y’all Come Back Ya Hear? – This Texas tangerine will be waitin’ for ya!
• Big Hair Big Nails - A rosy pageant peach.

Each polish is £10.50 for 15ml and there will also be a set of 4 mini polishes featuring Austin-Tatious Turquoise, I Vant To Be A-Lone Star, Do You Think I'm Tex-y and a mini bottle of OPI's Top Coat. This set of mini's will cost £12.75.
What do you think of these? I like the look of Austin-Tatious Turquoise, Houston We Have A Purple, Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?.

OPI Femme du Cirque
Femme du Cirque is a small collection coming out soon and it consists of 4 soft shades. Each polish has an RRP of £10.50 and there is a set comprising 4 mini polishes of all the colours with an RRP of £12.75
Currently I have no further information about the colours, so on with the picture:

OPI Pirates
You've already seen my blog post on the Pirates collection where I went into detail about the colous and shared my initial thoughts so I shan't bore you again, on with the pretty picture!
Each 15ml polish has an RRP of £10.50 and there is a mini set comprising 4 mini bottles of On Stranger Tides, Skull & Glossbones, Sparrow Me The Drama and Planks A Lot with an RRP of £12.75.

I do have to repeat myself here though: Silver Shatter! Yumm!

OPI Original Axxium Collection
Now this one looks really interesting! If you're going away on holiday or if you work a lot and don't have time to keep on painting your nails, you can have your nails painted with OPI's Axxium. This is a gel system where you will have your nails painted with the colour of your choice and then it is UV cured. The finish is a chip-resistant, incredibly shiny, strong colour. 
This is a perfect treatment for those of you with weak nails, or anyone who is trying to grow out their nails as it provides a strong layer of protection over your natural nails without damaging them.
This treatment must be done in a professional salon and the results can last up to 3 weeks. The removal procedure takes 15 - 30 minutes and I assume you would have to go back to the salon for that.

 I did a quick google search and found that this collection is available to buy online, however it should not be available to non-professionals, as said google search also turned up a lot of people who have tried to use it themselves and have encountered numerous problems.


  If I were the type of person who could pick one colour and stick to it for 3 weeks, I would consider visiting a salon and having this done, however I change my mind far too much!
The colours available are really nice, there's something for almost everyone there!
What do you guys think? Has anyone had this done already? 

-A  

I'm reading: OPI current and future collections

The Princess and The Frog

We are having a Princess and the Frog themed day at work, so I have painted my nails accordingly!

I started with my Chip Skip and Nail Envy for a base coat (both OPI) and then China Glaze’s Entourage.

Entourage is from the Kicks collection of Summer ’09. It’s a bold lime green colour with shimmer. The consistency of this one is quite thin and runny and it took 3 coats to get a nice coverage.

On my ring fingers, I added No. 7’s matte top coat, Entourage looks amazing matte! After that, I got my Konad out and used the red Special Polish and stamped a little frog (plate m30) and some hearts (plate m3) above his head.

On the rest of my fingers, I added OPI’s What’s Dune. This polish is AMAZING as a top coat as it’s incredibly sheer and it’s holographic, albeit a more subtle holographic than the later DS collection, but it really adds sparkle and depth to your polish. This polish is from the ’03 (gasp!) It’s Summer For Shore collection. I’m certainly impressed with this polish if it’s still alive after nearly 8 years!

I love this manicure, it's so cute and goes perfectly with the theme of the day!

I'm reading: The Princess and The Frog

OPI Pirates Of The Caribbean and Serena Williams Glam Slam

I don't usually post information about upcoming collections as I don't have any official information, products or photos, everything I know I have read in other blogs, so my information could be wrong. However, I have read a lot of blogs and I have seen a lot of the photos and I am actually quite excited about these ranges being released soon!

OPI Pirates of the Caribbean

 In May, Disney will release Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides and OPI are bringing out a POTC themed range of polishes. The polishes are mainly pastel shades, which you don't really imagine when you think of pirates, but the polishes ARE pretty and they do have some cool names, well, IMO! And there's one fabulous suprise that will be selling as fast as it hits the shelves...

The collection features 6 colours, all with a creme finish:
Mermaid's Tears - a sea green pastel shade
Planks A Lot - a muted purple pastel
Steady As She Rose - A pale pink pastel
Skull & Gloss Bones - This looks like a sort of shimmery pearl pastel colour
Sparrow Me The Drama - Another pink (yawn) albeit a murky one
Stranger Tides - A murky yellow pastel

The fabulous suprise is A SILVER SHATTER. Silver. OMG. This one is going to be interesting!!
Out of the collection, I definately want to get the silver shatter and possible Stranger Tides and/or Skull & Gloss Bones.

Just so I can share a picture:

Full credit for this picture goes to http://www.just-nice-things.co.uk/?p=14007

Did you see that silver shatter? I'm imagining it over a dark, matte colour... yummmmm!

OPI Serena Williams Glam Slam

Now the next thing I have heard is pretty cool too!

You have all seen the Serena Williams duo, the Simply Smash-ing and the black shatter by now, but I have found out that the next duo is Sparke De Triomphe - A very cool toned gold glitter, and a white shatter.

I'm feeling that the latter wont sell very well due to China Glaze's crackle collection.

The folllowing two photos found their way to my email inbox, but I do not know where they are from and I can't seem to find any detailed information about this duo. The email also states that the rumoured release date is April, so I'm assuming that's April for USA and we'll be a bit later in the UK.

 

I'm reading: OPI Pirates Of The Caribbean and Serena Williams Glam Slam

A vampy, dark Valentine's Day look

This look was really simple to do, nothing too it at all.
First I painted my nails with OPI Chip Skip and my favourite base coat, OPI's Nail Envy for dry and brittle nails to prep and prime my nails for painting. This is the routine that I use for every nail look.

Next, I painted my nails with Nubar's Midnight Matte
 This is the first, and currently the only, Nubar polish that I own. I love the shape of the bottle, I love the shape and size of the brush, and I love the consistency of the polish. It's not too thick and not too runny, and it gives a very good coverage. It was almost perfect with just one coat, and if I was a little more skilled with a brush, one coat would have done, but I put two on because I'm a shaky, messy painter.
The dry time for this polish was really quick, but I think that's just standard for matte polishes. I'd really love to get my hands on a few more Nubar polishes.

Next, I used french tip stickers and OPI's Rising Star from the Burlesque collection to create red tips over the black matte. Rising Star is a lovely jelly red colour with a dark pink shimmer to it.
Over the midnight matte, which has a matte, silver shimmer through it that looks amazing, the red of Rising Star was made a lot darker than how it would normally look. This worked well for the vampy look!
After the Rising Star french tips had dried, I grabbed my nail gems and added a little heart to my ring finger on each hand. I used my No.7 matte topcoat to adhere the gems and a tiny bit of Seche Vite top coat to make the gems shiny again.

I'm reading: A vampy, dark Valentine's Day look

Theme: DC Comics - Posion Ivy

This is the next part of my DC Characters manicures. I’ve gone for another Gotham villain here, Poison Ivy.

Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley was a botanist and cared deeply about plants and the environment. A colleague attempted to murder Pamela using rare and deadly herbs from Egypt, but Pamela survived the attempt only to be transformed into Poison Ivy.

Poison Ivy is just that, Poison. She has toxins in her bloodstream and one kiss can be deadly. She can speak to and control any plant and she considers them her babies.

I based this manicure on her toxicity and love for plants.

I used OPI’s Here Today Aragon Tomorrow, a deep moss green, as a base. I used Barry M 287 Emerald Green, a metallic green, to stamp a vine design onto my nails using a fauxnad plate. I then painted the tips red (OPI’s Not Really A Waitress), to make them look a little more feminine.

The dark green base coat made the red I used look a lot darker than it is, this worked at my advantage as it looked a little more toxic and poisonous.

I'm reading: Theme: DC Comics - Posion Ivy

A cutesy, girly, pink Valentine's look

This is a very pink and pretty look for all those girly-girls for Valentine’s Day.

It’s 2 coats of Barry M 279 Bright Pink topped with Eyeko’s Chi Chi polish, which is a clear top coat with pink glitter within. I topped that off with No. 7’s matte top coat, then used sticky tape as a guideline and painted tips with OPI’s That’s Hot! Pink which is a darker pink than the Barry M and I left the tips shiny.

Pretty short blog post really, I can’t say anything more about this manicure because I hate pink. I didn’t realise that I hated pink until I started this manicure. It came out exactly as I imagined it would, but I just do not like it. Unfortunately, I seem to have a fair few bottles of pink polish. Time to ditch them?

I'm reading: A cutesy, girly, pink Valentine's look