Two-tone Studded Nails

So I finally took the time to do some nail art again! This was very simple and didn't take up too much time since I didn't bother using striping tape. All I did was painting a base with Zoya - Dree and then adding Essie - Lady Godiva on half of my nail using the brush from the bottle. To make it a bit more exact I used a striping brush and black nail polish for the centerline. On top of that I added some studs, which I received from bornprettystore some time ago. I then added one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss and I think something's wrong with this bottle. I used it once or twice, so I'm not sure what it is... it might be because I used it over Essie - Penny Talk? Anyway, please ignore the dust on top of the design. ;) 

The Lacquer Legion Glam: OPI - My Favorite Ornament

I skipped last month's challenge, but this month's I'm in again! It's the fourth challenge of The Lacquer Legion: Glam. The first thing on my mind was a polish: OPI - My Favorite Ornament from last year's Christmas collection. I love this one! It's textured and I always wanted to combine liquid sand with a creme polish. So I used two coats of Wet'n'Wild - Black Creme as my base and then created a pattern with striping tape. I then added one coat of My Favorite Ornament and removed the striping tape - that's it! You can find all of the other designs of this challenge with the hashtag #LLglam. 

My #LLadoration design

My #LLreinvention design

Sally Hansen: Satin Glam - Crystalline, Go Gold & Silk Onyx

I received three shades of the new Sally Hansen collection called Satin Glam and swatched them right away. This collection is available from January on, each bottle contains 10 ml and is sold for € 7.99. The bottles are a bit smaller than usual (14.7 ml) and this was actually the one thing I didn't like about the collection. Since the bottles are slimmer, they are more likely to fall over and make a mess. Apart from that and apart from my first thought ("Oh no, pearly!") I really like all three polishes because of their special finish. They have a mat satin finish which looks beautiful combined with the shimmer. For the pictures I used two coats each without a base or top coat. Find out more about Sally Hansen DE on their Facebook page.

Sally Hansen - Crystalline

Sally Hansen - Go Gold 

Sally Hansen - Silk Onyx

Gwen Stefani for OPI

I had the opportunity to try four of the seven polishes in the upcoming Gwen Stefani for OPI collection which will be available in Swiss stores from 21st of January 2014. As usual the 15 ml bottles are sold for CHF 23.90 and there is one special polish including nail art studs and rhinestones for CHF 49.90. For more information you can visit the OPI Swiss website. The polishes have different finishes, so the ones I tried are a pink crème called Hey Baby, a golden mat satin called Love.Angel.Music.Baby., a black mat satin called 4 In The Morning and a silver glitter top coat called In True Stefani Fashion. I was the biggest No Doubt/Stefani fan and kind of still am, so I love the concept and I think the colors are a great choice to represent Gwen. Then again I didn't think they are super unique on their own, which is why I combined them all in one design. I used one coat of OPI - Rapid Dry on top since OPI Swiss was so kind to send me a bottle of their top coat, but I'm not too impressed yet. One coat was too thin to melt the brush strokes together and I don't usually apply two coats, so I'm still able to see and feel the black lines. But I will definitely try it with other designs as well. 

From left to right: 

Hey Baby (Crème Gloss), Love.Angel.Music.Baby.(Satin), 

In True Stefani Fashion (Glitter Paillette), 4 In The Morning (Satin)

In True Stefani Fashion over 4 In The Morning

I wish you all the best for 2014, 

thank you for being the best followers ever! :)

Essie - Mint Candy Apple & OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

As planned I tried my OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat over a mint base color and which mint nail polish would be more obvious than Essie - Mint Candy Apple? I was wearing this combination last week and really liked it, even if the flakie top coat kind of changed the color of my base to a more yellowish mint color. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

OPI Mariah Carey Christmas Collection 2013: In My Santa Suit, My Favorite Ornament & Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

I got some really cool press samples from OPI's new Christmas Collection and decided to review them for today. The Christmas Collection 2013 will launch tomorrow, the 28th of October in Switzerland and each nail polish is sold for CHF 23.90, except for the Pure 18K Top Coat which is sold for CHF 49.90. There are 19 polishes alltogether and their names are inspired by Mariah Carey. The collection includes 10 regular finishes, 8 liquid sand polishes and the super fancy White Gold & Silver Top Coat. To state the obvious: the price for the top coat is hilarious, considering you can easily DIY (as seen at Demelza's World last week). But since I had the opportunity to try it, I was of course very curious! In addition to the top coat I got a liquid sand and a regular polish. Alright, let's do this! 

OPI - In My Santa Suit

This generously pigmented red is worth staying on the "nice" list. 

Indeed, nice list it is! It's a pretty metallic, shimmery red with a perfect formula. I used two coats without base and top coat. I think this could also be nice as a stamping polish, I will have to try that!

Natural light

Lightbox

OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

The Top Coat consists of real white gold and silver leaves in a clear base and yes I do absoutely love it! I added it over In My Santa Suit and I think it looks adorable. OPI recommends to add this over darker colors, but I think it would look great over any color, even maybe on top of a beautiful mint? The bottle is really cool as well and besides the price I have nothing to complain about.

*drum roll* 

OPI - My Favorite Ornament

Make this champagne glitter your new personal favorite.

I love how they read my mind. THIS ONE! I'm so in love! It's like Essie - Beyond Cozy in textured. I used two coats and nothing else and decided that this will be my favorite holiday polish from now on. For good. Love it.

OPI Swiss

OPI Swiss on Facebook

I bet this post gave you Christmas feelings. A little? 

Have a beautiful Sunday <3 

Essie: Sleek Sticks - "So Haute!"

I received six of the Essie Sleek Sticks Nail Appliques as part of my prize as an Essie Girl a few months ago. I never really got around to trying them and I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to like them. My experience with nail stickers (not including water decals or real nail polish decals!) isn't the best and I prefer real nail polish. But I decided to try my favorite design called "So Haute!", which is a textured red with small golden dots. It looks really elegant and it is definitely a design I would want to wear. Since these are (probably) made for people who don't have a lot of time and want to have beautiful nails for a long time, I wanted to wear them for some time to get a good opinion. They're advertised to last up to 10 days. So what I have for you today are pictures right after the application, pictures after one day and pictures after two days. 

First off: To my surprise the application was super easy. Against my expectations, they were quite flexible and I could easily fit them on my nails with almost no wrinkles at all. The part that keeps me from using stickers is filing off the excess. This just goes against all my principles of doing nail art, because it will most definitely leave you with what looks like tip wear and a ripped design. For what it's worth, this can be overlooked if you use a matching nail polish to cover the tips of your nails. That's what I did and this is how they looked super cool for about one day. After that time, the stickers started to tear and they got caught in my hair and everywhere all of the time. So on the second day I decided to use top coat, even if I read that this was going to ruin the design (on blogs, not as an advice from Essie!). Well, it did really look worse with top coat, the textured effect disappeared and weird wrinkles appeared all over the design. The picture from Day 2 is with one coat of Essie - Let It Shine. Removal was really easy and the nails were in no way damaged. 

So this is a lovely idea for a short special event. But which event is so special that you want to spend CHF ~20 /~10 € on nail stickers? And if it is that special, wouldn't it be cooler to have your own design, which will last more than just a day and is way cheaper? 

New, right after application

After 1 day

After 2 days, with top coat (Essie - Let It Shine)

Manhattan - Bonnie Strange Colour Collection

Sorry for being a lazy blogger these days! I'm super busy (and now I have a cold as well). So all I have to show you today is the (more or less) new Manhattan Bonnie Strange Colour Collection with six colors that I received to review. More or less because the collection is already available since mid-September, but it will be available for about 4 more months. Each bottle contains 7 ml and is sold for 2.99 € or CHF 5.90. I used two coats each with no base or top coat, in case you just want to scroll through the pictures. My favorite is #6 The Wow-Show! which you can find at the end of this post! 

001 Berlin Bling

A nice classic silver which looks quite alright with two coats. It was a bit streaky, but I think that could be fixed by adding the second coat with a sponge. 

002 Kreuzberg Darling

A pale pink with a tiny bit of blue shimmer, which is really really not my thing. Also it was quite streaky and three coats would probably be needed here.

003 Very Veggie

Two coats and not opaque at all, very thin and streaky. This was a disappointment.

004 Black Trash

Blackish silver glitter which is perfectly opaque with two coats. Nothing to complain about (except for its name). 

005 Überlover

A nice Christmassy gold which is also showing the brush strokes a bit. Again, a sponge could fix that. Not too impressed by the color though. 

006 The Wow-Show!

Yeah, the name says it. This is my favorite, a beautiful purple with orange glitter which only looks yellow in the bottle. I added a picture from the lightbox with top coat to show all its beauty. I wore this for 7 days with a matte top coat and loved it (but then again I didn't have time to change it anyway). 

Manhattan DE

Manhattan DE Facebook

Studded Berry Gradient

Today's design started out with a gradient and ended up with golden studs. I used three beautiful colors to create a gradient: Essie - Bahama Mama, Essie - Sole Mate and Sally Hansen - Night Watch. This already looked different from what I expected and I probably wouldn't really have needed three colors, but nonetheless I liked the result. I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to redo my fully covered studded nails from the Deadly Sins Challenge and this was it! With the golden round and square studs from Born Pretty Store I added the same pattern as before and finished with one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Sunset Gradient with Essie Neons 2013

In the mood for something bright, I decided to paint my nails with a neon gradient using the perfect summer colors. Although I'm not a big fan of the Essie Neons 2013, they worked great for this gradient. I painted a white base with Flormar - M103 and then added Essie - DJ Play That Song, Saturday Disco Fever & Bottle Service. On top I added my square golden studs from Born Pretty Store and finished with one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

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! 

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 13: Pride (Turquoise Stone - Water Spotted Nails)

The last week of the Deadly Sins Challenge arrived and the last sin is Pride. The theme of Day 13 says: Recreate your own work to make it even better.

Illustrations by: dahlig

So while browsing through my blog and looking for a design that I wanted to recreate for this day, I stumbled upon a few designs that I wasn't too happy with. At first I was pretty sure it was going to be one from the early days of this blog, but then I saw the Turquoise Stone Nails that I did at the end of January this year. It was after cutepolish made her awesome Water Spotted tutorial and I then decided to use her tutorial to create my design. 

But even if I liked the result, I wasn't completely happy with them. I think they looked too constant or smooth and not very realistic. So I tried again, this time with a different base: I used China Glaze - For Audrey, China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint and Essie - In The Cab-Ana to create Watercolor Nails. Then I did the Water Spotted technique with Essie - Licorice and filled in some of the spots with Catrice - Shanghai. I think I made my design better, but there's still a lot of room for improvement! I think next time I might try a freehand version of these, because I still think the black pattern is almost a bit too strong. We'll see! 

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 6: Greed (Studded Nails)

This is the second design for Greed in the Deadly Sins Challenge and today the theme said: Remember, More is More... Don't hold yourself back! 

Illustrations by: dahlig

I thought of Studded Nails right away, because I always wanted to do an almost fully covered studded manicure. The reason I didn't do it up to now is that I was always worried about the studs not covering the whole nail and me being disappointed by the result. Today's theme was perfect because I just decided not to care at all and go for it! I figured the golden studs (both round and square from Born Pretty Store) would match my golden Saran Wrap Nails from Day 5, so I simply added them on top of it. I'm really happy with the result and I'm definitely going to do this again!