Ombré!

Ombré gradient nails!

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be on an 'effect' that I've only actually tried recently. It's the ombré effect using the sponge method. I see most effects being done when I'm browsing YouTube (I love seeing collection and storage videos)!
I had tried doing these nails before and I don't think I had enough patience with doing them as you need to do more than one 'dab', especially if you don't use a base colour (which I usually don't).

I had planned on doing this post on my second attempt of ombré but since completing the post I have done another manicure using the effect.

I wish I had kept the sponge to do a pictorial to show you all how I did this look but if you go on to YouTube there are so many sponge techniques on how to do this!

I only chose to do the ombré effect on the ring finger just for quickness, but on all the other nails I just did one of each of the colours used in the ombré effect. Followers of my Instagram would have already seen these nails.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!

Sinful Green!

Sinful Green!

Good evening everyone! I'm obviously not doing very well with keeping up with these blog posts lately!
Just like my previous post, followers of my Instagram will have already seen these nails, but I thought it might still be worth writing a post on them in case you wanted to recreate them or something similar!

So create this look I used two coloured polishes and of course a top and base coat! The under colour I used was one that I bought on holiday from a brand that I had never heard off called Catrice. It's colour 35 - petrolpolitan. It's just a kind of shimmering green shade. The glitter shade on the top is called Nail Junkie and it by Sinful Colours. I only just discovered Sinful Colours really and I only have two of their polishes, but so far I really really like them!
I'm sure any darker shade of green would look great as a base for the Sinful Colours glitter over the top. Black would look quite nice too, probably create quite a galaxy effect.

I hope you all like this polish!

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!

Neutral Pink!

Pretty pink nails!

Good evening everyone! Tonight I am going to do a post on my nails that I did a couple of days ago. Followers of my Instagram will have already seen them but for everyone else here they are!

I think after doing this manicure, I've realised that doing pink nails with a glitter ring fingernail is probably one of my most favourite manicures, especially with bring pink too! There are quite a few similar shades within the Nails Inc brand which are pinkish or whiteish, and I think they're very elegant! This pink shade polish is called Elizabeth Street. I have done two coats of this polish but I think a lot of the shades similar need a couple more coats. On my ring finger I have used Electric Avenue, and it's a fine silver glitter jam packed with very small particles. There is also another shade called Maida Vale which is quite similar but has bigger chunks of glitter (also gorgeous).

Sorry it's not a very long post this evening but the last thing I will say is that I chose to do these nails originally because I thought it matched my engagement ring beautifully! (When I was on holiday with my partner, he proposed! :-D)
 

I hope you like these nails!

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!

Holiday nails!

Orange and sparkles!

Hey everyone! I think it has become quite obvious that I'm becoming the worst bblogger ever! Ever since Instagram has come in to my life, I have been sharing photos of my nails through there and not writing about them. I'll put my link at the end of this post in case any of you reading this are on there because I love seeing other people bblogger pictures too!

Right, so I got back from Tenerife two days ago and I decided on orange nails! I added an accent glitter nail too. When I got on holiday I did notice that a lot of other ladies had orange nails too, so it was obviously a popular summer colour this year!

Half way through my holiday, after being in the sun and in and out of the pool, the orange started to go lighter around the edges, so I did one more layer whilst away to refresh it. To be honest it was quite difficult to only stick to one colour whilst away but imagine if I took all of my polishes!? LOL.

Both of the colours I used are by Nails Inc. The orange shade is called 'Hobart Place' and the glittery shade is called 'Hammersmith'. This glitter shade is great and will go with most polishes as it's got silver in it so it's reasonable neutral. If you're familiar with Nails Inc you'll know the glittery colour 'Maida Vale', and I would compare the glittery shade I used to that but with a bluey green hint!

I used OPI Nail Envy - Original as a base. I absolutely love using the matte polish for a base but after purchasing multiple collections from OPI that include a Nail Envy, I thought it was about time I started using them. I think I have two open and at least two unopened at the moment, so I need to use them before going back and ordering matte ones.
I did two coats of each polish to give full coverage. I finished with Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat.

My nails matched EastJet and the all inclusive wrist band! Happy coincidence!

Well I hope this was a good return to blogging blog!
As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!

White!

White nails!
Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be on a new white polish I bought this week! I didn't actually own a plain white polish, they were all pinkish or brownish. I do like those shades but I was looking for a true white! The one I went for is by OPI and is called Alpine Snow.

So admittedly this really isn't one of the neatest manicure's I've done, and I only kept it on for a day before changing it! I have used two coats of the polish to get this look, but I think on some of the nails it could of done with 3 coats.
This colour would be amazing for a base for things like chunky glitter, nail graffiti or under a colour that isn't thick enough to cover the whole nail. (When you hold your hand to the light and you can still see under the free-edge.)
I used OPI Nail Envy matte for my base coat which is my favourite base coat, and I finished off with Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat!

I hope this helps for anyone that is looking to buy this polish, or just a white polish in general!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!

Confetti Top Coat!

Black and white!

Good evening everyone! I thought I would do a post on my nails that I did this week. I have changed them since to Baker Street since, but because I have already done a post on those I thought that would be a bit boring lol! So I have been looking at the polish I used for this for a long time so I kind of impulse bought it when I was in boots last!
It's a polish by L'oreal that is called 'Top Coat Confetti'. It consists of a slightly shimmery clear base with black and white bits in. I wouldn't describe it as a glitter polish because the particles aren't actually glittery, they're just more of a block colour with a slight matte finish.

To create this look I started with a base of OPI Nail Envy matte. This is probably my favourite polish to use as a base as it's matte and you can see when you're able to start applying polishes! It's also an amazing treatment for the nails which I adore. I then applied one coat of Nails Inc Black Taxi. If I was wearing just Black Taxi I would have done two coats but as I was adding another coat with the confetti I thought it would be too easy to peel off if I did two coats of black polish. I then did one coat of the confetti, which I found easier to 'blob' on. Yes, that's a technical term lol! I did have to keep putting the lid back on and giving it a shake because it did have quite a thick consistency. I then finished off with one coat of Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat! It made it really glisten and made the matte particles shine!

I hope you all like this look!
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)
- Instagram - RiaHughesThen -

I love juicy!

Reddish! 

Good evening everyone! I haven't been great at doing posts lately, I've had a week or so 'off''! I recently ordered a Today's Special Value from QVC which was from Leighton Denny and it was an absolute bargain for what was included!
I have tried out two of the colours at once (ring finger), and the colour that I'm doing this post on is called 'I love juicy'. I believe that this is one of Leighton Denny's best selling polishes. It's kind of a hard colours to explain! It's probably just looked upon as a red polish, but I think it definitely has a burnt orange or coral tone running through it.

So with this collect I got, it included a duo 'pen' of basecoat and top coat. I have used both of these to create this look. The basecoat is a matte finish one which I really like using as I feel the polish 'sticks' to the nails more! I then did two coat of the 'I love juicy' shade. I then did one coat of the crystal finish top coat which give an amazing glossy finish. Where I am quite impatient with the drying of my nails, I did then add an additional layer of my usual Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat. Adding this really did just finish the look off and give another layer of gloss!
I was really impressed with this shade and I would say it for sure is making it's way to being one of my favourite red tone shades!

I hope you all like this look!
I am also now on Instagram (RiaHughesThen), so on days I don't do a post I may still post nail pictures! Feel free to follow!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Pink & sparkly!

Glittery nails!

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be another on my current nails. I have changed them a couple of time since doing this post but I'm quite a fan of these that I've done! I think the sun that we had (had, not now lol), has inspired me to have more pinkish nails and summery colours. I think that I got the pink for the look I have on at the moment from QVC in a special value kit that they did a while back. It also came with the express remover which is the first place I'd got it to try it out!

So the pink that I have used is called 'Campden Hill Road'. I would describe this colour as grey pink, if that makes any sense! It's definitely not a bright pink and it's not close to a purple shade.
Over the top of two coats of pink, I used one coat OPI Which is Witch? which is from The Great and Powerful Oz collection. If you haven't seen my post on this silvery glitter, you can see it by clicking here!
This glitter is great with most colours, as long as they're quite glossy. I haven't actually tried it with metallic shades but in my head it just doesn't work lol. In the past I've used this glitter with neutral greige shades and black which both look really nice!
I finished this look off with Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat. I did leave it for a few minutes before putting a top coat on because if I put it on straight away, the nail might still be quite wet/tacky which will contradict the fast drying top coat to some degree.

I hope you all like this look, and if you wanted to see the colour without the glitter just let me know, in case you wanted to see what it looks like without the glitter on it's own.

I also have a post on my pink polishes, so if you wanted to see them too you can do that by clicking here!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Polish count!

How many...?

Good evening everyone! I haven't done a post in a couple of days, and I've only painted my nails once since trying out all of the InStyle shades. So I thought today I would do a post on all of the polishes I have. I haven't counted them all in a while so it was about time I did a count up!
So I counted them all by brand and then added them altogether. I think I will write them down by brand here instead of just putting a number, so you can see the number of each that I have. So I will write them out as bullet points because I think that just makes it a lot easier to read..
► Leighton Denny - 5

► Orly - 4

► OPI - 11
► BarryM - 41
► Nails Inc - 131
► Miscellaneous minis - 14

► Miscellaneous standard sizes - 55

► Various top/base coats - 20

So my calculations round that up to 281! In a way I thought I might of had more, but either way I guess that's quite a lot of polishes (lol). Some of the brands included in the miscellaneous category are No7, China Glaze and George. Admittedly I don't use them as much as the Nails Inc, OPI, BarryM and Leighton Denny colours!

 I don't really have anywhere to store the majority of my polishes. I've seen a lot of storage videos on YouTube and in all honesty I'm really jealous of the way some people are able to store their collections! In the future I would love to have mine on a wall, mounted. That way I would be able to have them in an order and be able to see them all at once!
The way I store my polishes is basically in a massive Soap and Glory bag and one smaller one. If I have an idea of the colour I want to paint my nails, it's sometimes annoying to have to empty the whole bag out just to get to one lol. That's normally about the time I get sidetracked and end up changing my mind n what I will use that evening!

Well I hope you haven't found this boring to read, I just thought it would be something a little bit different to write about! :-)

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

InStyle - 3 - Peach

InStyle peach!

 

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be the final 'instalment' of the colours available from InStyle Magazine this month (May)! This colour is called 'You're A Peach', which compared to the other names included in these 'give away's' isn't actually a bad name lol. Although all of the colours that they're giving away are classed as summery, in my opinion this is the most summery of the three.

So as you can see from the picture above, I've done something a little bit different with this colour. The picture on the left if just with the one shade. I've done two coats of the coloured polish. I used a basecoat of OPI Nail Envy matte. In the picture on the right I have applied one coat of Nails Inc nail jewellery diamond over the top. The reason I've done this is because the orangey/peach shade is reasonably similar to Nails Inc Wellington Square.
If you don't know this colour or want to see the similarities, you can see my post on it by clicking here. I did the glitter just so it didn't look exactly the same as when I used a similar colour and it could possibly make the polish last longer and maybe even prolong the wear or prevent chipping.

I hope you like this look, and if you haven't already, go and get them and try them for yourself. For the price of £3.90 you can't go wrong, considering they're usually retailed for around £11ish each! :-)

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

InStyle - 2 - Pink

InStyle pink!

Good evening everyone! Tonights post is going to be on the pink shade that they're giving away in this months InStyle magazine. It is the one in the picture on the left. I have already done a post on the red polish from the magazine, which you can see by clicking here.
So, the pink in the picture is super light, kind of like a candyfloss pink, and I would say it borders on a 'white' shade. It also has quite a cringey name, it is called 'Totes Pink' lol!


To create this look I used a basecoat of OPI Nail Envy matte. I then did two coats of the polish. With this colour and it being so light, you can't really get away with using just one coat. It leave gaps in the nail and doesn't cover the entire nail plate. I then finished the polish off with Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat.
Admittedly, Nails Inc have a lot of similar shades to this, but to be honest I think this one has been one of the nicest to apply (not that the others are horrible lol!)
This colour would be amazing with a tan, and give the illusion of a tan where it's such a light colour. I have done another post with light nails which you can see by clicking here, to see the difference/similarities in the colours!

 I hope you all like this look!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

InStyle - 1 - Red

InStyle red!

Good evening everyone! This post is going to be on one of the three colours that are available in this months InStyle magazine. If you haven't yet tried any Nails Inc polishes, I would say this is the perfect time for you to try them! The usual Nails Inc polish retails for around £11, so for the price of a magazine, you get the polish for 'free'. The magazine is only £3.90.

So as you can see by the header of this post, I'm going to start with the red polish. I've wanted to paint my nails red for a while so as I got this one from the magazine, it just seemed obvious to use this one!


So if you're a Nails Inc fan, you'll know what I mean when I say that this polish instantly reminded me of 'St James' until I applied it. I think this polish has a lot less of a shimmer running through it. It's a real true popping, strawberry red! If you only do one coat of polish, it will still leave your fingernail visible when held towards the light (if you have a free edge).

This polish is called 'It's red babez' which I find quite a cringey name (lol), as it's not the normal places in London names as usual!

 

To create this look I did one basecoat of OPI Nail Envy matte, then I applied two coats of the red polish. It really does need two coats to make the polish go even over the nail and show the true colour. I then applied one layer of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails to make the red look plump and thick. I then finished with one coat of Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat to make it all fast drying and seal in the colour.

If you haven't already seen my 'red' post, you can see all of the other reds I have and what they look like compared to this, click here.

I hope you all like this look! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Summery orange!

Wellington & glitter!

Good evening everyone! Sorry for the delay in posts over the past couple of days. I haven't changed my nail colour as it's lasted pretty well, so it seemed a shame to remove it! Also I had work today so I've only just got the chance today to do this post.
This post is just on my current polish, so I will try and write as much as I can about it!

The colours I have used to do this look are both from a One Time Only collection from QVC.
They're called Wellington Square and Maida Vale. They're both colours by Nails Inc, my absolute favourite nail polish brand!

As you can see in the picture above, Wellington Square is a super summery pastel orange. It can really give the illusion of a tan! (strange, I know, but true)! Maida Vale is an amazing full coverage silvery/blue glitter. It would look amazing over every toe for a super sparkly pedicure, or just like I've done as a simple ring finger effect!
I started off this look with a base coat of OPI Nail Envy matte and I finished off with one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails and then Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat.

I hope you all like this look!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Fine sprinkles!

Neutral sprinkles!Good evening everyone. Tonight's post is just going to be a quick one on the nails I did yesterday. They're done using one of the pale tones of the fine sprinkles effect.

If you haven't seen my sprinkles post, you can see it by clicking here.

This polish isn't featured in my sprinkles post but it has the same kind of effect as the ones on the bottom row.
It is called 'Langham Street'. It is an offish white colour with a silver glitter running through it. It's like wearing a glitter coat on the top but it's all in one!
To create this look I used OPI Nail Envy matte as a base, then I applied two coats of the coloured polish so you get the true depth of colour. I then used Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat to give an amazing shine. This colour really needs a topcoat with a lasting shine because some of the glitter particles or the base colours can go slightly matte.

I hope you all like this look!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Summer nails!

Yellow and Blue
Good afternoon everyone! Sorry for the delay in posts over the past couple of days. After I did my nails with the green emerald nail jewellery, they lasted really well and it seemed a waste to remove them when they looked perfectly fine! If you didn't see that post you can click here to see it.
So as you can probably see by the header of this post, I have painted my nails yellow and blue. I haven't done yellow nails much in the past as I sometimes find that you have to put so many coats on to give a full coverage to the nail, but with the polish I have use, I only needed two coats of this yellow polish to create the ideal look.
On my ring finger, I used my new blue sprinkles which arrived with my Nails Inc One Time Only value from QVC! By doing a different colour on the ring finger, it's not just to incorporated a nail effect, but it's just a really good way of using another polish at the same time which you may have got recently!

So the colours that I have used to create this look are from Nails Inc. They're called 'Notting Hill Carnival' which is a really sunny, summery yellow and 'Pudding Lane' which is a blue sprinkles which has another shade of blue glittery particles and a yellowish gold glitter, which I think is why I thought these colours would go together because they both Incorporated yellow! If you haven't seen my post on sprinkles, you can see it by clicking here.

To create this look, I started with a base coat of OPI Nail Envy matte. I then did two coats of the yellow polish on all the nails, apart from the ring finger. On the ring finger I did two coats of the sprinkles polish! I then finished off with a top coat, Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat!

Other brands that could create the yellow part of this look are 'Neon Yellow' by Barry M, OPI The 'It' Colour and George at Asda's yellow shade!

I really like this look and it's really summery! I hope you like it too!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Emerald nails!

Emerald Nail Jewellery
Good evening everyone! I have had such a busy weekend and now I've only just got the chance to actually write a post! I did these nails last night and they've lasted fine through the night and day, today (which is when I pictured them!) My previous nails, that you can see by clicking here, lasted amazingly! They were still 'wearable' for at least 3 days without any problems.
On Friday, my QVC One Time Only value set arrived and I've now had the chance to start trying them out, as I was at my friends birthday party on the Friday. That is when I got inspired for these nails on this post!
I have done a jewellery polish post before (you can see that by clicking here). I was quite late to get these polish effects after they came out, and I wish I'd got them sooner as they're amazing!
The polish that I have on now is the Emerald Jewellery effect by Nails Inc over the top of a dark shade (e.g. Black Taxi, Chelsea)

So to create this look I started with OPI Nail Envy matte, then I did one coat of Nails Inc 'Chelsea'. I would have used Nails Inc 'Black Taxi' if I wasn't too tired to look for it lol! I then did one coat of the Emerald jewellery shade which is called 'Piccadilly Aracade'. I finished off with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, and then Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat!
I really like the randomness of the particles in this polish and how all the different speckles catch the light.

I hope you all like this look!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHugheThen)

Pink and sprinkles!

Sweets Way!

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be on my current nails! I've had these nails for a couple of days now and I'm hoping they're going to last another few days!

The colours/polishes I've used are 'Sweets Way' which is a beautiful pink, blue and purple coloured multi-sprinkle and I also use a baby pink that I got from InStyle magazine so I'm not 100% sure of the name.

If you haven't already seen my post on 'sprinkles', click here to see it!

I have used OPI Nail Envy in matte as a basecoat. I used two coats of the pink shade, leaving it to dry between coats, just because where it's a really light colour, it's easier to leave it between to dry slightly. I then did one coat of the sprinkles shade on the ring finger as an accent, which really picked up the pink colour that was used under it and it all blends well and looks nice together! Admittedly, these kind of pink shades are really hard to get neat and maintain, but with a steady hand and a good top coat it's not so bad! I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails over the top and then Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat. I have done another layer of these top coats in between days too which I think has helped with the longevity of the polish!

I hope you like this look!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Polished gels!

Gel nails!
Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be another post on my friends nails! Alex has gels over her natural nails, and it was the first time I have painted false nails! Also, Alex usually has quite small nails, so that was different too!  They were really nice to paint and it was quite easy to keep a good shape to the polish.

The picture above includes the three polishes I used. They are OPI Nails Envy, Models Own (my only one!) and Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat!



The picture above shows the finished polish. I did two coats of the Models Own shade, to show the true depth of colour.

I hope you all like this look!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Polish stand!

Polishes on show!

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is just going to be a quick, brief one on what I have on show in my room in a rainbow form on a stand. I got this personalised stand from my amazing friend Chelsea for my birthday!

So as it shows in the picture, I have picked Nails Inc colours in a rainbow format! This stand has 3 shelves, but I have used the one in the middle for cotton balls. I would also use this stand for things like emery boards, base and top coats and remover. It's such a nice thing to have on show and show off your favourite polish related products! :-)

I hope you love it as much as I do!
Feel free to comment or tweet me! (@RiaHughesThen)

Black sprinkles

Rosemoor Street

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is a late one because until about an hour or so ago, I was watching Nails Inc on QVC, seeing if there was any bargains! It turns out there was and I managed to get the One Time Only value item, which I will share with you all when it arrives! So back to this evening! Last night I did a post on sprinkles and the different ones there are, and effects. If you didn't see that post you can see it by clicking here.
Last night before doing that post, I painted my nails with 'Rosemoor Street' which is one of the most amazing effect polishes I own! It has a black base undertone and includes light catching shimmery particles of glitter within the polish itself!
Before I found this polish, I would create a similar look using THREE different polishes, which didn't go very well because where there was so much polish, including a top and base coat, all it did was nick in the corners and peel off!

So, the picture on the left is of the polish in the bottle, and admittedly, it looks quite dull and boring but it really is everything BUT that!

With this polish, I like to use a dark polish, preferably black underneath and the one coat of 'Rosemoor Street' over the top. That way, I can ensure that the base colour is a true, deep black colour, an none of the plain nail underneath is showing!

Again like most times, my photography skills haven't done me many favours, but I'm sure you can see the finished look on the nails!

To start, I used OPI Nail Envy matte as a base coat. I then did one coat of 'Black Taxi' which is the truest black I have ever come across. I then did one coat of 'Rosemoor Street'. To finish, I used one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails to add a gel thickness effect, and then one coat of Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat to lock in all the polish, gloss shine and dry as quick as possible!

I hope you all like this look!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Sprinkles!

Sprinkle variety!

Good evening everyone! I'm going to try and do quite an in depth post tonight because I didn't do one last night! Tonight's theme is going to be on 'sprinkles' effects! There are a few different effects in this category, and the ones I own are; original sprinkles that have one base/background colour with added glitter and matte speckles, metallic shiny sprinkles with added shimmer but also with glitter speckles and finally the last type that I own are colours with a pastel base colour, and super fine glitter particles which adds a dimensional effect when applied!

 

So the picture above shows all of the ones I own, I think they're quite easy to see although it really isn't the best picture!
I'm going to do the names of all of the polishes, just in case you wanted to look at it more in depth on Google or Nails Inc.
Top row; 'Bakers Row', 'Sweets Way', 'Sugar House Lane' and 'Topping Lane',
Middle row; 'Lavender Close', 'Paulton's Square', 'Fernshaw Road' and 'Rosemoor Street',

Bottom row; 'Little Portland Street', 'Market Place' and 'Devonshire Place'

Some similarities between these different types of sprinkles are for example, 'Sugar House Lane' with 'Devonshire Place' and  'Topping Lane' with 'Little Portland Street', these colours are very similar and the bottom row is a 'filed' down version of the top row. The good thing about these being similar is that when you wear the colour from the bottom row, a colour from the top row would look amazing as a ring finger accent! Any of these colours look great as an accent to the base colour of the polish, for example green with 'Fernshaw Road'. An example of this was in my previous post, which you can see by clicking here.
I have painted my nails with 'Rosemoor Street' but I will put about them in a separate post!

I hope you like these sprinkles and the ideas with them!
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Topping lane!

Pink sprinkles!

Good evening everyone. I've been wanting to do a post on sprinkles for a while, but I still haven't done one (lol), but what I have done is an accent of sprinkles on my ring finger, which I have done before on my 'mint' coloured post. If you haven't seen that post, you can see it by clicking here. If you like pink nails, you can also see my 'pink' post by clicking here.
So I have used to Nails Inc polishes to create this look. I have chosen a pink shade that's quite close to the pink in the sprinkles!

I started with OPI Nails Envy in matte. The 'base' colour that I have used for all the nails, including under the sprinkles is by Nails Inc and called 'Marble Arch'. I think that I would definitely describe this colour as borderline purple. It's more on the 'rich' pink side, rather than the more pale, 'barbie' pinks (which I also love!) I have done two coats of this colour on all of the nails apart from the ring finger, which only needed one due to the sprinkles going over the top, and I didn't want to risk peeling! So I used one coat of the sprinkles shade which is also by Nails Inc and called 'Topping Lane'. It really is a great colour/effect and I would recommend it to anyone who loves subtle effects or a slight glitter effect to the nail, as it has all of those values all in one bottle! The sprinkles effect looks great on all of the nails, and I have seen some other peoples nails after using them, and they look amazing! I do appreciate it as an accent to the fingernails, as an extra pop of colour too! I finished off this look with one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails polish, and one coat of Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat, to seal in shine and dry quickly!

 

I will be doing another post another time on all of the other sprinkles and sprinkle-like effects that I own because there are probably more than you think, including more glittery shades and fine particle sprinkles for a super subtle look!

I hope you like this look!
As always if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Feathers friend!

Henley Feathers!

Good evening everyone! Tonight's post is going to be one on the toe nails I did earlier on today on my friend @GemmaYapp. I haven't done a post just dedicated to toe nails yet so I'm happy that this is my first one!After about a 20 minute search through all of my Nails Inc (mainly) bag, Gemma decided on Nails Inc 'Henley' feathers, which is an exclusive shade to QVC that came in the 7 piece Fast Fashion Collection. This colour can be used as a full coverage shade, or as a 'glitter' top over another shade. We chose to use Nails Inc 'Basil Street' underneath because it's a gorgeous neutral, and you can see hints of it under the feathers!

 

 

So as I do with most polishes, I started off with OPI Nail Envy in matte! I then did just one coat of 'Basil Street'. If I was only doing a one colour polish on the nails, I would usually do two coats for a deep full coverage. Where I am using a polish over the top, using just one coat as an 'accent' or 'hidden' colour is absolutely fine! I then did one coat of 'Henley' feathers which as given an amazing glistening shine. It looks like it gives more of a shiny foil effect effect. I finished off with one coat of Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second top coat for a quick dry!
I really like this look and I think I'll definitely be trying it on my own nails!
Thank you for letting me experiment Gemma! :-)

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Mighty minty!

Mint green!

Good (late) evening everyone! Sorry for the delay in posts over the past couple of days. Tonight I'm doing a post on nails I did the other day, which lasted chip free for two days, even whilst at work which really impressed me. Usually when I want polish to last whilst at work, I have to pile on glitter top coats, but I started using a top coat that I featured in a previous post and it's turning in to a hero product! That top/basecoat is the Sally Hansen Hard as Nails polish! After doing two coats of polish and then my usual fast drying top coat, I have been using the Sally Hansen polish after to add a plumping effect. I followed by another fast drying top coat to quicken the drying time. By doing this, it has prolonged the time my nail polish has stayed on my nails!

I don't usually go for bright pastels because they're either hard to maintain to don't go on very smoothly but after using the Sally Hansen topcoat, it's really changed my mind!
The colour (pictured above) is called 'Royal Botanical Gardens'. It is a lot brighter and

green-like than the picture. This shade is by Nails Inc!

I started off by using OPI Nails Envy matte, then applied two coats of the colour polish. I followed by one coat of Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat, then Sally Hansen Hard as Nails followed by another layer of Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat. I know it seems like a lot of layers, but it truly does prolong the wear of the polish!

I hope you all like this look!

If you have any questions or comments, as always you can leave the below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Pinkish!

Pink!
Hey everyone! I thought tonight I would do a post on just one specific colour as I have done before! Tonight's chosen colour is pink! Until I was preparing to do this post, I didn't actually realise how many pink polishes I actually have! Altogether, I have 22 pink polishes which include all different brands! Instead of writing a list of the brands of polishes I own, I'll just put the picture next!

Some of the effects in these pink polishes include cream gloss, glitters, crackle, sprinkles and graffiti. I don't think I have a favourite pink polish, and I would say I wear pink on my toe nails rather than finger nails! The Barry M's and Avon polishes are probably a few of the older ones I own, and admittedly I don't choose them a lot, especially over my favourite brand (Nails Inc!) The middle polish on the bottom row is a charity colour from Nails Inc called 'Pinkie Pink' which is a gorgeous glitter that was created to raise money for Breast Cancer Campaign! I've created a picture of some of the looks I've created using pink colours!...

I really like the look created in the top left picture with the accent blue glitter ring finger! The look created in the top right picture was from when my work were raising money for breast cancer charities and as always I like to do the nails to match!

You can also see my posts for blue nails and red nails by clicking on the colours!

Well I'm hoping I've inspired some of you to get painting you nails pink because I think it's quite an underrated fingernail colour!

As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Deeper shade of blue!

Feeling positively blue!

Good evening everyone! Another late one from me but it's here finally lol! Tonight's post is just going to be another one of what nails I've done tonight after work! I was going to do plain black tonight, but as always I get sidetracked whilst looking through my polish bag! So the colour that caught my eye tonight was one from Nails Inc called 'Convent Garden' which is a deep deep blue-ish green. It can be mistaken for black but if it's along side a black polish, you can definitely see the difference. (Well, I can, not being bias or anything!) I also added an accent to the ring finger with a glitter shade from Orly called 'Angel Eyes'. This was also the first Orly shade that I actually bought! I think that adding the Orly shade to all of the fingernails would be a really nice, subtle look, but I quite like it as just an accent. As I do with most of my nail applications, I started with OPI Nail Envy in matte and I finished off with Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying topcoat (hero products!)

Well I hope you all like this look, and of course if you have anything you want to ask, feel free to comment in the box below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Lightest light!

White!

Hey everyone! I said to myself that I wasn't going to do a post today and I would just do a really good one tomorrow, but as I've just finished doing my nails and I'm still awake enough to write, I thought I would do one now on my current nails! I got inspired to do these nails by my friend Alex. When I saw her earlier she was looking for a white-ish pinkie colour, so since I've seen her do hers, I wanted to do mine!
So I've chosen a Nails Inc colour called 'Fitzrovia' which is a really really neutral pale cream white shade. I know that's a lot of words to describe a nail colour but when you see it, it might make it a bit understandable!

So admittedly, these really are not the neatest nails I have ever painted due to the opaqueness of the shade! On some nails I had to go ahead and do a third coat because I could still see some of the streaks from the brush! This colour would look amazing with a plain silver glitter over the top, or even a multicoloured glitter over the top of just the ring finger! I started off painting my nails with a basecoat of OPI Nail Envy matte, and finished off the polish with Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat, to seal in the colour, add shine and dry as quick as possible! I would also like to add Sally Hansen Hard as Nails over the top to give a thick plumping effect to the nails, but I feel like there is enough polish on my nails at the moment that if I add more it might have a tendency to peel!
Sorry for not doing more of in depth post, I will do a better one soon! :-)
 

As always if anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Shopping haul!

Mini Haul!




Hey everyone! Tonight's post is going to be a bit different as it's just going to be about some of the nail related things I purchased today! I only did my nails yesterday so it seems like a waste to take that off already. I purchased these items from Sally's and Boots.

So the first thing I bought was as simple as a manicure bowl. Not as interesting as some of the things I've got in the past lol but it's literally just for soaking your nails prior to cuticle work! The next thing is kind of related to the first purchase, I got some 'soak balls'. Basically, they're just mini fizz balls that you would normally get for a bath, but smaller! They include antioxidants, wonderful ingredients such as tea tree, jojoba and pomegranate, which has been said to help promote skin renewal! In conjunction to the 'soak balls', I purchased some Skin Truth Salon Manicure revitalising hand soak, just so I can see which one I prefer of the two. The hand soak includes orange blossom and rosemary.

As always when visiting Sally's, I feel like I can't leave without buying a nail polish! Today was no exception to that rule! I got a polish by China Glaze called 'Flying Dragon (neon)'.It's a pinky purple shade, with a blue glitter hue running through it. I'm not sure what it's like on the nail yet as I haven't used it yet, but I'll be sure to update when I have used it!

The final thing I bought was from Sally Hansen! I have literally no polishes or nail care products by Sally Hansen, but I've seen this one a few times so I just took it as a sign to buy it lol! It is the Hard as Nails, Hard as Wraps Powerful Acrylic Gel. It says on the bottle to use as a basecoat or alone (one coat) to strengthen nails, but I've applied it over the top of my polish from yesterday and I really like the way it's left them looking. It has left a more thickening, plumping effect to the nail! The only down side to this gel, it that it's not as fast drying as I usually like top/basecoats, but apart from that it's looking good! :-)

Well I hope I haven't been too boring just by doing a post on what I've purchased. I know I quite like reading about other peoples purchases so I'm hoping this post was as enjoyable as it could be lol.

As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Snazzy!

Deep glitz!

Hey everyone! I wasn't going to do a post tonight, I was going to do it tomorrow, but seeing as I'm wide awake at this hour (as always), I thought I would do it now!
So this post is going to be about what I've just put on my nails. Usually with my nails I go through stages where they get super long, and then one snaps so I have to cut them all off to 'start again' so that they're all even lengths. I've been having a bit of trouble with weak ends and chipping recently too, so what I've done is just cut and filed them all to an even length for all, to their strongest point. Hopefully this will help them all grow strongly and evenly! Also, I thought I would mention that I use the Leighton Denny crystal nail file, which when you first see a nail file for £20+, you would automatically think that is a lot of money for a file, but this one is so easy to use, turns the filed edges of your nails in to dust and even better, the surface of the file is guaranteed for 25 years! Talk about value for money!

Right, back to the polish! Tonight I was just going to do them just purple but then my mind starts thinking about it just before I start painting, and I've added glitter! It's the first time I've used this glitter in particular and I'm far from disapointed!
The colours I have used are 'Vant To Bite My Neck' which is by OPI from the Euro Centrale collection, followed by 'Razzmatazz' which is a purple and red-ish glitter!
The purple used as a base colour matches beautifully with the glitter on top! I used OPI Nail Envy matte as a base, and Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat over the top.

When it catches the light, this polish is very shiny but when glanced at it is quite subtle! I hope you all like this look! :-)

As always if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)

Maroon 8!

Maroon meets neutral!

Good (late) evening everyone! As I did a post on my friend Naomi's nails yesterday (that you can see by clicking here), I thought I would do tonights post on my others friend Alex's nails, also that I did yesterday! So @alexiaaaaah chose to have a deep maroon red with a nude shade as an accent on the ring finger with glitter over the top of the accent nail!

The polishes that I used were Leighton Denny 'Over The Rainbow', and two colours from Nails Inc are 'Porchester Square' which is one of their hero shades! The other is Nails Inc 'Savile Row'. The other polishes I used were OPI Nail Envy matte, Nails Inc Kensington Caviar 45 second drying top coat and Leighton Denny miracle drops!

 

I used two coats of colour on each nail for a full, deep coverage! I really like that the glitter polish has bits of red glitter particles in it so it ties both of the colours together.




I really like this look and I would have never put these colours together myself, so thanks Alex! :-)
I hope you all like this look too! Also, of course, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen)