Hello readers! Surprised at another post so soon? I had to get these squeezed in this weekend as I'm off on my holidays Monday (woo!!!) Let's get talking about what was in January's Nailboxuk which had the theme Valentines. You can find all information here on how to subscribe and get your own box.
As I'm sure you will have guessed the shades were in pink and red but they also included a tiny packet of Love Hearts and some orange woodsticks. For this months nail related item you were sent the Elegant Touch 24k Gold Ridge Filler Base Coat.
How pretty does this look? You can see the flecks of gold in it. Now I do have very slight ridging in my nails, though I don't use any of the special ridge filler base coats. However the sparkly gold nature of this one meant I couldn't wait to try it.
Look at the gold shining through! It dried nice and quick and when I applied the other colours on top, they all applied smoothly. I would also use this as a perfect base for a french manicure as the gold flecks would add extra class to your manicure. After all, what girl doesn't love some 24k gold?
Our first polish is by Seche. You guys should know by now how much I adore their top coat and refuse to use any other, so I had high hopes for this polish to live up to my expectations.
This colour is called Rendezvous and it's a beautiful deep pink that is a one coater! As expected the formula of this is just perfect. I've shown it without top coat and I think its beautiful. Being my first impression for the Seche colour range, I have to say that I'm impressed and look forward to trying out more in their range!
Second polish is by Sinful Pro Shine and is called Babydoll. As it sounds, its a pretty pastel pink. I've done two coats and no top coat for the pictures. It's a little sheer on the first coat and you have to be careful of brush strokes showing through but I do really like the shade. Pink is a close second in what colours I like to use the most so I'm always happy to have more shades in the collection.
This macro shot actually ties in with the third "polish" in this months box. I feel I can't truely use the word as the nature of the product means you don't apply it like one though it comes in a polish base. Confused?
This macro shot might make more sense of my words for you. As you can see this is jam packed with small red hearts in a clear suspension base. This polish by NailsInc is called Alex Hearts. It's got a tiny polish brush to help you fish out the hearts to use. I found the brush pretty useless for doing so and ended up pouring out some polish onto tinfoil and then picking out the hearts I wanted that way. With Valentines Day coming up (and for some reason me completely forgetting this fact) that means its time for me to create a design for this theme soon. I see me using these hearts as part of it so stay tuned for that!
Well that's everything for January Nailboxuk. What do you think? My favourite this month has to be that Seche polish for its beautiful coverage formula and application. Close second is the base coat with the bling gold sparkle. I'm looking forward to seeing what next month holds!
Hello readers! Welcome to another unboxing/review/picture overload of the goodies received in this months Meebox. Now if you don't know who Meebox are, it is a monthly nail related subscription box for the UK and costs £20. Each month there is a different theme and this time it was Blackberry Margarita.
This month you received 3 full size polishes, 1 striper polish and nail stencils along with swatch sticks for each polish. Also inside was a little money off code for A England's website if you fancy some more goodies!
Look how cute these stencils are from She Sells Seashells! I've bought loads from this company before and they are always high quality. I like that you have the option of using the outer part as a stencil or using the inner section as a sticker, 2 for 1 deal! They fit perfectly with the theme of the month, great addition!
The striper is in the colour Neon Lime and is made by Nubar. The brush has a really fine tip for detailed work, a must in my opinion as I hate that some of the cheaper brands give them thicker brushes almost comparable to the standard polish bottle size. I see this being great to use for leaves or any other design of your choosing. It's easy to use and very good quality.
Polish number one is not only a stunning shade, it's also an indie polish! I love to see a company teaming up with small indie polish makers and sharing their creations. I've purchased from 'Ard As Nails already and the polishes are fantastic.
This is Little Legs, a deep red linear holographic and only one coat at that! the coverage is amazing, the application is fantastic. I really can't rave about this enough! I'll also add that none of my swatches have top coat and you still get an amazing shine finish.
I am a sucker for anything holographic, though normally I keep away from wearing reds. This shade however is in my opinion the "right" shade and I am in love with it. You can find 'Ard As Nails on her website where she also sells other hand made goods.
Next up is A England in shade Elaine. Now this one was so hard to photograph in true light! On my nails it is leaning towards a brown shade but I promise you it is a very deep purple. You have no idea how many pictures I took in different lighting to try and get a true representation!
Ive done two coats here but you could definitely get away with just one thicker coat. This is my first A England polish I've used and I really liked it. Application for good, the polish formula was very nice. I just wish I could of got better pictures of it on the nail.
Final polish of the box is by Model's Own and is called Pink Paradise. This is packed with glitter and mylar in a pink jelly base.
For these two pictures I've done two coats of colour. You can see in this macro shot you have to be a little careful sometimes with where the mylar lies as it can stick up off the nail slightly. However I did not apply top coat for these pictures and I know you would get a smoother finish with one.
How about layering Pink Paradise over a pink base? This would be the method I would choose to use this polish. I've done two coats of my base pink, then just one of Pink Paradise and you can see how much glitter comes out with just one coat. It's a very pretty shade and I think I might just be using it for a Valentines design.
So
there we have January's Meebox contents. What do you think? Are you
subscribed or going to now you've seen the kind of goodies you can get?
I have to say that my hands down favourite from this month has to be
Little Legs. That's right I picked the red! Don't think that will ever
happen again ;)
Hello :) Today's blog is going to be a little different. It's still in relation to nails though so don't worry! We are now half way into January and a lot of people like to make themselves New Year Resolutions. I'm not exactly going to talk about that in this post, but I am going to talk about some goals that I would like to achieve for myself this year nail related.
My Youtube Channel Some of you might not know (why not?!) that I have a YouTube Channel that I run under the name Nala Nails. My first video went live in May 2013, wow that seems so long ago now. I've come a long way since then, learning how to edit, add music and along the way get myself a much better video camera for quality! I am really proud at how my channel has developed and grown over this time and that I have over 1200 people subscribed to me. Now I know this is a minuscule amount compared to many other nail channels, but we all have to start somewhere. I would like to see my channel reach 2000 subs this year. I also want to put out more gel and acrylic tutorials and do more toenail art videos. I love being able to share my passion with others and this is one of the methods I doing it via.
NailPopPolish My indie polish line. This is a brand new adventure for me that only started in November 2015. I opened up my Etsy Shop to the public on November 27th. There was interest in people looking at what I had but there wasn't any buyers. I started to think of reasons for this, was my prices too high? Is my stock not what the customer is after? Have I not advertised enough? As it turns out one of what I assume to be the main reason, I had managed to mess up my postage calculations and it was charging way too much! Thankfully that is now all fixed up and I've done some sales through Etsy but also privately. I want to make this venture more of a success. I know that no business is ever easy to take off so I'm looking into options to promote it. I have been using money off codes, I have sent out samples, I've sent out prizes for giveaways and I share lots of videos and pictures of my creations. I would like to run a giveaway soon. I don't know if I want to create a custom polish and use that as the prize, or if I should let the winner work with me to create the polish of their choice. This is just me thinking out loud for now. I would like to see my indie polish flourish this year. Instagram Recently my Instagram Page has seen a bit of a flourish in followers. I have put this down to my #pourn videos. If you don't know what these are, it is bottle shots of polish being poured into their bottles. People are going crazy over these and I have to admit there is something quite satisfying about watching them. Whenever I am making up polish I always record a video of the pouring so that I can share it. These videos can gain much "love" from the insta community, allow new followers to find your page, promote my nail polish line and hopefully in turn allow them to find all my other social media outlets. Where would I like my Instagram to get to this year? Well I'm sitting at 417 followers currently and I would love to make it to 600. I don't feel like this is too unrealistic a goal and after all this post is all about my goals for this year. Twitter This social media is a mixed bag for me as sometimes I get really frustrated with the character limit for writing. My Twitter has 318 followers and for me, gets the least engagement from all the social media I post on. The question is why though? It would be nice to see me reach 400 on here this year. Perhaps I'm using the wrong hashtags to allow people to find me? Perhaps there just isn't a lot of nail lovers on Twitter! I'm not sure to be honest. Facebook For me personally, I find my page "likes" are mostly made up of people I know, family or friends. I guess that's to be expected as Facebook primarily is about connecting with friends isn't it? My Page was made up as a "like page" firstly for advertising and promoting my business. Some of you might not know that I am a qualified nail tech and I do clients. I always share any client pictures when I take them, but it's also moved on to being my advertising for my indie brand, my Youtube videos and blogs. Again my Facebook page isn't a place of huge social interaction and so I average around 100 on my engagement stats. If people want nails done I will end up with private messages. I'd like to see my page reach 700 "likes" and that isn't a huge goal away from what I'm currently sitting on but I know that once again, it is not a strong source of engagement for me personally. I realise this post is all text and no pictures but due to the nature of content I can't say there was any relevant pictures to place here. This is just me sharing some personal nail related goals for this year so that I can come back to this post in 2017 and see how I did. If you managed to get this far, thank you for reading!
Hi everyone :) Recently I have been working hard at creating new polish for my indie polish line. I have my shop on etsy you can find me HERE. It's not as easy as you might think this polish larky, it can actually be frustrating at times. You get this idea in your head then try to make it a reality and end up with a disaster! I've made my fair share of fails in my journey but I take it all as experience. Sometimes the only way to learn is by making mistakes first then going back for round two with a different tactic.
My focus recently has been in trying to create "the perfect" holographic polishes. Now the best product to do this with is called Spectraflare which unfortunately isn't allowed by EU regulations. I researched into finding alternatives and I did find an American seller on Etsy who sold two different options.
This is Silver Lining. I'm really proud of this one! It's got some really amazing holographic properties to it. I've filmed a video of it on my nails and put it on my Instagram so you can see how amazing it looks in the light. My next challenge after this was trying to keep that strong holo effect into different colours. Not as easy as you would think!
Angel Wings was attempt number two. This came out a faded lilac-grey and at first I deemed it a fail. After swatching it, I actually fell in love with the effect it has. It's hard to capture it's true beauty on camera.
Creating nail polish is fun but can also be frustrating when you can't replicate the image in your head. It really is a lot of trial and error. I have a few polishes that will never be released as they turned out a disaster!
My third holo try was this pinky-red. Again these holos are just so hard to photograph without some amazing sunlight (and theres certainly none of that around here!) This one is more of a jelly finish. How do people feel about jellies? I think it's a type of polish that you either love or hate.
So that's the most recent happenings in Nail Pop Polish land. I post more frequent swatches, pics and videos on my social media so you can find me there if you want to see all the sneak peeks first.
Hello all, Yes, yes I'm just a tad behind on getting this post up. I blame the boyfriend for not hearing the postie at the door on Christmas Eve which meant I had to wait ages for the post office to open again to finally get my goodies. I am still loving getting these each month and can't wait to open them up to see what's inside.
Here is the contents for December; 3 polishes, a Sallly Hansen nail art pen and Elegant Touch tweezers. The tweezers lived up to my expectations in terms of quality and stay inline with the other Elegant Touch items I've received thus far.
I was very interested to try out this pen. I have always used a dotting tool or striper brush for any of the fine detail work I do so I wondered just how this would compare to it.
The dots were very cleanly placed and all came out the same size. When using a dotting tool you go from large to small dots. From the macro you can see that the dots appear not to be fully opaque, however this isn't noticeable at a standard distance.
The lines again in the macro shot appear to show as slightly sheer but at standard distance this isn't noticeable. I feel that if you were wanting super fine lines then this pen is not ideal for that as for my personal preference they are a little on the thick side. If you were trying to do an abstract design (like I love to do!) the sweeping curved lines that I like would be very hard to do with this as I like the lines to come to a point at the end and with this pen you get the same consistency all the way. Don't see this as a huge negative though. I can see this pen being very useful to newbies to nail art. The concept of holding a pen gives you a more comforting feeling of being in control of the design more then using a flexible striping brush. What are your thoughts on pens VS brush?
Check out this macro shot of the Nails Inc Blossom topper called Bloomsbury Way. This polish contains blue and pink hexes, tiny light pink hexes and shredded pale pink (possibly even white) pieces. Super pretty! You get a good amount of product from one brush stroke but you may want to use the patting method to fill in any gaps.
I applied one coat of Bloomsbury Way over the other two polishes. One "coat" gave good coverage but I did dab a little bit more on to any area that I felt was a little light. I really like this polish. It contains a great selection of "product" (not sure of the exact word I want here, but you know what I mean!) and they all compliment each other. Nicely done.
Polish two is by Morgan Taylor and has the fun name of Best Ball Gown Ever. It's a lilac but with a shimmer of gold/green. Very hard to capture on camera. I applied two coats for an opaque finish.
The shimmer comes through a little on this macro shot. Application was smooth and it dried to a satin like finish. I didn't apply top coat for these pictures. I really like this one and the name gives it brownie points too!
Last polish is Rimmel London Marshmellow Heaven. How cute is that name?! Keeping with the theme of the box being purples, this one is a pastel shade.
Once again for the picture I've done two coats of colour and no top coat. It was a little sheer on first coat but smoothed out on the second. It dried to a shiney finish but I would still always apply top coat.
So there we have it: Decembers Nailboxuk review... in January! Better late than never right? ;) I adore purple so I this box was fantastic for me. The Sally Hansen nail art pen was fun to try out and the tweezers always come in handy and are of high quality. If you want to find out about Nailbox for yourself, just check out their website here: Nailbox Website
As I'm sure you will have guessed the shades were in pink and red but they also included a tiny packet of Love Hearts and some orange woodsticks. For this months nail related item you were sent the Elegant Touch 24k Gold Ridge Filler Base Coat.
How pretty does this look? You can see the flecks of gold in it. Now I do have very slight ridging in my nails, though I don't use any of the special ridge filler base coats. However the sparkly gold nature of this one meant I couldn't wait to try it.
Look at the gold shining through! It dried nice and quick and when I applied the other colours on top, they all applied smoothly. I would also use this as a perfect base for a french manicure as the gold flecks would add extra class to your manicure. After all, what girl doesn't love some 24k gold?
Our first polish is by Seche. You guys should know by now how much I adore their top coat and refuse to use any other, so I had high hopes for this polish to live up to my expectations.
This colour is called Rendezvous and it's a beautiful deep pink that is a one coater! As expected the formula of this is just perfect. I've shown it without top coat and I think its beautiful. Being my first impression for the Seche colour range, I have to say that I'm impressed and look forward to trying out more in their range!
Second polish is by Sinful Pro Shine and is called Babydoll. As it sounds, its a pretty pastel pink. I've done two coats and no top coat for the pictures. It's a little sheer on the first coat and you have to be careful of brush strokes showing through but I do really like the shade. Pink is a close second in what colours I like to use the most so I'm always happy to have more shades in the collection.
This macro shot might make more sense of my words for you. As you can see this is jam packed with small red hearts in a clear suspension base. This polish by NailsInc is called Alex Hearts. It's got a tiny polish brush to help you fish out the hearts to use. I found the brush pretty useless for doing so and ended up pouring out some polish onto tinfoil and then picking out the hearts I wanted that way. With Valentines Day coming up (and for some reason me completely forgetting this fact) that means its time for me to create a design for this theme soon. I see me using these hearts as part of it so stay tuned for that!
