CND Shellac Nail Art - Leopard Print in Cocoa and Fedora

A slightly different colour palette this time for the classic leopard print manicure. Previously I had always used a gold glitter base - here and here - but Stacey (my lovely hand model and regular Shellac addict!) wanted something a little more neutral.

So we went for Cocoa as the base colour, Fedora for the leopard print detail (painted with a nail art detailer brush) and then I added some Iced Cappuccino with a dotting tool as a little metallic accent to the design.

For a design that looks like it takes ages, I love how simple and quick leopard print is - if you haven't tried it, you really should, it evens works great with regular nail polish too!

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. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

CND Shellac Nail Art - French Manicure with Rosebud Bow Detail

Well Hello there... it seems I may have been a little absent once again! Bad beauty blogger! Well I have got a small mountain of nail art posts forming in my drafts folder so whilst wallowing in cold and flu today I thought I'd better get my arse in gear and post a few of them for you lovely people to see.

If you have liked my facebook page you will have seen sneak previews of the posts to come... and if you haven't? Get your butt over there and 'like' it so you will never miss out on another Shellac delight again!

https://www.facebook.com/brushupandmakeup

Any who, onto the marvellous manicure above. This is Kate, who wanted something classic but a little different for a wedding. So we decided on a French manicure design by Jazzy at @califorNAILS (twitter, instagram, tumblr) -  French with a little bow nail art detail on the ring finger and thumb. For the French manicure I used Beau and Cream Puff and to create the lace-like pink line along the tip I used a dotting tool and Rosebud. I painted the bow on the ring finger and thumb using Rosebud and my detailer brush. To add the darker detail on the bow, I mixed the Rosebud with some Blackpool to create a slightly greyer-pink.

What do you think?

Disclaimer - design idea from Jazzy at @califorNAILS. All products used for this manicure were bought myself, for more info about myself and CND Shellac please check out my disclaimer page here. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

CND Shellac Nail Art - Cocoa With French Tips

A different take on French today, with a double tip in gold and white. OK, well it wasn't exactly today, but a few weeks ago. My cousin Nat wanted a bit of nail art but something that would go with a few different outfits for some weddings she had coming up, so we explored the nude route with Shellac.

For this manicure I used Cocoa as a base colour, then painted a white french tip in Cream Puff followed by a slightly thinner french tip below it in Iced Cappuccino. I tweaked it though for the thumb and ring finger, and painted the Cream Puff and Iced Cappuccino in reverse.

She loved it and is already picking out other colour combinations to try this with. I love that this look was so easy to achieve and can also be recreated really easily with normal nail polish.

Classy but effective :)

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. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

New Limited Edition CND Shellac Christmas Colours!

Well it seems CND are bringing out all the stops this year when it comes to new Shellac shades!

First we had the launch of 6 new colours back in March with the VIP status' and the much sought after grey/taupes, then we heard of the new 'Super-dark' collection for fall this year - that I blogged about here - and now we are being treated to two more to complete the 2012 collection.

Let me introduce you to Tinsel Toast and Ruby Ritz...

Finally, some more glitter Shellac!! As far as I can work out, Tinsel Toast is a golden glitter and Ruby Ritz is a red glitter.

Both are intended to be limited edition and should be available around November this year (however I have heard that they will be available in the UK on 24th/25th September at the Sweet Squared stand F70 at Olympia Beauty).

I found out about these from the CND press release here and they are being launched with some other limited/special edition CND products such as Solar Oil and Scentsations.

I cannot wait to get my hand on these beauties, they make me feel all Christmas-sy just looking at them!

 Disclaimer - Photo is not my own, it is courtesy of the Sweet Squared Facebook page here.

CND Shellac Nail Art - Union Jack

So the Olympics may now be over, but it didn't stop me celebrating a little of Team GB on my nails during the weeks of sporting events. I'd been lulling it over in my mind and trying to work out how I could represent GB Shellac style - after all, CND were the nail ambassadors for the athletes this year!

In the end, I went for the look above - not bad eh? And yes, my ring finger is entirely handpainted and I used NO tape to make my edges straight - proud doesn't even begin to cover it :)

For the base colour I layered Purple Purple over Blackpool to create the gorgeous Royal Blue metallic base. Then after curing, on the ring finger I painted Cream Puff in the criss cross shape of the Union Jack, cured, then painted the red criss cross shape on top using Wildfire. I sealed it all in using top coat and there you have it, a beautiful Union Jack!

To paint the Union Jack detail I did opt to use my tiny Orly Detailer brush rather than the Shellac brushes in the bottles (they were too thick) and I promise you, there wasn't a single piece of striping tape in the vicinity of this manicure.... what do you think?

 

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. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)

Skittle Mani with Nails Inc.

Left Hand

Right Hand

Bonjour! Just a little quick one to show you today - a Nails Inc. skittle manicure that I had on about 2 weeks ago.  I used three of the colours I picked up from my TK Maxx Haul that I posted about on Brush up and Make-up! earlier.

They were a purple - Duchess Street, a red - Park Walk and a turquoise - Reeves Mews. All really easily to apply and easy to remove, EXCEPT Reeves Mews that stained my nails - I had to really buff my nail bed in order to get rid of the staining but maybe that serves me right for not bothering with a base coat!

I picked up this pack from TK Maxx recently for £14.99 - that's under £3.75 per polish! It's worth taking a look if you have a store near you as they seem to have a lot of Nails Inc. in at the moment.

Keep posted for some more Shellac nail art posts coming up soon!

Disclaimer - I have not been compensated in anyway by this post. I just like Nails Inc. and occasionally splash out on their polishes.

CND Shellac Nail Art - Tropix Hawaiian Print

Without Flash

With Flash

What? I hear you say. A Shellac manicure on myself?? Yup! Indeed it is. Sometimes I spend so long doing manicures for friends and family that I never get round to doing myself too. So a couple of weekends ago, a family 'Hawaiian' themed BBQ gave me the perfect excuse to try out a little nail art.

When I looked at my collection, nothing screamed tropical more than Tropix so I mixed it up with a little Cream Puff on my ring finger and some Konad stamping too. I did have the honest intention of hand drawing some hibiscus flowers but I just ran out of time got lazy.

So instead I used the Konad Special Polish  in Pink to stamp the double hibiscus flowers from the M29 plate and then sealed with Shellac Top Coat. You can buy Konad from their website here.

Tropix has to be one of my favourite Shellac colours but it just doesn't photograph well. The flash photo is probably the closest as it picks up the almost neon quality of the pink, whereas although the non-flash photo bears no true resemblance to the real life colour, it does nicely pick out the orange hue from Tropix.

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. I might not be a professional, but I sure love me some Shellac nail art :)