I feel like nude nails never go out of style. They're simple, elegant and will go with absolutely anything.
I came up with this, 'Nude Nails With White Fishnet Gradient', a while ago and thought I would share it here today. It's a more subtle design than I usually wear but I love how it looks.
To find out how to create this design check out my video below, or for more nail art videos take a look at my YouTube channel! Let me know if you have any requests! :)
Today's NOTD is Barry M's 'Blueberry Ice-Cream'. I love Barry M polishes for their affordable pricing and creamy polishes and this one is no different. I used two coats for a full coverage finish but the texture of this one may have been slightly too thick or creamy as it did leave faint streaks on my nails, although nothing so serious that a clear top coat won't cover up and definitely nowhere near serious enough to put me off this polish!
The colour is a gorgeous sky blue, slightly more vibrant than a 'baby blue' which makes it stand out a bit more and the polish is without a doubt an opaque cream, there is not an ounce of shimmer or sheerness to it whatsoever.
A great polish for fingers or toes and would look fab if you have been out in the sun and caught yourself a bronzed tan!
9 more Christmas nail art inspiration photos have gone up on my Instagram since I last posted on here so I thought I would give an update of photos! :)
For day 8 of my #25NailsOfChristmas over on Instagram I decided to create cute red and white festive bows and this is what I came up with.
I love how it turned out, the design is really clean and I think the red pops well against the white background. I think the black outline helps with defining the bow stand out and giving it dimension and it almost makes the bow look a little cartoon-ish. I uploaded a tutorial onto my YouTube channel for anyone that wishes to re-create this design!
Let me know what you think and if you fancy giving this design a go tag me on Instagram or use #ibeautyboutique - I love seeing your re-creations! :)
I decided that over on my instagram page I would upload a Christmas inspired nail art design everyday in December until Christmas day under the hashtag #25DaysOfChristmas, below are some of the designs that I have already posted. Some already have tutorials up on my YouTube channel and others I will try and do a blog post on explaining what products and techniques I used. Check out my Instagram (@iBeautyBoutique) for Christmas nail inspiration everyday! And my YouTube for more nail tutorials!
As Christmas is coming up I thought I would share with you the designs that I created videos for in previous years! This design is a candy cane inspired water marble and I love how it turned out. I think the colours worked really well together, I tried to get the marble to be more like lines rather than swirls and I think that really worked. I topped this water marble off with a glitter polish for a bit of added sparkle.
Products used:
OPI - Alpine Snow
China Glaze - Winter Berry
Barry M - Spring Green
Rimmel London - Disco Gold
A cup of water
Toothpicks
Tape
Polish Remover
Cotton Pads/Buds
Let me know what you think of this design and if you give it a try! You can find me on Instagram or Facebook (iBeautyBoutique everywhere!) Tag me in any re-creations, I would love to see! :)
This electric blue has a
subtle shimmer to it and looks great on fingers and toes. For me, it’s one of
the staples in my collection as I am on my second bottle. I love a pop of bold
colour on my nails and that is definitely what this gives. I think it’s a great polish for all year round as its bright enough for summer but also has a deep tone to it that I think makes it suitable for the colder months too. It's a great polish to add a pop of colour to your favourite LBD and is fab for the party season!
What polishes do you think are good all year rounders?
Italian Love Affair by OPI has to be one of my most favourite polishes. Definitely a go to for me when I can't decide what to wear.
I'm not usually a fan of 'pearly' polishes but the sheen in this colour is so subtle I barely notice it.
I love how opaque this colour is and how it's vibrant enough to show a definite pink colour on your nails yet soft enough to leave it looking elegant and girly.
And as with most OPI polishes the quality is great, needing the average of two coats it lasts really well so it means I can get good wear out of the colour.
What's your 'go to' polish?
A couple of weeks ago I created this dots and bows nail art manicure. With the red in the background and the bows on each nail it makes me feel all festive!
Products used:
OPI Malaga Wine
White Acrylic paint
Black Acrylic Paint
Dotting tool
When I start playing about with my nails I often don't know what the finished look is going to be. Sometimes I have something in mind and other times I just have colours I feel like using. This was one of those days, I knew I wanted to create an ombre of yellow, orange and red (not that the red came out much!) but I also wanted something a bit more interesting on top. This is what I came up with...
It isn't meant to be inspired by The Hunger Games but it kinda makes me think of that anyway! Do you agree? I created the ombre on top of a white to really bring out the colours and then used my favourite top coat Seche Vite to speed up the drying process before adding the tape and black polish.
Products used:
OPI Alpine Snow
Barry M Yellow
OPI Juice Bar Hopping
OPI Big Apple Red
Makeup sponge
China Glaze Black Leather
Striping Tape
Seche Vite
It seems there are so many ways to create a chevron pattern on the nail and I think it looks really impressive. I decided to go along the route of painting polish onto plastic, letting it dry and then cutting strips with zig zag scissors. It definitely isn't the quickest way but I really like the manicure as a whole with the glitter ring finger.
This is an oldie but a goodie. I created this manicure a while ago, so forgive me if the video is super bad...it's makes me cringe to watch some of them so I'm going to put the video here with out watching it through *puts hands over eyes*
Vintage floral nails seem to be popular anytime of year and always look super cute whether they are done on all five fingers or just on accent nail.
As this was done a while ago I can't remember the products I used! Sorry!
I'm in love with this purple polka dot design I created and what makes it even better is that it's is SO simple to re-create, even though it looks super fancy! Take a look at my YouTube video if you feel like giving it a go, and if you do, don't forget to share it with me, I love seeing all your re-creations! You can fine me on instagram, facebook and twitter, I'm 'iBeautyBoutique' everywhere! :)
To me it kinda looks like a lace design, I think it would also look really cute and festive if you replaced the purple with the red. I will put a picture if I get a chance to give that colour combo a go!
Products used:
OPI Push and Pur-pull
OPI Alpine Snow
OPI Blue My Mind
White Striping Polish
Dotting Tool
I don't usually wear a lot of gel colours as I'm really indecisive and like to change my colour very frequently but I decided to go for Gelish's 'Make You Blink Pink' the other day as the sun was finally out.
It's definitely a Barbie pink, super bright and really fun. I've had other bright pinks before that come off with a slight orange tone to it which is why I love this colour as it is a definite pink.
I love that it is completely opaque and is almost neon. I painted on two coats with this colour and it gives full coverage.
I've added three photos as the colour looks different in each of them, I would say that the bottom photo resembles how it looks in person, although I think in person it comes out even brighter! What's your favourite Gelish colour?
I absolutely adore this colour from OPI's Euro Centrale collection. At first I wasn't sure if it would look too similar to their 'Do You Lilac It?' but 'You're Such A Budapest' is slightly lighter and has more of a pastel tone to it which definitely suits my skin tone a lot better.
The slightly blue-er tone to it brings me aways from describing it as a purple, I would say more of a light, bright violet, really pretty and a lovely colour for the spring/summer months. Gorgeous to wear on the toes too and would probably look even better on someone with a tan!
A while back I made a video for a nail art design that I saw Kelly Osbourne had been sporting 'Matte Black With Glossy French Tip' since then this video has been watched a lot, with thanks to my lovely subscribers!!
(and Kim Kardashian for also loving this look!) but the main question that I get asked is where you can get a matte top coat.
The first matte top coat that I bought and used in this video was by Rimmel London.
It's called 'Rimmel Pro Matte Top Coat' and is very affordable at £4.59 and worked great in the video although now that I have had it a while it seems to have stopped working quite so well and doesn't always give a very matte finish.
I have since bought OPI's matte top coat and absolutley love it.
It has a slightly higher price tag of £11.50 but the finish it gives somehow seems a lot more matte and the change from a glossy colour happens a lot faster.
If you are looking for a matte top coat I would definitely say that OPI has taken the edge out of these two with this although if you only want to try the look out and don't think you will get much more wear out of that look the Rimmel one isn't bad for the price and will help you re-create that look if that's all your buying it for. If you are planning on having a play about with it though and creating some nail designs yourself I suggest splashing out and treating yourself to the higher end OPI alternative.
I have searched out some other alternatives for anyone that can't get hold of OPI or Rimmel London which I will list below although have not tried myself:
Rimmel London - Rimmel Pro Matte Top Coat - £4.59
Nubar - Matte Finish Topcoat - £7.95
Essie - Matte About You - £8.99
Mavala - Colour Matte Top Coat - £9.50
Ciate - Mattnificent Matte Top Coat - £11
OPI - OPI Matte Top Coat - £11.50
Nails Inc - Westminster Bridge Matte Top Coat - £12
Deborah Lippmann - Flat Top Matte Maker Top Coat - £16
Let me know if you have tried any of the other matte polishes and what you thought of them!
Todays nail of the day is OPI's Gragantuan Green Grape, a creamy pastel green very similar to Essie's Mint Candy Apple.
OPI - Gargantuan Green Grape
Essie - Mint Candy Apple
Almost identical, although looking closely I would say that OPI's shade is slightly lighter with a hint more green to it, where as I would describe Essie's ever so famous shade as more of a turquoise as it has a smidge more of a blue tone to it.
OPI - Gargantuan Green Grape
For an opaque, creamy finish Gargantuan Greep Grape needs 3 thin coats as two still leaves it slightly streaky with transparent areas but as with most OPI polishes it has great staying power. I'm not sure which colour of the two I prefer though, I'm thinking that maybe Essie's Mint Candy Apple suits my skin tone a bit better although OPI's Gragantuan Green Grape I'm sure will look amazing on anyone with even a slight tan.
I recently received a request to film a video on how to create a quilted nail art look. After thinking about it I came up with three different ways to create the look.
1. The first was about the contrast of the colours, I used two different shades of pink and some striping tape to make sure I was able to get really neat lines.
2. For the second design I played about with texture, I painted my nail all black, gave it about 15 minutes so that the surface was dry and then used some flossing tape to carefully press into the polish to create a textured, quilted look.
3. Finally for the third I played about with different finishes. I used a teal for this one and finished off my nails with a matte polish. I then grabbed a long, thin nail art brush and a gloss top coat and painted on the quilted pattern.
I finished off each design with little silver balls to emphasise the quilted look.
My favourite is definitely the pink one. The striping tape makes sure that the lines stay really crisp and clean and the contrast of the colours makes it stand out a little more. Although, if you prefer either of the other two designs, remember NOT to put a top coat on as this will just completely hide all your hard work!
As ever, let me know what you think and if you try any of my designs then I would love to see a photo! :)
Todays Nail Of The Day is OPI's 'Are We There Yet?' which OPI describes as the 'perfect melon shade'. I bought this one online and it doesn't look quite as creamy as the bottle pictured on the internet but is a gorgeous colour none the less.
I would describe this polish as if a bright orange has been sheered out so that it doesn't look so full on.
The sheer-ness of it makes it a very wearable colour for everyday and I think it would suit many different skin tones, it also lasted really well and stayed on for about 5 days, which is good for me as I handle nail polish remover practically everyday!
The best way of procrastinating is definitely getting caught up on Youtube videos and quite a few of the girls that I had watched all had these gorgeous, summery, flower nail designs on which kept catching my eye. Investigating a little further I found out that they were Sally Hansens 'Spring Fever' Nail Strips.
After searching through my local Boots and Superdrug and coming out empty handed I decided Iw ould just have a go at creating my own. This is what I came up with and I'm pretty pleased with the result! :)
They were actually fairly easy to do, just quite time consuming to get the design on all 10 nails. I used a base coat of Alpine Snow by OPI and all the other colours on top were with acrylic paint making it easier to work with. And of course I filmed it to show you guys...
I would love if you gave it a go and sent me photos on Twitter or Facebook (both are 'iBeautyBoutique) it's a lot easier to re-create than it looks, plus it will save you money on buying the strips!
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