Mint Reindeer Nail Art - Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Two coats of OPI - My Dogsled is a Hybrid,

Reindeer water decals are available on Ebay.

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! 

Ruffian Nails / OPI Nordic / Gwen Stefani Holiday 2014

Today's nail design combines two of the newest OPI shades in a fancy sideways Ruffian. I used My Dogsled is a Hybrid* from the OPI Nordic collection  as my base color with two coats. Then I added some very old french nail stickers from essence onto the dried base and created the Ruffian effect with Unfrost my Heart* from the OPI - Gwen Stefani Holiday collection. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri.

* PR Sample

This blog gives me the awesome opportunity to try a lot of new products and I decided I want to give something back to you ladies, because you're a big part of this blog! I'd love to make two of you very happy by giving away two new and unused OPI sets. Set Gwen Stefani consists of Unfrost my Heart, Rollin' in Cashmere and So Elegant. Set Nordic consists of  Can't aFjörd Not To, Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm? and OPI With A Nice Finn-Ish. This is open internationally and you have until the 30th of November 2014 midnight (Swiss time) to drop me an e-mail with the subject: "OPI is awesome". Please also let me know which set you would like to win and try to convince me that you're not some bot looking for free stuff (for example, say Hi and use my name, send me your blog link to look at or a picture of the nail design you've done! I'd love that :) ) I will draw two winners and contact you by e-mail for your address. Also obviously one entry per person, since duh. Thank you! You're awesome! 

EDIT: Ihr könnt mir natürlich auch auf Deutsch schreiben! Viel Glück!

Set Gwen Stefani: 

Set Nordic:

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. 

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.  

Water Marble Nails feat. OPI Nordic Collection

I always like doing nail art with specifique colors of a collection and I think the water marble technique is perfect for combining different colors in one design. I used my favorite polish from the OPI Nordic collection called My Dogsled Is A Hybrid as my base color for the marble. Then I added Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm? and Viking In A Vinter Vonderland to the mix. If you're unsure about this technique you can check out my Water Marble Basics. 

OPI Nordic Collection Fall/Winter 2014

After a few weeks of beautiful Mexican heat, I'm back in rainy Switzerland and ready for fall. Waiting for me on my return was the complete OPI Nordic collection for Fall/Winter 2014. Thank you Opi Swiss! The collection is available now in Swiss stores and each bottle is sold for CHF 23.90. As always these have a great formula and dry rather fast. I really like the general look of this collection which was inspired, well, by the northern countries. I would have expected a lot more blue instead of the brown shades, but then again I haven't seen too many brown shades in nail polish collections so far. My absolute favorite though, which is not surprising, is the mint color and you should definitely check out My Dogsled is a Hybrid if you're into mint nail polish. I swatched every color with two coats without base or top coat. 

Floral / Cherry Blossom Nail Art inspired by H&M

This design was inspired by a bikini I saw at H&M. I used H&M - U Must Have This as my base color (including stained nails!) and then painted the flowers on top with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence BTGN High Gloss. 

OPI - You Are So Outta Lime - Halfmoon Lime Nail Art

Today's design is something I wanted to do for a while now: a half moon manicure with tiny limes. Since I got some lovely mint green colors I decided to go for it! As my base color I used OPI - You Are So Outta Lime (PR Sample) from their 2014 Neon collection. This one is not the classic neon green but it does have a hint of neon, which makes it look very different on camera. It's more of a light green and not the mint color you are looking at. I applied two coats over one coat of white. For the little lime halfmoons I used Maybelline - Chic Chartreuse and then painted the rest of the design with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

This is a scheduled post. I will be scheduling posts for the next few Sundays, but I'm trying to keep up with your feedback! You can follow me on Instagram, where I might post some nails during my vacations. Have a beautiful summer :) 

Maybelline Acid Wash Effect - Mint-Acid-Ittude

I picked up one of the colors from the new Maybelline Acid Wash Effect limited edition. I chose the mint color called Mint-Acid-Ittude, but it was quite difficult to pick only one since they all look awesome. I love the effect and the fact that drugstore brands are catching up with the glitter sandwich trend! For these pictures I used three coats. Drying time was alright and the formula as well, but the glitter does need a bit of placing here and there. I used two coats of Essence BTGN High Gloss on top for an even surface (and some air bubbles). 

Water Spotted Neon Candy Nails

I felt like doing some really colorful nail art the other day and this is what I came up with. I picked a few lovely neon polishes and created random gradients with a sponge on each nail. For this first step I used Essie - Boom Boom Room, Bottle Servive, DJ Play That Song and China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer. To complete the design I thought about doing a water spotted pattern on top using first Layla - Metal Chrome and then Wet n Wild - Black Crème. To see how I create the water spotted effect, check out my recent tutorial. I think it turned out really cute and I loved wearing this design! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

The Lacquer Legion Garden: Daisies

I'm posting later than usual today, since I really wanted to participate in this month's Lacquer Legion challenge, but didn't have time to prepare a design in advance. It's all about the garden this month! Obviously I had to do something with flowers and it seems to me like daisies are really popular these days, I see them everywhere! I picked Sally Hansen - Mojito as my base color and I think it looks lovely combined with the daisies. I painted them on with acrylic paint and a nail art brush. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. You can find all of the participants of this challenge with the hashtag #LLgarden. 

My #LLreinvention design

My #LLadoration design

My #LLglam design

Purple & Mint Water Marble

Today's design is a water marble which I did last week and although I got a bit confused with what is left and right while doing the marbling, I still kind of liked it in the end. I used a white base to make sure that my colors would look opaque enough and then picked three colors for the marble: OPI - Pamplona Purple, Essie - First Timer and China Glaze - Holly-Day. Actually I just wanted to use mint and purple first, but then the lines weren't clear enough for me, so I had to add a darker color as well. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

My Water Marble Basics

Flowers on Essie - Fiji

The recent Essie - Fiji hype made me grab my bottle and paint my nails as well! I own the old european version and not the new limited one though. This one needs three coats to get an opaque result, but I couldn't resist for very long and added some nail art on top. I chose Essie - Turquoise & Caicos plus Essie - Chubby Cheeks to paint on flowers with a nail art brush. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Neon Splash

For today I have a simple design to show you, that I did a while ago. I used two coats of Flormar - 400 as my base and then painted on some random splashes and spots with China Glaze - Pool Party (Neon), China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer (Neon) and H&M - U Must Have This. I did like the colors, but they do look a bit boring in the pictures. And I like the idea of splatter nails without the actual mess, so I might try this again with different colors. 

Peppermint Nails - Merry Christmas!

I have one more Christmas design for you! Ever since I saw the Peppermint Nails video from HelloMaphie I decided to do something similar before Christmas is over. I love her combination with mint, so I combined two kind of peppermint swirls in one design. My base color is Flormar - 400 and all of the lines are painted with Essie nail polish. I used Really Red, Lovie Dovie, Mint Candy Apple and Mojito Madness. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Merry Christmas and thank you for everything!