MoYou London: Christmas Collection 04

I tried my festive stamping plate from the MoYou London Christmas Collection with the number 04 and I'm really happy with this plate! So many possibilities! But I started with a very simple color combination: first two coats of Flormar - 400 and then the stamping with Sally Hansen - So-nata Problem, which is not the greatest stamping color but it works for me. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. You can find plates and other nail art stuff from MoYou London here.

Salted Watercolor Nails

Salted, what? Yes, I stumbled upon one of those art tutorials on YouTube the other day and we also learned that technique in school back then: the one where you sprinkle salt over watercolors and it results in beautiful textures. I figured if this works on paper it should work on nails (not that this is always the case, but I had to try), so I started with some colors and sea salt. As my base I used China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint and then I added one coat of Essie - Matte About You to make a canvas for the acrylic paint. Then I mixed blue paint with water, painted it on the nail and sprinkled everything with salt. I still have to find the best way to do this technique, but for now I'm quite happy with my result. I also added a tiny bit of OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat and Sally Hansen - Night Watch. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.  

Incoco: Real Nail Polish Strips - Ikat Catwalk

This is the second review for Incoco Real Nail Polish Strips and this time I tried a design from their fall collection called Ikat Catwalk. This design is sold for $8.99. I tried a different application technique, because I wasn't too happy with the filing part of their suggested application. I don't have any acetone so I tried to remove the overlaying strip with nail polish remover that contains a bit of acetone. This didn't really work and it took me a long time to even try to remove it. After a few nails I gave up and used the file because it was much faster. Also I rushed the application a bit which lead to some wrinkles at the tip of my nails and I wasn't very happy with the end result. Again I didn't use a top coat because my first design lasted very long without applying any. My advice here is to take your time to apply the strips, even if it is supposed to be a fast technique. You will be way happier with the result and they will last longer if you take your time for each nail. One thing that I didn't like about these strips is the removal. You're supposed to remove these with nail polish remover since pulling them off would probably be bad for the nails. But removing them with nail polish remover was so annoying and it took me forever with both designs! Even if these are made out of real nail polish, there is still some glue involved and removing the glue was quite difficult. I used a lot of cotton pads and even after using water and soap there was some glue left. I guess you could just put up with that after a week of wearing a cool design, but I think I will stick with real nail polish in the future. ;)

Incoco - Bone Rattling

Tribal Nails for Fall

I recreated my H&M inspired Tribal Nails from spring but this time with a pop of color, using my current favorites. I'm so in love with fall and all its colors! I used two coats of Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her as my base color. With a nail art brush I added very small strokes to create the tribal pattern with Sally Hansen - Night Watch and Essie - Bahama Mama. And somehow unconsciously I matched my nails with my outfit today, it's awesome when that happens! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

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Watercolor Nails - Video Tutorial

I want to thank everyone for the lovely feedback I got for my Blue & White Watercolor Nails! A lot of you asked for a tutorial on how I did these and I'm happy to do that today. Check out the short picture tutorial and the video tutorial below to see the easy steps for this design:

Blue & White Watercolor Nails

While doing my Water Marble for Sally Hansen, I noticed that the navy blue looked very pretty next to plain white. So for today's design I combined Sally Hansen - Night Watch with Flormar - 400 to create a Watercolor design. For this I added blobs of each polish and blended them together with a plastic bag. I love how the dark navy turned a bit lighter mixed with the white and it does remind me of a drop of ink dissolving in water, what do you think? On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Sally Hansen - Designer Collection Part 1: Night Watch, New Wave Blue, Perfectly Poppy

Sally Hansen sent me their new Designer collection inspired by Tracy Reese, Rodarte & Prabal Gurung. I didn't want to simply swatch these colors but rather combine them in a nail art design. For a first part I chose a blue & red toned water marble. I used a dark navy called Night Watch (Prabal Gurung inspired), a beautiful turquoise called New Wave Blue (Tracy Reese) and a classic red called Perfectly Poppy (Tracy Reese). I swatched them with two coats each on one nail and the formula is smooth and fast drying. These are my first Sally Hansen polishes so I wasn't familiar with any of their products. I didn't like the brush a lot, it's rather chunky and looked a bit 'deformed', I prefer the long round brushes. For the water marble I used a white base to make the colors pop. These are pretty good for water marbling by the way! On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. Part 2 with three more colors will follow soon! This collection will be available in September for 8.99 Euro per 14.7 ml.  

Part 2: Coat Of Arms, Loden Green, Stocking Nude

Blue Outlined Watercolor Nails

I have already done an outlined watercolor design a few weeks ago, using rubbing alcohol to create the watercolor effect. On today's nails I used a plastic bag just like I did here. My two colors are Essie - In The Cab-Ana and Essie - Bouncer, It's Me, the outline was painted with Bouncer It's Me and a nail art brush (which I had to repair first!). On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. The lighting was a bit weird today, so I ended up with rather strange-looking skin and nail polish shades, sorry about that! Also, you probably figured out by now that I'm madly in love with midi rings. The one shown today and the golden one from last weeks post are both by H&M. 

Born Pretty Store - Yogurt Milky Glitter Nail Polish Set

I have another short review for you today! Born Pretty Store sent me this sweet set of mini nail polishes which contains 4 milky colors with a lot of glitter. It's sold for 7.99$ and there are 6ml in each bottle. I've only tried the blue one on my nails, but swatched the others on fake nails with two coats each. They do remind me a lot of the Tony Moly polishes that I bought last year! My favorite is the mint one, because the glitter stands out more than in the others. I can tell from the blue one, that these take a bit longer to dry, but with a good top coat that might be alright.

You can use my coupon code DEL91 to get 10% off at BPS.

Cheeky Jumbo Plate 1 - Viva Mexico!

It's been a while! The last few days I was wearing plain black nails on a camping site here in Switzerland and I really started to miss nail art or changing my nail polish for that matter. Good thing something awesome arrived in the mail today! I ordered the Cheeky Jumbo Plate 1 Viva Mexico three weeks ago and I love it so much! I haven't done stamping designs for a while now and I'm actually not that big of a fan of this technique (because I suck at it, ha!), but I just had to have this particular plate. If you are a longtime reader, you might know why ;) Of course I couldn't decide which design to use first, because basically all of the full designs are gorgeous! So I chose four colors and five different full designs. The colors used are: Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her & p2 - Night Out and Anny - Latina & Anny - Soul Sister. On top as always is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Neon Mint Funky French with China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer (Sunsational)

Well, hello there! So I got a really cool nail polish in the mail last week and you probably already saw this beauty around. I'm talking about the minty neon green by China Glaze called Highlight Of My Summer. It's part of the Sunsational Collection 2013 and I'm pretty sure it's everyone's favorite of this collection. A lot of the reviews I read said that this one has a really bad formula. In my opinion the formula is in fact not good, but it isn't a problem either. I was wearing this by itself for a few days and I used 3 coats to get an opaque result. But it does actually dry pretty fast, so I didn't mind. C'mon, it's neon! And it's mint! So since this color is definitely a highlight of my summer I decided to use it together with three of my current Essie favorites: In The Cab-Ana, Avenue Maintain & Mojito Madness. I don't usually wear a french manicure, but when I do, it has to be something like this. I painted the french tip free-hand with the brush that comes with the bottle and that worked quite alright. You could also use tip guides though, but then you have to wait until the base color is completely dry and I don't feel like doing that very often. Hope you like this funky french and thanks for reading! Take care :)

OPI - San Francisco Autumn/Winter 2013: Dining Al Frisco, Muir Muir On The Wall, Alcatraz...Rocks

For Autumn/Winter 2013 OPI is releasing a collection inspired by San Francisco. They sent me three colors to review and I will show you all of them plus the bottle pictures of the whole collection after the jump. The collection consists of 12 permanent shades and 3 liquid sand shades which are limited. This collection will be available in Switzerland as of 25th of July 2013. 

Blueberry Tie-Dye Nails

Today's design was inspired by the Tie-Dye tutorial from Chalkboard Nails. I love how Sarah transfered the print onto her nails and especially how she added depth to the first color by adding a darker one on top! I decided to use blue and purple for my tie-dye nails because these are my favorite tie-dye colors. If I was brave enough, I would wear blue tie-dye pants every day! I started with two coats of Flormar - M103 and then added the following colors with small brush strokes: Bourjois - In The Navy, Essie - Licorice, Essie - Bond With Whomever & Essence - Passion For Fashion. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. And because I was eating blueberries for breakfast today, I figured they would look awesome combined with these nails. Hungry yet? :)

Maybelline Color Show: Polka Dots - Shooting Stars

Maybelline has a new Limited Edition with black & white glitter polishes called Polka Dots and I'm quite impressed! Since I do already own the black & white glitter top coat by L'Oreal (Confettis), I only bought one favorite from this collection. This is the blue one and it's called Shooting Stars. I absolutely love how this looks in the bottle, I couldn't stop staring at it! Well, the beauty doesn't completely transfer onto the nails, but it still looks awesome in my opinion. I used two coats to get a nice result and then two coats of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer to even the surface. This one has a lot of glitter inside: The first coat was alright, the second needed quite a bit of dabbing, placing and flattening. I'm fine with that though, it's worth it! And I didn't expect a brand like Maybelline to launch such a collection, this is really something we're more used to see in indie brands. What do you think about Maybelline going indie-glitter?

Neon Triangles

I started this design with two coats of Ebalay - White Matte and my plan was to do a water marble with some nice colors I chose the day before. Somehow the marbling didn't look as expected on the plastic nail, so I had to think of another way to add the colors onto my white base. I used striping tape to paint triangles with Essie - Saturday Disco Fever and some more striping tape and Essie - In The Cab-Ana to fill in the blank space. I like this design a lot, but the pictures don't do it justice! This neon orange is actually starting to grow on me, even if the formula isn't the best. On top of all of this is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Double Gradient & Golden Studs

I used a total of ten Essie polishes for today's design! The reason I only used Essie is that because I have so many of them, it does make things easier when choosing colors for a gradient. And that's what I did, more precisely something like a double gradient. At first I created green and blue gradient skittle nails which seemed a bit boring to look at. So I added a red gradient onto the green one and a purple gradient onto the blue one. (That's more of a quadruple gradient now, to be more accurate.) Then I added round golden studs from Born Pretty Store and finished with one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. If you're interested, these are the names of all the colors I used:

Mesmerized, Avenue Maintain, Lapis Of Luxury / Flawless, Splash Of Grenadine

Mojito Madness, First Timer, Mint Candy Apple / Chubby Cheeks, Eternal Optimist