NOTD - Chelsea Frost ft True Brit London

Greetings lovely readers!

Things I've learnt of late? NEVER get smug thinking you've successfully avoided the flu bug that everyone & their dad has had because it is when you're in this clearly vulnerable state that it decides to ensnare you into its clutches. So yah...not feeling so smug now. Thankfully I've got the day off to attempt to defeat the bugger where much chocolate therapy (for medicinal reasons obvs) will be involved to help speed up the recovery process.

Of course another way to brighten up the day is with the help of a pretty polish, so that's precisely what shall be done! Many pair Monday's with the blues, but this doesn't have to be a negative thing at all, so I have a super pretty blue shade to share with you lovelies today in the form of Chelsea* from True Brit London.

I wasn't kidding was I? Mighty puuuurdy this blue most definitely is. Chelsea is a gorgeous jewel cobalt blue with an interesting shimmery edge thanks to the addition of finely milled pearls giving it a lush luxurious finish.

The formula of Chelsea was slightly sheerer than others I've tried from this range so two coats is definitely required with this one, three if you really want a pop of colour!

Not that this beaut of a blue needs jazzing up, but I seem to have rediscovered my love for glitter gradients again so I couldn't resist adding a touch of sparkly goodness in the form of China Glaze's Lorelai's Tiara.

Lorelai's Tiara definitely ranks up there as one of my top glitters, a gorgeous molten silver with pretty ice blue flecks dotted in there, worn alone it is truly an eye catcher! I actually lent this to a work colleague for her wedding day polish as her something borrowed AND something blue! :)

For the gradient simply dab & drag the glitter down from the cuticles till you get the desired finished effect. For a final glam touch I also added a few pretty pale blue rhinestones on top of the glitter.

Finish with your obligatory topcoat to seal the stones & glitter & you’re done! Feeling some seriously frosty vibes with this icy mani!

Thanks as always for reading dolls! Don't forget you can get 10% off True Brit London polishes which are available online using my code TRULY10. Till next time!

Lotsa love to ya!

Disclaimer - * products featured were sent to me for my consideration. I am not affiliated with the brand nor paid for this post, this review has been as always my 100% honest opinion! :)

Tartan Plaid Print Nails

Hello there lovely readers!

How are you all keeping? Hope you had a lovely weekend? Mine was spent in the city again, this time for the besties hen do. A jolly time was had featuring fun games with interesting results involving a Channing Tatum poster, feasting in medieval fashion with Henry VII, before dancing till the early hours. Though now I feel positively ancient & will enjoy a few quiet weekends haha!

Today's manicure is a request from one of my lovely twitter chums @Yahyah56. You see we both have strong love for tartan....Scottish tartan....Scottish tartan on handsome Scottish men on a show called Outlander to be exact. Now I haven't actually seen this show yet, what with it being on Amazon Prime which I'm not subscribed to (sort it out Netflix!) however I am very aware of it & its male leads existence *cue heart eye emoji* who knows how to rock a tartan kilt most well. So in honour of that & for you Maisie hers some suitably Outlander-ish tartan nails!

I've been a long term of plaid nail art as not only is it easy to achieve, you can do SO many different variations on colours. In the past I've done Grey Plaid & PinkPlaid nails & there's so many more colour mixes I want to try! For this one I've gone for the traditional red & green tartan with a pale gold stitching.

To create these tartan nails just follow these simple steps...

First start with applying your red base, I wanted to go for a nice deep wine red for this tartan plaid, here I've used one coat of Nails Inc Chester Square.

Next apply your green shade. You know my love of sparkles so I decided to incorporate some glitter at this point using Models Own Absinthe, definitely one of my favourite green polishes, so rich, yet satisfyingly sparkly! Apply one coat covering only half the nail.

Then grabbing a thin nail art brush & a pale gold shade, here I've used Ulta3 Antique Copper, a gorgeous metallic molten gold, apply your stripes to create the plaid print, basically two horizontal stripes & two vertical stripes, alternating the positioning of the stripes on each nail to mix it up a tad.

Finally using a toothpick & the same gold , I added on a bit of stitching to complete the tartan look before coating it all with a nice thick click of topcoat to seal....& that’s it! Though I got a bit overexcited & jarred the ring finger a tad but lets just pretend its some wrinkled up tartan cloth shall we??

It must be the combination of red, green & gold but this mani is making me feel rather Xmassy! I think I'll definitely have to roll out this look again nearer the time. But before Xmas of course we have one of my other favourite holidays...HALLOWEEN! I'm already getting my thinking cap on for some fun nail art designs...

Thanks for reading lovelies, I hope you liked the Tartan Plaid nails. Now to get on to perhaps sorting out an Amazon Prime subscription for Outlander, so I can research tartan plaid in more depth & maybe roll out a few more designs...entirely for blogging purposes of course... O_o

Lotsa love to ya!

NOTD - Rule Britannia by True Brit London

Hello there lovely readers!

Hope you're all having a not too blue Monday! After a few days in the capital city for my birthday, I found myself back in the office yesterday on a working Sunday (boo!) so remedied that with a much needed day off today as lets just say ones limbs may still be recovering haha! If you follow moi on social media you'll know that I visited Lady Dinahs Cat Emporium for high tea as part of the birthday celebrations & FYI cat lovers...definitely go! Such a cute gem of a place hidden away in Shoreditch, you will love it! Mumma bear is already begging I take her! :)

Now you can't go wrong with a perfect red polish can you? Like a lipstick, every girl should also have a signature red polish in her collection & the polish I have to show you today is True Brit London's offering in the form of the elegant Rule Britannia* from the Essentials Collection.

With a polish named thus, I couldn't resist glamming it up with some serious bling! But first things first lets start with that divooone shade. FYI dolls...photographing red tones is an absolute pain in the caboose! However I did my bestest to capture it. Rule Britannia is a lovely vintage vibrant red which veers more towards the orange toned red family.

This was two coats applied & as always with True Brit London polishes the formula was faultless, so smooth to apply & dries to a lovely glossy finish. I've found that a lot of the True Brit London polishes are easily one coaters which is fab! However I'm a creature of habit & always go for my two!

Once dry I decided to dab on some gold glitter starting from the cuticles using a gold glitter Color Club polish before dragging down slightly to create a subtle gradient effect.

Now on to that pretty nail jewellery, its a bobby dazzler huh?! This pretty nail charm twas purchased from my fav nail art supply store Charlie's Nail Art & seemed quite fitting & the perfect accessory for my Rule Britannia manicure. The great thing about these lovely nail charms is that they can be re-used again!

I applied the True Brit London Gloss topcoat to each nail as well as using it to help stick the nail charm on the nail, as its a lovely thick formula, the charm held strong for the whole duration I wore the mani.

Thanks as always for reading lovelies! True Brit London polishes retail for £12.50 & can be found online. Don't forget you can also get 10% off your order using my special code TRULY10.

Lotsa love to ya!

Disclaimer - * products featured were sent to me for my consideration. I am not affiliated with the brand nor paid for this post, this review has been as always my 100% honest opinion! :)

NOTD - Two Tone Geometric Nails

Hello there lovely readers!

Hows you? Again life has taken a mad turn of late with work & weddings & more work! Some down time is muchly needed & I'm currently working on that right now having come back from a blissful massage to start things off for birthday celebrations! Yup, turning another year older tomorrow, still none the wiser & content to continue on my search for Neverland! Looking forward to heading to London for a few days of fun with my favourite humans & non humans too with a visit to a cat cafe for afternoon tea...my two favourite things...cake & kitties! The exciting is hard to contain :)

Today I have for you lovelies a quick & simple two tone geometric design using two polishes from Loreal's Color Riche range that the lovely Safiyah also known as the fabulously talented FrootiBeauty, kindly sent my way, because she's an absolute doll & knows that all orphan polishes wanting a happy home will be welcomed into my domain with open arms! 

The shades I've used here are 242 Pink Pop, a yummy bright pink creme & 241 Cloud Wow, a pretty pale blue lavender creme. Both polishes were great to work with, smooth formula & quick drying & I love the brush that comes with these. Definitely helps with easy application. They're also contained in such cute dinky bottle packaging that they would be perfect to pop in the bag or take on holiday. This geometric design could not be more straightforward to create so here's a breakdown of the steps for you.

Grabbing your polish, apply one coat to the whole nail, I decided to alternate both shades. 

  Then using the alternate polish shade, apply a coat at a diagonal across just half of the nail. I use the brush that comes with the polish & apply free hand but you can use a thinner brush & fill in the rest if you find that easier!

Don't worry if your line is a tad wonky as the next step is to apply a thin white line across the diagonal where the two colours meet. I use the Models Own nail art pen in White as it has a thin striper brush end which is perfect for this & makes applying thin straight lines very easy.

 Next grabbing a dotting tool, or if you don't have one then a simple bobby pin will suffice! Remember dolls nail art tools are NOT compulsory to create fun nail art! Use whatever is at your disposal! Dip the dotting tool/pin into some white polish & apply a row of dots along the edge of the white line.

The inner magpie in me loves adding a touch of sparkle to the nails so to finish the design I quickly added a dot of Models Own Southern Lights which is a disco of lilac tinted holographic glitter, super satisfying sparkles!

Finally after a bit of clean up if you have any polish spillages on the skin areas with a bit of acetone & a brush, apply a nice thick coat of topcoat to seal your design, I use CND Air Dry, quite possibly the best topcoat on the PLANET in my opinion & that's it!  

Hope you liked the mani my lovelies! Do let me know if you give this design a try! Thanks as always for reading, till next time!

Lots love to ya!

NOTD - Chocolate & Gold Magnum Inspired Nails!

Hello there my beauts! Happy first of the month to you!

So there appears to be a recurring theme when it comes to finding inspiration for nail art lately....FOOD. Maybe not THAT surprising considering my devotion to sweet foodstuffs;) With those rare glimpses of sunshine that we've been graced with of late, so comes the inevitable temptation of consuming a yummy ice cream treat. Remember the Raspberry Ripple Marble nails from a few posts ago? Well this time it was whilst I was indulging in a decadent Magnum delight, that I thought the combination of rich dark tones & gold in the packaging would look equally pretty on the nails. So this is what I came up with...

For my base colour I used the vampy I Sing In Colour by OPI which was one of the shades from Gwen Stefani's collection. This is an intensely rich, almost black red shade, so hot & vampy, I absolutely love it! And I thought it would be perfect to embody smooth velvety dark chocolate tones. This is two coats applied to a gorgeously glossy finish.

For the gold touch I decided to use China Glaze Cracked Medallion crackle polish. Aaah good old crackle polishes, remember those? China Glaze's offerings were particularly awesome, with the polish formula crackling extremely well, leaving a really pretty effect. 

I still wanted plenty of that vampy base on show, far too pretty it is to hide, so I just swiped the gold crackle across the tip in a quarter moon. 

For a final bit of golden decadence I simply added a row of gold glitter dots along the curve of the crackle before sealing it all with my trusty CND Air Dry topcoat! 

Mmmm...Magnum anyone? I can predict the chances of me speedy gonzalez-ing it down to the freezer after this post is up are quite high & I suggest you all do the same so I feel less guilty mwahaha! ;) Maybe I should do a food nail art series? Any requests? ;)

Thanks as always for reading dolls!

Lotsa love to ya