Blue and Plum gradient.............. with flakies and dots

Here's a mani that evolved over a few days!

I started out with this gradient, which I did with American Apparel Berry and Mount Royal:

Then after a couple of days I added this iridescent flakie, M&S Limited Collection 'Light Mix', along with a few randomly placed large dots in Barry M Matte Polish in Vanilla.

I was surprised to see the 'Light Mix' polish in my local M&S a couple of weeks ago, and immediately grabbed  bottle, thinking how pretty and unusual it was. It really didn't disappoint, the flakies shimmer all shades of the rainbow and lie nice and flat to the nail. The range of colours reflected in this seems perfect as a topper for a gradient too.  And Barry M Vanilla is awesomely opaque for big dots too - this one seems to be as good as Barry M Lychee for nail art. Vanilla is a darker and cooler shade than Lychee, and leans more towards pinky grey. Here's a dotticure I did with Barry M Lychee recently. I'd consider these *very useful* shades in my nail art pallete - they're so opaque and easy to work with!

The American Apparel polishes were part of a gift from a friend earlier this year; I purchased M&S Limited Collection Light Mix from my local M&S and Barry M Matte Vanilla from my local Boots.

Femme Fatale Hydraxia

Femme Fatale Hydraxia over Barry M Countess

This is the last of the lovely glitters Femme Fatale sent me for review. The others I've tried are Spindleweb (another teal glitter topper, but with a strong green shimmer in its base), Lime Thief (a pretty lime green crelly with bright, matte glitters) and Snapvine (a teal crelly with lime and magenta glitter).

Hydraxia is a glitter topper with teal, blue and yellow glitters in various sizes. Most of the swatches I've have been over a blue or teal base; I wanted to try something a bit different but I'd been lacking inspiration, hence this polish is the last one of the four to get used. The base is tinted teal, which rules out a light base that isn't teal, blue or greenish. However, I had a sort of eureka moment when I added topcoat to Barry M Countess (a dark burgundy textured polish) - this really came alive with sparkle and just called out for a bit of blue and yellow! So it was Hydraxia's moment. Here's Hydraxia in the bottle:

And over Countess:

Femme Fatale Hydraxia over Barry M Countess

The application of Hydraxia is good, even with the sample size bottle. The glitter is very dense, so no fishing required and the polish spreads easily over the nail. Because the glitter was so dense, I used two coats of Gelous to smooth it out before adding a thick coat of Seche Vite.

Here's how it looks in macro view

Femme Fatale Hydraxia over Barry M Countess

Femme Fatale Hydraxia was sent as a sample for review. You can buy Hydraxia direct from Femme Fatale; they do ship international but shipping works out quite expensive unless you are buying a few bottles. There are details of international suppliers on the website.

I purchased Barry M Countess at my local Superdrug; I'll have a post up about that polish on it's own soon, as it's pretty awesome :)

Orange dots!

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots

I'm getting more and more fond of dots! For this bright, jolly mani I used a base of Zoya Jacqueline and added big dots using an old Dior Addict polish, Orange Artifice. I love the finished effect! Not much more to say about this - here are a few pictures from various angles......

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots

After a couple of days I decided to add a bit of black. I was going to add zebra stripes, but when I started freehanding stripes on my thumb I thought that much  black overpowered the dots, and, because the mani had plenty of topcoat on, I was able to remove the bit of black polish I'd applied before it dried properly without too much damage. So I added black glitter instead - I chose Nail Laquer UK Dog Days which is a variety of black hexes, squares and microglitter in a clear base with a sprinkling of multicoloured glitter in various sizes, shapes and finishes (matte, holo, metallic) to give it a bit of extra interest.

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots with Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days

I love this glitter - I'm a great fan of all black glitter but I think the touch of bright colours really adds an extra lift. I used two coats of Nail Laquer UK Dog Days for this mani, smoothed out with a coat of Gelous and a final coat of Seche Vite quick drying top coat.

Zoya Jacqueline with orange dots with Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days

I purchased Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days from AJ's Etsy Shop. I've had the orange Dior about ten years and Zoya Jacqueline was a gift from a friend this Spring.

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