Neon and baby pink polka dots!

I have been a very bad blogger recently. I keep taking photos of my nails when I can, but sometimes I can't get the right light, and other times I take the picture and never get around to uploading it. Oops. Looks like I might have to do a photo dump sometime soon with all of my past manicures!

Anyway, this week I wanted something neon, and I decided on Kleancolor - Neon Pink. It's a nice bright, flat creme; two easy coats on the ring finger here, and the dots on the others. The pale pastel pink is Nails Inc - Elizabeth Street, which was nowhere near as well behaved. Two streaky coats on the three fingers (which would have needed three if they weren't about to get dotted), plus dots over the Kleancolor... not that they showed up all that well. I don't have any one-coater pastel pinks, sigh!

A noble Caribbean reef...

I have been so bad with updating recently, sorry! Just been lacking motivation and busy with other things. Anyway, enough excuses, onto the nails!

The main colour here is the gorgeous Illamasqua - Noble. It was part of my Christmas present from my boyfriend, and it is loooooovely. I've only used one coat on each finger here! One! Look at how smooth and bright and opaque it is! <3

The dots are done in Models Own - Blooboo, and the ring finger is three coats of Ninja Polish - Caribbean Reef. Trust me when I say this picture does it no justice. I work under bright fluorescent lighting at work, and the holo sparkles show up wonderfully!

Also, let's all pretend we can't see that huge gap at the side of my little finger. I was in a rush for this mani and didn't get enough light near me when I was painting, so I ended up missing it somehow! Oops!

Black baroque on nude.

Another week of overtime, another week of not enough light. However, after the gorgeous but attention-grabbing neon gradient of the previous week, I decided to go with a palate cleanser (and chopped my nails back a bit!)

This is three coats of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri in Petal Pusher, then the details were painted on with black acrylic paint and a small brush. It was inspired by a manicure I've seen by the awesome Mr Candiipants do over on tumblr, I didn't check back for reference but I based it on what I could remember!

It did turn out quite pretty and delicate, and I really enjoyed wearing it. Lots of people at work thought it was "that black crackle stuff" though, so next time I might need to make the flowers more obvious! Ah well!

Neon lights at twilight...

I had -so- many compliments on this manicure, it was crazy! Sadly, my photograph does it no justice; I'd had a really busy week and the only times I was at home, it was dark! So this is a snapshot of it underneath my room light, which isn't the greatest for swatch photos, but it's all I could do.

The gradient is done with China Glaze neons; Hang Ten Toes for the pink (plus two coats for the base), Beach Cruise-R for the purple, and Splish Splash for the blue at the tips. The blue ended up turning into more of a dark purple due to the pink base, it was really pretty! The difference between HTT and BC is much more obvious in person too, if you own these two you'll know what I mean!

I topped it off with a quick glaze of Silver Star by Kleancolor; it's a lovely sparkly glitter, a little sparse but it works well in situations like this one! It was so bright and eye-catching in person, I really need to try it again sometime with better lighting for the photo!

Pokemon - With Love, From Kingler

Hey there! Not actually my nails this time! My sister requested Kingler (from Pokemon!) on her nails, as she has an in-joke about it with her boyfriend. Naturally, I was more than happy to oblige! :D

The shimmery background is one coat of Models Own - Indian Ocean. The pink shimmer really comes out on its own! The orange is a cheap one called Hip Hop from Collection 2000 - it stains a bit, but we weren't using it for much, so it wasn't a problem. Black lines are done with a Models Own nail art pen, the white is my trusty Natural Collection Nail Tip Whitener polish from Boots. :P

She wanted the rest of the nails painted a watery, sparkly blue (we went with one coat of Models Own Blooboo and one coat of Models Own Indian Ocean), but I forgot to take a picture. Oops!

I really liked how it came out! I might try Pokemon nails on myself sometime soon! :D

Splash of bright pink on a nude canvas...

Well as much as I loved my last mani, what I really did -not- love was the bright aqua stains that Custom Kicks left on my poor nails. No amount of scrubbing would relieve them, so I knew I'd have to paint over until it grows out, sob. I wanted something nude and neon with flowers, but the idea I'd previous had was rendered useless by the stains, so this is what came out instead.

The base is two coats of Nails Inc - Basil Street, which is the closest I have to a nude colour in my collection. Really it's a little too biscuity, I need something a touch lighter and pinker, but it'll do until I find the holy grail. <3 The flowers are just painted on with China Glaze - Hang Ten Toes, a nice cheery barbie-pink neon with a touch of effervescent shimmer. Details are drawn in with a Models Own black nail art pen, which is looooovely for dotting and drawing with. :D

Prayers for kicks? Custom rain?

Oh, Pahlish. <3 Every swatch I've seen has never done a Pahlish justice; they are just -so- much prettier in person, photography cannot accurately capture the sparkly wonder!

This may have just shot up into my top 10 polishes, I love it that much. This is two coats of Pahlish - Prayers For Rain over one coat of China Glaze - Custom Kicks. Prayers For Rain is a stunning mix of holographic teal hex, iridescent blue-purple squares, tiny iridescent green-gold hex, tiny blue & green hex, all in a teal jelly base.

It is -gorgeous- in person, honestly, my pictures cannot show you how beautiful it is. Every time I move my nails, the iridescent glitters change colour and flash blue and gold and green, and the holographic hex sparkle at me and it's just like wearing teal jewels on my fingernails. I love it! <3

Application was a dream to boot; smooth, even coverage, the jelly isn't streaky and the glitter doesn't clump or drag. Just looooovely sparkly goodness.

Tru bronze...

Part of my ongoing excitement as I work my way through my gorgeous new HARE polishes! <3

This little baby is Cast In Bronze; a mix of large and small copper hex, copper squares, tiny gold microflakies and fine magenta pink microglitter in a dusty mauve jelly base. Application was a little thick, rather like Amethystos, but not unworkable. You could add thinner if you wanted to, I just don't really mind the glitter bombs being... well, glittery!

I didn't fancy Cast In Bronze alone, it didn't sit well with my skintone! However, I'd been dying to try it out over a purple, so out came Zoya Tru, a gorgeous purple creme with a pinky-gold shimmer. The perfect partner for my HARE!

One coat of Tru, one coat of Cast In Bronze, and ta-da! Manicure was done. Unfortunately I hadn't been able to catch any decent sunlight out of working hours here in the UK, so the photo is not quite as crisp as I'd like, but hopefully it's enough to get the idea across. :)

Reverie In Rubellite

The rest of HAREs arrived the other day! Oh, the excitement! My glittery army of awesomesauce is slowly growing. (Insert crazy polish lady laugh in here please.) <3
This gorgeous lady is HARE - Reverie In Rubellite, two coats with no underwear. It's a beautiful berry-plum red jelly, packed with orange hexes of multiple sizes, tiny pink glitter and teeeeny gold microflakies. Honestly, it's so pretty in person, the pink and gold flashes really catch your eye when they're in the light, and even when they're being shy, the orange is punchy enough to make up for it.
If you -wanted- to wear underwear (perhaps to save the beautiful polish), I'd say OPI's Houston We Have A Purple or any dark red colour would look gorgeous underneath this. :)
Formula is standard HARE brilliance; smooth, easy to work with, no clumping of glitter at the tips or anything. Just lovely. <3

So apparently there's this thing called Amethystos...

... and it's very, very sparkly. <3

This is two coats of HARE - Amethystos, no undies. Even though it looks more like four coats, with the depth of all that beautiful glitter! <3 It has silver, pink, champagne gold and iridescent blue hex, silver squares, and what appears to be a tiny sparkle of some sort running through it. It is a glitterbomb and a half in a lilac-purple jelly, I love it!

Being such a glittery thing, it is a little on the thicker side, and it doesn't flow quite as easily as my other HAREs. It's still lovely though, and you can understand why it's a bit thicker; I'm sure if it bothered you that much, you could put a few drops of thinner in, but I'm happy enough with the finished result that I didn't mind a bit of careful application.

I managed to get my hands on this polish through my very lovely, very wonderful friend Liz (<3). I'd missed out on ordering in the first Llarowe restock of that day, and wasn't about to stay up until 2am to catch the second one. However, she very sweetly grabbed this one for me and sent it my way; you wouldn't believe how excited I was when she tweeted me about it! <3333