Stains and Sparkles

Remember how much I loved WnW Teal of Fortune?  Well, I wasn’t loving it so much after I removed it!

YIKES!! I have never had staining like that before.  Granted, I forgot to use a basecoat because I quickly painted my nails before leaving to go out, but jeeez.. I’m going to have to scrub my nails with some kind of whitening something or other to sort this out. Anyone have tips?
Today I had to remove my awesome Metro Mani because it was starting to chip.  I felt like a little bling, so I grabbed two polishes I hadn’t tried yet to see how they look together.

Essence Circus Confetti and Finger Paints Wine at the Gallery.  I thought the wine color as a base coat would work with the colors in the confetti polish rather than my usual go-to black.

I love these finger paints bottles.  Anything even slightly out of the ordinary really thrills me to bits.  I also love that they have cool names rather than just numbers.

I had been eyeing Circus Confetti for a while now whenever I visit Kruidvat.  I was curious what it looked like on.  I found it slightly difficult to work with because while I could get a lot of the glitter out on the brush, as I was trying to apply it, it wanted to push up and clump together towards the tip of the nail.  I ended up with more of the glitter on there than I would have liked because I kept faffing around with the brush trying to spread it out.

I still like it though.  Maybe not an OMG! I want to wear this forever!! kind of love, but I’ll wear it for at least the day.  Maybe two, since this IS glitter and I’m not looking forward to trying to remove it.

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Don’t Tell Romeo!

I saw Julia on top of Chuck! True story!  Please don’t tell Blair either, you know what she can be like.

At the Kruidvat 50% off sale, I tried to snatch up as many of the Essence Nail Twins as I could.  I ended up not getting a single pair but I did manage to get these two.

Chuck, the blueish purple base coat and half of the “Chuck and Blair” twin set, was an absolute dream to work with.  I managed to coat my nails with just one coat and it was sooooo smooth.  I take back whatever I said about cheaper brands not being as good as the others because this has become one of my favorites both for color and for ease of use.  Honestly, I want all of the nail art twin bases now, just in the hopes that they are as lovely as this one.
The glitter is Julia, a small silver glitter with larger silver glitter squares and the top coat of the “Romeo and Julia” twin set.  I’m not sure why they didn’t actually call it Juliet, but Julia it is.  I was a bit nervous using a glitter with slightly bigger pieces in it after dealing with those annoying stars, but this wasn’t bad at all!  Sure the bigger pieces clump a bit here and there but I find even when that did happen it still looked great.  There wasn’t the issue of the brush not picking up the larger square pieces, which was a major relief.  It has restored my faith in glitter with larger pieces involved. 
I LOVE this mani and really am not in any rush to remove it.  It’s got so much BLING to it and I just love the blueish purple color of Chuck.
I don’t know, I’m starting to think that maybe Chuck and Julia were just meant to be!

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I Love Spring

Kruidvat had a great sale on last weekend, 50% off all makeup. Omg!  I got over 20 bottles of polish for less than 20 euro, I was in heaven!  All this sunny weather and trees blossoming made me want to do something with more spring colors, since I often tend to stick to darker colors.  I wanted to do something with dots that would resemble flowers.  Looking back I probably should have put the dots closer together but I can always give it another go some other time.  Even if it just looks like random dots on a yellow base I still think it’s springy and pretty!
I saw a great tip a while back on a website (can’t remember what site it was now).  It’s for using things you have at home as a dotting tool, it came in handy for my Easter Mani and I used it again this time.

Excuse the lint, sometimes the fuzz from the pads I use to remove the paint stick to things (that’s another blog topic because I could really use a solution!) 
Anyway, it’s so easy!  You just take stickpins with different sized plastic heads, cut part of the pin off and stick them in the eraser on and end of a pencil. VOILA!  Dotting tool!!  Great for people like me who are on limited budgets!
Polish used:
Yellow – Catrice Bye, Bye Birdy!
Purple – Essence Found My Love
White – Catrice Snow Motion
Green – Catrice Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!

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Essence Magnetic Hex Hex!

As I expected, it wasn’t long before I got into the magnetic polish.  It didn’t turn out too bad for my first try!
It was quite difficult to do because the process is that you paint your nail, slip the magnet on your finger on the other hand and hold your freshly painted finger up against it.  Sounds easy enough, but what isn’t easy is holding it close enough without hitting your finger against the magnet.

No lie, I did every finger at least 2-3 times just because I kept hitting my fingernail against the magnet and smudging the polish. Very irritating.

I also noticed that for some strange reason, the pattern shows up a lot better on my natural nails than it did on the fakies.  You can see that my ring and pinkie finger look a lot better than the other two fingers.  I can’t figure out why that is but there is obviously something with the fake nails that affects it.

I have seen a different type of magnetic polish on a German website and I wonder if that is easier to use.  From what I’ve seen you just sit your finger in a little stand with the magnet above it, which seems like it would suit me a LOT more.  With shaky hands like mine, getting up as close as you are required to do with the Essence magnet does no go well at all.

I may try buying the magnet on the German website and see if it works a bit better, because I really like how it looks.  I’d especially like to try some different designs with it!

Have you tried the Essence magnetic polish, or the other type like on the German site?  If so, what did you think of them?

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New Essence Magnetic Find

Look what I found today!  YAY!

 

I was under the impression that Essence stopped producing the magnetic polish but apparently it’s back!  I bought only one color (02 Hex Hex!) because I wanted to make sure it works before splurging on the rest. 

 

I noticed that they changed the magic, I wonder if it makes any difference.  I am also curious how you make other designs as from what I see on the box for the magnet, it only makes stripes.

 

I can’t wait to give it a try.  I’m a little hesitant to remove my cute pink mani from yesterday though.  I’m sure I won’t make it through the day without getting into this though. I’ll be back!

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