Silver Grey Plaid Nails

Plaid pattern has been on my to-do list for weeks now and I finally managed to get it on my nails. I spent some time on Google to figure out how I wanted them to look like and found a pretty blog while browsing. You can find my inspiration on My Latest Obsession. I started off with two coats of Essie - Blanc to get on the lightest color first. Then I freehanded the light grey stripes with China Glaze - Sea Spray and a nail art stripper. I filled out the overlapping parts of the stripes with Catrice - London's Weather Forecast and I think those two colors fit very well together. They both have some very light shimmer in it. Then I added more stripes with China Glaze - Cheers To You. Sadly I wasn't able to make thinner stripes, which would have looked better I guess. Well, I hope practice is gonna get me there soon ;) On top is one coat of Essie - Good To Go. 

As you can see I wasn't sure about the last additional stripes. I added them to my thumb nails first to check if I like it, but it was a bit too much going on there. So I decided to leave it at that and keep my other nails simple. Talking about simple, this design took me forever! I'm not sure how long I was actually painting since I always do other stuff as well while letting the nails dry (like browsing blogs, watching series or reading). But it took me quite some time ;)

Brown - Copper Stamping feat. Penny Talk

I loved the colors of my last Ruffian Nail design so much that I had to do another one with the same colors. And I discovered that Penny Talk is an awesome polish for stamping nail art!

So these are once again two coats of Catrice - Lost In Mud as my base color. Then I chose one of my Dashica stamping designs from the Big Sdp D plate and started stamping with Essie - Penny Talk. 

On top is one coat of Essie - Good To Go. No smudging and perfect coverage with my stamp, I definitely love Penny Talk!

Catrice - London's Weather Forecast meets Matte Flakies

Who doesn't love mattified glitter and flakies? I sure do!

These are two coats of dark grey Catrice - London's Weather Forecast. On top I added one coat of Essence - Stop For An Ice Cream. I think this one is still available, it is one of the double-sided nail polishes in their standard range and it comes with a green friend. I chose not to use the green one but go for dark grey because I love grey matte nails!

I used Essence - Soft Touch to get the matte look and passed on my usual top coats. Look at that glitter! 

Have a nice weekend! 

Brown - Copper Ruffian Nails feat. Penny Talk

Time for some more Ruffian! I love those two colors together, they're perfect for fall. So I decided to combine them in an easy and fast way with some Ruffian Nails. 

I started with two coats of Essie - Penny Talk which was apparently not enough. I have to admit I'm not wearing a base coat this time, that's probably why you can see the ridges of my nails beneath Penny Talk. It was not really visible from afar though.

Then I added the bow with Catrice - Lost In Mud, long lost friend! ;) That was one of my first nail polishes in my collection. I used two coats for the bow to make it completely opaque. On top of it is one coat of Essie - Good To Go. 

Today I got a lot of nail mail! I ordered a bunch of China Glaze bottles the other day and they finally arrived. I chose Snow Globe, Sea Spray, Holly Day, Foie Gras and Dress Me Up. You might see some of these involved in some nail art soon! In addition I got some awesome 1$ glow in the dark polishes and I can't wait to show these off! 

Catrice - Hollywood's Fabulous 40ties: The Nude Scene & Doris' Darling

I felt like swatching today, so I have two new colors from the Catrice Limited Edition called Hollywood's Fabulous 40ties. I chose the nude and the purple polish out of this Limited Edition.

First one is called Doris' Darling and it's the purple one. You see two coats and one coat of Essence BTGN Top Sealer. It is a very dark purple, almost black. Which is a pity because I was looking for purple only. It is pretty but it's too close to Essie's Velvet Voyeur for me. VV is just a tiny bit more reddish than DD. Drying time is good as usual. 

The second polish is a nude one called The Nude Scene. I hoped for this to be more lilac toned but it is just full on nude on the nails. Nothing bad if you like nude, it is definitely a good one. It is slightly brighter in real and you are looking at two coats plus one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. 

I will be posting some more nail art later on, stay tuned! 

Mexican Nails No. 2

I had my first nail art customer today! How awesome is that? 

She asked me to paint my Mexican Design from last week onto her nails and I was very happy to do that. However, it was my first time trying to paint someone else's nails instead of my own and I had no idea if I was able to do that. I tried practicing it on my own hand by holding it with the nails towards me which looked quite awkward. But then it wasn't too difficult actually and I loved doing it. Besides she had very pretty nails which makes it easier to paint them. It's awesome to paint all ten nails with your dominant hand! ;) 

Colors are Essie -Blanc, Catrice - Run Forest Run and O.P.I. - Friday Devil.

Color Frazzles

What I had in mind starting this design were some very colorful Aztec Nails. I prepared various decals the day before on a plastic bag and let them dry over night. My plan was to cut them into triangles and other shapes and then stick it onto a black and white base to create Aztec Nails 'the easy way'. 

As soon as I started to peel the decals off the plastic, they broke into pieces. So I decided to stick them on anyway since I had already done my base with two coats of Essie - Blanc and some stripes with Wet 'n' Wild - Black Creme. I peeled off all the decals and shaped them into tiny pieces with tweezers. Then I added one coat of clear nail polish and placed them onto the nails one by one. 

The colors I used for the decals are Essence - Bienvenido A Miami (Yellow), Essence - Naughty And Pink, Essence - Wake Up (Orange), Catrice - Run Forest Run (Green) and Essence - Walk On Air (Blue). Sadly most of them weren't opaque over black so I tried to place them mainly onto the white base. 

There is one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat on top. I experienced some bubbling on a few nails, probably because I applied too much of the clear polish underneath. Apart from that it worked quite good with the decals even if I wanted to shape them into triangles first. Maybe I let them dry for too long so they weren't soft enough for cutting in shapes. It probably would have worked with a shorter drying time. 

Viva México!

Today I have some Mexican flag inspired nails. I haven't been there yet, but I'm sure I will one day. As soon as my Spanish is good enough and I win the lottery! 

I used O.P.I - Friday Devil for the red and Catrice - Run Forest Run for the green. The White is Essie - Blanc which is starting to get thicker now, I sensed this would happen. Anyway it still works for now, so I hope I can use it up completely. On the white stripe of the Mexican flag there is an eagle, catching a snake. I gave my best to recreate it, but there are just too many details to do that sufficiently. I did this on a plastic bag first and then added it onto the wet nail polish, just like described in my recent tutorial. 

I painted a clear base on the plastic and then added the crown first. On top the eagle and then the snake. I used random nail polish for this one, so if you like to know which colors I used, just ask in the comments below. On my thumb I did a simple version of the flag without the eagle using the same colors as on my other nails. 

   

On top is one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat, two coats on my ring finger nail and no coat on my thumb yet.

¡Gracias por mirar y hasta pronto! :) 

Best White Nail Polish - The Comparison!

I am still on the lookout and I have tried a lot of them up to today. I chose four white nail polishes out of my collection to see them in direct comparison. What is important for me in a white nail polish is opacity with one or two coats and fast drying time. This is especially important for me because I often use white nail polish as a base for nail art, which means there are going to be more layers of polish on top.

So I chose the following bottles:

Ebalay - White Matte

Essie - Blanc

Catrice - Snow Motion

NYX - Matte White

My first white nail polish was actually Snow Motion and the fact that I have a lot more of them now, tells you that I was not too happy with Catrice. But I came to realise that my expectations in a white nail polish are far too high. Because even if I was happy with one bottle, the formula got worse over time and by the time it was half empty, I could not use it anymore. 

Here you can see my four choices with one coat each. You can see that they do not really differ in opacity. They are all quite opaque with one coat but not as opaque as I would need them to be for a base. Ebalay might be the best one in regard to opacity and you might get it right with one coat only. But then again there is the drying time.

With two coats all of them are opaque and do cover the nail. Although you have to be careful with application because each stroke of the brush could ruin the first coat. 

So what is left when all of them are opaque? Exactly, drying time. So I waited about five to ten minutes and pressed my finger on each nail. Following my awesome freehanded arrows you can tell that 3 out of 4 were not dry yet. The only one that did not show a sign of my fingerprints was Essie - Blanc.

That is actually a good result and Blanc is in fact my favorite white nail polish at this time. But keep in mind the following: I bought this bottle about four weeks ago. Catrice is 3 to 4 years old now and Ebalay and NYX are about 4 months old. I can not reassure you that Blanc will not have a similar formula in a few months. 

What is your experience with white nail polish? Do you have a favorite? Or maybe even a half empty bottle of Blanc which you had to throw away? 

Gradient Nails with Catrice - Strawberry Fields Forever and Essie - Velvet Voyeur

Today I'm gonna show you my pink gradient nails from last week. 

I used Catrice - Raspberry Fields Forever as a base coat and then Essie - Velvet Voyeur as my second color. For the gradient I used a sponge obviously and dripped a drop of each color on a piece of paper. Then I pressed the sponge into the nail polish and applied it onto the nails.

Gradient Nails are not my favorite ones. The process of creating them is sometimes really annoying for me, I don't really know why. It's messy, I don't achieve the expected results and it always takes me a lot of time. I even prefer water marbling!

Black & White Water Marble

I haven't done a water marble design in a while, I guess just because I remember it as being a bit complex. Of course it takes a little more time to do a water marble design instead of just painting your nails. But if you prepare well you will be done much faster than with a lot of other nail art techniques! 

These are the things I prepare before starting my design:

• A glass of distilled water
• My nail polish selection 
• 20 pre-cut sticky tapes (2 for each finger to protect the skin from polish)
• Tweezers (to remove the tape without messing up my nails)
• A sheet of paper (to stick on the tape after use)
• A paper towel (to clean up my tools and get rid of waterdrops)
• A needle (to marble of course)
• Toothpicks (to remove the polish floating around my nails)

For today's design I have painted my nails the evening before with two coats of NYX Matte White. For the water marble I chose Catrice - Snow Motion (because I wasn't sure matte nail polish would work and because Snow Motion isn't too precious for me) and Wet 'n' Wild - Black Creme. I used one coat of Seche Vite on top.

Water marble is always a little bit tricky, since you don't really know how it's gonna look in the end. So I had my problems first with the black spreading too much and covering the white on my nails. You can see the grey on my pinky nail. I don't really have advice on how to avoid this. I guess water marbling is also a matter of luck sometimes!

Catrice - Put Lavender On Agenda

As promised one of the new Catrice  nail polishes! It's called Put Lavender On Agenda. They changed all the brushes and I heard some people complain about the new ones. I can't really see a big difference though, I had no problem with the new brush.

These are two coats and one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. 

I'd say drying time is average, just like the old Catrice colors. This is the only polish I picked up from the new ones, they seem to be very similar to the old colors.