Monday 28 October 2013

Halloween Slime Drips


Hi everyone!
Today I got in the Halloween spirit and did some green slime drip nails, which glow in the dark!


I recently bought a neon green glow in the dark polish from BornPrettyStore, and that polish is just absolutely perfect for slime drips! It's a suuuuperbright neon and it's a perfect slime colour, haha. And it glows in the dark, which is a major plus. I couldn't stop staring at my nails at night! 
But jeez, how hard is it to take a decent glow in the dark picture! Anyhow, I managed to get two sort of alright shots :)

If anyone's interested, here's the link to the BornPrettyStore polish - I got #4.



Thanks for reading!

Saturday 26 October 2013

Review Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat


Sally Hansen's Fuzzy Coat! I am really excited about this polish , it just looks so fun and different from any other polishes I own. It's a sheer polish with tiny black and white bits in, and surprisingly enough it has very good coverage.

About a week ago I saw this polish in the store, and I was really curious about the effect so I bought it. They had a few different colours, but since I didn't really know how the polish would look I opted for the safe choice with black and white. This is my first Sally Hansen polish by the way - up until now, I hadn't found a store nearby that sells them.

So, my opinion about this polish:
Simply put: I love it. It looks very different, I think at actually looks as if I put nail stickers on my nails, because the effect is so special. I only bought nr. 800, Tweedy, so I don't know if the other colours will look as nicely on your nails as this one. 



The application went alright, at first it was a bit of a struggle to find the right way to get good coverage with this polish, but once I got used to it, it went smoothly. The only thing is that you can't put too much polish on your nails in one time, since it doesn't dry so good then. On my one hand, I had 3 thick layers of the polish because I wanted good coverage, but it took ages for it to dry, and if I bumped into something with my hand the polish would shift a little or even peel off where the layers were too thick, so I had to correct this in the evening. 
On my other hand, however, I did 3 thin layers and had no problems whatsoever. And the coverage was also really good, so you actually don't need very thick layers with this polish - something which I was quite surprised about, but also very pleased with :)

The polish has a bit of a matte finish: if you would like it to be very shiny, you should put a topcoat on. I tried the polish both with a glossy topcoat and with an extra matte topcoat, as you can see here:


I looked up some reviews about this polish, and there were really only two opinions about this polish: you either love it, or you hate it. Most people who hated it complained about how hard it was to get the polish off (a lot harder than glitter polish, apparently), so that'll be an adventure for me this evening!

The one downside (apart from maybe the removal) is that the bits of black and white sort of stick up a bit from your nail sometimes, so the surface of your nail isn't that smooth. But honestly, this didn't bother me at all. The tip of my nails also weren't smooth, because the black and white bits sticked out there as well. At first this annoyed me so much - for me, my nails really have to be very smooth at the tips, otherwise I just go crazy - but I eventually got used to it, thankfully.

So, what do you think about this polish? Does anyone maybe own the other colours? :)
Thanks for reading!

Wednesday 23 October 2013

Dry Marble Nails

  
Today's nails: dry marble with orange and pink!



For this design, I used OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries and D'Orleac Mate 01.
Dry marble is a great technique for those of us who kind of suck at watermarble, but still want to have all those fun flowy lines in our design :)

How to:
First I painted my nails with a base coat, and then I painted them with the OPI colour.
After that, I put big blobs of the orange and pink colour on my nails (but then again, not too thick: you want the blobs to be thick enough to be able to sort of stir in them with a toothpick, but not so thick that you can see an amazingly thick coat of polish on your nails when you have made the design - it's a bit hard to explain, but I think that when you're trying this for yourself, you'll notice very quickly when there's too much or too little polish).
When the blobs were on my nails (one nail at a time!) I took a toothpick (a needle would also work) and stirred around a bit in the blobs, to make them mingle and to create flowy lines.
After that, I immediately put a top coat on to make the lines even flowier, and then I added a few silver studs from BornPrettyStore :)



I really like how these colours match and flow in each other, but I regret that the effect is not more visible. You have to look closely to see the different colours. The effect is most visible on my index finger and my thumb. I also had some trouble with bubbles in the design (you can see this quite clearly on my ring finger). If anyone has any tips or tricks on how to avoid this, always welcome!

Thanks for reading!

Saturday 19 October 2013

Bowling Nails




I'm going bowling this evening, so some bowling themed nails were a must! :)

I painted some cute bowling pins, and the word STRIKE, since that is sort of my goal for tonight, throw at least one strike :) Maybe I should set some more achievable goal, like just actually hitting some pins, but we'll see how it goes!


Colours used:
Essie - 77 Chinchilly (my all time favourite grey, it's sooo pretty!)
Mavala - 383 Rouge Hot
D'Orleac - FM1

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Crayon Colours




I'm really proud of today's mani, because I used some materials that were new to me, and I think the result looks very cool: it doesn't look like I painted my nails with nail polish, but with normal paint, or even just wildly coloured on them with crayons. 

To create this look, I used a small paint brush with pig's hair (like this one, for example).
The nail polishes I used are:
D'Orleac - Mate 01 (this polish doesn't have a name)
Catrice - 400 Blue Cara Ciao
Opi - Ate Berries In the Canaries
Gosh - 600 Matt Effect Top Coat

First I put a base coat on my nails, and then I painted them white. 
After that, I started with the purple: I took the paint brush and put some purple polish on it. Then I sort of cleaned off the brush on a piece of paper, so that there wasn't a massive amount of polish on it. Then I just painted a small part of my nails with this purple polish. I then did the same with the blue and orange, and quickly after that I put on a top coat, so the still wet polish would mix a little and the lines between the colours wouldn't be as hard.

After that, I wanted the colours to pop out more, so I just repeated everything above (except for putting the white polish on of course). Then I put a matte coat on to make it look more like paint, and that's it!

I really like how this doesn't look like nail polish, but more like paint on my nails. It's supposed to be a bit messy, so that's also quite handy :)



I realised that my blue polish was almost the exact same colour as the sweater I was wearing, so of course I made a picture of that as well :)



I hope you like it, and thanks for reading :)

Saturday 12 October 2013

Bornprettystore Swatches - "Dazzling Starry Magical Multicolored Shell Glitter Nail Art Polish Varnish" #4


Holy smokes. I'm in love with this polish.

A few months ago, I read a review of this polish, and I just fell in love right then and there. I knew that I just had to have it, and now I do - hurrah!


This polish is meant as a top coat (so not to be worn by itself - I tried it on top of white polish to see the effect, but it didn't look very good to be honest). It's a very transparent polish, with glitters and flakes in it, very hard to describe. These glitters and flakes change colour, depending on the light they are in. These colour shifts are absolutely amazing: the flakes go from bright green via red and orange to yellow. It's super pretty! I even made a gif to show you guys :D This is the first gif I ever made, but I think it looks quite good!


Bornprettystore says that you are supposed to use "2 layers similar colored polish+ 1 layer Dazzling Starry Shell Glitter polish. You also can paint 2 layers of dark nail polish, then paint this Dazzling Starry Shell Glitter polish". You can buy this similar coloured nail polish with the Dazzling Starry Shell Glitter one, but I didn't do that, since I already have a dark blue polish. 

On my left hand, I first painted all my nails in a different dark base colour, because I wanted to see the effect of the Dazzling Polish on top of all these colours.
From left to right:
Only You - 534 Stairway to Heaven
Only You - 497 Chocolate Chips
Essence Colour & Go - 37 Just Rock It!
Mavala - 48 Black



The dark blue polish (third from the left) is the one I used on my right hand, because I thought that one was the prettiest. My dark blue polish plus one coat of Dazzling Polish looks like this:



On my left hand, I always used two layers of the Dazzling Polish, which looks completely different from only one layer.  When you use one layer of Dazzling Polish, you can still see the base colour; when you use two layers, you cannot really see this anymore. Here are some pictures of my left hand:




So, my experiment on my left hand actually failed because of this: I painted on two layers of the Dazzling Polish, resulting in very dazzling, gorgeous nails, but it also had as an effect that you cannot really see the effect of the polish on the different base colours, since these are no longer very discernible underneath the Dazzling Polish. You can see them a bit, if you look closely, but not a lot.
Oh well, at least now I know that two layers of the Dazzling Polish is a bit too much if you still want the base coat to be visible. I like my right hand the best, so the one with only one layer of Dazzling Polish, because I like how it looks in combination with my dark blue base polish. But the left hand with two layers is also really pretty, I think: the colours remind me of fall.

Now, from all this dazzling prettyness, let's move on to the only downside to this polish: the smell. Jeez, the smell. It has a really penetrating chemical smell when you apply the polish, and when it's drying it still smells very strong. Luckily, when the polish has dried, this smell goes away completely.

You can click here to see these polishes on Bornprettystore. They have 11 colours. Besides my #4, I also really love #3 and #11, maybe something for next time :)

What do you think of these polishes?

Monday 7 October 2013

Candy Coloured Gradient Nails

Today I tried a gradient for the first time, and here's the result:



I love how these colours fit together, they kind of remind me of an ocean sunset. They are really bright and cheerful colours, but not in a too flashy kind of way, if you know what I mean.



I made this gradient using a sponge: 
First you paint your nails in a base colour (the lightest colour of your bunch, normally).
Then you paint the colours onto the sponge, and dip the sponge onto your nails. Then you dip it a bit up and down, so the colours mingle a bit. After that, you put a topcoat on to make the colours blend even better.

Here's a tutorial I found, which shows very nicely what you should do :)


Saturday 5 October 2013

Black and White


I have fallen completely in love with this colour combination! It's so classy and simple, but looks really awesome at the same time. 

I tried using striping tape for this design, for the first time in my life. And geez, that is so much harder than I thought it would be.
I assumed that once I had striping tape, I would be able to make the cleanest lines ever. Not the case though. You really have to practice at putting the tape in the right place, or even at not getting the tape all stuck on your hands. Fortunately, I found some great tips by the Nailasaurus.

Anyway, I know that I'll be making a lot more black and white designs, I just love these!


New Polishes

Hurrah hurrah, I got my order from Bornprettystore!




I've never ordered anything from Bornprettystore before,
so I'm very excited to try out al my new stuff! Especially looking forward to “Dazzling Starry Magical Multicolored Shell Glitter Nail Art Polish Varnish ” (jeez what a name), it looks amaaazing in pictures.

I still have to learn how to work with striping tape though - I thought I was just magically going to be able to make great, clean lines immediately, but it's not as simple as it looks, sadly... Well, I'll just have to make a lot of designs to get the hang of it :)

Thanks for stopping by!


Wednesday 2 October 2013

Half Moon Mani


This is a design I did a while ago. It was the first time I tried to do half moons, I think they turned out quite nice if you keep that in mind :)

For the half moons, I just tried my best to make a round shape on my nails, and bit by bit I made the shape larger. I did another half moon mani a few weeks ago, and for that design I just based my half moons on the natural half moons of my nails, which was a lot easier!

Thanks for visiting!