varnish Archives - Irish Beauty Blog Beautynook

Chrome Nails Do It Yourself

It’s been a long long time since I’ve spoken nails here on Beautynook. I believe my last post was here years ago chatting about smelly Revlon nail polishes! I’m too embarrassed to click on it. But if you want to have a look and cringe at my even worse photos, go right ahead 🙂 I’m breaking the fast and coming at you with a post about doing chrome nails. At home, yourself. No salon is required here…or UV lamp, don’t worry 🙂

To create your own chrome nails, you will need: A nail polish colour of your choice, a clear top coat of you choice. You can use your finger, but it can get a bit messy, so may I suggest you rescue a sponge applicator in an eyeshadow palette you might have lying around. Then, the main thing you need is the chrome powder.

I know loads of high street brands are jumping on board with these now, so you don’t have to get the specific one I am using. But it is from Essence and it is super affordable. And Essence is readily available here in Ireland, so it might be a good one to look out for. The one I have is called Metal Shock Nail Powder in ‘Mirror, mirror on the nail’.

I would suggest creating your chrome nails on a wipe clean surface, or on something you don’t mind getting sparkly. The powder is super fine and it can get messy.

Start with clean nails. I applied a clear base coat, just in case the polish stains mine. Completely optional though.

With your polish colour of choice, apply a layer to one hand. I did a couple of nails at a time, just so I could show the process, but doing all five in one go is fine.

Let the polish dry for a few minutes. Essence suggest 60 seconds. I find that a bit too soon personally. You end up moving the polish and making a mess. I left mine for about 3 or 4 minutes.

Dip you eyeshadow sponge lightly into the powder and then begin the process of gently rubbing it onto the nails, one at a time. Don’t press too hard, remember the polish underneath is still tacky.

As you rub the powder in, the magic happens. You get the chrome nails effect!

It works in the same way as if you were doing it on gel nails, you’re just not curing anything so it might not last as long. But, you get a very similar result right?

Finish the nails off with a clear top coat. To lock everything in place, but to also help with the shine. Essence do a polish specifically for this purpose, but you could just use one you already have.

You will have a bit of overspill of powder around the nail bed. Just let them dry and you can clean everything up with a cotton bud and some nail polish remover.

And there you have my do it yourself chrome nails! Cheap, easy and pretty effective, if I do say so myself 🙂

xxx

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January 12, 2018/by Gem

Makeup, Youtube Video

Confidence Boosting Beauty Products

Major spoiler alert. Most of this video is slightly out of focus! Why may you ask? Because stupid Gemma (i.e me) focused the camera and then proceeded to sit in the wrong position like a dope! I debated on whether or not to scrap it. But I am mostly chatting about the confidence boosting beauty products in my life and just applying them as I go. Being able to see my potato head clearly really isn’t necessary in the grand scheme of things. Sure the beginning and end is in focus, you can see me in all of my glory there 🙂

I did a video a while ago here about products that make make me happy. Things that have a meaning to them whether they be connected with memories or people. I thought this was a good continuation on from that. We all have certain confidence boosting products in our beauty drawers right? Things that put a spring our step, that we know look good on us?

I thought I would chat about mine. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that makeup necessarily equates to happiness. I am not that narrow minded, This is just me talking lightheartedly about certain products that I keep in my life because I know they work for me 🙂

The eyeshadow shade ‘half-baked from Urban Decay.
A good eyelash curlers.
Eyeliner in my waterline. I used the Inglot AMC Eyeliner Gel in 96 (you can see it swatched here).
Mac Cosmetics Springsheen blush. On the Brown Thomas website here.
theBalm Mary-Lou-Manizer highlighting powder. The tone of this just works for me. I have an old review of it here.
Mac ‘Girl About Town’ Amplified Lipstick. You can get it from Brown Thomas here. I just realised I have two Mac products listed! Not on purpose, promise 🙂
Setting Spray. I am loving the L’Oréal Infallible Fixing Mist. (full review here).
My confidence boosting fragrance is Viktor & Rolf ‘Flowerbomb’. An oldie but a goodie. You can get it from Debenhams here.
Instant Tan! The ones I mention are the Vita Liberata Body Blur and the Bellamianta Skin Perfecting Instant Tan.
Then finally, my last confidence boosting beauty product is nail polish, or at least just having my nails did :). I chat about the Wet n Wild 1 Step Wonder Nail Polishes. I honestly love these!!

And that concludes my ramblings. So tell me, do you have any particular confidence boosting beauty products in your stash? You can watch the video directly over on my YouTube channel here.

xxx

July 14, 2017/1 Comment/by Gem

Archives, Giveaway

Essence ‘Me & My Umbrella’ Trend Edition Competition

Have you seen the new Essence ‘Me & My Umbrella Trend Edition Collection?

Well I have some of the goodies from the limited edition Essence Me & My Umbrella Trend Edition Collection to give away over on my Facebook page here.

You can win pretty much all you can see in the picture here:

matt eyeshadow 01
matt eyeshadow 02
eyebrow thickener 01
eyebrow thickener 02
matt lipstick 01
matt lipstick 02
blush
mini contouring set
contouring brush
rain boots nail polish 01
rain boots nail polish 02
rain boots nail polish 03
rain boots nail polish 04
nail stencils

This competition will run from Tuesday the 11th of October until Tuesday the 18th of October. Only open to residents of Ireland.

This Essence Me & My Umbrella Trend Edition Collection is only available in stores until the end of this month.

Thanks to Essence for kindly giving me the goodies to giveaway!

Good luck 🙂

xxx

October 11, 2016/by Gem

Nails

Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat

If you follow me on Snapchat (my username is Beautynook if you don’t, shameless plug), you’ll know I’ve been testing out the new Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat pretty vigorously.

I’ve used it about 5 times on top of different branded nail polish and base coats and I pretty much had the same outcome with them all. Boots describe it as “Rimmels first ever 2- step Super Gel nail polish for superior colour and shine that lasts for up to 14 days. Easy to apply, it dries like a regular nail polish, no UV lamps needed.”

It has the standard Rimmel nail polish packaging, which I am a fan of.

I love that the brush is quite large,flat and rounded at the tip. For me, this makes application easier.

Just to show you the process quickly:

Here’s my bare nails.

Here’s the base coat applied.

Two layers of nail polish.

I let the nail polish dry for a few minutes before applying the Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat.

You can see, it definitely adds a lovely glass like shine to your nails and really finishes them off. It’s easy enough to apply and doesn’t drag or move the nail polish underneath. It also dries reasonably quickly, which is a plus too! I painted my nails in the evening time, so the next morning, they were still looking good!

My Nails The Next Day After Application.

My Nails On Technically The Third Day.

After the second full day of wear, you can see (especially on my pinkie finger), bubbles have started to form.

By the third full day, this had happened.

The nail polish on my little finger had completely come loose and just peeled off. Not ideal!

Overall, and after testing out the Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat on numerous occasions, I really can’t say it lasts as well as gel UV nail polish. I got pretty much 3/4 days before it started to crack and I was at the stage where I could just peel it off my nails (I do really enjoy doing that though) :). For me, I will use it because I have it, but I won’t be repurchasing it any time soon.

You can get the Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat from Boots in store or online here. It will set you back €7.99 so definitely not the cheapest version on the market at the minute.

June 1, 2016/by Gem

Haul, Makeup

Essence Merry Berry Collection

Yay it’s mid November so it’s kind of acceptable to be talking about Christmas 🙂

I wanted to show you the Essence Merry Berry Collection a little closer up. Essence are really stepping up their game in the quality department but are still ridiculously affordable. Their Merry Berry Collection (out for Christmas) is one of the cutest I’ve seen this year so far.

The Essence Merry Berry Collection consists of what you see here (and another nail polish), a hair perfume, nail stickers and a spray body glitter in the cutest old school perfume bottle. A bit young for me, but I think they would make great stocking fillers for some younger girls. There’s also some individual lashes which is a cool addition.

I’ll give you a closer look at what I have.

There’s two single eyeshadows to choose from. They will set you back €2.49 and are both really pretty wearable shades.

A shimmery mauvey purple and a light shimmery golden brown shade.

There’s a shimmering highlighting powder. Shimmering Stars will cost you €4.09.

I am in love with the star embossing and the pay off is pretty good too.

The Merry Berry Collection also contains four nail polishes in the cutest packaging. The formula of these polishes is really good. You could actually get away with a one coat application if you were in a real hurry. They are €2.49 each.

‘The Masked Ball’ is a matte deep purple colour.

Pink & Perfect is a lovely fuchsia pink colour.

‘Purple With Purpose’ is a more metallic true purple shade.

‘I Love My Golden Pumps’ is a gold foiled top coat. I have it over ‘Purple With Purpose’ here.

I have three out of the four lipstick shades out of the Merry Berry Collection also. €2.89 a piece 🙂

Let The Berry Tales Begin Pink & Perfect Red Rocks

As you would have guessed, they are really pretty berry shades, and the formulation is really smooth and opaque. ‘Red Rocks’ is matte pinky red and the other too have a more of a shined finish.

I am loving the Essence Merry Berry Collection, it’s such a lovely festive collection.Well done Essence! Let me know what you think?

xxx

November 15, 2015/4 Comments/by Gem

Posts

xxx

*******PR SAMPLE******

Have you seen the new Essence ‘Me & My Umbrella Trend Edition Collection?

If you follow me on Snapchat (my username is Beautynook if you don’t, shameless plug), you’ll know I’ve been testing out the new Rimmel Super Gel Top Coat pretty vigorously.

Yay it’s mid November so it’s kind of acceptable to be talking about Christmas 🙂

I wanted to show you the Essence Merry Berry Collection a little closer up. Essence are really stepping up their game in the quality department but are still ridiculously affordable. Their Merry Berry Collection (out for Christmas) is one of the cutest I’ve seen this year so far.

*PR SAMPLE