Little Nails – Nail art

U Need a Manicure – Heart Nails

17 February, 2015 By Rosie 2 Comments

Kester Black Violet, Kester Black Periwinkle, Kester Black Fairy Floss, OPI Dutch Tulips

Golly gosh. It’s been a while! Jessica Washick’s Half Hearted manicure from U Don’t Need A Man, U Need a Manicure popped up on my Tumblr dashboard last week and the second I saw it I knew I had to get my nail art brushes out and give it a go.

I had to wait a while though, because after having plain nails for what feels like forever, I dove headfirst back into nail art the other day and had my nails done at I Scream Nails. I rocked my cat/pineapple/unicorn/happy cloud/banana nails for as long as possible before taking them off and giving Jessica’s heart design a go.

I Scream Nails – Sydney My nails on the left, my friend Emma’s on the right.

Kester Black x Trophy Wife Limited Edition Nail Polish Set 2014

6 November, 2014 By Rosie 1 Comment

Kester Black x Trophy Wife Limited Edition Nail Polish Set 2014

Kester Black Prenup

Kester Black Sugar Daddy

Kester Black and Trophy Wife have teamed up again to create this lovely limited edition nail polish set.

Prenup is a fabulous purple polish which applied beautifully. Sugar Daddy is the silver glitter polish I’ve been looking for my entire life! For a long while, I was on the hunt for a simple silver glitter polish that I could wear on its own. I didn’t think it would be that hard to find, but everything I had either had too much holo (I wanted good ol’ regular glitter), needed a base colour or was just the wrong shade. I’d given up and then I found Sugar Daddy. I popped it over Prenup and was amazed! I could tell it was dense in the bottle but boy was I impressed. For nail art it’s pretty much full coverage with one coat. To cover an entire finger was one coat with a little touching up on a second coat.

You can purchase Kester Black nail polish online (shipping is to Australia and New Zealand only) and in stores.

They are five free (no Toluene, no DBP, no Camphor, no Formaldehyde, no Formaldehyde Resin), made in Australia, cruelty free, CCF accredited (Choose Cruelty Free) and vegan!

These polishes were provided to me for review.

Kester Black Summer 2014

23 October, 2014 By Rosie 3 Comments

Kester Black Summer 2014

Hello everyone! I’m back! And do I have a treat for you!

Amazing Anna (as she will now be known) from Kester Black has a new collection of colours out to get ready for summer.

I got these polishes a few weeks ago and they’ve pretty much been the only thing on my nails since then. The formula is great, as usual. The brush is different on this lot. It’s a little wider than your average polish brush and it took a few coats to get used to but didn’t cause any trouble. I was actually a little thrown when I popped on an older KB colour and the brush felt so thin!

I am so in love with the colours that it’s not even funny. Usually, if my polishes aren’t neatly put away in drawers they are in a scattered mess across my desk, but with this collection I actually lined them up on my shelf and kept them on display for quite some time. They just look so lovely together.

I surprised myself and actually ended up wearing Sky and Acid the most. Sky has become my new ‘goes with everything’ polish and I’ve worn Acid way more than I expected, given that it’s a pretty out there colour.

You can purchase Kester Black nail polish online (shipping is to Australia and New Zealand only) and in stores.

They are five free (no Toluene, no DBP, no Camphor, no Formaldehyde, no Formaldehyde Resin), made in Australia, cruelty free, CCF accredited (Choose Cruelty Free) and vegan!

Kester Black Sky

Kester Black Violet

Kester Black Blush

These polishes were provided to me for review.

Candiipants Squares

3 January, 2014 By Rosie 8 Comments

Kester Black Blueberry Tart, Kester Black Laugua, Kester Black Blue Raspberry, Kester Black Parrot, Kester Black Periwinkle

Happy New Year everyone! This mani is from forever ago, November 13 to be precise. I painted these nails after watching a fantastic tutorial by Mr. Candiipants. There have been so many fantastic tutorials around lately and every time I feel like doing some serious nail art I already have a tutorial in mind that I want to try!

Pink Chalkboard Nails Distressed Tutorial Nails

12 December, 2013 By Rosie 6 Comments

: Kester Black Poppy, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Kester Black Tutti Frutti, Topshop AWOL, Orly Glitz

Sarah, from Chalkboard Nails, has created what is possibly my favourite tutorial of 2013 – Distressed Nail Art (check out her YouTube video tutorial here).

It’s super simple, super easy and looks amazing. Originally I was planning on adding the black to the top of this mani, the same as in the tutorial, but I loved the patterns and colours in it as it was and couldn’t bear to hide any of it under black. A few hours later I felt like it needed a bit of gold so I took advantage of my dry polish and used sticky tape to add some gold triangles.

I love this technique so much, I did it another three times. With a darker base and blues, purples and some glitter or gold leaf it makes for a really easy galaxy inspired mani. I loved that combo so much I did it again a few days later!

WAH Nails in Blue

21 November, 2013 By Rosie 4 Comments

: OPI My Vampire is Buff, OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook, Kester Black Blueberry Tart, China Glaze First Mate

I loved this WAH Nails mani so much that I had to try it again in blue. I kept the design simpler on this blue mani than on my pink mani and I loved the way it turned out. Painting one row of triangles was more than enough!

WAH Nails Pink Stripes and Zigzags

14 November, 2013 By Rosie 3 Comments

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Essie Coral Reef, Kester Black Fairy Floss, BYS Black Striper

Like every other nail art fan on the planet, I follow WAH Nails on Instagram. A while back I saw this fabulous manicure by WAH Girl Ellie and had to try it out on my nails.

This mani reinforced the fact that I really need to keep practising my freehand painting. Some of those zig zags are a bit iffy, but from an arm length away it’s hard to notice those little mistakes. I loved this design so much I did it in blue a few days later when this one chipped.

Blobbie Nails

24 October, 2013 By Rosie 3 Comments

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Charged Up Cherry, OPI Mod-ern Girl, Kester Black Poppy, Kester Black French Lavender, Seed Lemon, China Glaze Grape Pop

This manicure is pretty much a recreation of my Inspired by a Book manicure from months ago. Usually my nail art style is quite structured and geometric. I like lines and angles and order but occasionally it’s fun to just completely wing it. Just blob the polish on, add some swirls or stripes and it’ll all come together.

Kester Black – Tropicana Collection

15 October, 2013 By Rosie 4 Comments

Kester Black Tropicana

Kester Black‘s Spring/Summer collection Tropicana is a bright, lively bundle of colour. Anna, the brains behind Kester Black, has such a knack for creating beautiful, cohesive collections. All five colours are fantastically bright and summery and match each other perfectly. All apart from Laugua are practically neon and don’t require a white base coat to get that intense neon colour. All colours were swatched with three coats.

Kester Black has quickly become one of my favourite and most used brands of nail polish. Looking back at my manis over the past few months (I knew having that daily Flickr photo would pay off!), there weren’t many days when I didn’t have Kester Black polish on my nails. The formula is fabulous and the colours are beautiful.

Swatch photos are below and were all taken with one coat of topcoat. Like most other neon polishes, they dry with a slightly matt finish (apart from Laugua) if you don’t use a topcoat.

You can purchase Kester Black nail polish online (shipping is to Australia and New Zealand only) and in stores.

They are five free (no Toluene, no DBP, no Camphor, no Formaldehyde, no Formaldehyde Resin), made in Australia, cruelty free, CCF accredited (Choose Cruelty Free) and vegan!

Kester Black Bougainvillea

Kester Black Dragonfruit

Kester Black Laugua

Kester Black Papaya

Kester Black Parrot

These polishes were provided to me for review.

Day 31 – Recreate a Manicure You Love

2 October, 2013 By Rosie 2 Comments

OPI Russian Navy, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI I Lily Love You, Hare Polish Midsummer’s Midnight

Take that, 31 Day Challenge! 396 days after I started the 31 Day Challenge it’s finally finished. I have so much admiration for bloggers who actually do it in 31 days. Crazy kids!

Day 31 for the 2012 31 Day Challenge was ‘Recreate a Manicure You Love’. I absolutely loved this manicure by Rose from Every Little Polish. I’ve been wanting to attempt it for a while and this seemed to be the perfect time to do it.

My version didn’t come out anywhere near as sophisticated as Rose’s but I still liked it. Bigger dots and an overlaying polish that was a little too sheer were the failing points compared to Rose’s mani. Next time I’ll have to plan the colours more and try to track down my missing dotter (I used the end of a nail art brush for this one which is why the dots were so huge).