Kiss Zebra Nail Wraps

My Mum picked some Kiss Zebra Nail Wraps up for me from boots because they were on sale and clearly I am now addicted to trying out different types and brands of nail wraps. These wraps were really shiny with a little bit of glitter on them and were also embossed so the zebra pattern stands out and is textured rather than being just a print. 

They were fairly easy to apply and just about all of the nail sizes fitted my nails so I didn't need to trim them down which made application much quicker. They were quite thick and sturdy when I was trying to file them off so they did not tear easily. The wraps also applied really smoothly without wrinkles. 

I wore the wraps when I was washing my hair and they stayed on pretty firmly. I actually had to give them a good peel to get them off and luckily they did not pull away a layer of my nail like I had found with some other nail wraps. 

All in all they were a cute sale buy. If you want a printed nail design rather than a free hand design then these would do pretty nicely. I think they were about £4.00 in the sale.

Let me know your thoughts on these!

Rainbow Leopard Print Nail Art Guide

I had been looking forward to creating some rainbow leopard print nails for a while but had just never had the time. Finally, I tried it out and I absolutely love them. They are so pretty and bold in just the right way. I really want to try heaps of nail designs involving rainbow now or ombré! I think rainbow may be my new addiction!

Things you will need :- base coat, white polish, a selection of polishes of your choice, make up sponges, a black nail art pen/brush and a top coat.

Here is a step by step guide as to how I accomplished my awesome rainbow leopard print nails:

1)Apply base coat.

2)Paint two coats of white polish onto your nails and leave to dry for a good 45 minutes-if you don't leave the polish to dry for long enough it will be pulled off when you dab on your coloured polish with a sponge and will look messy-I learned this the hard way!

3)Use your make up sponges to dab on your rainbow colours (I cut my sponges up into small bits and held them in between my fingers to apply the polish as well as placing the sponge between tweezers).

4)Blend each colour into the next with the sponge. Sometimes I added a hint of white polish to help the colours blend more easily. I had attempted to paint all of the colours onto one full sized make up sponge and gently transfer the polish onto my nails but I found that this did not work as well. I also found that the make up sponges that I originally used didn't work very well as they would pull the polish off of the nail. I then switched to a different type of make up sponge which created better results. You could also use eye shadow applicators.

5)Once your rainbow background is dry gently paint your leopard print pattern onto your nails using your black nail art pen/brush. 

6)Leave your leopard pattern to dry before gently applying your top coat so as not to smudge your black leopard print.

I found that this design took me a while as it was my first attempt ever but I'm sure that practice makes perfect and next time it won't take as long. 

I'd love to hear if any of you have tried rainbow nails?:)

Ciate Sequin Manicure

Ciate Sequin Manicure was a present I received at Christmas but I only got around to properly trying it out recently.

In the kit, which is packaged beautifully as always, is a generously sized tub of glitter, a Ciate Sequin Glitter Grip which is basically a top coat and a little brush.

You basically paint the glitter grip on to your nail and dip your nail straight into the tub of glitter. When doing this my top tips are to pat the glitter down onto your nail to make sure it sticks and brush off the excess glitter from your fingers. Then I would suggest applying a bit more glitter grip to the whole nail or parts of the nail that have not been covered in the glitter and then sprinkle more glitter onto the nail. Pat the glitter down to make sure it is firmly in place. Make sure there are no bits of glitter hanging over the tips of your nail because these will catch on your clothes and will be scratchy. So, use your fingers to gently smooth the tip of your nail and to shape the glitter to the curve of your nail. Once you have done this you can apply a coat of glitter grip to act as a top coat and to seal your glitter in. You could always apply a few coats of this to maintain your sequin manicure for as long as possible or top it up every few days.

As you can see, I have covered all of my nails in glitter as I wanted to see what it would look like and how well the glitter would apply. I know some people think it looks tacky to do this but it actually didn't. You can obviously only cover one of your nails with the glitter and use a normal polish on the rest. It is totally up to you. I think it looks good both ways. You could also try and sprinkle only a small amount of the glitter over polish. Or place the glitter particles onto your nails in a pattern using a toothpick. I have yet to give this a proper go.

I think my Ciate Sequin Manicures turned out pretty well. My favourite colour is definitely the pink/red glitter. 

One thing to highlight is you really need to let these dry for a long time. I smushed a couple of my nails a few times because I was stupidly trying to do things and not being careful enough. Also, another slight down side is that when you do your second hand you need to be careful that the first hand doesn't get messed up because mine did a bit. Be prepared to have glitter stuck all over your hands and probably on your carpets. Even if you are careful it magically manages to get all over the carpet but its not too big of a problem - after a quick Hoover its all gone.

Overall, I really enjoyed using the Ciate Sequin Manicure set and you get so much glitter that you could use it over and over again for many different looks. The bottle of glitter grip is a really good size too. The glitter is so much more wearable than the caviar pearls (massive post on this coming soon).

What do you think of my Ciate Sequin Manicure?

Nails Inc's Brighton Feather Polish

I finally bought Nails Inc's Brighton Feather polish which is the fifth of the feather polishes to be released. I decided to try it over Nails Inc's Brompton Place which is a bubblegum pink colour. I think it looks pretty awesome and totally different to mainstream nail polish. I am now desperate to try out all my other feather polishes over contrasting colours to see the different bright combinations I can create. I would recommend trying these feather polishes over contrasting colours - it is so much fun and your nails will stand out this summer.

Let me know if you have tried Nails Inc's feather polishes over any other colours!

Nails Inc's Brighton Feather Polish

I finally bought Nails Inc's Brighton Feather polish which is the fifth of the feather polishes to be released. I decided to try it over Nails Inc's Brompton Place which is a bubblegum pink colour. I think it looks pretty awesome and totally different to mainstream nail polish. I am now desperate to try out all my other feather polishes over contrasting colours to see the different bright combinations I can create. I would recommend trying these feather polishes over contrasting colours - it is so much fun and your nails will stand out this summer.

Let me know if you have tried Nails Inc's feather polishes over any other colours!

Multicoloured Leopard Print Nail Art

I had so much fun the other day creating these multicoloured leopard print nails. If you want to know exactly how I created this leopard print pattern and my tips for doing it yourself then have a look at my leopard print nails guide here : http://scottishstefsnails.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/leopard-print-nails-guide.html?m=1

For this design I used a base coat, two coats of white polish, dotted spots of my favourite colours onto my nails using my dotting tools and then used my Models Own nail art pen to finish off the leopard spots.

I like to have bright, fun patterns on my nails so I'm really happy that I tried out this multicoloured leopard print design.

Let me know what combinations of colours you have used to create a leopard print design?

Nail Rock Union Jack Red White and Blue Nail Wraps

When I saw Nail Rock's Union Jack Red White and Blue Nail Wraps on amazon for £5.66 I decided I NEEDED to try them because they looked sooooo cool!

After the success of the Montage Nail Rock Nail Wraps I had high hopes for these Union Jack wraps. They looked really amazing from the distance and anyone who didn't closely look at your nails would literally be like "oh WOW". However, because they were metallic they were unfortunately nothing like the Montage ones that I tried (I'm making a sad face right now). It was so disappointing. 

My theory of stretching the wraps quite a lot to reduce wrinkles and to avoid the wrap bunching up did not work for these metallic Union Jack wraps. No matter how much I tried I could not get rid of the wrinkles. No matter how much smoothing or how much stretching I did the wraps would only apply horrendously wrinkled. If these wraps had applied smoothly they would have been THE MOST AMAZING things you could ever wear on your nails. I was willing them to be awesome because nail rock make them in gold and black union jacks and in the american flag print also and I had my eye on them hoping it would be worth purchasing them too. 

I washed my hair with them on and because they had big gaps where they wouldn't smooth down water got under some part of the wraps and then they started to peel off. I took them off after a day because they were annoying me and the tips of my nails were quite jagged which I think was because the wraps were metallic. One day's wear is not really value for money when they don't go on smoothly.

You will be able to see in the photos that I took that from further away they do look awesome. They did not feel awesome though because they were fairly wrinkled. 

If you have tried metallic nail wraps, especially ones by Nail Rock, let me know how you got on with them and whether you managed to get your wraps wrinkle free.