Essie - Neon (Summer 2013)

Essie Switzerland sent me the Neon 2013 collection as well and I didn't swatch this one until now because I wasn't very excited about this one. I read that a lot of people are disappointed with the formula of these six shades and I have to say that I am as well. Essie suggests that you wear a white base for all colors because it's going to make them brighter. It does indeed make all of them brighter and I personally don't like them without the white base. The only shade that I would wear without white is Boom Boom Room (light pink). But the thing is: white nail polish is the most annoying nail polish when it comes to formula. So why would I want to use a white base every time before I paint my nails? I don't want to! Also in my opinion this collection isn't a neon collection because the only shade that appears as an actual neon color to me is Saturday Disco Fever (orange). And most of the colors were quite thin and streaky and not a pleasure to work with. Nonetheless I found a way to enjoy this collection by combining all of them in a nail art design, which you can find at the end of this post. This is a long post again, so you can find all of the swatches after the jump.

Shimmer Polish: Liana, Jasmine, Cristina, Tammy, Alice

A few weeks ago Cindy from Shimmer Polish sent me 10 beautiful glittering bottles to review. I finally had time so start swatching and today I will show you the first five polishes, including Liana, Jasmine, Cristina, Tammy and Alice. All of the polishes are named after Cindy's friends, which is such a sweet idea! They come in bottles of 15 ml and are sold for 12 $ each at her Etsy store. You could even personalize a polish's name and color yourself for 15 $. Some of the colors are also available on Harlow & Co. Make sure to click on the pictures for an extra dose of glitter. This post contains three pictures per polish, so you can see more after the jump! 

Blue & Yellow

I realized today I'm really out of practice when it comes to to free-hand nail art. I painted this design with a nail art brush and I messed up some of the lines. Well, I need more practice! The colors were standing side by side on my desk, waiting to be stored again and I figured they would look good combined in a design. They're Essie - In The Cab-Ana, Avenue Maintain, China Glaze - For Audrey, Re-Fresh Mint and Anny - Sunshine In My Heart.  I used acrylic paint for the black lines. On Top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Does anyone have a suggestion for a bright opaque yellow nail polish? Sunshine In My Heart is just almost opaque with three coats and actually it's not bright enough for me. What's your favorite?

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 11: Envy (Stripes & Flowers)

Day 11 of the Deadly Sins Challenge was something I was really looking for! This week's sin is Envy and today's theme says: Who would you like to be? Let us know recreating another challenger's work.

Illustrations by: dahlig

I chose to recreate a design by the amazing Brittney from Precious Polish because ever since I saw her French Riviera design, I fell in love with how beautiful those colors and patterns looked mixed together. I didn't have the exact same colors so I worked with what I had: Essie - Blanc, Bourjois - In The Navy, H&M - Lemon Tree and OPI - Friday Devil. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. So I still think the original colors look better and now that I look at her pictures again, I notice that I even forgot to paint the leaves! But nonetheless I really enjoyed wearing this design, it's so bright and colorful!

Essie - Naughty Nautical Collection (Summer 2013)

Today I will show you another one of the 2013 collections from Essie. Essie Switzerland sent me five of  six shades of the Naughty Nautical Collection for this summer and since I think this one is not in stores yet, I decided to swatch these next. The shade missing is a dark turquoise called Naughty Nautical and I'm pretty sure it would have been my favorite! First off, I wouldn't have picked up any of these shades in stores, because they do look quite boring. Seeing them on my nails I changed my mind about some of them. They all have some silver shimmer in it, which is visible on the nails, except for The More The Merrier which is a light green cream color. I used two coats with every color and Essence - BTGN Top Sealer as my top coat. Make sure to click on the images to see the shimmer! The formula was alright for every shade, but they were a bit thin sometimes, so you need to be careful with application or use three coats. The Girls Are Out has a normal formula though. My favorite color is Sunday Funday, a coral-pink with a hint of neon which was quite difficult to photograph. 

Essie - The Girls Are Out

Essie - Full Steam Ahead

Essie - Rock The Boat

Essie - Sunday Funday

Essie - The More The Merrier

Essie - Madison Ave-hue Collection 2013 + Watercolor Nails

Essie sent me the complete Madison Ave-hue collection and I will show you two pictures for each shade. I used two coats for each color except for Hip-anema which only needed one coat to be opaque. The formula was alright for all of them, except for Go Ginza which was a bit thicker. But it is a very light color, so I'm used to pastel colors being difficult to work with. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer for each color. I used my favorite colors in this collection to do some watercolor nails and included the pictures at the end of this post. Enjoy!

Essie - Avenue Maintain

Essie - Bond With Whomever

Essie - Go Ginza

Essie - Hip-anema

(1 coat)

Essie - Madison Ave-hue

Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her

Watercolor Nails 

Go Ginza, Avenue Maintain, Bond With Whomever & Maximillian Strasse Her

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 7: Sloth (Studded Nails - Video Tutorial)

This weeks sin is Sloth and it really comes in handy for me, since the semester is soon to be over and I have a lot of stuff to do besides my nails. This means I shouldn't be painting my nails, but obviously won't stop doing so. :) You guys really liked my studded nails for Day 6, thanks so much for all the lovely comments! I decided to make a super short video tutorial on how I add studs to the nails, because today's theme says: Don't try too hard but explain everyone how to do something really easy... (Tutorial).

Illustrations by: dahlig

And because I'm so lazy, I once more added the studs to an already existing design, my Denim Nails. I used round 1.5mm silver studs which I bought on Ebay. They're also available at Born Pretty Store. 

Denim Nails

A few years ago I tried Denim Nails using acetone to remove the blue polish and reveal the white base underneath. After seeing these denim textured nails by Chelsea, I remembered how much I liked it back then! Chelsea tried a new way of doing Denim Nails though and I decided to give it a go as well. I only repeated the first two steps of her tutorial, since I loved the result so much and I didn't want to detract from it with too many details. Maybe I will add some silver studs later, we'll see. So I used one coat of Catrice - Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans! and then brushed on Ebalay - 001 with an almost dry brush. The trick is to brush from side to side and from top to bottom. I love the effect! On top is one coat of Essence - Soft Touch Top Coat.

Blue Stripes feat. Essie - In The Cab-Ana & Bourjois - In The Navy

I decided to combine two of my new polishes in one design, using striping tape. I was inspired by Sammy from The Nailasaurus and her infamous striping tape manicures. At first I used two coats of Essie - In The Cab-Ana and then added striping tape and painted over it with Bourjois - In The Navy. This is my first nail polish from Bourjois and I decided to buy one because they were reduced and this blue was still on my wish list. I'm quite happy with it, the brush is disappointing though, considering the price. On top is  one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Galaxy Nails with Acrylic Paint

Another attempt at Galaxy Nails, surprisingly this time I'm really happy with the result. I decided to use acrylic paint because this way I had a bigger selection  of colors to chose from. I used one coat of Essie - Licorice, then added a white base first and dabbed on the blue from dark to light with a sponge. After that I used Essence - Blair, my go-to glitter polish for Galaxy Nails. With a toothbrush and white acrylic paint I sprayed on the tiny stars (as seen on Coewlesspolish) and finished with one coat of Essie - Good To Go.

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 1: Lust (Aztec Nails)

I'm really excited today, because I was asked to participate in my first ever nail art challenge! Helena from Nail Wish and Alice from One Nail To Rule Them All decided to create a challenge on the subject of the Seven Deadly Sins, two days for each sin and one sin per week. I will try to do both days every week! Click on the picture to see a list of all the days:

Illustrations by: dahlig

Today is Day 1 (Lust) and the theme says: Be a bad girl and make something you have wanted to do soo badly. This probably doesn't make me a very bad girl, but I wanted to do an aztec design, inspired by this beautiful manicure by Coewlesspolish, for a long time now. Mine was also inspired by my new favorite jumper from C&A Clockhouse. I used two coats of Essence - Got A Secret as my base color and then painted the patterns with acrylic paint, which took me forever. Then I added two coats of Essie - Let It Shine, went to sleep, woke up with marks all over my design and added one coat of Essie - Good To Go to even the surface.

Besides the awesome theme there's another reason for my excitement: the other ladies participating in this challenge are amazing nail artists! You can see their designs below and come back at the end of this week to see the complete first part of the challenge:

Watercolor Nails

Feeling the urge of trying something new, I decided to go for watercolor nail art. This is a technique which is (from what I've seen on Youtube) very popular in classical nail art. It is done with watercolors and can only be painted on a base of acrylic paint or roughened nail polish. I tried this design twice: At first I used a base of white acrylic paint. But soon after finishing the design, it fell off in pieces, because water has reached under my top coat. I'd recommend using the acrylic base only for small watercolor designs and not for a full nail coverage. Update: The same happened with my second technique, so the problem seems to be somewhere else... After that I used two coats of Essie - Marshmallow and one coat of Essie - Good To Go and let it all dry. Then I used a buffing file to roughen the surface and painted on my design with watercolor. On top I used another coat of Essie - Good To Go. I'm aware that this is far from the beautiful watercolor flowers and patterns that are done in classical nail art. But still I'm really happy with my first try and it looks quite fancy from a little distance. :)

What do you think about using watercolor for nail art?