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.

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? 

White on Blue & Blue on White (Ebalay Matte)

I´ve rediscovered stamping! Today´s design is made with two matte nail polishes from Ebalay which I received for review. I decided to combine them in a design instead of just showing you the swatches. 

The white nail polish is Ebalay - White Matte. It would be a pretty good white relating to opacity but the drying time and the formula aren´t too good. It is rather clumpy and needs some effort to apply and then it doesn´t dry as quickly as I hoped. I had to use nail polish thinner on this one to receive a better formula.

On my ring finger I used Ebalay - Blue Matte which is an awesome dark blue and looks great on its own. Here I didn´t have any problems with the formula and it is opaque with one coat. 

The stamping is once again from my Dashica stamping plate Big Sdp D which you can find here. 

On top before and after the stamping is one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

Just to show you how pretty the Blue Matte is on its own, here is a picture I took some time ago. It looks purple though, but dark blue it is. 

You can find Ebalay nail polish at KKCenterHk and use my coupon code for 10% off.

Code: spektorsnails

End date: 31. January 2013

These nail polishes were offered to me by KKcenterhk for review.

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.