**CLOSED** Festive Giveaway - Win the Models Own Beetle Juice Collection

**NOW CLOSED**

First off I was to say thank you to all my regular readers and those who may just drop by once in a while for taking time out of their day, even if it's a minute or two to read my blog! I know I'm not a consistent blogger but I really do enjoy blogging for you guys and it's my way of removing myself from the realities of day-to-day life. I enjoy reading the comments and despite being pretty rubbish at responding I take note of everything that has been said.

When I bought my Beetle Juice set I ordered an extra set with the intention of giving it away and with Christmas around the corner and me wanting to say thank you I think now is the perfect time to give these beauties away!

Sorry to keep you guys waiting.
Good Luck!
Giveaway closes 31st December 2011 23.59 BST.

Storage again

My friend showed me this storage unit and I just had to share it with you guy because it's so OTT but amazing!

http://www.shelfsave.com/clear-tower-unit-33-multicoloured-drawers.html

You'd have no problems organising your polishes by colour with this baby!!

Fair Isle Nails aka festive tribal !

Hey ladies I took some time out from writing my 'reflective' essay and created some super cute (well I think they are) Fair Isle nail designs for you! I love Fair Isle knits and I recently bought a wool skirt which inspired this whole shabang.

Hope you like them and give it a go yourself.

If you don't have any Fair Isle knits for reference just do a quite Google and you'll find loads!

Rimmel Zeitgeist re-visited and re-swatched

Back in April you may recall me waffling on about Rimmel Zeitgeist a gorgeous HTF and long discontinued duochrome. I was recently reminded of it whilst browsing eBay after spotting it as part of a job lot and thought I'd re-swatch it because the original images I took were not done so using my dSLR and so the colour is not particularly accurate! I know showing HTF polishes is a bit cruel creating quite often unfulfillable lemmings! Sorry! It does occasionally appear on eBay if it's any consolation!

Perfect coverage in two coats. Not sure if it's due to the age of the polish but I did have a couple of bubbles appearing :-(

2 coats plus Seche Vite

Have a good weekend guys! I have a 2500 word 'reflection' to write. 'Sigh'

Who wants to win the entire Models Own Beetle Juice Collection?

If so stay tuned!

Sinful Colors

Hello ladies (and gents) hope you're all well. I've been rather knackered this week as I've had to get up at ridiculous times to get the train to my cardiac placement. So far this week I've seen quite a few coronary angio's, TAVI's and today I got to see a triple by-pass being performed. Anyway...back to polish. Today I have for you swatches of the Sinful Color polishes I received from my Canadian friend last month. Apologises if you have been waiting for me to swatch these but I'm pretty behind with swatching at the moment!

First up is Mint Apple a lovely mint-green leaning towards Tiffany box blue with silver shimmer. It definitely reminds me of CG For Audrey so I may do a comparison as an when I get the chance. The formula of this polish was a little thick but workable. It only require 2 coats.

Mint Apple

Next is Love Nails a super bright neon-esque aqua blue. This colour is pretty in your face and would look amazing on toes. It was a little sheer and as you can see even after 3 coats my nail line is still visible on camera but in real-life it's not that noticeable because the colour kind of blinds you!

Love Nails

Finally here is Hottie, a polish that has been compared to OPI's Last Friday Night and unfortunately I don't have LFN so cannot give you my opinions. The blue jelly base is pretty sheer and is not particularly flattering on its own and can make your hands look a bit ill lol, so this is definitely one for layering over another polish. The mix of iridescent and holo glitter is uber pretty and perfect for the festive season.

Hottie
over Love Nails

Index: Hottie by itself, Middle: over Rimmel Midnight Blue, Ring: CG Blue Year's Eve, Little: CG Sugar Plums

Out of focus shot!

Sorry for the lack of bottle shots, I'll add them at a later date!!

Thanks for reading!

Storage - Helmer alternatives!

For a nail polish 'collector' I would say my collection is pretty modest and up until recently all my polishes fitted neatly into this Muji container (34 x 44.5 x 18cm). I still remember when I bought this and my entire collection filled only half of the container. Those days have well and truly gone as I've been using a small cardboard box to house overflow!!!! Although it's a nice cheap solution to keep everything together polishes get buried and are forgotten about which is bad because I end up buying dupes. So now I'm in the market for some new storage.

From reading other blogs it seems the Ikea Helmer is the preferred solution as it's relatively cheap and strong. It's ok but I personally want something that will add to the decor of my house (when I buy one) and isn't tucked away in a closet. Basically I want a nice bit of solid furniture, looks good and is a good investment.

After browsing I've decided I want something like this...

...old style library index filing drawers.
I know it may not be to everyone's taste but I can imagine something like this in my house (when I get one). It would house my polishes discreetly but keep them organised.

More random units I found on eBay and Google!

At present there is no way one of these would fit into my flat (and one of these solid oak units cost about £1000) so for the mean I might have to get a helmer!

Anyway enough random rambling from me, what do you guys use to store your polishes in?

Pyjama stripes

Hey what's up?!
I've been a little sporadic with my posts but at the moment my coursework is taking up most of my life! It's my final year and all the grades count towards my final classification and there is no way I'm settling for a 2:1 lol.

Today I took a small break to do a quick stripy mani which reminds me of pyjamas even though my inspiration came from a shirt I got from H&M. Hope you like it!

I used Beauty UK Street Rose as the base, China Glaze First Mate (Anchors Away collection) and a white L.A. Colors striper for the stripes.

Calling all UK nail bloggers!

If you're a UK nail blogger please let me know by leaving your URL in the comments so I can follow you. I love reading blogs by those in foreign lands but I feel like I should know more about what's happening closer to home and seeing Boots, Superdrug and prices in £'s make me slightly warmer inside lol!!

Anna x

Haul!

Today the nail polish Gods must have been shining down on me for I found a set of Color Club polishes in TK Maxx! I've read they've been popping up in stores but never thought I'd find any since I hardly have time to go shopping and my local TK Maxx has quite a high turnover. So you can imagine my excitement at finding them but then to discover they were only £7.99 (This is cheap for the UK) just made me a little giddy! I don't even know where to get Color Club sets from in the UK (I know Sally's have the mini sets sometimes) so I'm wondering where on earth this stock came from! Anyway those in the UK get your butts down to your local TK Maxx asap, well as long as it's not my one. LOL

Oh I almost forgot... I got a set from the Back to Boho Collection! There are a gazillion swatches online for these but if anyone does want me to do swatches let me know!

Laws of attraction

I honestly thought I wouldn't be showing you a swatch of a magnetic polish because I was ready to admit defeat. From the moment I tried this polish I had nothing but fugly patternless results. For the life of me I just couldn't get the wave pattern I had seen all around. But then today I thought I'd give it one more go (this was probably the 6th time) and hey presto it worked. It's by no means perfect but I'm happy enough to actually wear the results for more than 10 mins!

Boots released their own magnetic polish a month or so ago and I picked up lilac. It's definitely not what I consider lilac but hey it's a nice colour so no complaints here. The cap, bottle, brush, even colour is the same as the Nails inc magnetic polishes but for half the price. How do I know it's the same, well I went to the Nails Inc counter and compared them side by side when no one was looking lol!! In the photo above you can see the wave pattern on the magnet. This is not usually seen but I think when I swiped it with acetone it took a layer of something off!
On the ring finger you can see a black spot which was from the polish raising off the nail and touching the magnet!
Now that I've figured out how to use this polish I'm really loving the 3D effect it has on the nails. When you move the nail the lines look like they're moving.
In case any other people have had difficulties with this polish here are a few tips:

1. It's up to you whether you use a base coat. I personally always where a base coat to minimise staining. If you do choose to use a base coat make sure it has dried properly.

2. Paint all your nails with a 'thin' coat of the magnetic polish. Don't worry if it's not even as this will not be noticeable. Allow this to dry.

3. Make sure you have your magnet ready next to you and the surface is clean as layers of dried polish could weaken the strength of the magnet and give you an uneven pattern.

4. Ensure you have a decent amount of polish on the brush so that you can cover your 1st nail but not to much so you have a pool on your nail. I think it's really important not to put a thick layer on.

5. Grab the magnet and hover the magnet over the polish and try to keep it as still as possible, Do not move it around because you'll end up with a black nail. Most of the lids have a lip for you to rest your cuticle on and to ensure you don't get too close to the magnet. Now I've found if you place a lot of polish on your nail and place your cuticle on the guide, the strength of the magnet can sometimes pull the polish off of your nail which is why I suggest just hovering. If you're sensible about the amount you used you can rest your finger on that guide, just don't get too close. Leave the magnet over the nail for at least 10 seconds.

6. Repeat on other nails one at a time.

7. Put a top coat on to make it extra glossy.

I hope these tips help someone and thanks for reading.

Ax

Models Own vs Accessorize

When I initially saw swatches of Models Own Pinky Brown I was sure we had a dupe on our hands. I couldn't have been more wrong as we shall see...

L-R: Models Own Purple Blue, Accessorize Aztec, Pink Spice and Models Own Pinky Brown

Pink Spice is way more pink where as Pinky Brown is almost purple in comparison. Pinky Brown is definitely more complex with no one colour really standing out like Pink Spice.

Please excuse my dry hands. I'm back on placement, washing my hands every 5 mins is taking it's toll.

I also decided to do a comparison of Models Own Purple Blue and Accessorize Aztec for you guys

Purple Blue has a brown base where as Aztec has a blue base. In certain light Aztec shifts to a very bright green where as Purple blue to a purple/magenta colour.

So what do you think?

Moustache Mani Monday!

During the month of November (or 'Movember') men around the world will be growing their 'taches to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. Unfortunately for us women it's quite difficult to grow a 'tache and join in, however Tracie over at The TraceFace Philes has come up with a novel way to show our support by proposing 'Moustache Mani Monday' where you paint moustaches on our nails. It's such a cute idea I couldn't resit joining in, so today I want to show you my moustache mani, hope you like it.

Here are some ideas if you're stuck.

Source: Google
Did you join in? Supply a link and let me see!!

And the winner is...

Firstly I just want to thank everyone who took the time to enter the competition to win the bottle of Beyu Shiraz. I'm completely amazed at the response with 186 of you entering! With all the extra entries the total came to 290, crazy!!! So who won...?

CONGRATULATIONS TARA!!
I've already emailed her and she's already responded so the bottle of Beyu Shiraz is winging its way to her on the other side of the pond!

Well done!!

It's nice to give and I've already got polishes for the next giveaway. Watch this space!

Beyu Giveaway reminder (NOW CLOSED) and Facebook

Hey guys I just wanted to remind you that this comp closes at midnight tonight (5th) my time (BST) so if you haven't entered you still have plenty of time. Good Luck x

Also I created a Facebook Page but I haven't got a clue what I'm doing with it but in case you guys are interested it's http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pretty-Digits/143404075760138?sk=wall Hope that works!

Models Own - Beetle Juice, Beetle Juice, BEETLE JUICE!!

I've lost the will to live!! LOL. It has literally taken me all day to find the best lighting setup that demonstrates the multichromey-ness of these polishes. Multichromes are a flipping pain in the ass to photograph at the best of times but I didn't want to do a half-hearted job because if I'm not going to do it properly I might as well not do it at all right?

Was the wait worth it? You decide...

Golden Green
I thought I'd start with my favourite, a gorgeous shimmery green that when held at certain angles gives you that luminous green you see in unicorn pee polishes. It glows like how I'd imagine toxic waste would.

Pinky Brown
Seen this before? MAC Bad Kitty? Accessorize Pink Spice? When I saw swatches of this online before release I had a feeling it was going to be very similar. I have Pink Spice so can do a comparison if anyone is interested. Pink spice may be a little more pink in my memory serves me correctly.

Aqua Violet

I personally think Models Own should have concentrated on shimmers and this one demonstrates why. Gorgeous Aqua that flashes violet without much effort.

Emerald Black

This is the least duo/multichrome of the bunch. On the nails IRL the effect is hardly noticable. Under strong light (enlarge the photo) you can see the green and the dark dark blue. If only they had made the green brighter more glowly this would have been my fav.

Purple Blue
The most difficult one to photograph and my least fav. The effect is very obvious but the colour combo is doing nothing for me.

So in summery some of the colours I feel 'meh' about which you've probably picked up on however I'm totally smitten with the golden green! I'm glad I got them all though because I like them as part of a skittle like my first pic!
It's funny that pinky brown is the only one to sell out but it's one that we've all seen before with dupes readily available!

[Extra info: Pinky brown and purple blue are both glass-fleck (is that what it's called) multichromes and both are very sheer. I used 3 coats to get full coverage so they may be better layered over a black base.
The other three are shimmers and required 2 generous coats (I think I applied 3 for good measure). Unfortunately these polishes contain those nasty chemicals we all hate but on the plus side they do dry pretty fast!]

Hope this post helps you guys decide which polishes to buy! Let me know your fav!

A x

To be continued...

Ah look what came this morning!

Swatches coming soon
A x

Fess up!

Ok guys fess up, who ordered the Models Own Beetlejuice collection today?! ;-)