Palm Trees

I love wearing brightly coloured nail polish in the summer so this week I wanted to do a nail art design with a bright coloured gradient. I decided to put palm trees over the colour gradient to give it a summer holiday feel so it looks like a sunset on a tropical beach. 

I used four colours and a makeup sponge to create the gradient base. The pink polish is Strawberry Margarita by OPI, the coral polish is Access All Areas by Ciaté, the orange polish is Speed Dial by Ciaté and I don't actually have a yellow bottle of polish so I used the polish from my Wah London yellow nail art pen. I drew the palm trees using my black Wah London nail art pen.

The best way to create a gradient like this with four colours is to start with a white base polish. Use the rectangle end of your makeup sponge and draw a stripe across it with each polish so you have four different coloured stripes on your sponge. Then lightly keep dabbing the sponge onto your nail until the colour gradient transfers onto your nail. If it is too light just apply more polish to the sponge and dab again. Draw on your palm trees using a black nail art pen and don't forget to add a big yellow sun setting behind one of the trees!

Let me know if you like this design or if you have any design requests by messaging me @KathleenEmilyy on Twitter and Instagram!

Swarovski Pedicure

A few years ago I had a Swarovski crystal pedicure done for my birthday. I absolutely loved it and I've been wanting to get it re-done ever since. Now I am qualified in gel nails I decided to give it a go myself.

I used a whole pack of Swarovski crystals from Charlie's Nail Art - they cost £1.25 for a pack of 100 crystals. If you are looking for crystals or other nail art supplies I would recommend this website because their prices are great and all the supplies I've used from there have been good quality. 

The crystals are super sparkly in the sunlight so this pedicure is great for the summer when you will be wearing sandals all the time. It would also be great for special occasions like weddings and looks really glamorous with a pair of matching sparkly shoes.

I will soon be offering Swarovski Pedicures as a treatment for my mobile nail clients in Beverley, so let me know if you are interested!

You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter @KathleenEmilyy 

Colour Changing Nail Polish

I went on a gel nails training course this week so I can start doing gel manicures on my mobile nail clients. I have been using gel polishes from Blue Sky - this is a fairly cheap brand of gel polish but it is good to practice with while you are learning. I will be investing in some more expensive gel polishes to use on clients but for now I have been having fun with Blue Sky's colour changing polishes from their Chameleon range. 

I was skeptical when I purchased this polish because I have read reviews of colour changing polishes before which said they were rubbish and hardly changed colour. I was amazed with this polish because it works great and it changes colour all the time when I am wearing it. In the bottle the polish is a dark purple colour but when it is applied on your nails it either turns bright pink when it is warm or dark purple when it is cold. I find that most of the time throughout the day it creates a great ombré effect between pink at the cuticle and purple at the free edge of the nail. 

I have created a video of the gel polish below which shows it changing colour in hot and cold water:

I'd love some gel polish brand and colour recommendations so let me know your favourite gel polish colour @KathleenEmilyy on Twitter and Instagram.

Ciaté Orange Choc Pot Review

Ciaté have got some new chocolate scented nail polish remover pots. You can choose from: dark choc, mint choc, orange choc and white choc. Today I am reviewing the Orange Choc Pot nail polish remover.

I really like using nail polish remover pots because they are quick and easy to use - you just dip your fingers in the pot one at a time and twist them on the sponge to remove your polish. They are really useful if you are travelling as they are small and compact and you don't have to worry about spilling a whole bottle of liquid nail polish remover in your bag.

When you open the Ciaté Orange Choc Pot and smell it, it does have a very strong chemical smell which doesn't really resemble chocolate orange. But smell your hands after you have used it and it does leave a lovely orangey chocolate smell on your fingers.

It took about 5-10 seconds to remove the nail polish off each finger. It was a very speedy process to remove the polish and it definitely worked quicker than any other brand of remover pots I have tried. I was surprised at how dry the sponge felt at first as most other pots I have tried have a very wet sponge but this did not seem to be an issue as it removed my polish perfectly.

I really like the Orange Choc Pot and I would love to find out what the other pots smell like. You can buy the nail polish removers from Ciaté's website here. If you have tried out any of the other chocolate scents let me know what you think and send me a message @KathleenEmilyy on Twitter and Instagram.

Pink Hearts

I created this design using striping tape and a nail art stamp for the hearts. The stamping plate and rubber stamper I used were from MoYou. Their stamping sets are good quality and easy to use so I would recommend this brand if you have never used a nail art stamp before. Also, if you are not familiar with striping tape it is very thin tape that you put on your nails as a guide to create bold straight lines - it can be bought from any nail art supplier.

(I apologise for my random short thumb nail in the first photo... I had an accident last week and broke it, oops!)

How to get this look:

Start by applying a base coat and allow this to dry.

Place two pieces of string tape on your nail starting at the nail bed and moving inwards towards the middle of your nail to create a triangle shape. Repeat this on every nail.

Paint two coats of white polish inside the striping tape - don't worry if you paint over the tape as you will be removing the tape later.

Using pink polish paint onto your heart stamping plate, remove the excess polish with the scraper and then pick up the design with the rubber stamper and apply this to your nail over the white triangle. Repeat the stamping process on every nail.

Next, paint two coats of the pink polish from the striping tape to the ends of your nails.

Use tweezers to peel the striping tape off every nail.

Using a pink glitter polish and a fine nail art brush, paint a line of glitter where the striping tape was so your triangles are outlined with glitter.

Finish by applying a top coat.


If you try out this design send me a pic @KathleenEmilyy on Twitter and Instagram.

Pastel Galaxy

I love nail art designs where different colours are faded and blended together using a makeup sponge. I was really bad at using the makeup sponge technique the first time I tried it so I have been practicing it a lot recently to try and perfect it. One of my favourite designs that you can create with a makeup sponge is Galaxy nails that look like the starry night sky. I have seen loads of people try this design so I decided to try it out myself but using pastel colours. The main three colours I used were all from Wah London:- the pastel blue is called An Even Bigger Splash, the lilac is called Mating Surfaces and the pink is called No Nails No Life. The purple glitter polish I used is called Moon Walking from Rimmel Londons space dust collection.

How to get this look:

Apply a base coat and two coats of white nail polish.

Apply a dot of blue nail polish onto a makeup sponge and dab it on the nail leaving a few patches of blue with spaces of white in between where the other colours will go. 

Repeat this step with lilac and then pink nail polish so that the white base is fully covered.

Go back with just the blue and the lilac and apply another layer of these colours with the sponge to give better colour coverage. Dab the sponge lightly where the different colours meet so that they are blended evenly and fade into each other.

Apply a dot of purple glitter polish onto the makeup sponge and dab this onto your nail where you applied the lilac polish.

Use a white nail art pen to draw stars and dots on your nails and make sure they are in different positions on each nail.

Finish by applying a top coat.

If you try out this design send me a photo @KathleenEmilyy on Twitter and Instagram.

Nail Wheel

Now I have passed my driving test I am working as a mobile nail technician in the Beverley area of East Yorkshire. I have painted some of my favourite designs on to a nail wheel to help my clients choose how they want their nails doing. 

I wanted to share my nail wheel in a blog post so you can see more of my work. Let me know which design you like the best and if you want me to do a tutorial for any of these designs. You can comment on the post or find me on Twitter and Instagram @KathleenEmilyy