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.

Picture Polish Denim

Picture Polish Denim is a wonderful periwinkle blue polish packed full of silvery flakies. This is just two coats of Denim with Seche Vite quick drying topcoat. Please excuse the less than perfect edges to this mani; it's one I did whilst on holiday last week on the Isle of Mull last week and I didn't take my clean-up brush!

The day I wore this mani I had one of the nicest tandem bicycle rides ever - about 45 miles around the North  part of Mull. It was a beautiful sunny day (it rained the rest of the week), and although some of the hills were steep and challenging, the views were spectacular. This is a *happy polish* now, I'll remember that day whenever I wear it! Previously it had been a less happy polish - it reminded me of the last time I wore it - on a cold, snowy day in December 2011 when I ended up with borderline hypothermia running a local fell race.

Here's a picture I took looking over Loch Na Keal towards Ben More when we stopped for a banana after the hardest climb of the day

View across Loch Na Keal, Mull, May 2013

I've had this polish for a couple of years, I bought it from a friend who got it sent from Australia but ultimately decided it it didn't suit her after all. Fortunately, Picture Polish products are easy to obtain outside of Australia now and this is still one of their core range - you can buy this polish from Llarowe (she ships worldwide).