Ask a British Nail Blogger #1: My Nailcare Routine

Hello all! It seems like forever since I last wrote a post for this blog, and for the British Nail Bloggers group! I've been super busy with Uni work, but I promise in a few months I'll be all yours again! First off I just want to address an important issue. I've heard that Google will be removing GFC, basically to encourage people to use (the rubbish) Google+. This means I will lose ALL my followers! I'd love for you guys to continue reading my blog, and one of the best ways to do that is through Bloglovin' (Find the link in my sidebar). I read all my favourite blogs via Bloglovin, it has a handy toolbar icon that shows you how many unread posts you have! So if you want to continue reading my blog then please follow me through that!

So us British Nail Bloggers are starting a new feature, helping you all to get to know us better! Today's topic is my nailcare routine. I'll admit I'm relatively new to the Nail Blog world, and I'll admit up until about a month ago, I didn't really understand the importance of Nail Care. Let's just say I've seen the error of my ways, and here is what I tend to do:

Sunday's are my 'spa day' and as such I always give myself a full manicure. I start by using a Nail Block kind of like this one. It has a side for filing, a side for smoothing, a side for buffing, and a side for polishing. So I work my way through the sides until I am happy with the shape and the look of my nails. Then I take my Superdrug hand and nail cream and place a small blob on each of my nails. Taking a cuticle stick (or orange stick) I spread the cream all over the nail, giving it a few seconds. Then I carefully push my cuticles back with the orange stick on each of my nails. Finally massaging the rest of the cream into my nails and hands. Then I take my OPI Matte Nail Envy (review coming soon), and put two coats on each nail. Then I either leave them like that or paint them whatever colour I fancy.

Every other day I remove all nail polish and add a new coat of OPI Nail Envy. Sometimes I also shape a few of the nails that have rough edges, or have managed to break themselves.

So there you have it, that is my basic routine! I have been seriously busy recently and have barely found the time to take care of my nails let alone paint them, but I managed to find a spare hour yesterday and this is how they turned out:

 From Left to Right: Sally Hansen in Navy Baby, OPI Matte Nail Envy, 2 True Glitterati in Shade 3

Apologies that the lighting kind of ruined the colours here. I couldn't find a good place to take the photos, and the sun coming through my window this morning was extremely bright! So this is one coat of Shade 3 over two coats of Navy Baby. The pictures above really don't do this glitter justice, it's so shimmery and beautiful. In fact it reminds me of shimmery fish scales, like the ones in a book I had as a child, I can't remember for the life of me what is was called!

I hope you've enjoyed today's post. I'm hoping to bring you the odd post over the next few weeks but I'm pretty busy until May when all of my uni work is due to be handed in! Then I will have LOTS of time to bring you all the posts that I've been neglecting! Check out the other British Nail Blogger's answers below:

Greige Gardens with added Fairy Dust

Hello rose petals! I hope you are all well. I can't believe I'm actually posting two nail posts in the same week! It's nice to finally be back. Today I bring you a polish that I managed to find in Poundland. Sally Hansen in Greige Gardens. I snapped up 3 Sally Hansen polishes in total that day. Another of which I used in my Minty Chip post. Today I finally received my own bottle of OPI Nail Envy. I've been hearing so many good things about it for such a long time and I've been meaning to buy it for so long. This week though with my nails back on the road to recovery, I decided that I wanted to keep them that way and finally bought a bottle. I ended up with the Matte one as it was £2 cheaper and I couldn't see a reason not to save the £2! Anyway I decided that I'd start my trial of Nail Envy today so natural I had to remove Minty Chip and paint my nails again!

This is two coats of Sally Hansen's Greige Gardens. I couldn't just leave it plain though so I added Miss Sporty Sparkle Top Coat in Amethyst Dust. This manicure is cute and simple and I really love it, especially the little dash of glitter that I added! I couldn't believe my luck picking up these Sally Hansen polishes for a mere £1 each in Poundland. I definitely recommend that you keep an eye on the makeup sections of that store just incase any more brilliant polishes turn up!

I know I haven't done any of my features for about a month, but I've been waiting for my nails to grow back. I'll try and get a few lined up but I expect that I'll be quiet in March due to filming commitments for My university project! I'll try to post as often as I can, but don't expect much!

Let me know what the best bargain is that you've ever bought from Poundland in the comments.

Minty Chip Swatch!

Hey there everybody! Here I am with another post! I am so glad that my nails are back in action! I'm still steering clear of false nails until my nails are a little longer, but then I guess I won't even need them! I finally caved and ordered a bottle of OPI Nail Envy, so hopefully that will help my nails along too!

So today I bring you a swatch of a Lush Laquer polish today. I can't remember if I've mentioned them on this blog before but I bought 4 mini polishes: Minty Chip, Party Hearty, Fuzzy Peach and Thanks a Latte. I haven't really had a chance to wear them yet (much like a lot of the polishes I own). When I looked down at my nails today and saw the polish was chipped I jumped at the chance to paint my nails again. I immediately went for the Sally Hansen in Green Tea that I snapped up from Poundland the other week, and then I remembered Minty Chip would go perfectly on top! I was right it was a match made in heaven.

I'm actually impressed that I managed to get these taken in natural light! I ALWAYS paint my nails too late to be able to get pictures in the sunlight, but today I managed it, and I'm glad I did. It really shows off this polish. This is one coat of Minty Chip over two coats of Sally Hansen Green Tea. I finished it off with Sally Hansen No Chip topcoat to seal in the glitter. With my nails looking so good at the moment, I doubt this polish will last long before I want to paint them again! I feel like I'm rediscovering my love for nail polish all over again! I would definitely recommend that you check out Lush Laquer on Etsy.

Let me know what you think!

January Haul!

Hey there my little rose petals!

Believe it or not I haven't bought ANY polish this January... Until TODAY! I waited until the last day of January and boy did I go a little bit mad! Unfortunately I don't have time to swatch them all but I'll show you what I've got and try to swatch them when I can!

Everything I bought today came from Superdrug, except the three Sally Hansen polishes which I snapped up from Poundland!

Miss Sporty Glitter Top coat in Amethyst Dust (£1.99), Miss Sporty Goth Me Up Topcoat (£1.99)

I actually meant to buy a black polish but I misunderstood what the Goth me Up polish was, it's actually supposed to transform polishes and make them darker when used as a top coat. 

Collection 60 second Hot Looks in Dusk (£1.99)

I love this colour! It looks much darker in the bottle than it does in this picture!

2 True Glitterati Shade 3 (£1.99)

I saw someone blog about this the other day and knew that I had to have it! I have a couple of other glitterati shades and I've worn one, but I really need to get on swatching the others!

Barry M Gelly: Blueberry, Grapefruit and Plum (£3.99) 3 for 2 in Superdrug

I've been meaning to jump on the Gelly bandwagon for a long time, mainly because I needed some more stamping polishes and I heard that these are good!

MUA Fur Effect Nails in Boo Boo Fluff! (£3) 

I already own this in Fluff and Cuddles and used it in one mani so far you can check out that post here. Blue is my favourite colour though so I knew I had to have it!

Sally Hansen, Complete Salon Manicure: Greige Gardens, Green Tea, Navy Baby (£1 each)

I was surprised to see quite a collection of Sally Hansen in Poundland when I went in today, it's definitely worth a look! These were my favourite three.

So there you go! After a pretty spend free January I went and blew it all on literally the last day of the month! I did say I wasn't going to buy any more polish until I had NO untrieds left... hmmmm can't see that happening somehow! It's my birthday on Saturday so I will be expecting to receive a couple of polishes from my family! 

ALSO on Saturday I will be announcing my Birthday Giveaway! WOOO! I was going to wait until I had 50 followers but I'm going to be 21 so I thought I should celebrate a little bit! There will be 1 prize up for grabs, but unfortunately due to uncertainty with international polish shipping at the moment it will only be open to UK residents. Keep your eyes peeled!

Stamping and Sponging: Starry Blue Nail Art

Seeing as this blog is looking a little bit bare I thought I would repost my first proper Nail Art post which I had originally posted on my Personal Blog. Wow, How many times can I say 'post' in a sentence? Word of warning, the image quality of these pictures is shocking because I haven't discovered the best way to photograph my nails yet. I'm working on that though!

These are the polish's I used for this manicure:

From Left to Right: Miss Sporty Lasting Colour in Hypnotic Turquoise, Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours in Pop Fiction, Barry M Blue Moon, Miss Sporty Top Coat, Konad Special Polish in White and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Maximum Growth!

Here's the finished manicure:

I always start with a base of Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Maximum Growth, this is to keep my nail strong as they are prone to flaking and splitting! Then I used 3 coats of Barry M, Blue Moon as a base colour. Then I found an old makeup sponge in my bag and decided to attempt some sponging. I started off with the Hypnotic Turquoise by Miss Sporty and could have stopped there but I wanted to add a little more to it. So I took Pop Fiction and attempted to sponge it only onto the tips, but I managed to mess that up so it ended up being sponged over the entire nail, although I could still see the turquoise underneath! If you try out sponging for yourself be prepared to get it all over your skin, this is easily remedied with a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover. I could have left it at that but the manicure reminded me of Galaxy style manicures that are popular at the moment so I decided to add some stars. I used my Konad Stamping Kit and image plate M3 to create a curved starry image on the edge of my nails. To clean up I simply go over the edges with a cotton bud dipped in remover, and then finished it off with a top coat!

So there is my most recently posted manicure. You can find several horrific Blackberry pictures of my Nail Art over on my Twitter so be sure to check that out!