New Blog

It's finally here, my new blog is up and ready to be filled with pictures of nail polish. If you'd like to keep reading my posts, please head over to www.skorchcake.com. Thanks for reading!

Still blogging, just on a temporary vacation

I don't want my readers to think I've stopped this blog so I thought I'd give you a little update. I'm currently in the process of setting up a new blog on my own domain using Wordpress. I'm not happy with the layout options available to me through Blogger so wanted to do something on my own where I have complete creative control. My lovely husband has been helping me (he's a graphic designer/ web developer by profession) and I'm so excited with the results so far!

I've been purchasing some new nail supplies, lots of glitter and striping tape so I can try out some new nail art designs. I'm trying not to purchase anymore polish for the time being as I have so much and I don't use 80% of it.

So please keep checking in, I will be sharing my new site as soon as it's up.

Until I resume posting, here are links to 3 of my favorite nail polish bloggers:

www.scrangie.com - Scrangie posts great swatches of many gorgeous polishes, great if you want to see how a polish looks out of the bottle. This was the first polish blog I discovered.

http://www.thenailasaurus.com/  - The Nailasaurus posts amazing nail art. Stamping and striping are her specialties, I love the uniqueness of her designs.

http://www.polishallthenails.com/ - Polish All The Nails is probably my favorite polish blog of all time. She posts stunning glitter placement manicures that must take her hours and generally just loves glitter. She has given me a lot of inspiration for my manicures and I love seeing how her blog has progressed from when she began.

Purple Power - Nfu Oh 51 and Orly FX Space Cadet Review

Nfu Oh 51 and Orly FX Space Cadet

I fell in love with Nfu Oh nail polish a couple of years ago when one of my favorite nail bloggers, Scrangie, reviewed the polish on her blog. Shade 51 is a gorgeous rich purple 'flakie' polish with flecks that shift from orange to green depending on the light. This polish looks gorgeous on it's own but you need to apply at least 3 coats to get good coverage. I decided to use another of my favorite polishes, Orly FX Space Cadet, a purple duochrome that shifts to gold in the light, and layer the Nfu Oh polish over the top to see if I could make two stunning polishes into one super-polish!

Orly FX Space Cadet without top coat

Orly FX Space Cadet

I took these photos before I layered the Nfu Oh polish on top. As you can see it's stunning on its own. This has to be one of my all time favorite polishes. I love how this polish shifts in the light from a rich plum to a sparkly gold.

Orly FX you are so pretty!

So the magpie in me thought that this would look even more special with some nfu oh gorgeousness over the top..

Nfu Oh layered over Orly Space Cadet

I love how this looks! The Nfu Oh 51 transformed the polish into a rich purple with red, gold and green flecks peeking through the jelly base of the polish.

Nfu Oh Orly FX Hybrid from another angle

I love how it shifts in the light!

So I was extremely pleased with how my Nfu Oh Orly FX hybrid polish turned out! I adore these polishes on their own and love how two stunning polishes work so well together. The only downside, the polish chipped after 2 days. If you'd like to re-create this look for yourself, I purchased Space Cadet at Ulta and Nfu Oh 51 from this lovely polish site, http://www.fabuloustreet.com/.

Halloween Nail Art Ideas

This week I've worked on Halloween manicure ideas to share with you. I created three different nail art designs, a candy corn design, a spider design, and a Halloween pumpkin design.

To create the candy corn Halloween manicure, I first painted my nails with Maybelline's Color Show Polish in Orange Fix and waited for it to dry. I then used tape to segment the nail and applied a white polish from Boots 17 (I had gotten it in a french-manicure set years ago) at the bottom of the nail and Midtown Mimosa, a yellow polish by NYC, at the top of the nail.

Once all of the layers were dry, I removed the tape and was left with a striped candy corn design. I wasn't particularly happy with the way this turned out as the lines weren't perfect. I had to apply multiple layers of polish to get good coverage and the polish ended up smudging when I removed the tape. It would probably have worked better if the tape was less sticky. A fun idea for Halloween but not perfect enough for my liking!

Candy Corn Manicure for Halloween

I next created a Halloween pumpkin design using a Temple Spa polish, Naples, for 4 of my nails and the Maybelline Orange Fix Polish for the accent nail. Temple Spa is a UK company that creates stunning nail polish. I only have 4 polishes from them but they are all gorgeous.

I used a dotting tool to create the pumpkin nail art on one of my nails. I used Black Chrome, a Nubar polish for the pumpkin's face.

I was so pleased with how this turned out. It was pretty simple to do and looks great. I think it would also look good with alternating orange and black nails.

Halloween Nail Art - Pumpkin 

My final design was a nude nail with spider nail art applied on alternating nails. I took a picture of this design with just one spider on the accent nail and another with spiders on alternating nails. Both looked great but the accent nail may work better if you want something more subtle. I used Essie Chinchilly as the base, one of my all time favorite polishes. I love how simple it is and it looks amazing with poker dots or glitter!

Again I used a dotting tool to create these designs, using the larger end for the eyeball and the smaller end for the pupil. I also loved how this design turned out. It was fairly simple to create but looked so pretty on my nails.

Spider Accent Nail for Halloween

Halloween Spiders on alternating Nails

I hope you enjoyed these ideas. I'd love to know what your favorite design was. I'm rocking the Halloween pumpkin design for Halloween week.

Star Nail Art using Konad Stamping Technique

When I started my blog, my goal was to post once a week. I've been pretty bad at sticking to this for a couple of reasons. Firstly I was on vacation in the UK seeing my family and secondly I just started a new job so I've been pretty busy learning!

Whilst I was in the UK I picked up a Konad stamp set. I'd wanted to try nail stamping for a while and was pretty excited to come across the kit in the store. I ended up purchasing plate m3 and a white Konad polish. This weekend I used the stamping set for the first time. I painted my nails with Color Club's Revvolution, a dark grey, almost black holographic polish. I then went crazy stamping stars all over my nails.

I love how this mani turned out! The stamping was tricky at first but once I practiced a few times, the stars turned out really well. I found the stars looked better if I slightly rocked the stamper whilst picking up the star from the Konad plate.

The great thing with using a dark polish for the base was that if a star didn't turn out well, I just painted over that part of the nail and tried again in a few minutes. Patience is key when stamping as sometimes the image won't properly stick. I feel that it's worth it for such a unique effect!

No time for a manicure.

I'm going on vacation this week and haven't had the time to do a manicure or take pictures. This weekend I purchased a gorgeous Butter polish, Wallis, in the Ulta sale for $10, so will be playing with that when I return. I have so many polishes that I promised myself I would blog about them for the next few months before buying anymore but it's hard to resist a sale!

I discovered an amazing nail blog, www.polishallthenails.com, whilst googling for manicure ideas. I've included a picture below. This blogger has some of the most incredible manicures I've ever seen. She takes individual pieces of glitter and arranges them across the nail one by one. I cannot wait to try this, even if I just do an accent nail. The effect is stunning. Please take a look if you love glitter.

A mermaid manicure from Polish All the Nails. I'm in love!

China Glaze - It's A Trap-eze Nail Polish Review

China Glaze It's a Trap-Eze Bottle

I purchased China Glaze 'It's a Trap-eze' after seeing swatches online. This polish was released as part of the December 2012 Cirque Du Soleil Worlds Away collection. The polish is a white opaque creme infused with hexagonal and round glitter in shades of green, orange, blue, pink and silver. This polish is so me!

The formula of this polish is great. It's packed full of glitter and gives great coverage after only 2-3 layers. The end result is gorgeous! The polish looks exactly how it does in the bottle when applied to your nails because of the generous amount of glitter included. I'm usually so dissatisfied with glitter polishes because of their poor coverage but this polish didn't disappoint. 

Overall I was extremely happy with this polish. It's unique and unlike any other polishes in my collection. I like how you have the effect of a white creme with a glittery top coat with only 3 layers of polish. I haven't tried any of the other polishes from this collection but I love how Bend over Backwards looks and have added it to my list of polishes to try.

OPI Fall/ Winter 2013 San Francisco Collection Minis - Swatches and Review

I purchased this mini set a couple of weeks ago from Ulta as an impulse buy. I usually prefer to buy individual polishes than sets as one or two of the colors always seem to end up un-used. The set consists of four mini nail polishes, two cremes and two duochromes.

First Date at the Golden Gate

'First Date at the Golden Gate' is a deep cherry red creme polish. I really like the color of this polish. It's a deeper red than anything else that I have in my collection. The consistency of this polish was good too, it applied easily and I wore it for around 3 days before it began to chip. The picture below was taken after I'd applied 3-4 coats.

Muir Muir on the Wall

I adore this polish! 'Muir Muir on the Wall' is a deep plum duochrome with flecks of gold that peek through the rich plum base. Dark plum polishes aren't usually my first choice but I love this and can see myself wearing it throughout the winter.

The first photo is very true to life in terms of color. The second photo was me playing with the settings on my new camera but I thought it turned out pretty.

In the Cable Car-Pool Lane

'In the Cable Car-Pool Lane' is a deep burgundy creme. The photo below is more true to life in terms of color. This polish was my least favorite of the collection. The formula was OK but it took around 4 coats to achieve completely even coverage. I wasn't blown away by the color but I may try this in the fall with a gold glitter top coat. Overall this polish wasn't a winner for me.

Peace & Love & OPI

'Peace & Love & OPI' turned out to be my second favorite polish of the collection. When I saw this in the bottle, I had to have it. I thought it would blow me away but I prefer the gold fleck of 'Muir Muir on the Wall'. This polish is described as holographic sage and eggplant but it's actually a duochrome with a deep green/ grey base interspersed with mauve shimmer throughout. I love how this polish shifts in the light but it started to chip within a day of wearing it. Very pretty but I thought it would be more special than it turned out to be.

These pictures really capture how much this polish shifts in the light!

Overall I was pretty pleased with this mini collection. I'll probably wear 'Muir Muir on the Wall' the most frequently but I like the uniqueness of 'Peace & Love & OPI', I have nothing else like it.

OPI Fall/ Winter 2013 San Francisco Collection Minis

Today I purchased the mini set from the new OPI San Francisco Collection which comes with 4 mini polishes. The colors included in the set are First Date at the Golden Gate, Muir Muir on the wall, In the Cable Car-Pool Lane, and Peace & Love & OPI. I haven't tried any of the polishes yet, but all of them look gorgeous in the bottle. I think my favorite will be Peace & Love & OPI with its duochrome effect, but all of the shades are pretty and in colors that I would wear. I'll be posting swatches and reviews of the collection soon!

I thought it was about time...

that I started this blog all about nail polish! I love to write and I have an unhealthy obsession with nail polish and all things sparkly! I'll share nail art ideas, swatches and reviews. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.