Water Spotted Nail Art feat. Model's Own - Chrome Indigo

I used two coats of KIKO 336 - Electric Blue as my base color and applied some liquid nail tape around my nails to protect the skin from nail polish. Then using first KIKO 523 - Royal Blue and second Model's Own - Chrome Indigo I did the water spotted technique to create the spotted look. The matte finish was achieved with Essie - Matte About You.

My tutorial for water spotted nails and my most recent water spotted designs.

Mundo de Uñas Stamping Polishes

I received my order from Mundo de Uñas on Friday and given the feedback on Instagram today, I don't really have to introduce these, do I? :) I read about these Mexican stamping polishes a while back and they seem to be highly pigmented, even when stamped over a black base. Since they're also quite cheap, I decided to make an order of six colors to decide for myself. 

Am Freitag habe ich meine Mundo de Uñas Bestellung erhalten und ich glaube, ich muss die gar nicht wirklich vorstellen, oder? Sehr gut pigmentierte und beliebte Stampinglacke, die ich nun auch selber testen wollte. Sie kommen aus Mexiko, sind jedoch recht billig, darum habe ich mir mal sechs davon bestellt.

Today I tried Green and Blue, and I'm not disappointed. For my base I used one coat of KIKO - 347 Dark Green. Then I applied some liquid nail tape to protect the skin from the polish (a post on that will follow soon). I think that was a very good idea, since they're so highly pigmented and can stain your skin. I used two images of the MoYou London Hipster plate for the plaid pattern. Karine also gave me the tip to wait a few seconds after picking up the pattern with the stamp. I did that and it worked, but I didn't feel like redoing my nails, so I didn't try it without the waiting time. They only bad thing about these is their smell, which is terrible. Apart from that I'm very happy with my new polishes and I can't wait to stamp the complete rainbow on my nails! <3 

Zuerst habe ich Green und Blue ausprobiert und ich bin sehr begeistert. Als Grundfarbe habe ich eine Schicht KIKO - 347 Dark Green lackiert und dann rund um den Nagel Liquid Nail Tape aufgetragen (dazu folgt dann noch ein separater Post). Da die Lacke sehr stark pigmentiert sind, war das auch eine gute Idee, das sie die Haut verfärben können. Für das Plaid Muster habe ich zwei  Bilder von der MoYou London Hipster Platte benutzt. Karine hat mir ausserdem den Tipp gegeben, den Lack ein paar Sekunden auf dem Stempel antrocknen zu lassen und erst dann auf den Nagel zu drücken. Das hat gut funktioniert, ich habe aber auch nicht die Geduld gehabt, es noch andersherum auszuprobieren. Leider stinken die Lacke sehr, ich finde sie aber trotzdem toll.

I messed up my index finger nail with my top coat, in case you're wondering.

Den Zeigefingernagel habe ich mir übrigens mit dem Top Coat ruiniert.

Matte Gradient Splatter Nails

A while back I saw a beautiful design by one of my favorite nail artists: Lady Crappo. She did a matte gradient with metallic splatter on top and I really wanted to have this design on my nails as well. I decided to go for the green gradient and I used OPI - You Are So Outta Lime! plus KIKO - 347 as my gradient colors. I then used Essie - Matte About You for the matte finish and added the metallic splashes with Essie - Penny Talk. She did a tutorial on how to do all of that.

Heute gibts ein Design von Lady Crappo. Den grünen Farbverlauf/Gradient habe ich mit OPI - You Are So Outta Lime! und KIKO - 347 gemacht. Für das matte Finish eine Schicht von Essie - Matte About You aufgetragen und dann die Spritzer darüber mit Essie - Penny Talk. Sie hat auch ein Tutorial dazu, in dem sie genau erklärt, wie das alles geht.

OPI - Black Shatter over KIKO - Electric Blue

It's been a while since I've used a crackle polish and although I don't think these are too popular anymore, I really like a good old crackle polish every now and then. Nothing too fancy though and nothing with glitter, but a plain black one is a great choice in my opinion. I used OPI - Black Shatter over two coats of KIKO - Electric Blue and one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss on top. 

Green Glitter Gradient feat. KIKO

A few days ago I got myself two new KIKO polishes: 347 Dark Green and 532 Pearly Amazon Green. They look beautiful combined! I wore the glitter over the creme but didn't get to take pictures, because one of my nails broke off. So this time I tried it again, but with a sponged gradient. I loved it until I had to clean up the green glitter on my cuticles, but well that was my own fault. I generally think that gradients look better, if I place the glitter on the cuticle area and not on the tip of my nails. I used Essie - Matte About You on top which made the surface appear a bit uneven. I think it's always a good idea to put on a normal top coat first before applying any matte top coat, especially if you don't have the smoothest nails. That glitter looks awesome though! 

Christmas Glitter Nails feat. China Glaze - Party Hearty

I have something very simple and very Christmassy for today... I'm in the mood! I used two coats of the beautiful KIKO #391 Grass Green as my base for my one and only Christmas glitter top coat: China Glaze - Party Hearty. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Snowflake Nails - Textured Stamping feat. MoYou London Christmas Collection & KIKO Cosmetics

So while slobbering over the KB Shimmer Christmas collection on Google images a few days ago, I stumbled upon this beautiful Christmas stamping by Marta from ChitChatNails. A bit earlier that week Sarah from Chalkboard Nails did her awesome Rough and Spotted design. I don't think I've ever done a stamping over a textured polish before, but I absolutely love the look and somehow the season seems perfect for that purpose. It seemed like a nice opportunity to finally try the KIKO Cupcake Lacquer that I got last summer. #655 Mint is one of the limited textured polishes from KIKO and what I love about it are those colorful sprinkles mixed into the rough mint formula. I used two coats as my base color for the next step, which is a stamping with the MoYou London Christmas Collection #02. For the blue snowflakes I used KIKO #523 Royal Blue and obviously there is no top coat involved. I also found this textured snowflake stamping by Natalie from Nailz Craze and I love it! Definitely my new favorite way of stamping nail art! 

Cut Out & Striped Nail Art

I've always been a bit reluctant to do cut out nail art since it either didn't look too good with stained nails or I didn't like the visible half moon of my natural nails. I decided to try again and kind of find a way around it by covering those two parts of the nail. What I love about this design that you can start to add striping tape onto the bare nails, which means you don't have to wait around for the base color to dry. So that's what I did, using my self-made striping tape kit and the 2 mm size tape. For the colors I chose Wet'n'Wild - Black Creme, KIKO - #389 Mint Milk & #295 Cerulean Blue and Essie - Peach Daiquiri. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. I especially love the pinkie, middle and thumb nails and this is definitely something I keep on my list of designs to do again. 

Birthday Smooshattack Nail Art!

Yay for two posts in a row! Yay for my birthday! Obviously I wanted to have awesome nails for today and I tried something new, so I just had to show you right away. This is a technique invented by Elle from @with2l. I'm her biggest fan right now, her nail art is so beautiful and creative! The technique she invented is called Smooshattack and you basically use a stamper to smudge colors on your nails. She has a tutorial for it, which you can find with the #smooshattack. I'm amazed by the effect and how great it looks on the nails. This is my first attempt and I love it, so there's definitely more to come! I used OPI - Ski Teal We Drop*, Flormar - 400 and KIKO - #523 Royal Blue. On top are two coats of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

And now I'm gonna look for cake! <3 

*PR Sample

DIY Textured/Sand Finish - Green Glitter Nails

Back when the textured/sand finish trend came up I made a little tutorial on how to create the same effect with nail glitter. I never actually did this again after the tutorial so I think it's about time! I had a very pretty green glitter from Born Pretty Store lying around in my stash, that I have received as a sample quite some time ago, but never actually used. It's the #10 from these glitter powders. As my base color I used KIKO - #391 Grass Green and then I just sprinkled the glitter on top of the wet polish. Since it already looked really cute without the next step, I took some pictures without top coat. I wouldn't actually wear it like this though, since the glitter is gonna get everywhere! So you want to add a matte top coat onto the glitter for the textured/sand effect. I used Essie - Matte About You. Please look at the pictures below for a direct comparison with and without top coat.

Tip 1: Use tape to get rid of glitter on your skin and work space!

Tip 2: Wipe off the brush of your matte top coat before dipping it back into the bottle, glitter gets everywhere!

No Top Coat

Left: No Top Coat

Right: Essie - Matte About You

Essie - Matte About You

Blue Watercolor Dry Marble feat. KIKO

I'm not sure what to call today's design. I called it 'watercolor' for the last couple of times, but looking at my 'watercolor' label, there are a lot of different styles. I guess it's more of a dry marble technique, although there is another way to do a dry marble as well... Anyway, it's the one technique where you add blobs of polish onto the nail and then marble them with a piece of plastic. I did a tutorial on how to do these a year ago (like, exactly a year - I'm getting old!). Since I'm in love with my new KIKO polishes, I used three of them for a lovely blue color combination. The dark one is #523 Royal Blue, the middle one is #336 Electric Blue and the mint one is #389 Mint Milk. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Swimming Pool Nails inspired by stephstonenails / KIKO - 389 Mint Milk & 295 Cerulean Blue

Today's swimming pool nails are inspired by @stephstonenails and her tutorial for the Amore & Vita blog. I really liked the look of that saran wrap technique and I tried to recreate it with two KIKO polishes. As my base I used two coats of KIKO - 389 Mint Milk and let it dry completely. Then I used one coat of KIKO - 295 Cerulean Blue plus a piece of saran wrap to create the effect of sunlight on the bottom of a swimming pool. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

This was my base color, two coats of KIKO 389 - Mint Milk. The polish is quite difficult to capture, but for me this is the perfect mint nail polish. It's bright, clear and just adorable. It appears more like a light blue on this picture, but it is actually very minty in real life.  

KIKO Cosmetics Haul & 523 Royal Blue

Last week I visited my first ever KIKO store. I've never tried KIKO before but heard a lot of good things about them. So when I saw every possible nail polish shade available I got quite a bit excited. Plus, the polishes are amazingly cheap, especially when you compare them with those of other brands here in Switzerland. I paid CHF 2.90 for the normal polishes and CHF 3.90 for the Cupcake polish (textured). The nail patches were CHF 6.90 (on sale). This is what I got:

@spektorsnails

Yes, I like blue nail polish! So obviously I was curious about the quality of these and I'm definitely not disappointed. The first one I tried was #523 called Royal Blue. The names are only visible on the website though. I used two coats and the formula is great. I was wearing this polish for four days with one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri on top and there's just minimal tip wear. A snapshot of Royal Blue while collecting blueberries:

If you didn't know already (I didn't!): KIKO has a few stores in Switzerland and you can also buy their products online. You can find their online shop here.