A Little Update...

As some of you may have noticed (or none of you), I'm no longer active on this blog. The reason for that is it wasn't gaining many views no matter how much I posted and I've been stuck on the same amount of followers for well over a year. Therefore I've put all my effort into posting more on Instagram, where you can follow me here. 

I felt like I was writing blog posts to no one and I just wasn't doing my nails anymore because I wasn't motivated to actually blog about them. I'm enjoying nail art a lot more now because of my decision to stop blogging. Basically, my blog is inactive for now. Maybe I'll start posting again one day, maybe I'll want to review something that requires a more in depth description, but for now I'm only posting on Instagram and Facebook. I'm having a lot more fun and if you aren't following me on either of those, you should be now!

Thanks to those few that have followed this blog for a while, I appreciate it greatly!

- Melissa.

Favourite Nail Care Products

Hi everybody! If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that I'm on a bit of a nail art hiatus as I split a nail quite badly that resulted in me having to trim it down completely to the skin to let it grow out again. So for the time being I've just painted my nails all one colour so they can remain strong while my little baby pinky nail takes it's time catching up!

While that's happening though, I thought it would be a good idea to finally post about some of my favourite nail care products at the moment! I think I did a post similar to this way back when I first started my blog or within the first six months or so, which means it's definitely time for an update.

As you can see, these are a mix of moisturising products and some nail care tools. Let's go through them all (I will link what I can!)

I had wanted Lush's Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter for so long but couldn't really justify spending that much for something so similar to the Burt's Bees Cuticle Cream which I had multiple little pots of. But one day I just thought screw it, there's a lot of product and it'll last till it expires so why the hell not. I hadn't been using any cuticle cream for a while so trying something new was also my reasoning. I absolutely adore this stuff, I love any citrus smells so this is amazing, it's so light and moisturising as well. I not only use it on my cuticles but also occasionally use it on my toes, feet, and lips if nothing else is within reach. I generally apply this before I go to bed because it doesn't soak in immediately so if I'm laying in bed watching TV it doesn't bother me if it's slightly greasy for a little bit.

I am yet to invest in a glass nail file, so please excuse me for a while for still using these simple emery boards. I've been using these Manicare ones for years, they're pretty cheap so replacing them is no big deal and hey come in a pack of 8. Despite the criticism for these type of files I've had no problem with them, they do a good job of filing and shaping my nails. I honestly believe the problem isn't with the filing utensil, but with how you file and I think I do a pretty decent job of filing my nails.

The second product in the above picture is this cuticle pusher also by Manicare. As you can see in the link it also comes with a cuticle trimmer but I never, ever use that on my cuticles. I've only used it once on my toenails but I would never put it anywhere near my fingernails. The cuticle pusher however is something I always use whenever I use a cuticle remover product. I first use the black pointy end to scrape the excess skin off my nails and then go in with the red end to gently push my cuticles back. It's a simple tool, but I think everyone needs one, it's soft but still solid enough to do it's job. 

These two products from Bliss Kiss, the Simply Peel Latex Barrier and the Simply Pure Hydrating Oil, are new additions to my collection but I liked them straight away. Simply Peel is amazing for doing messy nail art, like gradients or water marbles, with minimal clean up. It's easy to apply with the brush (and it's sent with a spare brush in case you wish to replace it) and even easier, and incredibly fun, to peel off after you've made a mess. I used to use basic latex for clean up but because that came in a pot with no brush or applicator it was a struggle to apply it smoothly and half of the pot dried up within a few months, so Simply Peel is amazing and simple and I love it.

The Hydrating Oil is just a really great cuticle oil. I originally got the starter kit in the link above, but when my pen ran out it basically just fell apart but not in the way that allowed me to refill it so I had to throw it out after trying desperately to fix it and now I just oil my nails once or twice a day from the dropper bottle. I've noticed a bit of a difference since using it, despite having a few breaks here and there. My nails were pretty good to begin with so there hasn't been a massive or huge difference so far, but it's definitely improved them and I know if I continue to use it, they're going to remain strong and lovely. Plus the crisp scent smells awesome and I love it. Just wish my pen hadn't broken because it was a lot easier to apply that way!

Thanks to Cristine from SimplyNailogical I discovered this little beauty that is the UNT Peel Off Base Coat. It's seriously amazing. It's not PVA Glue and doesn't have it in it as I believe most other peel off base coats do, but somehow it still peels off. It goes on clear and can be peeled off either straight away (if you mess up or are swatching) or whenever you want to peel it off. I have found that within a day and after a shower or two it starts to come off itself, but if you want your mani to last you shouldn't use this. I use it on days I want to do a lot of nail art or for glitter polish because we all know that's a bitch to get off normally. It's honestly so great and I'm in love with it!

This isn't my absolute favourite hand cream, I actually don't think I have one, but it's the hand cream that I keep on my bedside table. The smell is lovely and it's cheap so win, win. Hand cream is an essential in nail care and I always feel uncomfortable if my hands feel even a tiny bit dry so it's good to have a spare hand cream everywhere, I also keep one in my desk at work, in my car, and at my nail art table. 

Lastly is my trusty clean up brush! I go through these every few months and generally buy these ones or a variation of them. All you need is a small brush, I like to go for the angled ones as you can see. Other people like to use eyeliner/small eyeshadow brushes too. My nail art would not be as crisp and tidy if it weren't for these brushes!

So there's a few of my nail art favourites, I hope you enjoyed this post and I promise I'll be back with some more nail art soon, it took me a few days to write this post and already my pinky is start to develop a free edge again so give it another week or with a lot of TLC and it might have caught up to the others! 

Let me know if you have questions or comments about the products or anything in general. Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Leopard Print / Glitter Recreation

Hi everybody! Today's post is all about a recreation of an old favourite mani of mine. The original was done about two years and you can read and see all about it right here! I absolutely loved that design and recently I was going through some old photos and came across it again and decided to recreate it and kind of update it a bit.

This time round I used Sour Grape by Ulta3 and the same glitter polish, Silver Gleam by Maybelline, as well as Snow Me White by Sinful Colors.

I did a gradient and only used the purple to do the leopard print as opposed to using the colour and then black polish to outline. I think it looks simpler and neater and you can fit more pattern onto the nail.

I really love how this turned out compared to the original, not a bad upgrade! The original is definitely still one of my favourite designs though but it's nice to recreate something like this and I might consider going back and redoing some older designs every so often.

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Reverse Stamping / Colourful Stripes

Ever since I bought an Uber Mat from UberChic Beauty, I've been trying out stamping and reverse stamping and making some easy decals. I've learnt from this that stamping is a lot easier when you can stamp the design onto something else and not straight onto the nail because sometimes it doesn't work out how you want and in that case, you just swipe some acetone over the design on the mat and start again! Life is incredibly easy with a silicone nail art mat!

For today's nail art I picked a simple design that I could do some reverse stamping with. If you're unfamiliar, reverse stamping is when you essentially colour in the stamping design to make a decal and then place it onto your nail, it can be done either on the stamper or on a silicone mat. There are heaps of designs like this on Instagram if you want to see some videos or tutorials on how to do it!

I wanted to do all the nails with reverse stamping but did not at all have the energy to reline the circles to be darker and then colour them in, so I went with an accent nail and my go to stripes.

I used Black Out by Sally Hansen, Sweet Clementine, and Babe It's Blue both by Maybelline, and a pink Kester Black polish I got in a BellaBox a while ago.

I love how this turned out! It made me really proud that I did something I'd wanted to do for a while but hadn't been able to until I got the Uber Mat. It's one of the best purchases I've ever made in relation to nail art so expect some more designs like this in the future!

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Watercolour Sharpie Nail Art

Lately I've been seeing a lot of people using sharpies to create some cool watercolour looking designs and after seeing this video by Simply Nailogical a while ago I'd wanted to give it a go too. I didn't use any vinyls to create a pattern, I just did a simple two colour design as a sort of practice for this technique.

Essentially all you have to do is water down the sharpie ink with some rubbing alcohol. I scribbled the sharpies onto a plastic plate and mixed it with some rubbing alcohol antiseptic spray I had and used a brush to apply it to my nails. The brush wasn't the best and I was disappointed with how it distributed the ink but it's still a cool watercolour effect!

This is such an easy design if you want something quick to do that looks like you put a lot of effort into it. I'd love to get even better at this technique because there's some amazing designs out there that are done this way and I'm jealous of how they look.

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Sheer Tints / Glitter

Hi everyone! Today I have a design that's been around for a while since sheer tint polishes became a big thing. I'm going to start off by saying that this design is quite popular and I couldn't narrow down who first thought to put sheer polish over glitter, it could have been ermahgerdperlish on IG because that just sounds really familiar to me, but I did a bit of a search and couldn't find exactly who or when it was first done, so please excuse my lack of proper credit for this!

On to the post! I've wanted to do this design for a while with the OPI Sheer Tints since I've had them for over a year but just never got around to it, plus I hated using glitter polish because of how annoying it was to remove. But I recently got the UNT Peel Off Base Coat (which is the literal best nail related purchase I've ever made) which makes glitter removal ridiculously easy so there was no excuse to not try this design out!

I used all four of the OPI Sheer Tints and a glitter base of Maybelline's Silver Gleam. I tried to do the colours in order so that when it ended on one nail side, it matched up on the next nail.

I love the look of this and think it's pretty cool! And there's a lot of ways this design could go depending on how you want to apply the sheer tints over the glitter.

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Valentine's Day Nail Art

Good morning everyone! As it's Valentine's Day today, I thought I'd do some nail art to coincide. I'm not someone who celebrates the day or has a lot of thoughts towards it because in the end it's just a day and people can do as they please with days like this. But despite my neutral thoughts towards it, I still felt inspired to do some nail art based around it. It also helped to force me to do some more stamping as the idea I had involved just that.

I actually ended up doing some reverse stamping and creating a decal using my Uber Chic Beauty Mat (there's a bunch of tutorials out there if you want to learn how to do it). The stamping didn't transfer as solidly as I would've liked and I was going to fix up the black outline but when I applied it to my nail I liked how it looked as if it'd been drawn on a bit roughly and quickly. So I'm very happy with how the accent nail turned out. I think it's pretty cute. The polishes I used were Snow Me White - Sinful Colors, Black Out - Sally Hansen, Sour Grape, and Fairy Floss both by Ulta3.

The other nails are a base of Snow & Ice by Savvy, top coated with Don't Violet Me Down, and Be Magentale With Me, both OPI Sheer Tints. I applied them in a sort of diagonal gradient way, but that doesn't show up too much on camera. It's there though, trust me.

I'm genuinely really happy with how these turned out. A lot better than what I had planned in my head. 

That's all for today, I hope everyone has a lovely Sunday!

Thanks for reading.

- Melissa.

Mermaid Scale Nail Art - Born Pretty Store Review

*This product was sent to me for review, all opinions are my own

Hi everyone! This is my last post for the products I was recently sent from Born Pretty Store. Today's post is all about some mermaid/fish scale, I won't call them vinyls exactly, more like stickers/stencils I think. So let's get started! 

I tried out these nail stickers which essentially are the same as all the nail vinyls and stencils that are really popular in the nail art world, so they work the same way. I completely forgot to take progress shots throughout this mani so apologies for that but I'll explain how I used them anyway!

I started with a base colour and applied a quick drying top coat over it so I could use the stencils sooner than if I didn't apply one. As they were stuck down on a plastic sheeting and were quite thin and sticky I was really worried that once I pulled the stencil off my nail, it'd pull all the polish up with it. Thankfully it didn't, but I still stuck the sticker flat on my hand to remove some of the stickiness before applying it to my nail. I think it helped a little bit.

Once the sticker was applied I then sponged on the four polishes I'd chosen to use which were: Berry Blue, Corsican Rose, Violet Rumble all by Ulta3, and Darling, You Are Fabulous! By Maybelline, which was the gold polish. I'm not a huge gold polish fan because I don't think it suits me, but this one is growing on me a bit!

Once I had done two quick coats of the sponged polish, I then carefully peeled the sticker off and up until this point I'd had huge doubts as to whether it'd work that well. But it turned out amazingly and I love it. Made me wish I'd done all the nails instead of just an accent. 

I know that the photo below is super blurry, but since I'd forgotten to take progress shots I wanted to showcase the stencils themselves and didn't realise how blurry this photo was until after I'd removed the design, so oops! But look how gorgeous the stickers are! I love just looking at them.

I enjoy how they turned out because I've wanted to try this kind of design for a while but can't justify spending so much on other brands of nail vinyls because shipping isn't cheap to Australia from indie brands, so I'm glad I found these!

There are just one design of the many stencils/vinyls that Born Pretty Store has on offer and they're incredibly affordable if you wish to give them a go to see what all the fuss about these kind of stencils are! And don't forget you can use my code MEPUK31 for 10% off at checkout!

Thanks for reading.

Blue / Grey Marble Nail Art

Today, as always, I have a simple design to show you all. There's nothing special about this design and I actually wrote this post once before but it didn't save or publish and I lost it all, so I'm a bit annoyed and therefore this one will really be just a short and simple post. 

I did a simple water marble design on the accent nail and used some bunched up cling wrap to blot the grey polish onto the blue polish. Those polishes are Bestival Blue by Rimmel which is quickly becoming my new favourite blue polish and Impeccable Greys by Maybelline.

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Teardrop Rhinestones - Born Pretty Store Review

*This product was sent to me for review, all opinions are my own

Today I have a review of some rhinestones I received from Born Pretty Store. In this post I'm focusing on only one of the rhinestones as that's all I used for this design, but I'll still be reviewing the whole wheel.

As you can see above, this rhinestone wheel has two of each design and they range from bows, to teardrops, to stars, to flowers and the standard square and circle studs. They also have a slight holo, shimmery look them which I really liked. You get 200 pieces for $2.25AUD. 

For today's design, I sponged on a few different colours, then dropped some black polish into a small cup of water and sprayed it with a hand sanitizer to spread the polish and create a water spotted design (I think that's what it's called). I did this design with the intention to use only the teardrop rhinestones, because I thought the design and the rhinestone would go really well together. 

I think the design really worked out well and the rhinestones were so easy to pick up with a dotting tool and a tiny bit of clear polish on both the dotting tool and where I placed the rhinestone on the nail. They did slide around a bit, but once the polish underneath was dry they stayed put and didn't budge till I wanted to remove them. And if you're very frugal, they can be used again if you take care when removing them from the nail. I didn't top coat after placing them so I don't know if they change or dull down with a top coat.

This is absolutely one of my favourite designs of the year so far, it looked so pretty and delicate in real life and the colours were more vibrant. I'd never done a design like this before and was happy with how it turned out. I think the rhinestones added that finishing touch to them because it definitely looked a bit dull without them!

Don't forget you can use my code MEPUK31 for 10% off the Born Pretty Store website if you'd like!

Thanks for reading.

- Melissa.

Colour Changing Nail Polish - Born Pretty Store Review

*This product was sent to me for review, all opinions are my own

Nail polish that changes colour has been around for quite a while, but I only recently used it after being sent this polish in 103 from Born Pretty Store. I was skeptical, but also excited to try it out and see how well it actually worked.

This is what the polish looked like once it had dried and I'd top-coated it. It did however, as you can see in the photo below of the bottle, go on my nails purple and then dry to a light blue with a purple tinge at the free edge. This is because it turns blue when warm and purple when cold. So you can tell my nails/fingers were warm when I applied it.

Firstly, here are some photos of my nails after they were dipped in hot water, this shade of blue is actually one of my favourites, so I was happy my colour choice.

And secondly, these are my nails are dipping them in cold water. It's a really nice shade of purple, kind of like a dark lilac I guess.

And here is my attempt at half and half, but I didn't do it very evenly, still a cool effect though!

This polish is pretty cool and definitely exceeded my expectations. I had a lot of fun showing everyone how it worked and just staring at my nails every time I washed my face or hands or had a shower. It was a good week when I was wearing this polish! The novelty does wear off after a while, but I'd love to get another colour and see the change!

Here's a video I posted to my Facebook page of Punch Nails.

Posted by Punch Nails on Saturday, January 16, 2016

Don't forget I have a 10% off code: MEPUK31 for the Born Pretty Store website!

Thanks for reading.

- Melissa.

Sponged Stripes & Bright Dots

I have another summery design today! There's nothing too special about this mani but I wanted to do a blog post regardless to give a few more details about it!

I started with a base of Sinful Color's Snow Me White and then dotted on Pamplona Purple - OPI, Naughty Nautical - Essie, and Did It On 'Em - OPI. For the accent nail, I applied a fast drying top coat, waited twenty minutes just to be safe, and applied some striping tape (the kind you can get from ebay). Then with ripped up bits of sponge, I sponged on the three colours. I didn't want to do a gradient or even combine the colours too much which is why I did each colour individually and it turned out way better than expected!

I really love this mani and I'm super proud of it. At first I wasn't sure about the colour combo, but as I did it, I realised it was a good choice and I was glad I didn't change any colours.

I'd love to do a full mani with the design from the accent nail and try out another colour combo!

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Strawberry Water Decals - Born Pretty Store Review

*This product was sent to me for review, all opinions are my own

New year, new products to review! Born Pretty Store kindly sent me these cute strawberry decals recently and I've been wearing them on my nails for a good week now. I've posted a bunch of times about water decals and as always, these were simple to use and easy to apply. The only time I struggled a bit was with the very small strawberry in the middle of my index finger because it was quite tiny and hard to grip properly with the tweezers, but as you can see I got there in the end.

I had no real plan when applying these, I just wanted to use all the different sizes and styles of decals that were on the sheet. I will admit I don't love the strip of strawberries that the decal offers that are on my middle finger. Maybe I could have utilised them differently or applied them on the length of my nail instead of the width but I just don't love that nail. The heart one of my ring finger is pretty cute though and so are the little bunches on my other nails. 

Overall I don't love these decals as much as I've loved some previous ones. Looking at the link above where you can purchase them from, I wish I had chosen the sheet with all different kinds of fruits on them. I think that would've been a lot more fun and something I would probably use beyond this review as well. Might have to purchase those ones!

Ultimately, just like other water decals, they're easy to use if you want simple nail art that people will still comment on and even question if you did them yourself. And you can definitely mix it up and wear them with other colours or patterns or just as an accent. The heart would be pretty cute with a Valentine's Day design actually!

Don't forget I have a code MEPUK31 if you want 10% off at checkout on the Born Pretty Store website!

- Melissa.

Summery Single Chevrons

Since it's Summer here in Australia, I thought I'd do a few designs relevant to the season, ones that are bright and colourful but still simple. Today's design is single chevrons, with some pastel colours sponged over the nail vinyls. This could also be a design to wear in Spring as well, but since it's Summer, we're going with that today.

The white base is Snow Me White by Sinful Colors (as always) and the four colours are from Sally Hansen: Water Orchid, Wet Suit, Kelp Yourself, and Bubblegum Pink.

I absolutely love this one! Pastel designs always look pretty good and I think the design goes really well with the length of my nails because I could fit that extra vinyl in at the tip. I also topped it with Sally Hansen's Big Matte Top Coat again because it's so good!

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Pink Marble / Stripe Accent

Welcome to my first post of the year! Today's nail art is a simple marble and striped design using cut up pieces of a sandwich bag, which is one of my favourite things to do. 

I was reorganising my Essie polishes and discovered that three polishes looked really lovely next to each other so I decided to do something with them which resulted in this design! The polishes are: Secret Story, Peach Daiquiri, and Bahama Mama.

I recently picked up Sally Hansen's Big Matte Top Coat and tried it out for the first time on this nail art and I am in love! It works so much better than the one I was using because that one would just dull the polish, it wouldn't make it completely matte like the Sally Hansen one does so I'm very happy I finally got a new matte top coat!

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

- Melissa.