PAA’s Monday Nail Art Challenge–Galaxy Nails!
The PAA Monday Nail Art Challenge for this week was Galaxy Nails!! Oh I was so excited about this one because I wanted to try this for so long!
I have never done sponging before and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the effect I wanted but I think it worked out pretty well!
This is also often called Nebula nails, and I’m soooo in love. I hope this one lasts a while because I really don’t want to take it off!
If you want to try this yourself, here is an easy tutorial!
The products I used for mine are:
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Essence Multi Dimension XXL Shine Fatal
OPI (Pirates Collection) Sparrow Me The Drama
Essence (@Holographc.com Collection) Blue Ray
GOSH Green Hawaii
Catrice Bye, Bye Birdy!
Essence (50’s Girls Reloaded) Ahoy!
China Glaze Fairy Dust
Seche Vite Topcoat
Labels:
Favorites,
Nail Art,
PAA's Monday Nail Art Challenge,
Sponging
Rawwrr! Night Prowl!
I love black… I love purple… I love glitter. OMG I LOVE BLACK PURPLE AND GLITTER!! When it comes to me and polish, I’m not sure it gets any better than Wet n Wild Wild Shine Night Prowl! I’m in love!
It goes on smooth and evenly, it takes two coats (or one if you put it on thick enough) to get a nice cover, and it’s just so damn subtle and pretty! Ok, not subtle in the way that a nude color would be, but when you look at some of my other more ‘blingy’ polishes I’ve worn, the glitter in this is subtle.
You know how everyone has this ‘go to polish’ that they put on when they are feeling fussy and don’t quite know what they want to do with their nails. I’m pretty sure this will be mine.
PAA’S Monday Nail Art Challenges – Animal, Splatter and Layer
I’m a bit behind on updating my entries for PAA'S Monday Nail Art Challenge, not that I haven’t been doing them, I have… I’ve just gotten behind on my photo editing. I had to replace my laptop recently and one of the main problems with my old one was that I couldn’t edit more than one or two photos before laptop came to a halt. It was very frustrating… but now I have an awesome new machine and am back in action!
Three weeks ago the theme was Animal, which meant you could do anything that had to do with animals. Animal prints, animal nail art, whatever… I had seen this post by Grace from Oooh, Shinies! about a snow leopard mani, and I was in love. I knew this was what I wanted to do for my animal theme!
Products used:
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Essence 50’s Girls Reloaded Ahoy (White)
Konad Black Stamping Polish
Konad Plate M57
Essence Silver Stampy Polish (Silver spots)
Seche Vite Topcoat
Last week the theme was Splatter… boy, what a challenge that turned out to be. The way splatter is meant to be done is to take a thin straw and dip it into a blob of polish so that it covers the opening at the end of the straw, then you blow through the other end, causing the polish to splatter onto the nail. Well, easier said than done! The straws I bought were far too wide and wouldn’t work, so I tried disassembling a pen and using the narrow opening where the tip of the pen sticks out to pick up the polish and blowing on the other end. By the time I got that far, all the blowing was giving me a headache, so I went for the hand drawn, fake splatter look instead.
This is done by putting a drop of paint on your finger and dragging it out with a toothpick or fine dotting tool. I had a lot of fun doing this!
Products used:
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Essence Multi Dimension XXXL Shine Fatal (Black)
Essence Multi Dimension XXXL Shine Found My Love (Light Purple)
Catrice Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy! (Green)
Essence Colour & Go Let’s Get Lost (Blue)
OPI Planks a Lot (Dark Purple) & Sparrow Me The Drama (Pink) from the Pirates of the Caribbean Collection
China Glaze Fairy Dust (Glitter topcoat)
Seche Vite Topcoat
The theme for today was Layering, which is a little vague but I gather it just meant anything to do with layering one polish on top of another. Unfortunately, I have an appointment tomorrow that I don’t think would be appropriate for really flashy polish so I chose to just stick a fake nail on my practice finger and do my idea on there. It still counts!
Products Used:
Essence Nail Art Twins Thelma (Base coat, looks black but is really a dark purple)
Essence Nail Art Twins Troy (Glitter)
Pink Nail Striping Tape
Seche Vite Topcoat
I decided that instead of layering the entire nail I would do part, and try something different. I got a package in the mail today with some items I ordered a few weeks ago from Born Pretty, which is a great shop in China where you can buy lots of nail items for seriously cheap prices. Oh, and the best part? FREE SHIPPING – WORLDWIDE!
I wanted to use one of my new products so I thought it’d be nice to border the two separate sections with some of the striping tape, so I could test it out. I got 12 colors for only $7.99 (5,50 euro) which I’m pretty sure is enough to last me a lifetime! You get a lot on those little rolls, it’s really surprising.
Be prepared, I see a striping tape frenzy in my future!
If you would like to get in on the Facebook nail group action, shoot me a message on Facebook and I’ll see about getting you an invite!
World of Warcraft Lava Nails
After trying out the High Def with Silver Shatter I wanted to do something with a crackle polish that had a bit more oomph to it. My husband and I have been playing a little World of Warcraft recently and I thought, hey… why not make some lava nails!
Here’s a photo for those of you who have never played. Yes, I actually love you all enough to log in and fly to somewhere with lava just so you could see what I am talking about. I bet you all know where I’m going with this already!
The color I used for the base was from the new Essence collection, 50's Girls Reloaded. It’s a bright fire engine red color called Back to the 50’s. It took a few coats to get rid of the VNL (visible nail line) and even after two heavy coats it was still somewhat visible. It didn’t matter since I knew I was going to be covering it anyway. It was so difficult to get a photo of this polish. I ended up using the flash because with non flash photos it seemed to blend in with my fingers too much. I could have gotten out the light box but I couldn’t be bothered, this give you a pretty good representation of the color.
This is with China Glaze Black Crackle on top. Once again I tried to change how I added the crackle by doing thinner and thicker coats. I’ve not perfected it yet but it came out pretty much the way I wanted to… like lava peeking through the ashes!
I should have done a coat of Seche Vite over the crackle but I had other plans for my nails the next day and planned on removing it. My bottle of the SV top coat is getting low and I didn’t want to waste it. So it still looked quite textured.
Labels:
Black,
Crackle,
Essence,
Red,
World of Warcraft
Nail Mail From Kati!
Just after I got back from my holiday I got nail mail from my friend Kati. We had planned to swap some polish the next time we met up, but with both our holidays our paths never seemed to cross. The sneaky devil stuck my polish in an envelope and mailed it! I was so excited to get this unexpected package!
I immediately sat down to test out these polishes!
The first one I tried was China Glaze – High Def. I really love this color! I am quite partial to blue and purple colors anyway but this went on so smooth and looked so nice. What a great color!
As luck would have it, I didn’t have to remove the High Def in order to try the other polish she sent me, becaaaaauuse…
It was a top coat! Opi’s Silver Shatter! I gave myself a day with the High Def alone, and then added the Silver Shatter to check it out. I think it probably would be more striking with a different color under it but it still looked kind of cool.
I still need to get the hang of the crackle / shatter polishes. I can never figure out if it’s best to do a thin or thick coat. I seem to get different results no matter how I do it.
Do you have any tips on how to get the best results with these polishes?
I immediately sat down to test out these polishes!
The first one I tried was China Glaze – High Def. I really love this color! I am quite partial to blue and purple colors anyway but this went on so smooth and looked so nice. What a great color!
As luck would have it, I didn’t have to remove the High Def in order to try the other polish she sent me, becaaaaauuse…
It was a top coat! Opi’s Silver Shatter! I gave myself a day with the High Def alone, and then added the Silver Shatter to check it out. I think it probably would be more striking with a different color under it but it still looked kind of cool.
I still need to get the hang of the crackle / shatter polishes. I can never figure out if it’s best to do a thin or thick coat. I seem to get different results no matter how I do it.
Do you have any tips on how to get the best results with these polishes?
My First Pedicure
This is a post that was originally written for Canadutch, my personal blog. Seeing as it pertains to nails, I thought I would copy it here as well, as I think some of you will get a kick out of it!
Last week my friend Penny and I got together for pedicures. It was my very first pedicure ever, can you believe it?! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but either I didn’t want to spend the money on it or I was freaked out about people messing with my feet.
Penny kept pushing me on it, so I finally gave in and decided to give it a go. Another friend told us about a place in Zuidplein where she goes, so we decided to go there.
First, let me say I was little wary. After my experience with getting acrylic nails at an Asian Nail Farm I wasn’t sure I wanted to try one of those places again for my pedicure. When I got the acrylic nails put on they damaged my nail beds quite badly, I also left with bloody cuticles, which was unpleasant. I call them Asian Nail Farms because they are usually big places that just push people through like cattle, it’s more about quantity than quality.
But… it’s cheap, and that’s what keeps people going there. It’s also what brought us there for the pedicures.
Anyhow, I was quite excited about it, in spite of my hesitance about the location.
Well, it was both a good and bad experience… It’s one of those things that at the time is frustrating but later becomes a good story you can laugh about.
We showed up at the shop and were able to just walk in, which was great. I was so happy to see that they had those big massage chairs that we could sit in, I looooove those chairs! I used to go to electronics shops and sit in them just for fun.
The excitement started to wane a bit when I sat in the chair they pointed to and the arm fell off. See the arm of the chair in the photo with the remote on it? Well, every few minutes it just flopped off to the side. They are made to open outwards so people can turn sideways and slide off the chair, as it’s a bit awkward with the tub in front. The swivel was broken on that arm though so instead of just opening outwards, it just fell outwards like it was falling off. I must have picked that arm back up 100 times… The girl kept looking at me and telling me not to do that, like I was some how purposely pushing it off. That was when I started getting irritated. I eventually managed to get it to sit there, careful not to move my hips at all because the slightest nudge made it fall again.
I messed with the remote for a few minutes getting my massage on, which started to ease my frustration and get me to relax. The girl put the water in the tub and threw some sort of blue stuff in and I started to soak them and wiggle my toes against the jets. It felt great and before long I wasn’t thinking about the wonky chair arm at all.
Aaaah, I was relaxed, I was hanging with my BFF, I was about to get my very first pedicure… this was awesome!
That is, until the chair tried to eat me!
No lie, it was like a cartoon or something, it literally felt like the chair was trying to eat me! Look at the photo again, see that pad that’s between my back and the chair? Well the way the chair is made, if you pull up that padded flap you see all the mechanical bits inside the chair. I don’t know what was happening but the rolling thing that went up and down my back kept getting caught in something on the bottom of that pad and it pulled the bottom up. This caused the pad to scrunch up into a weird mouth like shape that opened and closed against my back, trying to swallow me whole. Even Penny was looking at me like “What the hell is going on with that chair?!!!”
The girl came over twice to fix it, lifting the flap away from what it was tangled in and flattening it out. Just when I’d start getting comfortable and relaxed, the chair would try to eat me again.
Here’s the funniest part though, when the girl would come, she’d act totally irritated with ME, like somehow it was my fault that their chair was completely buggered. They should have moved me to a different chair, or I should have asked to be moved, but I didn’t want to move away from Penny because we were there together and trying to chat and stuff.
In the end, the girl basically just turned the thing off and was like “No massage for joo!”, so I spent about 90% of the time there in a chair that does nothing. Unless you count the arm falling off because that continued the entire time.
This was just about the first 10 minutes that I was there, and I was becoming a bit worried about what I was going to experience once they actually touched my feet. The girl seemed totally irritated with me, because of the chair constantly messing up, was she going to take it out on my feet?!
Well, it’s possible she did, she tried to boil my feet. True story… I SO wish I’d had my camera handy to take photos of all this, but it was behind me on a shelf and they were already ticked off enough with me. Plus, I was afraid to move because I didn’t know what else was going to go wrong with that damn chair. The only reason I had the above photo was because Penny had her phone on her.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering what I meant when I said she tried to boil my feet. Well, it means just that… she tried to BOIL. MY. FEET!
After all the chair massage drama was over, and I learned to just sit still like a statue, I could actually think of what was going on with my feet. This is how it went…
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! I can feel it too!
Again, I wish I had been able to get a hold of my camera, but I think if I tried to move, or asked the girl to grab it for me, she was going to stab me. Penny tried her hardest to capture the redness but her camera phone just couldn’t cut it. You’ll have to take my word for it.
Let’s just say, I looked like I was wearing red socks, it really was that bad. Not just red, but BURGUNDY.
It was around this time that the other girl came to work on Penny’s feet. Penny, who all this time had been sitting in her perfectly intact chair, getting massaged and enjoying her front row seat to my horror show. I was watching the girl clipping, scraping and cutting stuff on Penny’s feet and I won’t lie, I was truly frightened.
If a CHAIR could cause me this much misery, what would a pair of clippers do? This girl was coming at me wielding something that looked like a cheese grater and she wanted me to let her put it near my feet. All I could imagine was the trail of blood I was going to leave through the mall on my way home.
Yes, I know that’s a bit dramatic but seriously, I had just experienced Chinese water torture first hand. I was traumatized!
I considered asking Penny to hold my hand, but I thought that might be the last straw for her. This was her day OFF as a mom, after all.
In the end the pedicure itself turned out to be the best part! There was no pain, no blood and she actually did a pretty good job! She did all her clippy, shavey, scrubby stuff and I left with beautifully painting toenails and a lot less crap on my heels.
So, do I consider my first pedicure experience to be a success? Oh jeez, yes and no!
No, because I’ll never everrrrr go to this place again. That demon chair and the way the girl acted towards me because of it made sure I’ll never visit them again. A lot of the experience was uncomfortable, frustrating and even painful.
That said, I still had a great day with Penny, we went to a movie, shopped, went out for dinner and just had a really great full day together. Something we don’t get to do nearly often enough.. Even though it was completely buggered up for me, we SCREAMED with laughter on the way home telling my husband about it. It sort of sucked a the time but now we have a really funny story to tell… AND the motivation to go do it again and try another place to see if it works out any better.
I’ll definitely go for another pedicure at some point. I liked the actual pedicure part and I think I’d really enjoy it if I had someone a little less pissy doing it and a better chair.
So, if you want to go for a pedicure, I wouldn’t advise visiting Le's Nail and Spa in Zuidplein. That’s just my personal opinion though. The original friend who recommended it and Penny seemed to have a much better experience than I did! So, I’ll leave it up to you.
Last week my friend Penny and I got together for pedicures. It was my very first pedicure ever, can you believe it?! It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but either I didn’t want to spend the money on it or I was freaked out about people messing with my feet. Penny kept pushing me on it, so I finally gave in and decided to give it a go. Another friend told us about a place in Zuidplein where she goes, so we decided to go there.
First, let me say I was little wary. After my experience with getting acrylic nails at an Asian Nail Farm I wasn’t sure I wanted to try one of those places again for my pedicure. When I got the acrylic nails put on they damaged my nail beds quite badly, I also left with bloody cuticles, which was unpleasant. I call them Asian Nail Farms because they are usually big places that just push people through like cattle, it’s more about quantity than quality.
But… it’s cheap, and that’s what keeps people going there. It’s also what brought us there for the pedicures.
Anyhow, I was quite excited about it, in spite of my hesitance about the location.
Well, it was both a good and bad experience… It’s one of those things that at the time is frustrating but later becomes a good story you can laugh about.
We showed up at the shop and were able to just walk in, which was great. I was so happy to see that they had those big massage chairs that we could sit in, I looooove those chairs! I used to go to electronics shops and sit in them just for fun.
The excitement started to wane a bit when I sat in the chair they pointed to and the arm fell off. See the arm of the chair in the photo with the remote on it? Well, every few minutes it just flopped off to the side. They are made to open outwards so people can turn sideways and slide off the chair, as it’s a bit awkward with the tub in front. The swivel was broken on that arm though so instead of just opening outwards, it just fell outwards like it was falling off. I must have picked that arm back up 100 times… The girl kept looking at me and telling me not to do that, like I was some how purposely pushing it off. That was when I started getting irritated. I eventually managed to get it to sit there, careful not to move my hips at all because the slightest nudge made it fall again.
I messed with the remote for a few minutes getting my massage on, which started to ease my frustration and get me to relax. The girl put the water in the tub and threw some sort of blue stuff in and I started to soak them and wiggle my toes against the jets. It felt great and before long I wasn’t thinking about the wonky chair arm at all.
Aaaah, I was relaxed, I was hanging with my BFF, I was about to get my very first pedicure… this was awesome!
That is, until the chair tried to eat me!
No lie, it was like a cartoon or something, it literally felt like the chair was trying to eat me! Look at the photo again, see that pad that’s between my back and the chair? Well the way the chair is made, if you pull up that padded flap you see all the mechanical bits inside the chair. I don’t know what was happening but the rolling thing that went up and down my back kept getting caught in something on the bottom of that pad and it pulled the bottom up. This caused the pad to scrunch up into a weird mouth like shape that opened and closed against my back, trying to swallow me whole. Even Penny was looking at me like “What the hell is going on with that chair?!!!”
The girl came over twice to fix it, lifting the flap away from what it was tangled in and flattening it out. Just when I’d start getting comfortable and relaxed, the chair would try to eat me again.
Here’s the funniest part though, when the girl would come, she’d act totally irritated with ME, like somehow it was my fault that their chair was completely buggered. They should have moved me to a different chair, or I should have asked to be moved, but I didn’t want to move away from Penny because we were there together and trying to chat and stuff.
In the end, the girl basically just turned the thing off and was like “No massage for joo!”, so I spent about 90% of the time there in a chair that does nothing. Unless you count the arm falling off because that continued the entire time.
This was just about the first 10 minutes that I was there, and I was becoming a bit worried about what I was going to experience once they actually touched my feet. The girl seemed totally irritated with me, because of the chair constantly messing up, was she going to take it out on my feet?!
Well, it’s possible she did, she tried to boil my feet. True story… I SO wish I’d had my camera handy to take photos of all this, but it was behind me on a shelf and they were already ticked off enough with me. Plus, I was afraid to move because I didn’t know what else was going to go wrong with that damn chair. The only reason I had the above photo was because Penny had her phone on her.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering what I meant when I said she tried to boil my feet. Well, it means just that… she tried to BOIL. MY. FEET!
After all the chair massage drama was over, and I learned to just sit still like a statue, I could actually think of what was going on with my feet. This is how it went…
Tammy: Fucking chair…I think we were creating a bit of a scene because the girl came running back over, people were starting to stare, and my feet felt like they were on fire. She messed with a dial between my feet and told me it was safe to put my feet back in. This was after holding her hands on my feet for a bit and telling me how warm they are.
Penny: Omg I know, what IS it with you?! You have the worst luck ever with this stuff!!
Tammy: I know, right?!! I swear, when I write stuff on my blog people must think I make this up, because nobody has this much bad luck.
Penny: Nobody could make this shit up.
Tammy: Wow, this is pretty warm, huh?
Penny (Relaxing and sighing) Nice, isn’t it?
Tammy: Yeah..
*Few minutes silence*
Tammy: Wow, this is really warm, is yours really warm?
Penny: Yeah it can get pretty warm.
*Few more minute silence*
Tammy: It’s hot, it’s supposed to be hot right, not just warm? This is pretty hot….
Penny (Laughing): Yes, it’s supposed to be hot.
*Few more minutes silence… I start wondering what special kind of foot wimp I really am*
Tammy: It’s REALLY hot, is it supposed to be really hot?!!
Penny (Starting to feel like she is out with her three year old, I think): Yes, it’s supposed to be hot.
*Feeling like the queen of foot wimps, dying to take my feet out but choosing to “man up” instead*
*Few more minutes silence*
Tammy: THIS IS REALLY FUCKING HOT!!!!! IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS HOT?! OH SWEET JESUS, PENNY IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS HOT?!!
Penny (Mom voice): Then take your feet out for Pete’s sake!
*Pull my feet out*
Penny (gasping): OMG LOOK AT YOUR FEET!!!
*Looks at feet, feeling both horrified at the color of them, yet strangely satisfied that I’m not a foot wimp after all, that something really was wrong*
Penny: Jesus, I’ve never seen feet that red!! holy shit!
Tammy: I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU IT WAS HOT!!! That’s not normal right?!! Mother of god, it hurts!
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! I can feel it too!
Again, I wish I had been able to get a hold of my camera, but I think if I tried to move, or asked the girl to grab it for me, she was going to stab me. Penny tried her hardest to capture the redness but her camera phone just couldn’t cut it. You’ll have to take my word for it.
Let’s just say, I looked like I was wearing red socks, it really was that bad. Not just red, but BURGUNDY.
It was around this time that the other girl came to work on Penny’s feet. Penny, who all this time had been sitting in her perfectly intact chair, getting massaged and enjoying her front row seat to my horror show. I was watching the girl clipping, scraping and cutting stuff on Penny’s feet and I won’t lie, I was truly frightened.
If a CHAIR could cause me this much misery, what would a pair of clippers do? This girl was coming at me wielding something that looked like a cheese grater and she wanted me to let her put it near my feet. All I could imagine was the trail of blood I was going to leave through the mall on my way home.
Yes, I know that’s a bit dramatic but seriously, I had just experienced Chinese water torture first hand. I was traumatized!
I considered asking Penny to hold my hand, but I thought that might be the last straw for her. This was her day OFF as a mom, after all.
In the end the pedicure itself turned out to be the best part! There was no pain, no blood and she actually did a pretty good job! She did all her clippy, shavey, scrubby stuff and I left with beautifully painting toenails and a lot less crap on my heels.
So, do I consider my first pedicure experience to be a success? Oh jeez, yes and no!
No, because I’ll never everrrrr go to this place again. That demon chair and the way the girl acted towards me because of it made sure I’ll never visit them again. A lot of the experience was uncomfortable, frustrating and even painful.
That said, I still had a great day with Penny, we went to a movie, shopped, went out for dinner and just had a really great full day together. Something we don’t get to do nearly often enough.. Even though it was completely buggered up for me, we SCREAMED with laughter on the way home telling my husband about it. It sort of sucked a the time but now we have a really funny story to tell… AND the motivation to go do it again and try another place to see if it works out any better.
I’ll definitely go for another pedicure at some point. I liked the actual pedicure part and I think I’d really enjoy it if I had someone a little less pissy doing it and a better chair.
So, if you want to go for a pedicure, I wouldn’t advise visiting Le's Nail and Spa in Zuidplein. That’s just my personal opinion though. The original friend who recommended it and Penny seemed to have a much better experience than I did! So, I’ll leave it up to you.
Labels:
Pedicure
My First Swap!
A few months ago I was contacted by Caroline from Shadow's Nail Art about doing a swap. I’d never done this before and was a little nervous at first as I didn’t know her or any of the other girls in the nails community. The thought of buying a load of stuff and sending it off to a stranger felt a bit strange, but after mailing with her a bit I got a really good feeling about her and decided to go for it.
It wasn’t long before we were mailing back and forth about the polishes we wanted. Well, what she wanted... I wanted ANYTHING, newbies are very easy to please. Her main goal was to get her hands on the Essence Nail Art Twins, Magnetic Polishes and a few other of their products, so I stalked Kruidvat for weeks looking for her items. In the meantime she started gathering up polish that she thought I'd like.
We got completely out of control and the swap ended up being quite big! It was SO much fun though! She claimed to be a serious shopaholic, and it wasn’t long before I realized she wasn't kidding. I think she could shop any one of us under the table!
The list of items she was sending kept growing and growing and I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to match up with what she was sending. Granted, she kept telling me not to be silly but it was my first swap and I really didn’t want her to be disappointed.
I think in the end we were both really happy with what we got. Here are some photos…
My package to her:
Mostly Essence products with some Catrice thrown in for good measure.
Oh, another reason I was worried about the package arriving?
I couldn’t find my bubble wrap so I wrapped it in fake snow from my Christmas decorations. It was only once I got them in the ziplock bags that I realized it totally looked like I was shipping cocaine!
It did arrive though, it was a miracle!
Her package arrived to me first, and I was so excited to open it!
Her package to me:
Pretty sweet haul, huh?! I’ve still not used even 1/4 of it, but my excuse is that I left for holiday shortly after it arrived! Seriously though, at the time this package from her actually doubled my collection.
I really loved doing the swap and I wish I could afford to do it more often. There are a lot of people wanting to do small swaps but the way our mail works is weird. Unless something can fit in one of the flat pack envelopes (which most polish bottles don’t) I have to send it as a package. It’s a flat rate for anything under 2 kilos so it costs me the same to send two bottles as it would cost me to send 20… granted, buying 20 bottles is more expensive but it somehow makes it feel like the postage is worth it.
Unfortunately, my beloved laptop is on its last legs, so rather than hoarding polish and sending packages, I have to squirrel my money away for the inevitable replacement we’ll have to buy sometime soon. So no swaps for me for a while, I think!
P.s. It's late and I'm feeling a little lazy so I didn't list all the polishes. If you see something you are curious about leave a comment and I'll let you know what it is!
It wasn’t long before we were mailing back and forth about the polishes we wanted. Well, what she wanted... I wanted ANYTHING, newbies are very easy to please. Her main goal was to get her hands on the Essence Nail Art Twins, Magnetic Polishes and a few other of their products, so I stalked Kruidvat for weeks looking for her items. In the meantime she started gathering up polish that she thought I'd like.
We got completely out of control and the swap ended up being quite big! It was SO much fun though! She claimed to be a serious shopaholic, and it wasn’t long before I realized she wasn't kidding. I think she could shop any one of us under the table!
The list of items she was sending kept growing and growing and I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to match up with what she was sending. Granted, she kept telling me not to be silly but it was my first swap and I really didn’t want her to be disappointed.
I think in the end we were both really happy with what we got. Here are some photos…
My package to her:
Mostly Essence products with some Catrice thrown in for good measure.
Oh, another reason I was worried about the package arriving?
I couldn’t find my bubble wrap so I wrapped it in fake snow from my Christmas decorations. It was only once I got them in the ziplock bags that I realized it totally looked like I was shipping cocaine!
It did arrive though, it was a miracle!
Her package arrived to me first, and I was so excited to open it!
Her package to me:
Pretty sweet haul, huh?! I’ve still not used even 1/4 of it, but my excuse is that I left for holiday shortly after it arrived! Seriously though, at the time this package from her actually doubled my collection.
I really loved doing the swap and I wish I could afford to do it more often. There are a lot of people wanting to do small swaps but the way our mail works is weird. Unless something can fit in one of the flat pack envelopes (which most polish bottles don’t) I have to send it as a package. It’s a flat rate for anything under 2 kilos so it costs me the same to send two bottles as it would cost me to send 20… granted, buying 20 bottles is more expensive but it somehow makes it feel like the postage is worth it.
Unfortunately, my beloved laptop is on its last legs, so rather than hoarding polish and sending packages, I have to squirrel my money away for the inevitable replacement we’ll have to buy sometime soon. So no swaps for me for a while, I think!
P.s. It's late and I'm feeling a little lazy so I didn't list all the polishes. If you see something you are curious about leave a comment and I'll let you know what it is!
Monday Nail Art Challenge–Taped Mani
It’s been a while since I’ve taken part in PAA's Monday Nail Art Challenge as I was away on Holiday and then bummed about how my nails were ravaged by camping. Now I’m back though and just in time for one of my favorite themes – taping!!
This theme was largely inspired by Jane over at Nailside, who is the queen of taping. She’s done more than one mani that I really love and have wanted to try. I’m still working up the courage to try her Double Lightning Bolt!
I wasn’t ready to remove my mani from yesterday so I just taped and did some black over it, but I think the result was so cute!!
Products used:
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Sparrow Me The Drama (2 coats) from the Pirates collection by OPI
Fairy Dust by China Glaze
Seche Vite Topcoat
Unnamed Black by Hot Topic
Labels:
Black,
China Glaze,
Essence,
Hot Topic,
Opi,
PAA's Monday Nail Art Challenge,
Pink,
Stripes,
Taped
Pink for Suzie!
Recently a friend of mine found out that she has breast cancer. This is something that has struck far too close far too many times for me. She has been a real trooper though and her strength and optimism is inspiring. She has been blogging about her experience and it’s quite an interesting read. In fact, I find myself wishing that she’d started blogging long ago as I like her writing style.
The other day she asked that a group of us expats in our Facebook group do our toenails pink for Breast Cancer awareness, but I saw it just a few hours too late and had just gone for a pedicure yesterday and gotten a really cool blue color on my toes. So, I did my nails instead… I’m sure it all counts.
I have a great story about my pedicure but I will share that next time!
Products used:
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Sparrow Me The Drama (2 coats) from the Pirates collection by OPI
Fairy Dust by China Glaze
Seche Vite Topcoat
See Ya in Two Weeks!
I am off on holiday! We are going to the south of France to visit my husband’s family and will be taking off on our own to spend five days camping in the Pyrenees!
This is where we will be camping. Pretty awesome, right?
See you all in two weeks!
This is where we will be camping. Pretty awesome, right?
See you all in two weeks!
*Queen Wave* Oh! OH! I’d like to thank my mother and…
Awards! More awards! haha Oh I love me some awards, have I mentioned? It makes me feel special! Yes, I really am that easy.
The girls from Haute Lacquer and The Manicured Monkey have sent me the Top 10 Award! Thank you thank you!
Rules:
1. Thank the person who tagged you and link to their blog.
2. Put the Top 10 Award logo on your blog.
3. List your top 10 cosmetics.
4. Choose 10 bloggers to tag, link to their blogs, and let them know.
Oh jeez, the only cosmetics I’m into at all is nails… let me think of what my favorite polishes are at the moment (that I own and have tried).
1. Nfu Oh 40
2. Nfu Oh 68
3. OPI Pirates Collection
4. Essence Circus Confetti
5. Orly SHINE
6. Essence Nail Art Twin Troy
7. OPI Katy Perry Collection
8. Miss Cop Diamante Blanc
9. Seche Vite Fast Dry Topcoat
10. Sinful Colors Frenzy
I also received the Sunshine Award from Neeka at In The Life of a Milf! Thank you SNICKERDOODLE! hehe
1) Favourite color – Purple
2) Favorite Animal – Dogs
3) Favourite number – 12
4) what perfume am i using right now – White Diamonds
5) Something you always wear with you and identifies you- my wedding rings
6) What's your passion? Photography
7) Getting or giving presents? – Getting!
8) What was the last eyeshadow you used? – I don’t wear eyeshadow
9) Favourite day of the week – Sunday .
10) Are your nails painted right now? Duh, yeah!
I am gong to cheat and tag 10 people for BOTH of these awards. If I pick ten people with blogs I really like, they are deserving of both I figure! I understand that some probably already have the awards but that’s ok, they will just feel extra special.
1. Rebecca Likes Nails
2. The Trace Face Philes
3. Good Lack, Nail
4. Nailside
5. A Day in the Life of Dollface
6. Beauty by Kayla Shevonne
7. Trailer Hood Chic
8. Das Experiment
9. Shadow's Nail Art
10. The Nailasaurus
The girls from Haute Lacquer and The Manicured Monkey have sent me the Top 10 Award! Thank you thank you!
Rules:
1. Thank the person who tagged you and link to their blog.
2. Put the Top 10 Award logo on your blog.
3. List your top 10 cosmetics.
4. Choose 10 bloggers to tag, link to their blogs, and let them know.
Oh jeez, the only cosmetics I’m into at all is nails… let me think of what my favorite polishes are at the moment (that I own and have tried).
1. Nfu Oh 40
2. Nfu Oh 68
3. OPI Pirates Collection
4. Essence Circus Confetti
5. Orly SHINE
6. Essence Nail Art Twin Troy
7. OPI Katy Perry Collection
8. Miss Cop Diamante Blanc
9. Seche Vite Fast Dry Topcoat
10. Sinful Colors Frenzy
I also received the Sunshine Award from Neeka at In The Life of a Milf! Thank you SNICKERDOODLE! hehe
1) Favourite color – Purple
2) Favorite Animal – Dogs
3) Favourite number – 12
4) what perfume am i using right now – White Diamonds
5) Something you always wear with you and identifies you- my wedding rings
6) What's your passion? Photography
7) Getting or giving presents? – Getting!
8) What was the last eyeshadow you used? – I don’t wear eyeshadow
9) Favourite day of the week – Sunday .
10) Are your nails painted right now? Duh, yeah!
I am gong to cheat and tag 10 people for BOTH of these awards. If I pick ten people with blogs I really like, they are deserving of both I figure! I understand that some probably already have the awards but that’s ok, they will just feel extra special.
1. Rebecca Likes Nails
2. The Trace Face Philes
3. Good Lack, Nail
4. Nailside
5. A Day in the Life of Dollface
6. Beauty by Kayla Shevonne
7. Trailer Hood Chic
8. Das Experiment
9. Shadow's Nail Art
10. The Nailasaurus
Labels:
Award
PAA’s Monday Nail Art Challenge
A while back I joined a group on Facebook called Polish-aholics Anonymous, which was created by Traci from The Trace Face Philes. It’s basically a group of women who love polish and nail art who came together to share their obsession. It’s a great place to chat about nails if that’s what you are into and what I like most is that there are a lot of women in there who make me feel a lot better about my little addiction. Some have hundreds of polish! So I always have a "I could always be worse…” example! haha
The group decided to start doing weekly nail art challenges on Mondays. Todays was polka dots!! You know how much I love doing dots!
I got my inspiration from a blog I came across, and I so wish I had thought to bookmark it! On the blog they credited a girl on YouTube who first inspired her. Here is the video tutorial I, and the girl who’s blog I first saw it on, followed to create this mani.
Mine didn’t come out quite as neatly as hers, and it really made me wish I had bigger nails! Sometimes having small nail beds can be a right pain when it comes to nail art, but we work with what we got!
I may not take part in all of the Monday Nail Art Challenges, but I’m going to try. It’s really fun!
Products used:
Claire’s Super Speed Black Polish
Essence Stamp Me! White
Miss Sporty Gold
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
Sally Hansen White Nail Art Pen
Essence Mysterious Black Nail Art Tip Painter
The group decided to start doing weekly nail art challenges on Mondays. Todays was polka dots!! You know how much I love doing dots!
I got my inspiration from a blog I came across, and I so wish I had thought to bookmark it! On the blog they credited a girl on YouTube who first inspired her. Here is the video tutorial I, and the girl who’s blog I first saw it on, followed to create this mani.
Mine didn’t come out quite as neatly as hers, and it really made me wish I had bigger nails! Sometimes having small nail beds can be a right pain when it comes to nail art, but we work with what we got!
I may not take part in all of the Monday Nail Art Challenges, but I’m going to try. It’s really fun!
Products used:
Claire’s Super Speed Black Polish
Essence Stamp Me! White
Miss Sporty Gold
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
Sally Hansen White Nail Art Pen
Essence Mysterious Black Nail Art Tip Painter
Zebra Stamping
The other day I wanted to try something cool with some Lego stickers my husband had. I was going to paint my nails white and add the stickers to the nail and put a topcoat over, it was all very cool in my head. It didn’t work out quite as I had hoped… The stickers were a little too thick, plastic rather than thin paper, and they wouldn’t stay bent to stick to the nail. So I gave up.
I sat there with white nails and was wondering what to do with them. I was feeling a little wild (rawr!) so I went for a Zebra print. I wish I’d thought of that on my recent trip to the zoo. Doh!
Products used:
Essence Nail Art Protecting Base Coat
Catrice Snow Motion (white)
Essence Black Stampy Polish
Seche Vite Top Coat
Konad Plate M57
Givaway Win Nail Art
I’m really milking this giveaway win, aren’t I?!
I loved these polishes so much I wanted to try to do something fun that included all three.
Cute, huh? I just love it! I really like dotting, I can imagine it would be even more fun with the proper dotting tools, rather than my homemade jobbies.
I was going to take a photo of the mani with a matte coat, but when I put the matte coat on it looked almost exactly the same!
I’m hoping to get at least another day or two out of this one, it’s just too cute to try to remove already.
I loved these polishes so much I wanted to try to do something fun that included all three.
Cute, huh? I just love it! I really like dotting, I can imagine it would be even more fun with the proper dotting tools, rather than my homemade jobbies.
I was going to take a photo of the mani with a matte coat, but when I put the matte coat on it looked almost exactly the same!
I’m hoping to get at least another day or two out of this one, it’s just too cute to try to remove already.
Giveaway Win Swatches
Here are some swatches of the polish I won from Traci's giveaway.
In case you missed it, these are the polishes I won. Pretty hot, right?!
This is two coats of It’s Up To Blue. I really like this color a lot! I’m so weird about blues at the moment though after getting serious staining (even with a base coat) from Finger Paints Teal of Fortune and Essence Let’s Get Lost. Since my nails were already stained from Let’s Get Lost, it was kind of hard to tell if I got any staining at all from this polish. I think I’d wear it even if it did stain, to be honest, because I’m just a big fan of this blue.
This is three coats of Oh Cabana Boy. I thin ordinarily I probably could have gotten away with two coats but the dark staining I mentioned was showing through pretty badly, so I went for three. Although, this is the more sheer of the three polishes so you may find that three coats works better in the end anyway. Man, this polish is so like… POW!! BANG!!! BOOOM! Even the picture doesn’t really show it’s power. It really is a totally in your face, popping kind of pink. It’s awesome!
Last, but certainly not least… SHINE. Oh and does it shine! This polish is so cool! Can you not imagine it as the base of a thousand different nail art projects? Even just on its own it’s fantastic. Again, my photos don’t do it justice… it almost looks like you have tinfoil nails or something… very very cool.
I’m totally in love with all three of these polishes. It’s my first experience with the Orly brand and the first thing I noticed was the rubber handle, how great is that? Also, the bottles are bigger than what I’m used to with the Essence polishes, which is what I seem to use most. I was a little worried when I saw how narrow the brush was but it still applied beautifully.
I think I hit the jackpot with these three. Now I am dead curious about the rest of the Orly line! Just like the Nfu Oh, I’d like them simply for the bottle, it’s just a bonus that the polish is great too.
In case you missed it, these are the polishes I won. Pretty hot, right?!
This is two coats of It’s Up To Blue. I really like this color a lot! I’m so weird about blues at the moment though after getting serious staining (even with a base coat) from Finger Paints Teal of Fortune and Essence Let’s Get Lost. Since my nails were already stained from Let’s Get Lost, it was kind of hard to tell if I got any staining at all from this polish. I think I’d wear it even if it did stain, to be honest, because I’m just a big fan of this blue.
This is three coats of Oh Cabana Boy. I thin ordinarily I probably could have gotten away with two coats but the dark staining I mentioned was showing through pretty badly, so I went for three. Although, this is the more sheer of the three polishes so you may find that three coats works better in the end anyway. Man, this polish is so like… POW!! BANG!!! BOOOM! Even the picture doesn’t really show it’s power. It really is a totally in your face, popping kind of pink. It’s awesome!
Last, but certainly not least… SHINE. Oh and does it shine! This polish is so cool! Can you not imagine it as the base of a thousand different nail art projects? Even just on its own it’s fantastic. Again, my photos don’t do it justice… it almost looks like you have tinfoil nails or something… very very cool.
I’m totally in love with all three of these polishes. It’s my first experience with the Orly brand and the first thing I noticed was the rubber handle, how great is that? Also, the bottles are bigger than what I’m used to with the Essence polishes, which is what I seem to use most. I was a little worried when I saw how narrow the brush was but it still applied beautifully.
I think I hit the jackpot with these three. Now I am dead curious about the rest of the Orly line! Just like the Nfu Oh, I’d like them simply for the bottle, it’s just a bonus that the polish is great too.
Cherry Blossom Nail Art
A while back I saw some Cherry Blossom Nail art by Kayla Shevonne, and I loved it! I may have pestered her a bit asking for a tutorial and last week she totally came through! She made it look so easy, but she is an evil trickster! I tried twice and mine didn’t look nearly as good as hers.
I’m just telling myself it’s because I'm new and don’t have as many materials to work with. It makes me feel better.
First, I tried with these colors…
Catrice Snow Motion, Miss Sporty Pink, Essence Let’s Get Lost, Essence Mysterious Black Nail Art Tip Painter.
It’s funny because I like this a lot more in the photo than I did on my nails. When I had it on my nails it looked too dark, the blue and black didn’t have enough contrast and the pink dots looked too dark as well. I liked it but something nagged at me that I should have used another color on the background.
I left it on for most of the day but later that evening I decided to see how it looked with other colors. A lighter background that would show off the other colors a little better, so I tried with these.
Catrice Snow Motion, Miss Sporty Pink, Essence Stamp Me! White, Catrice Easy Peasy,Lemon Squeezie, Essence Mysterious Black Nail Art Tip Painter.
I mixed the pink with some of the Snow Motion to make a lighter pink.
I probably should have waited until the next day when I wasn't so tired, but I am a total impatientpants and wanted to see if it was any better on a lighter background, so I got to work…
It’s funny because this is the opposite of the other photo. I liked this a lot more on my nails than I do in the photo!
I wish I’d taken my time more with the branches, which I think were shaped better on the blue, but the colors worked better with the green, I think.
In any case, they aren’t quite as good as Kayla's but still pretty good for one of my first free hand nail art designs considering I didn’t have some of the tools I would have liked to be able to use. I have kept this on longer than a lot of other manis I’ve done, almost five days! It has started peeling though so I’m going to have to remove it and do something new soon.
It’s ok, I already have a few ideas!
I almost forgot…. even with two layers of base coat the blue color totally stained my nails. They look just like this again. Argh.
Both manicures have a double layer of Seche Clear Base Coat and Seche Vite top coat.
I’m just telling myself it’s because I'm new and don’t have as many materials to work with. It makes me feel better.
First, I tried with these colors…
Catrice Snow Motion, Miss Sporty Pink, Essence Let’s Get Lost, Essence Mysterious Black Nail Art Tip Painter.
It’s funny because I like this a lot more in the photo than I did on my nails. When I had it on my nails it looked too dark, the blue and black didn’t have enough contrast and the pink dots looked too dark as well. I liked it but something nagged at me that I should have used another color on the background.
I left it on for most of the day but later that evening I decided to see how it looked with other colors. A lighter background that would show off the other colors a little better, so I tried with these.
Catrice Snow Motion, Miss Sporty Pink, Essence Stamp Me! White, Catrice Easy Peasy,Lemon Squeezie, Essence Mysterious Black Nail Art Tip Painter.
I mixed the pink with some of the Snow Motion to make a lighter pink.
I probably should have waited until the next day when I wasn't so tired, but I am a total impatientpants and wanted to see if it was any better on a lighter background, so I got to work…
It’s funny because this is the opposite of the other photo. I liked this a lot more on my nails than I do in the photo!
I wish I’d taken my time more with the branches, which I think were shaped better on the blue, but the colors worked better with the green, I think.
In any case, they aren’t quite as good as Kayla's but still pretty good for one of my first free hand nail art designs considering I didn’t have some of the tools I would have liked to be able to use. I have kept this on longer than a lot of other manis I’ve done, almost five days! It has started peeling though so I’m going to have to remove it and do something new soon.
It’s ok, I already have a few ideas!
I almost forgot…. even with two layers of base coat the blue color totally stained my nails. They look just like this again. Argh.
Both manicures have a double layer of Seche Clear Base Coat and Seche Vite top coat.
Giveaway Nail Mail!
I won my first giveaway! Sweeeeet! I was one of three winners in Traci's 200 Follower Giveaway! Today a received Orly’s It’s Up To Blue, Oh Cabana Boy, and Shine. I love the bottles, with the rubbery handles… I need to think of something cool to do using the three colors together.
To be honest, after filling out so many giveaway forms, posting all the photos and links to the giveaways I didn’t think I was ever going to win anything haha but I did! It was so exciting too! I guess it’s just like Traci says, you can’t win if you don’t enter.
I am a giveaway entering fool once again. I may even host one of my own soon…
Omg I love free stuff!
My First Franken: Space Dream
Wow, a lot of firsts on this blog… guess that’s part of being a newbie!
I’ve been reading a lot on Facebook and other people’s blog about ‘Frankens’ … basically, polishes that people create by mixing existing polishes they already have. I don’t have a lot of polish but I did have a few old ones that I never use, so I gathered them up and started mixing.
Of course I didn’t think to take photos of what I started with, because I was pretty sure I’d just end up with some glumpy mess. The starting color was the green from Maybelline that I used in my St. Patty's Day Manicure, which was practically empty after my attempt at marbling.
All in all I'd say I used 7-8 different polishes in varying amounts.
This is what I ended up with, a pretty dusky purple color with gold and blue glitter which came from my Miss Cop Diamante Blanc that I bought at the market and love desperately.
I added some heavier glitter, the squares you can see in the bottle, but they don’t appear to get picked up by the brush. Not that I’ve seen yet anyway… That was a dab of Essence Nail Art Twin: Julia that I threw in for good measure.
I wasn’t sure what to call this so Megan from over at Painting Rainbows named it Space Dream. I thought it was pretty, so it stuck.
I’m not sure this frankening thing was as exciting an experience for me as it is for other nail gals. It could be because I didn’t have a lot of nail polish and didn’t want to ‘waste’ any of my good ones on something like this, or maybe it’s just not my bag. I guess time will tell. Maybe I’ll try something else again at some point and come up with something that really knocks my socks off. Until then I’ll put the frankening on hold, I think, and concentrate on things I enjoy a little more. Perhaps next I will try making one of those Glitter Sandwiches everyone is so crazy about at the moment! I think they look quite nice and I have plenty of glitter to test it out on!
I’ve been reading a lot on Facebook and other people’s blog about ‘Frankens’ … basically, polishes that people create by mixing existing polishes they already have. I don’t have a lot of polish but I did have a few old ones that I never use, so I gathered them up and started mixing.
Of course I didn’t think to take photos of what I started with, because I was pretty sure I’d just end up with some glumpy mess. The starting color was the green from Maybelline that I used in my St. Patty's Day Manicure, which was practically empty after my attempt at marbling.
All in all I'd say I used 7-8 different polishes in varying amounts.
This is what I ended up with, a pretty dusky purple color with gold and blue glitter which came from my Miss Cop Diamante Blanc that I bought at the market and love desperately.
I added some heavier glitter, the squares you can see in the bottle, but they don’t appear to get picked up by the brush. Not that I’ve seen yet anyway… That was a dab of Essence Nail Art Twin: Julia that I threw in for good measure.
I wasn’t sure what to call this so Megan from over at Painting Rainbows named it Space Dream. I thought it was pretty, so it stuck.
I’m not sure this frankening thing was as exciting an experience for me as it is for other nail gals. It could be because I didn’t have a lot of nail polish and didn’t want to ‘waste’ any of my good ones on something like this, or maybe it’s just not my bag. I guess time will tell. Maybe I’ll try something else again at some point and come up with something that really knocks my socks off. Until then I’ll put the frankening on hold, I think, and concentrate on things I enjoy a little more. Perhaps next I will try making one of those Glitter Sandwiches everyone is so crazy about at the moment! I think they look quite nice and I have plenty of glitter to test it out on!
Labels:
Essence,
Essence Nail Art Twins,
Franken,
Glitter,
Maybelline,
Purple
Gosh: Green Hawaii
This bottle has been hanging around in my stash for about two months now, and I kept meaning to give it a go but each time there was something else I’d get distracted with. Today I finally got around to trying it and I’m a little torn.
On the one hand I really like the green and the glitter, but on the other hand, it does that ‘hungry glitter’ thing where the bumps show through even with thick layer of Seche Vite over top. It’s not as bad as I’ve seen it happen with other glittery polish but just enough to get on my nerves.
It was easy to apply, although it took three generous coats to make it fully opaque. I also found it a little weird that there is so little blue when it’s on the nail, when it looks like there is so much blue glitter in the bottle.
In the end it’s a nice polish and the color really pops. It’s not one of my favorites but I’m sure I’ll use it again at some point.
Glitter Skittles Matte
What’s a girl to do when she has a great Glitter Skittles Mani and she knows it will need to be removed shortly?
Mattify that sucker!!
I think they all look pretty cool with the matte finish, which is funny considering until not that long ago I wasn’t a fan of any matte at all. Since I got the Essence Matte topcoat I have gotten in the habit of seeing what every mani looks like matted before I remove it. Sometimes I like it so much I even wear the mani an extra day or two just to have a bit more time to enjoy it.
What do you think of glitters matted?
Mattify that sucker!!
I think they all look pretty cool with the matte finish, which is funny considering until not that long ago I wasn’t a fan of any matte at all. Since I got the Essence Matte topcoat I have gotten in the habit of seeing what every mani looks like matted before I remove it. Sometimes I like it so much I even wear the mani an extra day or two just to have a bit more time to enjoy it.
What do you think of glitters matted?
Glitter Skittles
After testing out my new Miss Cop glitter that I bought at the market, I wanted to see what it looked like on a black base. As I was getting everything out I realized I had other new glitters that I haven’t tried yet, and some I’d like to compare. That’s when it hit me… glitter skittle!! Well, nine glitter and one flaky but whatever, apples and oranges.
So I got out some black polish, ten glitters (OK OK NINE) and tested them all out to see what they looked like. I had a few that I thought would look the same, and they do in the bottle but once they are on they look completely different. Funny how it works that way.
These are the polishes I used for my left hand, thumb to pinkie showing from left to right
Here they are individually. Yes, I know I went completely pic crazy with this one!
Thumb - Essence Nail Art Twin: Troy
I LOVE this color! I’m a big fan of purple to begin with but this purple and blue glitter looks beautiful over the black. I’ll be doing a full manicure of this sometime in the near future. I like that it spreads evenly too, although thin glitter seems to do that easier than the more chunky stuff.
Index Finger - Essence Nail Art Twin: Julia
This one is a little more simple but pretty. The fine glitter mixed with the larger square pieces looks interesting, I think. It could also go over pretty much any color, I figure… silver is pretty neutral.
Middle Finger - Claire’s Red Glitter… no name, pity.
I saw an entire line of glitter polish at Claire’s and wanted to see what they were like. I was so tempted to buy the whole bunch but I was trying to be sensible. Dammit! I should have known better than to be sensible because this one is great and now I want all the rest anyway. That’s a lesson learned. From now on just buy everything I want.
Ok, maybe not, but I don’t regret buying this one. The glitter is very small and looks fantastic on black… it also came in blue, green, purple and a number of other colors. I dare say it will only be a matter of time until I’m back with a post about them all. Maybe a Claire’s Glitter Skittle?
Ring Finger - OPI Katy Perry Collection: Last Friday Night
I think most people will recognize this one. The blue glitter from the Katy Perry collection is one of my favorites. I think because it reminds me a little of a starry night, like a set of acrylics I once had. I have the complete set of minis of the Katy Perry Collection and I quite like them all. The minis are such a great idea for those of us who don’t want to dish out on the bigger bottles but still want a wee taste of the good stuff!
Pinkie Finger – Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper: Circus Confetti
Seriously, how gorgeous is this? Circus Confetti is the perfect name for it because that's what it looks like. The multi colored pieces of glitter in with the finer silver glitter just screams PARTY ON MY FINGERS!! I want to wear this again, and again, and again. Oh how I love Essence.
Now, on to the right hand!
These are the polishes I used for my right hand, shown left to right in order from thumb to pinkie. Can you see which one doesn’t belong?
Can you see it now? Have I ever mentioned how much I hate taking photos of my right hand? I wonder, does every nail blogger have a 'photo hand' that they usually use or am I the only one that seems to stick with photographing the same hand every time? Usually, if I smoodge something up on my right hand I'm all "oh whatever, I won't be taking photos of that one anyway!".
Here is the right hand individually. As I said, it was SO much harder to get photos of this hand because I kept blocking the light on myself, so some rather odd finger acrobatics were in order.
Thumb – Miss Cop: Diamant Blanc
This is the same glitter that was in my recent post about my Market Mani. It’s so hard to really get it to show up properly in photos, and that’s sad because it looks quite nice when you see it for real. The mixture of gold, green, purple and blue is beautiful and I think this could be another contender for my ‘starry night nails’.
Index Finger – Nfu Oh 40
So this is the one that doesn’t really belong as it’s a flaky and not a glitter, but I couldn’t leave it out, I just couldn’t. If I was going to paint on black with various things, this just had to be a part of it. It was a gift from my hubby and is one of my big favorites of my collection. Unfortunatekly I also have problems capturing this one in photos, as you can tell from the one above and the ones in the link. It’s another polish that you just have to see for yourself. I also wish I’d chosen a nail that was in slightly better shape to use it on for this mani. This one is a bit wonky and still has some damage from the acryclis. Good grief my nails grow slowly.
Middle Finger – Essence Nail Art Twins: Blair
Oh man, it’s a good thing I didn’t turn this photo on it’s side. I did say I had to do a few awkward positions for photographing this manicure, but I promise I am not trying to flip you off! This is Blair, the match to Chuck in the Essence Nail Art Twin line. This is one of the new polishes I hadn’t tried and much like Julia, that I showed above, I think it’s nice and neutral… but perhaps would look better on a colored base rather than black. I had previously posted about using Chuck, but that was before I realized I had the wrong match for it. I will have to try Chuck and Blair together to see how I like that. I suspect I will like Blair better then than I do here on the black.
Ring Finger – Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper: It’s Purplicious
Again, it must be a purple thing because I looooove this polish. If I could live the rest of my days with black nails covered in this purple glitter, I would die a happy woman. I’d die happier if my nails broke less and were a little longer, but beggers can’t be choosers. Purplicious indeed!!
Pinkie Finger – OPI Katy Perry Collection: Teenage Dream
How weird that when you put this light pink glitter over black it goes totally washed out. Not UGLY, mind you, it looks quite pretty in fact… but it’s still different than I expected. You really have to look at it in the light to see the pink hue, otherwise it looks like a fine silver glitter over black.
So what was my favorite? Whew, it’s hard to say… to be honest I love all these glitters (and my flaky). I never thought I’d be a glitter girl, but I am… I admit it.
Is there a support group for this, I wonder?
So what do you think of these? Do you have a favorite? Do you have a flaky or glitter polish that you love that isn't shown here? If so I'd LOVE to hear about it! There are still a lot of polishes I haven't seen yet so please let me know if there's something you think I'd like!
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