Water Spotted Nail Art feat. Model's Own - Chrome Indigo

I used two coats of KIKO 336 - Electric Blue as my base color and applied some liquid nail tape around my nails to protect the skin from nail polish. Then using first KIKO 523 - Royal Blue and second Model's Own - Chrome Indigo I did the water spotted technique to create the spotted look. The matte finish was achieved with Essie - Matte About You.

My tutorial for water spotted nails and my most recent water spotted designs.

Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polishes

I received my order from Mundo de Uñas on Friday and given the feedback on Instagram today, I don't really have to introduce these, do I? :) I read about these Mexican stamping polishes a while back and they seem to be highly pigmented, even when stamped over a black base. Since they're also quite cheap, I decided to make an order of six colors to decide for myself. 

Am Freitag habe ich meine Mundo de Uñas Bestellung erhalten und ich glaube, ich muss die gar nicht wirklich vorstellen, oder? Sehr gut pigmentierte und beliebte Stampinglacke, die ich nun auch selber testen wollte. Sie kommen aus Mexiko, sind jedoch recht billig, darum habe ich mir mal sechs davon bestellt.

Today I tried Green and Blue, and I'm not disappointed. For my base I used one coat of KIKO - 347 Dark Green. Then I applied some liquid nail tape to protect the skin from the polish (a post on that will follow soon). I think that was a very good idea, since they're so highly pigmented and can stain your skin. I used two images of the MoYou London Hipster plate for the plaid pattern. Karine also gave me the tip to wait a few seconds after picking up the pattern with the stamp. I did that and it worked, but I didn't feel like redoing my nails, so I didn't try it without the waiting time. They only bad thing about these is their smell, which is terrible. Apart from that I'm very happy with my new polishes and I can't wait to stamp the complete rainbow on my nails! <3 

Zuerst habe ich Green und Blue ausprobiert und ich bin sehr begeistert. Als Grundfarbe habe ich eine Schicht KIKO - 347 Dark Green lackiert und dann rund um den Nagel Liquid Nail Tape aufgetragen (dazu folgt dann noch ein separater Post). Da die Lacke sehr stark pigmentiert sind, war das auch eine gute Idee, das sie die Haut verfärben können. Für das Plaid Muster habe ich zwei  Bilder von der MoYou London Hipster Platte benutzt. Karine hat mir ausserdem den Tipp gegeben, den Lack ein paar Sekunden auf dem Stempel antrocknen zu lassen und erst dann auf den Nagel zu drücken. Das hat gut funktioniert, ich habe aber auch nicht die Geduld gehabt, es noch andersherum auszuprobieren. Leider stinken die Lacke sehr, ich finde sie aber trotzdem toll.

I messed up my index finger nail with my top coat, in case you're wondering.

Den Zeigefingernagel habe ich mir übrigens mit dem Top Coat ruiniert.

OPI Hawaii 2015 - Is Mai Tai Crooked? & This Color's Making Waves

The Hawaii collection by OPI* will be available from today. They're launching 12 very springlike colors and I had the opportunity to try two of them. Although these two aren't my favorites from the collection (from what I can tell), I swatched them for you. First there is Is Mai Tai Crooked? for which I needed three coats and it still wasn't completely opaque. Apart from the formula I also don't really like this color too much. I didn't use any top coat but the Drip Dry Drops* from OPI which I'm testing at the moment. I do like these so far! The second color is This Color's Making Waves and I like this one much better. That's mainly for the golden/copper glitter inside, which gives the blue a really nice shimmer. I used two coats and although it seems a tiny bit streaky, I like the result. At the moment I'm thinking about getting That's Hula-rious!, the mint color of this collection. Which one is your favorite?

Ab heute gibt es die Hawaii Kollektion von OPI* und ich durfte zwei der zwölf Farben testen. Das ist zum einen Is Mai Tai Crooked? den ich leider nicht so toll finde, weil er nach drei Schichten immer noch nicht komplett deckt. Die Farbe steht mir auch nicht sonderlich gut. Die Bilder sind ohne Top Coat, dafür habe ich die Drip Dry Drops* von OPI benutzt, die ich momentan teste und gerne mag. Zum anderen habe ich This Color's Making Waves zugeschickt bekommen, den ich schon viel besser finde. Ein tolles Blau mit goldenem/kupferfarbenem Glitter und deckend mit zwei Schichten. Leider ein klein wenig streifig im Auftrag, aber ich bin doch recht zufrieden. Ich überlege mir den mintfarbenen That's Hula-rious! zu kaufen. Welcher gefällt euch am besten?

*PR Sample

OPI - Is Mai Tai Crooked?

Get it straight – this fruity orange crème is fabulous!

OPI - This Color's Making Waves

This shimmery, lagoon blue has got heads turning.

More information: OPI Swiss

OPI - Black Shatter over KIKO - Electric Blue

It's been a while since I've used a crackle polish and although I don't think these are too popular anymore, I really like a good old crackle polish every now and then. Nothing too fancy though and nothing with glitter, but a plain black one is a great choice in my opinion. I used OPI - Black Shatter over two coats of KIKO - Electric Blue and one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss on top. 

Essie - Find me an Oasis / Mattified Glitter

Some very subtle nails for today! The base is the awesome Essie - Find me an Oasis with two coats. On top of that I added one coat of H&M - Blue Bliss, a beautiful glitter in a slightly blue tinted base. I'm pretty sure this one isn't sold anymore though. The matte finish is done with Essie - Matte About You.

p2 - Winter... who cares?! - No Matter!

Although I'm pretty sure you can't get your hands on this polish anymore, I just had to show it on the blog - it's too beautiful! It's p2 - No Matter! from the Winter...who cares?! collection and honestly I think all the polishes from this collection are pretty amazing. Since we don't have p2 in Switzerland I had some trouble getting my hands on all of them, but I managed to get two at least... the last ones on the shelf! :) No matter is a dark blue jelly with white snowy glitter and it builds up to a perfect finish with two coats. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. So much love for this one! 

Snowflake Nails - Textured Stamping feat. MoYou London Christmas Collection & KIKO Cosmetics

So while slobbering over the KB Shimmer Christmas collection on Google images a few days ago, I stumbled upon this beautiful Christmas stamping by Marta from ChitChatNails. A bit earlier that week Sarah from Chalkboard Nails did her awesome Rough and Spotted design. I don't think I've ever done a stamping over a textured polish before, but I absolutely love the look and somehow the season seems perfect for that purpose. It seemed like a nice opportunity to finally try the KIKO Cupcake Lacquer that I got last summer. #655 Mint is one of the limited textured polishes from KIKO and what I love about it are those colorful sprinkles mixed into the rough mint formula. I used two coats as my base color for the next step, which is a stamping with the MoYou London Christmas Collection #02. For the blue snowflakes I used KIKO #523 Royal Blue and obviously there is no top coat involved. I also found this textured snowflake stamping by Natalie from Nailz Craze and I love it! Definitely my new favorite way of stamping nail art! 

Essie Dress To Kilt (Fall 2014) - The Perfect Cover Up

1 coat of Essie - The Perfect Cover Up from the Dress To Kilt Fall collection

China Glaze Glitter Gradient: Midnight Mission, Cheers To You, Tinsel Town

Since I don't have a lot of time to do my nails lately, this is a design from a few weeks ago already. I guess I felt a bit Christmassy and I chose three of my favorites from China Glaze. As my base color I used Midnight Mission with two coats. Then I dabbed on a bit of Cheers To You and Tinsel Town on top with a sponge. Because matte glitter is awesome, I added Essie - Matte About You after my regular top coat. I love my Cheers To You memories, it's one of those bottles that made me fall in love with nail polish. (You need proof? My first blog post ever and there it is!) It's three years old but still as good as new. Cheers to China Glaze for that! 

Essie - Find me an Oasis (US)

I finally treated myself to Essie - Find me an Oasis and I'm really happy with it! It's the US version since I ordered them online, but I actually like this version better. Lackaffen did a lovely comparison between Find me an Oasis US and Europe. I used two very generous coats and the formula isn't great in my opinion, but the color is just adorable. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Cut Out & Striped Nail Art

I've always been a bit reluctant to do cut out nail art since it either didn't look too good with stained nails or I didn't like the visible half moon of my natural nails. I decided to try again and kind of find a way around it by covering those two parts of the nail. What I love about this design that you can start to add striping tape onto the bare nails, which means you don't have to wait around for the base color to dry. So that's what I did, using my self-made striping tape kit and the 2 mm size tape. For the colors I chose Wet'n'Wild - Black Creme, KIKO - #389 Mint Milk & #295 Cerulean Blue and Essie - Peach Daiquiri. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. I especially love the pinkie, middle and thumb nails and this is definitely something I keep on my list of designs to do again. 

Birthday Smooshattack Nail Art!

Yay for two posts in a row! Yay for my birthday! Obviously I wanted to have awesome nails for today and I tried something new, so I just had to show you right away. This is a technique invented by Elle from @with2l. I'm her biggest fan right now, her nail art is so beautiful and creative! The technique she invented is called Smooshattack and you basically use a stamper to smudge colors on your nails. She has a tutorial for it, which you can find with the #smooshattack. I'm amazed by the effect and how great it looks on the nails. This is my first attempt and I love it, so there's definitely more to come! I used OPI - Ski Teal We Drop*, Flormar - 400 and KIKO - #523 Royal Blue. On top are two coats of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

And now I'm gonna look for cake! <3 

*PR Sample

Water Marble feat. Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue

Water marble time! I don't think I've ever tried this color combination before in a water marble and I do quite like it! I used p2 - Passion as my base color with one coat and then combined it with Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue for the marble. They both worked fine, but there were also some air bubbles which you can see on some nails. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. Hope you like it! :) 

Blue Watercolor Dry Marble feat. KIKO

I'm not sure what to call today's design. I called it 'watercolor' for the last couple of times, but looking at my 'watercolor' label, there are a lot of different styles. I guess it's more of a dry marble technique, although there is another way to do a dry marble as well... Anyway, it's the one technique where you add blobs of polish onto the nail and then marble them with a piece of plastic. I did a tutorial on how to do these a year ago (like, exactly a year - I'm getting old!). Since I'm in love with my new KIKO polishes, I used three of them for a lovely blue color combination. The dark one is #523 Royal Blue, the middle one is #336 Electric Blue and the mint one is #389 Mint Milk. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Swimming Pool Nails inspired by stephstonenails / KIKO - 389 Mint Milk & 295 Cerulean Blue

Today's swimming pool nails are inspired by @stephstonenails and her tutorial for the Amore & Vita blog. I really liked the look of that saran wrap technique and I tried to recreate it with two KIKO polishes. As my base I used two coats of KIKO - 389 Mint Milk and let it dry completely. Then I used one coat of KIKO - 295 Cerulean Blue plus a piece of saran wrap to create the effect of sunlight on the bottom of a swimming pool. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

This was my base color, two coats of KIKO 389 - Mint Milk. The polish is quite difficult to capture, but for me this is the perfect mint nail polish. It's bright, clear and just adorable. It appears more like a light blue on this picture, but it is actually very minty in real life.  

KIKO Cosmetics Haul & 523 Royal Blue

Last week I visited my first ever KIKO store. I've never tried KIKO before but heard a lot of good things about them. So when I saw every possible nail polish shade available I got quite a bit excited. Plus, the polishes are amazingly cheap, especially when you compare them with those of other brands here in Switzerland. I paid CHF 2.90 for the normal polishes and CHF 3.90 for the Cupcake polish (textured). The nail patches were CHF 6.90 (on sale). This is what I got:

@spektorsnails

Yes, I like blue nail polish! So obviously I was curious about the quality of these and I'm definitely not disappointed. The first one I tried was #523 called Royal Blue. The names are only visible on the website though. I used two coats and the formula is great. I was wearing this polish for four days with one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri on top and there's just minimal tip wear. A snapshot of Royal Blue while collecting blueberries:

If you didn't know already (I didn't!): KIKO has a few stores in Switzerland and you can also buy their products online. You can find their online shop here.