Nail Art: Cherry Blossoms

With too much time on my hands, and a nail varnish collection that's rather built up over the years, I've recently taking to doing more adventurous things with my nails. I thought my first go at nail art should be a simple but effective one, so I went with cherry blossom nails.

To achieve the effect, all I needed were these:

Models Own in Jade Stone, Rimme's French Manicure white, Rimmel's Shocker, black eye liner and a cocktail stick.

After my base coat, I applied two coats of Jade Stone, which gave great coverage. I then used the eye liner to draw two branches on each nail. With the cocktail stick, I dotted 4-5 white spots as the petal for each flower, adding the bright pink dot as the flower's centre once dry. I then locked it in with a topcoat once completely dry and voila! I need to get a better hang of tidying up my edges and cuticle floods though: I haven't corrected here as I often find I accidentally over-correct when using touch-up brushes etc as the remover runs so much.

I also tried it with a pale pink background, which worked beautifully but didn't suit my skin tone as well. The side by side comparison looks thus (and the pink is No 7's Pinky Pure 160, and I used a dotting tool rather than cocktail stick with little noticable difference. My white is so old it's gloopy though, so I think I'll appreciate it more when I replace that polish)!

Review: Models Own Aqua Violet (Beetlejuice)

Having heard so many wonderful things about Models Own's Beetlejuice Collection, I treated myself to Aqua Violet - a blue polish with hints of iridescent pinkish-purple.

I have to say, I'm disappointed with the Aqua Violet. The colour is very sheer at first, and takes at least 3 coats to become opaque (though I prefer 4, to stop the light shining through my nail tip as much). While it dries quickly, I've found the colour really disappointing. I was expecting more of the violet shade to come through when caught by the light, but the polish spends 90% of the time blue, and very occasionally looks vaguely pink/purple when the light catches it in a highly specific way.  The brush strokes also show up, so I wish I'd taken my time with this:

As you also may be able to see, the paint has chipped slightly on my thumb in under 12hrs, despite having a long-wearing top coat and not doing any dishes, cooking or other 'manicure risk' activities in the interim.

I'm not convinced that this polish is worth the £5 price tag. I'm just glad I got it in the half-price sale if I'm honest!  Next time, I'll try this shade over an opaque, light blue base to see if it improves any. I'm not holding out much hope, but I'll let you know if it improves! Overall, I'm a bit let down - I'm usually a fan of Models Own polishes.

**I actually sold this on Ebay without trying it over a light, opaque polish as I was so disheartened. I did however get a beautiful trio of Models Own colours in return, so all's well that ends well!**

If you want a navy/vilet duochrome polish that is opaque in two layers, doesn't leave brush strokes, and is truly duochrome, then Nails Inc Garrick Street is a winner by a country mile! The Models Own polish is a nice idea, fairly poorly executed - Garrick Street on the other hand, is a great idea, well carried out! :D