The Nail Arcade - Indie/International nail polish store in the UK!

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Some exciting news today! The Nail Arcade is a new online UK stockist of indie and international nail polishes, and it's opening up for a week long pop-up event from August 4th to August 11th. UK bloggers and nail polish addicts will know it can be a huge pain to source indie/international polishes without big shipping costs, so this is great news for all of us! The Nail Arcade is run by a lovely girl called Rachel and I'm really hoping she gets plenty of support in her venture.

For the pop-up event, The Nail Arcade will be stocking Dance Legend, Smitten Polish, Serum No.5, Cadillacquer, Crazy Polish Lady, Franken Frosting and Jindie Nails. Some really exciting indie brands there, and all easily available to us UK people...I've got a feeling I'll have to sit on my hands!

Rachel has sent me a couple of polishes that she'll be stocking to show you. First up is my very first Smitten Polish!

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013!

Celebrating the Year of the Blogger!

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It's time for the piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013, and I'm really excited to be taking part! This year, participants will be in with a chance of creating a collaboration shade with piCture pOlish! There'll be 3 winners - one voted for by piCture pOlish friends and fans, one voted for by the participants of Blog Fest, and one voted for by Jules and Megs of piCture pOlish. To vote, visit this link - (Vote Here)

Each participant has been sent 3 PP colours, and instructed to create some nail art using only those colours (black and white polish and decoration is allowed, so long as it doesn't overshadow the PP shades!) We've also been asked to write a tutorial for our finished designs. 

The shades I've been given are Peaches 'n Cream, Sky, and Malt Teaser. They have quite a retro feel to them when used together! So, now that I've explained what's going on, I'll show you my entry. 

Tutorial ahead!

Summer Gradient with Barry M Gelly and L'Oreal Confetti

 Barry M's Gelly collection are some of my favourite polishes ever, they're just so bright and colourful. Whenever I see them lined up in front of me I just have to use them! Today I've done a summery gradient and I liked this one so much I didn't want to take it off at all!

I started with a base of Lychee, then used Grapefruit and Papaya to make the gradient using the sponging method. I topped it off with one coat of L'Oreal Top Coat Confetti. 

piCture pOlish Wisteria - Swatches and Nail Art

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I unfortunately missed last weeks piCture pOlish post due to my back problems, but the shiny wonderfulness is back this week in the shape of Wisteria! Being a big Desperate Housewives fan (and missing it terribly) I was drawn to the name!

Guest post at The Nailasaurus!

I'm really excited to have a guest post today on none other than The Nailasaurus! Head over and let me know what you think - view the full post here

While you're there, be sure to check out the other guest bloggers on The Nailasaurus this week!

Dainty Floral

I've been staring at Essie Mojito Madness for ages thinking that it'd look nice with something stamped in white. I finally got round to doing it, and chose this dainty little floral print from Bundle Monster 315. 

Nailtopia Alice In Wonderland

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Hi! I have another set of Nailtopia nail stickers to show you today. I tried out the Rose Fantasy deign a while ago which you can see here, and now it's the turn of Alice In Wonderland (which incidentally I am a huge fan of)

You get lots of cute, quirky little stickers in this pack, including Alice silhouettes (my favourite), playing cards and tea pots! I used a base of piCture pOlish o'hara, and sponged a gradient on 2 of my nails. I used tweezers to place the stickers and finished by applying a top coat over them.

w7 Nail Art and Swatches

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I'm finally back after being pretty much stuck in bed for over a week! I won't bore you too much but I've had ongoing problems with lower back pain which has confined me to bed and made doing nails and blogging impossible. It's been incredibly frustrating, not to mention scary to all of a sudden not be able to do a thing for yourself. It's not fully better and I'm in quite a lot of pain even as I write this, but at least I'm out of bed!

I created this triangle cut out look using w7 polishes. If you're in the UK you've probably heard of w7 before, it's a budget brand of great quality with a huge array of colours and finishes! 

More pictures and swatches after the jump:

piCture pOlish Ocean by Kelly's Kolors - Swatches and Nail Art

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Ocean is piCture pOlish's collaboration shade with Kelly's Kolors and I've fallen in love. Head over heels style love. Click the jump to see more sparkly goodness!

I've been shortlisted for the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2013!

Some exciting news today! I've made the shortlist for the 2013 Cosmopolitan Blog Awards! Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me, your votes really mattered and I'm beyond grateful. 

You can vote for the winners here, my blog is in the first list you see (Established Beauty Blog) and I'd love it if you could vote for me again, this time to win! There is some extremely tough competition in my category and I'm really happy just to have made the shortlist. It feels like all my work on this blog has paid off. Thank you millions if you take the time to vote!

Vote Here

- Allie x

Colour Block Tips 2.0

A little while ago I did a tutorial for colour block tips which you can see here. I liked them so much I've done them in another colour with the colour blocks overlapping the other way. Which admittedly I didn't notice until just now! 

My base colour is Sally Hansen Ion, the yellow is Barry M Lemon Ice Cream and silver is China Glaze Icicle.

A few people have showed me their different colour combinations and I love them all! 

Twitter competition with Jacava London!

Jacava have a new collection coming soon, and to celebrate they're running a competition on their Twitter account! They want the help of their followers to name the new purple shade in the collection, and all you have to do to enter is retweet one of the tweets below with your chosen name. 

RT to Win the new AW13 @JacavaOfficial collection (http://t.co/k5j8rLXgaa)! #myjacava nail polish is 'PURPLE PROMISE'. RETWEET to enter!
— Jacava (@JacavaOfficial) July 5, 2013

RT to Win the new AW13 @JacavaOfficial collection (http://t.co/k5j8rLXgaa)! #myjacava nail polish is 'PLUSH PLUM'. RETWEET to enter!
— Jacava (@JacavaOfficial) July 5, 2013

RT to Win the new AW13 @JacavaOfficial collection (http://t.co/k5j8rLXgaa)! #myjacava nail polish is 'PURPLE PASSION'. RETWEET to enter!
— Jacava (@JacavaOfficial) July 5, 2013

The winner will receive the brand new collection, including the purple polish. It will be pre-release, so you'll have it before anyone else! There will also be 3 runners up who will get a bottle of the purple polish. If you win, you will be asked where you heard about the competition, so don't forget to mention Brit Nails so I can win too! Good luck everyone!

piCture pOlish o'hara - Swatches and Nail Art

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Today I've got some swatches of the delicious o'hara from piCture pOlish! There's quite a few pictures so it's all under the jump - 

Nouvella Nail Wraps Review and 20% off discount code

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I had told myself I wasn't going to review any more nail wraps once I'd done the ones I already have, because I have a volatile relationship with wraps due to my long curvy nails. However, I realised they're quite popular with people who aren't so much into doing their own nail art or want something quick, so my quest for the perfect nail wrap is continuing for now! 

I was intrigued by Nouvella wraps because you apply them using heat from a hair dryer, which is something I haven't tried before, so I decided to give it a go. The idea is to heat them a little with the hair dryer first to make them soft and pliable, then press them down to one side of the nail and smooth down. You then apply more heat and smooth the other side down. Basically you keep re-heating until you've smoothed the wrap over your nail. The wraps come with detailed instructions.

 I chose the skyscraper design, and armed with my hair dryer, set about applying them. It went pretty well! Probably my best result from wraps so far, maybe the secret is using heat?

They're still not 100% perfect and have a crease here and there, but I'm reluctant to blame that on the wraps as I know my nails are curved into almost a complete C shape, which makes application a bit more difficult than it would be for someone with flatter nails. The creases are barely visible though, luckily!

I felt quite triumphant! 

Nouvella nail wraps come in packs of 16 wraps in 3 different sizes. They cost £3.99 per pack with £1 delivery to all countries!

They've been kind enough to offer a 20% off discount code to readers of my blog. Just visit http://www.nouvellanails.com and enter code BRITNAILS2013 at the checkout. 

Follow Nouvella on - Facebook | Twitter

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Jacava Chillax and Blueberry Muffin - Swatches

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Hi! Sorry I've been a bit slow posting lately. I've got some crazy lower back issues which makes sitting at a desk doing nails and sitting at a computer typing posts almost impossible :( I'm currently full of pain killers with a heat pad on my back. Hoping to be back to normal soon, don't know how much more I can take!

I have a couple more swatches of British brand Jacava to show you today. I first reviewed Jacava back in December and you can read my original review here. Jacava is the world's first patented 8-free brand (no formaldehyde, camphor, DBP, parabens, collophane, toluene, phthalates or animal ingredients) and is designed and made in the UK! They also feature an extra long brush that reaches all the way to the bottom of the bottle, unlike a lot of brands. They were kind enough to send me some more shades to try and here they are.

This is Chillax, a bright metallic turquoise blue with subtle shimmer. Application was great, I used 2 coats and it dries really fast. It's a bit of a stainer though so make sure you use base coat!

Yummy shimmery macro!

Blueberry Muffin is a glossy lilac creme which was a bit difficult to photograph but I got there in the end! This also applied really well, 2 coats.

The print on the bottle is 22 carat gold!

Jacava retails at £14.50 a bottle and is available direct from the website, www.jacava.com, where there is currently a promotion for 10% off. You can also buy Jacava on Feel Unique.

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