Japanese Cherry Blossom

This design was actually inspired by the Japanese Cherry Blossom series from The Body Shop. Perfect for spring and the lovely weather outside.

Since I don't have an opaque pastel pink nail polish I chose a white one as a base color and then mixed together my lightest pink from Catrice (Sweets For My Sweets) and some white nail polish. I used a sponge to apply it to the white base and got a really nice pastel pink background for my cherry blossoms.

For the branches I used Catrice - Lost In Mud and the long nail art brush from Essence. For the flowers I used three colors: China Glaze - Snow, H&M - Check Me Out and Catrice - Raspberry Field Forever. I made random spots with the white color, then added some of the lighter pink and a small spot of the darker pink in the middle. Then again a tiny bit of white in each flower.

One coat of BTGN Top Sealer to protect the design. 

Ebalay - A02

In February I was contacted by KKcenterhk and asked if I wanted to test one of their nail polishes. How could I say no? I chose a pretty duochrome top coat called Ebalay A02. It's sold for 6.80$ and contains 15ml. After 22 days I got the package and started to paint right away.

As you can tell, the design is obviously copied from O.P.I. 

On the website it says if you apply the top coat over darker base colors, the effect will be better. I applied it over two coats of H&M - Manhunter (Black) and what I got is awesome! You couldn't tell by looking at the bottle but the result is a lovely purple-blue duochrome, if not a multichrome. 

Sadly I wasn't able to capture the duochrome effect with my camera, so the following pictures are all my camera was able to do. But I guess you all know how a purple-blue duochrome effect looks like.

Drying time was alright, I had more problems with Manhunter to dry completely. 

This is the brush and it's similar to a O.P.I brush.

I was offered a Coupon Code by KKcenterhk, so if you like to order something you can use my code and get 10% off. 

Code: spektorsnails

End date: 31. January 2013

This nail polish was offered to me by KKcenterhk for review.

Essence - Midnight Date + Essence - Soft Touch Top Coat

After seeing Oooh, Shinies! post of her NOTD I knew I had to do this! Especially since I'm in love with my new Soft Touch top coat from Essence. 

So these are two coats of Essence Midnight Date plus one coat of the flakie top coat. Then I covered it with Soft Touch and I love it! 

Then again, it started to chip after one day but I guess I can live with that.

I love green flakies!

p2 - Just Need Style + Essence - Soft Touch Top Coat

Just a quick post about one of my new colors: p2 - Just Need Style.

Two coats and fast drying! 

Since I bought the Essence - Soft Touch top coat on the same day I applied one coat on top. It gives a very nice matte effect but I'm not sure of how it's different from other matte top coats. 

I took the picture two days after painting my nails and some edges chipped after one day already. I think a matte top coat just doesn't protect the nails as much as a normal top coat would.

I hope to be back with regular posts soon!

Glitter Sandwich Circus Confetti

Love the title! :)

I've tried this glitter sandwich thing a few times now and it never turned out the way I hoped it would. Either my top coat was too opaque or the colors just didn't match. But because I love this effect so much on other nails I gave it another try and this time I'm very happy with the result.

First I added two coats of Essie - Lapis Of Luxury, a color I haven't been wearing in a long time. It's not opaque with two coats but I didn't bother since the glitter would be on top anyway.

So I chose Essence - Circus Confetti as the glitter polish and added one coat over my base color.

I have one light blue which isn't opaque at all, it's Being In Heaven from p2. One coat on top and my glitter was wrapped. 

NOTD: Blue Leopard

Today's design contains three of my favorite spring/summer colors, all in one. I haven't done a leopard design since my first try and I thought it was time to do another one. 

Base color is H&M - U Must Have This, a bright turquoise blue which is opaque with two coats. For the spots I used H&M - Blue My Mind and Essie - Mint Candy Apple.

With a nail art brush and OPI Black Onyx I encircled the spots. You will find thousands of tutorials on how to achieve the leopard look on YouTube, so I'm not gonna explain this technique here. 

One coat of BTGN Top Sealer and the blue leopard is done!

H&M - Check Me Out / H&M - Peach Me Soon

I picked up two new colors at H&M last week and I really like them both. My favorite is Check Me Out. I bought Peach Me Soon because I need an alternative for Catrice - Apropos Apricot which has an awful formula. Problem solved!

H&M - Peach Me Soon

3 coats and still not completely opaque if you look closely. This is not something anyone else would notice though. And drying time is a little longer than an H&M average but still a lot better than Apropos Apricot. One coat of BTGN Top Sealer on top.

H&M - Check Me Out

A lovely coral-neon pink which is new to my collection. I adjusted this picture with GIMP since the color really didn't show right. It's still a little darker in reality. 3 coats as well and it dried a little bit faster than Peach Me Soon. One coat of BTGN Top Sealer on top.

This is how my cam showed the color, quite far away from reality.

Essence - A Walk In The Park / Essence - Glamorous Life

Two new Essence colors!

A double nail polish with a dark green base coat and a shimmer top coat: A Walk In The Park

Two coats of the green base coat and one coat of the top coat. 

And a Color & Go polish called Glamorous Life.

Three coats here.

This one reminds me a bit of Princessorize (Crazy Good Times LE).

NOTD: Stripes & Curves

I had absolutely no idea what I was gonna paint on my nails this time. So I just covered them with a white base, took two pretty colors out of my stash and started painting.

I chose Essence - True Love and Catrice - Put Lavender On Agenda and in addition I tried my new nail art brush from Essence (Nail Art Designer Set). It's my first long brush and I have to say it makes it easier to paint thin lines. But I wouldn't recommend the one from Essence because it doesn't seem to have the perfect quality in my opinion.

I love the design on my ring finger nail, I will definitely do this as a whole design someday. On my thumb I have the popular cloud design from Nailside which you can find here. I accidentally deleted the pictures of my thumb so you're not gonna see it this time, sorry about that. 

Two coats of BTGN Top Sealer this time since the white base coat was showing really quick and I had to repair some nails.