CND Shellac Nail Art - Rosebud with Glitter & Diamantés

Just a quick post this evening to show you another CND Shellac manicure...

My friend Rachel came over today for her first ever Shellac and she opted for a subtle yet girly manicure in Rosebud. But she wanted something more than a plain colour, so she decided to have some glitter and diamanté too. We chose the Gosh Nail Glitter in Rose Quartz and some simple pink diamanté to glam it up a little.

I prepped the nails, applied base coat and two coats of Rosebud, then I mixed a little of the pink glitter in with some top coat before applying it to the nails. Then (before curing the top coat) I placed three diamanté in a line on the ring finger, then I cured for the normal 120secs.


What do you think? Do you like to mix your Shellac and glitter?

CND Shellac Nail Art - Shellac Layering, Diamanté & Striping Foil

Wow, another one I'd forgotten about. Today seems to be the day for long lost manicures!

This is one that I did on my other sister about 2-3 months ago. She fell in love with Shellac Iced Coral when I bought it and opted to layer it with Studio White to make it a more solid colour. Oh, and I then went nail art crazy on her ring finger to make it more interesting!

After prepping the nails and applying the base coat (and curing for 10 seconds) I applied one coat of Studio White and cured for 120 seconds, then one coat of Iced Coral over the top and cured for 120 seconds. Then I placed two strips of gold striping foil diagonally across the ring fingers and some diamantés diagonally too, in the sticky layer. I finished by applying top coat and cured for 120 sec. Voila!

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts.

CND Shellac Nail Art - Strawberry Smoothie & Glitter Fade

I was just looking through my nail photos as I've created a 'CND Shellac Swatches' page (see the tabs at the top of my homepage) and found this manicure that I did for my sister a few weeks back.

She gets acrylics done (by a salon - not me) on a regular basis (I'm not a fan - natural nails is more my thing) but only plain ones, so she asked me to do a Shellac manicure over the top for her. She loves all my Gosh Nail glitter pots but was really drawn to the Jade Green and Topaz Lavender, so she decided to team them with Shellac Strawberry Smoothie.

I painted all her nails with the Strawberry Smoothie (2 coats) then made two separate glitter pastes out of Shellac Zillionaire and the two Gosh Nail glitters. I created a 'glitter fade' on each nail using the green and then swapped to the lilac for her ring finger. And finally to finish off, we added two diamanté to the thumb in matching green and lilac.

What do you think? Are you a fan of acrylic nail extensions?

CND Shellac Purple Purple

 

Just a quick post to show you a swatch of CND Shellac in Purple Purple.  It is an iridescent azure violet shade that has a hint of blue in some lights, the photo actually shows a pretty good representation of the true colour.

I've just removed my Leighton Denny manicure from Friday - post - as it seriously started chipping yesterday/today. So naturally, after the disappointment of normal polish wear time, I opted for Shellac :)

What do you think? Have you ever worn Purple Purple?

CND Shellac Blackpool with Glitter Tips & Foil Nail Art

Nat's friend Stacey called me back for CND Shellac manicure again today - she had the Red Baroness (see this post) a little while back and more recently, a french manicure, and as you can see, her nails have really grown.

So this time she opted for something very different and chose to have Shellac in Blackpool. She really liked my manicure that I had with Blackpool and the diamante lightening bolt (see this post), so we updated it with some silver glitter tips and a lightning bolt in foil instead.

To create this look I prepped the nails as CND recommend - cuticle tidy, file, scrubfresh and then applied Shellac base coat (curing for 10secs). I followed this with 2 coats of Shellac in Blackpool (curing for 120secs after each coat). To make the glitter tips I first mixed some Gosh Nail Glitter in Silver with Shellac Zillionaire in a palette then painted a coat on each nail as a tip with a nail art brush and cured for 120secs. On the ring finger I used some silver striping foil to make the lightening bolt and just stuck this to the tacky layer of the Blackpool. To finish it off, I added a coat of topcoat to each nail, cured for 120secs and then removed the residue with d-sperse. Voila!


What do you think? I love this alternative to a glitter fade.

Leighton Denny - Viva La Diva

Just a quick post to show you this gorgeous orangey-red creme from Leighton Denny, or Viva la Diva as they've called it.

I have never tried Leighton Denny polishes before and I got this little lovely through the post this morning in my feelunique.com Beauty Box (sadly a service that is no more as of yesterday).

It goes on really smooth and is opaque in two coats. I teamed it with Seche Base base coat and Seche Vite top coat. Right in time for Valentines day ♥ so now is the test of time to see if it really is as 'long lasting and chip-resistant' as the bottle claims...

This is one of Leighton Denny's High Performance polishes and mine is a sample size 4.6ml but you can buy the full size 12ml for £11 from feelunique.com.

(apologies for my horrendous cuticles - the cold weather has killed my hands and i've got so many cuts and scratches!)

What Leighton Denny polishes do you own? Are they any good?