The True Nudes

I don't imagine there's a polish-lover out there who doesn't have at least one well-loved nude hiding away in their collection. Today I'm sharing with you my collection of what I like to call 'true nudes' - the milkier polishes that take an eternity to become opaque but look stunning on the nail.

From left to right, we have China Glaze 'Inner Beauty', Essie 'Mademoiselle' and 'Limo-scene', Revlon 'Natural Pink', Natural Collection 'Peach Manicure', Revlon 'Porcelain' and Essie 'Not Just A Pretty Face'. 

I'm currently sporting 'Limo-scene' and I love it... Essie really seem to bring it when it comes to milky nudes. Yes, it takes forever to build the colour up and make it opaque enough but for those with lovely nails anyway, a couple of coats of one of these would look fabulous and give you instant class at your fingertips. 

The polishes featured today start at £1.89 (Natural Collection) and as you can see, most of them are very similar... a major win for those with a limited budget or for those who have already tried one and found they didn't get along with it. 

What's your favourite true nude? Let's have a chat in the comment section :)

R x

Where Have You Been...? Updates & Upcoming Posts

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! With the exception of yesterday's jigsaw-themed tutorial, it's been a considerable while since I last posted and I thought I'd give you all a bit of an explanation before I jump back into regular posting. 

So, halfway through September I was due to move into university accommodation with three friends I made in first year. I ended up not moving in after all and spent a couple of weeks running around getting out of my contract and hunting for a car...

Two short days after picking up my new baby, second year started so I've spent the past couple of weeks settling back into uni life and re-adjusting things a little. I'm now in my third week of second year but I haven't been in at all so far this week because I've come down with some sort of virus :( 

In terms of TLO, I have plenty of designs lined up to post about and also something very exciting to share with you all in the next few weeks. I'm also planning on expanding into polish reviews and recommendations.

Hope my lovely readers have all been well, let me know if you've been up to anything exciting!

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Try Something New Tutorial: Jigsaw

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Today I'm featuring another nail design that I've seen everywhere and always wanted to attempt. As you might have already guessed given the title of this post, I'm talking about jigsaw nails...

These nails were surprisingly easy to create and super cute too. All you need to do is take four colours and divide your nail evenly into squares. Fill those squares with the colours and add dots to the edges to create the puzzle piece effect. Et voila! You look ridiculously proficient in nail art AND have really cool nails to show off. 


Here's a walkthrough of how to create jigsaw nails:
1. Get hold of a top coat, any four colours you like, a base coat and, for accuracy reasons, a striping brush or very thin nail art brush.
2. Apply your base coat to every nail and allow to dry a little.
3. Take your first colour and your chosen brush and create a square in the top left corner of your nail. It needs to stretch across to halfway across the tip of your nail and halfway down the nail. Fill this square in with the same colour. Clean your brush. (I wipe it across a remover-soaked cotton pad until it is coming up clean)
4. Take your next colour and create a square in the top right hand corner. It needs to be the same length as your first square. Again, fill in with the same colour and clean your brush.
5. Now take your third colour and continue with a square in the bottom left hand corner, making sure the polish stops in line with the middle of the nail. You could make this fully square, however I curved the bottom round to match my nail's natural curve. Fill in with the same colour and once again clean your brush.
6. Fill in the rest of the nail with your final colour and clean your brush.
7. Add another coat to any of the colours if you feel they are not opaque enough. 
8. Now you need to take it in turns with the colours to add dots to the outsides of the squares to create the jigsaw effect. If you can't figure out an order, follow my photo :-) Allow the nails to dry a little.
9. Finally, add your top coat and let the nails dry fully.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Essential Tools

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Today's post is just a quickie to discuss what I believe to be essential tools for creating nail art...

Striping Brush - This is essential for creating straight, neat lines. This brush would come in handy in gingham designs or any other design featuring lines. 

Dotting Tools - These are particularly handy for creating flowers or for any design involving dots. These are super cheap on Amazon and you can buy them in packs of varying sizes. 

Normal, Small Brush - This is essential if you are wanting to create shapes, fill in parts of the nail in one block colour or just use a thinner, smaller brush than the one that comes with a polish. This is especially handy if you are using acrylic paints to create your nail art. 

Can you think of any other essential nail art tools? Let us all know in the comments if you can!

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Next Step Up Tutorial - Very Berry

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! This Very Berry nail tutorial is the next step up from my last tutorial (Vintage and Floral) and builds on the skills you've started to pick up. This is quite rare for me, but this design is actually on my nails as I write this post and was created late last night as I sat in bed and decided I didn't like the polish I had on.

My Very Berry nail tutorial is PERFECT for autumn/winter and I've even added a bit of glitter for when Christmas rolls around and we're all breaking out the reds and greens with no idea what to do with them. This design could very easily be adapted to create a holly bush look too.


To create my Very Berry nails, here's what you need to do:
1. Get hold of a base coat, a patent/plain white (although if you're doing these at Christmas, a shimmery white would be totally appropriate!), a selection of red/plum/deep pink shades, a dark or khaki green and a top coat. If you're wanting to add glitter, get yourself a red glitter polish for ease or be brave and work with loose glitter - the choice is yours :-) You will also need a toothpick/cocktail stick or, preferably, a dotting tool. 
2. Apply your base coat and leave to dry.
3. Apply a coat of white to each nail and let it dry a little. Continue applying coats until the colour is opaque enough for you then leave the nails to dry a little more.
4. Choose one of your reddish colours and add three to four dots on each nail, spaced well apart and these make up the basis of each berry. Clean your tool.
5. Take your next reddish colour and add dots next to and/or slightly on top of the existing dots. Clean your tool.
6. Repeat this with each reddish colour in your selection until you have circular shapes like mine. Clean your tool.
7. If you are using loose glitter, this is where you should allow your nails to dry completely then add the glitter. If you are using a glitter polish, treat it like a normal polish and follow the instructions in point 6.
7. Now take your green colour and add leaves to the berries. Allow the nails to dry a little.
8. Finally, apply your top coat and allow your nails to fully dry.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Beginner's Tutorial: Vintage and Floral

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! A few weeks ago I was rooting round Boots and came away with a stash of new polishes to try out. I picked out two particularly fabulous colours that I paired together for today's design and I absolutely love them...

I love the combination of this deep, mustard yellow and muted navy blue and I think it creates quite a vintage effect. The best thing about this design is that it's perfect for nail art newcomers as I did all of this only using the brushes that came in the polishes. 

To create this exact design, here's what you need to do:
1. Get hold of a base coat, Maybelline's 'Electric Yellow', Mavala's 'Trinidad', Barry M's 'Matte White' and a top coat.
2. Apply your base coat to every nail and leave to dry.
3. Apply Electric Yellow to every other nail and leave to dry. Apply further coats until you feel the colour is opaque enough.
4. Apply Trinidad to the remaining nails and leave to dry. Again, apply further coats until you feel the colour is opaque enough.
5. Take your Matte White and get rid of excess from the brush. Dab the polish on to create the petals of flowers. You can create as many flowers as you like.
6. On the yellow nails, take Trinidad and dot it in the middle of your flowers. On the blue nails, do the same with Electric Yellow.
7. Leave the colours to dry a little then apply your top coat and leave to fully dry.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

#bravenails

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Any friend of mine is more than likely to know that I absolutely adore the musician Josh Groban. I created these nails earlier in the year and have been wanting to blog about them for so long but never found the time on my old blog, so now I've landed here I'm finally releasing my inner joy at these nails...

I tweeted about these the night I created them and I was absolutely thrilled about this... (I was so excited I even went to my Grandma's house the next morning and went through the lengthy process of explaining Twitter to her just so a fellow Grobie could get excited with me.) 

I love nail art and I love Josh Groban... and I love that a little hobby got me noticed by my absolute favourite musician whose music has genuinely helped me through hideous, hideous things in the past two years.

Any Grobies in the West Yorkshire area of the UK in desperate need of a manicure, I'll be more than happy to sort that out for you ;)

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo