Rainbow Ombre Effect

You might (or might not!) be happy to hear that I have handed in all of my MA work, except my dissertation. Therefore I will have a little more time to blog in the evenings as I plan to spend 9-5pm researching and writing my dissertation until it is due in September. So, without further ado, on to today's post!

The picture above shows my first attempt at rainbow gradient nails. Yes, my 'ring finger' nail broke right down the other day as I caught it whilst going to reach for uni books on my shelf! Tore the thing off, which hurt badly. As a result, this nail is tiny to compare with the rest. I don't have fake nails to put on it and I'd rather not risk wrecking my natural nails. Here is a brief run through the steps I took to achieve this look, in case you want to replicate it!

1. Apply a base coat to protect your nails.
2. Place a make up sponge in a bowl of water whilst you carry out step three. An optional step would be to put tape around your nails to avoid having to use a cotton bud / Q-Tip to remove the excess polish on your fingers at the end.
3. Apply a white polish to act as a base. I tried it without this step but my natural nail just showed through, so it is an essential step to get the colours looking opaque.
4. Wait for your white base to dry. Now your sponge should have soaked up a good amount of water. We carry out this step as otherwise the sponge will merely suck up your polish and waste it! Squeeze it out and paint the colours of your choice directly onto the sponge in lines. Don't worry about blending them as the sponge will naturally do this for you! Just stripe them on, leaving no gaps.
5. Then use the sponge to essentially 'stamp' the colour onto your nails. You might not get an even finish the first time, so leave the first layer to dry. Then simply repeat the process - don't panic about it spoiling the gradient, if anything it actually helps to blend the colours if they aren't placed over each other exactly.
6. Once you're happy with the opacity of the colours, apply your favourite top coat and you're done! If you didn't put tape on your nails, now is the time to take a cotton bud / Q-Tip and remove any polish that strayed onto your fingers. 

Enjoy! I applied this to my nails, then decided to try and replicate the look on my eyes. This is how it came out:

Daisy Nails

I am an avid follower of Vic's blog at www.hashtaggollygosh.com and she recently posted about her camo and daisy nails. Needless to say I saw them and fell in love! I wanted to recreate them entirely, however I'm so snowed under with MA work right now, that I don't really have much time to dedicate to blogging/YouTube and beauty or fashion stuff generally, which is making me a bit sad to be honest. So I had blue nail polish on from the weekend and decided to put daisy's on top of that to save some time. All I did was apply more of Barry M's Cobalt Blue to the tips of my nails where I had nail wear, then added some daisy's using a dotting tool and white and yellow polishes, both by Rimmel, then the Barry M top and base coat. You could also use a kirby grip or a toothpick and any polishes of your choice. I'm happy with the results and I can only improve on my nail art as I'm still an amateur!

Would you rock daisy nails for summer? I can see me putting daisy's on coral polish for a boho look in the summer. Would be pretty for festival season! (Not that I can go to any this year, annoyingly!) Also, please let me know what you think of the new blog layout!