CND Shellac Azure Wish

Something about this blue just grabbed my attention. Following Stacey's dabble in the new Sweetdreams collection for her latest nail art (here) I decided that it would be my next manicure of choice.

Having had it on my nails for a couple of weeks, I got plenty of compliments but at times I felt a little childish. The more I wore it the more I though of it as the kind of colour that a 12 yr old might pick out to wear. Maybe I'm just boring and prefer a classic red or pink with my skin tone. Don't get me wrong, I still love the colour and adore it on other people's nails, I just think blues don't always suit me.

This is three coats of Azure Wish over Base Coat and finished off with Top Coat.

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!

CND Shellac Nail Art Gotcha Glitter Fade

'Tis the season for a pink manicure it seems! I've had so many requests for pink-based designs this Spring and there doesn't seem to be any let up.

Rachel loved her pink polka dots so much (here), she continued the pink theme with a good ol' glitter fade. Well who doesn't love a bit of sparkly bling on their fingertips?!

The base pink here is classic Gotcha - a beautiful bubblegum pink - but it's so hard to photograph! The first photo is without flash and the second with, but the first is too pale and the second is too bright. It's probably best to say it's in between the two.

I used two coats of CND Shellac Gotcha and then mixed some of my Gosh Silver Nail Glitter with CND Shellac Mother of Pearl and painted on the glitter fade with a nail art brush. I normally do two coats of the glitter and then finish off with CND Shellac Top Coat.

Gosh Silver Nail Glitter is available from most Superdrug stores (although online I can only find the Gold one here).

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!

CND Shellac Nail Art - Freehand Geometric

Instagram provides an array of inspiring nailart designs and this is exactly that - a beautiful freehand geometric pattern from the talented Julia Martinez (@_juliamartinez). If you don't already follow me on instagram, you can find me at @brushupmakeup and I highly recommend you add Julia to your following list too!

I'm an avid follower of many nail-art-art and for Stacey's next manicure this was the perfect design. Julia posted the original design followed by a handy tutorial so anyone can recreate this look:

Julia used China Glaze for this design
(photo courtesy of @_juliamartinez on instagram)

(photo courtesy of @_juliamartinez on instagram)

Although Jene was one of the first to dabble in my new pastel Shellac shades (here) Stacey went one step further and we used three of the Sweetdreams collection for this look.

The colours we used were all CND Shellac:
pale pink - Cake Pop
purple - Lilac Longing
blue - Azure Wish
silver glitter - mixture of Mother of Pearl and Gosh Nail Glitter in 02 Silver

It did require a lot of patience and plenty of time - trust me, no tape was used in the making of this manicure! The Cake Pop was used as a base colour on all the nails and then I added the geometric triangle patterns of the blue, purple and silver to create the final design.

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!

New CND Shellac Colours for Summer 2013!

Holy Moly! Another colour launch for 2013?

And so soon after the Sweetdreams collection release here.

Let me introduce CND Shellac's Summersplash shades that were launched earlier last week:

The collection consists of four colours:

Water Park - deep aqua blue
Pink Bikini - sizzling summer pink
Grape Gum - a true concord purple.
Lobster Roll - bright red-orange

Just check out those swatches below...

I knew that CND would be launching some new shades, but so soon? I am impressed! Now to get hold of the damn things!

Disclaimer - Photos are not my own, they are courtesy of the Sweet Squared Press Release on facebook here.

CND Shellac Nail Art - Pastel Diagonals

So I've just got my new pastels in and Jene likes to be the first for new looks or colours (much like her last mani here). Therefore naturally, the Sweetdreams collection that I blogged about ages ago was her colour collection of choice.

Jene went for the pale pink - Cake Pop - for her base colour and decided to add an accent colour of purple - Lilac Longing - in a diagonal across each nail.

I used two coats of each colour to create an opaque finish, but looking at the photos above (bottom was with flash) it could have possibly even done with three for the purple.

Stay posted for more pastel themed nail art coming your way....

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!

CND Shellac Nail Art - Pink Polka Dots

They're still a little dotty for polka dots when it comes to manicures at the moment. So I just thought I'd share this quick colour combo with you...

This is Rachel (again!) and much like Jess (on my previous polka dot mani here) loved the simple yet detailed look of a few dots. Except Rachel likes the bright and thus opted for this Minnie-Mouse-esque colour scheme with Hot Pop Pink and Cream Puff.

The second photo shows the colours with flash, because without it you just can't quite get the bold bright hue of the pink.

She told me that she got loads of compliments on these and some people accused her of having stickers - when she tried to insist they were hand painted, they still wouldn't believe her!! Well, people just don't seem to appreciate true nail-artistic talent these days do they??!

(I mean, seriously though, it's not that hard to use a dotting tool!?!)

Disclaimer - All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. Once you Shellac you never go back!