Gradient Nails; Sparkling Sea

Recently I've had a thing for gradients and sparkles. While out shopping, I finally picked up China Glaze's Fairy Dust, a beautiful holo glitter, perfect for topping of a gradient. I then got this idea in my head to create a sparkly gradient. I ended up with three different shades of blue and a mint green and, lo, the sparkly sea gradient was born.

A Firm Favourite; China Glaze Fast Track

The other week I was having a hard time choosing a nail polish to wear and I, once again, found myself going back to one of my all time favourite polishes; Fast Track from China Glaze. I remember back when this one came out as part of their Capitol Colours collection for The Hunger Games and I completely fell in love with the whole collection. Fast Track was one of those ones that didn't really catch my eye particularly in the promotional images but then I started seeing swatches and I fell in love.

Golden Plums; Nail Striping

I must say, these past few weeks I've been quite uninspired by my nail polish collection. For that reason I kept piCture pOlish's Majesty on for about two weeks before I finally switched out to something different. After a great deal of thought I decided to try out some nail striping. I've done a bit in the past, keeping it very simple, and so I thought I would go for something a little different yet still simple. I'm afraid I only have one picture for you today as I took some snaps and then removed the polish a day or so later to do something new. The problem there, however, was I hadn't checked the shots and, of course, I only had one I was barely happy with. So, yes, just one lonely shot for today:

To create this one I painted all my nails with China Glaze Goldie But Goodie as a base colour. I then arranged my striping tape where I wanted the gold to show through. On my pointer and pinkie fingers I created a criss-cross pattern and on my ring finger and thumb I placed one strip across the nail. I left my middle finger clear. Using China Glaze Purr-fect Plum I then painted a relatively thick coat over each nail, apart from my middle finger, and immediately removed the tape before it could dry. For the ring finger and thumb I painted up to the striping tape without going over onto the other side to create the half and half design. I then applied Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Topcoat to seal everything in and that's it! Once you get the hang of striping tape it's quite simple but to start with it can be super fiddly. 

I've got another nail post coming up soon as well as some photography and a special find so check back over the next few days for those.

Until then...

Abigail