Chit Chat Glitter Polishes: Nail art and all you need to know!

Okay guys, so this is a big one, be warned!

A lot of people know that I love glitter gradients or just glitter in my nail art in general. And the obsession started after I discovered Chit Chat's glitter polishes. Here's what I love about them:

They are amazingly good quality.

And yet they are so inexpensive.

They come in the most beautiful colours.

And they have different sized glitters = more sparkle!

Seriously, if you are looking for glitter polish, before you go out to buy more expensive, well-known brands, try Chit Chat. Even if you're not looking for a glitter polish, go out and buy this one. I mean it. Go. You won't regret it.

You can find them in your local Poundland, in the UK only as far as I'm aware. I know...

"Nail polish from Poundland...?"

"I didn't even know they did nail polish..."

"£1 nail polishes can't be very good... Can they?"

Don't worry, I was the same. But I thought, what the hell, I'm going to try one. And it was the best decision ever!

As you can see, I now own 6 of the 7 available colours. The polish base itself is clear and quite thick but it's easy to work with, although it takes a while to dry. The glitter is in large hexs and smaller hexs/circles and you get a lot onto the brush in one go and no fishing is required.

The brush is made out of clear fibre and the bottles are also very "OPI" in shape, which is nice: they feel expensive and you get 12ml in each - amazing.

So now I'll show you pictures of the polishes and some of my nail art too. Click on the pictures to make them bigger and view in HD :)

First up, we have Silver, a pure silver glitter polish.
Shown is the bottle and a macro, to show the size of the glitter.

 And here's some nail art I did with this glitter. Love this so much, so princess-esqe ;) Maybeline's Porcelain Beige as a base. 

Secondly is Violet, a blue-indigo polish.
Shown is the bottle, the glitter is the same size in all the polishes so refer to the silver macro.

 And some nail art I did with this. Sally Hansen's White Tip as a base.

 In the sun - sparkly! o_O

Next is Ariel, my favourite of the bunch, which is saying something because I love them all so much. This is gorgeous. It's holographic and so has a blue/teal/green shimmer that is stunning.

Shown is the bottle.

Had to add a macro because even though you can't see the individual glitters, you can see the different colours as the glitter shimmers. 

And another glitter gradient, over Outdoor Girl's Pastel Blue. 

I added some nail art over that a little later, but left my beautiful shimmering ocean showing through. 

Next is Rio, a multi-coloured glitter with gold, silver, red, green and blue. I have mentioned this in my previous blog post, so go and check that out for more information.
Shown is the bottle, and added a macro just to show the colours.

And here is some nail art, over Sally Hansen's Black Cat (also see my previous blog post) and over Sally Hansen's White Tip so you can see the difference. So gorgeous. 

Next is Pink, a magenta polish.
I used this in my Butter London review blog post, so check that out for more pictures.
Shown is the bottle, the glitter is the same size as in the silver macro.

And here is the nail art I did, I kinda wanted this to be subtle so chose to pair it with a base that's a very similar colour, Butter London's Fiddlesticks. Loved the way my nails looked after this gradient, especially in the sun :)

Finally, we have Gold, a pure gold polish.

Shown is the bottle, haven't done any nail art with this as yet, watch this space!

Glitter is the same size as the others.

And that's it! As I said, there are 7 in the collection, the last one being Copper. I can't wait to find it :) Hope you found this HUGE post helpful, and I hope you guys go and try these out! Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Recycling Manicures! Black Starry Night

Hey guys! For those of you that follow my nails account on Instagram (@cutetickleangel), you may have noticed that I like to recycle my manicures. This basically means switching up one design by adding different nail art to it, creating a completely new look.

It's become one of my most favourite things to do when I have plain (ish) nails because I don't have to remove what's already there and so it takes half the time! And with uni still on (I know, it never ends), time is always limited for me. So I thought I'd share this recycled look with you today.

The first look is this black base with a gorgeous multi-coloured gradient.

I used Sally Hansen's Black Cat and Chit Chat's Rio.

I've been asked a ton of questions about Rio, because it's such a gorgeous glitter, with gold, silver, red, green and blue hexs of different sizes, so I thought I should mention that this is only available in the UK, as far as I am aware.

If you want something similar and easier to get a hold of, I suggest Model's Own ASOS Party Pieces or  Model's Own Hedkandi Ibiza Mix, both of which are full of colourful glitter goodness ;)

So, when this started chipping, it actually started coming off from the cuticle, as this was where it was thickest, as most of the polish was here due to the glitter gradient. So I peeled it as much as I could from these peeling parts and then neatened the edges with a blue polish.

The final result:
I love how each triangle is unique, as the peeling was slightly different each time :)

After neatening the edges with the blue stripes (free-handed) I added some of the same glitter polish to the tips.

So the complete second look: black glitter chevron tip, cut out nails with a touch of blue, to make it look more 'midnight' haha.

And that's about it! Hope you guys enjoyed reading about this fun way to switch up a manicure, see you soon!

Butter London Fiddlesticks - Review and Swatches

Hey guys! So today I'm reviewing Butter London's Fiddlesticks, a present that was given to me agesssss ago, but one I still haven't gotten around to wearing. It came with a lip gloss of the same colour which I love and wear all the time.

Fiddlesticks is a beautiful deep magenta/purple shade, from the Christmas 2012  range (which shows how long ago I got it!). It's in a jelly base and is packed with pink/purple microglitter.

The packaging is lovely, as with all Butter London polishes, I love the sleek look of a square-shaped bottle and I love that there is a smaller lid underneath that makes the brush a lot easier to hold.

Unfortunately, the formula is quite 'gloopy', i.e. it's on the thicker side and it tends to dry and form clumps when you're working with it. However, it does give a really opaque result with only two coats. I recommend working a lot faster with this polish and also using a minimal number of brush strokes, to avoid clumping and streaking.

I don't know if you can tell, but the polish actually dried on the edge of the bottle opening whilst I worked with it too, which is so annoying, and something I expect to happen only with older, thicker polishes of mine!

So here are some swatches: 2 coats, no topcoat:

As you may be able to see, the finish is very unique in that it is semi-matte, which I love as it is so on-trend at the moment! I wasn't too sure about this colour on my skin tone but I think it is quite pretty because of the finish and the mircoglitter!

A side view is shown here to show you the texture as its unique in this sense too, with a "semi-textured" feel, i.e. it's not as textured as  your "textured nails" polishes, but it doesn't dry smooth either. Interesting!

Finally, I want to just mention that this polish CHIPS. It chipped in about 8 hours of wear, even though I had applied two thin coats, capped.

Maybe a top coat will help next time. I also want to add some thinner to the polish to make it a little easier to work with.

Despite these disappointments, I think the colour is really pretty and the glitter is gorgeous. Worth the £12? Hmm.

Anyways, I realised that I had a glitter polish that was very similar to Fiddlesticks so I went ahead and did a reverse glitter gradient.

Without top coat (super textured!).

With top coat (so that you can see what Fiddlesticks looks like with top coat too).

Hope you guys found this review helpful, and hope you liked the simple nail art too!

See you soon!

YSL - 34: Jade Imperial - Review and Swatches

So I recently received YSL's Jade Imperial from their Spring 2013 nail polish collection. The two shades in this collection are 34: Jade Imperial and 35: Bronze Pyrite. I personally liked 34 more so I'm so so glad that's the one I received :P It's a beautiful dusty green and I have to say, after wearing it on a few occasions now, I absolutely love it.

The packaging is gorgeous, boxed and gold, of course ;)

The bottle is square and gold capped. This is the colour in the bottle direct sunlight.

This is the colour in the bottle, in the shade.

The gold cap comes off to reveal the smaller black top for the actual brush (like many other polishes) which allows for easier handling of the brush.

The brush is shaped to allow for precise application, being wide and square, and even though the polish is on the thicker side, it doesn't mean application isn't flawless or smooth.

The formula is actually really easy to work with, it's creamy and there are no streaks and overall, the high concentration of colour means one coat is sufficient. I like to apply two coats just to get that perfect finish.

Swatches: 2 coats, without top coat:

Blurred because my camera didn't focus, but I thought this picture showed the colour really well.

The colour in direct sunlight.

The colour with the bottle too, for comparison. In direct sunlight again.

The colour right now, as I'm typing this up at my desk, having worn the polish for 2 days now.

Overall, I love the way this polish looks and feel that it would suit many different skin tones. It has a high-shine finish and it is fast-drying which is always a plus!

Because the colour is a muted, dusty Jade, it makes it wearable all year around which is great because it's a bit of an investment at £18.

Product online: http://www.harrods.com/product/la-laque-couture/yves-saint-laurent/b12-0804-229-YSL-0192?cat1=new-beauty&cat2=new-beauty-makeup-nails&cat3=new-beauty-makeup-nails-colour&cid=GP_2992004

Hope you found this review helpful, see you soon!

Cute Bunny Nails!

Hi guys!

Sorry it's been over a month, but exams are over and I'm back! :)

I wanted to quickly blog about my super cute bunny nails that I was sporting for Easter this year.

They were really easy to do and I love the fact that they are all different - the mix and match nail-trend is really big at the moment!

The base colour is Revlon Minted 028, it's the prettiest pastel mint colour I own and it's perfect for spring and summer.

How to recreate this design - FINGER BY FINGER!

• The Pinky: Tiny little flicks of green at the tip for the grass. I left them quite uneven so they had a textured effect and actually looked/felt more like grass. The flowers were just big yellow spots created with my pencil dipped into yellow polish (as usual) and then smaller orange dots on top. These were done using Rimmel Sunshine 280 and Zoya Arizona.

• The Ring: The bunny! Just a white bunny shape created with Sally Hansen's White Tip. The detailing was done with hot pink and black for the eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

• The Middle: The polka dot finger! Haha, not much to say about this one, just added polka dots with my white polish again with a pencil.

• The Index: The Easter eggs: Two small blobs of white with fine hot pink detailing to outline the eggs and decorate them (in true Easter spirit!)

• The Thumb: The carrot! This is what makes this design so unique, because the carrot is "moveable" so we can feed our bunny! Haha! I used the same orange and green as on the pinky finger and then waited for the orange to dry slightly before putting some indents into the carrot with my fingernail. This texture is so perfect for the carrot image.

And that's it, add a top coat and you're done! I got SO MANY compliments when wearing this so it's definitely worth recreating :) It's quick, easy and so cute. Let me know if you do try this out and share it with me on Instagram: @vaish92.

See you all soon!