Yardley Quick Dry – Summer Sun (Limited Summer Edition)

There was an amazing sale the other day at a pharmacy in South Africa. I must admit, I went a little overboard and bought a whole lot of polishes. I got some nice brands and I’m excited to review them.

Amongst the 12 polishes I bought (yes, 12), I got a Yardley Quick Dry – Summer Sun (Limited Summer Edition). I think that this particular range was only available in South Africa. There were six colours in the range. And I’m sure they are from last season if they are on sale.

I absolutely love this colour. It’s so vibrant and bright. It’s a really lovely shade of yellow. Here’s what the final outcome looked like:

The consistency of the polish was extremely thin. As such, it was sheer for 2 coats, only on the 3rd coat did it finally become opaque. That said, it could have even had another coat! This was probably my least favourite part of this polish. See the photos of each coat below.

My favourite was the brush that Yardley used. It had a circular tip which fitted the contour of the nail bed so nicely. My pinky just took one stroke and the brush formed a perfect semi-circle at the base of the nail. I liked this a lot!

Overall, here’s what I think about this polish.

I couldn’t resist playing around a bit with this manicure. I took some shells that I bought in Korea and stuck some onto two accent nails.

Here’s what the final mani looked like:

Butterfly Wings

I’ve seen quite a few fellow-bloggers doing some beautiful butterfly wing designs. So I decided to give it a shot myself.

 

Just a quick post to say… Happy Friday! 🙂

 

And all that I can see…

Our new apartment has a beautiful lemon tree hanging over our balcony. I just couldn’t resist doing a lemon manicure! I mean, all you nail artists out there would have done the same, right?

So I did a very simple lemon-style manicure. I started with a white undercoat. I used a dotting tool to make some circular/oval yellow shapes. I then used a nail art brush to paint on some cute lime green leaves. Topped off with some brown dots and lines to give more detail. What do you think?

Now that I’m settled in (well, two out of three suitcases are unpacked), I’m going to try be more active with my posts. I’m looking forward to doing some awesome, creative manicures and tutorials in the near future! – I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!

South Africa – Ndebele Manicure

In 8 days I’m going to be getting on a plane with 46kg of my life in a bag and moving back to South Africa. I’ve got a lot of mixed emotions about the move back. On the one hand I’m really excited to see my friends and family that I haven’t seen in a year. But on the other hand I’m unemployed and moving to the big city.

Anyways, it got me thinking about South Africa. I decided to to a manicure of Ndebele murals. They are famous for their beautiful, colourful patterns that they paint on their houses. I absolutely love it. I think it really shows how vibrant and unique South Africa is. We have 11 languages, and tons of different cultures in our country.

I used lots of different colours, and I couldn’t tell you how I did it. I just looked at a picture and tried to copy some of the designs. I’m also going to enter this in Mommy Loves Polish’s competition on Facebook, so please check it out and support this great competition.

Here are the pics of the nails, what do you think? I hope you like it..

These are the pictures of the Ndebele designs:

For those of you that are South African Nail Art bloggers, or would like to start, join the South African Nail Art community on Facebook at SA Nails.

Day 22 – Fruit Cake

I decided to use fruit cake colours and do a more abstract manicure 🙂

I always remember having fruit cake on Christmas. It was a big deal in my family, my grandma used to make tons of Christmas puddings (that have all the fruit, cherries, raisins, etc in). The recipe was passed down from my great-grandmother who apparently stole a recipe for fruit cake from the nuns. I’m not sure how true this whole story is, but it was always a big part of our Christmas.

I did a very simple, abstract design 🙂 I hope you like it!

Day 20 – Sweets & Candy

I am officially back up-to-date with my posts! Yay! And, I’m really happy with the way this manicure turned out 🙂

I tried to make it look like typical candy cane stripes and two nails with hundreds and thousand looking dots. I think it looks really cute 🙂

 

Ombre nails

Here’s a simple manicure I did the other day. I struggled to do ombre nails at first, but now I just paint polish straight onto the sponge and it works quite well. Also, a tip: put tape around your nails so it’s easier to clean 🙂 I used a Konad yellow and The Face Shop purple. What do you think?

 

Hand Painted Cherry Blossoms

I got a little bit carried away tonight, but I love the result. I was looking for something to spice up a french manicure (my favourite type of mani) and I decided to tackle the cherry blossom again. I can’t hold it in anymore, I’ve just got to show you:

I’ve tried it once in a very simplistic style, this time I did a bigger version. Here are some of the pics that I used as inspiration for the design:

I basically just used a small brush and used pink, white (Konad), purple, a tiny bit of yellow and a deep purple (The Face Shop). I started with french tips, painted the branches and added the flowers layer by layer.

I really like the result, what do you think?

Index Finger close-up

Middle finger close-up

Thumb close-up

Autumn colours :)

All around Seoul at the moment are the most beautiful autumn trees. The bright yellows are such a beautiful colour.This is the road outside the school where I work.

The whole time I was away I couldn’t wait to get home and do a fall manicure. So.. here is my attempt 🙂

I used a nail art brush to make little leaves. I tried to make it subtle and used lots of different colours to give it depth. However, I wasn’t crazy about the end result. I used Skin Food, Konad and Holika Holika (Korean brands). Here are the polishes I used.

I’m happy I tried it out, but it’s not my favourite mani. I can’t wait to keep trying new things 🙂 What do you think?