My New Years Mani

Hi guys

This is my last post for 2010! I want to show you my last mani of 2010 and my first for 2011 ;-). I started with Ski Teal We Drop from OPI. I somehow forgot to mention this one in my best of 2010 list! It definitely deserves a spot! I wanted to great a gradient with Gossip Column from Color Club, but as you (can’t) see it didn’t work out well. The two colors are too much alike to make a good gradient. I finished with some Sparkle-icious from OPI.

 

What’s your manicure for tonight? And what are your plans? I hope everyone has a good end of 2010 and a wonderful beginning of 2011!

Thanks for stopping by and have a blast

Christina

Another best of 2010 list!

Hi guys

As you all probably have noticed, its the time for ‘best of 2010’ lists. Because I enjoy these lists very much, I’m going to give my top 10 list too! Since the best of 2010 is the best of my nail polish history, the list will not only include polishes from 2010 but also from earlier collections. Here we go!

 

China Glaze – Emerald Sparkle

Color Club – Wild at Heart

Gosh – Holographic

Misa – When You Say My Name

OPI – Ink

OPI – Jade Is The New Black

OPI – Teas-y Does It

Catrice – I Sea You

Catrice – Londons Weather Forecast

Essie – Pretty Edgy

That was it! They are not mentioned in any particulair order. It was hard enough to choose a top 10, so putting them in order would be very hard!

What do you think? Did any of these make it to your top?

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Christina

My First Patchwork mani

Hi guys

A few weeks ago I saw a patchwork mani on MUA. I really liked the idea and wanted to try it out. I had no idea to begin, so I looked for a tutorial. I found the tutorial made by Chloe. It didn’t seem hard at all and I wondered if I would get the same result as here!

I used Color Club – Uptown Girl, Sally Hansen – Thinking of Blue and Essie – Going Incognito. I’m not happy with the color choices I made, but it was to try out the tutorial. I’m definitely going to try out other combinations in the future!

For a first time, it turned out pretty good I think. I wish my lines would be more straight but I think thats because I didn’t use good tape. Two big tips (that I got from the tutorial): stick the tape to the palm of your hand to remove some of the stickiness and use a coat of SV after every layer!

Anyone of you tried out a patchwork mani? I really love it and am going to experiment with it a lot more in the future!

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice day,

Christina

I’m Going Incognito

 

Hi guys

Hope you all had a wonderful time the past days and got everything you wanted! I had a great time, but the good times can’t last because I have to start studying again for my semester exams in January..

I have Going Incognito from Essie’s Winter 2010 Collection to show you today. I was very happy to hear that Essie was planning to come with a green polish for the winter collection. When I saw the promopics and the first swatches, I knew I would own this lovely deep emerald green! Can you imagine my happiness when I received it last week?!

For an Essie polish, this one applied very well. Complete coverage in just two smooth coats!

I like this polish very much, a great addition to my collection of green polishes!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day

Christina

Happy Holidays!

Hi guys

Tonight it's Christmas Eve! I'm already looking forward to the yummi food and opening presents! :) I made a Chistmas mani for this occasion. I used China Glaze - Jolly Holly, a random with polish for the sponsing-snow-effect and some nail water decals from Viva La Nails.

Here's the result:



Another celebration: It's been exactly one year ago since my love for nail polish began, yay! On Christmas Eve 2010, I received a package with two polishes: China Glaze Bermuday Breakaway and China Glaze Recycle! Its been a wonderful nail polish year since that moment! :)

Happy Christmas everybody! I hope you have a lovely time with family/friends, a good time and nice (nail polish) gifts! ;-)

Christina

Jolly Holly Holiday!

Hi guys!

As I mentioned yesterday, I got some polishes from winter collections. One of those polishes is Jolly Holly from China Glaze's Naughty and Nice Collection. I wanted Jolly Holly and Party Hearty from this collection, but Party Hearty was sold out everywhere I looked (online) :-(. But atleast I got Jolly Holly! I really love this kind of green. Not to obvious and a beautiful shimmer. I think this is going to be my favorite green along with Emerald Sparkle from China Glaze!



The application was great, two coats did the job! I think I might have to get a back up for this bottle, I think I'm going to use it a lot!

I also made a Christmas mani with Jolly Holly, I will make a post with it tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by and blog you later!
Christina

Back from being Blue

Hi everyone!

I'm sorry it has been a while since I had a post. Due to circumstances I haven't really been thinking much about the blog lately. But I'm back, so thats all that matters! :)

As you can see, I changed the lay-out of the blog a little bit. I got bored of the old one, so experimented a little with the background. I hope you like it! If you have any tips to improve the lay-out, feel free to tell me!

Since my last nail polish haul in Semptember, I was on a no-buy. Since the beginning of December, that's over, thank god! I had a swap with someone from the US + I made an order on ebay with some polishes from the winter collections. So I have a lot to show you guys in the next weeks.

I'm also super excited for the upcoming China Glaze Collections. China Glaze showed some swatches from their upcoming Spring Collection "Anchors Away" on twitter and they really look great. I think I'll get the entire collection! I'm also excited for their Tronica and Crackle collection! I would really like to see some swatches, so lets hope they don't let us wait to long!

As I already said, I recently made a swap with a fellow nailpolish lover on MUA. I wanted some Pure Ice and Sally Hanson polishes and she wanted some Catrices. The first polish I want to show you from this swap is French Kiss from Pure Ice. I fell in love with this polish the moment I saw swatches online. I generally love blue polishes, so this couldn't go wrong! Since their practically no sun here and I do not own a light box, I took pictures without and with flash:



French kiss is a beautiful medium blue creme. It applies like butter and I really like the formula from Pure Ice. I have two others (Purple Reign and Heartbreaker) waiting to be swatched, but I think I'll love those too!

Thank you guys for stopping by and hope to see you a next time!
Christina

Essence Studio Nails

Hi guys!

A few months ago, I bought Nail Fashion Stickers from Essence Studio Nails. In the days after I bought them, I read many bad reviews about them. Because of that I was demotivated to try them out so they have been lying around for quit some time now. But I finally decided to try them out because I really like the design I got. Its foil silver base with black random lines.

There are some instructions on the package about how to apply the stickers. After cleaning the nails and choosing the right size for all the 10 fingers, you just apply them. Afterwards you have to file off the excess of the sticker.

My overall experience with these is not good. The problems already started when I wanted to find the right sizes for my fingers. I don’t have small nailbads, so most stickers weren’t wide enough for my nails. Applying them went even worse: the sticker doesn’t adhese very well and its not easy to get rid of the wrinkles. Above that, the stickers didn’t last up to 5 days like its said on the package. Even with a topcoat (Seche Vite) the sticker began to peel off after only one day.

I think the stickers are a good alternative if you need to go to a party and don’t have much time to polish your nails. They are very cheap, only 1.99€ for one package with 14 nail stickers, and they have a nice variety of designs.

Pluspoints: - creative and very nice patterns - cheap Downsides: - doesn’t last very long - not easy to apply - not easy to find a good size of the stickers for a finger

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice day!

Christina

Nail of the day

Hi guys,

Since I got the Viva La Nails sample pack, I’ve been trying them out. My last manicure included a nail sticker from the sample pack. I was wearing Spruced up from Catrice (Expect the Unexpected Collection) and decided to add a sticker to my ring fingers. Here’s the result:

I like the design of the flower. I used a toothpick to apply the stickers to my nails. I tried one sticker without applying a topcoat above it, and one with topcoat. I’m definitly going to use a topcoat the next times. The sticker was gone after a few hours without topcoat!

I’m leaving to Montpellier tomorrow on a study trip, so there won’t be post until next Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by and have a day!

Christina

Viva La Nails Sample Pack

Hi guys!

Last week, I ordered the bloggers Sample Pack from Viva La Nails. They offer bloggers/vloggers a sample pack that includes 3 sheets with nail art stickers and 3 sheets with decals. You just have to pay 2,95£ for shipment and review the sample pack on your blog or vlog.

The nail art stickers include a red flowerdesign, flowers in different colors & a white butterlydesign:

The decals include a black flowerdesign, a blue/red flower design and a sheet with Christmas designs (yay!):

I didn’t own any nail art stickers/decals before I got this, so I am very excited to try these out. When I got them, I couldn’t resist trying them out. I added the a duo of pink-purple flowers on my ring fingers! I was wearing Secret Admirer from Sinful Colors at the time.

The stickers were very easy to apply. I used a toothpick to remove the sticker from the sheet and to place it on my nail. I don’t know how well these last on the fingers yet, but I’ll definitely give you an update when I review more of this sample pack!

Here’s a close up:

You can order these and many others on www.vivalanails.co.uk
Thanks for stopping by and have a nice day,

Christina

Essie–Turquoise & Caicos

Hi guys,

The rainy and windy fall weather has reached us, so I wanted to bring some summer on my nails. Turquoise & Caicos is a part of the Resort Collection from Essie. It’s a beautiful turquoise color that indeed reminds me of the turquoise seas you see in Resort brochures etc.

The formula is pretty good, this needed 3 coats for a opaque coverage. Yesterday I went by Kruidvat in town and found a pretty striper from Essence called “03 Silver Surfer”. A friend of mine had already bought it in the past and I saw that the color looked very pretty for details on nails, so I got it for myself. When I got home I wanted to try it out, but didn’t want to remove T&C. So eventually I applied some stripes on it.

The striper is very easy to use and the formula of the silver polish is really good: a simple stroke gives a good coverage. I really like this color, I’m looking forward to using it for other designs and with other colors!

Thanks for stopping by,

Christina

Blue & Silver

Hi guys!

I had some free time recently and got a little creative. I absolutly love Ski Teal We Drop from the Swiss collection of OPI (my current favorite polish). I was wearing it for the 333th time when I decided to get out my konad stuff and play a little. I wanted to paint a stroke in the middle with OPI – Suzy Says Feng Shui, so I used some painterstape to make it easy. After applying SSFS, I used a full image from konad plate m64. I stamped this image over the SSFS with Millenium from China Glaze. As a “finishing touch” I added two stripes in black on the sides. This is the result:

I think it worked out pretty well! =)

Thanks for stopping by!

Christina

Misa: It’s You!

Hi guys!

Here’s the other Misa I got from the “What I like about you”-collection, like I promised! This one was the other one from the collection that took my attention. It seems to be gray on first sight, but it has a awesome duochrome thing going on! It has hints of blue/purple in some light! Really a unique polish in my collection, glad that I got it!

I’m sorry for the smudge on my nail, I only noticed it after taking the pictures. The application on this one was fine for me, same like What I Like About You! Definitly a must have I think!

Thank you guys for stopping by, hope you have a lovely day

Christina

Eyeko “Vintage” and "Rain" Polish

Hi everyone!

I recently won 2 eyeko polishes in a giveaway! I got Rain Polish and Vintage Polish. I have had other Eyeko polishes in the past from the old line, the cute small bottles with the metal cap (does anyone else have these?). I like the renewed polishes, but I haven’t had a chance yet to get some. I might put them on my Christmas list!

This one is “Rain Polish”, a gray/blue polish (duh, what else did you expect by looking at the name!). It think it’s a pretty color for fall.

The other one I got is “Vintage Polish”, a pretty mint polish.

Application of both polishes was ok for me. The formula was a little thick, but good enough to work with! Look how cute the bottles are! I like how they have unique labels for each polish!

You can get these polishes and others on the website of Eyeko. They have really cute nail polishes and often promotions so keep an eye on their website/twitter!

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice day!

Christina

Black & white hearts

Hi guys! When I went on vacation to Ethiopia a few months ago, I found some nailart stripers. I found three colors: yellow, black and white. I still hadn’t tried these out, so I decided to try something simple with them. This is the result:

I used Models Own – Moody Grey as a base, added diagonal lines with the black & white stripers and finished of with a heart in the two colors. I’m not that handy when it comes to making lines with a free hand, but because of the stripers it went pretty well. Obviously I’m still not a pro, but maybe after some practice it will get better.

I really like the stripers because they provide two ways to use them. First of all, there’s a sharp metal point where the polish comes out. This is what I used for making the stripes and the hearts. But there is also a thin brush to use for more fluid lines. I haven’t used that yet, but I’ll surely will soon! The stripers contain 12ml of polish. I’ve done a little searching on ebay and found some shops who sell these stripers in packs of 12 (or more) with different colors. I’m considering of getting some, cause I’d really like to improve my nail art and these might do the trick!

Thanks for stopping by,

Christina

My first Misa

Hi guys,

Hope you all are fine, wherever you are. It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post, I’m sorry. But I’ll try to update more often in the future!

I recently bought my first polish from Misa. I saw some awesome swatches from the “What I like about you”-collection on Lacquerized. I like every single one of this collection, but since I wasn’t familiar with polishes from Misa, I got myself “What I like about you”. It’s a very pretty brown with copper shimmer.

I am really impressed with the formula. Applied very smooth in two coats. Another pluspoint is the brush, not too thick and not too small, perfect for my nails! I think this brand may take a spot in top 5 brands! I’ll have to try some other polishes from Misa first, off course. But I’m on the good way; after trying this polish, I also got “It’s You” from this collection. I’ll be showing you that one soon!

Do you guys have any recommendations from Misa? I already have Toxic Seduction and Dirty Sexy Money on my wishlist!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Christina

Leopard Konad Manicure

Hello!

Most of you probably know the leopard print from konad plate m57. This print has been an inspiration for many manicures, including many of mine. You could do the classic brown/black one with this print, but it’s much nicer to spice it up a little. I’ve seen mani funky leopard manicures: from a combination of 2 colors up to a multicolor combination. I kept it simple and used a green theme. As a base I used Jade Is the New Black from OPI. I stamped the leopard print from plate m57 on it, and pimped it with some light green dots in Spring Green from Sally Hanson Insta-Dri. Here’s the result:

I really like the result! I’ll probably do this manicure with some other colors in the future. Any of you had a funky leopard manicure yet?

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice day!

Christina

Art de Lautrec nr 07B

Hi!

A few days ago, I showed you my first polish from Art De Lautrec. Today I’m going to show you another one! The one for today is nr 07B: a very very beautiful holographic polish from AdL. It has a brown base, but it’s very sheer:

This was two coats. You can see the holo pop up, but not so obvious as in the bottle. So what if I’d try to layer it over something else?

Amazing, huh?! This is 07B layered over nr 40, the one I showed you guys yesterday.

Before I got this polish, I heard great things about the holo polishes from Art de Lautrec. Unfortunatly I orded way too late in the sale, so a lot of the holo polishes were already sold out. But it’s a great excuse to order the others in the future!

What do you think? Think you’ll be getting AdL polishes soon?

Thanks for stopping by and have nice day,
Christina

Art De Lautrec nr 40

Hi people!

Today I’m showing you a polish from Art De Lautrec. A few weeks ago, the webshop Alice & Jo's Havesentials had a promotion on Art De Lautrec polish. I got 3 polishes for just €6! Art De Lautrec polishes don’t have names, only numbers. The one I’m showing today is nr. 40. A very pretty dark brown with a subtle shimmer. Its not that special, but I love the subtle shimmer in it.

This was the first Art De Lautrec polish that I tried and I must say that I’m impressed. They have a wide range of colors (you can see them on the website from Alice & Jo’s Havesentials, they even have swatches from all the polishes!) and the formula of these is very good. I’ll be showing you guys 2 other polishes from AdL in the future!

Thanks for stopping by and have nice day!

Christina

BB Couture for Men: Blue Collar

Hi everyone,

Last week I was lucky to win a twittergiveaway from Overall Beauty. I had read that it was going to include 2 random polishes + a polish from the BB Couture for Men collection, Blue Collar. But boy was I suprised when I got the package on monday! The package included Blue Collar, two polishes from Eyeko (Rain & Vintage polish), two samples of mineral eyeshadow and a mini manicure set! Great giveway, and the first one I every won! :)

So with this package I got my first polish from BB Couture! Blue collar is as I said a part of the mens collection, but hey, pretty on girls too ;-). Its a sky blue with subtle silver shimmer. I think its really pretty light blue, definitly unique in my stash.



I was very pleased with the application, two smooth coats did the job. In the future I'll definitly get some BB Couture (for men) polishes! What about you guys, anyone tried the Mens collection?

Thanks for stopping by,
Christina

Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

Hi!

Today I'm showing you the second polish that I got from the OPI Swiss Collection. Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous (I love this name, very clever!) is a foil finish gold metalic. It's not a color that I would buy normally, but I really liked it on promo pics and other swatches so I decided to get it. I certainly don't regret it! I think I'll wear this one many times this fall. The application was fine for me. Opaque in two coats and applied very nicely, like I'm used to from OPI.



You are probably wondering right now why you see a Seche bottle in the picture above.. A few days ago, I was putting on basecoat and my brother was sitting next to me. He asked me which color I was going to put on, so I gave him the bottle of OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous. Bad idea, really bad idea. A couple of minutes later, he gets up and the bottle that was laying in his lap, flew through the room and broke when it hit the floor. I still see it happening before my eyes in slow motion, me getting up and screaming 'nooooooooooooooo...'. My brother was shocked for a moment (probably thinking I was going to kill him lol :D) but luckily I had a quick response. I ran to my room, searched for an empty bottle of Seche Vite (luckily I had cleaned this one out as I was planning to use it for a franken) and started to transfer some of the polish on the ground in the bottle. I had no choice but to trow the broken OPI bottle away. Goodbye pretty bottle, goodbye pro-wide brush.. But thank you Seche Vite bottle :) I had to have my first broken bottle sooner or later I guess, lol.

What do you guys think? Do you already have it or are you planning on getting it? And anyone else with a funny broken bottle story?

Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day,
Christina

Funky French with Sparkle-icious & Ski Teal We Drop

Hi guys!

I have a funky french for you guys today. When I got my package from transdesign, I decided to try out Ski Teal We Drop from the Swiss Collection from OPI. A gorgeous deep teal creme. This is probably going to be one of my favorites for this fall. After a few hours I wanted to try out Sparkle-icious from the Burlesque collection, but I didn't want to remove my Ski Teal We Drop mani + I hate to remove a full glitter mani, so I decided to spice my mani up with a french in Sparkle-icious!




I think that this is a very great combination. Sparkle-icious is really stunning. This is my first glitter and really want to do a full mani with it, but I'm afraid for the PITA removal. But I'll eventually have to do it someday because Sparkle-icious is too pretty to be untouched!

Thanks for stopping by and have a nice day,
Christina

Serena Williams for OPI?

Hi Guys!

No polish to show you guys today, but some nail polish related news. I read something very exciting today on Lushious Beauty (dutch) and Oprah.com . Apparently Serena Williams will colaborate with O.P.I. to bring out a collection called 'Grand Slam'.

This is the (very limited) info about it:

For now, Serena is easing into the nail business by launching her own collection of OPI nail polish colors called the Grand Slam Collection. Serena says the colors will represent different tennis tournaments, such as the Australian Open, French Open, U.S. Open and Wimbledon.

I'm so excited about this since I'm a HUGE tennis fan. I hope they come up with a very wonderful collection! Can't wait to hear some more about this! Anybody as excited about this as me?!

Christina

Franken - Spark in my Heart

Hi guys!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I've been really busy the last days. After days filled with things to do, I was a little bored today so I ended up cleaning my stash. As I went through it, I found H&M's Cha Cha. Its a beige with subtle holo glitter. I don't think it looks good on me so I don't really use it at all. Instead of trowing it away/swapping it, I decided to try to franken with it! I wanted a red holo, so I pulled out a regular red polish that I got in Ethiopia and mixed the two together. I don't really know how much of each polish I used, I used a half bottle of Cha Cha and kept adding the red until I got the red holo that I wanted! It was very sunny today (probably last sun we'll see for a while :(), so I had the chance to take some nice pictures. This is the result:





I think it ended up looking very good! :) I like that the holo shimmer is not that obvious (Cha Cha isn't a very obvious holo either), it comes out very subtle in artificial light or sunlight. I named it "Spark in my Heart". I don't really know why, I just thought it sounded good, hehe. What do you think, yay of nay?

Thank you for stopping by and have a nice day!
Christina

Pimped Secret-Peri-Wink-le

Hi guys!

I want to share a beautiful nail polish combination with you today. I had Secret-Peri-Wink-le from China Glaze as a mani for a few days until I decided to pimp it up a little. I wasn't really in the mood for nailart, so I tried to layer a glitter polish over it that I got in Ethiopia: number 19 from Aics. It turned out to be a beautiful combination:



The Aics polish is sort of a glitter topcoat. In the bottle it appears to be purple with silver microglitter. When I applied this on Secret-Peri-Wink-le the purple isn't that noticable, but the silver is. Here's a close up picture of what it looks like:



Pretty, huh?! I'm definitly gonna layer this polish over some others to see what effect I can create! What do you think of this?

Thanks for stopping by,
Christina

Models Own Betty Blue + Conclusion

Hi guys!
Today is the last day of the Models Own Week on my blog! This last polish that I'm going to show you, was the one I was looking most forward to: Betty Blue. It is a bright blue creme. One of the reasons I choose this polish is because I thought I'd be a good dupe for China Glaze Breakaway Bermuda. My bottle of BB is almost empty and I really love the color, so I decided to give Betty Blue a try. The two polishes aren't the same, I'll probably give you guys a comparison picture in the future.

I didn't like the application of this polish, couldn't get good coverage with this one. When applying a second coat, the brush took away some of the first coat. I eventually ended up using 3 coats (which I don't like for some reason, 2 coats = good polish for me). Luckily I like the result, pretty blue polish!



I'm satisfied after testing these 7 polishes from Models Own. I definitly like all the colors I got. I was really suprised by the application of some polishes, very good coverage and easy to work with! I'm a little sorry I only ordered cremes and jellies, because they have some amazing looking shimmers and glitters! But this gives me a good reason to order some time again!

Here are all the swatches together:



Thank you for stopping by!
Christina

Models Own Week: Coral Reef

Hi guys!
Today another polish from Models Own for you guys. Coral Reef is a very pretty bright coral, I would call it a neon actually. Application was not great, but good enough. This was three coats:



Thanks you and see you tomorrow for the last day of Models Own Week!
Christina

Models Own Week: Turkish Delight

Hi guys!
Today one of my favorits from my Models Own Haul: Turkish Delight. This is a beautiful berry jelly. I don't really like jelly's because of their application, but this one was ok for me, had no problems. This was two coats:



Thank you for stopping by and see you tomorrow!