June Challenges - Red

There were 2 challenges today and I couldn't see how to combine them so I've done 2 separate posts. How unlucky was I to get red and silver on the same day, apart from yellow, these are probably my least favourite colours for nails!!
Anyway, this is for #clairestelle8june, the prompt was red so I took a deep breath and painted my nails with Nails Inc St James. This is a lovely red creme with a very subtle shimmer, it has the tiniest hint of blue which does make it more attractive to me but still, red nails are just not me! I am braver than I was with reds and there are some reds I will wear but full on red like this, sorry but no :(
I decided I'd try a fan brush mani over this red but as I was not 100% confident how it would turn out I added a layer of glitter first, that way if the fan brush was a full blown disaster I'd still have something to post!
I chose Reindeer Dance by Magic Goose, one of the UK Indie polishes sadly no longer available. Reindeer Dance has a clear base and is packed with various different sized hexes and some square glitters in reds, silver and black. It is so pretty and goes really nicely over a red base. It doesn't take much to make red wearable :)
Finally I did the fan brushing. I was going to use Avon Cherry Jubilee but the contrast over St James wasn't great enough so I started with MUA Whitewash, and then added Cherry Jubilee. I did not top coat between layers, so I ended up with a rather nice raspberry pink - happy accident :)
I certainly need to practice this technique, I don't think I splayed the bristles out enough but I do like the end result, the colour is much more me :) and you can still see the glitter too which is cool.

Nails Inc St James

Magic Goose Reindeer Dance 

fan brush mani with Avon Cherry Jubilee
and MUA Whitewash

  

A2Z Series - M is for Multi-coloured

This Thursday's letter is M, for Multi-coloured.
I thought about using pastel rainbow colours for this, but then I decided I'd move out of my comfort zone and go brighter and use the 7 colours of the spectrum, or some approximation to them.
I chose Nails Inc St James, Nails Inc Atomic, Leighton Denny Brick Road, Nella Milano Evergreen, Nails Inc Baker Street, Nails Inc Wigmore Streeet and Jacava Blueberry Muffin.
I painted freehand stripes on each nail, red through to violet. This was scary, the challenge of trying to be quite neat and space 7 colours equally on nails that are all different lengths. The stripes are a bit wobbly but as I planned to stamp on top, I thought I'd get away with that!
I was going to stamp in black and then I changed my mind to white, and in the end I decided why not try both! So that's what I did - I stamped using Born Pretty BP-L 003 and the 2 Essence polishes Stampy 001 and 002.
The end result is not something I would wear for long, a bit too colourful for me but what a great way to try a new plate and test 2 colours over 7 others!! I really like this plate, it has some great images on, I think I'll be using it a lot!
I have to say, these turned out exactly as they were in my mind, in fact maybe the stripes were a bit more successful than I had expected - certainly I think I fulfilled the "multi-coloured" brief.

M is for Multi-coloured - 7 colours
and black and whire stamping BP-L 003

 

 

 

 

Look HERE to see what everyone else got up to.

An InLinkz Link-up

Jacava Crimson Crush

Well this is another beauty! Since I was brave enough last week to wear a very bright pink (Jacava Candy Floss), this week I have gone one step further, and I am wearing red!
Less than 5% of my collection is red, and that includes a number of dark reds like Nails Inc Victoria and Leighton Denny Saturn Seduction - proper red reds would be Nails Inc St James and A England Perceval and that is literally it!

Welcome to my collection Jacava Crimson Crush! Crimson Crush is a beautiful red cream, which just hints towards blue and I am really loving it. I love the quality of these polishes, they glide on so easily, level out and dry quickly. I can just see my nail line, but it's not as apparent as the pictures in the sunshine show and  it was too hot really to paint a 3rd coat. This is a beautiful vibrant and sophisticated shade, and I am now really looking forward to the release of the Autumn Winter Collection to see what new colours Jacava bring out.

Jacava Crimson Crush

 

 

 

 

New Years Day, St James, Ruby Glitter and Nubar White Polka Dots

New Years Day and not much planned: I kept looking at my nails and in natural light I could see the ruby in the Ruby glitter so I took a few pics to try and pick that up.
Natural light - I can see them but my camera can't :(

With flash...

Finally!

Later, I decided that more was needed! So I added Nubar white polka dots. This was a challenge. The fine shimmery glitter came out fine, looking very pretty over the existing manicure but not a single polka dot! So I fished around and eventually managed to get one on each nail but that looked a bit forced, tried again and finally got a result I am quite pleased with. If I had been applying this over a dark colour on its own I think it would have taken me an age to get it looking good!
So the end result: Nubar White Polka dots, Barry M Ruby glitter and Nails Inc St James

New Year Nails - Nails Inc St James with Barry M Ruby Glitter

For New Year I decided to go all out and paint my nails red. It's not a colour I have ever worn until I fell in love with China Glaze Ruby pumps just before Christmas.
I thought I would the freebie that came in the November Glamour mag, Nails Inc St James.

This is a lovely red, a tiny bit on the pink side I think with a very subtle shimmer but basically its a creme. It did apply nicely but after 2 coats I could still see a visible nail line and if I had been wearing it on its own I would have used a third coat.

St James on its own is lovely but maybe not quite me, but I had a plan. Having scoured the local area and failed to find the Barry M Ruby Glitter I was delighted to pick one up in Superdrug, Cheltenham. Although it's called Ruby glitter, there seemed to be more black than Ruby in it but I think the effect on red is perfect. In the natural light I can see more of the pink ruby red glitter but mostly it looks like a mix of small and very fine black glitter and dare I say it on a red background, it's a reasonable substitute for Nubar black polka dots! It applied nicely although I did have one finger too densely glittered and another that needed a second coat. Re-did the over glittered one and on the whole I am really happy with the effect. I haven't tried this glitter over another colour yet, I think maybe more ruby would be apparent.

 

I am still wearing this so no idea how easy it will be to remove but after 24 hours it still looks good.